Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How the U.S. became a science superpower

steveblank.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 529 posts

Re: How the U.S. became a science superpower

#331

Post by philwelch »

HeyImAlex wrote: post #208
philwelch wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we're going to count the COVID-19 vaccine as a benefit of federal research funding, surely we need to also count COVID-19 itself as a cost, given the strong evidence that the virus was a product of US-funded gain of function research.

Consensus is that the evidence supporting that is not strong.

It’s not conclusive, but it’s strong enough that President Biden (or rather, someone with control of President Biden’s autopen) issued Dr. Fauci a blanket pardon backdated to 2014.

Re: How the U.S. became a science superpower

#333

Post by ModernMech »

WalterBright wrote: post #302
zelphirkalt wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not only about learning material being available. It is also about live circumstances of people. Think about when you are doing your learning. When do you have opportunity to learn. Think about what other people might be doing at that time, that prevents them from learning. Think about the mental framework you have, that enables you to learn and that others might not have. Many times when I see some idle shop k…

My friend Eric Engstrom (yes, that guy) got a programming job at Microsoft despite having zero education beyond high school. He became a team leader for DirectX. I have a degree in Mechanical Engineering, not software. Yet I got jobs as a software developer with zero certifications. At the D Language Foundation, we have never asked any of our participants for there certifications. Some have PhDs, some have high schoo…

This post is a great example of how very smart people can fall victim to their own biases.

When you put the "all are welcome" sign on the door of your programming language organization, you're not sampling from "all" but just the people who are already interested in programming, and especially the design and construction of programming languages. These people are inherently motivated to learn and particularly self motivated.

You know as well as anyone that languages in particular, far and away from all other projects in the area of computing, scratch the deepest itches that good developers have. Languages are a siren song for devs who have a burning desire to get to the bottom of computing machines.

And so of course this breed of dev is going to be great whether they have a PhD or not. They are the github-history all green every day crowd. You're skimming the cream of the crop.

But you can't build an entire economy out of the cream. The other people have to do things too. They can't just go to the flea market and pick up a book on "Special Relativity" and learn it. Heck, I got an BS degree in physics and I can't even do that. I needed someone to explain it to me, and a lot of students do. They need the environment that is conducive to learning. I think COVID really proved that people can't just sit on YouTube all day and learn from a screen.

Re: How the U.S. became a science superpower

#334

Post by bamboozled »

reubenswartz wrote: post #85
ecshafer wrote: post #41

There are a couple fundamental flaws here: One is that the number one Science and Engineering powerhouse prior to WWII was Germany, not Britain. Two this totally neglects that the US received the lion's share of Scientists and Mathematicians from countries like Germany, Hungary, Poland etc with the encroachment of the Soviets and persecution of the Jewish people. While the down up approach of the US and heavy funding…

Unfortunately, the German example is quite relevant these days. We seem intent on destroying the leading system of research universities in the world... ;-(

Smart people are annoying and told us to wear masks though ?

Re: How the U.S. became a science superpower

#335

Post by Arainach »

WalterBright wrote: post #284
mbesto wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are far too many documented instances of it actually working to call it a fantasy. There are no documented instances of a truly free market. The parent's point I think has less to do with "it has been tried and it failed" and moreso that the idea that truly free market can exist is pure fantasy. FWIW - Costa Rica is probably the greatest example of a Libertarian's dream of a free market. I would love to show…

> There are no documented instances of a truly free market. There's no such thing as pure water, either. Nor is there any person who has not had impure thoughts. Nor can you ever cut a board to an exact length. Nor has anything created by man (or nature) been perfect. The historical reality is the more free a free market is, the better it performs. A free market does not have to be a "truly free market" in order to d…

>The historical reality is the more free a free market is, the better it performs.

Citation VERY MUCH needed. A free market leads to monopoly and abuse. It does not lead to competition, it does not lead to better long-term results, it leads to corruption, market capture, and oppression.

Re: How the U.S. became a science superpower

#336

Post by Brybry »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #205
grafmax wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that the free market will self-correct and optimize outcomes is a well-documented fantasy. Markets don’t account for externalities, they concentrate wealth (and therefore political power), and they routinely underprovide merit goods like education, healthcare, and basic research (things that benefit society broadly but aren’t immediately profitable). As for how to address budget issues, the solution is simpl…

> The idea that the free market will self-correct and optimize outcomes is a well-documented fantasy. There are far too many documented instances of it actually working to call it a fantasy. > Markets don’t account for externalities Markets aren't expected to account for externalities. Externalities are the things you're supposed to tax. > they concentrate wealth (and therefore political power) You're describing regu…

In the US, capital gains are taxed at a different rate from ordinary income, so taxing the "rich" (where the money is) doesn't necessarily have to destroy investing (not to mention a lot of retirement is tied up in investing, the rich aren't the only investors).

Clinton's government balanced the budget and had a surplus by decreasing spending and increasing taxes. He backed off on some capital gains tax increases and still had the surplus.

The fact of the matter is that if the US government is going to outlay X% of GDP then it needs to match X% of GDP in revenue: that's what Clinton's government did. Outlays dropped from 20.7% of GDP to 17.6% of GDP, tax revenue increased from 17.0% of GDP to 20.0% of GDP. [1]

And that government did not defund Universities to do it (iirc they actually increased funding).

Norway's tax revenue as a % of GDP in 2023 was 41.4%. United States was 25.2% [2]

Your marginal rate comparison doesn't paint a fair comparison because a lot of their government revenue comes from VAT and a special very high petroleum tax (I couldn't find exact percentages). And I think they have fairly low income inequality[3].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_policy_of_the_Bill_Cl... (citing https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/114th-congress-2015-...)

[2] https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/report... [page 15]

[3] https://gateway.euro.who.int/en/hfa-explorer/gini-coefficien...

Re: How the U.S. became a science superpower

#337

Post by koakuma-chan »

asacrowflies wrote: post #321
koakuma-chan wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure the US is currently pushing for merit-based admission.

You'd have to be a fool to believe that.

Read third bullet point

https://www.harvard.edu/research-funding/wp-content/uploads/...

Re: How the U.S. became a science superpower

#338

Post by begueradj »

cs702 wrote: post #7

Worth reading in its entirety. The following four paragraphs, about post-WWII funding of science in Britain versus the US, are spot-on, in my view: > Britain’s focused, centralized model using government research labs was created in a struggle for short-term survival. They achieved brilliant breakthroughs but lacked the scale, integration and capital needed to dominate in the post-war world. > The U.S. built a decent…

> In 2025, with the abandonment of U.S. government support for university research, the long run of U.S. dominance in science may be over.

So that could be a political stance...

Re: How the U.S. became a science superpower

#339

Post by simianwords »

throwaway473825 wrote: post #228
barry-cotter wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn’t fix your problem if the people you let in cost more than they contribute in taxes. See for example the Netherlands where non-Western immigrants are large net negative contributors and their children are no better. https://docs.iza.org/dp17569.pdf Similar results apply in Denmark. https://docs.iza.org/dp8844.pdf EU style negatively selected immigration where easily a billion people are eligible for asylum…

They might still create more value than they cost. For example, a bus driver enables many people to work, but has a low wage and hence pays little in taxes.

On average you are paid according to your value so this doesn't track.

Re: How the U.S. became a science superpower

#340

Post by garfield_light »

simianwords wrote: post #339
throwaway473825 wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They might still create more value than they cost. For example, a bus driver enables many people to work, but has a low wage and hence pays little in taxes.

On average you are paid according to your value so this doesn't track.

So a top TikTok influencer is more valuable than a surgeon?
Post reply on HN