Why? Oh researchers aren't real people? They are some elite group or something? Not people that work their assess off? Not people like me who went from growing up in a rural impoverished neighborhood of dirt and chicken-coops to become a scientists as a first generation college student, much less a professor?
Why? Because we can make more in the private industry, but choose not to. That is why the K exists. Our pay is much less than we can get elsewhere, but we choose to stay for our mission. We leave when forced to by economics. The whole nation loses when basic and clinical science falters. Every major advance, the very fact that we are writing messages back and forth, comes down to basic science that we layed the ground work for, but hey, fuck us, right? We aren't real people. Just elite fucks stealing from real people, I guess. Huh.
The fruits of your labor.
You, along with everyone else, use the fruits of *OUR* labor. Every fucking time you go to the doctor, get an MRI, fuel up your truck, plug in your computer, connect to wifi, use drugs to keep your dick hard, you are demonstrating that scientists helped build this country and this world, every bit as much as the guys digging ditches, building bridges, and picking fruit and cotton (all three of which my grandparents did in spades).
"some rando’s job training? If they actually had any potential, they wouldn’t need job training"... --your ignorance is startling. The people getting these k awards are the best of the best. You cannot get a R01 grant as a post-doc. You cannot even apply. The K is there to find the best post-docs, and give them funding that they can use as a post-doc, and carry over into their first real position. Moreover, that it is "job training" is just an intentional misnomer that has suppressed our wages for decades. Decades ago, a post-doc was the exception, not the rule. It was for scientists who could not find a position yet, or needed a few more months. The expectation was that an undergraduate (4 years) then a 6-7 years of graduate school was usually enough "training". But the desire for cheap labor and the successful production of trained scientists, and consistently lower than inflation growth in research funding created a situation where many of the best scientists were still spending 4-6 years in a post-doc position...a supposed training position, and one that still payed like it.
For example, a relation of mine finished his undergraduate, last year, and is already earning more than I am after 6 years of graduate school, 6 years as a postdoc, and two years as a professor at a top-notch research institution. From an economic decision, I was a stupid fuck. I like what I do, love it in fact, but the system abused me for it. Some fucking elite. Not a real person.
You are free to have the dumb as fuck position that we should not publicly fund science. You are also free to be ignorant as fuck about the real condition of working scientists, but I am also free as fuck to tell you that you are wrong.
I don't even blame you. Scientists are the favorite target of those who want to manipulate others through propaganda. If you respect scientists, not implicitly trust, but believe that most are serious and relatively trustworthy to tell you the truth as far as they can honestly discern, then propagandists can be ignored. So we get attacked and abused. Knock us down so that their talking heads can be the only arbiter of truth.
Finally, I agree, wholeheartedly that there is a lot of poverty and homelessness. I grew up in it. being it. But scientists are the wrong target for your ire. Funding research is a huge return on investment [1]. We can make improvements in how it is conducted, sure, but we shouldn't be the target of your ire. We create jobs. We create wealth. And then others make money off the fruit of our labor. Gobs of it. And we are actually trying to solve problems like homelessness to find interventions for drug abuse and mental health.
So what ever. I get your pain, but reject what you say with every particle of my being.
[1] https://www.aei.org/economics/in-praise-of-science-investmen...