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The Rise and Fall of Industrial Research Labs

cacm.acm.org

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Re: The Rise and Fall of Industrial Research Labs

#21

Post by walshemj »

greggarious wrote: post #2

This article seems a bit hyperbolic. Yes, the Silicon Valley branch has shut down, but MSR's main office in Washington is still open and doing great research. It's probably the best industrial lab that's still running. I also have interned at PARC (no longer "Xerox PARC", but still kicking). I was given remarkable freedom both by my direct supervisor and the division manager. Down the road, HP labs was still going (t…

And not all RnD labs are CS the same retreat from RnD can be seen in a branches of STEM unfortunately.

Re: The Rise and Fall of Industrial Research Labs

#22

Post by gaius »

michaelochurch wrote: post #10

Being in technology, you have a front-row seat to the concept of elective decline , or the idea that civilization's decline is often a collective but intentional choice, rather than the result of external stress. It seems sad, to a historian, that a great empire would "collapse" (an affair that usually happen imperceptibly over hundreds of years) but the reality is that it's the unintended product of millions of indi…

And why do normal, intelligent people resent academics? Articles like this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8796779

Re: The Rise and Fall of Industrial Research Labs

#24

Post by mwhite »

SamReidHughes wrote: post #14
michaelochurch wrote: post #10

Being in technology, you have a front-row seat to the concept of elective decline , or the idea that civilization's decline is often a collective but intentional choice, rather than the result of external stress. It seems sad, to a historian, that a great empire would "collapse" (an affair that usually happen imperceptibly over hundreds of years) but the reality is that it's the unintended product of millions of indi…

What do you mean by a decline in scientific progress? The rate at which science is done? Per capita? Do you perceive some kind of long-term trend? Spending per capita on R&D by the U.S. was moving upwards last I checked, maybe that was just in the Bush administration, but I'm missing the trendline here. And what sort of oh-so-important research do you think we're missing out on that could be better parallelized with…

> If you think the U.S. is in technological decline... how come oil production has drastically increased?

I read a fair amount about energy issues, but mainly for my own understanding and less so to be able to readily explain it, so forgive me if I get something wrong and for the lack of citations, but I believe it's basically that the increase in oil production is pretty much completely due to unconventional sources like shale oil (and fracking for natural gas) which have a much lower Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROEI), which means they're only profitable when the price of oil is very high.

What expecting these unconventional sources to save the day fails to account for is that they are still very finite, and more importantly, that when the price of oil gets high enough, it hurts the economy, which then decreases demand for oil, which causes the price to drop, which makes it unprofitable to operate and/or develop new unconventional wells until the price rises again due to low supply. This cycle is not really compatible with a healthy economy. We are seeing the beginning of this as we speak, with oil companies laying off people because shale oil isn't profitable at current prices.

Also, the technology for shale oil and fracking has been around for a long time, so it's not exactly technological innovation, just a new source that became profitable to exploit as easily accessible oil becomes scarcer and prices are high.

> And what sort of oh-so-important research do you think we're missing out on that could be better parallelized with more funding?

Maybe space travel?

Or viable renewable energy that could actually sustain civilization?

http://energyskeptic.com/2014/science-no-single-or-combinati... http://energyskeptic.com/2014/why-fusion-will-never-work-and...

Re: The Rise and Fall of Industrial Research Labs

#25

Post by nostrademons »

mwhite wrote: post #24
SamReidHughes wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by a decline in scientific progress? The rate at which science is done? Per capita? Do you perceive some kind of long-term trend? Spending per capita on R&D by the U.S. was moving upwards last I checked, maybe that was just in the Bush administration, but I'm missing the trendline here. And what sort of oh-so-important research do you think we're missing out on that could be better parallelized with…

> If you think the U.S. is in technological decline... how come oil production has drastically increased? I read a fair amount about energy issues, but mainly for my own understanding and less so to be able to readily explain it, so forgive me if I get something wrong and for the lack of citations, but I believe it's basically that the increase in oil production is pretty much completely due to unconventional sources…

That cycle is how capitalism works, for any good which requires a large capital investment for financial returns that drop whenever there's excessive competition in the market. Historically, we've seen it with textiles, railroads, steamboats, automobiles, office parks, farm crops, telecoms, and airlines. If we actually got space travel and viable renewable energy, we'd almost certainly see it with them as well.

No, it's not pleasant for the people who are laid off or businesses that fail. But basically the entire financial industry has evolved to smooth out the peaks and valleys of this cycle, providing the capital to get the boom started and then recycling the carcasses of overcapacity into productive uses when the boom ends. It's business as usual for a capitalist economy.

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