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CEO Wanted University Scientists Dismissed Over Link Between Fracking and Quakes

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Re: CEO Wanted University Scientists Dismissed Over Link Between Fracking and Quakes

#21
Emails of all the execs: Harold.Hamm@clr.com, Jack.Stark@clr.com, Jeff.Hume@clr.com, Eric.Eissenstat@clr.com, John.Hart@clr.com, Jose.Bayardo@clr.com, Glen.Brown@clr.com, Gary.Gould@clr.com, Steven.Owen@clr.com, Brad.Aman@clr.com, Pat.Bent@clr.com, Steve.Bradley@clr.com, Jeff.Cloud@clr.com, Chuck.Duginski@clr.com, Ray.Gonzales@clr.com, Chris.Haugen@clr.com, Warren.Henry@clr.com, Blu.Hulsey@clr.com, Kirk.Kinnear@clr.com, Diane.Montgomery@clr.com, Tom.Oddie@clr.com, Nik.Pottala@clr.com, Claude.Seaman@clr.com, Kristin.Thomas@clr.com, Stan.Wilson@clr.com

Re: CEO Wanted University Scientists Dismissed Over Link Between Fracking and Quakes

#22
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nature is a socialist.

Nature is really the ultimate capitalist. Survival of the fittest. No safety nets, no sympathy for the losers... they just go extinct.

And the species with the most money gets to opt-out of extinction? I don't follow.

Re: CEO Wanted University Scientists Dismissed Over Link Between Fracking and Quakes

#23
post #12

Coal mines cause earthquakes as well [1]. Not sure if anyone has ever used that as a reason to stop doing it. [1] http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/01/070103-mine-...

Whether to stop doing it or not is a political decision. Here we're discussing something else: an industrialist is preventing the facts from being established so that an informed political debate cannot take place.

Re: CEO Wanted University Scientists Dismissed Over Link Between Fracking and Quakes

#24

One of the biggest problems with politics is that politicians need to raise a lot of money to get (re)elected. That money comes with strings attached, which makes it difficult for our politicians to make good decisions. I had never considered that the same problem exists in academia, but apparently it does. Hamm has donated tens of millions to the University of Oklahoma, and it's pretty obvious he's trying to use his…

What surprises me isn't that Universities need money, it's how cheap they're willing to sell themselves. $20 million allows one guy to push around a university with an endowment and budget both more than 50x that. [1]

Generally naming rights involve doubling the endowment of a school. And of course you get some added influence, but $20 million in Oklahoma seems like it wouldn't even pay for 5 years of the football coach's [2] (coach's, not coaches!) salary.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_colleges_and_universiti...

[1] http://www.ou.edu/publicaffairs/oufacts.html

[2] http://www.coacheshotseat.com/SalariesContracts.htm

Re: CEO Wanted University Scientists Dismissed Over Link Between Fracking and Quakes

#25

One of the biggest problems with politics is that politicians need to raise a lot of money to get (re)elected. That money comes with strings attached, which makes it difficult for our politicians to make good decisions. I had never considered that the same problem exists in academia, but apparently it does. Hamm has donated tens of millions to the University of Oklahoma, and it's pretty obvious he's trying to use his…

> the same problem exists in academia This problem isn't unique to this story. As examples, look up Confucius Institutes or the Koch brothers (yes, them again) funding of colleges and programs. It's not unique to private funds; federal funding is controlled, ultimately, but Congress, which brings politics into the mix. Public universities are ultimately controlled by state governments. Finally, politics affects schoo…

I don't know the US system specifically, but industry usually has a say in how public spending on research (particularly applied research) is distributed. Usually the process is that they're consulted on what they think future prioritized research topics should be.

Re: CEO Wanted University Scientists Dismissed Over Link Between Fracking and Quakes

#27

One of the biggest problems with politics is that politicians need to raise a lot of money to get (re)elected. That money comes with strings attached, which makes it difficult for our politicians to make good decisions. I had never considered that the same problem exists in academia, but apparently it does. Hamm has donated tens of millions to the University of Oklahoma, and it's pretty obvious he's trying to use his…

What surprises me isn't that Universities need money, it's how cheap they're willing to sell themselves. $20 million allows one guy to push around a university with an endowment and budget both more than 50x that. [1] Generally naming rights involve doubling the endowment of a school. And of course you get some added influence, but $20 million in Oklahoma seems like it wouldn't even pay for 5 years of the football co…

> What surprises me isn't that Universities need money, it's how cheap they're willing to sell themselves. $20 million allows one guy to push around a university with an endowment and budget both more than 50x that.

That's not cheap when you compare it to politics. $5-10M a year for Lockheed Martin helps it win trillion dollar projects like the F-35. https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D00000010...

Re: CEO Wanted University Scientists Dismissed Over Link Between Fracking and Quakes

#28
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crony Capitalism is great at privatizing profits and socializing losses (particularly those to the environment).

Crony Capitalism is just regular capitalism.

by definition it is not. just like communism isn't regular socialism.

the world, collectively, could use much more political science education. the same could be said for nearly all bitcoin supporters (especially in the early days)

Re: CEO Wanted University Scientists Dismissed Over Link Between Fracking and Quakes

#29
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nature is really the ultimate capitalist. Survival of the fittest. No safety nets, no sympathy for the losers... they just go extinct.

And the species with the most money gets to opt-out of extinction? I don't follow.

Perhaps.

It's likely that humanity would survive the kind of event that lead to the extinction of the dinosaurs.

We have underground facilities and stores of food/water that would permit the species to survive an event that lead to the sun being blocked out for 5 years or so.

Re: CEO Wanted University Scientists Dismissed Over Link Between Fracking and Quakes

#30

One of the biggest problems with politics is that politicians need to raise a lot of money to get (re)elected. That money comes with strings attached, which makes it difficult for our politicians to make good decisions. I had never considered that the same problem exists in academia, but apparently it does. Hamm has donated tens of millions to the University of Oklahoma, and it's pretty obvious he's trying to use his…

> the same problem exists in academia This problem isn't unique to this story. As examples, look up Confucius Institutes or the Koch brothers (yes, them again) funding of colleges and programs. It's not unique to private funds; federal funding is controlled, ultimately, but Congress, which brings politics into the mix. Public universities are ultimately controlled by state governments. Finally, politics affects schoo…

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