11–20 of 42 posts
Can't we find $1.5 billion floating around in the military budget to cut instead of the funds that fuels science and innovation? Sure companies do a fine job of innovating but they don't do things like Fermilab, which have long term potential to change our world. Long term being far longer then stock holders in public companies would allow for.
Maybe this will encourage scientists to interact with the public more and ask for funding from them instead. I don't even know why they're so important other than a vague "moar knowledge mean moar technology!"
How about a cure for cancer? Vaccines against HIV, influenza, etc? Tissue bioreactors that grow organs? Postpone aging? Sure, there is a lot of esoteric stuff being done. Catfish genomics, characterizing motor proteins of archaea, etc. I can't speak for every research team or every goal. Yes, we could better coordinate and collectively strive for greater human societal objectives. But then a lot of feet would get ste…
The problem with the logic in this post is that it implies an unbounded amount of money funneled into research. In the real world, there's a bound on the amount of money that should be funneled into research. That bound should probably less than the amount of money it would take to bankrupt the supporting country. Any argument that doesn't even consider this question fails to impress me right out of the gate. There i…
The point is, we can and should take the money from somewhere else. Instead of a 20% DOE cut now, how about a 0.1% cut to defense, or another cut somewhere else, and a 0% cut to the DOE. Politicians refuse to cut defense spending because it's not politically viable and they're more worried about getting reelected than making a difference. "Elite" research scientists make an easy scapegoat.
How many impassioned pleas based on a context-free analysis can you make from that list?
And it's not enough cutting. After all this we're still immensely in the hole. Immensely.
We're not in a situation where the household making $100,000/year has $10,000 of discretionary spending last year, and they're being jerks and not giving some of it to a good charity. We're in a situation where the $100,000/year household has spent $149,200 dollars last year[1], and has been doing this for a while. Government debt isn't quite the same as household debt, but it still isn't magic. You're complaining about a $74 reduction in spending!
We can't cut from defense "instead", we need to cut defense in addition to. Which has been seriously proposed in a way that may actually politically happen, it just isn't happening all at once.
Stop thinking about government spending as if there's a magic money fountain and start thinking about it like it's your own money. Yes, it would be great to spend twice your income on a better car, but the mere fact that it would be a great car, a really great car, man nobody should have to live without this car car does not make it a good idea. Nothing that science research is going to feasibly produce is better than having a country that is still fiscally sound, and that goes for a great deal of other things that need to be cut.
What is a bankrupt society supposed to do with the results of this research, anyhow?
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_federal_budg... : 2010 Revenue, 2.381 trillion, 2010 expenditures: 3.552 trillion, 3.552 / 2.381 = 1.49181...
The problem with the logic in this post is that it implies an unbounded amount of money funneled into research. In the real world, there's a bound on the amount of money that should be funneled into research. That bound should probably less than the amount of money it would take to bankrupt the supporting country. Any argument that doesn't even consider this question fails to impress me right out of the gate. There i…
It's quite understandable for people to react strongly, but the target of the outrage is always the person making the cuts, not the person who squandered the money away in the first place.
I am hopeful, however, that some time in the future if a lot of skilled people are released into the jobs market that something new and exciting arises as a result. That's no consolation for a department facing the axe, of course, But surely some of them have a hot new idea that hasn't been pursued because of the stupidity in leaving a well-paid job to chase a dream. Perhaps now someone will chase that hot idea they've had for a decade and change all of our lives forever. I admit it's a long shot, but you've got to hope for something.
Maybe this will encourage scientists to interact with the public more and ask for funding from them instead. I don't even know why they're so important other than a vague "moar knowledge mean moar technology!"
Maybe this will encourage scientists to interact with the public more and ask for funding from them instead. I don't even know why they're so important other than a vague "moar knowledge mean moar technology!"
Governments fund cures and vaccines for disease. Private companies don't work on cures, which is why the last things we've cured is polio, which was developed by an NIH-funded university researcher; and widespread famine through much of the developing world, by crop breeding and fertilizer research led by Norman Borlaug and the US and Mexican government.
Can't we find $1.5 billion floating around in the military budget to cut instead of the funds that fuels science and innovation? Sure companies do a fine job of innovating but they don't do things like Fermilab, which have long term potential to change our world. Long term being far longer then stock holders in public companies would allow for.
"You're letting the terrorists win! You scientists need to just go back to your ivory towers while the rest of us real Americans stand up for freedom!"
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The point is, we can and should take the money from somewhere else. Instead of a 20% DOE cut now, how about a 0.1% cut to defense, or another cut somewhere else, and a 0% cut to the DOE. Politicians refuse to cut defense spending because it's not politically viable and they're more worried about getting reelected than making a difference. "Elite" research scientists make an easy scapegoat.
There is no "somewhere else". This was borrowed money to begin with. Look at the list: http://appropriations.house.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressRe... How many impassioned pleas based on a context-free analysis can you make from that list? And it's not enough cutting. After all this we're still immensely in the hole. Immensely . We're not in a situation where the household making $100,000/year has $10,000 of discreti…
I say stop thinking about the government spending as if a government budget is similar to a family budget or a company budget.
It is impossible for the US government to be "bankrupt" if the debt is held in US dollars. Impossible. You might not like the situation but the analogy you are operating on is deeply flawed with respect to reality and leads to bad decisions being made.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Governments fund cures and vaccines for disease. Private companies don't work on cures, which is why the last things we've cured is polio, which was developed by an NIH-funded university researcher; and widespread famine through much of the developing world, by crop breeding and fertilizer research led by Norman Borlaug and the US and Mexican government.
If the last thing we cured was polio, how does that justify the money the government spent of research in the decades since?