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U.S. researchers face new restrictions on publishing with foreign collaborators

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Re: U.S. researchers face new restrictions on publishing with foreign collaborators

#111
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I genuinely don't understand how the titans of industry who support the Republican party don't understand that science is the foundation on which their entire fortunes are built.

I imagine some of them think that the industrial sector could replace academic sector for foundational scientific researcher ("the free market solves all known problems"). I imagine others believe we are headed for a huge crash that affects the whole world, in a way that having a large academic scientific establishment will not help. Just go live in a bunker in NZ until society rebuilds itself, or whatever (Altman).…

>some of them think that the industrial sector could replace academic sector for foundational scientific researcher

Probably can't happen without huge changes to the tax code IMO.

That said, I think bringing the amount of research science we have under the umbrella of academia has been bad because it's basically introduced a plausible deniability and reputation laundering layer that furthers the 3-way revolving door between academia, government and industry.

Re: U.S. researchers face new restrictions on publishing with foreign collaborators

#112
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Giving up is not a strategy. Regulations are painful in that they obviously reduce economic productivity, but not having any at all is pretty much guaranteed to be a disaster. For example, allowing poisonous chemicals in your food supply or drinking water is insane. Unless you are OK with the free market sorting all that out (after your family dies horribly).

> Giving up is not a strategy. Nor is it what I advocated. > Regulations are painful in that they obviously reduce economic productivity That's usually true, but it's not the main problem. The main problem is that the regulations don't actually regulate, in the sense they need to. All they do is entrench the incumbent corporations that paid good money for them, by making it harder for competitors to enter their marke…

[flagged]

Re: U.S. researchers face new restrictions on publishing with foreign collaborators

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The missing piece is an ethnic and political identity which gives allegiance to the US in that “tables turned” analogy.

Fine, imagine that the researcher is a black American then.

Yes, if a Saudi went to Chinese university, worked in china, sent money home to his family, and then returned to consult for Saudi government or business, that would indeed be beneficial for Saudia Arabia.

It would also be beneficial even if he didn’t do that, but helped others do that.

Re: U.S. researchers face new restrictions on publishing with foreign collaborators

#115
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and one reason the US has been so successful is because in the past 1) it was generally agreed that family dynasties should have limited ability to pass wealth generation to generation, and 2) that governance should be separated from wealth. That's all being abandoned.

I don't think either your assertions (1) and (2) have been particularly consistent throughout US history. Leave aside the difficulty of defining what "successful" means, or should mean. Just look at the (first) Gilded Age. It's pretty much you claim we didn't have in the past: Family dynasties and government sympathetic to the interests of wealthy business stakeholders. It took the better part of a century of hard fi…

Sure it wasn't universal, and when we didn't have those things the US was worse off, I'm talking about the times when the US has been a world leader.

Re: U.S. researchers face new restrictions on publishing with foreign collaborators

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fine, imagine that the researcher is a black American then.

Yes, if a Saudi went to Chinese university, worked in china, sent money home to his family, and then returned to consult for Saudi government or business, that would indeed be beneficial for Saudia Arabia. It would also be beneficial even if he didn’t do that, but helped others do that.

I don't think I said "Saudi". Why aren't you engaging with the hypothetical as presented?

Re: U.S. researchers face new restrictions on publishing with foreign collaborators

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been there so much longer, even Carl Sagan talked about it, and its inherently tied to religion.

We just did a 30 year run of “religious people are dumb and holding bus back” and it didn’t start a science boom and just made people more unhappy and disaffected. And 2020 further revealed that science is not immune from politics or its own religious ideals.

When did this ever happen?

Re: U.S. researchers face new restrictions on publishing with foreign collaborators

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, if a Saudi went to Chinese university, worked in china, sent money home to his family, and then returned to consult for Saudi government or business, that would indeed be beneficial for Saudia Arabia. It would also be beneficial even if he didn’t do that, but helped others do that.

I don't think I said "Saudi". Why aren't you engaging with the hypothetical as presented?

Yeah you made up a completely irrelevant case. Why are you not engaging the following aspects:

- ethnic identity tying one to country of origin (Chinese people identify as Chinese and see their country of origin as their people, Americans rarely hold the same view)

- asymmetry (America is best for education and business)

- strong national government which pursues its interests

Re: U.S. researchers face new restrictions on publishing with foreign collaborators

#120
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine some of them think that the industrial sector could replace academic sector for foundational scientific researcher ("the free market solves all known problems"). I imagine others believe we are headed for a huge crash that affects the whole world, in a way that having a large academic scientific establishment will not help. Just go live in a bunker in NZ until society rebuilds itself, or whatever (Altman).…

>some of them think that the industrial sector could replace academic sector for foundational scientific researcher Probably can't happen without huge changes to the tax code IMO. That said, I think bringing the amount of research science we have under the umbrella of academia has been bad because it's basically introduced a plausible deniability and reputation laundering layer that furthers the 3-way revolving door…

I don't think industry can replace academic research for a more fundamental reason. It is rare for industry to willingly research things that are not on a direct path for profitability. Profitibility is calculated in a very local manner (direct cost and revenue); it doesn't consider indirect benefits, such as a basic biology research team discovering some fundamental new detail of biology which allows another team to do a better job discovering a new pharmaceutical drug. It does happen sometimes; my employer is a biotech/pharma that does a huge amount of basic research in addition to its focused pharma research, because they know that the basic research occasionally makes discoveries that greatly improve the pharma process.

IIUC, industry does get R&D tax credits- but that's probably not a good incentive system for basic research in industry.

What's happening now is that a small number of science-friendly rich people are making foundations/institutes that carry out basic research (Zuckerberg/Chan, Schmidt, and a few others) but it's unlikely those will completely supplant academic research at universities funded by NIH/NSF/DOE.

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