Guidance to make federally funded research freely available without delay

Although I am generally supportive of research products (data, papers, reagents) being broadly open, I think there is the possibility of a perverse incentive to free-ride on the scientific funding of other nations. As the velocity of information (i.e., faster spread) and international mobility of academics increases, the perverse incentive goes up.

Yes the agencies will have to survey all the ways that their spending goes into research. Some of these will be obvious like NSF grants. Others will be more gray area like R&D contracts. They will have to modify the rules for each of these processes, and train employees on the new rules. There may be existing contracts that will have to be renegotiated. Some of the agencies may have legally mandated processes they have to follow when making changes to rules, which may include public comment periods. Many agencies will be able to make the change within a year, but some will have legitimate reasons for taking longer. Three years is generous, but not ridiculous.

We rely too much on money as a determining factor for things. Money does not accurately reflect value, nor does it accurate reflect contributions made to society. So, in that vain, I agree with another poster who said this should all be free. Perhaps with some changes.

> * So public housing can't be at least partially paid for by the tenant, it must be completely free?

Depends on what you consider as payment. I'm in favor of temporary housing (e.g. a tenant is expected to stay in the area no more than five years) being owned and managed by the city in which it's located. "Rent" would go toward maintenance of the building and surrounds, with any extra going back toward city services. Rent could be offset by a number of things - tenant's physical contribution to the maintenance, stipends for public service (e.g. teacher, social workers, etc.), federal grants, etc. The city would be expected to keep rents low. Maintenance could be handled by parks and rec. This is, of course, all dependent on how the city is set up, but I like it as a model.

Permanent housing would also be handled by the city, but only in terms of building and selling. Developers and real estate agents have a LOT of incentive to keep housing prices climbing. Putting this in the hands of the city - not the state, not the feds - has greater potential to help influence positive growth with citizen input while reigning in costs.

The part I have not solved for here is situations like Atherton, which is heavily populated by rich white weirdos who would rather no one other than their own live there, and actively work to discriminate against "undesirables" moving to their city (see the recent hullabaloo there regarding affordable housing). On the one hand, if that's what their democratically elected city government is pushing for, and the citizens agree, that's basically democracy at work. But you can't ignore the folks who are being left behind and simply make them the "problem" of the next city over.

> * No bridge or road tolls anywhere, any time?

Nope. Tax the companies that ship goods on those roads and bridges fairly and you'll recoup those costs. As should the fees for vehicle licensing.

> * No paid street parking either, even in highly demanded areas, like the middle of big cities, where demand needs to be managed somehow

Nope. Parking is self-managed - if there's no spot, you can't park. Adding money only fills the coffers of the local government, it doesn't really do much to actually address the issue. You may argue that the money could go toward adding more parking structures, but I'd argue back it's wiser to build cities that don't rely so heavily on motorized transit for access. The more parking we add, the less room we have for things like homes and small, locally owned businesses.

> Any kind of license or permit or passport should all be free, even for businesses?

Licensing and passports and all that aren't public goods - they're methods of tax collection, authentication (license ID, passport) and authorization (you need a passport to travel internationally). The fees you pay for them are what ought to ultimately be paying for those services (in addition, yes, to the other taxes we collect).

Serious question: What do journals actually do ? Do they check the article ? Why is it important for it to be in a journal ?

I don't know much about academic research, fyi.

I think it's also a midway proposal for other reasons. The proposal merely suggests open access but barely specifies anything. I don't want to give the government personal information and enable endless tracking to them just because I want to download a paper.

> aircraft carriers need five miles to stop

  The shortest distance that I stopped the Carrier while going at 34 knots (top speed) was 1.2 nautical miles (NM). This takes several minutes and involves Backing Bells (reversing the spin of propellers), which is hard on the engines. The command is “All Engines, Back Full, Emergency, Indicate 000 (or 999 as necessary)”[1] 

However this was the only quote I found that said this though.

[1] https://www.quora.com/How-difficult-is-it-to-stop-an-aircraf...