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Americans Overwhelmingly Support Science, but Some Think the U.S. Is Lagging

scientificamerican.com

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Re: Americans Overwhelmingly Support Science, but Some Think the U.S. Is Lagging

#41

Post by munk-a »

noo_u wrote: post #20
fxtentacle wrote: post #3

The US has become a world leader in suing curious people into submission. As soon as you touch any commercially available tech and do anything that the manufacturer dislikes, you're at risk, thanks to § 1201: "No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title." Extending your digital camera with new firmware? Illegal. Inventing a custom ink or add…

The US is the world leader in suing in general, and yet it produces a lot more research than most other legally friendly places... how's that?

Momentum is a large part. I also do think there's somewhat of a motivation that once you've gotten to the top you can sue people who try to displace you into oblivion - ye olde classic "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" syndrome.

Re: Americans Overwhelmingly Support Science, but Some Think the U.S. Is Lagging

#42

Post by cogman10 »

fxtentacle wrote: post #3

The US has become a world leader in suing curious people into submission. As soon as you touch any commercially available tech and do anything that the manufacturer dislikes, you're at risk, thanks to § 1201: "No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title." Extending your digital camera with new firmware? Illegal. Inventing a custom ink or add…

These are bad things but I have a hard time seeing these as the reason why science is lagging.

Science is lagging in the US because the US has destroyed viable careers in science.

Who does the hard work to get PHd in a scientific field knowing that they'll be saddled with hundreds of thousands of jobs in debt and that there's a good chance that they'll have no employment opportunities after the fact. Especially with the recent destruction of the public sector in scientific jobs, it's probably the worst time ever to get a degree in a field of science.

Re: Americans Overwhelmingly Support Science, but Some Think the U.S. Is Lagging

#43

Post by checker659 »

danielscrubs wrote: post #22
vovavili wrote: post #9

U.S. literally invented the transformer just a couple years ago. I would argue that it is the rest of the world is lagging.

Seven of the eight authors of the influential 2017 AI paper "Attention Is All You Need" are immigrants to the United States. The remaining author is the grandson of refugees. And the majority of them didn’t get their degrees from US universities. No doubt Google was the catalyst though.

They're (still) Americans.

Re: Americans Overwhelmingly Support Science, but Some Think the U.S. Is Lagging

#44

Post by suburban_strike »

ActorNightly wrote: post #8

>Americans Overwhelmingly Support Science Considering on the average 7/10 people either voted for Trump or didn't vote, (with Trump openly stating that he wants to neuter universities) Americans "think" they support science.

I support the idea of science, but absolutely not its current incarnation.

Too many ideas are now beyond challenge; flawed ideas are validated through violence and deception, not scientific rigor or reasoning.

It isn't Science anymore. It's Lysenkoism in all but name.

Re: Americans Overwhelmingly Support Science, but Some Think the U.S. Is Lagging

#45

Post by mmooss »

mc32 wrote: post #5
fxtentacle wrote: post #3

The US has become a world leader in suing curious people into submission. As soon as you touch any commercially available tech and do anything that the manufacturer dislikes, you're at risk, thanks to § 1201: "No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title." Extending your digital camera with new firmware? Illegal. Inventing a custom ink or add…

In fairness that sounds like extending capabilities of something that already exists. For personal use that should be okay. For commercial use, that would run afoul of IP -unless we’re talking about open source, though even then you might have obligations depending on the license. If you want to start from square 1, using your own IP, you should be able to. Now, sure it sucks that you can’t do those things you mentio…

> that sounds like extending capabilities of something that already exists.

> If you want to start from square 1, using your own IP, you should be able to.

The former is how almost all innovation and invention works. The latter is a myth.

Re: Americans Overwhelmingly Support Science, but Some Think the U.S. Is Lagging

#46

Post by cmtm4 »

gadders wrote: post #26
yoyohello13 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is destroying it's own advantage. For decades the US was pulling the best and brightest from all over the world into its Universities and companies. Why would anybody think stopping that would lead to a 'Golden Age'.

Unfortunately it changed from "best and brightest" to "whoever could make it over the border" and "whoever would do the same job for less money".

When was it ever substantially not "whoever could make it over the border"?

That only stopped being (mostly—see the Chinese Exclusion Act) our actual policy in what, the 1950s? And after that, much to the relief of the agriculture industry that sharply opposed the change, we de facto barely enforced the new policy.

Re: Americans Overwhelmingly Support Science, but Some Think the U.S. Is Lagging

#47

Post by almosthere »

noo_u wrote: post #20
fxtentacle wrote: post #3

The US has become a world leader in suing curious people into submission. As soon as you touch any commercially available tech and do anything that the manufacturer dislikes, you're at risk, thanks to § 1201: "No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title." Extending your digital camera with new firmware? Illegal. Inventing a custom ink or add…

The US is the world leader in suing in general, and yet it produces a lot more research than most other legally friendly places... how's that?

Legally risky research, but if it has high enough rewards will eventually end up in the hands of extremely large companies that have the legal backing to do anything they want.

Re: Americans Overwhelmingly Support Science, but Some Think the U.S. Is Lagging

#48

Post by add-sub-mul-div »

checker659 wrote: post #43
danielscrubs wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seven of the eight authors of the influential 2017 AI paper "Attention Is All You Need" are immigrants to the United States. The remaining author is the grandson of refugees. And the majority of them didn’t get their degrees from US universities. No doubt Google was the catalyst though.

They're (still) Americans.

Yes but the point is that anti-immigrant demagoguery is about to slow immigration and weaken our future.

Re: Americans Overwhelmingly Support Science, but Some Think the U.S. Is Lagging

#49

Post by munk-a »

programjames wrote: post #39
yoyohello13 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is destroying it's own advantage. For decades the US was pulling the best and brightest from all over the world into its Universities and companies. Why would anybody think stopping that would lead to a 'Golden Age'.

Seems like an arrogant American take. The United States primary and secondary schools are middling at best, and that has been showing through to its universities. Foreigners were already choosing Chinese universities. It's not like the recent administration could just "keep pulling", what do they have to appeal with? Obviously shutting off the flow of any and all talent is stupid, but it's a little arrogant to preten…

Most schools are middling - but the US was willing to give generous scholarships and post-graduation grants to smart immigrants to build it here. There was a long entrenched culture that in the US you could turn your intelligence into positive change and get rich doing it.

We've been slipping into rent seeking at least since the eighties though - so the share that actual researchers get has been shrinking while the culture has become much more hostile to immigration. It is a situation built on momentum though - so while the tools supporting it have been torn down we still do have a lot of people who moved here with the hope of leveraging it.

Re: Americans Overwhelmingly Support Science, but Some Think the U.S. Is Lagging

#50

Post by mmooss »

programjames wrote: post #39
yoyohello13 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is destroying it's own advantage. For decades the US was pulling the best and brightest from all over the world into its Universities and companies. Why would anybody think stopping that would lead to a 'Golden Age'.

Seems like an arrogant American take. The United States primary and secondary schools are middling at best, and that has been showing through to its universities. Foreigners were already choosing Chinese universities. It's not like the recent administration could just "keep pulling", what do they have to appeal with? Obviously shutting off the flow of any and all talent is stupid, but it's a little arrogant to preten…

American universities led the world, without competition as a whole (there were a few individual universities elsewhere). Look at any ranking of universities worldwide, such as Times Higher Education.
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