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No science, no startups: The innovation engine we're switching off

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Re: No science, no startups: The innovation engine we're switching off

#461

Post by BobaFloutist »

wosined wrote: post #346

So is gender research or feminist queer dance theory studies a part of basic or applied science?

> gender research

It depends, this could be medicine or it could be sociology or it could be psychology, there's a few different places it pops up.

> feminist queer dance theory studies

This is very obviously performing arts or maybe something in English or Social Studies if the "dance" part is the specialization rather than the core. I doubt even the most died-in-the-wool woke-fessor or whatever would call it "science," which makes it pretty irrelevant to the current conversation, though just because something isn't STEM doesn't mean it's not important (though it might be significantly less lucrative).

Re: No science, no startups: The innovation engine we're switching off

#462

Post by ziply »

ryandv wrote: post #441
dxdm wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So is gender research or feminist queer dance theory studies a part of basic or applied science? People's ideas about how humans should live together can be beneficial for the wealth and well-being of whole societies and its members. Was Rousseau part of basic or applied science? We can wonder about how useful certain efforts are, of course, especially in all their extent; but I don't know how wise it is to dismiss…

> Was Rousseau part of basic or applied science? This one is easy - neither. The term "science" has gone through semantic dilution in a manner similar to how everyone is now an engineer - software engineer, prompt engineer, sanitation engineer. Falsifiability is one of the key distinguishing characteristics of a proper science, as famously propounded by Karl Popper. "Gender identities" not only can not be falsified,…

Depends on the circumstance, surely? If someone is claiming a "felt and lived" identity to justify an action that infringes on the rights of others, is that not reason enough to deny it?

Re: No science, no startups: The innovation engine we're switching off

#463

Post by ryandv »

ziply wrote: post #462
ryandv wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Was Rousseau part of basic or applied science? This one is easy - neither. The term "science" has gone through semantic dilution in a manner similar to how everyone is now an engineer - software engineer, prompt engineer, sanitation engineer. Falsifiability is one of the key distinguishing characteristics of a proper science, as famously propounded by Karl Popper. "Gender identities" not only can not be falsified,…

Depends on the circumstance, surely? If someone is claiming a "felt and lived" identity to justify an action that infringes on the rights of others, is that not reason enough to deny it?

Obviously not [0].

[0] https://news.sky.com/story/fresh-trans-prisoner-row-as-girls...

Re: No science, no startups: The innovation engine we're switching off

#464

Post by NickC25 »

twobitshifter wrote: post #48
terminalshort wrote: post #3

> In the 20th century, U.S. companies put their excess profits into corporate research labs. Basic research in the U.S. was done in at Dupont, Bell Labs, IBM, AT&T, Xerox, Kodak, GE, et al. This changed in 1982, when the Securities and Exchange Commission ruled that it was legal for companies to buy their own stock (reducing the number of shares available to the public and inflating their stock price.) Very quickly B…

Not why it can’t be done so much as why it isn’t done. Share buybacks allow companies to reward executives directly as their compensation is tied to stock price. If we started not doing that, the priorities might shift, but those executives like things the way they are. Before Tim Cook Apple had never done a buyback - Jobs was always thinking Apple could do better with the money in R&D than paying off shareholders. W…

The train of thought here is that product people innovate and launch companies, but operations & finance people have no idea how to innovate or create new products.

Putting in a finance/ops person as the CEO will stagnate a company from a product standpoint.

Re: No science, no startups: The innovation engine we're switching off

#465

Post by 11101010001100 »

noobermin wrote: post #314
SushiMon wrote: post #272

TBH, it makes sense for large incumbents to sell out science on the altar of politics because they are now will profit more from rent seeking than from innovation.

The gravy train will crash. Fortunately, given many of those who facilitated it will die within 20 years, and then that will be someone else's problem.

The good news is that you can't 'theoretically' stop a gravy train.

Re: No science, no startups: The innovation engine we're switching off

#466

Post by nc0 »

philipallstar wrote: post #416
mexicocitinluez wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

God, the irony in saying "All major research is done by companies" while typing your message out to post ON THE INTERNET. LOL.

Basically all of the internet is powered by software, standards, computers, networks and storage created by companies.

Guess where the companies got the ideas and schemas from?

Re: No science, no startups: The innovation engine we're switching off

#467

Post by daninus14 »

hearsathought wrote: post #453
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Share buybacks allow companies to reward executives directly as their compensation is tied to stock price. If we started not doing that, the priorities might shift, but those executives like things the way they are. This isn't right but it's adjacent. Executives don't need buybacks to get whatever compensation. Their compensation is negotiated and you can write the contract to make it whatever. However, paying divi…

> However, paying dividends is a taxable event, which means shareholders don't like it. Shareholders love dividends because it is taxed as capital gains ( long-term capital gains if you own the stock longer than 1 year ). It's why most of the publicly listed stock ( of profitable companies ) pay dividends - because shareholders want dividends. Apple was forced to pay dividends by investors. So was Meta. As was Alphab…

Hm. Not quite right. Regular shareholders don't like dividends. It means you have an immediate tax liability so you are paying taxes twice. The company paid taxes, and now you have to pay taxes. Then that money has to be invested elsewhere eventually incurring another tax event.

It's much better to have the company buy shares back. That way the stock price goes up. You then only face the tax event once you sell the stock later in the future. So you just avoided a tax event.

The reason for dividends is that pension funds and the like do like dividends for whatever reasons.

Individual investors and people who have a long term approach like Warren Buffet are against dividends.

Re: No science, no startups: The innovation engine we're switching off

#468

Post by whatshisface »

pixl97 wrote: post #437
whatshisface wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the free market says that young adults 18-24 want to spend thousands of dollars on gyms, saunas and sports facilities, why should government regulators get involved?

>If the free market says The free market will gladly smash your nation into the ground and kill everyone if it's profitable enough.

Running a gym might not be on the same level.

Re: No science, no startups: The innovation engine we're switching off

#469

Post by utopiah »

aredox wrote: post #393
terminalshort wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SV bros want less science and innovation, and are anti-abortion / anti-immigration? Have you been to SV?

See: https://archive.is/GxSLU

Thanks for bothering with the reference but not convinced the echo chamber is ready for that.

Re: No science, no startups: The innovation engine we're switching off

#470

Post by daninus14 »

epistasis wrote: post #269
fidotron wrote: post #64

There's something odd in this argument. If you come at it from a Canadian perspective Canada seriously spent on neural network computer science when almost no one else did (many in AI considered the entire thing discredited and impossible), now the (financial) gains from that are almost entirely in a foreign country. The US science establishment was all about buying and utilizing Russian rocket engines until he-that-…

"Seriously spent" where serious is less than the cost of a single bomber for the military. I forget what Geoffrey Hinton said it was, but it was an embarrassingly small pittance. Military spending is largely economic dead weight, roughly the equivalent of handouts. And the end result is deterrence in a game of prisoners dilemma. Yet it is sacrosanct, and subject to ever increasing budgets for no gain.

military spending being dead weight is the most ridiculous statement I've heard in a long time. Do you know nothing about US, British, and Dutch history?

The main way the US, UK, and the Netherlands historically became rich was through maritime trade. Maritime trade was basically only possible due to those countries' military expenditures on having strong navies. I know the media makes a big focus on US special forces and other things, but the US Navy is basically the most important and foundational part of all of the US military power. The US and Allies were always interested in maintaining freedom of navigation and trade at the seas.

Just take a look at how much money was lost due to trade shipping costs due to the Houthis in Yemen. Consider that today it's cheaper than ever to ship things, and even today, it was so terrible. Shipping by land is terrible. The only historically economically feasible way to do maritime trade has been with Navies to provide protection from pirates.

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