Comment by AussieWog93 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by AussieWog93 | Hacker News Reader

>the paper authors found that US research productivity has declined more than 40 times since the 1930s.

>Some from the progress community point to sclerotic funding bureaucracies, which eat nearly half of researcher time and create perverse incentives.

This is 100% believable to me. I don't think people quite understand how bad it is until they actually see academia from the inside, but the game researchers are playing is not "let's have a crack at some new idea and see if it works", but "let's put a slight twist on the existing paradigm that we know won't yield anything useful, because otherwise we won't get funding".

_Everything_ has to be "rationally" justified within the context of the existing paradigms (which are generally speaking, wrong), and every single force within the academy is acting to prevent researchers from actually doing what they believe will lead to new technology.

I'm convinced that the only progress actually comes from scientists with the skills to make the the grants board think they're being a "rational researcher", while a decent chunk of their time is actually doing whatever the hell they want.

Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers. The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present -- and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.

- President Dwight D. Eisenhower (Farewell Address, January 17th, 1961)

(The above is from the same speech where Eisenhower warned of the military industrial complex. The section of the speech above is much less well known but just as prescient and just as unheeded. I think it explains why science now works the way it does even though this system is detrimental to real meaningful scientific research.)

>This is 100% believable to me. I don't think people quite understand how bad it is until they actually see academia from the inside

Why don't academics start their own university? There should be enough billionaires like Cowen who could come together and fund the infrastructure for laboratories and lecture halls.

I would be surprised if there were not more than enough idealistic scientists who would join the university if you offer academics a place to do research unobstructedly. Likewise, there should be more than enough students who would love to join a no-bullshit university to join the scientists and make it a self-sustaining system.

And yet, there is no such university. What's the main obstacle?

Those billionaires could be funding research directly if they want. No need to start a newe university. Maybe that's not enough.

Tyler isn't particularly wealthy is he? Nowhere near a billion, unless I'm missing something.

The main obstacle to starting a university? It's expensive, has massive administrative overhead, has a cold start / reputational problem, and they are academics not business people or administrators.

The annual operating budget for the University of Toronto is $3B. Certainly you can start smaller, but the cost of starting a competitive university from scratch would be astronomical. Coursera has raised $450M in capital, just to build an online university (unaccredited I believe). Tyler Cower is not a billionaire, as far as I know (he's a college professor).

But let's say you do that, and you build lecture halls and labs. And you get whatever accreditation is needed to be a "real" degree granting program and do top tier research. Then what? You need to go get students. With your brand new university nobody has heard of. And students want to go to university that looks good on their resume, mostly. So how do you build that reputation?

Finally, what are you really doing differently? When you say you let them do research "unobstructedly", research appears to rely on grants. Student tuition covers ~65% of the University of Toronto's operating budget (this is a very well regarded university with a lot of foreign students they are able to extract exorbitant tuitions from). So you still need to fund the research. You need to pay the professors and their lab assistants and post docs or whatever. Since you can't cover it with tuition (your school is worse than existing schools cause it's new) you have to get grants, so you're back to the same problem as before. Does this university have a new business model for funding research and operations besides tuition and donations / grants?

I'm not trying to be a downer, but there's a reason all these top universities are like, 100 years old. The entrenchment is real.

If I start it then those problems exist. However, the starting point is that academics have to suffer

>funding bureaucracies, which eat nearly half of researcher time

which should motivate some academics to come up with a better system. A network of academics with published papers has already established their reputation. Parents and recruiters in companies who studied the same field can evaluate the background and can assure their children that it is solid.

Such an university doesn't have to be started in a void. The internet allows for something like a kick-starter evaluation to check for demand. Only when there is enough demand is there a need to rent or buy buildings.

For a student, it is not without risk to start with that university. However, like every startup, there is a possibility for high reward when the self-selected academic network creates an exceptionally productive scientific environment.

*edit: With a reputation for solid scientific research, is it necessary to spent time on research grants? Wouldn't companies come knocking to research their tough problems?

> Why don't academics start their own university?

Lol ok. Cool and very helpful comment. You have contributed something to this world.

There's a case to be made for an UBI (Universal Basic Income) for researchers. You pick 0.1% of the population of a country (US: 330M people, 0.1% would be 330,000 researchers) and give them a generous salary for life. Some of them will retire to the Caribbean. Most, I'd guess, would feel encouraged to work on more ambitious ideas.

Who gets to choose the 0.1%? Clearly we need to establish some committees to pick those people, a board to oversee the process and admins to support the endeavour :p

Interesting idea... what about something different than ubi? What if rather than being "generous", or only being given to 0.1%, it was given to anyone with a phd, but it was lower, and they need to clock in for 8 hrs to get it? As in physically leave their home and enter a place with other researchers for 8 hrs (idea factory basically).

This might ensure that only those who are passionate would take the opportunity, and that they could still do whatever they wanted once they did.

Obviously if you wanted to run an expensive experiment it would cost money and you'd need to fight for funding, but no more fighting for spots or fighting for your life or needing to justify everything to everyone else.

In a way some of the FANGs are doing just that. Hire best talent, and get them all under one roof, and hope they would come out with breakthrough products.

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