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Comment by Loughla | Hacker News Reader

I think it's because not a lot of professions access these research journals for their day to day outside of medicine, engineering, and academia.

It's just not an issue for most people's everyday. So it's just not an issue.

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It's an issue pretty much anybody who's gone through a tertiary academic institution should have some awareness of. That's well over half the adult population these days in the US and likely EU.

Being cut off from library access was a huge shock for me on leaving uni.

The vast majority of my classmates in undergrad barely even understood what it meant to have online access to the library resources. They barely even bothered getting the books for their classes, much less going and researching outside of those materials directly on the syllabus.

Even a lot of my friends who got master's and Ph.D.'s barely cared about the politics of the library and journal articles. They did what they had to do to achieve their degree and got out of there. Very few cared at all about the library.

Addressing your and numerous other responses, should is doing some heavy lifting in my comment. The key factum however is the percentage of the population with tertiary academic experience. It is a supermajority.

Again, not really. Most professions, once you leave University, do not consult research materials. They have no reason to. And when these folks are in university, the materials are all super easily accessible.

It's literally a non-issue for, I would bet, a majority of people. It just doesn't exist in their day to day. Regardless of how that actually impacts the world.

Maybe it's the other way around - or at least a feedback loop? That is, because they're cut off from easy access to research materials, most people don't consult them past graduation -- which ensures there's no expectation or benefit from consulting academic work outside of few specific professions, effectively keeping people dumb and stumbling in the dark relative to what they'd otherwise be.

Nah. Most people barely change channels from whatever they’re watching.

Even if you made it super easy and public access, I doubt 50% or more of the population would know or care.

> Nah. Most people barely change channels from whatever they’re watching.

They very much do if it's sportsball or political news.

> I doubt 50% or more of the population would know or care.

Don't need 50% of the population. 5% would be more than enough to get the snowball rolling. All that's needed is to normalize that perusing scientific papers is how you learn about things, much like reading books or using Google is normalized.

I love your optimism.

I often find people who don't even really know where the local library is, or even begin to know what they might do with it.

Perhaps in industries you are familiar with. Many industries, however, would have a continued professional development disposition that benefits from continued access to fundamental research. Mine certainly does and the lack of access impoverishes that professional development.

It's a chicken-and-egg problem. It doesnt exist in their day to day because they cant access it legally. Also, the political space would profit from more open access. How can I base my arguments on facts and logic if the primary sources of the facts are not accessible to me? How can I show others the facts if they cant access the source without getting into legal trouble?

Because the scientific journals publish all of the facts and nothing but the facts?

> It's just not an issue for most people's everyday.

Sure, but if you look at any of the fairly ridiculous and designed-to-be-divisive issues that pretty much decide every bit of our political conversation.. anything can be an issue. Making the military more diverse is a good example, because while it's absolutely important, it also affects less than 1% of people directly, and less than 3% indirectly. I'd hazard a guess that open-access to research affects more than 1% of people directly, and roughly 100% of people indirectly.

> state funded research shall be released to the public domain, and all prior contract terms to the contrary are hereby void

This phrasing from GP works great because it pushes people's "freedom" buttons, and also their "curb government corruption" buttons, and for the more academically inclined, appeals to everything from accelerationist futurism to enlightened humanism. And it's not even divisive! This isn't controversial at all for anyone except the rent-seeking journal owners, and it seems like an easy win for anyone who wants to champion it. All by itself, this would be an amazing legacy, even for someone who exits political life immediately afterwards.

I don't know about that, I think the military balance-of-forces affects more people indirectly than academic publishing.

Why would you think that? Everyone gets sick and so benefits from medical research, and of course there are other kinds of research, hence the 100% number. Generously assuming everyone in the military has 1 spouse and 1 child, and assuming 1% is in the military (also generous) gives less than 3%.

I think the idea is that by maintaining a strong military presence, thus preventing us from being directly attacked on our soil (in theory), affects many more people’s lives indirectly, since they aren’t living in fear that they could be taken out at any moment.

The same is not true for many countries without a strong military presence.

And then there’s places like Costa Rica, where they somehow make it work.

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