We are killing the golden goose
Ironically, one of the frustrations I’ve had with the research funding situation long before DOGE’s disruptions is the demands from funders, particularly in the business world, for golden eggs from researchers without any regard of how the research process works.
A relevant quote from Alan Kay: “I once gave a talk to Disney executives about "new ways to kill the geese that lay the golden eggs". For example, set up deadlines and quotas for the eggs. Make the geese into managers. Make the geese go to meetings to justify their diet and day to day processes. Demand golden coins from the geese rather than eggs. Demand platinum rather than gold. Require that the geese make plans and explain just how they will make the eggs that will be laid. Etc.” (from https://worrydream.com/2017-12-30-alan/)
I dream of a day where we see more places like the old Bell Labs and Xerox PARC, and where universities strongly value freedom of inquiry with fewer publication and fund-raising pressures. However, given the reality that there are many more prospective researchers than there are research positions that potential funders are willing to support, it’s natural that there is some mechanism used to determine which researchers get access to jobs and funding.
Unfortunately, your implications are spot on.
We, the people, are our own worst enemies.
Edit: I forgot theocracy.
Like a bit more taxes on the wealthiest, a bit more social safety nets for the neediest?
I am not from USA, but maybe you'll need to figure this out on state level? Country level seems rather blocked at the moment.
But can they raise taxes?
> freedom of movement
EU also has freedom of movement, but vastly different social security systems.
Language is of course an extra barrier, but how much people will move is overrated. And maybe you could restrict supposed benefits to people who have lived there in a few years.
Obviously IANAL, but i am thinking - seems like you generally hate your government no matter who it is, so maybe states should be a bit more independent.
Sure, but the math doesn't work out. Vermont and California have both tried in various forms.
> EU also has freedom of movement, blah blah blah
They also coordinated the laws between the member countries. That's exactly what the federal government would need to do in this case, very good! The EU system doesn't work particularly well either, because it's loosely confederated. The US government has far more ability to coordinate the States.
But you've touched on the problem: any attempt to reform is immediately cast as "communism" (also without really understanding communism and equating it with soviet authoritarianism, but that's another topic).
Coming from Europe I think the sarcasm was pretty obvious. More like "duh".
Inequality in general is a complaint that is most often heard from people making 6 figures complaining about billionaires, but you don't actually hear it from the "poorly educated masses of people without access to the gold" as you put it.
But killing the golden goose will not help solve the inequality, but only make it worse by making it even more expensive and difficult to get into universities with top research programs.
The richest individuals have an order of magnitude more wealth, and you can't say this is inconsequential when the richest person in the world (net worth $300b+) is actively leading the effort to dismantle US government institutions.
Plutarch
You know what they say about lies and statistics.
That is the tragedy of the American empire- instead of improving the lives of its citizens all the money went to tax cuts.
Despite the founders being anti-party politics and wanting a spectrum of representatives each representing a block of the broader population and hammering out consensual deals that most can live with, the US has devolved into a two party system in which neither party especially represents 50% of the population despite both butting up against the median of actual voters.
This is the doom spiral of iterative FPTP and Hotelling's 'law'.
Other democracies have many parties, larger parties mixed with smaller parties, greater voter engagement, various forms of proportional voting systems (there are several), etc.
US democracy is just one example of many global democracies.
> Lest the poorly educated masses of people