> realize that you will most likely end up in industry.
> Things are quite bleak right now...
you think it's bleak that one's research now has to be profitable rather than being subsidized by people paying taxes?
you think it's bleak that one's research now has to be profitable rather than being subsidized by people paying taxes?
I honestly don't understand why people don't get this - Government is not supposed to be "profitable". The whole reason to collect taxes is for good of the society. It sounds like your view is that rural towns, which are already in crisis, should be left to rot away because it isn't "profitable". The callous and lack of empathy is seriously astounding.
There are infinitely many things that are marginally good for society and finitely many resources to accomplish them. Spending on irreplicable research has an opportunity cost that most taxpayers wouldn’t choose. Framing it as empathy to forcibly take their income and subsidize lofty science is ironic.
How do you know that? Tax paying is a larger subset of people who voted in this election because migrants also pay taxes. The popular vote count was 49.8%. So, however you want to dice it "most taxpayers" aren't choosing here.
> forcibly take their income and subsidize lofty science is ironic
Forcibly take? That is a right-wing point you seem to be repeating without seeing the irony.
The whole point of electing a government is that it can allocate taxpayers money maybe to causes you don't agree with.
If government reallocating resources is "forcibly take" then "most taxpayers" - the 50.8% people who didn't vote for this government can also claim their taxes are being "forcibly taken" by this government as well? Or is it that right wing voices matter more than others?
As I said lack of empathy and callousness is a hallmark of this government and its supporters.
The connection between new knowledge and profit is often indirect and cannot be clearly predicted beforehand. And, why must something be profitable in order to justify it? Are there no valid outcomes other than profit?
Because if it isn't profitable then it needs to be subsidized to continue. Given the replication crisis I don't think it's most people's priority to use part of their paycheck for this.
Why don't people prioritize increasing their income? Like, they could look at wealth inequality and consider that if they owned some of the wealth around them then they could instead generate income from it, which might obviate their desire for lower taxes because they're able to pay their bills with a surplus of savings. What's the purpose of destroying science funding when the problem is a lack of personal wealth?
Some of us believe that there are things that are good for society that are worth the money. Medicaid doesn't make a profit. I'm glad people don't die in abject poverty quite as often as they used to.
J&J kept their asbestos baby powder out of the public eye for 50 years. 3M knew about forever chemicals in their adhesives for decades. Bayer knew their drug had been infected with HIV and they sold it anyway.
That's not to say all private research is untrustworthy. But, we should be skeptical.
If I could legally hypothecate my entire tax payment to science funding, I would. Science research has a high overall economic multiplier and frankly I'm sick of how one political tendency in the US has chosen to clothe itself in ignorance for political gain. It's contemptible.
That is literally the opposite of how taxes work though. Other people decide how your money is spent. If your financial situation was that of the US govt [0] I also don't think you would act the way you say with your earnings.
One thing all of the major advances which shaped the 20th century have in common is that they required huge upfront spending which even large companies couldn’t afford. Smart people will contribute to society in various ways but creating those opportunities allows that to happen more frequently and on a larger scale.
The US is very purposefully not a democracy.
> Using an inaccurate phrase like “central planning” calls your motives into question.
My motives are transparently not to have the money I earn taken from me to subsidize theoretical science research.
So supply and demand can get stuck at these local maxima. Central planning can think longer term. Maybe it doesn't pay off, but sometimes it does. And when it does, it can shake us free of that maximum.
This works, and is why Bell Labs and its peers existed. For reasons I don't fully understand, they stopped doing this, largely. Maybe because it's difficult to quantify those long-term gains.
Finally, those scientists get to choose where they are employed. So if the private sector wants them to do this work, they can hire them.
Because it's the only way to get a job in industry.
I find it repugnant that theoretical scientists feel entitled to some of my income.
The algorithms behind modern finance, logistics, and computing stem from abstract mathematics.
Quantum mechanics laid the foundation for semiconductors, the internet, your smartphone etc.
Even GPS depends on Einstein’s general relativity, a theory once attacked for being too esoteric and detached from reality.
Do people not understand the concept of a long term investment, even if they can't grasp the importance of understanding for its own sake? What is it?