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Comment by mc32 | Hacker News Reader

On the other hand "establishment" science get their hairs up when she criticizes them, so there is that.

She has had valid criticisms of the industry -and it is an entrenched industry like others. Basically the momentum that keeps something going beyond its usefulness but keeping it going keeps the money rolling in.

I admire her willingness to make those people irked even though it brings flak along with it.

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Yes very admirable to dishonestly misrepresent scientific progress, and making millions by accusing scientists to steal public money by working on things that she calls bullshit (based on her misrepresentation).

But does she make millions? I highly doubt that

She has close to 2M subscribers, puts out several videos per months with 10s of thousands to millions of views and wrote a (or more) popular science book i suspect she would be on 6 to 7 figures. But that's a reasonably uniformed guess.

Ad revenue runs around $1/1000 views, and her output looks roughly daily with a few hundred K views per video on average. That means she's grossing maybe a few hundred K/year. But that's gross, not net; she still has to pay for all of her expenses out of it, and converting that to a net income... I suspect the average Bay Area tech worker has a higher take-home pay than she does.

I think it's admirable that she wants to avoid government waste and boondoggles. Of course, lots of science careers depend on doing things that get nowhere. She favors science that results in tangible or discernable results instead of waste like the next super duper McCollider face.

As a publicly funded scientist there is nothing I find more frustrating than witnessing colleagues peddle bullshit to funding bodies and waste tax payers money, and more importantly waste opportunities for young scientists and the country to do something worthwhile with the available resources.

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