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Comment by reillyse | Hacker News Reader

I don't agree with the taxpayer funds aspect. Why can we not agree that employing people to perform research is a good thing? There are lots of things that are taken as good investments by governments based on the fact that it will be useful in future years. Take for example teaching people to read and write, preventative healthcare, disaster planning, Sex education (it's a long list when you think about it). My point is that research for research's sake isn't actually a bad thing. It's generally cheap (when compared to employment ,social welfare or institutions like Prison or Hospitals) and provides useful outputs(I think everyone can agree that at least some positives come out of research). Anyway, I think in future years people will consider the fact that people aren't freely educated to 3rd & 4th level in much the same way as we view not getting educated to secondary level(18) in days gone by.

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I'm not sure "it being a good thing" is sufficient rationale for government to pay for any given thing. For starters, you'll have arguments about what's good and what's not. Why do you decide to fund telescopes pointing at distant galaxies, versus anthropological expeditions to the Andaman islands? Or do we fund it all?

If it's so obviously good, then why aren't people paying out of their own pockets to help out?

I'm going to anticipate your answer: because they're too selfish. But is there any reason to believe that our elected officials are any less selfish? Look at the narcissistic idiots we elect - and ask, are these the people whom you really want holding the purse strings? I often see complaints, "petition congress not to defund science". Well you know what, scientists shouldn't be so darned entitled, it wasn't their money to begin with. Putting their faith in the continued patronage of a capricious bunch of authoritarians beholden to questionable special interests may not have been the smartest way to secure a sustainable (or a moral) stream of funds.

In the end, taxes are backed by "if you don't pay them, you're gonna be taken away by agents who will throw you in jail". That's blood money you're taking. Deficit spending, which is governments do these days, is even worse - at least with taxes there is the pretense of the voter having a say; when you borrow money on the credit of the nation - you are mortgaging the assets of future generations, who cannot go back in time and cast a vote against spending their money on a stupid idea.

See definition of public good(economics):

In economics, a public good is a good that is both non-excludable and non-rivalrous in that individuals cannot be effectively excluded from use and where use by one individual does not reduce availability to others.[1] Examples of public goods include fresh air, knowledge, lighthouses, national defense, flood control systems and street lighting. Public goods that are available everywhere are sometimes referred to as global public goods.

your statement is an existence statement. Yes, public goods exist. In some cases government regulation of public goods against abuse is reasonable e.g. "clean air". But your statement doesn't give moral justification for government subsidy of public goods.

Let's put it in really stark terms. I want to build a lighthouse. Because it's a public good; it will keep ships in the ocean safe. Is it morally justified for me to hold a gun to your head and threaten to blow it off if you don't give ten dollars for the construction of the lighthouse? What about one dollar? Ten cents? Half a cent? Let's ratchet back a little bit. Maybe I don't threaten to blow your head off. I'll just build a cell and throw you in there. For ten years. Is it any better if it's six months? Six weeks? Does that make it any better? Does it make it any morally better if instead of taking the personal responsibility for detaining you, I delegate that responsibility to agents of a byzantine bureaucracy?

I don't think the provision of public goods are a moral choice, if anything it is an economic choice, where its subsidy is justified by two things: the benefit of the public good outweigh its costs, the general public will not sufficiently fund public goods out of their free will. The degree of benefit for the future is sometimes not measurable, however if the past is any indication than it has definitely provided major contributions to innovation.

>the general public will not sufficiently fund public goods out of their free will.

May I remind you:

>I'm going to anticipate your answer: because they're too selfish. But is there any reason to believe that our elected officials are any less selfish? Look at the narcissistic idiots we elect - and ask, are these the people whom you really want holding the purse strings?

>The degree of benefit for the future is sometimes not measurable, however if the past is any indication than it has definitely provided major contributions to innovation.

It's not like privately funded applied and basic science is chopped liver here. Applied: Salk and Sabin developed the polio vaccines without a public dime (pun intended) and didn't patent it either. Basic: Peter Mitchell proposed and validated the chemiosmotic effect (1970s) and even won a nobel prize on the discovery, without public help. Obviously, if you go far back enough to where the state was essentially uninvolved in science, most of the discoveries were made with private funding. Yes, of course, publically funded science has made discoveries, but what you are arguing is the broken window fallacy.

I agree with you that governments can be very suboptimal, but that doesn't diminish the existence or usefulness research as a public good. Some research can not be readily commercialised, but nevertheless form basic building blocks for other innovation, in such cases government funding is crucial.

>Some research can not be readily commercialised, but nevertheless form basic building blocks for other innovation, in such cases government funding is crucial.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_D._Mitchell

Quit being such an ultra-capitalist arse. The funding of public goods is not and should not be an opt-in system. You contribute whether you like it or not because that's in the best collective interest.

That's all fine and good until "we" decide that the "best collective interest" is to defund gradstudent's research in favor of something else more politically expedient. Then gradstudent throws a hissyfit because the collective interest is not his interest. Who's the selfish one then?

All of us.

The purpose of government is to marshal these selfish urges such that we benefit as a whole.

Whether or not that happens is a political problem. That the political system can be captured by politically expedient interests is a political problem.

Of course gradstudent should throw a hissyfit, if it is in their interest - would you expect anything less?

Spot on.

"The purpose of government is to marshal these selfish urges such that we benefit as a whole."

I think a lot of people think that's what government should do, but you should really think hard about why that's a bad idea. Who is "we"? Who gets to really decide what is "benefit"? Who gets to decide what is "selfish"? And how can I be that person so that I can screw over gradstudent, and bring about benefits, which, oh by the way, also REALLY benefit my friends and family? Some animals are just.... More equal than others.

> Who is "we"?

society

> Who gets to really decide what is "benefit"?

society

> Who gets to decide what is "selfish"?

individuals

> And how can I be that person ?

society is not one person.

> Some animals are just.... More equal than others.

Which is why the pigs need constant replacement, power must be diffusely held and the executive must be separate from the judiciary.

And if an individual decides to opt out, what then? The current solution is "throw them in jail for a decade", which seems way too excessive for me. I keep hearing people complaining about how others get sent to jail for drug-related crimes, but not many similar complaints about tax evasion. Is this crime so bad that we have to throw a person away for years?

In most democracies we elect politicians to decide if things are good and worth funding.

Please don't anticipate my answers :) at present people are paying out of their own pockets for 3rd and 4th level education. So this is happening.

Taxes are not yours. They belong to the state. There is a fallacy that exists that you own your taxes and "pay them" to the state. This is not the reality. The reality is that the state has always owned the taxes and by virtue of the system they have created (which the taxes are used to fund) enable you to earn a living. You owe taxes because you have used the resources of the state. Be it the land, the security forces or the markets or transport networks.

>Why can we not agree that employing people to perform research is a good thing?

There are lots of good things that aren't worth what they cost.

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