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Comment by hackuser | Hacker News Reader

I see sentences like this one in more and more articles these days:

> Dr. Simons now runs a tidy universe of science endeavors, financing not only math teachers but hundreds of the world’s best investigators, even as Washington has reduced its support for scientific research.

A predictable consequence of reducing government spending is that the population becomes dependent on, and concentrates power in the hands of, a few wealthy citizens. For example, I've read that if you need funding for research, you should seriously consider networking with the very wealthy. If you run a charity, probably you need to focus on the same. Will these patrons support academic freedom? An organization that challenges the social order? What if your research upsets someone; is your career/organization at risk? Will their ideas and whims serve the nation and world?

(I'm not criticizing of Simons' philanthropy; I'm against shrinking government investment in research and other social goods.)

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A predictable consequence of reducing government spending is that the population becomes dependent on, and concentrates power in the hands of, a few wealthy citizens.

It's worth noting in this context that the current system of government-funded science, which seems normal, in fact was invented more or less single-handedly by Vannevar Bush shortly after World War II. [1] The scenario that worries you was the norm for approximately the previous history of humanity. (This isn't to say governments never funded science, just that they didn't dominate it as the US Government does today.)

Will these patrons support academic freedom? An organization that challenges the social order? What if your research upsets someone; is your career/organization at risk? Will their ideas and whims serve the nation and world?

Every one of these questions applies with equal or greater force to government-funded science. Anyone worried that a private patron of science might, e.g., put his career at risk, should be a thousand times more afraid of the Feds.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vannevar_Bush

> the current system of government-funded science, which seems normal, in fact was invented more or less single-handedly by Vannevar Bush shortly after World War II. [1] The scenario that worries you was the norm for approximately the previous history of humanity.

The previous history of humanity isn't a standard that I think we should aspire to. It means no democracy, short lives, widespread brutality, open discrimination against most people, and not much investment in or success in the sciences.

> Anyone worried that a private patron of science might, e.g., put his career at risk, should be a thousand times more afraid of the Feds.

That's a strong claim. I don't agree subjectively; is there anything that backs it up? My impression from talking to people who apply for federal research grants is that it's tedious, time-consuming, but apolitical and based on merit.

It looks like you may be conflating several separate issues here. My point is that science seemed to work fine in, say, the period 1550–1950 without the NSF, NIH, etc., and it's not necessarily a disaster if we return to that model. We don't, at the same time, have to shorten lives, increase brutality, etc. (Democracy is a mixed bag at best, though; for example, in 1783 France was a troubled but basically functional absolute monarchy, and by 1793 it was a universal suffrage democracy that guillotined tens of thousands in the streets of Paris and bound books in leather made from human skin. [1])

[grant writing is] tedious, time-consuming, but apolitical and based on merit.

Getting federal research grants is apolitical only if your subject is apolitical, and the list of apolitical scientific subjects gets shorter every year. There are whole fields of inquiry—exploring heritable cognitive differences (if any) as a function of ancestry, for example—that are essentially verboten, while others (e.g., stem-cell research and climate science) are impossible to separate from politics. Moreover, even apolitical fields are notoriously subject to the whims of (democratically elected) Congress.

[1]: http://bit.ly/FrRevHL

Perhaps the takeaway here is that the research is getting done despite reduced funding from government.

Also, all of your questions regarding the motives of the wealthy should be asked of the government with equal scrutiny. After all, government is made up of individuals, each with his/her own level of bias and ideology.

This is a good point, one that I myself make in this type of situations. But… there is a difference in that democratically elected government officials or administrations are, at least in theory, obliged and answerable to the electorate. I think that is a good argument for keeping certain things in the public hand.

You hit on an interesting angle:

> democratically elected government officials ... answerable to the electorate

The heads of the government agencies are appointed by the administration, and most (all?) other employees of the agencies are not. Thus, the only accountability of, say, the research funding administrators at NIH or NSF is to their immediate superiors. That is, they are far removed from the scrutiny of the electorate.

As a rule, government is more transparent and accountable than even publicly traded corporations. FOIA requests, meetings, hearings, transcripts, budgets, expenditures, rosters, etc.

Of course, we should never stop criticizing government (aka democracy). But don't take it for granted either.

>As a rule, government is more transparent and accountable than even publicly traded corporations. FOIA requests, meetings, hearings, transcripts, budgets, expenditures, rosters, etc.

What might make governments even more accountable are the threats of loss of tax revenue (people and companies doing business elsewhere) and loss of campaign contributions. This is similar to how corporations are held accountable by shareholders (CEO compensation), employees (take their talents elsewhere) and customers

At some point or on some level, there's someone whose immediate superior Congress ... who controls the purse strings, I believe. Thus, in a very indirect way, accountable to the electorate (or, keeping appearances when they succeed at avoiding any accountability).

The difference is that the gov't is a bureaucracy and there is a diffusion of responsibility. They make sure no one person is responsible for any financial decisions. So that if the funding doesn't pay off or bring the results they want, they can blame the process/procedures

Diffusion of decision making sounds like a good idea in general. Blaming the process is how NASA produces nearly faultless software, for example.

I never said it was good or bad...

Yeah, there are good and bad aspects. When there's nobody with the authority end decisionmaking and just go with the best option, nothing happens.

Newsflash for you: in the fields I know (medical research), nearly every important early stage research project is funded by philanthropy. Government research dollars are only available to groups that have already done that early stage research and proven that the next step is incremental and low-risk.

If medical research relied on government dollars, nothing much would happen except for wheel spinning at vast cost. It would be even more of a full employment program for connected research institutes than is already the case.

That is not even to start on the fact that the existence of big government funding comes with the existence of the FDA, an entity that enormously increases the cost of research and development, outright blocks many lines of work, makes others so unprofitable as to scare away for-profit funding at all levels, and so on.

Also, you'll probably get just as much or more money from patrons for fringe science than for actual science, and the patrons will have little ability to evaluate the quality of the results - putting more money in if the results align with their preconceived notions or business interests, and withdrawing funding otherwise. Basically, like the pharmaceutical and (petro)chemical industries currently are.

Wait, are you saying the pharmaceutical and petrochemical industries fund fringe science, and that they can't tell the difference?

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/jan/27/environment.sci...

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-speed-of-hypocrisy-how-...

We are just reverting to the historical mean society: oligarchy.

Just a few years back I was very optimistic that we would correct our course back to democracy, but a cursory review of history shows incontrovertible proof of our destination.

Humans are primates, and primates fight viciously to form status hierarchies using any mechanism available to them. In the 21st century, that mechanism is capital. And its power and influence know no bounds.

The brief democratic blip we witnessed was a result of three massive wars (WWI, WWII, Cold War) which forced cooperation from the oligarchs due to the threat of existential annihilation. The world is quite peaceful now, and with technology and globalization the average citizen has a severely reduced utility to the oligarchy. Hence, capital buys policy, and votes are meaningless.

Capitalism dictates that one optimize one's own desires above all others ("Greed is good"). Economists are only now noticing the bitter aftertaste from the fruits of their labor.

EDIT: I post this a lot, but just in case you've missed it, most of my conclusions come from Thomas Piketty's new book, Capital in the 21st Century.

I'd argue that your argument about capital is correct, except it's not just the 21st century ... it's every century before that. Even in societies that aren't capitalist / democratic / free-market per se, it's the golden rule: the one with gold makes the rules (or, gets what they want). It's not always like that; just most of the time.

I'm not saying that's good or bad; I'm just saying it's like gravity.

I see no reason that just because I run "a charity" that I should not have to work hard to justify to individual people with money that they should give that to me to continue my charitable works.

Whether it's academia, government organs, charities, or other ... if you want funding for your research, you have to find someone who:

a) has money, and

b) is willing to finance your research.

If research is done with tax money, it's understandable taxpayers will want a say in it, and their ever-changing whims will be reflected in what they choose to fund. Since this involves politicians, you can expect consequences in that direction (i.e. a political angle even when there needn't be one, involvement of K Street either for or against you, etc).

If research is done with other resources, again, it's a matter of finding someone who has money and is willing to let you use it. So networking, and getting to know generous wealthy people, or wealthy people with a motive to give for a certain kind of research, is a smart way for someone in your org to spend time.

This doesn't necessarily sound so bad; it sounds like it's simply the way the world works.

Even Columbus - who financed his exploration with European monarch's money - had to justify it as financially worthwhile for them to do so.

An open question.... Are the scientific and philanthropic directions of wealthy individuals that much worse than our government? Remember - the US government doesn't fund stem cell research.

The fundamental problem here is the rise of anti-scientific sentiment in a large segment of the US population.

All the more reason to take science out of the hands of the people they elect.

This kinda makes sense. If you don't want to be subject to the whims of the US taxpayer, or the corrupting influence of Congresscritters / K Street, then you need to go elsewhere (charities, individuals, businesses) to get funding for your research.

Of course, educating taxpayers would be helpful, so they can make better decisions. Along with educating Congress critters, and as far as K Street goes, either finding sympathy (unlikely) or planning to send some of your money there (more likely to work).

Compared to those 3 challenges, finding a benefactor sounds a whole lot easier!

US government research funding decisions are made by scientists, not politicians or taxpayers.

Also, I don't know that 'benefactors' are any less corrupt than politicians or lobbyists (if we can paint any group with such a broad brush).

The decisions are made by scientists, but they're subject to hard restrictions (e.g. no funding for stem cell research) and behind the scenes political pressure.

...and into the hands of those who got rich selling stuff to the very same people?

In a recent article from The Guardian titled, 'Scientists threaten to boycott €1.2bn Human Brain Project', there's the following:

'The world's largest project to unravel the mysteries of the human brain has been thrown into crisis with more than 100 leading researchers threatening to boycott the effort amid accusations of mismanagement and fears that it is doomed to failure.'

And.

'But it proved controversial from the start. Many researchers refused to join on the grounds that it was far too premature to attempt a simulation of the entire human brain in a computer. Now some claim the project is taking the wrong approach, wastes money and risks a backlash against neuroscience if it fails to deliver.'

€1.2bn could solve any number of problems. And in a free market that's how the resources would be put to use. Solving human problems. Instead, there's a grand spectacle.

Many wealthy individuals got that way via judicious resource allocation. The same can't be said of the monumental leaders of our fine countries. They got that way via looking good in public. To expect them to excel at speech giving and resource allocation is quite the ask!

I'm not sure what one project demonstrates, even if we take a news report at face value. There also are many successes; we're using one now to discuss this.

> €1.2bn could solve any number of problems. And in a free market that's how the resources would be put to use. Solving human problems. Instead, there's a grand spectacle.

I think this argument idealizes the "free market".

* There is plenty of waste and spectacle there too -- look at other news headlines, or just remember our recent financial crisis

* The 'free market' doesn't exist. First, it's an amalgam of an incredible number and diversity of people and organizations. Second, it's not free; I was trying to think of examples of social goods not funded at all by taxpayers (for the point below), but it's hard to name any. And many 'free market' companies get tax breaks and other support from government (EDIT: including laws and regulations made in their favor).

* The marketplace does not care prioritize solving human problems; it prioritizes money and power. Sometimes that happens to solve problems (discovering a new vaccine, clean energy), sometimes it happens to cause them (increasing the cost of vaccines, climate change), sometimes it's just money for money's sake (slashing a ms off response time in computerized securities trading).

It's an example. It's the cost of the success that's the issue.

Financial crisis == moral hazard. And, come on! There's an economic theory that predicted the crisis, and explains it. I.e. ABCT (Austrian business cycle theory). My point being, it's not as clear cut when there's 'crony capitalism' and other market distortions.

'Free', as in freedom!

Everyone knows the 'free market' is made up of individuals. Or groups of individuals, such as a firm, which is formed to reduce transaction costs -- as per Coase's description in his Nobel winning (1991) The Nature of the Firm (1937).

Money is a medium of exchange. We use it to trade. And by definition: when people trade freely, they are both better off (otherwise they wouldn't trade!).

Money also has the functions of 1) store of wealth 2) unit of account. But that's by the by.

Problems are always going to occur, but because humans are motivated to solve the problems, solutions are found. And a profound way to facilitate such solutions is a market-based economy.

"when people trade freely, they are both better off (otherwise they wouldn't trade!)" isn't true. Instead, it's that both people think that they are better off when they make the trade. A subtle distinction but also the most important criticism of a purely free market.

Value is subjective. A.K.A, the subjective theory of value.

Without subjectivity, there's no marginal utility. And that takes us back to classical economics. I.e pre-marginal revolution.

I'm not talking about the subjectivity of value at all, though I can see how that might be unclear. I'm talking about the assumption of perfect information that is inherent in your statement.

In situations of asymmetrical information, there can be market solutions. Such as warranties.

The information, or the lack thereof is also reflected in the price.

> There's an economic theory that predicted the crisis, and explains it. I.e. ABCT

No. People who like the theory saw real world events that kind of sort of looks like ABCT could explain them, and then made a post facto observation.

Unless Mises et al. made some sort of prediction based upon at the time non-existent financial instruments, ABCT did not predict the 2008 sub-prime financial collapse. Period.

To the extent that ABCT predicted anything, it was a "something bad will happen; not sure when!" with the preconditions in play since about 1980. Color me unimpressed; I bet some random fortune teller got more accurate than that on accident.

Now, maybe some economic philosophers who likes the model applied it, which provided the basis their prediction of actual real world events. I don't know.

But then, proponents of regulation predicted the collapse as well. In fact, a lot of people accurately predicted the (actual) collapse, and to various degrees the cascade effects.

> it's not as clear cut when there's 'crony capitalism' and other market distortions.

"Oh yes, if only the world met all of our Axioms. Then everything would be grand!" said every failed political economic project ever.

> Problems are always going to occur, but because humans are motivated to solve the problems, solutions are found.

And as it turns out, lots of times those people are working in government funded research labs and universities, or applying research funded in those labs and universities.

You'll excuse us mere mortals for drawing such wildly wrong conclusions from something as banal as observation! You see, it's just that we've lost our list Axioms and now our only reference point is reality... perhaps you could lend us your map to drill on?

> No. People who like the theory saw real world events that kind of sort of looks like ABCT could explain them, and then made a post facto observation.

Like Mark Spitznagel, who took a billion dollar derivatives position on the 2008 stock market crash!

>Unless Mises et al. made some sort of prediction based upon at the time non-existent financial instruments, ABCT did not predict the 2008 sub-prime financial collapse. Period.

Here's an article from the Mises Institute on the subject. Period. http://mises.org/daily/4072

> "Oh yes, if only the world met all of our Axioms. Then everything would be grand!" said every failed political economic project ever.

Politicians must come up with excuses of some sort.

> And as it turns out, lots of times those people are working in government funded research labs and universities, or applying research funded in those labs and universities.

And those resources may be more effective in an alternate configuration.

> You see, it's just that we've lost our list Axioms and now our only reference point is reality... perhaps you could lend us your map to drill on?

My map (in reference to the Alfred Korzybski quote 'the map is not the territory') consists of any economic school, or any other information I happen across. Empirical is fine with me. But it depends on the circle I'm talking to. If one was to mention vanilla observation to a group interested in medicine, then there'd be a combination of recoil and disgust (in most cases), for example.

But in this case, Praxeology suits me fine!

Your original claim was sloppy and wrong.

The article to you link to is much more clear headed about the role of the model. It's a useful tool, not a glass ball.

There's a hell of a huge difference between a model predicting something, and people applying/adopting the model -- together with a LOT of other tools and insights -- to predict something.

It's as stark as the difference between executing a program and getting an exact output, and using a programming language, together with some bits of math, to write a program which computes a result for you.

Back to the point: since lots and lots others made similar predictions about the housing market (and beyond), I'm much more inclined to believe that it was a strong focus on data and observation -- not any particular model per say -- that allowed smart people to accurate predictions.

That wasn't my central claim. You picked up on a fairly irrelevant aside. My claim was: 'My point being, it's not as clear cut when there's 'crony capitalism' and other market distortions.'

I don't believe the Austrian school has any such formal models.

In a free market €1.2bn can't even buy a messaging app.

A free market would be perfectly OK spending that money on dating apps, more ads for "alternative medicines" that sell well but never shown to work, or disinformation campaign against (government-funded) scientists pointing out that your product causes cancer. Free market sometimes works, but it's no silver bullet.

What did the HealthCare.gov site cost? ~$650M.

At least the messaging app would work!

The government is the dominant funder of stem cell research post-Bush (In addition to state funding of stem cell research like inNY, TX, & CA). For example, see http://stemcells.nih.gov/Pages/Default.aspx

I think the bigger issue is that private philanthropy of science is at least ~2 orders of magnitude smaller than yearly philanthropic donations. The US spends ~$100B/year, while I would be surprised if private philanthropy totals $1B/year to R&D. Commercial R&D expenditures on the other hand are probably higher in aggregate. Thus the role of private philanthropy on a lot of research has been catalytic funding for new ideas.

Do governments support academic freedom? An organization that challenges the social order? What if your research upsets someone; is your career/organization at risk? Will their ideas and whims serve their citizens and world?

Look at that, asking pointed rhetorical questions is easy!

That's the way it should be, IMO. Government research leads to things like WMDs.

Also penicillin and the smallpox vaccine, the internet - but you know, whatever...

So? What's your argument?

Don't know what his argument was.

Mine is: You're probably a troll and nobody should feed you.

I gave my opinion and labelled it as such.

Could you provide some data to support your opinion?

Every WMD program in existence? The apparatus of our surveillance states? Private companies and wealthy individuals would not pusure these things because it would be illegal and also pointless. Only governments want and pursue stuff like this. Of course, plenty of government directed research and government funded research is positive, but the private sector is intertwined with all that (funding and execution) and it's not true to say just because the government funded something it wouldn't have happened otherwise. At the extreme you have states like USSR and North Korea that spend almost everything on ghastly projects.

"Government research leads to all things WMD"

How does your post support this opinion?

I don't now what you mean. Do you deny that WMD programs exist?

No, and I never said or hinted that they don't exist. We are trying to establish how much of the research budget is spend on them.

It's not about the money that is wasted in developing them, it is about the consequences of their existence.

Again, that's not what we're discussing.

Did you think my argument was that when the government directs and funds research, they disproportionately waste it on WMDs? No, my argument was that big government research spending leads to monstrosities that would otherwise not even exist.

Yeah, in the process of killing millions and all imaginable crimes against humanity, they did a few good things, no one denies that. But if you use those good things as your argument, that's known as the broken window fallacy.

This has to be the most bizarre interpretation of the broken window fallacy I've read.

Actually it's very common. Try arguing with a soldier. Those guys are brainwashed into believing that the military helped humanity move forward technologically, as if spending that money directly in research (without the bombings, the deaths of millions, etc.) couldn't possibly have achieved the same, let alone much more (which is in fact more likely).

Amazing how people simply make up facts to support their ideology. Both penicillin and smallpox vaccine were discovered with little if any government support. But you know, whatever...

Not being a historian, I actually read Wikipedia before posting that. I guess I was confused on the smallpox vaccines creation which seems to involve a lot of actors. What's certain however, is that the vaccine's dissemination and the eventual eradication of smallpox was pushed by the World Health Organization (part of the UN) and so was a government initiative. [1]

Penicillin was discovered by Alexander Fleming as part of research in a public institution (St. Mary's Hospital). [2]

I guess my larger point (which you deftly avoided addressing) is that the government is not a boogeyman creating evil technologies nor does it have a monopoly on evil shit. I also have a hard time imagining a motive for a for-profit organization to eradicate a disease world-wide. Something that government organizations have achieved almost twice (polio is nearly wiped out).

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox#Eradication [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennicilin#Discovery

St Mary's Hospital was not government controlled or funded when Fleming was working there. It was one of the 'voluntary hospitals' supported by philanthropy and private donors. Furthermore, if you read the history of penicillin [1] you can see a long history of tinkering (meaning the discovery was somewhat inevitable) and that Pfizer, Inc. worked out how to mass produce it.

But you know, whatever...

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_penicillin

This does bring up a fair point, the military industrial complex is a massive funder of university grants. The creates a lot of ethical issue that are worth considering.

The original comment listed some issues with free-market financing but gov backing is not suddenly more altruistic/fair because it's not coordinated by 'free-market' billionaires. There are many many billionaires (and billion-dollar companies) who influence what the gov invests in and a significant number of them come from the DoD side.

It's even a problem among researchers in England: http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/david-mccoy/universi...

> The original comment listed some issues with free-market financing but gov backing is not suddenly more altruistic/fair because it's not coordinated by 'free-market' billionaires.

I agree (though I don't think it's a 'free market' in sense of the economic term of art), however the issue is political power and control. Do we want a few citizens to have that much influence over our society, such as deciding which good works get funded, and who gets the funding? What happens when a donor threatens to reduce funding for the local hospital if the city council passes a law that impacts the donor's business?

Also, I tend to think the NSF will do a better (if not perfect) job of evaluating grant proposals than the random philanthropist.

You are right that the wealthy already have outsized influence; that's not a reason to give them more.

The reason you're being downvoted is that your point (as read) seems to be "Well, .gov funds research that kills babies!"

This is rubbish, because it also funds research that leads to medicine, better roads and health, the Internet, and all number of other things that are absolutely positive things. The balance is by far on the good, not the bad.

Private research brought us things like the Maxim gun, the Gatling gun, most of the shitty food you can buy today, lots of unhealthy chemicals, and all sorts of other things.

It's a comparison that, even if executed properly, is hard to make--and you failed to execute.

The point is that private companies have no incentive to pursue things like wMD programs or PRISM. Only governments have that.

> or PRISM

Google. Facebook.

Those companies were complying with legal obligations, not eagerly helping the NSA collect any and all data because they were gung-ho.

No, they are collecting data because that is how they make money. And I rather suspect that if you compare what the NSA knows about you, personally, with what th' Goog' knows, the NSA will come up well behind.

I'm not trying to minimize what the NSA has done; what they do is supposedly done in our name, which is offensive, and they have more power than any company to do harm with what they collect, which is frightening. And I'm not trying to attack the companies; they have every right to what I give them, most of which is not private even if I would wish it to be, and they do provide useful services with that information.

But if you are upset about an organization collecting information to use in some way that may be other than your best interest, the two are pretty equal.

But if you are upset about an organization collecting information to use in some way that may be other than your best interest, the two are pretty equal.

Gestapo. Stasi.

Private companies have incentive to pursue whatever the fuck they want to pursue. Public companies have a nominal responsibility to shareholders, but as long as they can justify it they can do whatever so long as it makes money eventually. Governments have a nominal responsibility to their citizens, but can do other stuff if they are allowed to do so.

WMD is such a stupid thing to bandy about, anyways--how many more are killed with cigarettes and cars than have died from these superweapons that rot in silos and labs?

PRISM, as somebody else has pointed out, is a stupid example because massive data mining is literally the business model for vast swathes of industry.

Just stop.

I'll give you a clue: compare the non-linearity of harm caused by cigarettes to the non-linearity of harm caused/posed by WMD programs.

Aaaand you've changed the topic from matters of incentive, thus ceding the point. Thanks for playing!

Your point about incentives was so circular it wasn't worth addressing.

I like that you think governments do stuff "if they are allowed to do so."

that's the sort of charming naïveté I look for in a date.

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