

The Myth That Without Gov't Subsidies, Discoveries Will Be Hidden By Secrets - fexl
http://techdirt.com/articles/20100627/2304419976.shtml

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rauljara
The problem I have with this sort of line of reasoning is that it views
research in an entirely economic light. It opens with a quote about how
scientific research is not a public good, and a suggestion that publicly
funded research might harm economic growth. But what about research that does
not have a direct impact on the economy? What about the Hubble, or
supercolliders? What private company would fund those?

Or, the best example I can think of, is about a therapy for panic disorder (a
psychological disorder). There is a remarkable effective talk therapy for
panic disorder which cures 80+% of the people who have it, and those people
stay cured years after they complete the therapy (and there is no evidence it
ever returns). The most effective drug treatments cure much fewer than half of
the people, and once those people stop taking the drugs, the panic tends to
return. The studies comparing drugs and talk therapy are incredibly expensive,
and almost all of them come out of England, paid for by the government. What
private company would ever want to fund that sort of research? They have an
highly profitable drug treatment, which is effectively addictive (if you stop
it, the panic returns)? Why would they spend their own money to research a
course of therapy that lasts 8-12 weeks and is then done?

I don't think private research is a bad thing at all. But private research is
profit driven, and there are some really important problems out there that
don't have a big financial payoff once they're solved. Economically speaking,
finding a more effective to regrow hair in bald men would probably be a lot
more profitable than finding a cheap cure for any number of diseases ravaging
Africa. Doesn't mean it's more important.

~~~
kiba
_Economically speaking, finding a more effective to regrow hair in bald men
would probably be a lot more profitable than finding a cheap cure for any
number of diseases ravaging Africa. Doesn't mean it's more important._

In the long run, there are far more values in curing ravaging diseases in
Africa than there are values in curing bald hair men, at least to me.(Less
disease ravaging means more time for educations, which might mean economic
growth, which might mean bigger markets) For a corporation, it might make more
sense to cure bald men instead of people in Africa. But it doesn't make sense
for a charity organization to cure bald men instead of people in Africa
because of their different aim.

Private research doesn't have to be profit...err _money driven_ , but it can
be done for err..noble reasons.

What to prevent billionaire from spending money on non...errr..profit
research. Indeed, you would expect millionaires and billionaires to donate
money to causes that seriously affect their life, whether it is themselves or
a love one.

So what if it is viewed in economic lights? You're only looking at it in one
perspective, which is how to make a lot of money. What you did forget is the
true motivations why humans pursue money, like being able to live longer, have
fun, being curious, have sex, etc.

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maxharris
I think doing something for profit - purely for your own good - is the most
noble thing you can do.

(When I say for your own good, I mean what's for your own good long-term.
Cheating, stealing, lying, etc., is ruled out, because that's not in anyone's
self-interest, long-term.)

~~~
abstractbill
The _most noble_? Really? So, for example, running a casino is more noble than
volunteering for Doctors Without Borders?

~~~
kiba
Altruism, by itself doesn't mean much of anything. I could give 10 bucks to a
poor man and than that poor man proceed to squander it. I could have given
money to the wrong people(who I thought was nice), who then proceed to buy
capitals for criminal activities such as murdering individuals.

Of course, it's easy to sneer at the wal-mart or Henry Ford people of the
world. However, remember that they have made it much easier to help people by
increasing productivity.

An engineer who built a safe water supply system has saved more people than
most doctors in the world. A sanitation company has saved lives by preventing
the accumulation of trash and by disposing it safely. All of which are
occupations that are unseen to the public eyes.

Doctors, we can see. Doctors who work on charity, we can see. But what we
can't see is those profiteers who nonetheless help people but are in the
background.

~~~
abstractbill
You give reasonable examples of people doing good things for a profit, and
other people being altruistic to no good end.

Great, but that's not the question.

Max's assertion was that there _is no nobler thing_ than doing something for a
profit. That's simply not true.

~~~
kiba
_Max's assertion was that there is no nobler thing than doing something for a
profit. That's simply not true._

Well, I would argue that everything I do, altruistic or not, goes back to
satisfying my selfishness. In that point of view, selfishness is a human
condition, not something to be ashamed of.

It is also part of the human condition to have social relations with other
human beings. Sometime, that might mean caring for others even if we receive
no hedonistic benefits. It's quite essential to our health, really.

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abstractbill
_You can't access the science of others unless you're part of the game. It is
only the molecular biologist who is publishing his own papers, getting invited
to the conferences, having the discrete conversations with other fellow
molecular biologists, who can capture the work of others._

The problems of access to journals are real. My PhD supervisor and other
researchers I knew were making a real effort to work around them by publishing
a lot of papers on public online "e-print journals" like arxiv.org

The problems of access to conferences on the other hand, I never saw. If fact,
at every conference I went to while I was doing my PhD, there was always a
handful of uninvited people who tagged along. Often they were nuts who
believed they were close to a proof of something actually improvable and
wanted to find a professor to show their work to. Occasionally they were just
highly motivated amateur mathematicians. Either way, they were always _at
least_ tolerated from what I saw.

~~~
contextfree
I've had the same experience at CS conferences, as one of the tolerated
amateurs myself. Most of my idols in the field turned out to be pretty
approachable.

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Empact
This reminds me of two other well-established area where government spending
was assumed to the be the only way, but is/was preventing progress. Namely,
those are aid to Africa, and NASA.

In both cases, public monies realigned the efforts of those associated to seek
and maintain the public monies first, which are not necessarily related to
progress whatsoever. That is, building a army of bureaucrats for any space
launch, in the case of NASA, and pulling would-be African entrepreneurs away
from productive efforts and toward positions in the bureaucracies best-
positioned to receive and distribute the aid within Africa.

If African aid money can devastate Africa by pulling the best and brightest
into unproductive bureaucratic positions, then it's certainly plausible that
research aid can pull the best and brightest away from the most productive
pursuits and toward whatever the distributors of public money happen to
demand, productive or not.

~~~
joe_the_user
I don't think your choosing good or typical examples here.

Both are relatively "applied". The "basic science" would be a bit harder to
have funded - abstract math research, basic physics research, marine
biological research.

Now, I would actually say the government should be spending more on basic
research and less on applied research but that's an entirely different
question.

Most basic research has payoff sooner or later. It's just fairly clear that
the market isn't going to be financing things with a fifty years window.

~~~
Empact
The question is not whether basic research[1] is good or will it happen[2],
the question is, what sort of activity is being crowded out by government
money?

You don't even have to go to the government to see the question-ability of the
hands-off research bureacracy approach: compare Microsoft Research to Apple's
technical efforts, or consider Xerox Park absent a few entrepreneurs to bring
their efforts to market.

Research expresses its value in its application, and research funded by
private means, for profit or charity, is far more likely to see its result
applied to productive ends.

I can't tell you what sort of window for basic research private money would
support, but I can tell you that connecting research to a meaningful
expression is fundamental to the value of the research, and it would seem, far
more likely to happen as a result of private funding.

[1] I'd argue NASA has exactly this sort of 'basic research' nature, in that
its efforts pay out in the very long run. Now, this has not prevented them
from devolving into what is essentially an inefficient, bureaucratic jobs
program for the aerospace industry.

[2] The talk makes the point that basic research in math, science, &c. was
funded long before government intervention, as a result of economic activity.

~~~
ccamrobertson
_but I can tell you that connecting research to a meaningful expression is
fundamental to the value of the research_

This is a really interesting point, notably with regards to NASA. From the
outset, NASA was at its core a defense oriented expenditure - that is to say
that it was imbued with an explicit purpose.

Fast-forward to the creation of the space shuttle and the thawing of space-
relations with the Apollo-Soyuz docking in 1975. It seems that from this point
forward that NASA's mission of human spaceflight had lost its way,
characterized today by the morass that the space shuttle has become.

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kelnage
An interesting article. That said, I disagree with their arguments relating to
public research. Most areas with active public sponsored research are also
areas that require degrees to start working in. Thus, interesting research
should be comprehensible by those who have studied the subject at degree level
and thereby making it accessible to their employer. For example, at work I
frequently make use of papers from the ACM. Of course I wouldn't expect the
average Joe to understand the papers - but why exactly should they?

~~~
kiba
I am not sure what arguments you're making. I think the point of the article
is that it is not easy at some level to just use some new discoveries and then
incorporate them into technologies because of the amount of expertise that is
required.

~~~
kelnage
And that's (part of the reason) why we have degrees - to teach people how to
understand research so they can turn it into reality. Yes - it's not easy and
yes, it might be easier if someone has already done it - but a lot of the time
that isn't true (or they aren't willing to share how they've done it with
you).

Obviously, in an optimal world, everyone would have equal access to all such
knowledge - but there will always be barriers on both sides.

~~~
kiba
If everyone knows how to conduct scientific research, they will be crowding
out other fields such as musics, cooking, fine arts, and more. It's a tradeoff
for giving everyone equal access to such knowledge.

It's like saying that everyone should be a programmer, but people waste time
trying to learn programs when they can hire a programmer to make a program for
them. Then these people will do things that's worth their time such as making
musics or cooking food.

------
known
Socialism is preventing race to the bottom. Capitalism is promoting race to
the top.

Communists willfully ignore this fact.

~~~
ovi256
You are promoting simplistic views.

Also, communism and socialism is, by far, not the same thing.

~~~
known
"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent.
It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite
direction." -- Einstein

