
Scientists Brace for a Lost Generation in American Research - jseliger
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/03/trump-budget-cuts-science/519825/?single_page=true
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daly
"The tension between making money and making research strides can result in
projects being abandoned altogether or pushed forward before they’re ready. "
says the author... which really understates the problem.

When I worked at IBM Research (back when IBM actually did research), I spoke
to Ralph Gomory, the head of IBM Research. He said that research costs were
expensive. One million dollars supported 3 researchers for one year. One out
of every 10 research efforts produced a useful result and that useful research
result required 10 years to become a product.

Silicon valley does not support research. Even Microsoft laid off a lot of
researchers recently
([https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/09/20/micr-s20.html](https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/09/20/micr-s20.html))
"Microsoft cuts 2100 jobs, closes Silicon Valley Research lab")

University professors live and die on grant money. It is how they fund masters
and phd students. A large percent of their time is spent on writing grants,
managing grants, and reporting on grants. Cut the funding and you lose not
only professors but their students. Six billion dollars at 3
researchers/million/year is ... well, ask Trump do the math.

Like Reagan (who closed the Federal Labs), Trump doesn't understand research.

~~~
flukus
> Silicon valley does not support research. Even Microsoft laid off a lot of
> researchers recently
> ([https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/09/20/micr-s20.html](https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/09/20/micr-s20.html))
> "Microsoft cuts 2100 jobs, closes Silicon Valley Research lab")

In all fairness, given the scarcity of resources in research and the costs of
being in silicon valley, wouldn't it be better to have research done elsewhere
and get more bang for your buck?

~~~
daly
"elsewhere" is the university. Historically government funded a lot of primary
research, especially after Sputnik. One example of primary research is the
Internet, aka "Arpanet". Now all of the "ARPA" funding is "Defense-ARPA" so
projects have to have a military justification.

As to "getting more bang for your buck"... that's called externalization. Make
a profit by shifting costs elsewhere, such as dumping toxic coal residue into
streams, leaving mining tailings containing heavy metals in piles, using
highways without paying road tax, etc.

Letting someone else pay for the research and then "getting more bang for the
buck" is what all companies are doing now. They used to support major research
labs (Xerox PARC gave us windows, mice, ethernet, etc), (Bell Labs gave us
digit recognizers, high speed modems, microwave background research), (IBM
gave us force microscopes, disk drives, etc). (Google and Microsoft gave us
the NSA). Unfortunately if everyone decides to let everyone else pay for the
research then nobody does it. Universities are the last major resource for
research. Cutting government funding by 6 billion dollars means that 6 billion
x 3 researchers/year/million = 18000 fewer people doing things "elsewhere"...

That's a lot of professors out of jobs. That's a lot more students who don't
graduate. That's a lot of research that doesn't get done. If you eat seeds you
get fed today but you don't get crops for tomorrow. Of course, since research
takes 10 years to mature the effects of such cuts will take 10 years to create
the disaster, which makes it someone else's problem.

That's ok. 6 Billion dollars will buy 24 new fighter jets. Or one aircraft
carrier. Or a lot of congress persons. Or 4 years of trips to a florida golf
course on weekends.

Sigh.

~~~
Arizhel
>That's ok. 6 Billion dollars will buy 24 new fighter jets. Or one aircraft
carrier. Or a lot of congress persons. Or 4 years of trips to a florida golf
course on weekends.

Actually, you're wrong about the aircraft carrier, assuming you mean a Ford-
class nuclear carrier. Those are up to $15B now!

