Who the fuck will do science in a libertarian society? Every scientist knows only the government pays for science, be it govt labs or academia. I realize shit like Google X exists but they're irrelevant. The truth is science is not profitable.
>>79441304
Science is profitable, just "social studies" is not.
You think the discovery of electricity was government funded? Are you ignoring all the great inventions made by private citizens and the private initiative in the last three centuries?
>>79441747
No it isn't. Engineering is, but solving the Poincare Conjecture and putting a man on the moon are not (hence Space X being a money pit)
>>79442141
>inventions
Not science bananaman. Please tell me how the private industry benefits from the Higgs Boson discovery.
under intellectual property laws, science progresses. This is why USA #1 in R&D and academia.
>>79442614
A bit on one side, a bit on the other. The paywall system that keeps scientific research locked away is actually hindering quite a lot of research, but then again China style copying of ideas from creators destroys science and innovation as well.
all about happy mediums.
>>79442157
I agree on the moon part. That could not have happened without massive government investment. Still, a lot of money is inevitably squandered, and for every 10 dollars that reaches an actual researcher, 3 is taken by middle men bureaucrats.
Still, to my surprise i was a bit surprised to see that humanities is one of the least subsidized fields by federal government. Who could have known.
>>79442273
How does ANYONE benefit from the Higgs Boson discovery?
>>79442273
It may not now, but science discovers potential new avenues for private individuals to come by later and make a product from. Who knows, now the higgs boson may not really matter, but 30 years from now maybe it might be the secret behind flying vehicles or other potential products. I don't get your argument, knowledge is always profitable.
>>79444741
But for that sort of research to come about you would have to completely max out all your possibilities for your current sciences THEN invest in what you have. I mean, it's like researching electricity when you haven't even discovered metallurgy, sure it's useful along the line but you should really finish what's before it first.
>>79441304
Corporations. And they will only do science that has a fast profit feedback cycle. No ones going to be building space rockets and shit. Some people might do some in their own time with their own money if they are passionate af.
Pure libertarian is utterly retarded. It doesn't take long to realise that.
>>79444741
Exactly. So who the fuck would fund a CERN in libertarian economies?
>>79444502
I mean, the person who speculated it existed received some benefit.
>>79441304
>Prior to current democratic society, there were no scientists because there was no government to pay for their research
Some days, the utter retardedness of people here makes my brain hurt very badly.
>>79444502
Someday people may benefit. Understanding the laws of nature better has a habit of creating insane amounts of wealth for humankind. Electricity, nuclear energy and modern computers are pretty beneficial to mankind. But studying how and why magnets work, how atoms behave and quantum mechanics didn't seem like it would have any immediate pay off to anyone specially. Worked out pretty well though.
>>79446491
That's a mighty fine straw man anon.
>>79446491
He's talking about libertarian society, not a monarchy or dictatorship. Can you name a libertarian society that has existed and contributed to the sciences? I personally can not but i'm an idiot.
>>79445739
>ones going to be building space rockets and shit.
What is SpaceX?
>>79441304
engineer here
generally, every large team of engineers in large companies has a few scientists with PHD
but science would be alot more buissness orientated
>>79446915
What is that company that is 80% funded by government contracts, get's huge technology assistance from NASA and frequently reminds people that it owes it's existence completely to all the government funded rocket science and engineering programs of the past?
Space does nothing but makes space rockets like the ones NASA and Russia made, but makes them a little cheaper. There's no way on god's green earth they would have created space rockets from scratch.
I'm a big SpaceX nerd btw.
>>79441304
Friendly reminder that if you're anti-libertarian you're a leftist or a neocon cuck.
>>79441304
Personally, I have no problem with NASA, DARPA, EPA, and NIH existing. My problem is when they become political instead of objective.
>>79441304
It's research that's not profitable in general. There's a fantastic book called "The Entrepreneural Estate" that challenges the idea that corporations got their flourishment from their own doing. You'd be hard pressed to find an industry that was able to start without government funding to set the first stones.
It also bothers me that grants recieved from government don't force papers to publish openly in a pre-print. Instead we have that research locked behind paywalls for predator journal companies.
>>79442273
>bananaman
>>79447187
also no one would invest in spacex. It just so happened Elon had enough money to bootstrap it. Hard as shit to start a rocket company even when loads of countries know how to make them already and NASA make all their shit public.
>>79441747
>>79442157
>>79444502
>>79447419
Physicist checking in. The science done today often isn´t profitable for the next 50-100 years, depending on the field. At some point, it will most likely be profitable just not as fast like the research and development from companies.
Just like we need "einsteins" relativity today to create technology or make other experiments using the theory, it sure wasn´t seen as profitable back then.
Today? Try getting GPS working without relativity. Problem is you just dont know when or how fundamental research will be profitable and that´s why people get butthurt over it yet it is a very important part of improving our future.
>>79447896
Why the hell are you quoting me when I agree with OP.
Also, please don't call yourself a Physicist if you're an undergrad or grad student.
>>79448299
I´m doing my phd currently. After you have finished your masters here, you are called a physicist (master replaced the diplom, fuck that shit).
>>79446491
Prior to the postwar era, the era of "big science" didn't exist. The kind of science that demanded intensive capital investment (expensive, specialized equipment; large space; technicians) barely existed.
The pillars of Enlightenment scholarship made their findings with stuff you could buy in a hardware store for under $100 today. That's hardly the case anymore.
That aside, state-funded research in real (i.e., not social) sciences is a classic example of the tragedy of the commons. Industry can't get enough of using it as a low risk, "wait-and-see" option for vetting emerging technologies and snatching up the dirt cheap, university-held patents when something of values is demonstrated.
As with everything, the government sticking its nose in the funding market creates less competitiveness and more problems than it fixes.
>>79448595
Do you actually refer to yourself as a physicist to your cohorts? You're a grad student, nothing more. You don't get these titles cause you know slightly more than undergrads on /sci/.
>>79448958
>That aside, state-funded research in real (i.e., not social) sciences is a classic example of the tragedy of the commons.
How so?
>>79447896
This. Maybe the most ironic instance of this is regarding recurrent neural nets, for which funding was dead as little as 12 years ago. Now grad programs have problems keeping students in their programs because industry wants to poach them once they have a minimum of industry ready skills. Yoshua Bengio has specifically used this as an example of why moonshot projects pursuing basic research are essential.
>>79441304
how did science ever progress?
>>79447241
fuck off
>>79449106
Typically when you get paid to do work in a field, you get to call yourself whatever the word is for a professional in that field. That's even moreso with completed a masters degree, which is universally recognized as a professional level of achievement. Dude could probably put letters after his name and everything.
Someone who has a masters and is working on a PhD is a professional scientist. Probably getting paid to work in his program. In physics those positions are super competitive.
You are probably not as smart as this anon.
>>79449260
The State foots the bill and assumes the risk of funding research that might fail or not provide immediate gains. Even if the research is successful, any intellectual property generated is typically owned by the institution it was produced at, not the individual researcher.
Compared to buying patents produced by a rival, companies can buy institutionally held patents for a price that is a steal by industry standards. Wash, rinse, repeat. As long as the State is willing to foot the bill, you can, as a company, step in and buy out the winner for dirt cheap without having ever invested significantly in its production.
It's like the State reseeding the pasture at taxpayer expense every time some loser lets his cattle graze it barren.
>>79450607
>You are probably not as smart as this anon.
I'm also in a Ph.D. program for Physics. Not one of my friends would call themselves Physicists. These are titles given after certain barriers. It would be equivalent to me calling myself a Dr. while still a grad student. We are STUDENTS not Physicists. It's a matter of respect that you don't throw these titles around. It's a symptom of /sci/ where engineering students call themselves engineers or math students call themselves mathematicians. They are not. Just as a Physics grad student is not a Physicist.
>>79450932
Why would the patents be dirt cheap? Surely universities would put them up for auction. The university is trying to make a profit right?
How is this a tragedy of commons?
I would consider lack of state basic science funding to be a tragedy of commons, as most companies would accept that great innovations could be made if money was invested in science funding that would make everyone way better off over the next 50-100 years. But no one wants to do it because they don't want to the moron who spent the money on research and everyone else got to share in the benefit of it without paying in. There's also the small issue of the profit cycle being far too large private companies.
>>79451390
Also, patents are for inventions. You can't "patent" scientific research and discoveries.
Rich people who could live off of the profits of their estates without doing any labour conducted almost all science until the latter days of the industrial revolution.
At this point funding began to come from the inventor in question gathering funding from private individuals, this eventually progressed into businesses and corporations with fixed R&D departments. To an extent large amounts of research today is carried out this way, albeit heavily subsidised by governments that recognise the country as whole(read, the economy) benefits from many developments made by private organisations.
Now this is all well and good up until a certain point, but there are areas of research which are not directly profitable and hence would not get funded by a board of investors, shareholders whatever. This is where governments step in, nobody can afford to - or even if they could they wouldn't see reason to - build a particle accelerator.
>>79450084
>>79451554
This was meant for you
>>79450607
This. this anon >>79449106 is a fucking tryhard. Anybody in a competitive graduate program is only there because they are going to be doing what they do as a graduate student for the rest of their professional life.
If you are paid to do professional quality research in a given field, you are categorically a scientist and a researcher. Formal titles are a matter of course. The only thing really embarrassing would be to call yourself a physicist before you are admitted to a program.
t. gradfag about to defend his thesis in a few months
>>79444741
Sounds like an awful investment that no one would ever do
>>79451390
No, they aren't actually. Most large schools in the US are public institutions that are mandated to operate as non-profit. Based on this, there are bizzare incentives to sell a patent at a price that is good enough, but not too great. Companies exploit this, so sales are often first-come, first-served.
>>79451502
Intellectual property sales by universities mostly exist for newly developed equipment, methods, technologies, agricultural products, etc. developed by researchers.
>>79446491
It really didn't. Only Romans and uber wealthy kingdoms could afford to have a couple smart dudes doing science. Then the enlightenment came and some wealthy europeans could afford some more. Science didn't take off until governments gave more money to them in the late 19th century.
>>79451092
I stand corrected on the personal speculation.
The rest of your statement is some bullshit standard you and your clique at uni have decided to apply to yourselves. I don't know how many science job postings I've seen over the years for "Biologist I" or whatever. Universally, those kinds of jobs require a masters degree, and to say that person is a "student" not a "scientist" is ridiculous.
A buddy of mine got a science job for the Air Force straight out of his bachelors degree and the title was "Physicist."
>>79441304
This is why pure libertarianism is flawed. The state can be a force for good and in promoting progress
>>79452817
Exactly. The only way it would be a decent investment were if (1) lack of further knowledge were an obvious impediment to progress and (2) there were no other entity willing to fund this research. The first claim may be true in time. The second clearly is not when the government is so willing to subsidize the cost of discovery and the failure that comes with it.
With that comes a culture where pharma/biotechnology/agribusiness expect to eat steak for the price of mincemeat.
>>79453331
Same. I would never refer to myself by a title I haven't earned, but I frequently refer to myself as a molecular biologist/biochemist. This is encouraged in my program to facilitate interdepartmental collaboration and clearly communicate what it is we do on a daily basis.
