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>Shrimps on Treadmills Serious question, meant with no sarcasm at all: Can you give an example of something as ridiculous as the shrimp on treadmills study tha

by phaus 11y ago

>Shrimps on Treadmills Serious question, meant with no sarcasm at all: Can you give an example of something as ridiculous as the shrimp on treadmills study that cost a fortune and ended up being incredibly important in a way that wasn't immediately obvious at the time the study was conducted?

cromwellian 11y ago
The shrimps on treadmills study didn't cost a fortune, that was ridiculous and dishonest conservative demogogueing over it with fictitious accounting. It's like when a politician will say "This government project spent $1 billion to build a highway, and only produced 1000 jobs, at a cost of $1 million per job!" without looking at the other thing the project produced: a new highway! The shrimp treadmill cost only $47 to make.(http://chronicle.com/blogs/conversation/2014/11/13/how-a-47-shrimp-treadmill-became-a-3-million-political-plaything/ http://chronicle.com/blogs/conversation/2014/11/13/how-a-47-...) and was trying to figure out a way to determine food safety, you know, like whether the shrimp we're eating are diseased. I'm pretty sure if you total up the money spent on number theorists over the past several decades, it all looked ridiculous numerical masturbation, up until the point where public key cryptography was invented. By contrast, military R&D is HIDEOUSLY expensive by several orders of magnitude. The people whining about a $50 shrimp treadmill need to get their fucking head in order and look at the cost of the F-35.
- phaus 11y ago
  Thanks for answering. Now it makes a lot more sense. I wasn't aware of the follow-up articles, only the original politically-fused exaggerations.
maxxxxx 11y ago
There was a time when X-rays were considered useless or nuclear physics. In addition, if you took a closer look at a shrimp on treadmills study and its rationale, you would often see the use pretty quickly.
sedachv 11y ago
The British government gave Charles Babbage the 1830s equivalent of 2.4 million USD to come up with a more efficient way of making printed logarithmic tables, which Babbage never managed to accomplish.

by phaus 11y ago

cromwellian 11y ago

The shrimps on treadmills study didn't cost a fortune, that was ridiculous and dishonest conservative demogogueing over it with fictitious accounting. It's like when a politician will say "This government project spent $1 billion to build a highway, and only produced 1000 jobs, at a cost of $1 million per job!" without looking at the other thing the project produced: a new highway! The shrimp treadmill cost only $47 to make.(http://chronicle.com/blogs/conversation/2014/11/13/how-a-47-shrimp-treadmill-became-a-3-million-political-plaything/ http://chronicle.com/blogs/conversation/2014/11/13/how-a-47-...) and was trying to figure out a way to determine food safety, you know, like whether the shrimp we're eating are diseased. I'm pretty sure if you total up the money spent on number theorists over the past several decades, it all looked ridiculous numerical masturbation, up until the point where public key cryptography was invented. By contrast, military R&D is HIDEOUSLY expensive by several orders of magnitude. The people whining about a $50 shrimp treadmill need to get their fucking head in order and look at the cost of the F-35.

phaus 11y ago
Thanks for answering. Now it makes a lot more sense. I wasn't aware of the follow-up articles, only the original politically-fused exaggerations.

maxxxxx 11y ago

There was a time when X-rays were considered useless or nuclear physics. In addition, if you took a closer look at a shrimp on treadmills study and its rationale, you would often see the use pretty quickly.

sedachv 11y ago

The British government gave Charles Babbage the 1830s equivalent of 2.4 million USD to come up with a more efficient way of making printed logarithmic tables, which Babbage never managed to accomplish.