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But if scientific papers were free, how could nations avoid a free-rider issue regarding other nations? For instance, a major part of scientific research is do

But if scientific papers were free, how could nations avoid a free-rider issue regarding other nations? For instance, a major part of scientific research is done in US, isn't it? Does that mean that the US tax payer should be the major contributor to an hypothetical worldwide scientific activity?

DarkLinkXXXX 11y ago
Wouldn't that benefit everyone?
- grondilu 11y ago
  You end up in a situation where a minority is coerced to pay for everyone. It's morally wrong.
  - pbhjpbhj 11y ago
    No, the minority pay si that can benefit, it just happens that others who haven't paid benefit too. Like when a country act to reduce their industrial impact on the atmosphere, their citizens benefit with cleaner air/water or whatever but there's a benefit to the rest of the world too. Being altruistic leads to greater overall benefit. Being miserly leads to global detriment. Applying Kant's Imperative as the moral measure leads to say it's morally wrong not to pay as if no-one were to pay we all lose out.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - grondilu 11y ago
      It's not so much about altruism or the moral validity of taxation. It's about equality and fairness. If some people can take advantage from the expropriation of others, then who gets to say who can be expropriated and who can't? With taxation the justification comes more or less from the revenues and wealth differential, basically it is assumed that rich people can pay because they suffer less from the requisition of a small part of their wealth. But if the criteria is only nationality, I'm not sure they will accept it that easily.
wrong_variable 11y ago
Do you think if you mass drop all the important physics paper and maths paper on nuclear physics in syria - then somehow ISIS will be able to create a nuclear weapon ? It takes an intellectually advanced society to understand another intellectually advanced nation. If science produced in the US was actually superior, demand for US scientists would sky-rocket globally. US education would have higher value. And other countries will try to match the US in science funding.
- grondilu 11y ago
  > Do you think if you mass drop all the important physics paper and maths paper on nuclear physics in syria - then somehow ISIS will be able to create a nuclear weapon ? I don't know about this particular example, but I do know that some scientific works are kept secret because they do have obvious military applications. I have only one example I'm sure of, the Orion project, but I'd be surprised if there are not lots of others.
themartorana 11y ago
Yes. This assumes, of course, science done in other countries also becomes freely available. But why do I care who advances science, if the advances (or, at least the knowledge) are available to humans at large? This is notwithstanding top secret scientific research, which is just loaded with nuance. But we're not discussing that today.
merraksh 11y ago
For instance, a major part of scientific research is done in US, isn't it? A good part, roughly on par with Europe, Japan, Russia, and China (number of papers is hardly a measure of scientific production anyway): https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/20k5dk/top_40_countries_by_the_number_of_scientific https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/20k5dk/top... Does that mean that the US tax payer should be the major contributor to an hypothetical worldwide scientific activity? All tax payers on this planet (at least those living in a country with sizeable research spending) already contribute to the worldwide scientific knowledge. I believe this is a good thing. [edit: typo]
- grondilu 11y ago
  > All tax payers on this planet (at least those living in a country with sizeable research spending) already contribute to the worldwide scientific knowledge. I believe this is a good thing. Then you still get a free-rider problem, regarding all people that did not pay taxes for this research. You can ignore the issue but tax payers may not.
  - merraksh 11y ago
    Agreed, but all taxpayers fund only a portion of the worldwide research and benefit from all of it, so the trade-off is still in favor of sharing.

DarkLinkXXXX 11y ago

Wouldn't that benefit everyone?

grondilu 11y ago
You end up in a situation where a minority is coerced to pay for everyone. It's morally wrong.
- pbhjpbhj 11y ago
  No, the minority pay si that can benefit, it just happens that others who haven't paid benefit too. Like when a country act to reduce their industrial impact on the atmosphere, their citizens benefit with cleaner air/water or whatever but there's a benefit to the rest of the world too. Being altruistic leads to greater overall benefit. Being miserly leads to global detriment. Applying Kant's Imperative as the moral measure leads to say it's morally wrong not to pay as if no-one were to pay we all lose out.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - grondilu 11y ago
    It's not so much about altruism or the moral validity of taxation. It's about equality and fairness. If some people can take advantage from the expropriation of others, then who gets to say who can be expropriated and who can't? With taxation the justification comes more or less from the revenues and wealth differential, basically it is assumed that rich people can pay because they suffer less from the requisition of a small part of their wealth. But if the criteria is only nationality, I'm not sure they will accept it that easily.

wrong_variable 11y ago

Do you think if you mass drop all the important physics paper and maths paper on nuclear physics in syria - then somehow ISIS will be able to create a nuclear weapon ? It takes an intellectually advanced society to understand another intellectually advanced nation. If science produced in the US was actually superior, demand for US scientists would sky-rocket globally. US education would have higher value. And other countries will try to match the US in science funding.

grondilu 11y ago
> Do you think if you mass drop all the important physics paper and maths paper on nuclear physics in syria - then somehow ISIS will be able to create a nuclear weapon ? I don't know about this particular example, but I do know that some scientific works are kept secret because they do have obvious military applications. I have only one example I'm sure of, the Orion project, but I'd be surprised if there are not lots of others.

themartorana 11y ago

Yes. This assumes, of course, science done in other countries also becomes freely available. But why do I care who advances science, if the advances (or, at least the knowledge) are available to humans at large? This is notwithstanding top secret scientific research, which is just loaded with nuance. But we're not discussing that today.

merraksh 11y ago

For instance, a major part of scientific research is done in US, isn't it? A good part, roughly on par with Europe, Japan, Russia, and China (number of papers is hardly a measure of scientific production anyway): https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/20k5dk/top_40_countries_by_the_number_of_scientific https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/20k5dk/top... Does that mean that the US tax payer should be the major contributor to an hypothetical worldwide scientific activity? All tax payers on this planet (at least those living in a country with sizeable research spending) already contribute to the worldwide scientific knowledge. I believe this is a good thing. [edit: typo]

grondilu 11y ago
> All tax payers on this planet (at least those living in a country with sizeable research spending) already contribute to the worldwide scientific knowledge. I believe this is a good thing. Then you still get a free-rider problem, regarding all people that did not pay taxes for this research. You can ignore the issue but tax payers may not.
- merraksh 11y ago
  Agreed, but all taxpayers fund only a portion of the worldwide research and benefit from all of it, so the trade-off is still in favor of sharing.