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This ties in with my thinking that there is just too much funding to do research for the sake of research. Let the private sector work on moonshots if they want

This ties in with my thinking that there is just too much funding to do research for the sake of research. Let the private sector work on moonshots if they want but more realistically no one should be researching super far out problems. Instead the agile "just in time" approach needs to be used in academia as well as private companies. A good analogy is no one was trying to build electric cars fifty years ago but now they are. But they only are because progress has been made indirectly in other fields to make it worth it now.

oska 10y ago
> A good analogy is no one was trying to build electric cars fifty years ago but now they are. People were trying to make electric cars 120 years ago and succeeding. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car#History
- hugh4 10y ago
  True. On the other hand, nobody was trying to build them fifty years ago.
MawNicker 10y ago
Babbage designed a computer almost 200 years ago. We need people to be working on moonshots. A lot of them will fail. When one finally succeeds it pierces the veil of "just in time" capitalistic motivation. The financial incentive is certainly perverse in this case. Everyone sells their ideas up front in a frenzied competition to exist. We need a lot more research for the sake of research. More varied and more useless. We need to find a way for people like Babbage to exist, at scale, while seeking whatever intrinsic motivations drive them. We likely won't be able to know if they're doing anything useful until they're done. Academia needs the ivory tower.
- archeopterix 10y ago
  But I don't want moonshots, I want moon transit.
lalalandland 10y ago
I think you are throwing the baby out with the bath water here. Science is a cornerstone of the society we live in. To actively explore reality to better understand it is one of humanities greatest achievements. Flamebait: Should we stop funding schools because most kids are bad at reading ?
macspoofing 10y ago
That's one perspective, however, collectively, as a society we see value in funding such research. I think that's a better approach. > But they only are because progress has been made indirectly in other fields to make it worth it now Yeah, like the fundamental 'moonshot' research done in the 1700s, 1800s and early 1900s, which now serves as foundation for all electronics.

oska 10y ago

> A good analogy is no one was trying to build electric cars fifty years ago but now they are. People were trying to make electric cars 120 years ago and succeeding. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car#History

hugh4 10y ago
True. On the other hand, nobody was trying to build them fifty years ago.

MawNicker 10y ago

Babbage designed a computer almost 200 years ago. We need people to be working on moonshots. A lot of them will fail. When one finally succeeds it pierces the veil of "just in time" capitalistic motivation. The financial incentive is certainly perverse in this case. Everyone sells their ideas up front in a frenzied competition to exist. We need a lot more research for the sake of research. More varied and more useless. We need to find a way for people like Babbage to exist, at scale, while seeking whatever intrinsic motivations drive them. We likely won't be able to know if they're doing anything useful until they're done. Academia needs the ivory tower.

archeopterix 10y ago
But I don't want moonshots, I want moon transit.

lalalandland 10y ago

I think you are throwing the baby out with the bath water here. Science is a cornerstone of the society we live in. To actively explore reality to better understand it is one of humanities greatest achievements. Flamebait: Should we stop funding schools because most kids are bad at reading ?

macspoofing 10y ago

That's one perspective, however, collectively, as a society we see value in funding such research. I think that's a better approach. > But they only are because progress has been made indirectly in other fields to make it worth it now Yeah, like the fundamental 'moonshot' research done in the 1700s, 1800s and early 1900s, which now serves as foundation for all electronics.