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That's a... very upside-down way of looking at it. The alternative is that those funds would not have been received at all. Normally, large amounts of people d
by Karunamon 10y ago
That's a... very upside-down way of looking at it. The alternative is that those funds would not have been received at all.
Normally, large amounts of people donating to a good cause is seen as a universal positive...
- lvs 10y agoNo, the upside down part of it is that our systemic mechanisms for research funding are so limited compared to the scale of the problems we face as a species that we need to fall back on silly internet campaigns to fund this work.
- pizza 10y agoSee: scientists complaining about the effect of funding the Human Genome Project, nearly 30 years ago.
- rarec 10y agoIs it silly if it works?
- lvs 10y agoYes, of course it's silly as a funding mechanism. What happens with the money downstream is independent of how it was obtained. The point is that science should not have to resort to this kind of thing in a society that appropriately places knowledge as a coordinated priority.
- Noseshine 10y agoYour definition of "it works" seems to be circular, based on "what we've got works - otherwise we would not be here". IT doesn't look like you thought about alternatives. "It did something positive (at all, this time)" (and let's ignore the bigger picture altogether) = "it works"?
- praxulus 10y agoIt could plausibly be used as en excuse to cut public funding (e.g. "Look how successful private donations are!"). I don't think that's a big enough problem to dismiss the next iteration of the ice bucket challenge, but it's worth considering.
- icebraining 10y agoOn the contrary, the raised awareness seems to have increased the public funding. Both houses of Congress passed extra millions of funding just this month.