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I wholly reject the type of argument where "you can't blame people for being self-interested in a given incentive structure". You certainly can. To take it to
by dkural 9y ago
I wholly reject the type of argument where "you can't blame people for being self-interested in a given incentive structure". You certainly can. To take it to an absurd extreme, it is a bit like saying you can't blame people for not standing up to Nazis in Weimar Germany. It is indeed suicidal to have done so, yet, you can blame them.
That said, I also wholly agree that it is foolish to expect change before changing their incentives. Public exposure of the racket that is scientific publishing is one such minor incentive change.
- laretluval 9y agoYes, you can blame them. It would give a great feeling of righteous indignation. But would that help solve the problem?
- wfo 9y agoWith a functioning justice system or government or social structure, with blame comes punishment and consequences that deter future behavior. If top researchers refused to publish in or advocate their department pay for closed-access journals, they would die. If the NSF required NSF funding could not be used to generate work that would be published in closed-access journals, they would die. If the justice department broke up these journals for the public good or we simply made it impossible for certain IP regulations to apply to scientific research, they would die. All of these actions require first to acknowledge there is a problem, second to blame corporations running closed-access journals, third to destroy them. You can't skip the second step.