3 ms·

How many breakthroughs have been lost because they were outside the mainstream?

gtsop 6y ago
The way this topic is portrayed looks incomplete to me. Explaining: The pursuit of knowlegde is not happening for the sake of knowledge. Maybe the individual scientists/researchers/thinkers are actually atracted to knowledge for the sake of it, but the funding and direction is coming from entities of the public or private sector and everything has to ultimately lead to some sort of economic profit. Having that in mind, I would argue that the "problem" (more on the quotes later) is way bigger than just lost breakthroughs. You have breakthroughs that have been ignored or suppressed because it doesn't make economic sense to promote them. You have people potentially on the verge of scientific breakthroughs but not having enough funding because again, there is no forseeable profit coming out of their work. You have scientists hiding their findings from one another (essentially delaying breakthroughs) because their funders want to establish economic profit out of potential breakthroughs. And of course you have people who are brilliant and don't even get a chance to contribute to our knowledge base. In fewer words, you live in a capitalist society that promotes and surfaces work that seems profitable, delays advances to fully capitalize on current technologies, while it also drawns scientific research that might not get tied to profits. To prevent any keyboard warriors here from missinterpreting my sayings: I do not say that there can't be any or a a lot of funding on research that is arguably not profitable, I am saying that these are exceptions and happening waaay less than they should. Back on the "problem". Are you worried that we've lost breakthroughs that could have boosted the economy? That's not the case because aa described above the economy doesn't profit from all research and actually may have negative impact on profits out of some important research. If your worry is that humanity is missing on knowlegde that could have made our lives easier due to the anarchy in how we publish, structure, incorporate and teach new findings... then I'm with you, but the economy isn't

The way this topic is portrayed looks incomplete to me. Explaining: The pursuit of knowlegde is not happening for the sake of knowledge. Maybe the individual scientists/researchers/thinkers are actually atracted to knowledge for the sake of it, but the funding and direction is coming from entities of the public or private sector and everything has to ultimately lead to some sort of economic profit. Having that in mind, I would argue that the "problem" (more on the quotes later) is way bigger than just lost breakthroughs. You have breakthroughs that have been ignored or suppressed because it doesn't make economic sense to promote them. You have people potentially on the verge of scientific breakthroughs but not having enough funding because again, there is no forseeable profit coming out of their work. You have scientists hiding their findings from one another (essentially delaying breakthroughs) because their funders want to establish economic profit out of potential breakthroughs. And of course you have people who are brilliant and don't even get a chance to contribute to our knowledge base. In fewer words, you live in a capitalist society that promotes and surfaces work that seems profitable, delays advances to fully capitalize on current technologies, while it also drawns scientific research that might not get tied to profits. To prevent any keyboard warriors here from missinterpreting my sayings: I do not say that there can't be any or a a lot of funding on research that is arguably not profitable, I am saying that these are exceptions and happening waaay less than they should. Back on the "problem". Are you worried that we've lost breakthroughs that could have boosted the economy? That's not the case because aa described above the economy doesn't profit from all research and actually may have negative impact on profits out of some important research. If your worry is that humanity is missing on knowlegde that could have made our lives easier due to the anarchy in how we publish, structure, incorporate and teach new findings... then I'm with you, but the economy isn't