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I have some experience with academic policy and stuff like that. While I don't philosophically agree with the sentiment what someone making actual policy will

I have some experience with academic policy and stuff like that. While I don't philosophically agree with the sentiment what someone making actual policy will tell you is that scientists are, in average, already being payed way more than the "value" they add to "the economy" in their lifetime. There doesn't seem to be a supply crunch for people wanting to pursue a career as a biomedical researcher and the field is highly competitive, as most people on it can tell you. To change that, being completely blunt and with no nuance, I think three things can help: - As a society scientists get "moved out of the market". They kinda already are "out of the market" if you think that most of the money they make comes from strategic government grants backed by monetary emission or by discretionary allocation by "illuminated" boards that are sitting on a stash of money that patents from a very small percentage of previous "science" makes. - We low the barrier for someone to be able to do the "science" we need. Like with music production. A lot of people will be able to self-finance. This is happening with lab equipment but it will likely never happen with research trials and human experimentation. - More money is thrown to whatever "science" we want in general. Like what happened with space exploration or AI. I hope a little bit of the three keep on slowly happening and maybe eventually we will reach a breaking point where everyone has access to personalized cutting edge medicine/diet/exercise plans. I don't find it likely but I hope we make progress torwards that in my lifetime.

Teever 5y ago
> This is happening with lab equipment but it will likely never happen with research trials and human experimentation. I bet that we will see some form of this. In some way we already do in the form of recreation drug users, body modification hobbiests, fetishists, and nutropics users.
alexgmcm 5y ago
At least in Physics a big issue isn't so much the pay (you won't get rich, but you won't starve..) but rather the instability and uncertainty. Due to the way Academia is structured there simply aren't enough jobs, and the more senior people can get stuck just writing grant applications instead of doing actual science. I'd massively expand the number of National Labs and research institutes so it isn't such a pyramid scheme - and allow budget for some sort of "scrum master" figure to deal with the non-science bureaucratic stuff. Expanding the grants budget would also help make it less desperate so scientists can focus on doing science and not begging for funds.

Teever 5y ago

> This is happening with lab equipment but it will likely never happen with research trials and human experimentation. I bet that we will see some form of this. In some way we already do in the form of recreation drug users, body modification hobbiests, fetishists, and nutropics users.

alexgmcm 5y ago

At least in Physics a big issue isn't so much the pay (you won't get rich, but you won't starve..) but rather the instability and uncertainty. Due to the way Academia is structured there simply aren't enough jobs, and the more senior people can get stuck just writing grant applications instead of doing actual science. I'd massively expand the number of National Labs and research institutes so it isn't such a pyramid scheme - and allow budget for some sort of "scrum master" figure to deal with the non-science bureaucratic stuff. Expanding the grants budget would also help make it less desperate so scientists can focus on doing science and not begging for funds.