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I think government funding of science is actually slowing it down. Most scientists in the academic world are focused on churning out papers for prestige and cha

I think government funding of science is actually slowing it down. Most scientists in the academic world are focused on churning out papers for prestige and chasing grants. There is too much noise generated and lot of it is just bad/poor science. The government crowds out industrial/commercial labs that are necessary to actually complete large huge projects. As for going to mars, look at how much SpaceX has accomplished and what it cost -- significantly leaner and cheaper than NASA running the show. Also, taxes are mainly used for social programs and not really for science.

adkadskhj 5y ago
How many SpaceX's are there? SpaceX is the golden child precisely because of how rare it is. Instead what we normally get are companies chasing the bottom. The hyper efficient, low innovation, short term stock motivated companies.
bitwize 5y ago
> I think government funding of science is actually slowing it down. Maybe you weren't alive during the cold war or the space race. The government poured billions into fundamental research, including hopeless moonshots like parapsychology, to help us beat the Russkies to the moon and/or ensure we were the ones dishing out preemptive nuclear strikes against them if and when the shit really hit the fan. When the government funding of science dried up... well, so did science. Private companies stopped opening Bell Labs or Xerox PARC style "let's throw this at the wall and see if it sticks" research centers, and any research companies do today has to have a clear path to monetization. Which is why we're still using 1970s Xerox PARC style computers (running a 1970s Bell Labs style OS) and not something more next-level. What's more, as political conservatism reasserted itself, so too did anti-intellectualism, with the result that it's hard to get funding from any source for fundamental research.
- dantheman 5y ago
  Government funding hasn't gone down. What about AllenAI? What about deepmind; google, microsoft, etc all run huge research labs.

adkadskhj 5y ago

How many SpaceX's are there? SpaceX is the golden child precisely because of how rare it is. Instead what we normally get are companies chasing the bottom. The hyper efficient, low innovation, short term stock motivated companies.

bitwize 5y ago

> I think government funding of science is actually slowing it down. Maybe you weren't alive during the cold war or the space race. The government poured billions into fundamental research, including hopeless moonshots like parapsychology, to help us beat the Russkies to the moon and/or ensure we were the ones dishing out preemptive nuclear strikes against them if and when the shit really hit the fan. When the government funding of science dried up... well, so did science. Private companies stopped opening Bell Labs or Xerox PARC style "let's throw this at the wall and see if it sticks" research centers, and any research companies do today has to have a clear path to monetization. Which is why we're still using 1970s Xerox PARC style computers (running a 1970s Bell Labs style OS) and not something more next-level. What's more, as political conservatism reasserted itself, so too did anti-intellectualism, with the result that it's hard to get funding from any source for fundamental research.

dantheman 5y ago
Government funding hasn't gone down. What about AllenAI? What about deepmind; google, microsoft, etc all run huge research labs.