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Not that long ago the vast majority of scientific progress originated from rich men doing it in their free time. Does it really matter that they published their

Not that long ago the vast majority of scientific progress originated from rich men doing it in their free time. Does it really matter that they published their results for bragging rights instead of a need to fulfill some goofy academic pipeline requirements? Because those that think that money is the only thing standing between them and meaningful achievement... well, no amount of money will change that for them.

DarylZero 5y ago
I was with you at first but then... > Because those that think that money is the only thing standing between them and meaningful achievement... well, no amount of money will change that for them What? Why couldn't they just be right? You yourself just said: > Not that long ago the vast majority of scientific progress originated from rich men doing it in their free time Is a person still not allowed to understand the fact that if they had more money they could accomplish more things?
- sennight 5y ago
  I worded it exactly as intended when I said "meaningful achievement" instead of "wildest dream". If the scope of your ambition is to push the envelope in astrophysics, you probably already have enough resources at your disposal - and if you don't, a very sophisticated radio astronomy setup is easily within the reach of most individuals and certainly a handful of friends. But if your ambition is very specifically to build a radio telescope on the dark side of the moon... well yeah, that would take a lot of money that you don't have and never will. But even if somebody gifted the amount to you, that radio telescope still isn't getting built - because it was never something that could be achieved at the individual scale in the first place. So the money wasn't the showstopper. Same story with chip fabrication. If somebody is whining about their inability to execute their dream design due to lack of resources - dropping a $500M EUV stepper on them won't fix their problem.
  - DarylZero 5y ago
    > If the scope of your ambition is to push the envelope in astrophysics, you probably already have enough resources at your disposal That's pretty ridiculous. It takes a lot of excess financial capacity for a human to even develop such an ambition in the first place. Even if you have that level of privilege, you have to compete for educational resources and social support against people who may have much more privilege than that.
- quantumwannabe 5y ago
  I think what he is arguing is that someone with a negative attitude ("he can only do that because he's rich!") won't accomplish anything even if they were granted unlimited funding because they are focused on coming up with excuses instead of thinking about what they can do. There are plenty of poor people in third-world countries who have far less than the original commentator (who presumably lives in the first world) who have built very impressive things, especially considering the resources they have available. It is an attitude problem, not a financial one.
  - sennight 5y ago
    Put more bluntly than I was willing, but pretty much. I think this would be the case for the majority of the envious complaints, and the remainder would be a laughably unrealistic over-estimation of the power of money. As in: it doesn't suddenly make you smarter, more industrious, or gift you the ability to perform complex project management involving large organizations.
    - DarylZero 5y ago
      You're assuming someone isn't smart or industrious just because they grew up poor. I think it's a self-serving assumption.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - DarylZero 5y ago
    But you're just assuming, or rather making up, the "fact" that any person saying that didn't accomplish anything and that this is a problem. Poor people do accomplish things!

DarylZero 5y ago

I was with you at first but then... > Because those that think that money is the only thing standing between them and meaningful achievement... well, no amount of money will change that for them What? Why couldn't they just be right? You yourself just said: > Not that long ago the vast majority of scientific progress originated from rich men doing it in their free time Is a person still not allowed to understand the fact that if they had more money they could accomplish more things?

sennight 5y ago
I worded it exactly as intended when I said "meaningful achievement" instead of "wildest dream". If the scope of your ambition is to push the envelope in astrophysics, you probably already have enough resources at your disposal - and if you don't, a very sophisticated radio astronomy setup is easily within the reach of most individuals and certainly a handful of friends. But if your ambition is very specifically to build a radio telescope on the dark side of the moon... well yeah, that would take a lot of money that you don't have and never will. But even if somebody gifted the amount to you, that radio telescope still isn't getting built - because it was never something that could be achieved at the individual scale in the first place. So the money wasn't the showstopper. Same story with chip fabrication. If somebody is whining about their inability to execute their dream design due to lack of resources - dropping a $500M EUV stepper on them won't fix their problem.
- DarylZero 5y ago
  > If the scope of your ambition is to push the envelope in astrophysics, you probably already have enough resources at your disposal That's pretty ridiculous. It takes a lot of excess financial capacity for a human to even develop such an ambition in the first place. Even if you have that level of privilege, you have to compete for educational resources and social support against people who may have much more privilege than that.
quantumwannabe 5y ago
I think what he is arguing is that someone with a negative attitude ("he can only do that because he's rich!") won't accomplish anything even if they were granted unlimited funding because they are focused on coming up with excuses instead of thinking about what they can do. There are plenty of poor people in third-world countries who have far less than the original commentator (who presumably lives in the first world) who have built very impressive things, especially considering the resources they have available. It is an attitude problem, not a financial one.
- sennight 5y ago
  Put more bluntly than I was willing, but pretty much. I think this would be the case for the majority of the envious complaints, and the remainder would be a laughably unrealistic over-estimation of the power of money. As in: it doesn't suddenly make you smarter, more industrious, or gift you the ability to perform complex project management involving large organizations.
  - DarylZero 5y ago
    You're assuming someone isn't smart or industrious just because they grew up poor. I think it's a self-serving assumption.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- DarylZero 5y ago
  But you're just assuming, or rather making up, the "fact" that any person saying that didn't accomplish anything and that this is a problem. Poor people do accomplish things!