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1) If you aren't diplomatic while telling people their work is stupid and pointless then no one will listen to you. If no one will listen to you you may as well
by bowsamic 4y ago
1) If you aren't diplomatic while telling people their work is stupid and pointless then no one will listen to you. If no one will listen to you you may as well not talk.
2) No, you can't, or at least, your uninformed "opinion" is worthless. To clarify, Sabine's is not worthless, since she is actually a theoretical particle physicist. A lay person's opinion on the matter is worth nothing.
- iopq 4y agoA lay person like a politician can complain they get no return on their investment, for example
- bowsamic 4y agoThankfully politicians don't think of science in terms of "return on investment" Obviously it must be justified as scientifically important, but they do not expect "something back". Government agencies generally take a more blurry and general approach to R&D, since you cannot predict what comes out of a given experiment. No one predicted an absolute revolution in squeezed light from gravitational wave detection for example. Einstein Telescope and Cosmic Explorer will probably both get funded even though the science case is very minimal and they will cost many billions
- boltzmann-brain 4y agoAfter fifty years and $x T of investment you can easily tell that something's a waste of money. I say that as someone with background in physics. This is another "industry for its own sake", just like the nasa/aerospace/boeing industrial complex, which was clearly so terrible that people decided to overthrow it, and in 10 years we've reached more progress than those people did since the 70s.
- bowsamic 4y agoBut no one who actually controls any money thinks that LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA or LHC or whatever were wastes of money
- boltzmann-brain 4y agoWhich is a fair observation because that's exactly the crux of the problem.
- bowsamic 4y agoI don't understand why you think it's a problem
- User23 4y agoPoliticians think of Big Science in terms of appropriations and sending cash to their principals, who are neither the electorate nor scientists. They don’t consider any money that buys their re-election a waste. They don’t give a rat’s ass if you discover anything and it sounds like you know it. So-called science these days is little different from military spending. As usual, follow the money.
- bowsamic 4y agoPoliticians generally have almost no influence in scientific spending other than "here is a big block of R&D money". Those who dish out the money are not elected officials, at least not elected by the public.
- User23 4y agoIt’s certainly true that the decades long continuing wealth transfer away from the middle class to well-connected elites that incidentally funds your work involves more than just elected politicians. As you note unelected bureaucrats also have their role to play, as do lawyers, lobbyists, and a whole host of other classes of more or less directly involved grifters in addition to ancillary beneficiaries such as yourself. It is nice to see your correct assessment of the irrelevance of the will of the electorate though. Until that becomes broadly understood I see little hope of any meaningful reform.
- bowsamic 4y agoI don't think the public expect that their completely uneducated opinion on physics is in any way relevant to funding. Do you seriously think this will come as a shock to anyone?
- User23 4y agoPerhaps this lack of observational ability is a factor in your drought of new theoretical discoveries? It’s indisputable that the public believes that its completely uneducated opinion on any number of things is relevant to funding in particular and policy in general. That’s rather the point of democracy. It’s not even a terrible system. I don’t have to be an expert on automobiles to rationally believe that we should spend less money on automobile infrastructure and more money on bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure. Similarly nobody has to be an expert on particle physics to believe that money could better be spent elsewhere. When I clicked this story I was generally in favor of funding this research, but to a quite small extent the submission and to a considerably greater extent your clarification of the attitude of practitioners has gone a long way toward convincing me that it is in fact a complete waste of money. Granted, we both agree that government spending is almost entirely undemocratic. And as I said, I appreciate your dispensing with that pretense.
- pessimizer 4y ago> Thankfully politicians don't think of science in terms of "return on investment" It's a very strange thing to think you can speak for "politicians."
- vishnugupta 4y agoWell said. As objective as science is it is humans who are doing science, who have emotions, vested interests and so on. So if someone criticises a whole body of people then be prepared -- best case they are completely ignored, worst case they are retaliated. No surprises there. About opinion; yes sure we all can have it. But please when you offer it then be nice, be open to feedback, be curious. Don't go out all guns blazing.
- Ygg2 4y agoBeing diplomatic doesn't guarantee results either. Guy that noticed people handling corpses should wash hands before doing medical operation got declared a nutcase and died in an asylum. People going after Sabine aren't that much better. It's obvious particle physicists are stuck in a rut, their best theories can't unify gravity and QM or explain dark matter/energy.
- perihelions 4y ago(For those unfamiliar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis )
- JackFr 4y ago> A lay person's opinion on the matter is worth nothing. And yet they still want my money. Weird.
- bowsamic 4y agoWell that's not your choice to make, that's how taxation works. The government choose how to manage and spend a portion of your money. Do you think your opinion matters in deciding if a hospital should be built? Or if we should pay for a new vaccine? No, because you don't know anything about those things. And neither do I. So yes, I will take your money and build my big experiment, and I don't feel bad about it, because I am the expert.