6 ms·

I thought it was a pretty cool project, thought it was self-funded. But I agree I have no idea why I should finance this with my European taxpayer money.

octocop 2y ago
wait until you see the Horizon Europe project
- diggan 2y ago
  > Horizon Europe For people who are unaware, Horizon Europe is a research initiative that spans a wide range of interests, from nuclear energy to basically anything else, with the fine restriction that all research has to be open and public. https://research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/funding/funding-opportunities/funding-programmes-and-open-calls/horizon-europe_en https://research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/funding/funding... I'm not sure what the "dunk" is supposed to mean here, are you saying funding research like this is a waste of taxpayers money?
  - matly 2y ago
    Agreed! I really enjoy seeing stuff like Horizon. There are so many bad examples for taxpayers money (e.g. Gaia-X), but Horizon ain't that.
  - raverbashing 2y ago
    People who dunk on public projects usually are unaware of all the research their own government finances
    - bigfishrunning 2y ago
      Or, it's possible, they are aware and don't support it. I don't think "My government is better then yours" was the goal here...
    - Delk 2y ago
      The same people might also dunk on public projects funded by their own governments. But I think they may not be quite aware of: 1. How many present-day things we take for granted have been enabled by basic research, sometimes on weird or unimportant-sounding topics. 2. How basic research can't necessarily quite go only for "important" and big results and skip the "unimportant" results and topics, or know in advance which ones are going to be useful and which ones aren't. 3. How investments in fundamental research are, proportionally speaking, actually quite small. The 100 billion euros for Horizon Europe sounds like a lot, but that spans over seven years (2021 to 2027), and if it's funding a crapton of all kinds of research, there are also almost certainly going to be lots of results that are going to be useful. And, granted, also lots of ones that won't be, at least not directly. But even the vast majority of the useful ones are going to fly under the radar for just about everyone outside of the particular field so it's easy to not be aware of them (see also points 1 and 2). The EU has a population of ~450 million. The 100B euros over 7 years means the costs are ~225 euros per EU resident in total, or ~32 euros per year. I'm almost certainly paying more than the average EU resident, so let's say I'm paying 70 euros per year for the whole deal. I don't really have a huge problem with that. If it were for some kind of a small or narrow range of projects, I might. But it's not.
  - hallux 2y ago
    There is, of course, the possibility that he was being sarcastic.
    - diggan 2y ago
      Yeah, I suppose, but "EU throws tax payer money in the sea" and "EU stifles innovation with regulation" are so common sentiments around these parts that I'm unsure if it's sarcasm or not, 50/50 at this point.
    - octocop 2y ago
      I wasn't.
    - phatfish 2y ago
      With the prevalence of uniformed opinions about the EU and how it works on HN, that is a long shot (or big reach as the kids say).
  - octocop 2y ago
    I think projects this magnitude are not good, with a 100B euro pricetag that will be diluted into paying for bureaucracy and conferences. It's good that it's keeping people busy though, can't criticise that.
    - diggan 2y ago
      Just so others get a sense of the scale involved here: Currently the portal (CORDIS) has 13674 projects listed as part of Horizon Europe[0]. 100B eur would on average be ~73K EUR per project. While Horizon Europe itself is a huge project, the projects funded from it isn't always huge projects but sometimes small, incremental steps towards something, and sometimes larger projects. But with a perspective on how many projects are within the framework, 100B doesn't sound so much anymore. - [0] https://cordis.europa.eu/search?q=contenttype%3D%27project%27%20AND%20frameworkProgramme%3D%27HORIZON%27&p=1&num=10&srt=/project/contentUpdateDate:decreasing https://cordis.europa.eu/search?q=contenttype%3D%27project%2...
      - octocop 2y ago
        You think 100B doesn't sound much? Do you want to up the numbers to 200B instead? I mean after all it's Cancer research
        diggan 2y ago
        > You think 100B doesn't sound much? I think "~73K EUR per project" doesn't sound much, and I'd happily pay more taxes if I could be sure research would receive more of my taxes.
      - octocop 2y ago
        I mean look at this project, https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101183057 https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101183057 "A digital twin of human milk". Sounds like a homerun right? I'd say 80% of the projects are just filled with buzzwords to get funding, and they rarely produce any good outcomes
        2y ago
- superhuzza 2y ago
  Horizon Europe funds many of the research projects my organisation works on, such as cancer research, COVID-19 and general microbiology research...
  - octocop 2y ago
    Do you mind sharing this?
seper8 2y ago
I'd rather they spend it on projects like these, where at least some people get joy playing videogames for work. Alternative is they get together and cook up some of the worst bureaucratic dogshit wrapped in catshit they call quality legislation.
karma_fountain 2y ago
The EU is the world's main source of and main destination for foreign direct investment (FDI). Inward and outward FDI play a fundamental role for generating sustainable economic growth, business opportunities, employment, technological development and innovation.

octocop 2y ago

wait until you see the Horizon Europe project

diggan 2y ago
> Horizon Europe For people who are unaware, Horizon Europe is a research initiative that spans a wide range of interests, from nuclear energy to basically anything else, with the fine restriction that all research has to be open and public. https://research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/funding/funding-opportunities/funding-programmes-and-open-calls/horizon-europe_en https://research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/funding/funding... I'm not sure what the "dunk" is supposed to mean here, are you saying funding research like this is a waste of taxpayers money?
- matly 2y ago
  Agreed! I really enjoy seeing stuff like Horizon. There are so many bad examples for taxpayers money (e.g. Gaia-X), but Horizon ain't that.
- raverbashing 2y ago
  People who dunk on public projects usually are unaware of all the research their own government finances
  - bigfishrunning 2y ago
    Or, it's possible, they are aware and don't support it. I don't think "My government is better then yours" was the goal here...
  - Delk 2y ago
    The same people might also dunk on public projects funded by their own governments. But I think they may not be quite aware of: 1. How many present-day things we take for granted have been enabled by basic research, sometimes on weird or unimportant-sounding topics. 2. How basic research can't necessarily quite go only for "important" and big results and skip the "unimportant" results and topics, or know in advance which ones are going to be useful and which ones aren't. 3. How investments in fundamental research are, proportionally speaking, actually quite small. The 100 billion euros for Horizon Europe sounds like a lot, but that spans over seven years (2021 to 2027), and if it's funding a crapton of all kinds of research, there are also almost certainly going to be lots of results that are going to be useful. And, granted, also lots of ones that won't be, at least not directly. But even the vast majority of the useful ones are going to fly under the radar for just about everyone outside of the particular field so it's easy to not be aware of them (see also points 1 and 2). The EU has a population of ~450 million. The 100B euros over 7 years means the costs are ~225 euros per EU resident in total, or ~32 euros per year. I'm almost certainly paying more than the average EU resident, so let's say I'm paying 70 euros per year for the whole deal. I don't really have a huge problem with that. If it were for some kind of a small or narrow range of projects, I might. But it's not.
- hallux 2y ago
  There is, of course, the possibility that he was being sarcastic.
  - diggan 2y ago
    Yeah, I suppose, but "EU throws tax payer money in the sea" and "EU stifles innovation with regulation" are so common sentiments around these parts that I'm unsure if it's sarcasm or not, 50/50 at this point.
  - octocop 2y ago
    I wasn't.
  - phatfish 2y ago
    With the prevalence of uniformed opinions about the EU and how it works on HN, that is a long shot (or big reach as the kids say).
- octocop 2y ago
  I think projects this magnitude are not good, with a 100B euro pricetag that will be diluted into paying for bureaucracy and conferences. It's good that it's keeping people busy though, can't criticise that.
  - diggan 2y ago
    Just so others get a sense of the scale involved here: Currently the portal (CORDIS) has 13674 projects listed as part of Horizon Europe[0]. 100B eur would on average be ~73K EUR per project. While Horizon Europe itself is a huge project, the projects funded from it isn't always huge projects but sometimes small, incremental steps towards something, and sometimes larger projects. But with a perspective on how many projects are within the framework, 100B doesn't sound so much anymore. - [0] https://cordis.europa.eu/search?q=contenttype%3D%27project%27%20AND%20frameworkProgramme%3D%27HORIZON%27&p=1&num=10&srt=/project/contentUpdateDate:decreasing https://cordis.europa.eu/search?q=contenttype%3D%27project%2...
    - octocop 2y ago
      You think 100B doesn't sound much? Do you want to up the numbers to 200B instead? I mean after all it's Cancer research
      - diggan 2y ago
        > You think 100B doesn't sound much? I think "~73K EUR per project" doesn't sound much, and I'd happily pay more taxes if I could be sure research would receive more of my taxes.
    - octocop 2y ago
      I mean look at this project, https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101183057 https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101183057 "A digital twin of human milk". Sounds like a homerun right? I'd say 80% of the projects are just filled with buzzwords to get funding, and they rarely produce any good outcomes
      - 2y ago
superhuzza 2y ago
Horizon Europe funds many of the research projects my organisation works on, such as cancer research, COVID-19 and general microbiology research...
- octocop 2y ago
  Do you mind sharing this?

seper8 2y ago

I'd rather they spend it on projects like these, where at least some people get joy playing videogames for work. Alternative is they get together and cook up some of the worst bureaucratic dogshit wrapped in catshit they call quality legislation.

karma_fountain 2y ago

The EU is the world's main source of and main destination for foreign direct investment (FDI). Inward and outward FDI play a fundamental role for generating sustainable economic growth, business opportunities, employment, technological development and innovation.