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First, it's highly unclear a priori which scientific discoveries will pay off. The discoverer of Green Fluorescent Protein was denied funding, with others event

First, it's highly unclear a priori which scientific discoveries will pay off. The discoverer of Green Fluorescent Protein was denied funding, with others eventually winning the Nobel Prize for it. Same for mRNA vaccines, most recently featured in COVID-19 vaccine, which also recently won a Nobel Prize. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_fluorescent_protein https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_fluorescent_protein https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katalin_Karik%C3%B3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katalin_Karik%C3%B3 Second, while there are always improvements to be made, the system as is (or was) worked pretty well in practice without knowing what the expected ROI was. The PageRank algorithm which led to Google was funded in part by an NSF grant on Digital Libraries. The ROI on that single invention just from taxes, jobs, and increased productivity likely exceeds NSF's annual budget. DataBricks and Duolingo are also based in part on NSF research. Yeah, the system is imperfect, as all human-oriented systems are, but for the most part it works pretty well in practice and has been a linchpin in the US economic growth and national security.

philwelch 1y ago
If we're going to count the COVID-19 vaccine as a benefit of federal research funding, surely we need to also count COVID-19 itself as a cost, given the strong evidence that the virus was a product of US-funded gain of function research.
- HeyImAlex 1y ago
  Consensus is that the evidence supporting that is not strong.
  - philwelch 1y ago
    It’s not conclusive, but it’s strong enough that President Biden (or rather, someone with control of President Biden’s autopen) issued Dr. Fauci a blanket pardon backdated to 2014.
    - _t9ow 1y ago
      > President Biden (or rather, someone with control of President Biden’s autopen) issued Dr. Fauci a blanket pardon backdated to 2014. This merely proved that President Biden believed that President Trump will prosecute and imprison Dr Fauci if given the opportunity.
      - roenxi 1y ago
        To believe that, they would have to believe he had done something that a prosecutor would object to and that was serious enough to get Fauci imprisoned. Which is to say, that he had committed a crime. If we're expecting it to be an arbitrary act of legal harassment, Trump's team could concoct something based on Fauci's work in 2013. Corruption isn't limited to a 2014-2025 window; unless they are basing it on facts.
        ripe 1y ago
        As we have seen, Trump can hire prosecutors who will prosecute anybody he points his little finger at. He always hires lackeys, so it was easy to predict he would harass Fauci.
        roenxi 1y ago
        So how will the pardon help? If the assumption is that the prosecutors are going to fabricate crimes, the pardon will only help if they fabricate a crime that happened under certain conditions (see: https://www.justice.gov/pardon/media/1385746/ https://www.justice.gov/pardon/media/1385746/). If they're just making something up they can make something up and claim it happened in 2013. The pardon doesn't protect him from harassment, it only protects him if he specifically committed crimes from 2014-2025 or in several official capacities. If the Trump team is just going to pretend they can say he did something 25 years ago in a private capacity and the pardon does nothing. The pardon only helps if he did something plausibly criminal recently (in which case there is a real question of why he got a pardon - they aren't supposed to be preemptive method of putting people above the law without even knowing what they did). A charitable interpretation for Fauci is it is there to distract people from the numerous Biden-family pardons the same day and to stop people asking what they did (https://www.justice.gov/pardon/pardons-granted-president-joseph-biden-2021-present https://www.justice.gov/pardon/pardons-granted-president-jos... if anyone wants to look - C-f "Biden" & I count 4 that day + Hunter). But there are probably other things going on.

philwelch 1y ago

If we're going to count the COVID-19 vaccine as a benefit of federal research funding, surely we need to also count COVID-19 itself as a cost, given the strong evidence that the virus was a product of US-funded gain of function research.

HeyImAlex 1y ago
Consensus is that the evidence supporting that is not strong.
- philwelch 1y ago
  It’s not conclusive, but it’s strong enough that President Biden (or rather, someone with control of President Biden’s autopen) issued Dr. Fauci a blanket pardon backdated to 2014.
  - _t9ow 1y ago
    > President Biden (or rather, someone with control of President Biden’s autopen) issued Dr. Fauci a blanket pardon backdated to 2014. This merely proved that President Biden believed that President Trump will prosecute and imprison Dr Fauci if given the opportunity.
    - roenxi 1y ago
      To believe that, they would have to believe he had done something that a prosecutor would object to and that was serious enough to get Fauci imprisoned. Which is to say, that he had committed a crime. If we're expecting it to be an arbitrary act of legal harassment, Trump's team could concoct something based on Fauci's work in 2013. Corruption isn't limited to a 2014-2025 window; unless they are basing it on facts.
      - ripe 1y ago
        As we have seen, Trump can hire prosecutors who will prosecute anybody he points his little finger at. He always hires lackeys, so it was easy to predict he would harass Fauci.
        roenxi 1y ago
        So how will the pardon help? If the assumption is that the prosecutors are going to fabricate crimes, the pardon will only help if they fabricate a crime that happened under certain conditions (see: https://www.justice.gov/pardon/media/1385746/ https://www.justice.gov/pardon/media/1385746/). If they're just making something up they can make something up and claim it happened in 2013. The pardon doesn't protect him from harassment, it only protects him if he specifically committed crimes from 2014-2025 or in several official capacities. If the Trump team is just going to pretend they can say he did something 25 years ago in a private capacity and the pardon does nothing. The pardon only helps if he did something plausibly criminal recently (in which case there is a real question of why he got a pardon - they aren't supposed to be preemptive method of putting people above the law without even knowing what they did). A charitable interpretation for Fauci is it is there to distract people from the numerous Biden-family pardons the same day and to stop people asking what they did (https://www.justice.gov/pardon/pardons-granted-president-joseph-biden-2021-present https://www.justice.gov/pardon/pardons-granted-president-jos... if anyone wants to look - C-f "Biden" & I count 4 that day + Hunter). But there are probably other things going on.