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> Let me be clear: This is precisely about sides and ideologies. How so? It is, I suppose, pushing an ideology that everyone should support education, researc

by JadeNB 1y ago

> Let me be clear: This is precisely about sides and ideologies. How so? It is, I suppose, pushing an ideology that everyone should support education, research, clean air, and safe roads, but any belief in some sort of universal good must rely on an ideology, if only circularly on the ideology that there is such a thing as a universal good.

esafak 1y ago
In the broad sense of ideology as "a system of ideas and ideals, especially one which forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy" (New Oxford American Dictionary)
shankfalserinse 1y ago
Because there are people who believe we don't need new things. What is research to them?
jvanderbot 1y ago
It can be taken to be about sides/ideology when the cause of cancellation of certain high profile university's funding is over ideological / political disputes. TFA seems to say "This is important and we shouldn't cut general funding", but also goes on to call on industry, in particular large tech company CEOs to push back against ideologically driven funding cuts. That toes the line of calling for political responses.
cle 1y ago
"Everyone should support education" is an empty platitude, it doesn't help answer questions like "how much funding?" and "who gets funding and who doesn't?". That's where the sides arise. The author (and Nature) pretends like those aren't real problems and that scientists should get unconditional support. That's never been the case.
the_af 1y ago
> How so? There are currently existing ideologies in power in some countries (e.g. in Argentina, not everything is about the US!) that stand for de-funding health, education and basic science and research, and anything that is not of immediate use for businesses. It's a self-defeating ideology (because business do benefit from basic research in the long term), but it does exist today.
georgeecollins 1y ago
I think there are credible arguments about investing less in education and research. At a really basic level, imagine if you are a retired couple in a small town. You pay a lot of taxes that goes to support a school you don't have any kids at and a university you didn't go to. That's something like the state of the world for a lot of voters in parts of the United States-- aging / dying rural towns and exurbs. When the greater good is the extreme wealth of coastal cities (and I think it is!) you can see there lots of places that really don't want to pay for it. Another good argument against our subsidy of education (although maybe not against research) is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_Against_Education https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_Against_Education I don't really agree, and I am surprised there are people here who would argue against funding research.
- LarsDu88 1y ago
  If this is what many people perceive, it does not actually align with what is going on in the United States today. What's actually happening is that most of the wealth and tax revenue is generated by the coastal metropolitan areas of the US, which basically subsidize the rural inland regions of the country. Things like Medicare which those same rural folks vote against. This is because the amount of wealth generated by science and technology vastly outweighs what is being generated by rural areas of the country. Now we cut off the pipeline and investment into those wealth generating areas so that long term, the nation will head into decline...
  - ashoeafoot 1y ago
    The costal vampire empires rob those towns of youth and future
    - LarsDu88 1y ago
      The youth leave because there is no future in those rural and former manufacturing areas of the country. The solution by the current administration is to weaken the dollar, but this is basically robbing everyone... when the dollar goes down by 15%, its the same as torching 15% of everyone's money -- same as inflation. The correct solution is to tax the disproportionately wealthy oligarchs of those coastal vampire companies... the tech monopolies which implicitly levy taxes on all online transactions (Google's 30% cut on android apps, Google's 70% cut on all advertising, Steam's 30% cut on all PC games, Amazon's cut on all online shopping transactions), then reinvest that money into rural industries to make manufacturing competitive. Instead the solution has been to levy a tax on all consumers over all trade, which tends to make local manufacturing less competitive over the long run.

by JadeNB 1y ago

esafak 1y ago

In the broad sense of ideology as "a system of ideas and ideals, especially one which forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy" (New Oxford American Dictionary)

shankfalserinse 1y ago

Because there are people who believe we don't need new things. What is research to them?

jvanderbot 1y ago

It can be taken to be about sides/ideology when the cause of cancellation of certain high profile university's funding is over ideological / political disputes. TFA seems to say "This is important and we shouldn't cut general funding", but also goes on to call on industry, in particular large tech company CEOs to push back against ideologically driven funding cuts. That toes the line of calling for political responses.

cle 1y ago

"Everyone should support education" is an empty platitude, it doesn't help answer questions like "how much funding?" and "who gets funding and who doesn't?". That's where the sides arise. The author (and Nature) pretends like those aren't real problems and that scientists should get unconditional support. That's never been the case.

the_af 1y ago

> How so? There are currently existing ideologies in power in some countries (e.g. in Argentina, not everything is about the US!) that stand for de-funding health, education and basic science and research, and anything that is not of immediate use for businesses. It's a self-defeating ideology (because business do benefit from basic research in the long term), but it does exist today.

georgeecollins 1y ago

I think there are credible arguments about investing less in education and research. At a really basic level, imagine if you are a retired couple in a small town. You pay a lot of taxes that goes to support a school you don't have any kids at and a university you didn't go to. That's something like the state of the world for a lot of voters in parts of the United States-- aging / dying rural towns and exurbs. When the greater good is the extreme wealth of coastal cities (and I think it is!) you can see there lots of places that really don't want to pay for it. Another good argument against our subsidy of education (although maybe not against research) is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_Against_Education https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_Against_Education I don't really agree, and I am surprised there are people here who would argue against funding research.

LarsDu88 1y ago
If this is what many people perceive, it does not actually align with what is going on in the United States today. What's actually happening is that most of the wealth and tax revenue is generated by the coastal metropolitan areas of the US, which basically subsidize the rural inland regions of the country. Things like Medicare which those same rural folks vote against. This is because the amount of wealth generated by science and technology vastly outweighs what is being generated by rural areas of the country. Now we cut off the pipeline and investment into those wealth generating areas so that long term, the nation will head into decline...
- ashoeafoot 1y ago
  The costal vampire empires rob those towns of youth and future
  - LarsDu88 1y ago
    The youth leave because there is no future in those rural and former manufacturing areas of the country. The solution by the current administration is to weaken the dollar, but this is basically robbing everyone... when the dollar goes down by 15%, its the same as torching 15% of everyone's money -- same as inflation. The correct solution is to tax the disproportionately wealthy oligarchs of those coastal vampire companies... the tech monopolies which implicitly levy taxes on all online transactions (Google's 30% cut on android apps, Google's 70% cut on all advertising, Steam's 30% cut on all PC games, Amazon's cut on all online shopping transactions), then reinvest that money into rural industries to make manufacturing competitive. Instead the solution has been to levy a tax on all consumers over all trade, which tends to make local manufacturing less competitive over the long run.