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One of the problems I've been struggling with lately is how to arrange for this sort of work, while still allowing the researchers to make a living. Governments

by semiel 13y ago

One of the problems I've been struggling with lately is how to arrange for this sort of work, while still allowing the researchers to make a living. Governments and large corporations seem to have by and large lost interest in funding it, and a small company doesn't have the resources to make it sustainable. How do we solve this?

calibraxis 13y ago
Activism is one way. David Graeber discusses this very topic. (Article: http://thebaffler.com/past/of_flying_cars http://thebaffler.com/past/of_flying_cars and video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QgSJkk1tng http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QgSJkk1tng) Neoliberalism since the 70's is a well-known culprit, but he also discusses the corporatization of universities — stifling managerialist bureaucracies.
seanmcdirmid 13y ago
Get lucky and score a position in a forward thinking research lab? Having a PhD helps, but there are plenty of constraints in most research labs also.
justin66 13y ago
> Governments and large corporations seem to have by and large lost interest in funding it, and a small company doesn't have the resources to make it sustainable. How do we solve this? Educating people as to where their tax dollars are going is always a good start. The average joe has some very, very odd ideas about the federal budget and how money is allocated. Personal favorites: the way many people complain about how much we spend on foreign aid. Ask such a person how much we ought spend as a percentage of the budget and the figure will very often represent a massive increase over what we spend now, since we don't spend much at all. Or the way many people literally cannot wrap their heads around how much war costs. A couple of years ago an expert came out and pointed out that we spent more than $20 billion on air conditioning for our military every year in Afghanistan when you include road maintenance and fuel trucks and so on. He was a former general who had been involved in logistics but many people needed to just assume he was full of it, since that's more than we spend every year on fucking NASA. The trouble I see is that if you were a politician and you went around with the charts and visual aids a businessman would use to give a briefing and convey that info... you'd look like Ross Perot. So I guess he just ruined it for everybody.
- leoc 13y ago
  The UK is just launching something to address this: https://twitter.com/MattChorley/status/451773213497118720/ https://twitter.com/MattChorley/status/451773213497118720/ I expect it would be more difficult to do something similar for the US given the wedding-cake of federal, state and local taxes.
  - bjelkeman-again 13y ago
    Got some other reference? That link isn't working and my mobile makes it hard to fix the link.
    - leoc 13y ago
      The link WFM, but try http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2596059/Where-taxes-REALLY-spent-24million-workers-sent-statements-showing-22-goes-benefits.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2596059/Where-taxes-... ?
  - bergie 13y ago
    Here is the Finnish visualization http://www.veropuu.fi/valtionbudjetti/ http://www.veropuu.fi/valtionbudjetti/

by semiel 13y ago

calibraxis 13y ago

Activism is one way. David Graeber discusses this very topic. (Article: http://thebaffler.com/past/of_flying_cars http://thebaffler.com/past/of_flying_cars and video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QgSJkk1tng http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QgSJkk1tng) Neoliberalism since the 70's is a well-known culprit, but he also discusses the corporatization of universities — stifling managerialist bureaucracies.

seanmcdirmid 13y ago

Get lucky and score a position in a forward thinking research lab? Having a PhD helps, but there are plenty of constraints in most research labs also.

justin66 13y ago

> Governments and large corporations seem to have by and large lost interest in funding it, and a small company doesn't have the resources to make it sustainable. How do we solve this? Educating people as to where their tax dollars are going is always a good start. The average joe has some very, very odd ideas about the federal budget and how money is allocated. Personal favorites: the way many people complain about how much we spend on foreign aid. Ask such a person how much we ought spend as a percentage of the budget and the figure will very often represent a massive increase over what we spend now, since we don't spend much at all. Or the way many people literally cannot wrap their heads around how much war costs. A couple of years ago an expert came out and pointed out that we spent more than $20 billion on air conditioning for our military every year in Afghanistan when you include road maintenance and fuel trucks and so on. He was a former general who had been involved in logistics but many people needed to just assume he was full of it, since that's more than we spend every year on fucking NASA. The trouble I see is that if you were a politician and you went around with the charts and visual aids a businessman would use to give a briefing and convey that info... you'd look like Ross Perot. So I guess he just ruined it for everybody.

leoc 13y ago
The UK is just launching something to address this: https://twitter.com/MattChorley/status/451773213497118720/ https://twitter.com/MattChorley/status/451773213497118720/ I expect it would be more difficult to do something similar for the US given the wedding-cake of federal, state and local taxes.
- bjelkeman-again 13y ago
  Got some other reference? That link isn't working and my mobile makes it hard to fix the link.
  - leoc 13y ago
    The link WFM, but try http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2596059/Where-taxes-REALLY-spent-24million-workers-sent-statements-showing-22-goes-benefits.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2596059/Where-taxes-... ?
- bergie 13y ago
  Here is the Finnish visualization http://www.veropuu.fi/valtionbudjetti/ http://www.veropuu.fi/valtionbudjetti/