4 ms·

He's saying putting a price on it helps gauge market demand as expressed by willingness to pay, a signal that people find it valuable. What's so unreasonable ab

by dkural 12y ago

He's saying putting a price on it helps gauge market demand as expressed by willingness to pay, a signal that people find it valuable. What's so unreasonable about that? He didn't say it is a way to find what's important, he said it is an important signal to find what people value enough to spend their money on.

benologist 12y ago
Why does this matter to the NSA? They're not a for-profit company and their needs are surely different to for-profit companies so why would they optimize anything on sales?
- irollboozers 12y ago
  Unfortunately, there just aren't many good metrics for future potential scientific value. It's not like you can just give NSA / DARPA / NIH one impact factor, as weird as that sounds.
cowsandmilk 12y ago
> he said it is an important signal to find what people value enough to spend their money on. No, he didn't, he said: > is an important signal as to where they should spend their research time anyone who has looked at basic research knows that immediate commercialization potential is a horrible guide for where to spend time. As a quick example, would you pay for someone to research the immune systems of sharks and camels? No technology transfer office can sell a description of how the immune systems work. It seems ridiculous. But after years were spent researching these topics, describing them in detail in the publicly available literature, companies have taken features of these systems and built products based on them. The goal of government-funded research is not to run a business, directing research into immediate commercialization, it is to do basic science that would not be funded by companies because it does not appear prima facie to have commercial application.
- dkural 12y ago
  Actually, he is saying "what others find valuable is an important signal for research", and I don't see anything obviously wrong with taking into consideration what others find commercially valuable - because NSA is not a "fundamental sciences" research organization. I agree that NSF should pursue what scientists find interesting/important and disregard commercial concerns. NIH will often come ahead doing that as well. On the other hand, let's look at NSA - They develop technologies for spying on people. They write software & do a bunch of other applied work detailed in that PDF. I don't think they should run a business either, but NSAs primary aim is not science. If they go the extra mile beyond publishing a paper and want to license their code / tech to companies for a fee, I don't see why that's a problem. Often some exclusive access or license can spur further investment. I do think open access to all can & often also spurs innovation - but not always. Pharma for instance depends on a government-granted monopoly on the manufacture of a small molecule in the form of a patent, to ensure it can recoup its costs of R&D and indirectly bribing prescribing doctors & paying for ads.
- ganeumann 12y ago
  > The goal of government-funded research is not to run a business, directing research into immediate commercialization, it is to do basic science Sez you. Basic science/pure research is NOT the goal of all government research spending. There happens to be some funding put in place for basic research by Congress (much of the NSF and NIH budgets, for instance) but there is also purpose-driven research that is not "basic science." The department of defense is one of the largest spenders on research in the US government, but much of their research is not "basic science," and even if you termed it that, they are not doing it for the love of knowledge. I assume the NSA is more like this than it is like the NSF.

by dkural 12y ago

benologist 12y ago

Why does this matter to the NSA? They're not a for-profit company and their needs are surely different to for-profit companies so why would they optimize anything on sales?

irollboozers 12y ago
Unfortunately, there just aren't many good metrics for future potential scientific value. It's not like you can just give NSA / DARPA / NIH one impact factor, as weird as that sounds.

cowsandmilk 12y ago

> he said it is an important signal to find what people value enough to spend their money on. No, he didn't, he said: > is an important signal as to where they should spend their research time anyone who has looked at basic research knows that immediate commercialization potential is a horrible guide for where to spend time. As a quick example, would you pay for someone to research the immune systems of sharks and camels? No technology transfer office can sell a description of how the immune systems work. It seems ridiculous. But after years were spent researching these topics, describing them in detail in the publicly available literature, companies have taken features of these systems and built products based on them. The goal of government-funded research is not to run a business, directing research into immediate commercialization, it is to do basic science that would not be funded by companies because it does not appear prima facie to have commercial application.

dkural 12y ago
Actually, he is saying "what others find valuable is an important signal for research", and I don't see anything obviously wrong with taking into consideration what others find commercially valuable - because NSA is not a "fundamental sciences" research organization. I agree that NSF should pursue what scientists find interesting/important and disregard commercial concerns. NIH will often come ahead doing that as well. On the other hand, let's look at NSA - They develop technologies for spying on people. They write software & do a bunch of other applied work detailed in that PDF. I don't think they should run a business either, but NSAs primary aim is not science. If they go the extra mile beyond publishing a paper and want to license their code / tech to companies for a fee, I don't see why that's a problem. Often some exclusive access or license can spur further investment. I do think open access to all can & often also spurs innovation - but not always. Pharma for instance depends on a government-granted monopoly on the manufacture of a small molecule in the form of a patent, to ensure it can recoup its costs of R&D and indirectly bribing prescribing doctors & paying for ads.
ganeumann 12y ago
> The goal of government-funded research is not to run a business, directing research into immediate commercialization, it is to do basic science Sez you. Basic science/pure research is NOT the goal of all government research spending. There happens to be some funding put in place for basic research by Congress (much of the NSF and NIH budgets, for instance) but there is also purpose-driven research that is not "basic science." The department of defense is one of the largest spenders on research in the US government, but much of their research is not "basic science," and even if you termed it that, they are not doing it for the love of knowledge. I assume the NSA is more like this than it is like the NSF.