[Dclug] Fwd: Re: Mueller talk today

[Joseph S D Yao]

On Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 12:42:46PM -0500, Przemek Klosowski wrote:
...
> I am not arguing that science or technology should be done by volunteers
> for free, I am just pointing out that calling free exchange of ideas
> 'communism' is silly. Of course the smart people who develop technology
> have to make a living, but we have figured out mechanisms to do that.
> Science is in large degree done by universities, so we as society fund
> their work by sending our kids to school and by allowing our taxes to
> fund competitive science grants.
> 
> This isn't some kind of hippie lefty big government scheme: it is a
> conscious decision we made as society in the fifties that investment in
> scientific research is wise. It served us well since then. I think that,
> given the importance of computer and information technologies in
> contemporary life, it is appropriate to have a similar mechanism to
> develop them in the public space.
...


It has been a while since I was at college.  I hear more and more that
the funding of pure research is dying, and that universities and their
professors are having to develop side companies to support themselves.

Sad.  Ideally, we would continue as a country [tax dollars used to fund
much research] and as an economy [companies and foundations funded some]
and, as you say, as individuals, we would be more willing to support
research that doesn't have the kind of immediate results that stock-
market gamblers have come to demand of companies, closing down the
appeal of long-term vision in decision-making.

</rant>


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** Joe Yao				jsdy at tux.org - Joseph S. D. Yao
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