Anyone Else Staying Up For The CERN Announcement About The Higgs Boson Tonight?

[Jon Miller]

Very few people give even a single **** about science spending. But it is high status because the people who do are well educated and prestigious. We ought to lower the status of science spending by deriding politicians who waste our money. But people like you sabotage all that with your confused and incoherent defenses of waste.

How is my defense incoherent?

1. It is a public good, so should be funding by the government.
2. The money is spent where the experts think it should go, instead of non-experts.
3. Humans are inquisitive, and want to understand how the universe works. It is why I went into physics. Robotics or AI does nothing for that part of me, and doesn't do anything for that part of others too.
4. The experts consider, when picking projects to fund, what applications/public education can achieve.
5. Many things that are 'side products' of fundamental research, like military research, would never be developed without basic research. There was no reason but basic reason to learn how to build accelerators, but once we had them, we could do things like proton therapy and create better/different types of radiation sources which could be used in medical treatments. There are many examples like this (the WWW is not a good example, because other fields would want to develop it at some point). The claim that it would be more efficient just to chase after these things and not do basic research is crazy, because we don't know what things that basic research would lead us to create that will advance other fields.

Companies are very short range looking, because bonuses depend on a quarter or a year and not on what the firm is doing in 20 years.

You might argue that government funding is crowding out private funding, but this is not the case http://cba.unomaha.edu/faculty/adiam...Fs/CrowdIn.pdf . Really, the funding of basic research is something that companies want to have happen, but that they don't want to do themselves because it is a public good.

I haven't found a well argued link for it yet, but I think that Universities produce healthier applied researchers (/engineers/etc) when they engage in basic research.

Another article:

http://in3.dem.ist.utl.pt/master/stpolicy03/temas/tema6_1a.pdf

The two most useful things that come out of public research are: skilled graduates and instrumentation development. These things hold just as strongly for basic research as applied research.
"Rosenberg 1992 argues that such instrumentation would generally not have been developed without government funding allowing researchers to probe fundamental questions."
This paper considers the actual knowledge obtained as just one (and not the most important) of the useful consequences of research.

JM

[Aeson]

Take it up with Joseph Smith.

[irrelevant wall of text]

None of which supports your insinuation that they don't view Jesus as the Christ who suffered for all our sins.

[Aeson]

How does how much one pay in taxes = being less of the "we" in the American taxpayer populace. IIRC, it's still 1 person, 1 vote (well, mostly).

KH is confused about what constitutes citizenship and/or the applicable pronoun to use to refer to a nation one is part of. Kuci probably knows the difference but is just KH's *****. So what can he do but play along?

[Kuciwalker]

If a private company dedicated to research into high-energy particle physics successfully funded itself by naming newly discovered particles after its customers, would that be a waste of money?

If we are constrainted to keep the system where discoverers have the right to name a particle, then no, it would not be a waste. The funders' revealed preference is for the name instead of the wealth, which implies that it is a mutually beneficial transaction. However, it would be even more efficient if we auctioned off the right to name particles in advance of their discovery and distributed the proceeds to everyone, presuming that the purchasers would find that equally valuable.

[Kuciwalker]

How is my defense incoherent?

I was referring to your earlier "only the people who want it should get to evaluate the merits" thing.

1. It is a public good, so should be funding by the government.

1. This does not actually follow. It's an Econ 101 maxim that isn't actually true in the real world.
2. It's not a "good" because it provides essentially no value.

2. The money is spent where the experts think it should go, instead of non-experts.

The experts are the ones getting the money. They have every incentive to promote wasteful spending.

3. Humans are inquisitive, and want to understand how the universe works. It is why I went into physics. Robotics or AI does nothing for that part of me, and doesn't do anything for that part of others too.

1. Lots of people care about robotics and AI discoveries.
2. This boils down to it having entertainment value. The LHC has observably less entertainment value than many things that cost much less. If we have to give the money away we should give it to TV producers or something. Moreover, there's no reason it shouldn't be funded private JUST LIKE ALMOST ALL OTHER ENTERTAINMENT.

4. The experts consider, when picking projects to fund, what applications/public education can achieve.

BS. The entire grant process is an exercise in coming up with a plausible lie about how your pet project is useful for something beyond your own career. This part of science funding is observably broken.

Additional evidence: the LHC was funded. It would not have been if the experts were honestly allocating our money in the way to produce the most value to the public.

5. Many things that are 'side products' of fundamental research, like military research, would never be developed without basic research. There was no reason but basic reason to learn how to build accelerators, but once we had them, we could do things like proton therapy and create better/different types of radiation sources which could be used in medical treatments.

The accelerators that got our feet in those doors were not multibillion dollar projects. There's also nothing wrong with particle accelerators in general; they are useful for plenty of medical and materials research. The LHC is very obviously NOT so, and cannot be for decades at least.

There are many examples like this (the WWW is not a good example, because other fields would want to develop it at some point). The claim that it would be more efficient just to chase after these things and not do basic research is crazy, because we don't know what things that basic research would lead us to create that will advance other fields.

Stop lying about how we don't support basic research. Basic research is great. It should just HAVE A PLAUSIBLE RELATION TO FUTURE VALUE.

We KNOW FOR A FACT that the LHC cannot possibly be useful in the near future. Any theory that can only be tested with the LHC CANNOT be useful right now because any machine based on it would have to be at least as expensive!

You might argue that government funding is crowding out private funding, but this is not the case http://cba.unomaha.edu/faculty/adiam...Fs/CrowdIn.pdf.

Don't even try to cite economists, Jon. That article doesn't support your position. And the ENTIRE POINT OF THIS ARGUMENT is that "science" as some kind of generic thing involving lab coats IS NOT USEFUL. Science that WE COULD ACTUALLY USE TO ACCOMPLISH STUFF is useful. We know with certainty that the LHC is not this.

The LHC didn't crowd out science spending in general, but it certainly did crowd out alternate, MORE VALUABLE science spending.

[Jon Miller]

The accelerators that got our feet in those doors were not multibillion dollar projects. There's also nothing wrong with particle accelerators in general; they are useful for plenty of medical and materials research. The LHC is very obviously NOT so, and cannot be for decades at least.

As I supplied earlier in the thread, the cost at the time when those accelerators were developed was more relative cost than the LHC is now. They took many decades to be useful, which is what one would have expected.

But it never would have happened without the basic research of the 60s/etc.

Stop lying about how we don't support basic research. Basic research is great. It should just HAVE A PLAUSIBLE RELATION TO FUTURE VALUE.

This is done. You have ignored my review article that the most important components of FUTURE VALUE have nothing to do with the actual research goal, as long as it is gone about in a scientific manner.

Even Astronomy/Astrophysics provides significant benefits.

We KNOW FOR A FACT that the LHC cannot possibly be useful in the near future. Any theory that can only be tested with the LHC CANNOT be useful right now because any machine based on it would have to be at least as expensive!

You are ignoring the largest components of 'goods' that basic research produces, which are new instrument technology (some of which were never thought of before (like the earlier colliders), and some of which would never be done by more profit oriented private companies) and students who have been scientists.

Don't even try to cite economists, Jon. That article doesn't support your position. And the ENTIRE POINT OF THIS ARGUMENT is that "science" as some kind of generic thing involving lab coats IS NOT USEFUL. Science that WE COULD ACTUALLY USE TO ACCOMPLISH STUFF is useful. We know with certainty that the LHC is not this.

The LHC didn't crowd out science spending in general, but it certainly did crowd out alternate, MORE VALUABLE science spending.

You ignored the other article.

The LHC encouraged private science output, and did not crowd out more valuable science spending. As far as 'applied' science goes, we 'waste' tons of money trying to do things when what we need is better knowledge (not the Higgs, maybe, but techniques which only became obvious when looking for the Higgs, yes.)

I already addressed the point of it being 'private entertainment'. The public goods involved (education/related applications) are much too high for it to be considered just entertainment, and if it was done by privately instead of publicly, more money would go to 'silly' stuff like theory/astronomy/cold fusion. If it wasn't due to the public wanting such things, too much money already goes to them.

If you didn't fund the LHC, you would be funding alternate, less valuable (as far as science and applications go) science spending (like theory/astronomy/etc).

JM

[Lorizael]

If we are constrainted to keep the system where discoverers have the right to name a particle, then no, it would not be a waste. The funders' revealed preference is for the name instead of the wealth, which implies that it is a mutually beneficial transaction. However, it would be even more efficient if we auctioned off the right to name particles in advance of their discovery and distributed the proceeds to everyone, presuming that the purchasers would find that equally valuable.

I had a counter argument prepared for this response, but after some consideration I realize that my counter argument is flawed. So instead I'll just conclude with this: We're not going to find any common ground here, because you and I have very different methods of assigning value to things. You, of course, would say that you don't assign value to things, that you let the aggregate wisdom of the market assign value, but that is simply you assigning value to the market's aggregate wisdom. I have a different system, based on a completely different set of axioms, which is not really compatible with yours.

[giblets]

Which is why Newton got a grant to study just that?

He did most of his work on the Principia during his two year haitus from Cambridge.

No one thinks the government needs to fund something that a single person can do in their spare time. If finding the Higgs Boson was actually a useful thing that would improve everyone's lives, it's not like a physicist could do it by himself with no funding while on a two year hiatus.

[kentonio]

Well, from what I can see, Beck never completed his post-secondary education, and is a member of a cult.

Oh beautiful irony..

[kentonio]

BS. The entire grant process is an exercise in coming up with a plausible lie about how your pet project is useful for something beyond your own career. This part of science funding is observably broken.

Given that the financial system you can't help wanking yourself off over in every thread is also undeniably pretty broken at the moment, maybe you should concentrate on that and leave science to people who actually care about science?

[The Mad Monk]

Nikola Tesla, the public good personified.

The US isn't in the business of lifetime stipends, in his case I would have made an exception.

[Kidlicious]

None of which supports your insinuation that they don't view Jesus as the Christ who suffered for all our sins.

They believe God was once a man and became a God by doing good works. Mormons believe in a different Jesus Christ.

[Kuciwalker]

I had a counter argument prepared for this response, but after some consideration I realize that my counter argument is flawed. So instead I'll just conclude with this: We're not going to find any common ground here, because you and I have very different methods of assigning value to things. You, of course, would say that you don't assign value to things, that you let the aggregate wisdom of the market assign value, but that is simply you assigning value to the market's aggregate wisdom. I have a different system, based on a completely different set of axioms, which is not really compatible with yours.

No. The aggregate wisdom of the market (i.e. the market price) of a thing is a useful way for us to estimate the value of a thing. In the same way, the reading of a scale is a good way to measure the mass of an object, but that mass is property distinct and independent from the measuring device.

(Also, properly speaking value is a relation between people and objects, not an intrinsic property.)

[ricketyclik]

No. The aggregate wisdom of the market (i.e. the market price) of a thing is a useful way for us to estimate the value of a thing. In the same way, the reading of a scale is a good way to measure the mass of an object, but that mass is property distinct and independent from the measuring device.

(Also, properly speaking value is a relation between people and objects, not an intrinsic property.)

The market doesn't seem that great at estimating the cost of pumping carcinogens into water supplies.

[Kuciwalker]

As I supplied earlier in the thread, the cost at the time when those accelerators were developed was more relative cost than the LHC is now. They took many decades to be useful, which is what one would have expected.

WTF are you measuring "relative" to? GDP?

This is done. You have ignored my review article that the most important components of FUTURE VALUE have nothing to do with the actual research goal, as long as it is gone about in a scientific manner.

The paper doesn't support your position, Jon. I'd suggest you actually read it but I suspect you aren't even capable of identifying the points at which its findings in favor of publicly funded research do not support funding things like the LHC.

Even Astronomy/Astrophysics provides significant benefits.

BS. Not in relation to their costs. Particularly not if you discount things we could do anyway without actually doing astronomy.

You are ignoring the largest components of 'goods' that basic research produces, which are new instrument technology (some of which were never thought of before (like the earlier colliders), and some of which would never be done by more profit oriented private companies) and students who have been scientists.

NONE of this supports the LHC. ALL of these goals could be achieved without the LHC. The LHC diverts students from studying useful things. Some of them study useful things by accident, but we would be better off telling them to study those things directly. You really have that high an estimate of the returns to new instrumentation? We could do all of that instrumentation research without actually building a giant tunnel. And any instrumentation research that can only be done in the presence of a multibillion dollar particle collider clearly can't have actual useful applications, otherwise we would just test it on those cases instead.

I already addressed the point of it being 'private entertainment'. The public goods involved (education/related applications) are much too high for it to be considered just entertainment, and if it was done by privately instead of publicly, more money would go to 'silly' stuff like theory/astronomy/cold fusion.

At this point cold fusion is no less wasteful than the LHC.

If you didn't fund the LHC, you would be funding alternate, less valuable (as far as science and applications go) science spending (like theory/astronomy/etc).

BS. Once again you argue that the LHC proponents are heroically saving us from wasting our money on even less useful things. Do you realize how absurd that claim is?