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PaperclipPerfector  14d ago (text post)   33670 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 24, 2025

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I mean, it’s the truth. Basic science is a fundamental engine of progress. Just look at the past century of innovation.

Funding basic science is not something companies typically do. It’s too indirect. They’re not going to foot the bill to study what chemicals are in a desert dwelling lizard’s mouth.

I’d argue the same whether I was a scientist or not.

You're just dealing with a catastrophic loss of trust, driven by I think mostly Covid and woke ideological excess. That puts this stuff in the same category as public restrooms and park benches: it sure was nice when we lived in a society where we could have these things without them being abused and ruined for everyone.

I mean, it’s the truth. Basic science is a fundamental engine of progress. Just look at the past century of innovation.

Funding basic science is not something companies typically do.

What is the number one invention of that century of progress? The transistor certainly is a candidate. The FET was invented at Magnavox (and later realized at Bell Labs) and the bipolar junction transistor (and several others) at Bell Labs.

Bell Labs existed in a weird corporate/government liminal space because it was funded by the profits of AT&T's government-granted monopoly on telecommunication through the Reagan administration. I'm not sure it's the right example of corporate research.

Yeah, and said monopoly was eventually broken (sort-of?) by the government itself. Maybe Nybbler could have used the example of the RCA labs (who did do a bunch of interesting fundamental science), but then again, the Labs division were often at loggerheads with management in the back half of the 20th Century, and this infighting led to RCA's demise.

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