• Dadifer@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    23
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    9 hours ago

    It’s obvious how to make it better: spend as much money on scientific progress as we do on figuring out how to blow brown people up.

    • ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      9 hours ago

      I wouldn’t be opposed to more funding but there would still have to be some way to decide who to fund and making a good case that one’s research is worthwhile is always going to take a long time.

      • greenskye@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        24 minutes ago

        Maybe pay people who’s only job it is is to talk to the researchers and write the proposal for them? Someone smart enough to get stuff explained to them, but with the communication skills to boil that down into something the money people can understand?

        It’s a pretty common position in software engineering because programmers and business people are pretty bad at communicating with each other.

      • Dadifer@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        7 hours ago

        No, it only takes a long time because there’s so little to go around. Do you think defense funding takes months and years to award grants? No.

        • halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          7 hours ago

          There are literally decades-long proposals, initial R&D and prototyping for big defense contracts.

          No, they aren’t taking years to award a new contract for the paper provider, but they are for new weapons and vehicles.

          • morrowind@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            5 hours ago

            Yeah because they’re so big. This guy is not asking for a grant for 2000ppl, multi-year project around nuclear fusion, it’s just him and a couple students mucking around in a petri dish