Posts by BenWilson
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I can't see it working any other way.
It does, after all, seem to be the way that science funding works in the USA. For a huge amount of it, the research is hidden in the military budget, which is enormous. If/when they come up with amazing things, as they frequently do, it gets sold into private hands. This seems unfair and inequitable, but it does produce a shitload of science.
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Thanks for that roundup Bart, most interesting.
There are good people in the labs and they do sometimes squeeze the time and money to do good novel work, but that work then gets ignored because there is no business plan with a clearly identifiable product.
I suspect this is most of our problem, really. For business to fund science, it either has to be a sure bet (in which case it won't be novel) or the business likes taking enormous risk (not so many of those here), or it's a huge business that can lower the risk by funding a lot of different research directions (again, not so many of those here either), for diversification. Which is why government support is needed if we want to attract big programs (which carry big risk). Yes, it puts the risk mostly on the taxpayer, and there is a strong case to ask why they don't get direct dibs on the returns, if there ever are any. But any model in which the government makes investment and expects a big cut of the return isn't one that businesses want to jump on, because they don't get their handout of the socialized risk. Which leaves it in the hands of the government to try to sell the technology, something that mythology suggests they are really bad at doing, either failing to sell, or selling for far less than it's worth.
It's a tough problem, the same problem NZ has with everything - scale. Do we just bite the bullet, up the government investment, and accept that it's a handout to business, with the return coming through tax revenues? I can't see it working any other way.
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Interestingly, Craig, she's been tainted by accusations of homophobia and curious sympathy with the BNP, but has denied both of those things. She just thinks that children need to be protected from wanting to work as rent-boys, and that immigrants are a bit of a worry.
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Not only a Muslim woman, Craig, but a Baroness. If any Muslim woman was going to get to be a top Tory, she would be it. Working class roots, but in a family of enormous self-made wealth.
Pretty amazing really, youngest person in the House of Lords. Will have to watch to see whether she sticks up for her "demographic" (it's almost a demographic of one, she's that unique). Let's hope!
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The Knapp brand was instantly snuffed when he was done for running a dodgy mystery envelope fundraising scheme.
At which point they were socially discredited?
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I do however actually feel grateful that first past the post kept those loons away from the levers of power.
At the small cost of keeping Muldoon in power?
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We're a pretty irreligious lot generally. I tend to approve of the failure to make gods from humans, but it does mean we don't get any gods.
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I agree Damien. I'm far happier about the system in NZ than I have ever been about anyone actually elected by it, but it should be remembered that it was brought in by referendum, and it was a close battle.
A referendum against, however, is something I can't see as being so close. People forget, until reminded, exactly what kind of thing happens under FPP, and the election in the UK is a good reminder. Also, it's no longer the unknown, in NZ, so hysterical scaremongering won't work the way it did last time.
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If you're going to trot out all the Bridehead Revisited Tory toff cliches, don't forget institutionalised jailbait homoerotic BDSM.
Always on my mind.
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> Y'know, the one who always drinks straight from the jug.
Is there another way?
Nope.
<click>Oh, beer jugs.<interest fades>
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