Comment by khrbrt
2 days ago
Meanwhile China is building it's own giant telescopes: https://www.science.org/content/article/china-quietly-prepar...
And will soon launch their own version of Hubble: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xuntian
Deeply embarrassing as a US citizen.
> Deeply embarrassing as a US citizen.
agreed. America's attitude towards china has been absurd. instead of seeing it as an opportunity for us to step up, we deflect responsibility as if america was forced to offshore its manufacturing and venerate idiots over scientists.
I think a big part of it is that the admission that offshoring was a bad idea that has created a threat to American hegemony would require acknowledgement that neoliberalism has been an abject failure and a ruse by the upper class to suck up capital and political power from the middle class.
That sort of discussion and the consequences from having it just isn't on the menu.
There isn't going to be a massive wealth redistribution in the other direction to offset the redistribution that has taken place over the last 40 years. There isn't going to be taxation reforms to prevent this from occuring again. There isn't going to be a focus on white collar crimes from the Justice department.
Things are just going to slowly get worse and worse in America.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sLSveRGmpIE&pp=0gcJCfwAo7VqN5t...
Well, a peaceful one anyway. As much as it sickens me. We don't have to go back more than 200 years to see what happens when the wealth gap gets too large.
Is this comment a bit reductionist? Sure. Doesn't mean its more wrong than right.
What are you talking about? The current president was elected on the platform that offshoring was a bad idea that has created a threat to American hegemony. Free trade is politically dead now.
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I wish we could operate on the principle of data sharing in science. What a waste of resources to needlessly replicate and compete. Also, great, somebody else is doing it so we don’t have to! Less work for us.
This is already how astronomy, and specifically cosmology, research works in the US (and most other places). Data is made public within a short period of obtaining it on a schedule (usually less than a couple years) that is set before data is taken.
It is far from clear that the Chinese government supports this type of open data sharing.
Yeah but does China have tax cuts for the rich?
Because let's be real here all the patriotism is just a facade the rich want to keep the money for themselves. Singing the national anthem on the fourth of July is cheap.
Yes, especially if you’re part of the CCP [1]. Well if they’re taxed at all. Can’t be taxed if you hide your wealth.
At least the wealth of the richest people in the US is made by people producing value and services. Bezos is rich because people like myself find Amazon and AWS to be quite good.
IMHO, the biggest wealth problem in the US is the rise of upper-middle class “elites” and management class. The one driving “mergers and acquisitions” to reduce competition between grocery stores or using rent control software to eke up rent costs.
1: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2024/oct/8/intelligence...
>At least the wealth of the richest people in the US is made by people producing value and services.
Citation needed. What value and service does a health insurance CEO provide?
"Nationalism is a bourgeois trick.” —Vladimir Lenin
This, and many other things in the area of science, is an embarrassment.
However, I feel that what is argued about, by all sides, misses the point.
The US spends 2X what China does on civilian space programs, and 4X what Europe spends. We spend 2X as much on health care, 1.5X as much on education, and 2X as much on science research.
Our systems are inefficient and corrupt, and that is what needs to be addressed.
Arguing for or against how much money we need to spend or to cut is just the modern day circus that distracts everyone from the real problems and provides everyone on both sides with feel good excuses.
>Our systems are inefficient and corrupt, and that is what needs to be addressed.
Citation needed. Even Musk's DOGE trolls found no evidence of significant corruption/inefficiency.
The first few areas are easy,since budgets are known and there are actual comparative measurements that have been done.
Health. We spend $5T a year on our "health", which is 2X the per capita amounts spent by western European countries, yet we have poorer outcomes. We have poorer outcomes not just among lower income classes, but also poorer outcomes when comparing upper class incomes between the US/Europe
Education. We spend 1.5X per capita compared to western European nations, and we have poorer outcomes
If we would simply match the budgets for these two areas with European budgets, and even accept the fact that they would have better systems in place, we would save $3T a year. This is a fairly direct measure of how much more efficient Europe is with their resources. They are either that much better/smarter than we are, or we have a corrupt system, or a combination of the two.
Public construction costs. It costs 50% to 200% or even more to build public projects in the US than in Europe. That is, if we can even complete our projects. One of many reports and analysis: https://www.constructiondive.com/news/us-rail-projects-take-...
Other areas are difficult to have direct comparisons, and it is difficult to compare results. The US solution to everything is to pour money into it. And it seems that any cut, any type of cut at all, portends doom.
Military. We spend $1T a year. We have something like 1200 military bases, over half are international. We have massive cost and time overruns all the time. Yes, we may have the best military in the world, but it certainly feels like the taxpayers are being taken advantage of. You may feel differently. I do not think we need 1200 based. I do think that the military industrial complex profits way beyond what is reasonable.
Science research. We spend about $1T in R&D, almost triple of Europe. We pay our researchers 2X-3X what researchers make in Europe. Yet it seems that any type of cut to science budgets is met with the proclamation that we will lose all of our researchers to Europe. Our major research centers need a 70% incidental budget on top of their grants otherwise they will go out of business. CEO's of major non profit medical research centers need to make millions and millions of dollars per year. There is something wrong here.
Space. We spend 2X what China spends, and 4X what Europe spends. One example is the costs of space telescopes: China spends 9 figures, Europe spends 10 figures, and we spend 11 figures. NASA's SLS rocket is a case study in how to literally brun up billions and billions of taxpayers money. We can, and need to do better.
Corruption is not always the simple graft of the CEO and board. Corruption also comes in the form of a system where too many people make too much profit to want to make the system better.
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Can this be expressed on a graph?
Can we see expenditures, big equipment contributions, Nobel prizes, etc. on a graph?
Expenditures:
https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsb20246/cross-national-compariso...
Is there a glitch in sorting? Why is EU at #2?
Practically neck and neck! Wow.
I bet the graph of this over time would present a powerful story.
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"Deeply embarrassing as a US citizen."
Agreed. The US has squandered so much money over the decades that they're now over $300k/taxpayer in debt, with interest to that that being the fourth largest cost, and two of the top three being insufficiently funded programs that simply steal from the grandchildren.
It would be even more embarrassing if we didn't cut back on non-essential spending.
U.S. National Debt Clock : Real Time https://share.google/adgsGnl43Yk8S0zDq
Being at the forefront of science is not ~non-essential~.
It is literally one of the most important things to make a nation great.
This retroactive stuff is pointless. The US can't do anything right, but if it stops doing anything it's doing it's a catastrophe.
Perhaps this pain would be worth it if we also cut back on non-essential tax-cuts for the rich.
Instead, we're cutting cheap scraps like this from the budget while the fattest fucks at the table get to gorge themselves for another two years.
> It would be even more embarrassing if we didn't cut back on non-essential spending.
Boy are you going to feel bad as you watch what happens to the debt over the next few years.
Yeah, let's cut back on the relatively small investments in science that actually grow the economy, particularly at a moment in time when our geopolitical competitors are making enormous investments, and when leadership and talent in science is more important than ever.
Just walk around the Boston area and look at how much of the economy is driven by federal research funding attracting global talent to universities, which then generates ideas and the next generation of talent, which feeds the biotech companies, which grow the economy.
Letting all of that happen in China instead of the US just to make a tiny dent in the deficit (and to punish progressive institutions and prevent cultural change from immigration) is unbelievably fucking stupid.
Trump just added 4 trillion more in debt funding tax cuts for billionaire. The amount of money science research gets in the US is pennies compared to that. Investments in science always returns on investment in the form of technology. The internet was a research project mind you.
A research project from Cern in Switzerland mind you. And a English guy who created all the protocols there
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You are embarrassed because other countries can do things too?
Seems like it's more because other counties can do things we no longer can or are willing to.
On the other hand, the US is close to bankruptcy. And that's not all the current admin's fault.
And their cuts are trying to avoid that, although they have thrown out many babies with the bath water. It's hard to blame them for trying to avoid default, which would be far worse than anything.
The program apparently cost $900 million which is not a trivial cost.
Yeah, except for the tax cuts for the wealthy which created more debt than all of their other cuts combined, and then some.