Academe: Technology For Sale 438
America has always loved technology and money in generally equal amounts, since they are so intertwined. And techno-capitalism has been very good to us, bringing both freedom and prosperity.
But until recently, we clung loosely to the notion that some institutions -- politics, journalism, academe, art and culture -- stood outside the marketplace at least somewhat beyond bottom-line calculations. That was important, especially in a free and prosperous society. That principle established their credibility and helped keep social forces like big business and big technology in some sort of check and balance.
Nodody kidded themselves about the fact that money was the engine that drove both business and technology in the U.S but there were at least some critical, detached and independent voices to raise questions, sound alarms, and pursue research avenues for reasons other than profit. That, increasingly, is no longer true.
Once upon a time, journalists felt free to take the occasional investigative or editorial poke at big business (rather than celebrate people like Bill Gates), and universities provided safe havens where politics and P&L statements couldn't intrude too brazenly on critical thinking and expression. Artists, too, from musicians and painters to filmmakers, playwrights and authors, believed they wielded a particular kind of integrity; they could be outspoken, take sharp, honest looks at society and culture. Those kinds of penetrating looks are rapidly vanishing from both mainsteam media and the arts. Even the theater has been corporatized, dominated by big-bucks, mass-marketed musicals and other super-productions.
The new global corporatism has proven more powerful than any of these institutions or the ethical standards they once brandished. Nobody seems able to stand up under the onslaught of corporate money, or cling to values beyond maximum revenue input. This is what makes capitalism and corporatism so different. Corporatism's contemporary clout dates to the 80's, when a combination of government de-regulation of business, begun by President Jimmy Carter and greatly accelerated by Ronald Reagan -- and the advent of technology, marketing and global business created a new kind of ideology. It has become the most powerful social and cultural force in the world, especially when linked with technology.
One by one, American institutions -- politics, business, agriculture, journalism, the arts, such professions as law and medicine, even middle-class restaurants, real estate firms and funeral homes -- have succumbed to the Corporate Republic. Academe had been one of the last holdouts. Scientific and other kinds of research was always thought to be governed by values other than simple profit, beholden to nothing but the principles of science. No more.
Columbia University in New York, for example, is spearheading an academic revolution, profiting from its scientific research and development of intellectual property. Columbia annually collects more in patents and royalties -- $100 million -- than any other university, its annual report announces, and is aggressively cashing in on its technological research.
"There's been a paradigm shift," in academic thinking about selling research to corporations, says Cornelius W. Sullivan, vice provost for research at the University of Southern California. "There was a time that this kind of work -- and the idea of making money from your research -- was not acceptable at universities, including ours." Sullivan is dead-on. It's no longer possible for the public, members of the student body, or anyone else to really grasp the motives and goals of scientific researchers working on new technologies. They could be working for the good of humanity. Or they could be trying to cash in on lucrative patents, generating uneeded or flawed technology for cash, or to get a sweet corporate contract for themselves or their school. Making money off of technological research is certainly acceptable now. This year, The New York Times reports, Columbia will collect more than $144 million from patents. One covers a new technique that uses animal cells to manufacture proteins for use as drugs; another discovery paved the way for eye drops to treat glaucoma. Across the country, university officials admit the Net is a gold mine, providing a much faster and larger paybacks for researchers than traditional scientific research in areas like biology. Dot.coms are aggressively seeking investment academic opportunities (at Harvard, Professor Arthur R. Miller is setting up an online law school).
As usual, this "paradigm shift" is accompanied by little or no public debate over the propriety of university research (often funded in part by taxpayers) becoming increasingly tailored to corporate clout. Congess isn't paying attention either; it's much too busy trying to pass laws requiring lobal libraries to keep Johnny off the Playboy Web site.
Yet the issue matters, especially when it relates to technology. Academic researchers are deeply involved in some of the revolutionary technological devevlopments of this century -- genetic mapping, artificial intelligence, super-computing. Theoretically, their work is supposed to proceed ethically, with the public's best interests and the highest standards of science research in mind. How does that happen when professors and administrators are drooling over dot.com stock options and other corporatist contracts? Soon, the public will be as cynical about academic research as they are about government decision-making. And the evolution of technology will get even less scrutiny and oversight. Some of the best elements of the Net and the Web came about because academics and researchers were working outside of the marketplace, not because they were dominated by it.
Corporatism has already proved a more powerful force than any of the institutions that were supposed to keep an eye on its power and hunger. Technology and corporatism are a particularly lethal combination, even more so when applied to competitive and money-hungry institutions like academe. That was a world where technology and research were supprted for their own sake and for the larger public good.
But just last month, Columbia announced the creation of Fathom.com, an online commercial partnership with such other prestigious institutions as the New York Public Library, the British Library and the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History. A couple of months earlier, the university had announced that it was hooking up with Cognitive Arts, a software designer firm planning to offer continuing education on the Web.
Here in the Corporate Republic, there are no public institutions operating outside the marketplace any longer, free of its influence, maintaining the credibility and independence to comment honestly on critical social and cultural issues and to monitor technological growth.
Maybe it's time to stop worrying about how to induce understandably apathetic Americans to vote and to simply start selling stock in the Corporate Republic itself. Looks like a sure winner.
Re:Argh (Score:2)
Some day, I've got to go around and count how many plaques there are... There are a lot of them..
Also, UMN has a contract with Coca-Cola for their beverages. Even the water used at many sporting events comes from Coke (Dasani is a Coca-Cola product).
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Ski-U-Mah!
What else are schools going to do? (Score:2)
If schools hope to survive (and I'm talking about primary and secondary schools as well, not just Higher Education) they will have to find sources of funding. Our beloved US of freaking A would rather subsidize military waste and corporate bail-out programs than spend an extra tupence on our childrens' (and our) education.
Schools either have to find new sources of funding, or raise tuition. In the case of public (primary and secondary) schools, they don't have the option of raising tuition.
In a few years, GM & Microsoft & McDonald's will have to sponser our public schools just so new employees can read and understand the binder. It's no surprise they are already sponsering higher education.
Look for the same thing in your local high school soon.
Re:What else are schools going to do? (Score:2)
Meanwhile, the cost of many school supplies is increasing. In some areas, the cost of building a school has doubled in the last fifteen years. The cost of texts has also dramatically increased-- *much* faster than the rate of inflation.
Sorry to ruin a perfectly good rationalization with more facts.
Re:Researchers need to eat, too (Score:2)
If industry is funding the research, why shouldn't they profit from it. If the university allows its people to do research for corporations, why shouldn't they get a piece of the pie as well!
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Mike Mangino
Sr. Software Engineer, SubmitOrder.com
Re:Whine, Complain and Push Your Agenda (Score:2)
That's fine. But unfortunately it'll be not be contained within his land. Rivers, lakes, aquifers, etc, the world over are dying and poluted by the leachates from farms.
Genetically modified fish that have escaped farms are destroying the wild populations, whilst at the same time are unable to survive in the wild themselves (e.g. Norwegian salmon.) Genetically modified "SuperCrops" can be just as destructive to the environment.
You seem to support quite a selfish attitude.
"Next time, think before you post. Remember, think about what you want your solution *not* to do, as well as to do.
Next time that you decide to be arrogant and condescending, perhaps *you* should think about your own words first!
Re:Money - Better Projects - Better Advancement (Score:2)
I think that the danger of research for profit is that universities will start acting like business and trying much harder to protect their Intellectual Property. I believe that this is bad. Part of what has made the university system work is openness and sharing (just like what started the internet and made it successful, in some ways.)
UIUC stupidity (Score:2)
As has been proven in the market, their static intellectual property in Mosaic was worthless without the talent to drive it; the people were the critical factor, not the existing code base. NCSA should have created something like the W3C back then and given the Mosaic team the incentive to stick around, perhaps by being a bit more friendly to "Mosaic Communications" (Netscape's original name) and less anal about defending what they saw as their property. Had they done this, the W3C would likely be based at UIUC, and the university would have lots of corporate grants for Internet research, the cream of the crop among both students and faculty, higher academic rankings, etc..., all of which translate into more dollars for them.
Instead, they pissed off Andressen & Co., who ended up mostly reimplementing Mosaic from scratch (which was relatively easy for them - after all, they had practice) and moving on. Meanwhile, Mosaic - the precious property they defended - withered when no one proved worthy of the task of keeping it up to date (including Spyglass, who tried to play the licensing game instead of coming out with a superior browser immediately to kill Netscape in infancy). So, once Navigator came out, Mosaic was doomed - as was NCSA's (and UIUC's) leadership role on the Internet, and Spyglass's future (the shop I used to work next to was closed years ago in financial crisis).
It figures that UIUC would mislearn the lessons from this and try to hold even more tightly on to its IP. Isn't it funny that NCSA's leadership role on the Web has been taken over by MIT with the W3C, considering MIT's much more relaxed attitude towards IP?
Technological circuses (Score:2)
Capitalism is not corporatism. And the way the western economic system is now run has very little to do with Adam Smith's capitalism. Sure, there's not global illuminati. But it costs money to get elected. Corporations provide money to politicians to help them get elected. The politicians pass laws that the corporations like. (If they don't, they don't get money the next time an election comes around, and they're out of a job.)
There might be - I think there probably are - similar forces at work behind the corporate sponsorship of research. It costs money to go research. Corporations have money. The give money to researchers - for specific projects! Might there not be valuable research which doesn't interest some corporation out there? People are always making fun of studies that look at tiny worms responses' to electrical or physical stimulus - but these studies are providing us with completely unprofitable and extremely useful information about simple nervous systems.
Capitalism is a free-market system in which people who are good at doing/making things are rewarded financially for succeeding. Corporatism is a socio-political system where corporations run roughshod over the needs of people. Corporations are _not_ a replacement for the nation state. Corporations have no interest in the rights of their workers. Before bashing communism and Marxism - which were worse than a lot of things - go find out why they were invented. Nobody sets out to create a brand new totalitarian-style government with a new and cool name. They were a response to the rise of corporate power in the late 19th century.
Does JonKatz generalize and gloss over details? Sure. But most of the responses to his essays don't add anything to the discussion. Let's discuss!
Re:Columbia, Patents, and Profit (Score:2)
Actually no, that's not how it happens either. Professor X is doing research on technology Y. Company Z sells products related to technology Y. Professor X calls Company Z and says "I want to work on making improvements in technology Y. This may not be directly applicable to what you do, but it will be usable in some way" and he writes a long proposal about what he wants to do. Company Z gets 100 proposals and says "okay, we can fund 20 of these" so they pick the 20 they like best. Professor X, if he's lucky, gets some money so he can pay for grad students and get equipment needed to do *his* research.
Hope that clears things up.
-nosilA
Re:Money - Better Projects - Better Advancement (Score:2)
Except that it is not always possible to determine the impact of research when it is first performed. This is why large corporations like IBM, Lucent, and AT&T have their own laboratories performing primary research on topics whose profit potential is uncertain at best. Having the profit imperative drive research is to limit scientific discovery only to the obvious. It is worth noting that as late as fifty years ago, computers were considered -- by top IBM management, no less -- to be special-purpose devices that would never be sold in significant numbers.
In order to find the gems, you have to sift through a lot of gravel. Short-sighted greed is almost always self-defeating.
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The Universities Want A Free Lunch (Score:2)
Hogwash.
Why don't you send your paycheck to your Alma Matar if you truly believe this nonsense? Chances are pretty good you got your first post-college job as a result of your degree, which in turn led to your subsequent jobs. You'd be nothing without the university, therefor by your reasoning they should be entitled to a portion of what you make. But wait, if you hadn't gone to high school, you wouldn't have been able to attend college. Better hold back some of the check for your old teenage stomping ground. But of course, to get into high school you first had to learn literacy and arithmetic in grade school
The university is entitled to Tuition and Fees. Nothing more. The students (or their parents) have paid a premium for their education and use of the university's facilities. This does not give the university any right whatsoever to any creative product their student's have created, not matter how good the equipment and study environment are, or how brilliant the education given.
Professors, being employees, are in a different category. If they are a fraction as smart as they would have us believe, then they have negotiated reasonable terms for ownership of their own creative work. Whatever form their negotiations and contract have taken, it gives them no right whatsoever to the creative products of their students.
However, students, being customers, clearly have a right to retain their own intellectual property, regardless of the money grabbing the university may be attempting. If students are being used as free labor in a professor's or universities project (or worse, paying for the privelege) then they should retain some rights to such work. Otherwise, the university should be compensating them for their work, in which case, as employees, the situation resolves itself favorably to the university in question. TANSTAAFL: the universities are not entitled to pilfer students minds for their own profit, and most certainly not against the students' will and without compensating them for the work done (and yes, that includes creative things like thinking).
The idea that "any work conducted on university equipment belongs to the university" is rediculous, particularly given that the students in question have paid exhorbitant prices for the privelege of using said equipment. I would suggest any student running afoul of such a policy sue, and sue hard.
Re:The Universities want what they paid for (Score:2)
I'm glad to hear it -- when I read your first post it sounded quite different (to me at least). Unfortunately, there are numerous universities who would argue just that, just as there are employers who get people to sign contracts giving them all rights to all of their creative work, whether done on the job or on their own time, related to work or not, done on their own equipment or not.
So, while I am relieved that you are quite reasonable in your stance, I remain quite aghast at the extortionate money grabs both employers and some universities are engaged in (and have been appalled for years, I might add).
I remember my 10th birthday, too. (Score:2)
Wait, if anyone still in the gene pool thinks that journalists and politicians are outside the marketplace, please remove yourself from the swimming area now.
Re:would linux have been possible... (Score:2)
Furthermore, these kinds of rules do often apply to students, both in the US and abroad. If you ignore them, at least know what you are doing.
naive capitalism (Score:2)
Of course, there are plenty of other reasons not to subject specific areas of economic activity to free market mechanisms, because we may have other considerations and goals that are not linked to the efficient use of resources.
Columbia can't compete in the long run (Score:2)
Well, that simply can't work in the long run. From the point of view of paying for the practical products, you, your research, and your education are pure overhead. Any entity competing with Columbia that doesn't have to pay that kind overhead will simply produce the same product (practical inventions) at a lower cost.
Universities produce public goods--education and basic scientific research--and those must be paid for either by the government or by donations. If, on the other hand, universities start relying primarily on student tuition and corporate funding, they'll turn into a different kind of institution: trade schools, corporate training schools, and development labs. If Columbia wants to turn into those, fine, but why bother? There are already enough of them around.
Re:would linux have been possible... (Score:2)
Get the patent -- but don't forget the investors! (Score:2)
I'm all for Universities and corporations taking patents on the novel inventions they create. Go ahead, collect the royalties and get rich... and don't forget to give me my share!
As a taxpayer, I demand to be compensated for my contribution to this research! Whether it be university, corporate, or military technology, the fruits of the research must belong to those who paid for it -- which is very often the federal government, i.e., you and me. There is a reason why works created by government employees are not copyrightable. I don't see that works for hire undertaken by private parties at public expense should be any different.
I think it's great that defense contractors and pharmaceutical companies and universities and dot-coms are making $billions selling inventions that I paid for but due to patents am not allowed to use! Yes, Gullible Sucker is my middle name, why do you ask?
Selling stock in Corporate Republic America (Score:2)
This scares me, especialy since the country of the book is the US...
Anyway, you really should read this book.
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
Division, exclusion, panic, repetition (Score:2)
Why not buy it?
As much as I feel that Katz' article (and indeed, many of his articles), do call attention to important issues, they also miss a vital factor:
DO SOMETHNG ABOUT IT
If the Corporate Republic is on the march, infiltrate and acquire. As soon as you divide the world into 'us' versus 'them' then you give 'them' a fight and you give 'them' a chance at victory because you gave 'them' a defined target.
The world is not being taken over. There's no Master Illumnati, Bill Gates is a geek with a lot of money and questionable ethics, and most world governments couldn't find their collective backsides with their collective hands. However if we decide we've got an enemy, then an enemy we'll have.
So, instead, let's listen, and let's do something. Let's stop with the conspiracy theories and start seeing what we can do to change what doesn't work and keep what does.
We've got social changes going on - so work with it when you can, change if you must, but don't just sit there and decry it. We've got enough would-be Cassandras. Let's pay attention, analyze, then apply our knowledge.
It may be very cool and hip to talk about the decline of modern civilization - it must be since you can find doomsayers in every culture and every period. It's a good racket to get attention.
It doesn't fix anything though.
Re:Can't be too surprised (Score:2)
Basically the policy says that "traditional academic copyrightable works" belong to the author (unless commissioned by the university). But they make a special exception for work that may also be patentable, and explicitly say that software may be patentable and so is an exception. The result is that the university owns all the software you write in the lab. This was an issue with the local chapter of SigOps when different members wrote operating systems. We had to be careful and only use the ACM machines, not university machines.
Re:Researchers need to eat, too (Score:2)
There are two different things: your own personal moral code, and generally accepted societal norms. Personal morality varies and has always varied greatly and we are not really talking about it. Speaking of generally accepted norms, slavery was generally accepted in a lot of societies for long periods of time.
Capitalism and communism are general catagories of ideologies. Many form sof both have never been tried. The failure of one or more forms of communism does not prove capitalism correct.
First, we are really talking about communism and capitalism not as ideologies, but as socio-economic-political systems. Surely, many forms have never been tried -- and generally there is a good reason for that
As to proving capitalism "correct", it is not and cannot be "correct". I would argue that it is a reasonable and successful way to structure a society. It is not necessarily the best that ever could be, and most certainly not "correct" (correct implies matching some standard: what standard?)
Communism has been quite sucessfull in some places.
Communism as a socio-political system failed everywhere it has been tried. Small common-property communes are not communism. For example, Israeli kibbutzes are not communism.
Once a company is so large and has such a product base that the average person can't help but buy their product, is it really a free market?
No, and that's why there are anti-trust laws.
Kaa
Re:Researchers need to eat, too (Score:2)
Any reasonable one.
Communism in the former Soviet Union has achieved, in one generation, an enormous amount, but one has to compare apples to apples.
And which generation is it? The one that was killed in Stalin's camps?
So to compare it to the US system is ridiculous
Nobody is comparing Russia to the US. Think about this: every country that used to be "communist" with the exception of Cuba and North Korea (for obvious reasons) has forcefully rejected this way either by essentially popular uprising (Russia and Eastern Europe) or oligarchy-directed evolution (China). There must be a reason for this, no?
It is true that the Communist system was replaced with one more in line with "ours" but has this changed things for the better? Take a look at unemployment rates, mortality rates, wages, and other social indicators to judge for yourself.
First, economic indicators are not the only ones meaningful to a society. Going to jail for anti-Soviet propaganda was very real.
As to such thing as unemployment rates, I'd like to point out that NOT having a job was a criminal offense in the USSR. Besides, how do you know what the crime rates, etc. were for the Soviet regime? I certainly don't believe the official statistics from that time -- do you?
Communism clearly failed -- this is one of the major lessons of the XX century. Two major countries chose communism (Russia and China -- the rest were basically occupied), both under extreme conditions -- war, civil war, etc. Both killed off significant part of their population -- the best part! -- and both made a huge economic mess. Both rejected communism in the end. And you don't call this failure?
Kaa
Some comments (Score:2)
Ahem. And why would I need checks on freedom and prosperity? Last time I looked, they both were Good Things. As far as I am concerned, the more I get of both of them, the better.
we clung loosely to the notion that some institutions -- politics, journalism, academe, art and culture -- stood outside the marketplace at least somewhat beyond bottom-line calculations.
Ahem again. Katz doesn't understand the basic concept of power, as in 'political power'. Yes, politics are connected to money, but they are different as well. Money is just one of the major motivators for humans (power and sex are the other ones). Journalism is an outgrowth of politics, and art has been connected to money (and power) since the beginning.
universities provided safe havens where politics and P&L statements couldn't intrude too brazenly on critical thinking and expression.
Universities always have been more or less political. And the current plague in academia -- political correctness -- has nothing to do with money or corporations: it's a self-inflicted wound.
Making money off of technological research is certainly acceptable now.
As opposed to when? I think that Katz glosses over (or doesn't understand, which is more likely) the difference between basic and applied science. Applied science (aka technology) has always been about making practical things and practical things do involve money.
their [academic researchers] work is supposed to proceed ethically, with the public's best interests and the highest standards of science research in mind.
That's news to me. I had no clue that scientific research has to proceed with the public's best interest in mind. Who can tell what's in the public best interest? And which public? American? or all humanity?
Academic research is an honest search for a deeper understanding of reality (and some unrealities as well). It has nothing to do with public interest.
And the evolution of technology will get even less scrutiny and oversight.
You mean right now there is some oversight over evolution of technology? How interesting. And who does this, pray tell?
Maybe it's time to stop worrying about how to induce understandably apathetic Americans to vote and to simply start selling stock in the Corporate Republic itself. Looks like a sure winner.
Well, Katz, you sell stock when you expect it to go DOWN, not up. I thought you were saying that the corporations won -- in that case you want to BUY stock.
In any case, Katz doesn't understand (among other things) economics. The basic function of the marketplace is to select successful stuff and kill off losers. It does this much better than, say, governments. I see no reason why the same process wouldn't work as well for technology (keeping in mind that it is *applied* science, not basic science). I certainly see no horrors in it. Of course, basic science need external-to-markets funding because it's fruits are too uncertain and too far in the future.
Sorry, Katz -- FUBARed as usual.
Kaa
Re:Students as Customers (Score:2)
Not only that, the way I understand it, the billing is being added to the tuition bill rather than the housing bill, which is absurd. I go to UMD as well, but I live off-campus, so obviously I shouldn't be paying for cable on campus. I wouldn't see a problem with it if it was added to the housing bill, though - after all, you're paying for the ethernet access in the dorms whether or not you use it.
Barnes and Noble is the ONLY store to carry your textbooks
Ummm... that's what the Maryland Book Exchange is for (across Rt. 1 from campus). That's where I buy my books (it's cheaper).
If nothing else, Universities SHOULD be encouraged to make money off of their research rather than resorting to milking the students like cash cows.
Of course, but UMD is hardly an example for this - it's cheap as hell. I'm an out of state student from Massachusetts, and the out of state tuition at Maryland is less than in-state tuition at many schools, and it's one of the top schools in the country for Computer Science (when I was applying a few years ago it was something like #7, I think). And campus isn't *too* commercialized.
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Shift (Score:2)
Katz's assertion that our institutions are falling one by one to the Corporate Republic is true, but his list of institutions is certainly laughable. Business, small-town restaurants, real estate, agriculture. These are ALL businesses that have been profit driven by nature from the start. These aren't institutions falling to the Corporate Republic... they are in fact the very foundation of it.
As this shift to naked, unapologetic, capitalism becomes the accepted norm (as one would expect in a booming economy... the inherent unfairnesses of capitalism are certainly less obvious during boom times) it's interesting to look at movies where the post-apocalyptic vision of the future was a world ruled by corporations. Seems just a bit closer now than it did... say... 5 years ago.
- StaticLimit
Re:Researchers need to eat, too (Score:2)
Re:Researchers need to eat, too (Score:2)
If you're researching to make money, you should be doing it in a think tank or corporate research division. Taxpayer money goes to research for the greater good of society, university research should be public domain, period.
Re:Researchers need to eat, too (Score:2)
IHMO, where capitalism fails (in the good society/market sense) is when you start getting to intellectual property. With a product that can be reproduced indefintitely, it becomes more important fiscally to restrict access than make a good product. Removing any type of competition is also important, since that might drive down the percieved value of your product. Then you just have to squeeze, baby! [vnunet.com]
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Re:Jon Katz - duller than a roomful of UFO nuts (Score:2)
Frankly, it's dull. It's boring. It's the same crap every week.
yea, I get sick of the Katz bashing too. (unless I'm doing it, of course)
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Re:Researchers need to eat, too (Score:2)
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Re:Money - Better Projects - Better Advancement (Score:2)
profitable research = good.
non-profitable research = bad.
i.e. social research = bad.
technical research = good.
But then again, I guess studying why so many people are unhappy because they didn't get that big research grant would be counter-productive, no?
It would seem to me that the boost Free Software has gotten from the academic sector would also dry up, or would never have existed given this model of academic research.
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Re:Whine, Complain and talk out of my arse. (Score:2)
Mind if I move in next to you and turn my property into a junkyard/crack house/toxic waste dump? What I do on my property can affect those outside my property, so it shouldn't be so big a stretch to think that some entity could be endowed with the power and the right to regulate what I do with my property. We can quibble over the extent of this power and over what is appropriate and what isn't, but I do not have free reign to do "whatever I please."
Given that there's nothing to be gained from doing it -- anyone since 1970 or so could have grabbed a physics grad student or two, walked by the *bad* security at Los Alamos or wherever and picked up some plutonium, and made a suitcase bomb to blow up New York.
You are quite articulate for someone who is talking out of his arse. You must have had alot of practice.
You sound so certain of this--can you produce some (any) documentation of weapons-grade plutonium being so vulnerable, so easily accessible, that anyone who wants it can get it? I didn't think so. While developing the technology to make a nuclear device is hardly a bottleneck to a nation with the means, the will, and the materials to construct nuclear weapons (every nation that has tried has succeeded on the first try), your claim that one can just waltz into TA-55 at Los Alamos and grab a bunch of weapons-grade plutonium is laughable. Despite its being pilloried in the press for security incidents, anyone with any experience at LANL knows that the security there is nowhere near as "bad"--excuse me, "*bad*"--as you described it, especially where nuclear materials are concerned. If it were, then you can bet that terrorist devices would have been made and would have been used by now.
Any 'agency', or 'law', or 'bureau' will be misused and abused to the greatest extent possible.
Ah, yes, the old "To solve your problem you need centralized control; every large, centralized institution is corrupt; corrupt institutions are bad; therefore making any attempt to solve your problem is bad" argument for inaction. I would contend that while many institutions are indeed corrupt and are abused, these same institutions are still capable of accomplishing things of merit: The mail is still delivered. The IRS collects revenue for the government. The weatherman is still right every once in awhile.
Next time, think before you post.
Good advice for us all.
Re:would linux have been possible... (Score:2)
At least you spelled jetson properly.
-russ
Re:Yes, they have checked freedom (Score:2)
-russ
Re:They were never free like you say (Score:2)
My children *certainly* take in more advertising than public education. They get zero of the latter.
-russ
Re:I remember my 10th birthday, too. (Score:2)
-russ
Re:would linux have been possible... (Score:2)
-russ
Re:Moral Justification (Score:2)
It is true the Heart (along with Du Pont) killed the hemp industry over its effectiveness: when they began their campain, machines for the cheap creation of hemp paper had just been invented. It's not a coincidence. You should read Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do [mcwilliams.com]. Here's the link to the relevant chapter: How and Why Drugs Became Illegal [mcwilliams.com]
Private vs. Public... (Score:2)
The private universities charged a whole lot more, but they also provided much, much more.
The private schools encouraged individuality, focused on exploration, hell, they wanted you to try everything in a safe environment. And they didnt try to push you into a mold. Plus... Once you paid your bill, just about everything on campus was included.
Penn State was horrendous. THey tried to take advantage of their students at every chance they could. IT was extremely repressive, and individual thought was discouraged. HEll, thinking was discouraged.
And the corporate presence was enormous. Lets put it this way - the only beverages allowed to be sold on campus HAD TO BE PEPSI PRODUCTS. Wanted a coke? Sorry.
Anyway... It seems to me that the better undergraduate education comes from the smaller schools, who arent big enough tot attract the money of corporate america.
<STEPS_OFF_SOAPBOX>
tagline
Re:Bullshit (Score:2)
Take a look at russia and what communism has done to its enviroment. There are places that are so radioactive you have to fly over by helicopter.
Yes, Communism caused Chernobyl's problems.
I can't decide whether you're deliberately being stupid or are outright ignorant.
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Re:Stalin and Russian Capitalists (Score:2)
The American public views JFK as a hero.
He was a philandering egomaniac who pushed the world closer to a nuclear conflagration than any sane person would be willing to do.
That the Soviets backed down shows that they had more sense than Kennedy.
The American public loves Kennedy because he stood up for America regardless of his faults. Stalin did the same for Russia. Russia was the *other* superpower. Would so many Americans be rabidly patriotic if they were citizens of Luxembourg?
Of course, a leader on a plane of his own is Winston Churchill.
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Re:Researchers need to eat, too (Score:2)
In essence, yes.
If the public purchases something with one of the above things built into it, they are obviously accepting it. You don't want to pay a tax on recordable media? Don't use them. If something is offensive enough, people will boycott the product quite successfully. DivX, say. Sales of Windows 2000 are low because a significant number of people don't agree with the exorbitant pricing. However, nobody expects your personal tastes to be perfectly in line with everybody else's. What you find a major turnoff may be a non-issue in most people's minds.
People most obviously do want Ms. Spears, else why has she sold some seventeen million albums in the USA alone? Sure, she was marketed. And she found a nearly untapped market with incredible buying power. You and I don't want her, and therefore we don't buy her albums, don't go to her concerts, and don't listen to radio stations that play her music incessantly. That's our prerogative under this capatilistic system. Much better than going to the government operated CD Shoppe, where each of us redeems our coupon for our "choice" of either Spears or Aguilera. Despite what you say, teenaged pop stars are not being stuffed down our throats.
Corporations do make what the people want. Nobody said that you have to follow the crowds in their rampant consumerism.
Note that several of your complaints have absolutely nothing to do with corporations.
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Re:Researchers need to eat, too (Score:2)
If everybody who claimed to be a Christian or budhist actually lived as one the world economy would collapse.
A Dick and a Bush .. You know somebody's gonna get screwed.
As it should be! (Score:2)
The Crusades were largely fought by second sons who wanted a piece of the familial pie.
The Civil War was fought over tariffs and other economic policies (no matter *what* they tell you in some watered-down 'history' class, it *wasn't* slavery).
The Cold War was fought for military-industrial dollars.
The Gulf War was fought for oil dollars (and something like twenty million personally as a little 'thank you' to George Senior from the Kuwait government, no paragon of freedom and non-repressiveness itself.)
Hell, World War II came on the heels of a *major* depression in Germany that left the nation starving and scrambling for a solution -- and a scapegoat.
Long before 'corporatism' became a lefty buzzword, people were killing each other over money. We still do it today, though we pretend we have other reasons. And it comes as a surprise that *universities*, which already receive scads of government funding, might not be so detached from the pernicious grasp of money?
Be still, my blathering Katz... I notice you still get paid for your work. And by a corporation, no less. I *might* give some credence to what you say
-grendel drago
Whine, Complain and Push Your Agenda (Score:2)
What are you saying here? What do you mean, 'allowed'? If he owns his land, he should be able to sow salt on it or plant genetically modified SuperCrops, if he can sell them, whatever he pleases.
And how much will it cost you to have your baldness and impotence cured, and what will you do to get the money to pay for it?
Work. You know, that dirty word that you socialists can't stand?
What happens when the continent of Africa gets a few nuclear warheads and starts ransoming the planet for money (hey they are only applying some old tech).
Given that there's nothing to be gained from doing it -- anyone since 1970 or so could have grabbed a physics grad student or two, walked by the *bad* security at Los Alamos or wherever and picked up some plutonium, and made a suitcase bomb to blow up New York.
And the only reason the world hates us so much is because of all that stupid, misguided, metagovernmental meddling we do, propping up dictators that we like and pulling down elected democrats we don't.
We have shat all over our ecosystem and enslaved 3/4 of the planets population in poverty. Of course everything is going to be alright.
What's your solution? Think before you answer! Any 'agency', or 'law', or 'bureau' will be misused and abused to the greatest extent possible. The cure is nearly *always* worse than the disease. Oh, and don't forget that all of your precious protectors of the environment will be themselves exempt from these rules. And that your hated corporate Darth Vaders will make some select campaign contributions, and, in a shining example of free-market economics, buy themselves a Congressman.
'Enslaved'? All of those Nike employees are free to go starve in the streets if they like. Americans are free to have slightly less stylin' shoes. Forced by economic circumstance and forced by a gun to the head are quite different.
Next time, think before you post. Remember, think about what you want your solution *not* to do, as well as to do.
-grendel drago
University, Inc. (Score:2)
There was a time when academicians disseminated their knowledge freely by publishing it in scholarly journals. This work was not encumbered with patents, and consequently anyone could walk into a library, read an article in a journal, and use the ideas contained therein in any way they saw fit, including in a commercial project. In that sense, academic research belonged to everyone.
Times have changed, however. These days universities have become more businesslike in their research, in that they want to cash in on potential commercial applications. Consequently, academic researchers at many institutions are now encouraged to patent any discovery they make that might be salable. They still publish in scholarly journals, of course, but only after securing the patent. Where before academic research was available to everyone, now it is increasingly available only to those who can pay for it.
The benefits of this new mode of academic research include licensing intellectual property as an additional source of funding for universities. In an era where public funding for academic research has been a little anemic by comparison to past decades, it's not hard to see why this is attractive to university administrators. However, I wonder if it's worth the price. Who will take over as the storehouse of our civilization's knowledge if universities abdicate that role to pursue the almighty buck? Will there even be any public knowledge left for universities to watch over, or will every scrap of information be somebody's property, usable only by those who are willing and able to pay for the privilege?
Since these trends are largely driven by public research funding drying up, we can always hope that they will reverse themselves when public research comes back into favor, provided that universities don't become too addicted to the patent gravy train in the meantime.
And if the trends don't reverse? Well, then, maybe we academicians can at least expect some directed shares when our universities have their IPOs. . . but I'm not holding my breath on that one.
-rpl
Re:Researchers need to eat, too (Score:2)
Capitalism, by the way, is simply the free economic exchange between large groups of individuals who are (largely) free to act as their own agents without (undue) influence by the State.
This is as opposed to Socialism, where the State controls means of production (meaning it would be illegal for you in a pure socialist state to buy a pottery wheel and kiln and start making your own pottery to sell). And this is as opposed to "Communism" where the State also attempts to control consumption as well.
Idiologists and philosophers who support these systems presume that socialism and communism are "natural states" that people would eventually gravitate to for the "greater good"--but in practice, to set up either means passing laws which restrict your ability to interact economically with other people. (Read: passing laws which would make it illegal for me to buy something you made with your own two hands.)
Capitalism, however, does take into account natural resources--though it does so imperfectly. It is possible by passing various laws to take into account the destruction of the ecosystem caused by pollution--in fact, it has been done here in Southern California. The reason why I say "imperfectly" is because (a) it's sometimes hard to agree upon a value for the air we breath and the senery we enjoy, and (b) even if we place a value on these things, shortages may temporarly make the value of digging for oil (for example) greater than the value of a natural park. Because of this, sometimes it's necessary to simply bypass economics alltogether and take land out of play, as has been done with natural parks. (Socialism and communism doesn't save the ecology as anyone who has visited Eastern Europe can attest to.)
Capitalism does not require continuous growth, by the way: while some people are greedy and thus desire more and more things and are not satisified, this does not mean they necessarly need to succeed otherwise the entire system collapses. The only reason why we have had continuous growth is because we've had continuous population growth (and they've got to live somewhere), and because until recently we've priced the "new" over the "old." But here in Southern California, for example, right now "McMansions" are now passee: it's "in" to live in a small bungalo than building a 6,000 sqft box to live in. People's desire to live in "older" neighborhoods has done more to curb growth than just about any other factor, including lack of water resources and lack of land close to existing transportation corridors.
But even without constant population growth and a constant drive for something "new" doesn't mean you cannot (or should not) set up a pottery wheel and make pottery for others. Dispite living with a fixed population for centuries, and dispite living with few material posessions, my ancestors (the Salinan tribe of Indians in Northern California) had money and economics and used a capitalist system for interacting within people of our own tribe, and with outsiders that we would trade with. Granted, trade was more in small things like arrow heads and mortar bowls, but it was capitalism.
Dispite being a band of capitalists, and dispite having things like property (and land property!), I think you'd be damned hard pressed to find a bleeding-heart liberal who would say that the Salinan Indians were bio-sphere unfriendly...
Re:Researchers need to eat, too (Score:2)
Footnote: it is for this reason that the small family farms are being destroyed: because farming and distribution operations have become so successful that small farmers are simply redundant.
I will note also that we aren't feeding third world countries not because of a lack of desire to try. The United States has attempted repeatedly to set up distribution centers to sell food overseas to third world countries--after all, if we can export food across the Pacific to Japan, we certainly can export food across the Atlantic to Africa. (The latter is a shorter trip.) However, so far, all attempts to set up such distribution systems has failed in large part because of the local politics of those third-world countries.
The United States would love to feed the entire world. And between the United States and other food exporting countries, we could feed the entire world easily. Other countries just don't want the food, or are insufficiently stable (politically) to allow us to set up a distribution center that wouldn't result in 95% of the food rotting on the unloading docks. (And it's not for a lack of trying by any means: I've seen and heard of agribusiness leaders regularly flying to both China and Africa in order to crack the nut of successfully exporting food to those countries.)
People in third world countries are starving to death largely because the local political environment would rather they starve than provide any sort of stability to the local region.
Re:Researchers need to eat, too (Score:2)
*wow!* I just had an insight about how all that food I've been eating from agribusiness is not what I really want: I've been programmed by agribusiness to eat from the day I was born!
Look at drug commercials (TV/magazines), or any commercials for that matter: they don't inform you about the product - they persuade you that "X is the best thing since sliced bread"... and the next day or week you are sheepishly buying it.
Lousy example of what you're trying to prove, as it requires a prescription from your doctor to buy most drugs now being advertised. Mostly why the drug companies are advertising is because they want patients with pre-existing problems (who are already taking drugs) to ask their doctor if there are better alternatives. But having people shift what medically necessary drugs they are already on to a different drug which may work better is hardly having product shoved down their throat--as often the alternative is to suffer.
And what judicial system? Such a good judicial system that I can sue you for the color of your roof until you have to sell it to pay your lawyers?
Well...the alternative is to have the government confiscate your roof in the name of the "greater good"...
Re:Researchers need to eat, too (Score:2)
And this process has so gutted the quality of the medical system in the United States that people routinely fly abroad to have medically necessary procedures rather than risk their lives with the medi....
Oh, wait: they come to the United States to have medically necessary operations, rathern than leave. Hmmmm... Guess your theory has a few holes in it, doesn't it?
While it is true a lot of people go into medicine because it seems "lucrative" (until you get hit with astronomically high student loan bills), medicine is a meritocracy: you only get rich if you're good at a specialization that pays well. And sometimes not even then: a friend of mine who just became partner in an existing medical practice is still living in a tiny little two bedroom apartment she shares with her husband because her student loan bills are absolutely astronomical. (My father's payments on his Ferrari is smaller than her student loan bills.)
If you are going to knock capitalism, go for it--there's a lot of precidence. However, I would strongly recommend not insulting whole groups of people, such as med students, in order to support a half-baked thesis.
What's open source? Chopped liver? (Score:2)
Academe had been one of the last holdouts. Scientific and other kinds of research was always thought to be governed by values other than simple profit, beholden to nothing but the principles of science. No more.
Ok, I have some issues with this. I do love how Katz makes wide, encompassing statements without a smidgin of research, numbers, or anything more complicated than a quote or to from Dr. Big Ass Degree who wants to whore himself for more research money.
What's open source? The VAST majority of the software available on Freshmeat has been done by people who love the art, love technology, or just like doing cool shit. I like when someone uses a libary I've written. I'm not driven by any more profit than that given by feeding my ego! :) Open Source software, open source artistic tools like The Gimp, and lots more through some sand in the eyes of that "creeping corporatism", no?
As far as non-profit driven research, we've come to a point where just about any technological advancement has profit potential. You think a cure for cancer wouldn't bring profit? How about real nanotech? How about the ability to control gravity like electromagnetism (the real prize of a GUT in physics nobody talks about). How about the abilty to make customized drugs based on your DNA profile?
Get with the program, good stuff comes out of Katz sometimes, but this is just alarmist drivel. Go spend a summer on a real farm with no computers Katz, then write about the evils of technology.
Re:Real farms have computers (Score:2)
Real farms have computers dammit.
I'm not talking about "modern" food crop farming. Try working at a tree farm where you have to hand-weed, or try working at a Chistmas Tree farm wielding a machete. You'll understand why we value high technology so in a real hurry.
Re:Yes, they have checked freedom (Score:2)
Re:Dude, you're paranoid... (Score:2)
Re:and this is worse than .... (Score:2)
Re:Yes, they have checked freedom (Score:2)
This is surprising? (Score:2)
"Grilled tenderloin for fundraiser: $1,000 a plate. Campaign ads filled with half-truths: Over $10 billion. Finding out the truth: Priceless."
Re:Katz and the "Uncontamination" of Society (Score:2)
In fact, the years of the Hearst dominated media are a good example of business having a great, overt power over politics. [simplenet.com]
Re:Argh (Score:2)
Re:Columbia, Patents, and Profit (Score:2)
The facts you find in your research are very often determined by what questions you ask. Profit motivation, driven by corporate funding, will alter the nature of the questions asked in academic research, thus changing the nature of the facts discovered.
And that doesn't even take into consideration corruption of the human beings involved.
Corporate research is an excellent thing. So is research done for the sake of research. Academic research should be public domain, just to preserve the diversity of research that is done. Imagine if this "paradigm" really takes root, and the vast majority of universities conduct research for profit. There is some very important research done that will be abandoned because there's no product to sell at the end.
Re:Issue of Concern at MIT (Score:2)
Research for research's sake is the only way to produce revolutionary results.
Look at it this way:
- Why do smart people get into research? To make money? Maybe, but most get into it because they enjoy solving difficult problems that others haven't solved before.
- How are these research problems formulated? Two methods prevail. Business needs and the researcher's interests.
- Business needs are all well and good, but the real breakthroughs tend to come from those projects that the researcher thought he would like to work on. The problem might not necessarily have an immediate business application, but because it's neat, he tends to put more effort into it and get more excited about it. Never underestimate the benefits of self-motivation.
- If you eliminate research for research's sake, you eliminate this source of innovation.
The elimination of this type of research is one of the main concerns of industry research labs (regardless of academia), and there are big fights going on concerning it.
Trust me, I work in one of them.
Re:Practical research stays on the same train trac (Score:2)
(begin rant)
Research on string theory itself may be a well funded but some of the aspects that are required to show proof that it is a viable theory are not. Going back to high energy physics, quite a few of the string theories out there (there is more than one), including the one that is considered most likely, require that aspects of particle physics like supersymmetry be true. Unfortunately, the funding of high energy physics fell through the floor after the Superconducting Super Collider project was kill ~$5 billion, out of $20 billion, into the project. Right now the high energy physicists are trying to scrape up ~$9 billion from the US, EU, and Japan in order to build either the NLC (US design) or Tesla (German design). The physicists hope that one of these will be built, but aren't sure if they will get the funding. The two designs allow for colliding leptons at the TeV range, the TeVatron at Fermilabs collides Barions which give different results. If something of this scale is not built then theories like supersymmetry cannot be proven. If supersymmetry cannot be proven then we lose the ability to test the robustness of some of these string theories.
Nuclear physics is a dieing field in the US. Unless you want to work on weapon research you are poorly funded. Other than the new laser over at Lawrence Livermoore Labs, what news have you heard about the advancement of non-weapon nuclear technology?
(end rant)
It seems to me that Katz's main complaint is that many scientists become pawns of corporations. But why is this bad
Scientists in corporations are not necessarily bad. IBM owns the Watts (sp?) lab, which has done wonders to push the technology that we have forward. Corporate sponsorship of science becomes bad for society when that is the only science that occurs. If governments, and the general populous, decide that all science can be handled by corporations, then we will lose a lot of the science conducted for the sake of science.
Although Katz's article seems to take the 'The sky is falling' approach it does bring up some interesting points. Should we allow corporations to fund scientific research conducted in public institutions? Should we allow corporations to dictate what research should be done in public institutions? Can we control/stop it? I believe that this phenominon needs to be looked into to see how it is effecting not just scientific research, but who is going into those fields where corporations are funding the research, and why.
You raise some good points... (Score:2)
>Would the AMA push for approval of such a
>technology,
snip
>disturbing fact that there is a hideous amount
>of financial incentive not to cure many diseases.
If I'm CEO of the company that makes the drugs that treat said disease, sure, it makes sence. But only until the 17 year patent on said drug runs out, at that point I damn well better make the cure available and profit off it before *its* 17 year patent runs out. I'd be lynched by my shareholders otherwise. And if *I* have the cure, and my COMPETITOR makes the treatment? Damn skippy, I'd release it.
>What would happen if, say, a generalized cure
>for all our physical ailments were developed
>(e.g. nano-facilitated medical immortality)?
You seem to forget the fact that many, if not most geeks don't give a DAMN about the status quo; and, in fact, would be happy to shatter it into a zillion pieces if given the chance.
If I'm at the helm of the Sunnyvale nanotech startup that figures out how to make microscopic robots give humanity clinical immortality, damn straight I'm going to push it out. Those robots would make me rich beyond the dreams of Midas, make me a hero worldwide (hell, I might even get my own holiday), and... oh yeah... provide an immeasurable benefit to humanity. *SCREW* the AMA.
(Working out the resulting overpopulation problems resulting from immortality is left as an exercise for the reader. Tho, if I perfect nanotech to the point where I can make humans immortal, I suppose nanotech will be prefected to make resources (except for real estate) essentially unlimited too. (Time to get my 'bots working on those carbon nanotubes for that space elevator!!!))
As for the doctors? Well, they HAD their salad days. We'll still have a need for plastic surgeons, dentists and ER docs I suppose.
But just because you've been making money in the PAST, you do NOT have the guaranteed right to that money in the FUTURE. Robert Heinlein said as much in one of his novels (much more elequently than my humble self). Someone's been posting the quote in most every iteration of the Napster debate, referring to the RIAA rathar than the medical industry)
**
(in the Heinlein story in question, someone invents a machine which will tell you the EXACT day you're going to die, and is promptly sued by the entire insurance industry. The insurancemongers are duely and properly smacked down in the supreme court.
I read it a LONG time ago, but can't dredge up the title or exact quote at the moment)
**
john
Resistance is NOT futile!!!
Haiku:
I am not a drone.
Remove the collective if
GM crops (slightly offtopic) (Score:2)
>modified crops, I think it is the ultimate in
>human arrogance to belive that we even have the
>remotest idea what effect our tamperings will
>have on our environment,
Now this is something that baffles me about the anti-genetic-engineering crowd.
I, personally, have nothing, in principle, against geneticlly enginnered "supercrops"... so long as they do, in fact, live up to their advretisements. What baffles me, is that while the antigenetics crowd are protesting the use of these crops AT ALL, they are equally outraged at Monsanto's invention of the "terminator" gene, which would make it possible to CONTROL these same GM crops if they get out of hand.
Personally, I think *ALL* geneticlly modified food crops *should* include Monsanto's "terminator" gene. That way GM foods that are all good and true to their purpose can continue to be super-productive and feed more people more efficently. But if any of these "supercrops" turns out to have horribly bad side effects (or if they simply escape the confined of a controlled environment and start to overrun the baseline strain), they can be "terminated" in one generation, without escaping into the general population and overrunning the "normal" strains of foodstuffs.
And I have little doubt that there will always be a demand for organic foods, grown from the original strain with no artificial ferterlisers or pesticides. So there *IS* a baseline to fall back upon.
What I DO, however, take issue with, is the use of tetracycaline to activate the "terminator" gene. That seems just plain stupid to me. We have too many resistant bacteria strains as it is, WITHOUT spraying more antibiotics all over seed fields.
But as to why people who oppose GM foods also oppose the mechanism that would keep them from getting out of control??? That just baffles me.
Any greenies want to share their thoughts/reasoning on that one? I'd love to know.
john
Resistance is NOT futile!!!
Haiku:
I am not a drone.
Remove the collective if
This is hardly new. (Score:2)
Is this a bad thing? I don't know. The Mellon Institute was involved in the development of many consumer products, including cornflakes and innerspring mattresses, as well as the GR-S synthetic rubber formula [ohio.com] that helped win World War II.
Re:As usual, other journals do this better than Ka (Score:3)
If these are not the people responsible for identifying the dangers and risks of the modern world, then who?
Read 'The Kept University' if you couldn't stomach Katz's take on it. This is SERIOUS, dammit. Even ignoring the concerns over wholesale destruction of the cooperative spirit in scientific research, public health matters, and the stats are freaking chilling. "More recently, an analysis published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that studies of cancer drugs funded by pharmaceutical companies were roughly one eighth as likely to reach unfavorable conclusions as nonprofit-funded studies.". Read this stuff! This matters. It's not okay to suppress risk information...
This article is, frankly, dreadful. (Score:3)
One only has to look as "scientific research" to see that Universities have never been rich. This "independent" research has depended on outside corporations handing out large sums of money. And whoever pays the piper picks the tune.
Some examples, for you:
- Much "independent" research on tobacco has been
paid for by... tobacco companies.
- Much research on what foods are healthy has
been sponsored by... large produce growers and
large agricultural re-sellers.
- Much research on nuclear safety has been paid
for by... the nuclear industry.
The list goes on. Do you think these "benevolent" corporations all handed over wheelbarrows of that green stuff, purely out of the goodness of their own hearts? Get real! It was to allow them time on news shows to invalidate any real concerns that had formed.(BSE in America? You must be joking! The cattle ranchers have only our best interests at heart...)
Money really IS the root of all evil, and blaming corporatism for simply continuing down a road that had been made when the British Empire was still a futuristic dream, and Latin was the most widely spoken language in the Old World. Stop the Blame Game and Start trying to figure out how to stop this continuing devastation!
What good does pointing fingers do? When you get right down to it, when you point one finger at "the bad guy", you're pointing THREE fingers back at you.
No, blaming "Corporatism" for taking advantage of the obsession with green scraps of paper (which is all Capitalism really is, anyway) isn't an answer. At the very least, there needs to be something in it's place. Some kind of "utopia", where the "deserving" are rich and everyone else is on the streets is simply Corporatism from a different angle.
What, then, =IS= the answer? I doubt there is any one single, simple answer. Instant Solutions are like Instant Mashed Potato. Sure, you only need to add water, but it still tastes like regurgitated cardboard with sawdust seasoning.
The best I can come up with is to say that humanity needs to ditch it's obsession with money. As a form of simplified bartering, it served it's purpose. But some resources are dangerously out of balance, now. Human-caused extinctions of entire species of flora and fauna are now so frequent, the biosphere is likely to become unstable within one, at most two, generations.
Then, there are other resources which are so plentiful in principle (but throttled back in practice) that to deprive others of their use in an attempt to get rich is utterly pathetic and amoral.
(Decent education is one. The Internet is another. =CLEAN=, unpolluted water is a third.)
IMHO, those comodoties which are "universal" should be taken out of the bartering equation completely. The rest can be phased out over the next few centuries, as superior alternatives are found.
(We don't =have= any superior alternatives, because nobody with the money to really look for any has any interest in doing so, because to do so means to reduce their own elevated status.)
Pointless? I think not (Score:3)
Research for it's own sake is the only reason you are able to read the page you just posted.
It is the only reason that you can drive your car.
It is the only reason we have big shiny airplanes.
Research for it's own sake is what truely DRIVES INNOVATION AND TECHNOLOGY. Without it, we are left with nothing more than last year's crap with a pretty new face. If you have ever worked at a company without a REAL research budget, you will know what I mean.
Business men are not the smartest in the bunch, they are the most greedy. They have to be told far too often the implications of the technology they promote, and if they can't show a profit from something from day one they don't want to hear about it. Nothing gets accomplished in an evironment like this. Nothing.
The "american dream" in this country has not only been destroyed, but it was auctioned off to the highest bidder. No longer can you do anything for the love of it, no longer can you be an individual without being asked "how much can you make off that".
Katz and the "Uncontamination" of Society (Score:3)
Is there anyone who doubts that the economic interests of the United States (and of other countries) haven't consistently influenced their foreign and domestic policies? From the rationales for British imperialism in the 19th century, to the arguments *for* slavery by southern plantation owners in the 19th century US, politics has always reflected the economic interests, and supporting morals and mores, of the ascendant economic elite.
I don't mean that *everything* in politics has been derived from an economic imperative (an invisible hand?!), but most big decisions have. Academic institutions have helped, in the past, to reproduce knowledge and social institutions that supported existing hierarchies of power and privilege. Rather than being apart from economic and globalizing trends they are a critical enabler of them.
Research Good for People can be Bad For Profits (Score:3)
Let's take the American Medical Association as an example.
What would happen if, say, a generalized cure for all our physical ailments were developed (e.g. nano-facilitated medical immortality)? Suddenly there is no more disease or death (save accidental, violent, or suicide). The need for doctors is diminished to almost nil, save for the occasional accident victim.
Would the AMA push for approval of such a technology, knowing it would put most of their membership in the unemployment line? Or would they delay, possibly even bury, such a breakthrough to maintain their own profession? To suggest the former is to stretch credibility beyond any reasonable bound, while to suggest the latter, unpleasant, possibility, conjurs unpleasant memories of similar actions in other industries which have already been documented.
Many arguments (of varying veracity: some quite compelling, most not) have been put forward that the medical establishment has already buried cures for various ailments which are more profitable to treat than to cure. True or not, it does point to the disturbing fact that there is a hideous amount of financial incentive not to cure many diseases.
A flagrant real-world case of abuse is the criminalization of marijuana. A natural substance with medical and practical non-medical uses (paper, rope, textiles) has been outlawed in no small part to protect certain business interests (the cotton industry, the wood-pulp industry, and more recently the pharmaceutical industry).
In Normal, Illinois teenagers convicted of possession of marijuana were enrolled in manditory treatment centers, where many were then diagnosed with depression (what teenager wouldn't be, especially after getting "busted" and having their life turned upside down by the authorities?), and required to take anti-depressents. An exchange of a relatively innocuous substance for an addictive and very potent psychiatric drug!
Clearly, pharmaceutical profits were being protected at the direct expense of the good of the people. Is it reasonable to believe this is the only occurance of such abuse by this one industry? I don't think so. I suspect this is the tip of the iceberg -- how many penecillin-esque wonder drugs have simply been buried, because they would undermine the profitability of other, well selling product lines? Since we are privy to so little privately funded research, we may never know.
Do you honestly believe research conducted by private, for profit groups, is going to be anywere near as open and accessible to public scrutiny as research funded today by public institutions such as the National Science Foundation?
I would submit that recent history demonstrates the opposite: corporations with existing business models will, on average, find it more profitable to bury their own research than change their business models (which most breakthroughs generally entail).
While conducting public research does not eliminate this problem, reducing it (as was done in the 1980s) and eliminating it (which is the trend today) certainly makes the problem worse and the abuses both more chronic and more acute.
Re:Columbia, Patents, and Profit (Score:3)
Katz's point is not that Columbia's administration has it in for geekhood, as your jab seems to imply. It's that there is a danger in tying the funding of an academic institution to a corporate agenda. I know that as an employee of a state university, I'm forbidden from officially endorsing any product (at least in the IT field), but I wonder if that would be the case if we became the Microsoft Information Technology Research Center.
Who told you that? The Science Fairy?
It's a running joke now, in the tech industry especially, that two competing corporations which comission studies on the same topic will come up with differing answers. Third party research which is funded by corporate entities is always suspect. Even in instances where no improper behavior takes place, such studies are often treated with skepticism just because of the possibility of bias. Witness the Mindcraft/Microsoft debacle of a few months ago.
For the most part, Katz is speaking less to direct funding of academe than academe's entrance into the corporate arena in its own right. And here, my own testimony is a bit suspect - we do what amounts to consulting services for money here (although we're salaried, and make considerably less than the average consultant). But I have to admit that part of me regrets the loss of the whole "ivory tower academia" stereotype.
Re:Researchers need to eat, too (Score:3)
The problem is that these are not necessarily compatible. The goal of capitalism is to make profit. That's all! All other goals (saving the whales, educating the children, cleaning the environment) are secondary to the goal of making a buck. Furthermore, this buck making is generally a very short sighted effort, looking to make money right now despite potentially dangerous long term impacts of the effort.
As the number of independent researchers diminishes, who is checking the work of these for-profit efforts. Certainly if they find out that there technologies are harmful they will do everything they can to cover it up. Non-disclosure agreements, bought off politicians, etc. Without some journalists and scientists out there asking the tough questions, free of a corporate leash, we may be in serious trouble.
Certainly there is nothing wrong with making money from technology, but there is something wrong when the independent voices challenging the impact of your developments diminishes. Furthermore there is something wrong when the amount of pure science research is being diminished by the drive for profit.
There are a lot of things in the Universe that are worth exploring on an intellectual level that are almost totally pointless at an economic level. Capitalism puts the immediate growth of profit margins above the long term growth of the human mind. What if all of the government and academic funded "pure science" research was scrapped in favor of money making technologies? Anything that doesn't have immediate applications or marketability (come see the wonders of the pharoas for a low low price of $25) wouldn't be touched.
---
Re:Can't be too surprised (Score:3)
One reason I've heard for this is that it prevents a student from submitting a single piece of work to multiple classes. I.e. if I write an essay about "Quantum Computing" I can't turn it in for a grade to my physics class and my comp.sci. class without permission from the instructors. It is perfectly reasonable for the university to try to prevent that type of thing, but it is not reasonable for the university to claim copyright over things I write as a student. I'm paying them, they're not paying me!
Another thing I think this is trying to stop is students selling good essays to be used by other students. I don't think that type of thing is very good, but the problem isn't the person selling the essay, it's the people fraudulently claiming they wrote the essay they bought. Why shouldn't I be able to publish my good essays that I wrote for class? They're mine.
We need to speak out against this abuse.
would linux have been possible... (Score:3)
They were never free like you say (Score:3)
Sorry, Jon, but no institution has ever been free of the influence of the marketplace. Every institution collects money, buys things, and pays people. This has an effect on the marketplace, and inevitably the marketplace affects it.
Your nirvana never existed. You're wasting your time mourning its passing.
-russ
It's even getting integrated into curriculum (Score:3)
Basically, these clinics involve teams of students becoming contractors of sorts for corporations. Clinic teams are given somewhere in the neighborhood of $35,000 to complete these projects, which are funded by companies such as DirecTV, Raytheon, TRW, and of course, Microsoft.
Based on the success of the clinic experience, the school is experimenting with initiating "entepreneurial clinic" where a team of students literally receives VC funding to start a company. They receive credit for this, but in addition, the school is made a partial owner of the company.
One of the visiting professors here a couple years ago spoke out against the clinic system, saying it was turning students into corporate slaves, but the trustees got rid of him. This past year's senior class made a move to have him as the commencement speaker, but the trustees went with someone else instead.
I see no sign of the clinic system here abating, and expect it to catch on at other universities in the near future as well.
Practical research stays on the same train track (Score:3)
John C. Polanyi. Excerpt from the keynote address to the Canadian Society for the Weizmann Institute of Science, Toronto June 2, 1996.
It is the research for the sake of science, not technology, that pushes uncharted boundries that has the potential to return with the largest benifits to society. By standing on the basic building blocks of the universe we live, in we can see and understand more of that universe. The pure research that is conducted to create solid foundations of understanding ultimately leads to building of that which is most benifitial to society. As a concrete foundation is to a building, pure scientific research for the sake of science is to practical scientific research.
Here is a good example:
Understanding in quantum mechanics allowed for the creation of instruments like electron microscopes and other high precision instruments. These intruments allowed for the discovery of DNA. The understanding of genetics allowed us to modify plasmids in bacteria to produce human insulin, which allows diabetics to live more normal lives. Technologies due to understanding in quantum mechanics also include televisions, computers, cat scans, etc... They are also leading to things like nano-technology.
There is research being conducted today that has the potential to revolutionize our society. Fields like high energy physics have great potential that hardly anyone sees. Through the understanding of the basic particles that make up all matter, and the fundemental forces that bind everything the ability to do great things for society arise. Discoveries in particle physics help out with research in fusion. With a better understanding of gravity we may be able to achieve interstellar space travel. The dicoveries made at high energies allow for a better understanding of how the universe was when it began.
Research in practical areas is good but I believe that Academia should spend more time working on that which could have the greatest impact, ie science for the sake of science.
Nothing new about Universities' money priorities (Score:3)
I'm glad that Katz is talking about this, and has included the astronomical sums from Columbia as food for thought.
Anyone who kept their eyes open in college should know already about how the money flows. Big science research (where the grants go) have all sorts of equipment, new buildings, classroom space, faculty offices, etc. The places where grants usually don't go (the humanities, especially) are in the run-down buildings and the faculty are still using 386 computers. I work at a big-time research university, and see this every day.
There's still something "pure" about the intellectual climate at colleges and universities, and you're less likely (but far from unlikely) to be censored or fired for expressing unpopular thoughts. So, let's try not to get too cynical about universities that work to make a buck from their intellectual capital (aka, employees). Just keep your eyes open for the evidence that's easy to find for anyone involved with higher education.
and this is worse than .... (Score:3)
You're Completely Missing The Point (Score:3)
Pepsi may pay for a building, and that may bug you (as may the fact you can't get a Coke on campus), but the real issue is: has any researcher said, "Oh no! Pepsi gave us money! Forget basic research on topic X and let me work on topic Y which is more applied!"
If your purpose was to provide examples, try again
What *you* want is irrelevant (Score:3)
When they choose to go into academia, they face an opportunity cost: go to industry and make $$$ or stay with basic research and work on more _interesting_ problems.
But as basic research finds applications, the equation changes: they can easily switch to private industry and still do the same things they like. Or, they can spin off a company. Or, they can seek corporate dollars. Or, the liscence their patents.
I don't think the outcome is grave or dangerous. Academia is still filled with thousans of people who have a Katzian hate of "corporatism". There will always be people who _want_ to do basic reserach because it is much more interesting than anything they would do in industry. And as long as they can get their hands on research grants, life goes on.
If, on the other hand, the government research grants are augmented by private-sector research funding, who loses?
I would argue there is a benefit.
As people who _want_ to be more applied get their funding from corporate sources, there is less competition for government (read: tax-payer supported) funding for more "pure" research.
If played right, this could be a win-win situation.
Sure -- this is why there are no vaccines (Score:3)
(The truth is that curing a disease is a much bigger and more complicated problem to tackle than is treating symptoms).
Re:Argh (Score:3)
I think a bunch of you missed the point (Score:3)
There is nothing wrong with that. The problem is when the people (corporations) that fund research get to decide which research project will get funded. Even this works OK when the funding entity has a "good" motive (wealthy person whose spouse died of cancer funds cancer research), but the problem is that there are a lot more wealthy and greedy people than there are wealthy and altruistic people (not researched, merely observed).
Mobil isn't going to fund a university that researches methods of eliminating oil from the world's energy supply - it's not in their best interest. This type of research IS in the world's best interest, but not the oil company's.
There is no financial reason for people like Einstein or Hawking (or Dirac or Bohr or Tesla or Feynman or ...) to be able to pursue their research, at least not in the near term. These "pure research" people need funding just as much as (or more than) the people researching the best way to make a supercomputer (a lucrative proposition).
The other problem with corporate or government funding is that there is ALWAYS an "ulterior" motive for the funding: NASA gets funding because the Air Force wants to become the Space Force, The internet is developed because the DOD wants a research and military data infrastructure (ARPANET), etc. As an offshoot of this type of funding, we get trips to the moon and pure scientific data from Voyager and other space probes (and the internet :).
It is easy to see where Corporate America and Political America screw the people. In the case of news, we have the excellent example of US television covering the 1996 Olympic Beach Volleyball Quarterfinals (where the Americans were playing), and not broadcasting the Soccer Gold medal competition where top-ranked Argentina lost to the basically unknown Nigeria because the US had already been eliminated. This type of reporting happens all the time - the major news services are not interested in bringing us the news - they are interested in selling more newspapers with something like the OJ hype or the Lewinsky "issue", while there wars going on around the world. That isn't news reporting, it's selling more potato chips to Americans who couldn't care less about the rest of the world.
Re:Can't be too surprised (Score:3)
The line the University held to, and still holds to, is that NCSA's job is to research new technologies, not to market them as business products. Once Mosaic was deemed a success, they gave licensing rights over to a separate company (Spyglass) and got back to researching other technologies.
I'd buy some shares! (Score:4)
Well, you can't get equity, but you can buy debt [savingsbonds.gov] if you want to invest in your country (too bad the returns are so-so. Of course, the risk is pretty much damn near zero too..).
Columbia, Patents, and Profit (Score:4)
Columbia's engineers work hard to develop useful, even marketable products, and the fact that these products are useful and marketable is a testament to Columbia's success -- not evidence that they have "sold out." What's more, this money can go to other useful causes, such as student financial aid, or to fund less-profitable research in other fields, such as history, or sociology, or pure mathematics (which I am paid to do).
It's not as though Big Evil Corporation (TM) calls up the office of Columbia's president and says: "Quick, we need some research and statistics from the Chemical Engineering department to support our evil, corporatist, anti-geek agenda!" Scientific research isn't like that. It's based on facts -- you can't just magically come up with results to support your personal agenda. In that way, it's quite different from journalism, don't you think?
Cheers,
IT
Yes, they have checked freedom (Score:4)
Yes, Jon, these institutions have all too often served to check freedom and prosperity. Fortunately, freedom and prosperity have succeeded in overcoming these checks, at least in the US, and we are now mostly free and mostly prosperous. However they still exist, and they would still like to check freedom and prosperity. I'll do my best to stop them. Won't you? Vote Harry Browne in 2000!
-russ
how to retain professors (Score:4)
How do you propose getting around this problem?
Have you ever thought about how a school can get their tuition costs down, while at the same time attracting top-notch professors away from lucrative positions?
One of the ways that a school subsidizes their expensive labs to teach students in is to make their departments more like co-ops; where a professor and his students work to develop a theory, technology, etc. with the end product being something that is patentable and able to generate more revenue to fund the school. Many private schools rely on this so that the can continue to attract the brightest people to their "Center of Learning"
Of course they are relying more and more on this revenue generation... but isn't it better to rely on this than to make tuition more expensive than the majority of students can afford? Do you want higher education to become more and more the education of the wealthy and elite?
By having the goal become a patent in some cases, a school can generate money to subsidize the giant costs of running a private institution.
Of course people are going to argue for public colleges, but public colleges do the same thing because their costs are even more complex. They are required to give in-state tuition at a lower cost so that they can receive money from the state government, however these federal grants are often less than required. Also, as we've approached a period where a college education is becoming more and more required for higher paying jobs, there is a need to keep these costs down for a large population. Without more federal subsidies (that are deducted from YOUR payroll), how do you propose reducing these costs?
It's about values, people (Score:4)
Well, instead of researchers, let's put in the words:
artists
politicians
judges
journalists
policemen
teachers
doctors
You could easily make the same argument for any of them getting paid more for the work they do, and perhaps doing more work because of it.
But if we value the work of these professions only in terms of money, the value of their work diminishes: it's not as honest, as challenging, as self-sacrificing, as useful, as impartial, as thorough when it is done in an atmosphere where its value is set only by who finds it valuable.
Think about it. What's worth more money? A report on how product X kills, or a report on how product X grows hair on your scalp? If the makers of product X can't pay for the report, it's a toss-up. If they can, it's a slam-dunk that they'd pay well for the good news, and pay even better to suppress the bad.
There's another element here: competition for scarce resources. The universities are conveniently NOT part of the corporations that are providing funding, so that they can claim credibility, or at least plausible deniability. Rather they are sub-contractors, looking for the customers with the deepest pockets, and eschewing the research that is just costly overhead, or even merely low-margin.
Don't underestimate this later point. Think about the harm to all of us from the fact that the best:
researchers
artists
politicians
judges
journalists
policemen
teachers
doctors
serve the communities and individuals with the most money, and the worst of these professions serve those of lesser means.
What matters is not that we keep these professionals poor. What matters is that they work for values other than money, and that we avoid systems like the one brewing at universities that punishes professionals that attend to anything other than money.
Researchers need to eat, too (Score:4)
This isn't about the Corporate Republic - instead, it's the early Free Market pioneer's dream. We have systems that prevent abuses of the market - Microsoft, for instance. Our judicial system decides on these. In the meantime, that which can be sold, will be sold - it's simply an extended bartering. It fosters intellectual growth, and encourages new product development. Ultamitely, people will buy what people want; and the corporations will make what the people want. If jorunalism is what the people want, the corporations will make that. And note the plural - because of that, we can have several voices in the marketplace. Indeed, this is the dream of the early Free Market pioneers.
Students as Customers (Score:4)
What disturbs is that as more and more Universities cash in with corporate sponsorship, students are being looked at more and more as customers by their universities. And I DON'T mean as customers receiving the unviersities' product, their college education, I mean as consumers of the university sponsors' goods.
An example, since I enrolled in the University of Maryland at College Park in 1998, the university has gained endorsements from Pepsi, Rebok, and most recently our school bookstore was bought out by Barnes and Nobles. On top of that, students who live on campus are going to start receiving Comcast cable, and will be billed for it whether they use it or not.
While Katz was bemoaning Universities getting paid for research, I must agree with the numerous other posters who said that this was not the true problem. The true problem is that universities have started to exploit their captive audiences. When you can no longer buy both Coke and Pepsi on campus, and Barnes and Noble is the ONLY store to carry your textbooks, and you can't walk to class without being accosted by numerous people trying to solicit you with credit card offers, there IS a problem. We are starting to lose that free market that our country was supposed to be built on. Certainly, demands for low cost higher education have caused universities to look for alternative sources of income, but people don't seem to realize the impact these corporate sponsors can have. If nothing else, Universities SHOULD be encouraged to make money off of their research rather than resorting to milking the students like cash cows.
Money - Better Projects - Better Advancement (Score:5)
The other benefit is that it teaches the grad students and other who work on the project a lot more than just how to program a robot to recognize who it's talking to, it teaches them how to develop a product, talk with corporate sponsors, and "sell" a proposal. This is very valuable if these students or professors leave acadmia.
In my last semester, I was part of a research project that was 66% sponsored by a private company, and 33% sponsored the the "Pennsylvania Infrastructure Technology Alliance" and the 12 students in this course got to not only apply their skill as engineers, but learned how to give a proposal, conduct cost-benefit analysis, etc, etc. This was probably my most valuable course as an undergrad for that reason.
Academia is just trying to find the happy in-between. They want the public to see the benefit, and the students toget a benefit, while still being able to conduct new and innovative research. I think they're doing a good job.
-nosilA
Can't be too surprised (Score:5)
Re:Researchers need to eat, too (Score:5)
> was right - does that mean that it's wrong to
> say that slavery is wrong?
This depends on your perspective. Certainly slavery was tolerated, and by some even considered "right". However, I would offer that it never was and never will be "right" to force individuals into slavery and treat them as property, no matter how many people are willing to tolerate it or think that its ok.
> Capatalism has long been accepted as the best
> model for the development of society -
> universally since the fall of Communism.
A) Capitalism and communism are general catagories of ideologies. Many form sof both have never been tried. The failure of one or more forms of communism does not prove capitalism correct.
B) Communism has been quite sucessfull in some places. I direct you to The Farm [thefarm.org] a community in Tennessee which has experimented with a couple of forms of progressive communism for the past 30 years.
> This isn't about the Corporate Republic
> - instead, it's the early Free Market pioneer's
> dream
Hardly! A free Market pioneers dream is what the corperations crush. All of the benefits that capitalism lovers point to as the result of "market forces" are actually hindered by mega-corps.
Large corperations have found that it is more profitable to crush competition or buy them out than to compete with them on fair ground. They have found that its more profitable to take away peoples choices, than to produce good products.
Once a company is so large and has such a product base that the average person can't help but buy their product, is it really a free market? Noone can compete with them. Nothing can touch their profits.
When its more profitable to make producing better products unprofitable for others than to produce good products yourself, the people get screwed over. It is a moral atrocity to do so. It acts to the detriment of society itself. It makes the corperation a parasite rather than a productive member.
Free market pioneers would roll in their graves to have this perversion called their dream.
How is this much different? (Score:5)
How is this much different from the old system in which researchers produced potentially flawed technology and biased research in the name of tenure and standing? Academic institutions have always been very politicly and econmically motivated places, it is just that htth were previously "donated" to by large companies and the government rather than working in active partnerships. While certainly there is a paradim shift here, I do not think it as servere as is made out in this article. We are simply seeing a formalization of relationships and conditions that have exist for a long time.
Issue of Concern at MIT (Score:5)
Here's a story [mit.edu] about potential conflict's of interests for professors. It involves Prof. Leighton, an MIT prof who's research led to Akamai.
The issue of how patents are handled at universities is also an issue at MIT. Currently, as I understand it, MIT's patent department assists students in obtaining patents in return for a percentage of any income derived from those patents. A view on this was expressed by Prof. Bose (yes, that Bose =) in a guest column [mit.edu] in the school newspaper.
A recent partnership with Microsoft [mit.edu] (!)brought up more discussions about MIT's role and how the many partnerships with industry affect MIT's goals. (I can't seem to find the articles that popped up about it, though :(
Here's an old one [mit.edu] by "Drexel University professor Noble, formerly an assistant professor in MIT's Program in Science, Technology and Society".
IMHO, I don't think industry ties are entirely bad. Like anything else in the world, there are pros and cons. Obviously, as these ties become closer, ethical issues arise, and there isn't a clear resolution to this problem. Unless you make the professors and students choose between academia and industry. The Media Lab is an example of how industry and universities can dovetail successfully. AFAIK, corporations provide funding to the Media Lab as a whole. Then, if they see anything they like, they can take it in house and develop it to their own desires. As a result, the Media Lab receives a huge influx of funding, and is thus able to research things that may or may not have an obvious commercial value. But cool things come out of there all the time. (i.e. Lego Mindstorm was developed there).
Argh (Score:5)
The campus became a regular campsite for companies trying to hawk their products. For example,
- Glamour Magazine was allowed to set up a tent on the illustrious Lawn, hawking products, trying to enlist subscribers, scouting for models, selling poor self-image.
- Football fields and buildings, and renovations (and benches and tables and lightswitches) were named in honor of donors, as usual, but the donors were moving in corporate directions. The main building of our Darden School of Business is called the Pepsi Forum (it's should be no surprise that you can't get Coke in there).
- I first spotted the Reebok logo appearing on our football players in my third or fourth year, although it had probably been there all along; perhaps they increased the size.
(I'm sure there are more examples I've forgotten.)I don't think Katz adequately addressed the issue of why corporate sponsorship is a problem. In my opinion, such contributions are like the system of patronage that strangled the painting world for many years (and continues to, I believe). You can't really bite the hand that feeds you and then expect another bite. I think it is safe to assume that research at UVA is not going to suddenly announce that caffeine and sugar combine to form toxins that eat your brain... Such systems dilute the value of the research, and also direct it away from "pure research" (as opposed to profit-research) which tends to lead the way in advances that actually help society.
(Incidentally, UVA hosts one of the two crash test research centers that use actual human cadavers in the car; the other is the University of Heidelberg... "Hey, those aren't dummies!")
Jon Katz - duller than a roomful of UFO nuts (Score:5)
Oh no! Napster got shut down! "Blame the corporate republic".
Oh no! Somebody's sponsoring a University! "It's all the fault of money! Be communist!"
Oh no! Some mad kids went and shot a load of people! "Blame closed source!"
He's like a UFO spotter or some other kind of lunatic conspiracy theorist - nothing but hot air, and an inablility to see how unreasonable he sounds, all the time.
Frankly, it's dull. It's boring. It's the same crap every week. The reason nobody plays "Guess what Katz wrote this week" is that the game is far too easy.
And, like most Americans, he concentrates entirely on what's going on within the borders of his little country. One day, he might actually realise that there's a whole world out there which doesn't care about what goes on in the United States of Overinflated Egos.