[Cyph0n]

If for-profit research didn't exist, we probably wouldn't be able to have this discussion. Do you think the likes of Bell Labs and IBM Research would have been making scientific breakthroughs if there were no financial incentive to do so? Let that sink in for a moment.

Beating the competition to make more money is the primary goal behind corporate R&D expenditures. It's essentially a form of investment, which means that it has to eventually make the company some kind of return.

The great thing is that we get the results of breakthroughs in the form of publications, patents, and eventually we see them in products. Sometimes the company decides to just release the results royalty-free: a great example of this is Volvo and the modern seatbelt.

[krapp]

>. Do you think the likes of Bell Labs and IBM Research would have been making scientific breakthroughs if there were no financial incentive to do so?

Maybe not, but I think even for-profit research should alwats be made freely available at some point, regardless of its value. The financial incentive may be necessary but to me it's a perverse incentive.

[Cyph0n]

But without money, how do you propose we perform research? Who will feed and house the researchers? Who will pay for the building(s) the researchers work in? Who will pay for the (usually) expensive equipment needed to perform simulations and analyze the results?

And if the results don't generate money, how will you continue to support research projects in the future?

Modern scientific research is a very expensive endeavor. You could probably get scientists to do this "for free" back when a field was still in its infancy. Now you need a whole team of researchers and an entire support system to make even the smallest of scientific breakthroughs.

And by the way, universities also aim to generate a profit (usually fed back into the institution). For example, most universities take a 50% cut of whatever external funding a professor manages to get. They do provide things in return, but the key point is that they're making money off of research.

[krapp]

Somehow, we need to separate the need to fund science with the desire to limit access to maximize profits from it.

I'm speaking from an idealistic and naive point of view, but I don't want capitalism or politics to determine the limits of human self-awareness for future.

Then again, when it costs millions or billions of dollars to make breakthroughs, it does seem untenable to ask scientists to starve for the sake of the common good, and just expect the money to come from "somewhere" without strings attached.