[eli_gottlieb]

>I get enough emails as it is from whacko's who think they've upturned Quantum Mechanics, Relativity, or created some perpetual motion machine. If society valued these people's output they would be financially rewarded already. There's already incentives in present society, called capitalism and competition!

If you can't differentiate between capitalism and scientific peer-review as separate processes for separating wheat and chaff, why should I take your word on the ethics underlying fundamental economics, ie: that "he who does not work deserves not to eat"?

[eanzenberg]

Competition underlies capitalism.

Why do you think scientists want to publish in the best journals like science and nature? There is a healthy amount of competition in science too. It's what drives people to get into the academy, or get awards like the Nobel. It's what creates great science, but it also creates politics in research.

There's a number of parallels between capitalism and academic research.

[stcredzero]

So there has to be a requisite degree of suffering on the bottom-end to motivate the population to compete to better their station? Is that the society-scale version of "The beatings will continue until morale improves?"

Well, on a more serious note, it would be, "The subtle resource starvation will continue until you become more valuable and productive."

Would the "lower classes" in academia lacking health care result in more academic productivity? Actually, no one really disagrees about these things in an absolute sense. It's more where people want to draw the lines.

[eanzenberg]

The lines are set by supply and demand. It's the reason why I got paid doing a STEM graduate degree, while someone in the arts or history would not.

"The subtle resource starvation will continue until you become more valuable and productive."

Yes, and this is the reason society improves over time. Drastically so.

In other words, it is little value to me if you decide to pursue art history because there are enough art historians in supply. You would need to out-compete ones with greater experience than you to make a living. It doesn't help society to add +1 to that pool. On the other hand, it is quite valuable to pursue a STEM degree because the skills, research, and knowledge you attain are in demand.

The system, works. Society improves over time, and everyone is rewarded. Everyone is(should be) thankful.

[eli_gottlieb]

>The lines are set by supply and demand. It's the reason why I got paid doing a STEM graduate degree, while someone in the arts or history would not.

Bull. The funding for your "STEM" (come on, tell us what field you actually did) grad degree didn't come from supply and demand on an open market; it came from government research funding.

>"The subtle resource starvation will continue until you become more valuable and productive." > >Yes, and this is the reason society improves over time. Drastically so.

The fact that you have noticed an optimization process acting on society optimizes society is not a great insight. The fact that you failed to notice the current optimization process profoundly mismatches our values and intentions is a major misstep of yours.

[eanzenberg]

>"The funding for your "STEM" (come on, tell us what field you actually did) grad degree didn't come from supply and demand on an open market; it came from government research funding."

Which is driven by the market. If art historians were all of a sudden extremely profitable then you bet your ass there will be a massive increase in gov't funding at their graduate level, due to market demands. Grant applications have to stress the importance of their research (and often times potential for profit) to society. The fact that you fail to see immense competition in gov't research funding shows how high your blinders are.

>"The fact that you have noticed an optimization process acting on society optimizes society is not a great insight. The fact that you failed to notice the current optimization process profoundly mismatches our values and intentions is a major misstep of yours."

Don't shove your values on me. Un-targeted welfare steals limited resources from those who truly need it. Swallow those values whole.