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Academe: Technology For Sale
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.
I guess my point is that without *some* funding coming into these schools from industry, there would be little accomplished (especially in California). Students need places to do the research, machines to crunch the numbers and food in their bellies. The money doesn't come from the state, so industry involvement is a must. It all depends on people doing the right thing.... oh wait I guess we're screwed.
"you can't just magically come up with results to support your personal agenda"
Sure you can! The tobacco companies have been coming up with this sort of one-sided research, backed with actual facts (while leaving out other inconvenient facts), for decades.
"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!"
No, it's not that blatant. However, that is the general idea, but in more subtle ways. Big Evil Corporation (TM), which makes product X, gives megabucks to Columbia to do a research project on the safety of product X. Given that future grants will depend on the goodwill of Big Evil Corporation (TM), don't you think the research Columbia does will be that much less likely to find that product X is bad?
These influences, though subtle, are real, and have been documented many times over the years.
So show me where tuition has gone down at any university in the US.
As a whole, the US is more economically rich than ever before. NPR recently stated that more people than ever are outright buying their cars rather then obtaining a loan. When looking at the type of vehicles they buy (SUVs), that's quite a lot of disposable income. Compare this to the last century -- Depression 20s, Dustbowl 30s, Wartime 40s, Vietnam 60s, Energy Crisis 70s, Depressive 80s, S&L Bailout in the early 90s --- this is an incredible difference in wealth.
So, what do you do with all that money? Hell! Buy Stuff!
The Nature of Man is that He must fit into a group. And, much like sharks, Man can easily be whipped into a frenzy when in a group. Just look at the riots at football (soccer) matches and the malevolence at the WTO protests in Washington. Thus, when others start spending vast quantities of money, even those who don't have it will be inclined to join in (credit cards).
"Yes," I hear you cry, "but Universities are supposed to be different. They're supposed to be better than that." Scientists and researchers are often put on the altruistic pedestal of "Doing The Right Thing", but scientists are still Human. Not everyone can be an idealist like RMS. Public universities are notoriously underfunded by the state, so when they see an opportunity to gain money by selling patents to some corporation (especially the cash-rich companies) of course they'll bite. They need more money to attract more students to attract more money just so they can stay afloat.
So, these scientists who are supposed to have better ethics and morals are sell-outs. But are they? No. They've just discovered that some Values are not as valuable as others. If selling this patent means "selling-out" and reaping benifits for the research institution (or, more personally, the researcher's family) then he has not sold out. He has weighed the options and gone with the higher Value.
Finally, where did all these companies get their money that they can buy these things? By making crap products, buying out the competition and threatening others with law-suits. Why? So they can make a buck. Look behind that curtain, my friends, and you'll see that it's the shareholders and the consumers (you and me) who are allowing the companies do this. Shareholders demand profitability so they can prosper as well as the company; the consumers allow the companies to make shit because it's new and cheap. The cost is that we get corners cut; competition gets squashed; crappy products get produced cheaply and then have to be replaced every three years; and money lines the shareholders' pockets. Hell, even the consumer saves money cause the crap was so cheap!
Face it. It's our own fault we're in this "mess" (if that's what you wish to call it). The only way to "fix it" is to get rid of the money. That way we can all go back to the 50s when everyone had to work their asses off to just stay afloat and science was the saviour of mankind.
Lately I've been feeling a bit odd about these Corporate Republic writings from Mr. Katz.
Mr. Katz condemns sell-your-mother attitude inherent in the Corporate Republic, but yet does not do anything to show that he is more than just a lot of words. Of course Jon Katz and his family has to eat like the rest of us, and hence it is natural to expect him to sell his books. But:
at the same time Mr. Katz is condeming his own actions by saying that Corporate Republic is evil, everything is sacrificed to the altar of the allmighty dollar and so on, which I think is true and Mr. Katz has a point there. The problem is that we'd (at least I would) like to see the books written by Jon Katz offered to us for free download from the net. Before this happens, anything Mr. Katz says to criticize the Corporate Republic seems just ridiculous.
I would like Jon Katz to comment on this issue, even briefly. Some kind of an answer would be appreciated, even if it's just two words beginning with an F and an O. Maybe I should Ask Slashdot?
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.
Maybe you did, but after taking a class in the
history of science and working in a comp. sci.
research lab, I lost any romantic notions about
scientific research I might have once had.
Defense funding increases brought on by the Cold
War are the reason for the rising number of
research labs. As defense funding has decreased,
those labs have had to find other
sources of income. If anything, the focus has
changed from accelerating the development of
high-tech weaponry to more information-related
innovations.
shut the hell up
--
Ski-U-Mah!
True, I did mention military spending, which is federal; and mentioned it in a context along side education, which is funded mostly by state governments, with federal funding constituting around 15% of the total.
Yes, military spending has been curtailed slightly in the last 15 years. It is *still* the largest single line-item of our country's budget (followed closely by Social Security). And since education hasn't been able to track increased student populations (focusing instead on "inflation," a useless number when used all by itself), I am not convinced my rant was a "load of crap."
In fact, our government and our media has focused on the symptoms, and not the problem. Everyone agrees that our education system is degnerating; but not many people agree on the solution. The current silver bullet seems to be "outcome-based education;" three years ago it was team teaching.
So far, the statistics show only one thing-- that small class sizes with a teacher to student ratio of no more than 1:15 have better results than larger classes. Yet instead of fixing the problem of too many students in too small of space with too few teachers, we persue teaching fads with the fervor and blind jubilence of a born-again Christian at a Jim and Tammy Faye reunion concert.
I too come from a family of educators; I too have taught, but not at the primary or secondary levels. But it doesn't take an accountant to see that our government spends a relative pittance on education, while kowtowing to corporate special interest groups; and that the amount spent on education per-capita is falling dramatically.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Yup. I've got a working KatzBot, and this article was one of the final tests. I'd love to release it for general consumption, but ZDNet is paying me huge amounts of money to customize it for their use and not let anyone else have it.
--Phil (I might be able release Sig11Bot, which does mostly the same thing, but in fewer words...)
355/113 -- Not the famous irrational number PI, but an incredible simulation!
Hal Duston
hald@sound.net
If Al Gore invented the internet, why is it named after George W. Bush?
That is such a silly notion to think that research done at a university is somehow less valuable or not worthy or returning a profit. Institutions such as universitites and public organisations exist in the same marketplace and reality that private corporations do. Since only a limited quantity of money can be "liberated" from the private sector by force, they are forced to result to trading knowledge for money. Get a clue Jon.
Another radical solution may also be to start creating self-sufficient Lunar and/or Mars colonies. Unfortunately, we as a society don't have the will to spend the kind of capital this would require...
Ok, it's easy to point fingers and complain
What is your solution to putting food on every table, a roof over every head, heat in the winter, cool in the summer, a means to communicate with your relatives in the next state over, some creature comforts so we don't feel like slaves and still protect the environment?
I agree that the environment needs to be protected, but at what cost? Most environmentalists I've met or read have a REAL problem of pointing the finger but come up with no real viable solutions to the above questions...
For the record, profiteering is "The action or fact of seeking to make an excessive profit, as by providing necessities at extortionate prices," and is illegal in most countries. It's rather similar to what Microsoft has been doing. And in the corporate sense, maybe it should be a capital offense.
---sheath
A lot of interesting points. But usually if you mention on Slashdot that we need to ditch our obsession with money, you get attacked for espousing communism.
And until recently, a lot more of the money flowing into university research projects came from governments. And then the current rage for making governments 'more efficient' - ie. scrapping a lot of programs - came along, and more and more of the money has to come from corporations.
Democracy and capitalism do not go hand in hand. Look at China. They want capitalism (or corporatism; I'm not sure). But they definitely don't want democracy. And there are a lot of model economies in South America and Asia (Singapore, Argentina, etc...) where capitalism/corporatism are doing fine and democracy isn't.
We need to take back democracy; take back the government, and turn it back into 'for the people, by the people', which is the whole point - and I speak as a Canadian. Democracy is supposed to place checks on the power of corporations, and promote the power of the people. It's horribly inefficient, but that's never been a desirable trait in a government anyway.
---sheath
So are you saying that when a lot of people accept something, they can be wrong? Or not? Methinks they can. Obviously, any system has problems, and there's always a trade-off. Capitalism is good for some things, and horrible for others, which is why it's important not to take it too far and make everything 100% capitalistic.
The point of research is to develop technology for the good of society, right?
To many of the best scientists, it's to amuse themselves. Society should support that because maybe something will come out of it that will benefit society.
So what's wrong with combining that with capatalism?
Look at the medical system in the USA. Doctors are so well-paid that medicine attracts not the people who want to cure people, but those who want to get rich quick. So? You get doctors who want to process as many patients as they can, suboptimally, and recommend more treatment than is reasonable just to make a buck. To get an idea of who is treating you, look at how many honest med students there are. They're out there, for sure, but they're hard to find!
The same goes for all things capitalistic. When your ultimate goal is to make money, "doing the right thing" isn't an issue. You become amoral. Or you redefine morality in terms of money, and try to become very moral indeed.
We have systems that prevent abuses of the market - Microsoft, for instance. Our judicial system decides on these.
Not a great example. Look at how much harm Microsoft did, and it isn't over yet. Look at what the judicial system spends most of its time doing: turning the US into a mandatory and strict daycare center, while encouraging huge "campaign donations" from the rich.
It fosters intellectual growth, and encourages new product development.
Yes, it does encourage new product development, but I don't think that it necessarily fosters the right kind of intellectual growth. It helps technology, not science, and ultimately makes it harder for scientists to work, because they will have to compete, not cooperate, with technologists who make money for the universities. If your research has a smaller than average chance of making a buck Real Soon Now, kiss it goodbye. So much for astronomy, evolutionary biology, geology that isn't related to oil... While "contributing to the literature" isn't a perfect motivation, it's better than having to contribute to the coffers.
And I really don't want to think about the arts!
The early Free Market pioneers were economists who wanted growth at all costs. They didn't care about anything but money, and so they made a system that is very good at what it was designed for. But that doesn't make it the best system for everything.
"The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
Hi
Ok, some proyects on specially computing science
can make money in the very short term.
But that is the exception, you can have large
breakthrought in astrophysics and this is not to make money. Most of the sciences are "academic",
so the research is for getting knowledge NOT MONEY.
The cure for cancer can come for a proyect that only come from intelectual curiosity.
Overlord
you can:
IPOcracy!
My friend and peer is wrong on the whole blood on their hands thing. Columbia does receive cash from the federal gov't, (who doesn't? ;) but it
does not receive money from the department of defense and hasn't since the aftermath of the '68 riots. Certain professors seemed to agree that it was wrong to get money from the DoD.
But hey most U.S. citizens pay taxes, and all should... so we all have nice bloody hands.
Out, out damned spot!
One of the biggest misnomers in America is the press used to be about objectivity and independence. I'm sorry but that is a very moderm concept. In fact, the past has many different newspaper owner using there paper to promote their political ideals, the lst of these men was most likely Col. McCormick of the Chicago Tribune. So the control of media by the rich is not a new thing and never has been.
"Attention Citizens, 2+2 now equals 3.947547175. Please recalibrate your equipment now" --The Computer
Calvin Coolidge! I thought you were dead...
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
> ... to suddenly announce that caffeine and sugar combine to form toxins that eat your brain...
Good thing I take my coffee black.
I agree with this point. Additionally, you must also consider possiblity of 'bogus research' as a result of corporate sponsorship.
I'm not saying that I don't understand the need for capitalistic practices... I'm just saying that this is a double-edged sword. If we turn a blind eye to it, we sell-out our identity and culture.
If Microsoft continues to take an inside track on University research, perhaps we should call it Microsoft Institute of Technology.
...where will it end?
Katz's issue here is one of checks and balances. One can't dismiss the need for corporate sponsorship but its easy to look back 20 years and see the path we've gone is growing more and more diluted. When you start to wonder if University research findings is heavily influenced by money, and that the whole story isn't told, then our system is flawed.
"Corporatism" is a straw man. Throughout history, those with power and influence have conspired to profit at the expense of others. In feudal times, this was done by monarchies. In communist nations, Communist Party members use their influence to oppress the rest of society.
Today in the US, the rich and powerful make pilgrimages to Washington (or hire lobbyists) to get special favors from Washington. The clash of special interests permeates every aspect of government and every policy it enacts. Corporations battle it out over access to telecom, antitrust law, more military handouts, environmental regulations, subsidies, tax credits, regulations to restrict competitors, etc.
Jon Katz conflates this clash of interest groups with the market. He is wrong. Indeed, the corporate state we have today is the antithesis of a true free market-- one in which no one gets special favors from the government.
Indeed, this clash of interest groups is a fundamental feature of "economic democracy." People don't suddenly become un-selfish when they get into government, they simply pursue their self-interest by more direct means, means that tend to be far more destructive than those pursued in the private sector. In the marketplace, you must convince millions of consumers to use your product rather than that of your competitors. In Washington, you can simply get a subsidy or pass a law that outlaws your competition.
The difference between the free market and democracy is not that one promotes selfishness and the other promotes the public good. On the contrary, the difference is that under the free market shields individuals from this kind of political pressure, while "democratic" economic systems give corporations a direct and easy way to benefit themselves at the expense of others.
The problem with our educational system is that it *is* outside the marketplace. Rather than being independent private organizations accountable to their students and donors, most schools recieve their funding from the government, and as such are more susceptible from corporate pressure. The clash of interests groups we see on college campuses is not because there is too much commercialism on campus. On the contrary, college campuses are divisive and slavishly serve corporate interests precisely because they are government institutions and as such are more susceptible to pressure from the powerful.
A truly private system would probably still serve some corporate interests, but they would at least demand a fair payment in return. And colleges that produced faulty research because of corporate pressure would find itself losing students and donors due to the bad PR, and would be forced to shape up or go out of business. No comparable mechanism exists in a government-run system. Schools are guarunteed their money, and so they have no incentive to preserve the integrity of their research or their independence from corporate donors.
Your opinion highlights a major problem with corporate funding.
For one, I fully understand the wish for universities to profit from their discoveries. But they shouldn't. The danger is that research will be guided by what is profitable and what is useful in the short term, and not by what merits further understanding. Trust me, corporations will gladly research things that are directly applicable AND likely to be economically worthwhile. It isn't necessary to further support that. But truly ground-breaking research - as hard as it is to do even in a university - can't be judged by the money it makes.
When you decide that earning money is OK for a university or faculty, they'll try to do so. It's natural and entirely to be expected: funding is generally always needed in universities. And if it's not, having a larger team of researchers is always nice, or a better lab and so on. So there are very good reasons to want to make extra money off their inventions. But that also supports research into applicable sciences more than fundamental research or even literature, and social sciences and whatnot.
To cite an overused example: how was the internet developed? By the army - and that's no coincidence, because they can afford not to make a profit. People (like me:-) ) ridicule the star wars effort, but realise that the experience and knowledge it brings about is likely to do more good to mankind that those two extra stealth bombers...
For the same reasons that you don't want a reviewer payed by those that he reviews, you don't want a scientist payed by corporations. There is a bonafide conflict of interests going on here.
Perhaps a way around this is by requiring all such profits to be 100% taxed and the money the government makes off this may only be used for funding education and research - this would be a Good Thing. However, per university or worse yet per faculty funding will unfairly unbalance research.
Jon, where the hell have you been for the last 50 years? Academe has been being bought for quite some time!!
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
Yet again Jon discovers a long standing pre-existing trend.
Academia needs money, always has always will. When people give you money there are strings attached. How is the fact that corporations are now funding academic research any more troubling than the massive amounts of cash the US government has pumped into the University system?
Much of my graduate program was run on DOE grants alone. How much money did 'Star Wars' pump into the system? I would rather corporations shell out some money and help fund our higher educational system, in the long run they can only benefit. There can certainly be abuses but the system will be much more resistant to such abuses when they are many troughs to feed from, as opposed to a single governmental trough.
-josh
The question is why any of this is necessary. The football team at UVa is a HUGE money-MAKER. Why do they need corporate sponsorship?
Because American universities do not receive sufficient public funding, they are forced to turn to other means of raising funds, such as transforming themselves into highly profitable training grounds for semi-professional sports teams (and de facto farm teams for the NFL, NBA, etc.). This begins the process of transforming the university, in the minds of administrators, legislators, and the general public, from a center of learning to a center of profit. After all, if something is worth doing, it's worth doing for money, right?
Unfortunately this leads to a perverse but pervasive corollary: It must be that anything being done for a reason other than money is being done wrong. This explains why universities increasingly think nothing of selling out what financial and intellectual independence they have to corporations; why the commitment to public education is waning; and why control of everything from schools to prisons is being handed over to the private sector. In a world where even government is dominated by a business metaphor, legislators see themselves as businessmen who represent clients (i.e. the public -- witness the so-called Contract With America), rather than public servants serving a constituency. There is no perception of a universal public interest; there are only isolated, private interests, for profit. That's corporatism in a nutshell.
"The deep-fried Mars bar is a symptom of a wider crisis." -- Nutritionist Ann Ralph, on the Scottish diet
It's also truly sad to me to see a "geek" say, "Tech is fine and dandy, but where's my royalty check?"
That's not what I'm saying. What I am saying is, don't abuse my good faith by enriching yourself on the strength of money put up by me. Works paid for by the public should be free for everyone to enjoy equally. That's what public means, isn't it?
It's not about "give me the money." It's about "don't you go thinking this is yours and yours alone just because you did the work. We all paid to support you doing it, so you have to share." Monopolizing private profit from publicly funded research is stealing. The fact that "everybody does it" does not make it right, it makes it more wrong.
Common occurrence in Canadian universities:
... damn, we started to miss Coke products after a while!)
See:
Going once, going twice, SOLD!
for one article talking about this.
(I was a student at The University of Calgary, which accepted an exclusive contract with Pepsi
YS
"Arrr! The laws of science be a harsh mistress." -- Bender
That's why you can filter article by author on /.
You don't like it? Don't read it... And now you don't even need to see it! IMHO this would be a much better way to deal with your dislike of Katz and wht he writes than it is to flame in the comments... Don't you think?
"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear"
In Florida, public school funding is dependent on property tax money that is voted on. Florida has a large proportion of people who do not have school age children and would rather see property taxes not increased or spent on elderly/medical needs. This, when Florida is one of the fastest growing states in the country, both in families and elderly. The other statistic that impacts on this is that the US elderly population is going to double in the next 30 years. There will be less working age people to do more work -or- be more productive. Higher productivity is what has sustained the current economic boom and kept inflation down. Higher productivity entails people working smarter which means workers with more technological savvy. Corporations know that they need a large pool of educated workers and they know that demographics are against them. So yes, they are going to turn to Universities and they are going to do what they can to get the type of workers they need. This is nothing new. Universities in the middle ages were started by patrons that wanted clerks that were not tied to the church. The increase in trade also required learned men, thus the rise of the middle class. Land grant schools in the US were started for the same reason. The founding fathers (propertied middle/upper class) knew that if the new country was going to compete with England and France, they'd need something other than farmers. Education was an investment in technological 'brain' infristructure. Always has been. Don't forget, the researchers of the past, while they frequently may have died in poverty, they were clients of Patrons, looking for someone to support them.
I drank what? -- Socrates
First world tech countries tend to have very low birthrates. I think this is because tech/capitalist societies allow individuals to survive on their own. The need for an large or extended family as a support network has passed. In an agrarian society, it is very difficult for an individual to survive. Scratch farming requires at least two people working together, with children on the way to provide support in old age. The easier it is for people to feed themselves without having to farm the land personally, the lower the birthrate.
-Side note-
With a figure of 25% of Earth population living above poverty line (rough figure), this means that 1.5 billion people are living better than almost anyone else in history. Kings and Queens of 200 years ago do not have the options we have. Food from around the world is available to the average First Worlder. Information floods the air. Just 2000 years ago, the population of the world was about that of North America today. Of that population, it would be hard to see how any more than 5% were able to live comfortably than. It's also easy to forget just how close such living conditions were here in the US. My grandfather lives in a mud brick (adobe) house that he built himself, back in the depression. He raised sheep and my grandmother cooked in a beehive oven out back as they didn't have running water or electricity until my mother was a teenager, in the late '50's. My grandparents lived as people had lived for the last 3000 years; hand to mouth. It was only with education (my mother left the farm for the Air Force and then college) that I am able to live in the relative splendor of today (poor college student with used car, used computer, etc.). Yes, I'm doing better than 75% of the planet and it's because I was lucky enough to be born in a time and place of wealth. Now how to we bring this 'good life' to the other 75%? I like the idea of computing that doesn't require the industrial infristructure of the rich countries. Some countries in Africa are going straight to cellular, bypassing copper as it's cheaper and easier. Developement of lowpower portables and wireless networking could do wonders for people all over the world. The trick is to get manufacturing costs down to the point where a data terminal costs is equivilent to one of those cheap calculators they give away.
I drank what? -- Socrates
Death camps are no part of communism itself. They are the work of a powerful and corrupt autocrat.
Well, it's somewhat a matter of definitions. If you define communism as a set of ideas that Marx penned in Das Kapital and other works, then, yes, he did not write about concentration camps (which were, as an aside, invented by the British during the Boer war). However that's not a very useful definition of communism for the sake of our discussion. For example, it's not possible for it to fail since a philosophy cannot fail.
If, on the other hand, you define communism as a social, political, and economic system that was implemented in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, China, etc (somewhat differently in each), then it possible to claim that it failed and I do make this claim.
Whether this real socio-political system had much in common with Marx's ideas is a subject much debated by Marxists but not of much interest to anybody else.
Can you blame the basic philosophy for the atocities commited by the people who do things in its name?
Insofar as it is possible to blame a philosophy, yes, I can.
Should we then blame Christianity itself for the actions of those who carried out the spanish inquisition?
Sure. I don't see anything earth-shattering about it.
You seem to think that communism was a good idea that was corrupted/tainted/misformed by bad people. Think why these bad people were attracted to this idea, and why people who followed (or claimed to follow) communism turned out to be deadliest dictators during the XX century. Stalin killed many more Russians and Ukrainians than Hitler Jews.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
communism is older than marx, ..[snip].. Communism is a philosophy.
I am curious. How do YOU define communism? Is Campanella a communist? What about Franciscan monks or early Christians? or Buddhist monks? Is any kind of communal living communist?
At its core I think socialism and to a lesser extent communism have alot of potential and are generally very good ideas. I think that the problem has lay in the creation of powerful central states.
You have a different understanding of communism than I do, but to me a powerful and overbearing state is the main characteristic of it. Communism is basically about taking economic power away from individuals (justification: because they can abuse it) and giving it to the state. Political power shortly follows and we get all the standard problems very quickly.
Anytime the people are separated from the running of the government, the system has failed (which is why I think representative democracy is a horrid abomination and refuse to vote for representatives)
Well, how are you going to manage society? It is a very, very complicated task. You can't expect to run referendums on every little issue and even if you do (in the future electronic paradise), rule by mob rarely if ever led to good results. I am not going to argue for technocratic solutions, but somebody has to run the country understanding what's happening and what are the consequences of what they are doing. It is basically a complexity issue.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
The core idea is not giving power to a state per se ... [snip]... The core is putting the means of production into the hands of the workers ...[snip]... The idea is to reward all forms of socially productive work
That's all good and well, but isn't much different from saying "Wouldn't it be nice if there were peace on Earth and we would all be friends!". If you think that communism has some relationship to reality, you should be able to show how a viable society could be constructed on its basis.
Besides, in the balance between the community and the individual, communism very very heavily comes down on the side of the community (surprise!). So what about individual freedoms? What happens to nonconformists? What if I don't want your nice, ordered and polite commune?
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
Who is able to stand outside and decide who should be allowed to do what? Well, um, nobody. Are you saying that YOU are wise enough? I'm certainly not. I'm not convinced anyone is.
How much does it cost to have minor ills cured? However much the market will bear. I take pharmaceutical companies to task for lots of things, but not for their ability to find a problem and solve it. Bully for them.
What happens if the continent of Africa gets nukes? Well, if history is any indicator, they'll probably use them on one another. Africa has been torn by strife and warfare throughout history (strangely enough, most of the world has been the same way...there's no such thing as the good old days). Africa was not the pastoral, in-touch-with-nature paradise everybody seems to wish it was.
We have shat... What you mean we, white man? (I'm not implying that you may be white, or a man, I just found the old Tonto joke to be a tasty double-entendre here...) I haven't enslaved anyone. I'm not an African warlord withholding food from my populace, threatening them with death and starvation if they don't do what I want to do. I'm a citizen of a country that produces enough food to feed every human on the planet, and shows every indication of providing the economic engine to run the world.
I don't like what capitalism is becoming. I don't like the way companies seem to want to curtail my freedom to enhance their bottom line. However, we (the citizens of Earth) are in the best shape we've ever been in. We have systematically destroyed the Malthusian hunger plague, and will continue to do so. Yes, we need to be more environmentally conscious. Yes, we need to encourage people to not have a zillion kids. Yes we need to tread more lightly on the land. However, we DON'T need to have a crazy back-to-Nature love fest. I'm not willing to kill the number of humans it would take to allow us all to live as hunter gatherers. If you are, nothing personal, but I don't want to be on the same planet with you. (a problem I hope to address forthrightly)
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
First of all, I respect and appreciate your attitude. Too often, people exhibit knee-jerk reactions to contrary viewpoints, shutting off discourse before it gets started. Thank you for not doing that. : )
The attitude espoused by the original poster, while uncomfortable to begin with, is pretty accurate. Right wrong or indifferent, Western culture (historically dominated by white males) is in the driver's seat in terms of geopolitics. Fortunately, this culture has what I would argue to be the best record in HISTORY of sensitivity to other minority groups' rights. Yes, slavery happened. Slavery also happened throughout the world, even in countries where people were the same color as one another. I'm not suggesting this is a perfect situation. I'm merely suggesting that we're making the best of an inevitable situation: there will always be the ones in power, and the ones out of power.
The reason so many people are hungry is that people with guns and lots of friends with guns (note: I'm a big fan of gun ownership, but not of threatening innocents with them) prevent the distribution of food to the people who need it. Hunger is being used as a terror weapon, and that is about the most evil thing I can think of.
Note that the Indian subcontinent has several poor countries with nuclear power. I don't believe that poverty+nuclear power=ability to hold the world hostage. The entire world would unite against any country that tried to do that.
I believe that America (and the rest of the world that has by and large adopted economic ideas pioneered in America) is responsible for the greatest increase in wealth and prosperity, for the greatest number of people, harming the least amount of people, in history. Is it perfect? No. Can it be replaced by something better? I certainly hope so! But, I think that criticizing capitalism's weaknesses (poor stewardship of natural resources), without recognizing its strengths (widespread prosperity for a lot of people), is not a good way to figure out what to do next.
I guess what we really ought to do is hash out what ideals we're talking about, eh? : )
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
"but can it not be argued that the entire rich world has been holding the poor world to hostage?"
I don't know that it can be so argued. I'd say that even the worst-paid Nike sweatshop laborer has a safer, healthier existence than 90% of the population of the planet in, say, 1820. Don't get me wrong, I would very much like to improve that standard a lot, but I don't feel like capitalism has such a bad track record as some would argue.
I'd be interested in hearing more about your reasoning singling out America as a particularly virulent, yet not particularly original flavour of capitalist. : ) I don't mean to claim capitalism as an American invention, but I would argue that it was incorporated (pardon the pun) more thoroughly and more extensively in America in the 18th and 19th century than in any of its contemporaries. However, this historical perspective isn't exactly germane to our real discussion here, regarding "what should we do now".
I guess I take a defensive position in favor of capitalism because I feel it has raised standards of living the world over. True, it has raised some standards of living (mine and apparently yours) to perhaps a disproportionate level, but EVERYBODY'S boat is riding higher.
I want to disagree with you about corporatism being the ultimate expression of capitalism, but I can't come up with an internally consistent argument. I'll work on it. : ) I think the idea I'd like to advocate is the free market. I think that by and large, free markets provide the greatest benefit to the greatest number. The degree to which capitalism supports a free market is Good, and the fact that today's flavour of corporatism seems to very often work against a free market is Bad.
We ARE in an evolutionary chain. I don't, however, feel that we (the rich capitalist pigs) have a lot to apologize for. Yes, there have been serious social and ecological disasters that are directly attributable to capitalism, but I believe that the benefits provided by wealth outweigh those disasters. I would absolutely like to explore ways to equalize opportunity and provide the means to succeed to every human on the planet. However, I don't know how to do that. I would also be willing to devote time and finances (well, would devote finances, I'm a student and am perenially broke) to initiatives that would materially benefit my fellow person, but I think those initiatives are few and far between. I don't think, however, that simply throwing money at the problem is going to make it go away. An infrastructure and a culture of education and self improvement needs to be built, and that's considerably more complicated. The thing is, though, that this infrastructure could be PROFITABLE, both for the people who build it and the people who use it. My fundamental contention here is that I don't think that's bad, or shameful. Making money is a Good Thing. Making more money is a Better Thing. The problems come when it becomes the Only Thing, and eclipses Amazingly Important Things like human rights and the like. A better balance needs to be struck.
I guess I'd rather not be afraid of everybody poorer than me. I just wish I could give them the modest opportunities that I've been afforded. It's a daunting problem, though.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
I don't have a problem with genetically engineered crops in general terms. On the other hand, I also think that any such crops should get at least a half century of testing before being used anywhere. However wonderful mankinds ability to control the DNA of living things may be, we're fooling ourselves if we think that the technology is even in its infancy. I've worked for a company that produces drugs through recombinant techniques, but our product was several grams of one particular kind of molecule strained out of thousands of liters of goo. And this was all done in clean manufacturing suites in a series of jars and vats with E. Coli or Chinese Hamster Ovary cells, not in open fields with complex plants. Even with complex plants, what genetic researchers do, by and large, is find a gene they like and shove it in somewhere. Great, they just invented a crop that produces a natural pesticide or glows in the dark when it's healthy (or is that when it's sick? Maybe both). Fine and dandy, but what are the side effects of all this magic?
Well first there's the hysteria generating stuff, here's some hypotheticals, some of them may already have real world analogues: Maybe this fantastic new lettuce that restores phosphates to the soil as it grows won't be so healthy for people with allergies to nuts since peanut DNA was used to produce it. Maybe that natural pesticide engineered into every type of crop - the one that's so safe for human beings - isn't so safe after all when it's coming in massive doses from every vegetable you eat. For the most part, these probably aren't big problems, except maybe to the people with food allergies. Anything that's actually dangerous will probably be picked up on quickly.
The more important problem is actually a symptom of a larger problem: the increasing convergance of food suppliers into monopolies and hegemonies. Price fixing issues aside, monolithic entities mean that a mistake is a VERY big mistake. Potentially a "we have to decide which countries get to eat this year" kind of mistake. First off, there's biodiversity issues. This can already be a problem with large seed suppliers, but it becomes even more acute with genetically modified crops. This is what caused the Irish Potato Famine (well, tremendous arrogance and opportunism on the part of those who should have been fixing the problem is what turned it into a horrific disaster, but it was the lack of biodiversity that touched it off); the potato people who were the victims of the famine were all essentially growing the same potato and many lives would have been saved if that species of potato had been switched out for a more fungus-resistant variety. The same thing could potentially happen to the world's crops - swept by a blight. If we aren't prepared with different varieties of seeds in quantity, it might take multiple growing seasons to recover. The quite possible existance of duplicate DNA accross different species of crops increases the possibility of an affliction that will destroy virtually any crop. Then there's the problem of crops with built-in pest control again. What happens when natural selection fills in the niche for resistant vermin? It will happen. Penicillin is already becoming obsolete for the same reason. I seem to recall something that happened fairly recently where the heavy use of a particular pesticide killed off a type of caterpillar that it was intended to, but it also killed off the birds that preyed on them. As a result, the _other_ species of insect pest that the birds preyed on - some sort of Boll worm or something - came out in record numbers and pretty much destroyed everything. So now we get to have this kind of stupidity built-in to our plants. Oh joy.
As for our friend, the terminator gene, there's lots to say about that. Overall, I suppose it's a good idea as far as preventing the escape of unwanted plant deviants. I can't help thinking of the ridiculous bit in Jurassic Park where it turns out that the dinosaurs can breed because the use of frog DNA to patch holes in the dinosaur DNA has allowed some of the females to turn into males (it probably would have been a better idea to make them all males to prevent breeding, or, better yet, sterilize them all at birth). It may be stupid in the context of dinosaurs, but it's easy to imagine in genetically flexible things like plants (most of which can survive being haploid, diploid, triploid, tetraploid, whatever). That terminator gene, or any other inserted gene could play all sorts of tricks we don't know about yet. What most people are worried about, of course, is that the pollen, which can travel vast distances, will end up causing a mysteriously dismal growing season for farmer Jones, who lives fifty miles away, in three years time.
What everyone is worried about is that these sorts of things take many, many years of trial and error. That is, after all, how progress happens. People are worried that the trial and error is going to happen with the worlds food supply. They might not be so worried if it were not for the fact that GM crops have a long history of biological and environmental disasters (like all the "there was an old lady who swallowed a fly" attempts to control one species by introducing another) to live up to.
You don't have to be a "greenie" to understand the need for caution in this sort of thing. On the other hand, when we understand more about what we're doing, we can probably make all sorts of neat organisms. I don't need donut trees or anything like that, but I do think that, barring the existance of nano-machines to do it instead, things like genetically modified bacteria or maybe even slime molds might be great for cleaning up certain kinds of pollution. There might be all sorts of things we can do, but we have to think them through before we try them, because there might be no turning back.
Asimov did predict that big government would be, at least ultimately, the only source of funding for university research and at least some of the effects you've described. His basic tenet IMHO was based on economics. The cost of research has gone up and up, beyond the means of most private individuals and is rapidly passing most normal corporate means.
So long and thanks for all the fish . . . !!!
In the US, something like 40% of high school grads go to college. This is an unusually high percentage compared to historical and world numbers. More like 10-12% is normal.
Educating people past age 17 is, from a labor standpoint, for society, a waste. People ready to work are doing something other than work. The US must pay the price for this unusually large number of non-laboring people by paying people less than their output is worth. (See Marx for economic details. All countries do this, the US must do it more so because we have more students, per capita.) We also must justify this individually by paying a larger gradient for educated vs uneducated labor.
All of these factors push the cost of university research up especially for the US.
Should we change this system? High-tech firms are on the cutting edge of such an effort. High school grads are being hired at my company and being paid nearly the same as college grads, sometimes more. Universities, seeing a threat to their existence (i.e. Darwinism) identify this squeeze on their budgets as bad.
So long and thanks for all the fish . . . !!!
Also, corporations pay taxes too.
Not as much as they used to.
--
+&x
yea, but I have it on official word that they are evil, but they have lots of market potential, so they aren't. hmmm, maybe I haven't heard of China.
--
+&x
exactly, and this is why corporatism is like the the AIDS virus.
It destroys the will to fight in exchange for cheap sex.
--
+&x
Actually, academics pandering to corps is a step backwards. Corporations are the direct descendants of the feudal structures that dominated Europe back then. Given how every century's gone, we've nowhere to go but up...or nowhere. Next up: Time Warner gets into real estate.
-jpowers
-jpowers
Zoning rules based in the community you/he lives in would prevent the kind of abuse you're using as a strawman.
Perhaps they would, but this does not modify the argument. The original poster belives that he has carte blanche on his property, so he cannot accept the authority of zoning rules. He will have to accept that others, such as me and my crackhouse denizens, would not be subject to their authority either.
"Capatalism has long been accepted as the best model for the development of society - universally "
Having looked at the gross destruction of our world bio-system I think I will have to take exception at this. Captilism has never taken into account natural resources and is slowly killing us.
For example how can a system that requires continuous growth be usefully applied to a closed eco-system?
How in the hell did this get moderated up? To *5* no less! Katz has his faults (in particular, I would have liked more examples), but this is ridiculous.
Moderators, use your brains. This is flamebait, not insightful.
Truth. But getting rid of patents will go a long way towards eliminating the problems Katz is addressing. End intellectual property, and a large number of problems we face cease to exist. It's like Eblen Moglen says: when the law draws arbitrary distinctions (between one group of bits -- copyrighted -- and another group of bits -- public domain), it fails.
And I'm a libertarian!
I agree! Equal time! I'd love to have some sort of corporate appologist to flame. That'd be fun, and it'd shut up the Republicans.
Hey, a random Katz generator... not quite as begging as the original, but so far, just as unintelligible...
--
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
If journalists were outside the marketplace, Katz wouldn't be posting these things trying to get more banner-ad hits...
Politicians... are the marketplace, or are at least the goods on sale...
--
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
>I thought people might like to know, George Washington Carver invented the peanut.
Yup, and Jimmy Carter invented the nuclear submarine and Al Gore invented the Internet...
Maybe that raises the question [OT], what did GWB ever invent? I mean, he can't run against the guy who invented the *Internet*... that's just not fair. Oh yeah... his dad was president for a whole term - that makes him well qualified.
[/sarcasm]
--
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
>Incidentally, UVA hosts one of the two crash test research centers that use actual human cadavers in the car
Oooh, I always wanted to be a test dummy - where do I sign up.
(that's kind of gross, actually... if they aren't too frozen you'd probably get some good data, though)
--
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
Does this mean the cost of my school books is going to go down?
My cube. My friend. My solace. My prison.
From various points of view the opinion has been expressed that all
/ Steiner-Social.html
questions of money are so complicated as to be well-nigh impossible to
grasp in clear and transparent thoughts. A similar view can be
maintained regarding many questions of modern social life. But we
should consider the consequences that must follow if men allow their
social dealings to be guided by indefinite thoughts; for such thoughts
do not merely signify a confusion in theoretic knowledge, they are
potent forces in life; their vague character lives on in the
institutions that arise under their influence, which in turn result in
social conditions making life impossible...
'The well-being of a community of people working together
will be the greater, the less the individual claims for
himself the proceeds of his work, i.e. the more of these
proceeds he makes over to his fellow-workers, the more his
own needs are satisfied, not out of his own work but out of
the work done by others'.
Genuine interests of right can only spring up on a ground where the
life of rights is separately cultivated, and where the only
consideration will be what the rights of a matter are. When people
proceed from such considerations to frame rules of right, the rules
thus made will take effect in economic life. Then it will not be
necessary to place a restriction on the individual acquiring economic
power; for such power will only result in his rendering econornic
achievements proportionate to his abilities, but not in using this to
obtain privileged rights. . . Only when rights are ordered in a field
where a business consideration cannot in any way come into question,
where business can procure no power over this system of rights, will
the two be able to work together in such a way that men's sense of
right will not be injured, nor economic ability be turned from a
blessing to a curse for the community as a whole.
When those who are economically powerful are in a position to use
their power to wrest privileged rights for themselves, then among the
economically weak there will grow up a corresponding opposition to
these privileges; and this opposition must as soon as it has grown
strong enough lead to revolutionary disturbances. If the existence of
a special province of rights makes it impossible for such privileged
rights to arise, then disturbances of this sort cannot occur. . . One
will never really touch what is working up through the social movement
to the surface of modern life, until one brings about social
conditions in which, alongside the claims and interests of the
economic life, those of rights can find realization and satisfaction
on their own independent basis...
Economic life in a threefold society is built up by the cooperation of
*associations* arising out of the needs of producers and the interests
of consumers. In their mutual dealings, impulses from the spiritual
sphere and sphere of rights will play a decisive part. These
associations will not be bound to a purely capitalistic standpoint,
for one association will be in direct mutual dealings with another,
and thus the one-sided interests of one branch of production will be
regulated and balanced by those of the other. The responsibility for
the giving and taking of credit will thus devolve to the associations.
This will not impair the scope and activity of individuals with
special faculties; on the contrary, only this method will give
individual faculties full scope: the individual is responsible to his
association for achieving the best possible results. The association
is responsible to other associations for using these individual
achievements to good purpose. The individual's desire for gain will no
longer be imposing production on the life of the community; production
will be regulated by the needs of the community...
All kinds of dealings are possible between the new associations and
old forms of business--there is no question of the old having to be
destroyed and replaced by the new. The new simply takes its place and
will have to justify itself and prove its inherent power, while the
old will dwindle away... The essential thing is that the threefold
idea will stimulate a real social intelligence in the men and women of
the community. The individual will in a very definite sense be
contributing to the achievements of the whole community... The
individual faculties of men, working in harmony with the human
relationships founded in the sphere of rights, and with the
production, circulation and consumption that are regulated by the
economic associations, will result in the greatest possible
efficiency. Increase of capital, and a proper adjustment of work and
return for work, will appear as a final consequence...
Rudolf Steiner - Capital and Credit
http://home.earthlink.net/~johnrpenner/Articles
I'm not arguing that it can be a good experience for students. However, it differs from co-ops in a couple keys ways.
In co-ops, I believe you take a semester off from school to work for the company, during which time you are paid for your work. This differs from our clinics, where we are not paid, and only receive credit units for implementing a solution to a problem that might be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to a company. It's one thing if you go to work for Intel and develop a faster transistor. After all, it's your job, that's what you're paid to do. It's another if you are forced to do it to graduate from college.
I'd prefer a system whereby we have the option of either doing research or participating in clinic. Of course, the school would lose out on valuable grant monies if this were the case, so I'm not holding my breath over it.
Most research targeted at producing a "marketable" product is bound to be nearsighted. Reasearch for the sake of research is done to promote knowledge. To reach into the future. To push the envelope. Its a well known fact that corporate America is nearsighted. Anything for a quick buck. American companies consistantly refuse to do their own R&D or put real money begind R&D. Instead, they have steered Academic america into their nearsighted dead-end path. Twenty years ago the seperation between corporate america and academia was as well defined as that between church and state. Then schools became corporations. Athletics became profit centers. Research was the next logical conquest. My only hope is that Liberal Arts Universities become so obviously redundant and useless that somthing better can be born.
Hmm... we manage to produce more food every year (most of it for the cows, I concede that), live longer and less sickly lives, and produce more wealth every year.
How?
It's the technology, stupid.
One farmer at the beginning of this century could feed about forty. One farmer now can feed ten times that many. What allowed this miraculous development? Technology! Fertilizers, improved equipment, better processing and distribution systems (though not to those ucky third-world folks, I concede) and the like.
And all in a closed system.
I'm confident that humanity can rise to whatever challenges it meets, as soon as they start affecting us rich straight white American folks. (I may not be rich, but I fit the rest pretty well.) Like impotence, and baldness.
Hmm, I was meaning to write a serious response, but I guess I got carried away. The irony -- too much!
-grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Capitalism is the unequal distribution of wealth.
Socialism is the equal distribution of poverty.
Yes, we have misery. But what is the solution? All the left seems to be able to offer can be summed up as "Robin Hood!", which looks good when Errol Flynn does it, but runs into certain problems in real life.
You need someone to do the stealing, and someone to do the distributing. And, of course, no one's perfect, so they must be supervises. And someone must, of course, Watch the Commisars, I mean Watchmen. And an gargantuan superstructure is built around society, demeaning and impoverishing everything it comes in contact with. Like welfare. Capitalism has its flaws, but any cure seems to be exponentially worse.
I *do* have issues with metagovernmental corporate entities meddling in the affairs and destinies of nations. Like the WTO. That's not free-market, that's boot-on-the-neck-of-the-market. Or with the government bailing out hedge funds. Part of the free market is the responsibility to sink instead of crying 'Help me! It's *your* responsibility!'. And I think Michael Milken should have been shot, or at least had to pay back those he ripped off.
But that's just my 0000 0010b cents.
-grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Academe wanting to get in on the cash cow that much of their stuff becomes? And Patents? OH NO!!!! .com, it has a casual environment, and right now, it's fairly scattered both intellectually and technically. But Columbia and its partners are willing to invest a lot of money into Fathom, to turn it into something that's worthwhile. As I understand it, the only thing that they will charge for is actual class credit--the rest of the materials will be online free. Now, I don't know about you, but free information for the average web consumer doesn't seem like the height of 'corporatism' and 'cashing in.' Maybe there's some 'evil' element that I'm missing, but I'm pretty sure that this is a non-issue. If you want issues, look north and east of Columbia into Harlem. Look at the amount of real estate that Columbia owns, and at their willingness to drive out locally-owned businesses. Fathom is completely, utterly harmless--unlike many of Columbia's patents and practices. Remember the Manhattan project? And in 1968, one of the issues that promoted rioting was the fact that Columbia was a leader in military research--which it still is.
Let's face the fact that Universities are some of the slightest offenders in this book. Sure, they may be making money, but without that, how would they provide all the stuff that I've come to expect from them? Columbia provides my bandwidth, and a lot of other services. Sure, I pay for it, but I have few complaints. This is no new thing: the big Ivy League Universities have been in it for money for quite some time. And to point out Columbia is ridiculous--I'd like to look into all the money that Yale and Harvard and MIT are making for their patents.
But the real issue isn't money; I've yet to be convinced that commerce is evil. The real issue is when corporate activities limit personal and intellectual freedoms. And no University is dumb enough to let this happen. The product that they peddle is the fruit of their intellectual achievement, and they can't afford to let that go sour. Columbia does some dumb things, and Fathom might indeed be one of them, but it's hardly a bastion of corporate evil--it's actually a rather ambitious project. It's very much a
The real issues that you should be worried about are the ones that you can't see. Columbia is part of the insane behemoth that is the U.S. Military Industrial Complex. The military and the government is what JonKatz should worry about--not the corporate. There are a lot of corporations that overstep their bounds, but Fathom is not one of them. And in general, the corporate sector looks pretty cute and cuddly next to the Manhattan project...remember what happened around 55 years ago? Hiroshima, Nagasaki? 210,000 dead. For some reason, I'm unconcerned with Columbia making a little money off of the internet. No one will die of this, or die slowly of cancer in the following years.
I'm just amazed that this article could miss the mark so completely--but I guess JonKatz is so concerned with the green in their pockets that he missed the blood on their hands.
The story is called Lifeline, first published in the August 1939 issue of Astounding.
You can find it now in The Past Through Tomorrow, a collection of (mostly) short stories, as well as in paperback editions of The Man Who Sold The Moon, The Worlds of Robert A. Heinlein, and others, I'm sure. There's even a hardcover Lifeline available from Barnes & Noble, and given that the title stroy is so short, there must be more than that in there, for $23.95.
Anyway, I've got Past Through Tomorrow at home, and will try to find the relevant quote, unless someone else can come up with it in the meantime.
-- Chris Goldman
Trust not a man who's rich in flax / His morals may be sadly lax
The lack of objectivity due to the infusion of cash into politics, academics, and journalism is one of the main reasons non-profit organizations like the ones above have come into existence.
People (you, I, and others) have recognized for years that the overall system has been and is further being corrupted by money.
That's why we, as individuals, band together to form and contribute to non-profit watchdogs.
It's not the best solution (which would be for ethical behaviour in our politicians, professors, journalists, etc.), but it is a solution.
---------------------------------
"We're sorry, but the website you're trying to reach has been disconnected."
You know, back when I was 15, 20, 25, I longed for the end of the dominion of the nation state.
The nation state sucks, no way around it.
But now I'm 40, and the nation state is well on the road to obsolescence and abdication. And that's turning out not to be a good thing.
Bummer.
Our secret is gamma-irradiated cow manure
Mitsubishi ad
We apologize for the inconvenience.
I met some Russian capitalists this spring. One lived at my house for a month. They were business owners here to learn from American companies.
I was more than surprised to hear what a positive view they had towards Stalin. They credit him with making Russia a world power, and moving into the industrial age in a single generation.
Now, I see the guy as a complete moral failure who killed by the tens of thousands for quite selfish reasons and led Russia into a mess that will take them even more decades to find a way out of. But apparently opinions differ.
Our secret is gamma-irradiated cow manure
Mitsubishi ad
We apologize for the inconvenience.
I like these smart guys like you. Do you really belive there is a free market? That corporations produce what YOU want?
You dummy! The corporations produce X and shove into your head that you want it!
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.
This is not a free market, it is a herd of sheeps.
CAPITALISM means selling whatever is wanted? Right: I will sell drugs to your child and I will pay the police officer to look the other way. Is that cool with you?
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?
Geez... Wake up till is not too late.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
Has anyone else noticed that this is a regurgitation of the NY Times article from about a week back, down to the quotes from university officials? Gotta love Katz.
One question.
What will happen when the universities are fighting among each other? (for profit). How can a smaller school keep up with the bigger ones. Perhaps not</P>
<P>
What will happen then?, we got three big universities, with almost a religious way of science, training their minions in the right way of thinking?
</P>
<P>Is this todays version of Darwinism.
Let the smartest survive ? </P>
<P> but... what do I know... </P>
//stalle
That depends on which university. For example, the University of Melbourne, Australia, stopped claiming copyright on student work about five years ago.
Surely the mechanism to prevent abuses failed in this case -- it was suppoed to be a deterrent. It wasn't, and now they're trying to clear it up.
This actually varies between different universities. It is common for universities to cede the copyright to undergraduates for their work, while retaining more control over the work done by graduate students and professors.
There is some merit to a university's claim that it should share in the profits from work that may, in part, be funded and facilitated by its capital and resources.
You're right that it is not reasonable for the University to claim copyright for work you do as a tuition paying undergrad. You should check what your school's policy on this is.
-Sverker
Well, we're a Pepsi school. I think Pepsi paid for the old scoreboard for the foot ball stadium and has their logo on it. Of course it's exclusive and overpriced and the students just tend to go across the street into town to get cubes of Coke, anyway. :)
Nike is also a big advertiser around here. They give equipment to the football team and shoes to the marching band and they get their swooshes on the football jerseys.
All that I can understand... but what I don't understand is that my school is paying Microsoft to distribute Microsoft software. It's not exactly an exclusive contract, but it may as well be for all the advertising that's going on. I don't think any average computer user would even get the idea to use a program that wasn't written by Microsoft. (maybe Netscape or AOL... since they're so much better, right?)
I guess the moral of your story is to do bullshit research for the grade and complete real projects in your basement. The university "intellectual property" policy is a load of bull comparable to a shrink-wrap agreement:
"By attending this university you agree that anything that you think of while attending automatically becomes real property of the university"
or how about this one:
I'll give you a free computer to work on if you sign over the rights to everything you develop.
You'd cry foul in a heartbeat - so why cry foul when Mark A. severs the cord and takes HIS IDEA and puts it into motion?
By the university "intellectual property" argument, I'd say that everyone's parents ought to own rights to everything their kids ever do or did simply because they "provided resources" that enabled their kids to end up wherever they ended up. There's folly in that line of thought, huh?
$0.02 from the m0ng00se
Is madness a syptom of genius or vice-versa?
I have a few ideas to suggest that may not be very popular, but which would probably help a lot. Most of "my" ideas about this aren't really my own - I'll try to credit where credit it due.
I am writing a paper on the topic of the careful pursuit of technology. It is in progress so my appologies for the rough and unsubstantiated parts :)
A book called The Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom has some very interesting related points and is generally a good read.
Helping with organizational effectiveness is our job.
Capitalism is ultimately self-defeating, it relies on at least a limited exploitation and is linked strongly to interest rates and other such invented concepts. Money is worthless, yet we fasten monetary value to objects and services that are all important and the value fluctuates madly.
Yes communism isn't the best form, but there are more kinds of political thought that capitalism and communism. A system which takes account of the society better, rather than the hard working achieving individuals would be better.
How can universities being profitable and students getting a taste of what the real world has in store for their futures in the professional scientific research industry be a bad thing?
I read the article twice and even after parsing Mr. Katz's loquacious sensationalism, I can't see how the loss of innocence isn't covered by the benefits of this change.
We must respect evil, and we must make evil respect us.
My life became a joke for a short time and my major was Hotel, Restaurant, Travel Administration (basically just a management major). The first day in the introductory course, they showed us a 20 minute promotional video for T.G.I.Friday's. I shit you not. It was simply accepted from the start that corporations like Hilton and Sheraton would be our overlords.
:)
Years later I'm getting my degree in Biology (thank God), and I have to say that there are both selfless and selfish professors that I know. Despite their salary and side projects with other companies, they are always bragging about patents they've made for some weird mouse gene or anti-body product. Well I should be drunk when I talk about this crap, so I'll stop right there
OTOH: note how many of the Nobel prizes over
the last few years were awarded to members of
commercial labs.
In computer science, a lot of serious work is
being done in commercial labs. Microsoft's
research group publishes a LOT of papers, e.g.
graphics.
The academic world is just another self-interested pressure group.
Much cleaner to have corporations with clear self-interest doing the basic research. They publish because they are in a positive-sum game with other research groups.
Lew Glendenning
"The Constitution, the WHOLE Constitution, and nothing but the CONSTITUTION."
Capitalism is the best model for the development of TECHNOLOGY. It is NOT the best model for the development of society. God help us if it is...
I know exactly what you're saying. At the university I attend, we pay a technology fee, which is supposed to facilitate the purchase of interesting new technology. Someone decided that it would be a really neat idea to try and enter into a site license with Microsoft that covered the staff, faculty and students.
Where was the money going to come from? The technology fee. Half of my technology fee would've gone to Microsoft. Worse yet, this was a year to year contract that had to be renewed. Luckily, enough people voted against it, and hopefully the administration got the message.
How come you didn't start questioning these things when you started paying tens of thousands of dollars per annum to go to the college as opposed to us Europeans
Please, cut the 'Europe is so cool' bullshit. The art school I wanted to go to in England costs 16,000 GBP per year. Why? Although I'm a European, I'm not a European Union Brand (tm) European. Besides, scholarships in America are a *dream*. My brother got a 25% scholarship at the school of his choice through some bullshit foundation just for writing a letter.
Blah...
Jay
-- polish ccs mirror
So, in other words, what you are saying is that it's a good thing that school's aren't turning people into scientists anymore but turning them into corporate slaves?
What about pure research? Why does everything have to be for the benefit of corporations?
Sorry, but that's just the way I see it, I could just be paranoid though or something...
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
People need to be motivated in order to produce, and people will direct their efforts toward satisfying their highest-priority motivations.
Remember the triangular diagram of a human being's needs that many of us were taught in gradeschool? Humans have a desire for food, clothing and shelter, sex and relationships, entertainment, and THEN maybe below all those lies the need to do noble things such as contribute to humankind.
In fact, for most people, the basic needs are NEVER "met"... people just keep wanting more and more and MORE of the same crap, even when it's obvious that they've already got more than they need. It's just part of human nature, and we've been guilty of practicing it here in the US ever since we killed the native Americans and called them foolish for using only what they needed. The Native Americans only avoided this kind of behavior by deeply ingraining the value of minimialism into their religion and traditions; anything can be accomplished with enough self-discipline (and fear of the gods never hurts either).
In other words, if you want to stop the gradual process of academic discoveries falling into corporate ownership, then you've got to do one of two things.
You convince universities to offer their researchers more money and benefits than corporations do at any given time, so that researchers will always choose not to sell their discoveries to corporate interests. Or you convince all of mankind that they really don't need anything more than the minimum that it takes to live and survive, and that the animal gods will hunt them down and kill them in their sleep if they buy any more Pokemon cards.
In other words, good fscking luck.
- "It's just a matter of opinion!" - PRIMUS
This makes the assumption that one or the other--the old paradigm or the new one--must be right on virtue of being the old or the new one. We shouldn't accept either paradigm on account of its previous or current acceptance. What's important to ask is whether it's actually good or not.
Capitalism is an economic system which is supposed to encourage innovation and quality by weeding out products that aren't as good. The world of research already had its own system to weed the good research from the bad. The good research would be read, discussed, and referenced in later research. The ethics and implications of such research would also be considered. Bad or useless research would simply be read and then dismissed. By bringing money into the situation they're introducing a factor that would encourage high quality, useful research, but it would also create a new goal--profit. The basic purpose of academe is to research and consider the results in a way that is beneficial to society. And much the way that capitalism makes personal interests and personal profit the main focus, this new goal would make the research primarily beneficial to the individual over society.
The simple fact is that the government just won't be able to keep up with technology. Look at some of the laws that they've passed attempting to govern it. They're inadequately equipped to deal with new research or new technology. This is something that must rest in the hands of academe before the hands of the government should be able to touch it.
I don't want genetic researchers to be thinking only about the money that they're going to get. I want them thinking about the ethical implications of their research. By allowing money to influence the people who are doing this kind of research and who best understand it, we are giving them leave to seek their own interests where they should be looking after ours.
"When deep space explorations ramps up, it will be the corporations that name everything."
As a recent graduate of NC State, I've seen it walk the same path as UVa, perhaps moreso. I think state universities face additional pressures from taxpayers and legislatures to generate products and technologies that have an immediate impact on the state economy.
Perhaps if the federal government raised taxes on megacorps and invested that money into the NSF and other governemnt research financiers, universities could maintain / increase research funding without feeling the pressures of immediate returns to industry. Simply change the flow of money from (corps to universities) to (corps to fed to universities). This extra link would sever the universities' direct ties to a particular company or industry, and allow it the freedom to develop technologies that aren't skewed by immediate profits.
Isn't raising the standard of living a loftier goal than raising profits?
Support a few technologists in Washington.
What do people want out of college today? A much larger percentage today than 30 years ago wants to use college as an opportunity to find a job making good money. Is this what college is supposed to be about?
Maybe each department could split into an applied job training section and a theoretical pure knowledge section. Do you want to be a physicist to figure out the universe or to have a desk job paying $80,000? Is the same kind of training relevant to both those people?
Some areas are clearly one or the other. If you want to be an anthropologist, it's not for the money. If you want to get an MBA, it's not because you really and truly care about tax law or economic theory. But so many are right in the middle and have tension between the two sides. Do you want to be a graphics designer or a starving artist? Where should the art department's resources be focused? Do you want a job at a dot com or do you want to do research work on AI? How do you cater to both those needs?
I think you see this tension in the huge rise of pure training corporations that aren't actually schools. I went the Computer Learning Corporation (which sucks balls if anyone is curious) - 2 years after i decided i didn't want to do anything with the college degree I had. Places that train and focus on one thing can get all the relevant info in your head much faster as well as prepare you for the environment you'll be working in, and they're great for that. But if you DO want to do research work on AI, going to CLC won't help. So what do people think? I'd just hate for the two to stay mixed up together because I know that gradually it will all slide over to the corporate side and then we won't have anyone trained to look at the big picture and think outside the corporate box.
I just read the IEEE article and although I don't have any more background what you wrote misrepresents the IEEE article.
Taborsky was given probation by the court, but violated it twice by applying for a patent, and refusing to sign it over on the judges orders. The law may or may not be wrong, but he compounded any offence he may have made by these actions. If I understnad correctly, this was why he ended up in prison.
Furthermore the "some company" was the company funding the project at the university, not a random company.
If you have a big thing about keeping the IPR to your inventions, you should make sure that you *can* keep it *before* you start working. If you start, and then find out your conditions of employment claim your IPR, you can either quit, or put up with it. What it appears that you can't do, is to say "I don't care anyway" and attempt to take them.
Taborsky, upon finding out he appeared to have no claim on the discovery, could have walked away, a lesson wiser. He could have found out the legal position before doing anything. He didn't appear to do either of these things.
As I say, this is from the IEEE peice that you quoted, maybe the true facts are different, but if not, I can't feel that Taborsky is completely blameless.
best wishes,
Mike.
Tales from behind the Lagom Curtain
You're over-educated *and* a lawyer? Now there's a rare (and completely offtopic) combination ;)
best wishes,
Mike.
Tales from behind the Lagom Curtain
> Choose your analogies with more care in future.
;)
OH NO! It's the analogy police!
As the result of the war led to the fueling of german imperialism, and helped make the french rather angry, it isn't a great example, but (s)he has a right to make whatever analogies (s)he likes.
I order you to be more polite in future.
best wishes,
Mike.
Tales from behind the Lagom Curtain
I agree with most of what you wrote, however, it is even clearer in the Time article that he wasn't jailed as a result of the IPR "crime", but as a result of directly disobeying the judge after the case.
I too was naive about IPR (and probably still am), and I created some work that I could have made some money out of (at university). What I wasn't naive about was the fact that I would have to act within the law, whatever I decided to do.
best wishes,
Mike.
Tales from behind the Lagom Curtain
I agree that universities exclusively doing directed research is a bad thing. Here is one option to aleviate the problem. For every $ a corportaion puts into directed research, they must also put a certain percentage into general research. The corporation would have no knowledge of how the general money was spent. This allows the directed research to get thier money and others to get money as well. If your researchers a good enough, the corportations will go for it.
Time to Pay: Academics have long subsidized the corporate world
Academics have long subsidized the corporate world. Universities have
produced most of the great scientific breakthroughs and many of the
great technological breakthroughs this century. Academics at top
universities are not well payed (relative to what people of similar
merit make in the private sector). Therefore, it is not surprising,
that much of the currently plentiful venture capital money has found
its way to these very smart and gifted people. You want to stop the
corporations from taking over the universities? Then the people
(i.e., government) should adequately pay for the public goods that
academics and their universities produce. But economic theorems (and
mountains of data) show that market economies under pay for and under
provide public goods (such as science).
I was confused about your gripe until you made this statement. See, my school, WPI, has a senior-year project as well, called the Major Qualifying Project, or MQP, that every student must complete. (I start mine in a few weeks!) Your clinic sounds very similar to the MQP - a company sponsors it but you get school credit rather than money - but no one complains about it. But now I see the difference - we can do a research project instead, it's totally up in the air.
I thought about applying to Harvey Mudd...
--
I never said that the laws were bad. Just that things would be better if they were different :)
"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."
Right and wrong exist only within the bounds of morality, which is entirely relative within individuals/cultures/religions/nations/etc. Slavery might be wrong from some points of view, but in truth was never wrong in the greater scheme of things. People create a morality that suits their own purposes. EVERYTHING is right, because it exists. NOTHING can be wrong, because wrong is just a sentiment of arrogant people who truly believe that what they think matters.
Well Jon, if we're such slaves to our dollar, why are We the People so obsessed with the welfare of the old? Why do we try to prevent Alzheimers research if all it does is prolong the lives of people who drain our tax dollars and paychecks? If all our politicians, left and right, are bought by Big Money, then why do they emphasize social security and retirement, and not sending the elderly to the gas chambers?
I'm guessing that we are not quite as obsessed with money as you think. It's certainly a big concern, but since we are an affluent society we have the luxury to look out for others. You might be surprised to know that the socialist wave of the 1960s and happened when this country was richest, and that Hitler was able to make Germany forget its morals when it was poorest.
Corporatism has been a major part of humanity since the late 1800s, and people were afraid of its power even then. But if corporatism is as unstoppable a force as you say, then we all would have been marching in lockstep to the tune of profit and efficiency since long before you were born. Since free speech, philanthropy, social programs and religion still exist, I think that has not happened. You must question your own motives as well. If you are so opposed to corporatism, then why do you write for such as corporatist a web site as Slashdot, riddled with banner-ads, promoted by Time Magazine, and occasional visited from millionaire game developer John Carmack? If you really believed in your own cause, you'd write for a donation-run, ad-free web site. I have one myself; feel free to write for it sometime.
So I think you can allay your fears for now. As strong as the forces of greed are, so are the forces of generosity. As long as we remain wealthy and in touch, the world we live in, different as it is from any time past, should more resemble Kennedy's U.S. than Hitler's Germany.
It's possible that Gates, Jim Clark and others might be leading research projects at Harvard and Stanford right now if corporatism wasn't so strong today. Or, perhaps, their minds are merely made for corporate life and as scientists they might just be 2nd rate. Perhaps corporatism and capitalism might go in waves, with the best of research occuring early in a century and the best of business happening late in a century. After all, the oil and steel barons got their start in the late 1800s.
If all this corporate research lowers my tuition, I am ALL FOR IT
mov ax, 13h
int 10h
run that zerf future thingy on luke skywalker... its rather amusing...
mov ax, 13h
int 10h
that would be ZERO---damn i need more coffee--and its only 10am!
mov ax, 13h
int 10h
While it is true (and has been for some time) that Universities and other academic institutions are "shifting the paradigm" toward monetary profit and corporate , I don't believe it is true that this is endangering, in any way, the pure and necessary academic freedom at most institutions.
This stuff is true when talking about the technology portions of a university (CS, Engineering). Mathematics is still (mostly) safe from this crap. The Liberal Arts are fine and aren't abusing the idea of profit-making.
Of course, every prof., every department at your local university is trying to make money for itself. They write books, textbooks, instructors guides, solutions manuals.. all of this on top of the necessary "publish or perish" rule because most of that stuff doesn't even count.
Give our academics some credit. Education is good and educators need money (more than they get) and they work their asses off.
Have you read 'Snow Crash'?
Alex
This is the serious problem in universities across the country today!
-brennan
Jon Katz's assertion that this paradigm shift is somthing that Congress has neglected to stop is innaccuarate and unresearched.
Two technology transfer acts have intentionaly tried to make America's research facilities into the private research facilities of corporations.
The pace of this transfer has accelerated remarkably since the end of the cold war. Congress reasoned that since the cold war no longer justified research for the purpose of millitary superiority, America's existing research labs should be turned towards corporate use as best as possible so that the labs could 'earn their own keep' so to speak.
At the same time as this was happening ( I won't assert causation ) conflicts of interest went unchecked in our nation's sources of scientific information. Over 50% of the members of the National Science Foundation own stock in their areas of expertise. ( I believe the number was much higher. I'm being conservative here.)
Similarly, conflicts of interest are rarely exposed.
Pfizer, for example, recently published a study on male and female impotence in the Journal of American Medicine without disclosing their involvement in funding the study. Pfizer, if you remember, just happens to make viagra.
The list goes on, and there are even examples, such as the case of thyroxin, where drug companies have actually managed to suppress or discredit legitimate scientific research that they themselves have funding.
The list goes on. If you want more info, e-mail me at wiserd@angelfire.com
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
The environment in academia over the last four or five years has been changing. Funding from governmental sources, NSF, NIH, DOD, NASA, etc has been drastically cut. Every year it get more difficult to get funding from these agencies. Combining this with the fact that academic institutions are running on a tighter and tighter budget each year, it get very difficult to support and dynamic and productive research department. With these financial pressures people in academia have been forced to look in other places for funding. One of these is the corporate world. Companies are always willing to pay for expertise that academic people have. Another source of this funding has to come from the better management of intelectual property. Academics create important discoveries. In stead of giving them away for free, it is prudent to license new technology to corporation which have the budget and know how to bring things to market. The bottom line, if academia is to existent it has to pay for itself. This means not giving away valuable information. I have to say that it is not the best thing that can happen, but this paradigm shift is better than the alternative of academics closing down shop.
> Communism clearly failed -- this is one of the
> major lessons of the XX century
The problem with this is the assumption that communism failed because communism is, in and of itself, flawed.
You make the perfect mention above...Stalin's death camps. Death camps are no part of communism itself. They are the work of a powerful and corrupt autocrat.
Can you blame the basic philosophy for the atocities commited by the people who do things in its name? Should we then blame Christianity itself for the actions of those who carried out the spanish inquisition?
I think this points more to the fact that its really hard to find good leaders. The people who tend to rise to power in any system, tend to be the least moral, and most uniquely self-interested of the bunch (and I see that as much here in the US as any time or place throught the world and throughout history).
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
> However that's not a very useful definition of
> communism for the sake of our discussion. For
> example, it's not possible for it to fail since
> a philosophy cannot fail.
The correct definition (well actually a semi-correct one, communism is older than marx, and not all communists are marxist communists - Marx had some good ideas, but made some stupid assumptions too) is a useless one?
Yes a philosophy cannot fail. My issue is simply with the statment that "Communism failed". It hasn't. Communism is a philosophy. It is fundamentally wrong to look at a couple of instantiations of an idea and claim that the idea itself has failed.
> If, on the other hand, you define communism as
> a social, political, and economic system that
> was implemented in the Soviet Union, Eastern
> Europe, China, etc (somewhat differently in
> each), then it possible to claim that it failed
> and I do make this claim.
Ok this is obviously an argument of definitions. That would be like defining capitalism as "The economic system in the United States". Its a very useless definition. Why call it communism at all if your defining it in terms of states.
> Whether this real socio-political system had
> much in common with Marx's ideas is a subject
> much debated by Marxists but not of much
> interest to anybody else.
Right....and the reason for that seems mostly to be because alot of people have defined communism as "the USSR" and have no idea what it means beyond that.
> You seem to think that communism was a good idea
> that was corrupted/tainted/misformed by bad
> people.
At its core I think socialism and to a lesser extent communism have alot of potential and are generally very good ideas. I think that the problem has lay in the creation of powerful central states. The "dictatorship of the proletariate" is, itself a problem.
I think its also an issue of scalability. These systems do not scale well beyond the local community. Attempting to impliment them on wide scales, forcing entire continents to follow them, is a big mistake.
However I think that of any stateist system. Anytime the people are separated from the running of the government, the system has failed (which is why I think representative democracy is a horrid abomination and refuse to vote for representatives)
--Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Now this is getting interesting :)
Communism is a form of socialism. It doesn't actually require a state. Their are certainly Anarcho-communists (I don't know that I would put myself in this catagory...definitly an anarcho-socialist though...but a larval one)
The core idea is not giving power to a state per se. In fact, even Marx considered the "Dictatorship of the Prolitariate" to be temporary. The idea being (whether stated or implied) that it would eventually make itself useless and fade out of existance.
The core is putting the means of production into the hands of the workers. The recognition that work is socially productive and ALL levels of work are needed for society to function.
The idea is to reward all forms of socially productive work, which includes childrearing (which is very socially productive...it should be considered a job just like any other)
Communism is just an extreme form of this, saying that people should organize together into communal communities, shareing and pooling all (or most) resources.
> You can't expect to run referendums on every
> little issue and even if you do (in the future
> electronic paradise), rule by mob rarely if ever
> led to good results.
This is a scalability issue, definitly. It works on the local level though. Its the old "Town meeting" style government. Its a matter of seprating the decisions that should be made by the community, versus the ones made by the individual.
Government which spans outside of the local community tends to go into what you might call "Cathedral mode". Look at the current situation.
In the US we have congress. They make the federal laws that affect everyone. They are a huge clique. They spend time together, talk amongst themselves. They have developed their own sub language.
They write laws which affect EVERYONE, but...the average man could not read such things. They are not written in plain english. The average man has almost no say in these whatsoever. This has alienated the people, and caused a situation ripe for power abuse.
I guess I am arguing for the return of the autonomous city-state. A place where every citizen not only could take part in the decision making, but was expected to.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
I hope that clarifies, sorry for the confusion.
Never knock on Death's door:
The Anti-Blog
Who more boring? Jon Katz or Katz bashers, exemplified by Phil "Feeling Good" Lingood? My vote: Phil more boring! By landslide! Your turn! N.A
Ultimate Geek NanoNovel: Acts of the Apostles at www.wetmachine.com Fear the Future! Defrock the Infodruids!
Purdue's CS and engineering schools are (maybe were, it's been a while) pretty well subsidized by military/national security agencies. Prof. Gene Spafford and his students/peers do some great research in the area of computer security, and out of this come products like tripwire. Now, tripwire is still free for Linux users, but more "corporate" OS's need to purchase and license the software.
I think this is a big win for everyone. The fruits of government money go back to the private sector, but there is also a revenue stream associated with it which (hopefully) Purdue sees a slice. Non-commercial entitities get the product for free.
The incentives that are now in place via the patenting issues that Jon brings up do expose the potential for abuse, but they doesn't have to be abused. The administration is directly responsible and completely accountable for how the university wields this newfound power. Because this is academia, one would hope that they have somewhat higher ethical standards than someone whose job is strictly tied to a bottom line. As a last resort, public universities have their presidents appointed by a board of trustees, so there is some measure of oversight in place.
~Religion is O.K., as long as it gets you laid.
Until recently (relatively speaking), slavery was right - does that mean that it's wrong to say that slavery is wrong?
Are you saying that academia has somehow kept the researchers enslaved? If not why are you bringing up slavery at all, it would have served the same purpose to say that society can change.
The point of research is to develop technology for the good of society, right? So what's wrong with combining that with capatalism?
The point of capitalism is to develop technology for the good of the bottom line, any benefit to society is an added bonus.
Ultamitely, people will buy what people want; and the corporations will make what the people want.
True but then again it will be the corporations who tell the people what they want.
End of line
"Until recently, we clung to the notion that some institutions -- journalism, politics, academe, art and culture -- stood somewhat outside of the marketplace"
I'm not sure where you've been but the Ivory Tower has been green for a long, long time.
When I was in school fifteen years ago the UW-Madison had something called the Wisconsin Alumni Reserach Foundation (or WARF.) WARF's sole purpose was to provide last stage funding for taking publicly funded absic research and turnign into privately UW-owned commercial processes and patents.
The public Universities have been turning a private buck on our public dollars for a long, long time. Welcome to life in the U$A.
Aside from the diversion of research in the public interest to research for corporate profits, findings that are harmful to the underwriter's interest are quickly patented and buried. Anyone who doesn't find this alarming is either a moron or a whore.
Reminds me of an explanation I was given regarding how to create the "perfect program" for a given specification -- one that meets the spec and is 100% optimal.
Basically, treat the executable-image file format, the one that you'll instantiate as the ultimate goal (the program), as an arbitrary-length integer bounded by the maximum size it can reach and still be useful on the target machine. (Think of RAM, or core, as an arbitrary-length integer, if that makes it simpler.)
For all integer values between 0 and that maximum, run the program that results on a representative set of all possible inputs and test the program's outputs (stdout and stderr, if you like) while monitoring its performance.
After making sure a given program passes the tests, record its "scores" in terms of speed of execution and other metrics you care about.
(If this is being done sequentially, you can, of course, shortcut the process as you go, just as you can shortcut any sample program as soon as it fails a test.)
At the end of the process, you pick the program (represented by a single large integer) that best suits your requirements based on the performance metrics recorded for it.
The best part is, you don't have to do any coding, besides some high-level specifications! It's simple, and nearly 100% guaranteed to work every time!
Oh, one minor problem...for anything of substance, the process will take vastly longer than the remaining useful time in our universe! Other than that....
So, yes, by all means, research aggressively in all areas if you like.
As long as you (and others who hold to your ideals) pay the bills rather than forcing the rest of us to do so -- which means do not attempt to convince any government (or use other extract-funding-via-force methods) to help fund your efforts -- go right ahead.
And while you're funding this infinitely difficult endeavor, we're all sure you'll happily share the results with all of us, because, as you say, "what about what people NEED", and we're all people, even the ones who don't contribute to your cause!
Practice random senselessness and act kind of beautiful.
I have noticed this trend myself in my academic institution. We happen to be a big 10 school and its very obvious which departments are in vogue and getting the massive funding, as suddenly new buildings are appearing on campus specifically for them. These programs are usually the ones that are capable of producing patents that Katz makes references to.
I can actually think of a recent settlement where my university ended up getting $300 million in patent money due to it from a pharacutical company. You can't tell me that the president of the University doesn't look at things like that when he is planning what is "best" for the University and the taxpayers that fund a good portion of it.
I think that pharmaceutical (I know I've spelled that wrong a couple of times now) companies are one of the biggest problems in this. They have realized the amount of money they can make on drugs that have no real use, but can make a crapload of money (i.e. Viagra). This sort of thing is pushing research in directions it should not go, people are starting to look for the new hot IPO of the research world (albiet, it doesn't happen quite like it does in the financial world, but you know what I mean).
While i sound all bitter here, I personally can't think of much you can do to stop this sort of thing. I mean, you could slap the people on the wrist and say, "bad researcher, you were thinking of money and patents instead of that boring stuff that may end up helping out quite a bit." You could also implement something that says companies can't give money for this sort of research, but that would be dumb, because some money does end up being spent on worthwhile causes (and if fact, most of it does, its just that the other ones are getting alot more attention these days).
I would personally like to see a system where academe is kept seperate by a large brick wall from the corporate world so that it does not get "infected" by the money bug, for I beleive that academia, which contains those realms of pure research and the arts, is one of the last romantic ideals that is left on this planet (along witch teachers).
My personal opinion is that maybe you could have a "general fund tax" type of donation system. If a company wants to help fund the research of a certain project, the company donates X amount of dollars. Say 75% of that money goes to the project they want to work on, and %25 goes into a general fund where other projects could be funded (decided upon by some independent group). This would provide a way to pay for the glamorous research and allow the other research to be funded as well.
Used to be that only your Dad had to work, college wasn't such a big deal, and everything wasn't funded by Pepsi... What the hell happened?
What gets me about this though - is that they may be pocketing millions, but next year the'll annouce that tuitions are going up again.
What gives?
The best example is law school professors. The average law school professor spends, at most, 10 hours per week teaching and prepping for class. Most classes have a pre-set lesson plan, used many times before. For this, he is paid a substantial sum.
What does he do with his extra time? Let's say this equals thirty hours. Well, if you read the newspaper, you'll notice a plethora of legal "opinions", little facts doled out by esteemed legal researchers. The professor will write articles for important journals, most of the work being done by his eager students (after all, they'd like a piece of this action one day!). The professor will finally spend some time giving lectures, consulting, and maybe providing an office hour or two to students.
Things never really change. New bottles, old wine. Only undergrad. professors actually "teach", and not even all of them. But law school is the worst offender. Not much different from the tech fields. And it's not like it actually teaches you anything. You've got to learn it all on your own in clinics and in real practice.
I sincerely doubt that Jon Katz has ever actually been to the theatre in a major city, or even looked beyond the listings at the Times Square ticket booths. There is a plethora of highly creative, subversive, revolutionary theatre in New York, Chicago, Boston, and San Francisco. To say that the theatre is "dominated" by "mass-marketed musicals" implies that only those things which are highly funded and attended strongly by people from Schaumburg should be considered influential, which says more about Mr. Katz's own perception of money than it does about the theatre.
* mild mannered physics grad student by day *
* mild mannered physics grad student by day *
* daring code hacker by night *
http://www.silent-tristero.com
That is a very modern way to view research. Even quite recently people thought that the point of research was to try to understand the divine design. Even now quite a few people (myself included) would argue that technology is but a side effect of science (granted, an important side effect), while the real purpose of science is to make the universe comprehensible to the human mind.
If you accept this point of view the tension between science and capitlism becomes rather obvious as their respective goals have very little in common.
Check out The Kept University in The Atlantic Monthly, March 2000 for a thoroughly researched, thoughtful treatment of this issue.
--
Oh, yeah, it's not easy to pad these out to 120 characters.
I can see that there are two sides to this story the advantage to the univeristy and its students that the profit from research provides offset by the loss of of the public. The public loses in that they pay higher prices for product developed using thier tax money as well as the benifits of the research knowledge being more in the public domain. When the university decides to profit its is going to tend to mean they are less willing to share the details of the research less someone use it to thier own benift, or imporve it such that they lose profit. It would seem to me that there should be choice here. A university can choose to be a for profit establishment where it seeks fund through enterprise. It should then not be elligible for public support of research since it has determined it is interest in research for itself not the public. It perhpas should also be subject to some form of addition tax, so that it too helps support research by the not for profit univerities upon whose research they are building. Or the university can choose to be not for profit in which case it is much the same as an old style university in that research is funding through public assistance and that research should be done such that the public has access to and can benifit from(with out paying out the nose) that research.
Government is the abdication of your responsibility to a faceless bureaucracy. Anarchy(absence of government)is the a
Warning : This is pretty harsh, I am trying not to flame.
So, Columbia did it. There is more than one "Academic" institution in this country, much less this world, and I am sure they don't hold the same "extreme corporatist" ethics that Columbia does.
Oh, and guess what Katz? If it weren't for this corporatism, you wouldn't be here. You wouldn't be spewing this alarmist redundancy.
What? You say that you would still write even if you weren't backed by Slashdot which is in turn backed by Andover.net which is a large faceless, corporation? Well then, just apply that logic to anyone who has ever felt passionately about anything, and you don't have to worry about the huge corporation. The generality that Academia has fallen to the greed that the internet and e-commrece is sitting in proves your naive and sensationalist cynicism. It insults me that you could turn your back on the whole Academic community who brought you here, because you found one detail about one institution.
Sure, I hate corporate America and all the vague jargon, BS, and spin created by it, I hate what it did to the internet, but I must accept it, because it got me my job, and a better chance than the next guy, unless of course, it denies me my rights as an American.
Oh, and guess why Columbia is making so much money, and why do they need it? Its so the next person who enters your family will have a healthier and safer life. Not for greed. Sure the ambition to make money might be shared by Academia and Corporate America, but not the motivation. Academia contributes to the human race, they make it better for you to live.
No one becomes an academic for the money, and even if there is money, they do it to teach, not to earn a profit.
-Fred
"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American Public." - H.L. Mencken
Our intellectual property system could use come overhauling to ensure that knowledge isn't lost (see "abandonware") and does become available to society after a reasonable period of time. Patents need to be limited (genes and other "discovered" things), copyrights have to expire, and namespaces have to be limited to account for the way that global society is changing (DNS). None of this is the end of history, or even particularly unique.
Does anyone really think that the pace of scientific and technological change is too slow right now? Is the profit motive not working to drive discovery and implementation forward?
Technology is implementation; it has always been commercial and always will be. Science is discovery and definition; it will probably be commercial too, but out intellectual property laws have to be reformed to ensuer that it is not exclusive. The profit motive for science should be to allow corporations to reach the technology phase where exclusive rights will be granted.
In other words, Research and Development, science and technology. We've probably tilted a bit too far towards granting exclusive rights to scientific descoveries instead of limiting them to technological developments, but that is a problem tht can be fixed, once it is adequetely defined.
You mean I don't have end up in poverty because i gave my inventions to the masses?
This is hardly a new trend... 400 years ago, sure the inventors enjoyed helping humanity, to their own demise. George Washington Carver, Leonardo DaVinci, two name a few, died in poverty. On the other hand, great inventors like Browning, still collected a large paycheck, though they still helped out their country and the world.
There *is* a program I enjoy using on windows... It's called FDISK.
Ah, yes, always easy to be cynical. The important point, oh world-weary one, is that perhaps some institutions should exist outside the marketplace.
The government in this country [USA] does a pitiful job of promoting the intersts of private citizens. (As an OT example, last time I saw the numbers, the city of Hamburg, Germany, spent more money per year promoting artists than the entire yearly budget of the US NEA.)
So yes, this news is certainly not surprising, and anyone who needed Katz to bring it to his attention wasn't paying much attention in the first place. However, that doesn't stop some of us from hoping and working for a society in which corporations don't own everything of value.
This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."
OK- let me pose this. Why is it that we need to maintain the same university structure that we have? So what if college research dries up and blows away? Why should the taxpayers pay for research that others will profit from? I say we only fund research that will make an impact on society but has little commercial value- and if that causes universities to lose profs- well, too bad. Classes can always be taught by professionals after 5PM- you don't need a PhD to teach a class in history or microprocessor design.
My tax money will alway go to supporting "brain dead morons"- and I guess I would prefer to support them in school rather than on welfare. JUST KIDDING. Seriously, to understand my argument you have to divide the two primary functions of a university: educating students and performing research. (Actually a good friend of mine who is a university professor says only the latter is really true but that's another topic.) I didn't make any arguments about subsiding education- just research. Never-the-less, to answer your question about how I feel about subsiding education, I have to tell you that I honestly can't make up my mind between these two arguments: First, the hard nose one- Americans are said to be granted "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" There's nothing in there about a subsidized college education. So why should I pay for it? On top of that- taxpayers end up subsidizing the education for foreigners who take their education back home... Any we should pay for this because? Hey- I'm just trying to make a living too... The second version- Education is a great thing and we should give everyone a chance to get an education that can take them though life, better our nation and thus provide value to the taxpayers. I'll admit, going to college changed my life profoundly and I'd want other generations to have the same opportunity. However, I can see how people could disagree with this augment- even I do sometimes (think 1040). My beef is with subsidizing research that doesn't benefit society in general. If a Ph.D. wants to do research on something that has commercial value, then he/she should get a job in the industry with a company that could profit from the research he/she's interested in doing. If this means that there is a mass exodus of profs in the colleges, so what- educate the students with fully qualified professionals and leave the bulk of the research to the industry. Yes, this could change the face of colleges, but maybe it's time (our current system is quite old). Maybe we're not getting a good value for our tax dollars on subsidizing college students. As for subsidizing K - 12 education, I'll admit I'm a bit soft and think that tax dollars should be spent since many under privileged children otherwise wouldn't get a chance for any schooling. Although I don't know why I should be obligated to pay for this.
Did I mention chernobyl? No. Its because of nuclear tests and industrial waste.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
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.
Do you think paper/lumber companies are going to put themselves out of business by cutting down all the trees? No thats pretty damn stupid. Capitalism is whats driving this great economy.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Haha government barely works for a single country, how well do you think it would work worldwide? Why should I have to give up anything for someone thats too lazy to work? By your logic if I don't feel like working then the good ole' government will give me things for free. How fair is that to the people who pay for it? You're one of those self hating ultra left wing liberals. Fuck the poor people who can't help themselves. In nature its survival of the fittest, everyone can't lead the same happy life. Diversity among countries is good. I suggest you move to china, your philosophy works great with theirs. Just try and speak out against a corrupt official and see what happens.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
You make some good points, Dr Katz, but I think you have overlooked the fact that acadame has always been a tool of the moneyed classes. There was a time in Amerikan history when the disrtibution of such funds and influence was done a bit more discretely, perhaps, but it has always been done.
Acceptance of special interest money by a university usually seems to be accompanied by a corresponding 'exclusivity', too, it seems to me.
"The Internet is made of cats."
"The Internet is made of cats."
I didn't say you said soda....
"The Internet is made of cats."
You are not wrong about that people should understand the legalities first. But the fact remains, most people going into a situation where they lose their rights to their own creations are not expecting it, would have no reason to expect it, aren't even thinking about it, and haven't even been informed about it.
We need to inform people. And the justice, oops I meant legal system, needs to be more fair, both in severity of punishment, and in deciding what is legal and illegal. Also it seemed he got much worse treatment than many IP violators would. A felony? Heck, even a misdemeanor trial would be highly unusual. In almost every case it wouldn't even by tried criminally at all. It would be a civil case.
IP law handles infringement, etc and is mostly civil. It seems that he was charged with grand theft by taking his own lab notes since they were property of the university.
See http://www.time.com/time/magazine/1997/dom/970210/ science.intellectual.html
That sounds wrong as a matter of law (lawyers care to comment?). The IP of the notes themselves could be corporate/university property and could be considered "stolen" (infringed), but the physical property wouldn't be. So grand theft, which is a crime involving physical property, wouldn't even come into play.
In closing, he wasn't blameless, but he isn't a monster, thus he was a victim of severe injustice for being so throughly hosed, being put on a chain gang (see the above article) and in with hardened criminals is brutal treatment (especially for a "geek") and put him at risk of being beat up, or raped, it constituted a violation of the 8th Amendment ("cruel and unusual punishment"), people are woefully uninformed about legal issues which can affect them severely, and we need to let people know how to avoid injustice and how to fight injustices such as the above. The governor of Florida wanted to pardon him because of the injustice of the whole situation.
P.S. Almost all of us were naive to legal issues at some time in our lives. Even after we started getting into technology and potentially being at risk. Remember that. Remember that with bad luck, we could have been one of the ones suffering a bad fate, potentially for the rest of our lives. He may be have been very different than us the way we are now when it comes to legal street smarts, but he is not different than the way most of us were.
Heck, at one time even I trusted the government!
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
Then I realised that it was by John Katz
John your a journalist aren't you? Aren't they supposed to be objective? I thought you said that journalism still had integrity.
Sometimes I wish I had a baseball bat the size of Rhode island to beat the shit out of this world -Milk & Cheese
without research, there is no constant progress. there for we must pay researchers regardless of who they work for.
Beer.
I'm curious, was the logo emblazoned on the players themselves, or just their clothing - I mean there has to be a next step, a one up for one sponsor over another. The current state of the corporatocracy and the structure of american greed means that academic institutions (such as the one I currently work for) have to beg moneies not from the traditional sources (well established alumni or parents) but from the ever greedy, anything but humble corporations who see acadme as just another billboard. Send 'em to hell. Use open source, refuse to wear branded items, and whine like hell when they try to open a Pepsico Memorial Pizza Hut Center for applied sciences anywhere in the country.
\Drew National Data Director, John Edwards for President
What you're forgetting is that universities are considered non-profit organizations, and enjoy many tax exemptions because of that. If they're behaving like a business, maybe they should be taxed like a business.
I wonder how much Columbia Univ. paid in taxes on that $140mil in patent royalties. Anybody thought of pointing this out to the IRS?
So, they could make their "documentary" Life Afterlife!
Read it here.
If you pay somebody, you can prove anything. Now the researchers have a book out and go on speaking tours. They basically created the research to make money.
Such is the infinite Grace of Popeye.
Um, no. Capitalism is the simplest method (that I know of) to promote unrestrained economic growth and a motivational factor for individuals to put themselves above their peers and society as a whole. Capitalism orients a society towards capital - money - period. If something adds to your ability to make more money, it's beneficial. Conversely, if something is of dubious monetary value (or actually reduces monetary returns) then it is detrimental.
There's a reason the chinese don't believe in Intellectual Property rights - IP is fundamentally a capitalist construct. If your goal is to aid in the development of society - by which I mean add to the social, physical, and philosophical wellbeing and richness of a culture - making ideas freely available is the best means to achieve your goal. If your goal is to make money, you will do everything in your power to exploit your 'right' to knowledge. If others want to use it, you impose a use tax. While they may be benefitting, and society may be benefitting, you are benefitting in the only way that matters in a capitalist society.
The american dream is to become one of the elite, and the only way most people have of understanding a path to being one of the elite is through money. Research institutions and schools for higher learning are just following the natural progression of all institutions in end-stage capitalism. Read some Marx and Engel - note that true socialism evolves from end-stage capitalism, not from the overthrow of a monarchy.
We just might find ourselves in a socialist state in a few hundred more years. (which is not to say I think that'll be any better or worse - just interesting.)
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but
Having graduated within the last couple years, I can certainly say that the sharp decline in government funding has a lot to do with the grwoing problem. Public universities used to get quite a bit of funding from state and federal government. As that has declined, tuition has risen significantly (my tuition had gone from $1689/semester to almost $2500 in four years), and universities have been forced to find other avenues of money. Catering to big business is just one avenue.
But, it's not such a terrible idea. If a computer science department in a University has, say, 10 full-time professors, and five of them do research for a large business (eg, SGI, IBM, etc) and bring in huge grants because of their results, and the other five are able to work on less lucrative projects, that doesn't necessarily seem like a problem. Businesses (at least in the old economy) need to be self-sufficient to survive, of they run out of capital and go bankrupt. Why is it such a crime if universities sell their research, if someone wants to pay for it?
The bigger problem is when academia decides to get in bed with big companies, and sell the souls of their students for money to build bigger campuses and attract new students (neglecting their current ones). My university struck a "deal" with Micro$oft to allow student to copy M$ software, or purchase it for almost nothing (I think something like Office 2000 runs $20). I'm not sure what the site license cost, but I'm sure it costs quite a bit of the student fees for something that those running Linux, Irix, or Mac OS (all common on campus) can't even use. The university got a deal on software, and M$ got a bunch of students by the cahoneys - probably assuming that if they forced them to use M$ software when they probably would have pirated it anyway, they would tempt them into using it after they graduated (and would then pay for it). Fortunately this all took place right after I graduated.
Geoff Silver
"Linux... for people with IQ's over '98"
Compare the corporatization of the academic side of universities to their athletic programs and there are a lot of possible parallels. The shoe companies run college sports now, from the camps to the coaches, and the drive to put together a successful team overrules everything else. In the past the pressure for wins came mostly from boosters and alumi who's donations paled in comparison to the contracts most big time coaches have for their players wearing a company's shoe. The result is more corruption and rule violations. More breaks given to kids who put up big stats. The games aren't played for the sake of the players, they are played so the shoe companies can get an audience for their commercials.
If research is conducted in the same way, just because the results will be marketable, a lot of 'pure' science gets tossed aside. Who the hell is going to care whether or not you can teach a chimp sign language if you can't sell them at a profit?
Of course, this is already the case in a lot of places, so I'm not exactly sure how timely this article is.
Icebox
The point is that IITB needs the funds. Traditionally education in India has been subsidized by the government even at the college level. But funds are drying up, and IIRC government funding at IITB has been frozen after 1995. There has been a steep hike in fees consequent to that, and my juniors are paying much more than I did. In this situation, it's only natural that they look towards industry to finance the costs of an engineering education.
Just my two bits.
Pepsi products? Ha ha! It's funny, but the schools I mentioned (UGa and GaTech) both had LOTS and LOTS of stuff named Woodruff: dorms, etc. Of course, the Woodruff was the long-time head of the Coca Cola company, headquartered in Atlanta. We had a similar problem, if a different product. :)
What'dya mean there's no BLINK tag!?
should be taxed. All Universities and entities should be taxed, with no non-profit status whatsoever. Of course, taxes should be lowered or eliminated in most cases anyway, but I'm falling back on Abraham Lincoln's philosophy, "To have an unpopular law repealed, enforce it strictly." (Paraphrasing courtesy of my poor memory for amusing quotes.)
What'dya mean there's no BLINK tag!?
Historically, the reason for scientists to do research at a univeristy was because they had freedom to do whatever they wanted. There research was limited to their imagination and their grant money. Scientists interested in get-rich-quick schemes went to work for big companies who paid well, BUT, they could only do what they company wanted them to do. Now, if Universities are able to cash in on the patents/research/inventions, who gets the money? Generally, universities own EVERYTHING the prof puts out, writes up, discovers, invents. If this remains the case, then how will this benefit anyone but the University Institution itself? It won't. The salary scientists will be in the same boat they were in before except now the Universities will not clamp down on super expensive experiments as they will hope to achieve some nice revenue from them. All in all, if the scientists still don't get paid, then the Schools are simply becoming big Corporations, more than before. Some schools already have CEOs instead of Chancellors... How crazy is that?
Basically, I can sit at home for a year, designing some product (doesn't matter what) totally on my own, which I expect to make money off, but if one day, I make a mistake, accidently take a university pencil home with me, and write some notes for my project with it one night, the university gains ownership of my project.
Anyone else see a problem with this?
"Isn't that the sweetest little well-balanced undergraduate-level philosophy of life."
A university making money is nothing inherintly evil, but consider this. If a university get's in the habit of selling their research to companies, how long until those companies are dictating a universities research?
Say Widget U. makes a big breakthrough in genetics, and ends up selling the results of this research to Fud-Gen, a small bio-tech firm. Fud-Gen takes this research and makes millions of millions of dollars. This is all great, but do you think Fud-Gen is going to be satisfied with this? Of course not: Fud-Gen alumni are going to be crawling all over the campus, asking where the next big breakthrough is. What if Widget U professors and students aren't into bio-tech anymore? What if they want to do some drug research? Will Fud-Gen threaten to stop funding for that nice, new student union they were going to donate?
Until recently, universities were one of the last "pure research" environments left in this country: a place where academia could work without the pressures of the business world bearing down on them. Too often, business-funded research suffers from tunnel vision (make this work so we can sell it). We need pure researchers to investigate those things that at first don't seem profitable, only interesting.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
Actually, I as a taxpayer don't like the idea of subsidizing some brain dead moron to go to college at all. It seems to me that the person that get's most of the benefit of that money is not me or society as a whole. It's the kid that's going to college (with my luck probably getting an MS in philosophy) so he can get him a "gud jobe".
Also, corporations pay taxes too.
Besides, if all the money making research took place only at think tanks, guess what would happen to college research? It would dry up and blow away. Colleges are already having a hard enough time hanging on to their people.
Sorry, over reacted to the "real" bit.
Actually farmers are generally very quick to adopt new technology if it makes any sense whatsoever. I can't tell you the number of farmers I know that have GPS systems in their tractors along with other monitoring equipment so that they know (to within 3 feet), which parts of their land are producing and which are not. Not to mention the hand helds, laptops and other paraphanelia. Some of them are serious techies.
Actually, the clinics sound like a "good thing". The students get real work experience and get credit. Sounds just like co-op programs with the exception that the proff can guide students towards areas they need more focus on. Of course, since it involves money it must be evil...
Katz say money bad.
Sheesh, why are people so aghast that someone should make some profit from their work? Doesn't it make sense that people are generally willing to pay more for the things that they need?
Does Katz think that corporations fund research into stuff so they can then FORCE that stuff upon the unsuspecting masses? No, they do it because they think that is what people need/want.
Granted, this means there will be less research on the suitability of jello as a medium for information transfer and other obviously stupid research projects, but this is not necessarily a bad thing.
BTW, did anybody notice that Katz's spelling was particularly bad in this one? Did somebody hack a fake article posting?
How is that any different than firm X advertising in newspaper B, and newspaper B finds dirt on firm X (who is their biggest advertisier)? Besides, how much ground breaking journalism do you see out of college journalism departments. Most of the interesting stuff is done by students using their own resources.
Go spend a summer on a real farm with no computers Katz, then write about the evils of technology.
Real farms have computers dammit.
WeFarm.net
Yes, it really is a farming site.
The price of tuition has more to do with supply and demand than anything else. There is no where near enough supply of higher learning to meet the demand for it. Not with the US's current educational system where every parent pushes their child to go to college and get a "good job" no matter how brain dead that child may be, and no matter how much happier that child might have been as a garbage collector.
As an answer to those complaining about high levels of college debt, I have an answer. Don't go to college. If you think it costs too much, than don't buy it. Or you could even (gasp) work your way through college! Granted, it might take you longer, and you might not have so much time for beer guzzling/lan partying but if you want the rewards of a college education, then you should be prepared to pay the price.
Milken didn't rip anyone off. The only thing of which he was convicted was parking securities which is a technical violation at best. You should check your facts before you spout off.
If at first you don't succeed, try try again. Then give up. No sense being a damn fool about it. -- W. C. Fields
It is true that capitalism has been a significant force in all of recorded history. The difference today is that no one feels the need for moral justification of their actions anymore. It has all been layed bare--money is the prime motivator. In fact, for those who can barely remember the Cold War, it is difficult to conceive of anyone acting honestly for anything but selfish interests. It is hard to conceive of anyone who would actually fight and die for an Ideal in this modern, cynical world. We have people such as President Clinton who lied under oath, damaging the nation, rather than sacrifice his mere reputation by telling the truth. And to think that millions once actually sacrificed their lives for this country! One might say that things are more honest now, we get to the truth of the matter by admitting that it's all for the buck. But . . . some people really are motivated by things other than personal gain. What our modern cynicism will do is make it more difficult to trust those who are truly sincere about their self-sacrifice, and make people who are willing to give of themselves freely more rare. As things are moving now, soon we shall live in a country where no one trusts the motives of anyone else, except if the motives are greedy ones. When this happens, we shall gladly put cameras everywhere, in all public places, to keep the enemy (everyone else) in line. We will gladly strengthen the laws because we believe everyone is out to get what we have. The two primary motivators in capitalism are greed and fear. Capitalism has won, which tells us alot about humanity.
The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.
The question is, if everyone is cynical, and no one is willing to die for a cause, is that better than living in a world of torn by ideological violence? T. S. Elliot wrote "The Hollow Men" describing idealess, selfish, superficial people, where the world ends with a whimper. Is that what we're headed for?
The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.
Look, it has nothing to do with capitalism vs. communism. And it's actually very simple. Your 'generally accepted' capitalism has led to a situation where universities are forced to be sponsored heavily by government and/or other big capitalists. Both are eventually looking for a return on investment, ideologically or technically. Now, there is no such thing as 'a university', if you are not talking about people that work in it.. and those people are well aware of what's happening outside the alledged 'sacred university walls'.
If companies succesfully can make technological practical and profitable advancements in their field, fast, and with lots of manpower in R&D, Universities are lost. And companies will do this, because what happens when something new is discovered ? As soon as the publication is written down, someone takes a hike and files for a patent, whether he lives in or outside the university walls.. so companies will go to great lengths to try and get to the wholy grail first. In the end it is simply a race for proffit, a race to be able to survive the next battle easier or better.
What I mean to say is that universities should work with the industry, and try to piggy-back on the funds of this industry, while it can up to a certain extend deliver the quality guarantee that the industry needs. Rather than seeing your research department lag behind so terribly that you wonder how your department can go on without at least consulting the industry. With the Human Genone project fresh in memory, I'm sure this isn't too difficult to understand.
There is, of course, cost to pay: you loose the absolute scientific independance you, as a university, are so fond of, but on the other hand, you can stay on top of the cutting edge, which is where universities belong. If they do not cut it anymore, then why don't we send our kids to super modern company trainingcenters instead. But since we want everybody to have a decent chance at education we do not want to end in that lane, do we. Now, talk to me again about that silly capitalsim vs. communism rant.
So yes, you are right about letting research find it's own way to a new discovery, as long as folks don't get hurt in the process. The point of having research is science, knowledge, education, and ultimately civilisation. It's the primary fuel that helps us reach to the stars and back. It's also a never-sufficiently-helping-cure for our untameable curiosity. But as you put it brilliantly, these people must eat, too.
There is one aspect that I think is scary about this evolution. Who controls the ideologic buttons to grant use or abuse of new discoveries in a certain way ? Take GSM or high voltage electricity wires, or satellites, nuclear factories and transports, etc.. They just happen , and it takes a small miracle to get people aware of risks and dangers (usually when harm is allready done). I don't want to imply that universities will allways be straight on these issues, but at least they do not have pure dollar signs weaving before their eyes every single day. Then again, most things are only learned after first making lots and lots of mistakes, so maybe this, in a way, is research too. But that doesn't make it any less scary.
>br> Anyway.. my cents..
With great power comes great electricity bills.
Jon Katz is once again, 20 years late on a story. Most top 10 colleges receive funding directly from the military, and most have corporate sponsors. In fact, back in the 60's, the Roswell 'weather ballon' was actually a military/privately funding attempt to detect russian nukes.
====
Crudely Drawn Games
So there I was. Naked. In a refrigerator. With a potroast on my knees. Smokin a cigar. That's when it got REALLY weird.
Sure. Those people who really are psycho about doing non-profit research will still do it, but for those fields in which profit is discovered, if anything it will attract MORE scientists. This is a good thing. Quit trying to prove otherwise.
So there I was. Naked. In a refrigerator. With a potroast on my knees. Smokin a cigar. That's when it got REALLY weird.
Okay, I used the wrong word. I meant having people profit from their work (like Capitalism suggests) not excessively doing so.
So there I was. Naked. In a refrigerator. With a potroast on my knees. Smokin a cigar. That's when it got REALLY weird.
But isn't the almighty dollar a better payoff than reputation/tenure? Having seen professors fight each other over something as randomly determined as tenure seems to be, cash should be a nice exchange for the system to measure credibility by. Sure, their reps will also be determined, as they are now, by integrity, quality of work and such, but why not pay them what they're worth? The National Science Foundation does have some advisory ability, and if we enhance that to act like the Bar for lawyers and a AMA for physicians, then why not let the sky be the limit here.
So there I was. Naked. In a refrigerator. With a potroast on my knees. Smokin a cigar. That's when it got REALLY weird.
That's not entirely true. While there are corporations that breed mindless drones in some sectors, our society does value creativity (hence the sheer presence of music, even in such a simple nature as Britney Spears) and ingenuity. Some corporations succeed in providing that atmosphere, some fail.
So there I was. Naked. In a refrigerator. With a potroast on my knees. Smokin a cigar. That's when it got REALLY weird.
Not really. A Nation State Actor is an entity that acts with sovereignty to further their goals. A corporation acts with sovereignty to further their profits. Hence, Nation State Actor.
So there I was. Naked. In a refrigerator. With a potroast on my knees. Smokin a cigar. That's when it got REALLY weird.
The emergence of normative functions on the international scale of social mores and morals have begun to apply to countries. The international system is developing rules to play by which include cooperation and joint unselfish actions, when they didn't as late as the 1960s. So the idea that some countries are not important is bullshit. The corporations, if influenced as countries are, can become valuable tools in the future development of the third world.
So there I was. Naked. In a refrigerator. With a potroast on my knees. Smokin a cigar. That's when it got REALLY weird.
The problem with that definition is that is starting to apply not just to states anymore. Many corporations wield enough monetary power (cough, cough, Microsoft) that they can do pretty much what they want without consequences, much like a nation/state could. I think perhaps a better wording of Nation State Actor should be Nation/State/Actor. Trust me, people with money can act, to some degree, with the sovereignty of a nation (say like....Pakistan or another third world nation).
So there I was. Naked. In a refrigerator. With a potroast on my knees. Smokin a cigar. That's when it got REALLY weird.
If Sony chose to raise an Army, I have no question that they could succeed in taking over a small nation in Southeast Asia. Hell, they could probably just buy the damn thing. Microsoft has been forced to curtail some of their operations due to pressure, not just monetary, from governments, this makes them an actor in the international system, and with that status, they should be recognized as wielding some degree of power commensurate with their wealth.
So there I was. Naked. In a refrigerator. With a potroast on my knees. Smokin a cigar. That's when it got REALLY weird.
Regardless, the peace that was kept for 100 years was kept by the leaders of their countries, who were, I might add, mortal. The Great War was a result of growing tensions surrounding the ascendence of newer leaders. World War II was the result of unresolved tension after World War I and can mainly be attributed to the Versailles treaty, again created by untrained leaders. The analogy fits.
So there I was. Naked. In a refrigerator. With a potroast on my knees. Smokin a cigar. That's when it got REALLY weird.
--- Submission is feudal.
Things get sticky when the issue of education becomes distorted by corporate money. If University X gets $200M for its electrical engineering department, and zippo for its education department, how do we know that adequate resources are being allocated to the education of our future teachers? Is one area of study more important, simply on the basis of greater financial returns? At some level, the possibility of becoming an electrical engineer depends upon having been taught to read. Having electrical engineers who know enough not to become fascists depends upon having been taught history.
Playing free-market bingo with our higher education system will remake universities into entities that aren't any good at educating people. To use the free marketers' own logic: if the market wanted for-profit universities, they would already be here. We already have private research firms. Maybe it's the cheap grad student labor.
--- Submission is feudal.
While I agree that more people doing more work is a good thing, there will need to be some real oversight. In years past, science was self-regulating in terms of quality and method. With zillions of $ at stake, in the future, someone is going to have to pick up the slack.
--- Submission is feudal.
I've been wondering about this. I'm a student now at the college. Can the university really enforce this? I'm paying 30k+ for the education, then how can they get the intellectual property of something I do on their system? Now if I'm getting paid by the university, then I see no problem as it would be the same as being an employee of a private company.
Also, if I make a program, and then creates a clone of it after leaving the university, what rights does the university have? As far as I am concerned, I never signed a NDA with them and I should be free to persue whatever I want.
Actually I remember we had these posters back in primary school, they had a few advertisments on them. And this was 10 to 15 years.
Yep. Your earlier post had a strong Academic Snob vibe to it, and I thought it would be funny to extend it a little farther.
Glad you enjoyed it. Some people have no sense of humor about being roasted like that.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
To make more money, of course.
Women's sports are huge money losers (so far), but all schools are required, under the famous "Title IX" decision, to provide athletic scholarships and positions to an equal number of women as they do for men. Some schools respond by cutting their less-visible men's programs (like wrestling and swimming) until they have just as few men as women, but the better ones will do what it takes to come up with the cash and recruit enough women so they can continue to function. If that means the football team wears Reebok logos to help cover the costs of women's hockey, then so be it.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of Mr. Smith from Lost in Space than Mr. Burns from The Simpsons. :)
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Federal dollars for schools have increased faster than the rate of inflation for the entire Reagan era, the entire Bush era, and the entire Clinton era.
Sorry to ruin a perfectly good rant with facts.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
It is a fact that federal spending on education has ballooned for two solid decades. Since you were ranting about education being less of a priority than the military, I was compelled to point out that this is a load of crap. Of all the cuts to the federal budget in the last 10 years, the cuts to the defense department have been the most dramatic.
You are talking to a former teacher from a family almost entirely made up of educators. I'm not just pulling these facts out of my ass, I spent a lot of time on this topic.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Or will it just become more expensive to do everything?
As far as I can see, universities come up with the best pieces of technology and research. If they start charging big bucks for these things, won't progress slow? Won't great inventions academic institutions came up with that we take for granted become not-so-great (at least in terms of price).
If I recall correctly, the internet was started at a university. If that project got sold to a corporation, I'm certain the net would be much different than it is now. It wouldn't be as free, for sure...
Food for thought...
>>
You Fail to see one basic point. Culture is whatever culture happens to be at the time. As old ways of doing things fade away new ones pop up. That is not a bad thing. So in the long run trying to protect culture is not only futile but actually holding us back.
Harvard University has over 1 Billion dollars (IIRC) that has been donated by alumni in it s accounts that have been ear marked for scholarships? Do you know where this money has gone?
No where.
Kalrand
-the voice of reason
Don't we need both? It's great to theorize that we can travel at the speed of light, given enough energy and a small enough mass, but what will come of it until someone does research applicable to Corporate worlds? Coming up with the combustible engine was wonderful, yes. But coming up with a car is what revolutionized travel.
It's all well and good to do pure research, but until Joe Q. Public has it on his kitchen counter, it doesn't touch his life.
Busco a alguien que me quiera como yo la quiera.
One farmer at the beginning of this century could feed about forty. One farmer now can feed ten times that many. What allowed this miraculous development? Technology! Fertilizers, improved equipment, better processing and distribution systems (though not to those ucky third-world folks, I concede) and the like.
And all in a closed system.
Closed? So the atmosphere isn't getting polluted by the distibution of this? Oil reserves aren't getting used up? Rainforests aren't getting torn down by ranchers supplying beef to McDonalds?
These improvements are being achieved at the cost of natural resources. You may consider that this is a price worth paying, but it's certainly not a closed system.
Of course it has a downside
Not according to the original post.
He stated that the improvements were the result of nothing beyond science, so I asked him to consider three things that were also funding the improvements, and then stated quite clearly that it was up to the reader to consider whether or not the gains were worth the cost (without adding any opinion of my own).
If you are critical of someone's solution to a problem when you have no alternative to offer you ARE pulling a power game
Where was the solution that he was offering? I wasn't chalenging a solution I was chalenging his view of the facts, and I'm reasonably sure that I presented my view of the facts in the original post. Where is your solution then? What is the problem who's solution I have attacked?
You hope to leave the reader with the implied idea that "Of course, being far superior I could easily come up with a better answer", and THAT is a power game.
How do you know what I was hoping for? I was hoping for people to chalenge the points that were raised, not my supposed attempts at world domination. I have no interest in trying to feel superior to him (or to you). I have no idea who any of you are, and care nothing of what any of you think of me personally. I made no personal attacks, nor made no claims as to his beliefs of aims. These things are power games. Trying to belittle the post by attacking the poster. However, I do care about the truth, and felt that it would be useful to offer (what I believe to be) a more balanced view of progress.
If you wish to chalenge any of my points, then feel free, but don't waste time attacking me. This thread is not about whether I am a power mad maniac. It is about whether science is benefitting the world. Please try to keep the discussion to that next time.
The system that he was (or at least sounded like he was) talking about was one where the improvements came from technology, and nothing extra was being expended. By your definition all systems are closed systems. The natural resources that are being used up to fuel our great new world were not mentioned in his description of of the system, so certainly seem to be external to it to me.
... Until then you are just spouting 'eco slogans' in the hope of being able to seize political power you don't deserve.
This is a Yin and Yang world: any good solution has an element of bad that goes along with it, any bad solution has an element of good that goes with it. There are no perfect solutions. You don't seem to recognize that.
I think you ought to try re-reading my post. The exact point that I was stating was that there are no perfect solutions, and to claim otherwise is dangerous. The statement You may consider that this is a price worth paying was meant to indicate exactly that, that there are benefits and many people believe that the improvements outweigh the damage. I did not state whether I believe this is the case or not. You seem to have jumped to a conclusion. I was merely pointing out that to make the decision whether it is good or not you need to realise what the downside is.
Criticism is easy; talk is cheap. If you have a better way, show everyone. Don't talk,DO.
Sorry. I have never got this if you haven't got the answer, don't ask the question mentality. I have no desire, or made any claim, to seize any power, deserved or otherwise (where did that claim come from?). I was just stating facts (are you disputing them? Don't believe that the oil is being used up?). Raising awareness allows others to make up their own minds. Why do facts have to come with opinions/solutions?
I don't remember stating anywhere in my post that I think that I have a better way, or that the current way is bad, just that it was not as black and white good as the poster was making out.
Do you now understand the If you don't have the answers, don't ask the question mentality?
No. Personally I find Socratic irony quite a useful method for discussion. You might want to consider looking it up.
This may be off topic but....
When I went to school a few years back, I subtly noticed that there were no Pepsi machines on campus. Not only that, but the Coke was way overpriced. We're talking about a fairly large school here, 30K students plus who knows how many support staff and personnel. I always wondered what kind of financial compensation the university got for the agreement with Coca-cola.
I figure that both the University and Coca-Cola must have made out pretty well in that arrangement. Students got screwed pretty bad though. Sure, sure, we don't have to buy soda. We could drink from the public water fountain or suckle cactus for nourishment, but it still doesn't seem right. If it were a private school, I could see the whole thing as legitimate. Let the private industries do what they want in that regard....but we're talking about a public school. Shouldn't a public school not be soda exclusive. I think so.
don't believe the hype
TRUE -- RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT DRIVES INNOVATION & NEW STANDARDS IN EXISTING TECHNOLOGY
However, I still believe that the "American Dream" is alive in technical support areas in smaller towns. Primary emphasis = To discover alternative approaches to solutions/issues without pressures to produce a "profit" (Experiment with various Operating Systems, Programming Languages, Network Infrastructure or Platforms) --
I've always immensely enjoyed uncovering any aspect of computer science & will NOT tolerate any of "Corporate America" exploits on Academics/Universities
DEVO-X
This is the wrong path to take. Certainly, the influence of large organizations spreads far and wide--such is the nature of power. But universities deciding that they want to turn a profit for their research does not automatically strip them of all credibility and ethical steadfastness. Instead, it reflects the age-old desire for individuals and organizations to pay the bills.
How else are universities supposed to pay for their research, Jon? Money doesn't grow on trees. Most individuals can't be bothered to donate to academia because they can't see any immediate (or even long-term) impact in their lives. Since so few are willing to act in the interests of academics, they must act in their own self-interest, lest they wither and die. Would you prefer that institutions of higher learning fall, just to maintain your puerile notions of ethical superiority? "The university closed, but it didn't sell out!" What good is a closed university to anyone?
Think before you write these things, Jon. Your masturbatory exercises here are not changing anything for the better.
www.alarmist.org
the money will be there. Can you really blame a University for profiting from academic research any more than profiting from a good athletic program?
Columbia will bring in $144 million this year, but do you know what Michigan grossed in sales of athletic apparel two years ago? Try $2 Billion.
If you want to bitch about how schools disregard their responsibilities to society take a good, long, hard look at how student athletes are shuffled through classes to play for high-visibility teams.
Pure academic research has its place. So does taking royalties for one's work. My question is this: If Michigan, FSU, North Carolina, and Nebraska are allowed to profit greatly from their athletic programs, why should Columbia not be allowed to profit from their research programs?
It seems to me that the true test of the immediate value of one's research is the price somebody else is willing to pay for it. I have no problem at all with Columbia using my money (Fed grants) to solve corporate problems and profit from it.
Students get relevant experience, corporations get a solution, the University profits, and the country is a better place for me to live in. One hand helps the other, and I benefit from the new technology, and the corporations more efficient use of resources.
If creating a product tailored to big business is so offensive to the slashdot taxpayer, answer me this: Where did the money that built Columbia's school of business come from?
Now tell me what is wrong with creating a technology think-tank sponsored by both the taxpayer and private businesses? Now, how is that different from a private business think-tank sponsored by both the taxpayer and private business?
I have watched over the years as everything in the US has been come controlled by the almighty buck! DOn't get me wrong, I like 'em as much as anyone else (can't buy a decent system to play UT on without bucks), but isn't there supposed to be a point at which people also do things for love of the doing? I have a problem paying a person 8 figures to play a sport, but paying someone 4 figures to perform necessary services for us, like trash pickup, or teaching. I have a problem paying hundreds of dollars for entertainment, and seeing others get a smidgeon of that money. Not asking for welfare, that is reverse robbery, but I think that somewhere our values got a little of kilter.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled moment of insanity...
Nah, I've been in roomful of UFO nuts. Nothing compares to that. Besides, I don't see Katz promoting an invisible conspiracy, I see him critizing something that is done in the open.
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
After several years of thought, I find that corporatism is a class of capitalism that provides an extermely narrow focus on the bottom line. In a capitalist socity you are a person in a civil community using a wealth based power system. In a corporatist socity you are a person in a wealth based power system where the only persons that count are the corporate "persons". The core difference is the corporate person is a fiction used to allow a private grouping of people to pool their resources and the coporation to "sign" contracts. This person fiction allows coporations to function in the context of laws drafted in the 13th and 14th centuries. Today the person construction of the coporation allows, and in some cases compels, the officers to use a mask that distances themselves from the human impact of the "coporate decision". Coporations are not capable of making decisions, they lack key characteristics such as sentient behaviours. The humans making the decisions, now not responsible for the conquences of there actions, focus on the most immediately gratifying opate available - power expressed as wealth. So the bottom line becomes the end all and be all of the coporate existance. There are alternative constructions of coporations. These constructions acknowlage the coporation to be a mechine. Thus the humans who operate the mechine must acknowlage there own actions and the impact of those actions. Another effect would be to isolate the influence of coporate actions to economic affairs involving the aggration of wealth for use large enterprises and leave humans in charge of the rest. In the immediate case, academia would not be moved to aggrate wealth anymore that they were fifty years ago. They would provide a true check on the actions of those running coporations.
To have 100 victories in 100 battles is not the highest measure of skill. To defeat the enemy without fighting is the
You have to remember, that although universities are publicy funded, and in many ways are there for improving society, they are still very often privately held business. But consider this, if the universities can find ways to become more independant of public finances, that is a relief to all of us taxpayers. And it benefits the entire student body, as it gives the school more money to fund improvements to the educational process, like computers, expensive labratory equipment, library and other research related resources, security, etc. So, better education, less strain on taxpayers, safer schools, how could this not be a win/win situation? Besides, the cost of overhead on the research is tremendous to a school. If they have the potential to capitalize on their work, that enables the schools to do more, uh, research :)
--I assume full responsibility for my actions, except the ones that are someone else's fault.
To play devils advocate, there are a few benefits to a certain level of direct sponsorship. For example, by working with a company on a project, students have the unique opportunity to work with experienced industry professionals, and gain knowledge and insight from different perspectives, something that isn't possible in a single teacher environment. Also, students and schools may be presented with the opportunity to work with equipment that the school would never be able to afford otherwise.
This would, of course, have to be done in moderation. I would hate to see a school like MIT become "Microsoft Institute" for example. That is an extreme analogy, but the idea is the same. A limit would have to be set on the level of involvement that would be allowed.
But shoot, if they're going to be doing meaningful research anyway, why not capitalize on it?
--I assume full responsibility for my actions, except the ones that are someone else's fault.
I've seen this in Ottawa, ON as well - or at least something similar. Local College negotiates deal with Company that provides shared office space and administrative and accounting services, in addition to some startup capital, in exchange for a certain percentage of (voting) shares. Company, in return, provides advertising and promotional revenues to Local College, as well as padding for increased-percentage-of-grads-getting-jobs statistics.
Everyone is happy.
Please stop APK.. you're only hurting yourself.
The big problem with industrial funding of scientific research in academia is NOT the impact on the scientific research. It's the fact that the money earned becomes an essential part of the universities budget. What happens when the biology department discovers the toxic effects of a chemical that the university holds a patent on? Do you think this research will be released as quickly as it would be in the ideal "ivory-tower" university?
"Fertilizers, improved equipment, better processing and distribution systems (though not to those ucky third-world folks, I concede) and the like."
Indeed, and we are litteraly the *fatest* generation that ever lived on earth too. What does that tell you?
wiZd0m
Academia is not looking for a happy in-between. The men (and some women, but mostly men) who run academic institutions, the chancellors, are increasingly non-academic. They come from financial institutions, not academic ones (look at Joe-Billy Wyatt at Vanderbilt, which was formerly a bastion of Mr. Katz' dream-academe). There are so many bankers and brokers in charge of so many schools these days that it's no longer about education - it's a competition to see who's endowment is bigger.
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
And that thing is : why the hell does Jon Katz always need 3 pages of text to say something we already all know ? He'd make a good microsoft programmer, writing a 12 meg dll that simply blits rectangles.
Yeah baby!
-Billco, Fnarg.com
The following link is to the english version of this story...
RUSSIA: Environmentalist Maintains That 'Portable Nukes' Are Missing
and the next link is to a rebuttal of sorts including...
Much confusion was brought into the modern politico-military environment by retired general Alexander Lebed. His statements on dozens, or even hundreds of nuclear suitcases (presumably, weapons for sabotage units) allegedly missing from the storage facilities, was one of the major reasons for political unrest in the world in August-September. What is hidden behind Lebed's words - a genuine intention to alarm the people and structures responsible for nuclear security, or just a pure desire to come back into the Russian and international political life, of which he was forced out last year? Alexander Akulov in "Hey you, just hold my suitcase!" tries to answer these questions. And Alexander Golts cites communist leader Gennady Zuganov, and the arguments of the latter, why START 2 has no chances to be ratified this year...
Nuclear security and Safety parts 4-5
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
This might be slightly offtopic, but still revalent to the subject. I believe that research is great and essential for professors, however I take issue to when professors let their research get in the way of their instruction. I had a professor this past semester who was a distinguished researcher, but a horrible professor. He put little effort into class instruction, and even refused to see students (including myself) on a number of occasions during his office hours. While I'm not sure if it applies in his case (I definitely don't want to state so for fear of retribution), I fear that with commercial involvement in research, instruction quality could faulter. In no way am I stating that businesses should not support the university system, I feel that it is mutually beneficial to both, and society as a whole, however I think this is another possible problem we shoud keep an eye on.
While there are some aspects of corporate sponsorship on university campuses across the United States that are troubling, it is a way for those universities to provide better funding for themselves, and less reliance on taxpayer money. In theory, this would bring down tuitions for many students who are unable to afford college.
The problem is that this doesn't seem to be the case. Tuition is rising at a rate far above that of inflation, and student debt has become a crippling problem for the newly graduated college student. If the universities want to take grants and such from large corporations, then they better damn well make tuition affordable. Either that, or stop calling themselves places of higher learning and start calling themselves places of corporate customer training.Communism is a facet of the Socialist ideology, not an ideology in and of itself.
Oh, don't get me wrong, I am an academic snob. I like to sound as much as possible like Mr. Burns in whatever I write. My home page is entirely about trying to prolong academia into the post-collegiate milieu.
:)
...Uh, I'm fired, aren't I?
Like how I tucked "milieu" into there?
"Uh, excuse me, but... 'proactive'? 'Paradigm'? Aren't these just words dumb people use to sound important?
Good call, you Caligulous collection of clogged cogs and camshafts! :)
(Wasn't it Dr. Smith?)
Nicely put. I do have a problem with seeing advertisements everywhere. I don't have a problem with using human cadavers for research.
:)
Oh, were you being sarcastic?
I think that is what Katz is trying to say. Economic reductionism is a dead horse. I think most scholars who study social events see a rich fabric of multidirectional relations. Social processes are systems with positive and negative feedback loops, so no action/policy/ideology/belief/etc. occurs in a vacuum.
The fact that Katz sees academe as "selling out" is probably an artifact of the more public and "press conference celebration" of corporate-academic partnering. Is this bad for education? It doesn't have to be. It all depends on how universities and colleges handle things.
One of the fundamental facts of modern life is that education costs big bucks. I am still paying for my doctoral education and will be for the next several years. But one of the dangers that lies in close ties between academe and the corporate world is the restriction of free inquiry. It is not a moral question, but a question of what will corporations finance. Will they finance the arts and humanities? There is no intrinsic profit to be had from this, but there is prestige, of a sort. If the only corporations making enough money to finance academic research are telecom and biotech firms, who will fund basic research in fields like physics, astronomy, mathematics, ecology, geology, etc.? If these firms cannot see the long term benefit in funding basic research as opposed to research that leads to a short term market turn-around, then there will be problems.
If academic research is soley determined by a funding-to-profit formula, then the arts and humanities will receive short shrift. That is what can lead to the idealless superficiality of Elliot's "The Hollow Men". If our academic institutions become proving grounds for technology and cease to be havens of ideas, what will there be to inspire humanity to better itself aside from profit? Although the subject matter of the arts and humanities are not rigorous and scientific, they still have value to our humanity and our creativity. If the relation between academe and corporate funding can preserve these two things, we will be alright.
Back in the 1980s, Michael Parenti wrote a book called Inventing Reality. In this book, he has a great quote that I will paraphrase: The media can't tell you what to think, but they can tell you what to think about.
While the internet has broken the news media monopoly on information distribution, one is hard pressed to argue that the editorial process in traditional media is not influenced, if not outright dictated in some cases, by the financial interests of the parent company. This is the danger academic-corporate partnering presents.
Scientific research is based on facts, but which facts will be researched when the only motive is to turn a profit? Once the researchers are in the lab and focused on a project, there is no argument about what influences data collection and analysis: scientific method. However, scientific method and scientific objectivity really don't play a role in the corporate decision making process. The board room operates on a completely different logic.
You are right in your second paragraph, "...this money can go to other useful causes....", unfortunately, it doesn't. Even though most universities require any grant application to include an extra percentage above the amount requested for "administrative purposes", this money is usually placed in the General Fund or some other account and used for institutional needs, not "less-profitable" research.
In the end, we come to the problem of interpretation. Facts are not unassailable things. There are many epistemological concerns that can call them into question, whether legitimate or not, that can derail an idea for generations, ie the aether, the homunculus theory of reproduction, the theory of relativity, quantum theory, etc. Facts can be unclear, which is why we have research, in that they can have multiple interpretations such as the Big Bang vs. Quasi-Steady State theories of the universe. In the end, it depends on how we collect the facts and how we interpret them. In this endeavor, logic and method sometimes fail. You can't just "...magically come up with facts to support your personal agenda!", but scientists can and do interpret facts to support pet theories.
As I have said elsewhere in this thread, the partnering of academics and corporate funding does not have to be a bad thing. It will all depend on how well it is managed and how much emphasis is given to basic research. If universities strike an agreement with corporations to provide a certain amount of funding for pure research for each million dollars of "profitable research", that could be a very good thing, indeed.
in order to operate outside the marketplace, all they need is enough public funds to keep them sated. unfortunately, we cut and cut and cut the education budgets and then say "oh they need to eat, they have no choice but to sell out." this should not be acceptible to us. Universities hooking up with corporations should be a clear sign that our education system is STARVING to DEATH. congress: keep importing those better-educated Chinese immigrants rather than improve our own schools. thanks.
Internet killed the video star,
i could live a little longer in this prison
Do not take extreme positions in this situation. Truly the academia exists in the framework like everybody else and is a seller as well as customer at different levels. An agricultural area may require solution to poor irrigation resources. The university can help by researching a genetic seed or engineering a system. Corporates can be involved to provide a cost effective delivery of such a solution. Everybody takes care of what it does best. Research. Deployment. Support. What's wrong with that - using collective smarts to solve a problem. Everybody makes money including the farmers (they have the crop to sell - right?) On the other hand academia cannot control the motives of it's clients. It can sure decide with whose motives it wants to go with - the highest bidder or the closest alignment. Herein lies the grey areas whicj range from on campus sponsorships to a la MIT media lab. Which also triggers the thought if all corporates are alike - Xerox PARC, AT&T Bell Labs, HP. Corporates are no fools either. They require the biggest bang for their buck. They cannot conjecture a technology out of air and get a univ. to endorse it. In fact the academia has produced many technologies which have become quite successful social and business ventures. Mosaic, HTTP, TCP/IP (DARPA - well you get the point). Corporates realise this and want to be in it from the very beginning rather than losing to likes of Marc Andreessen. Finally what about pure research. Research that produces laws of gravity, relativity, warp drive - thinkers like Rutherford, Feynman, Hawking, Heisenberg. Ofcourse academia by it's industrial relations can produce funds/resources to conduct such inquiries. And it can behave as a profit making venture too. Where it draws the line os very difficult and again a grey area.
Science has always been a field where underpaid professors spend all the time in the lab and then only gain street cred for their work. Why not cut them in on the profits their research might garner?
I agree. So why then is it that:
This year, The New York Times reports, Columbia will collect more than $144 million from patents.
Why does the university get such a large cut? Didn't these researchers already pay the university for its services in their tuition? Are they signing proprietary and non-disclosure agreements? Or is it just some laregly informal business model?
Fon2d2
Furthermore, why does everyone presume slavery wasn't economics? It certainly wasn't good economics, and many historians believe that even if the conflict had not come to pass, the southern states would likely have had to drop, or at least seriously cut back, the system for economic reasons (it was impeding industrial growth), but it was economics. The southern economic structure was built upon it, and the reason the conflict did occur was that the northern and non-slave holding states were undergoing enough preliminary industrialization to realize that the southern states were no longer as vital to the economic function of the nation as a whole as they had once been. This allowed people to step back and see how disgusting and destructive the slavery system truly was. Tarriffs were barely an issue at all.
A few other corrections: by the time the Nazis had come to power in Weimar Germany the bulk of Germany's depression had finished (at the height of which the Deutschmark had something like a 1:16,000,000 conversion rate to the USD). They weren't out of the woods, perhaps, but they were better off than they had been a decade earlier.
This continues a misconception: war is seldom good for economies. It can provide a quick jumpstart that can fuel economic recovery, as World War II, providing the impetus that finally dragged the US out of the last vestiges of the Great Depression. But it doesn't do it by and of itself, and can be quite disastrous. The Cold War seriously damaged the Soviet economy (although only after many decades when the strain of the arms race grew too much for Russia to bear... initially it was something of a godsend to the nation), and ultimately destroyed the government. It also seriously damaged the US economy, and probably played a reasonable hand in the economic downturns of the late '80s and early '90s.
Sean Daugherty "I have walked in Eternity -- and Eternity weeps."
The thing we have to remember is that modern capitalism is a little bit like Frankenstein's monster: an unholy pot-luck of a system which is more defined by what it isn't than what it is. When originally concieved as a system, social limitations made any corporation-like system very difficult, if not nigh-impossible. If you ran a livery stable in Boston, it wasn't practical for you to start expanding into Savannah. The market was much more open to smaller entrepeuners and there was a far more direct route between consumers and producers.
Now, however, this is not neccessarily true. Corporations can survive for decades without neccessarily turning a profit, and the chairman of some corporate board need never interact with the people buying the products his company produces. It is not only possible, but common, for a company that produces computer equipment to also be involved in the media, and various other industrial and commercial systems, which should immediately raise anti-competitive alarms. And yet we still cling to a laissez-faire model that was designed for a social structure two or three centuries removed from where we are now.
And, although I'm closer to socialism on the economic spectrum, the same can be said for socialism, communism, and any other socio-economic system. The last significant political/economic system to have been proposed was Fascism, and that was almost a century ago (and it worked out soooooo beautifully didn't it? ::rolls eyes::). Since then, we've just seen multiple patches, if you will, to older systems that, although they fix a number of smaller issues, don't go to the heart of the problem: the rather outdated core. Society has grown exponentionally faster in the 20th century both socially and technologically, and so should our conceptions of economic systems. But they haven't.
I don't claim to have the answers, but I do know that for a capitalist system to work, the consumer's voice needs to be significantly stronger than it is now. The resilience of business has grown steadily since the 1770's, but the consumer's voice has stayed relatively at the same level.
Sean Daugherty "I have walked in Eternity -- and Eternity weeps."
The extreme of this is the sort of corporate dystopia you see in cyberpunk, but one doesn't need to go that far to see some rather disturbing problems with such a model.
Sean Daugherty "I have walked in Eternity -- and Eternity weeps."
I don't really believe extraterrestrial colonies are a solution. At best, they're just interim fixes. If population continues to grow, we'll just be facing the same problem on down the line, only not just on Earth. Not that I'm against the idea, I just think it may not be the answer to our core problems.
Sean Daugherty "I have walked in Eternity -- and Eternity weeps."
The root of the problem is not lack of food, or lack of distribution, or anything of the sort, though both are elements of the problem. The problem is, quite simply, overpopulation. To solve the environmental problems we face, we need to reduce population and keep it low.
I'd suggest doing this by reducing the number of children born, which can be done any number of ways, even in a capitalist system without any major thumpings of personal freedom (reduce tax burden to married couples with no children, tax number of offspring, even a market-style system to monitor reproduction). But its not a particularly popular viewpoint, I concede.
Sean Daugherty "I have walked in Eternity -- and Eternity weeps."
The problem seems to be that Marx misconsidered how far technological advancement would go. He saw the line of division as a little too obvious, where it has proven itself to be anything but.
Sean Daugherty "I have walked in Eternity -- and Eternity weeps."
As poorly researched and supported as Katz' article is, the domination of corporatism does pose a legitimate threat to our society. Some, yourself included, it would seem, mistakably assume that b/c capitalism has triumphed over communism, that capitalism is somehow inherently good or right. But this is a mistake. Capitalism is acknowledge as a pretty sound and successful economic model, but that hardly legitimizes it as a moral philosophy. Moreover, corporatism actually tends to corrupt those forces which make capitalism useful.
The goal of an economy or academic institutions as a whole should be the betterment of society. Experimentally, it has been found that government regulated capitalism is effective to this end in the economy. But that does not mean individual capitalists' goals coincide w/ society's goals for the economy. Which is why the best model for academia is probably not capitalist- and has not been throughout its history. Corporatism is even worse, b/c corporatism is the notion that big-moneyed interests are able to influence various institutions (like politics and academia) w/ money. This extension of the capitalist model to our entire society is not justified by the more simple arguments for a capitalist economy.
With respect to academia today, I'm not sure there is cause for concern, yet. It just so happens that the line between university research work and research work useful to industries has been getting a little fuzzy over the past fifty years. So it is natural for universities to rely on private as well as public sources of income. Whether they are being unduly influenced by those private interests is another question altogether, but of legitimate concern.
This is oversimplification, of course, but perhaps you see my point. This is not to say that there are not research projects that are completely useless or baseless as far as science goes (some of the sofer sciences come to mind *cough psychology cough*) :), and even baseless research in the harder sciences. Good comes with the bad I guess. But when everything is sifted and refined, I think the cost of supporting both the good and the not-so-good research is far outweighed by the payoff of good research, societalwise. If that is true (and that would be hard to measure in any realistic way), then I personally could feel well about having taxpayer monies support university research.
Just on the educational aspect of this thread, I am glad you support the importance of education. I think education is vital (not just institutional education, education is a broad word with broad applications and paths. Self-taught, officially schooled, it doesn't matter. Any path towards information will do). And I think that while the tax/government/political system is far from perfect, government funds help a lot of people attend college and give them a chance at education, and that is something I don't mind helping to pay for. It boils down to personal opinion and personal choice. One either supports or doesn't support this subsidization. Either way it doesn't really matter, since the government does it anyway, but having a stance and being able to voice an opinion are powerful concepts, able to change even a large government. (I'm feeling very optimistic today. :)
execute.
Just to clarify, are you implying that all students who attend a college are "brain dead moron"s, or are you just against your tax dollars being used to subsidizing that particular class of people (read:brain dead morons)?
if former(), continue.
if latter(), end.
Further, to solve your dilema, what would you like to be done? Would you rather pay zero taxes, thus relieving you of the burden, shut down all colleges, thus relieving the everyone (you included) of the burden, or just not have the government support the education system?
rhetotical(), continue.
Even further, why stop at higher education institutions? Since many high schools offer college prep courses, which often encourage young minds to enter the higher education system, would those courses also be not acceptable, as they are supported by your tax dollars (accepted that it is a public high school)?
continue.
I am anxious for clarification of your comment, because I see no logic in the government cutting back support of the education system. Education is one of the greatest ways to alieveate ignorance. And remember ignorance = suffering.
end.
- Making tenure and hiring choices based on profitability
- Making curriculum choices based on profitablity
- Making research choices based on profitability
- Cooking reseach results based on profitability.
All of these things happen, and some are worse than others. For me, the most dramatic example is what happened across campus in the social sciences departments 20 to 30 years ago. It's really expensive to keep people institutionalized in mental hospitals, and the government (on many levels) wanted to get out of the business. Voila! A bunch of social scientists decided that "mainstreaming" (i.e., kicking people out of hospitals) was good for the patients, and came up with a lot of evidence that neatly supported the desired outcome."I'll get funding if my research returns the right answer" is the really dangerous inteface between universities and capitalists, and as scientists and engineers, we should see the danger, no matter what our political affiliations might be.
Of course, there's nothing new, or nerdy, about it. It's as old as education, and it's not particular to any department.
What I find problematic about these alarmist diatribes is that they're filled with declarative statements but no evidence to support the thesis. I'd be more willing to buy into the arguments if the author would offer some statistics or other proof. For instance, the percentage of research funded by "global corporations" versus government, versus private donation now as opposed to in the past. The author is also guilty of begging the question when assuning that it's self-evident that "Corporatism" is bad. If it is, then there should be no problem telling me why. Overall, my feeling at the end of the article was, "So?".
"If I have seen further than other men, it is by stepping on their glasses." - Michael Swaine
I agree. I believe the root of the problem is that our government is now controlled by corporations. It is no longer a government for the people. Which is why I'm voting for Ralph Nader. Democrats and Rebublicans have no significant differences anymore. The important issues are never talked about and are pushed to the side in favor of corporate interests. Just look at gasoline prices, the oil companies claim that prices were raised because their costs increased but then why did they have record earnings and profits last quarter? We the people need to take back our government and make it work for us. http://www.votenader.com
Education should receive MUCH more government funding. The profits of these projects should go back into the universities NOT into fat cat corporate pockets.
Time to get the government working for the people again. Please consider voting for Ralph Nader.
Isn't it interesting that every README and INSTALL of GNU snmpd distributions have a history of the horrors of the broken SNMP implementation. They tend to center around the fractures in the protocol standard caused by competing interests. I wonder how good SNMP could've been had the players got together and really put this to a standard rather than allow the market to create three or four camps. Well, just ruminating.....
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
I surf for porn from work, not the library.
Damn good point though, the question is, how do we turn this bullet train around and if we don't where do we go from here?
I live life on the edge
Keep twisting that dollar bill all those sold out geeks have rolled up the arse Jon Katz! The louder they scream about you, the better the job you do. They deserve every bit of it, and more.
Back in the early 1970s, an academic wrote a scandalous insider's book, "University," about how the military-industrial complex corrupted universities during WWII and postwar by helping to lift money-corrupt administrators into power. The funny thing about the book was that the names of the two universities and characters dealt with in the book were fictionalized, but it caused a stir among the national academic set because to too many it sounded like their own institution.
You can parachute into any university in the United States at this moment in time and witness the new wave of corruption sweeping academe. Whereas before the money-corruption only touched the administrations of higher education, today it engulfs professors and students. Today the National Collegiate Athletic Association is deluged with cases of payola between students and alumni and corrupt athletic directors which usually comes to light when the student athlete wraps his new $40,000 SUV around a lightpole while tripping on a thousand dollars worth of ecstasy. College students quickly turned silicon technology into new tools to facilitate cheating on exams, first, by programming equations into calculators, now by selling professor's lecture notes online and cut and paste plagarism. Questions of honor and integrity melt under the whithering ethic of technology: If it can be done, it must be good (or at least neutral).
Governors are putting too many patent attorneys on the boards of public universities. The patent attorney who chaired my engineering university tried to highjack its capital campaign into building a center for entrepreneurship. Cooler heads somewhat tempered his attempt by funding innovation fellowships instead. The problem is not with entreprenuership or innovation itself. But if these areas which serve corporate interest siphon off all new money into the institution, areas which serve broader interests such as public safety and health will be compromised to the danger of society.
When one person gets West Nile Virus the whole northeastern corridor goes into action. When one person has the tread separate on their automobile tire and dies in the ensuing accident people shrug, point accusingly at the driver, or pray to god. A year or more goes by and not until the death toll mounts to over fifty does anyone take action. Why is that? Why is my alma mater fundraising for dozens of innovation fellowships but only one or two Peace Corp fellowship? We use to read about the Peace Corp; now all we read about are Peacekeepers. How innovative is that?
I'm about positive that the massive stock sell-off would kill Sony within 24 hours after the world found out Sony was embarking on such an amazingly expensive, risky, and unprofitable venture. We're talking about several billions of dollars just for the hardware, not to mention transportation, upkeep, maintaining an all-mercenary army. (relying completely on mercs to mount an invasion against soldiers defending their home territory? Generally a Bad Idea....)
This is not even taking into account the fact that your business competitors are now driving you out of the markets that you are neglecting while you invest all of your income in this private war....
Corporations are utterly dependant upon their ability to sell goods and services to people in order to maintain their existence, they must pay a salary to the members of their "population" and they must always appease their stock-holders. And because of this (and many other things besides)they simply do not have the same powers that a nation has.
Hell, they could probably just buy the damn thing. Now you're talking a little more sense.
I'm probably voting 3rd party this year. But not because I buy into some contrived paranoid fantasy about the media cabal's control of the collective unconscious. But your reasoning is faulty: Perot lost 11% of the American public's support all on his own. Being short, whiny, having an obnoxious voice, and refusing to speak to the average American's interests is not a good campaign strategy.
I'm well aware of who "owns" these media. Now address the point at hand. Do you deny that sitcoms, movies, and news programs consistently present corporations and corporate executives and politicians as "the bad guy?" Mainstream popular media are constantly painting corporate executives and politicians in a very negative light. Popular journalism is extremely quick to jump on instances of corporate greed, it's practically their bread and butter. Anyone who has watched TV (in America, at least) can't deny this. Why then is Katz telling us that we cannot trust such media outlets to be anything more than corporate pawns?
For one thing, it seems to me like the modern American media definitely has a fetishistic affection for the underdog and a sometimes-irrational contempt for the "Goliath." Journalists are constantly dogging out big businesses, exposing corporate fraud and portraying executives as soulless greed machines. I can think of a million negative portrayals of corporate culture in popular media; I am hard pressed to come up with even one positive portrayal of corporate executive culture in television, cinema or print.
If it benefits society that much, then someone is going to get very rich off of it. If Mobil isn't researching it then their competitor is.
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
The average US citizen would rather see the US play in the quarterfinals than Argentina play for the gold. Corporations and politicians cannot be blamed for this. In fact, it sounds very much like ordinary human nature to me....
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.
The events in Chechnya/Bosnia/etc were always receiving massive amounts of coverage in the US press during the Lewinsky/OJ circuses. But since the potential impeachment of the President and a racially-charged double-murder trial test of the US justice system were/are far more relevant to the life of the average American than a minor war fought between foreign powers on the other side of the planet, Lewinsky and OJ made better headlines and top stories. How do you figure that corporations and politicians are to blame for this? Shouldn't you be blaming the American public instead? Better yet, shouldn't you blame human nature (ie, what we tend to find interesting/boring) instead?
sovereignty (svr-n-t, svrn-) n., pl. sovereignties. 1. Supremacy of authority or rule as exercised by a sovereign or sovereign state. 2. Royal rank, authority, or power. 3. Complete independence and self-government. 4. A territory existing as an independent state. Hence, not a Nation State Actor.
Exactly. The system ain't broke. Why do so many people want to fix it?
Over-generalization. I could come up with massive pieces of evidence both supporting and contradicting (and in some cases both supporting AND contradicting) this statement.
(As an OT example, last time I saw the numbers, the city of Hamburg, Germany, spent more money per year promoting artists than the entire yearly budget of the US NEA.)
Uh, actually, I think that nation-states are the new nation-state-actors in the 21st century.
Of course, if the students used skills that were honed in university classes, focused by university faculty, or done in conjuncture w/ university projects, then I think the university has a legitimate claim to some of the spoils.
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We want some answers and all that we get
Some kind of shit about a terrorist threat
- Ministry
Of course, if the students used skills that were honed in university classes, focused by university faculty...
You're right about this - not sure what I was thinking when I wrote that... :) However...
done in conjuncture w/ university projects, then I think the university has a legitimate claim to some of the spoils.
I should have emphasized the part that work done as part of a paid university project should belong to the university. The author of the previous post used Andreessen and Mosaic as an example - my alma matar has every right in the world to be livid about what went down. It was a university project that utilized university dollars, university equipment, and paid university students. The corporate world has a term for this - proprietary - and rightfully safeguards it. Unfortunately, most colleges don't do this.
Of course the creative work of students using university machines belongs to the students, not the university. I would never argue such a ridiculous position. However, creative work that is financed and directed by the university and its professionals should belong to those involved, with an understanding that a portion of commercial profits will go to the school.
-------
We want some answers and all that we get
Some kind of shit about a terrorist threat
- Ministry
The problem lies in this situation:
Corp A funds University B's high profile, high profit research. University B's journalism dept. finds XYZ bad stuff about Corp A's business practices. Now, this is stuff that REALLY needs to come to light for the public good. But it will really hurt Corp A, and therefore it will likely hurt University B as well [in lost funding for current and future projects]. So, in the interests of the bottom line, University B is likely to sit on XYZ, and society suffers as a result.
-={(Astynax)}=-
-={(Astynax)}=-
"Darkness beyond Twilight"
It's called selling out. People have been selling out for thousands of years. Get over it. The problem is that in America we all think we have the right to be rich. The fact is, we don't. Artists, authors, researchers, etc., are not immune to this.
But really, Jon, nobody in America is forcing anyone to compromise their principles. But it makes it a lot easier to make money. The choice is made by the Academe (nice high-falutin' term!) to make this bargain. We surrender our freedom for $$$, but the great thing about this country is that you can get your freedom back anytime you want. All you have to do is give up the ca$h. Which very few of us would be willing to do.
Jon Katz likes to make it seem like there is some "outsider" presence (today it's corporatism - 50 years ago it would have been the communists) that is destroying the good in this world. Give it up, Jon. The presence is in us. We give in to greed ourselves in lots of ordinary little ways every day. Are you surprised that Universities are selling research? Why? Most of us go through life thinking "What can I do to make money/more money off of this?"
Real change, Jon, will not come not when the juggernaut of corporatism is smashed against the altar of free-thinking-Libertarian-anti-Luddite-Katzian dogma, but when each person takes responsibility to devote their life to something other than themselves.
If you think you can change the world - you can't
If you think you can change this country - you can't
If you think you can change your friends - you can't
If you think you can change your wife - you can't
If you think you can change yourself - you can, and you will do all of the above in the process.
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The truth is out th- oh, wait, here it is...
As much as I deplore this sort of thing, it IS being forced upon institutes of higher learning, primarily by the Republican Party. What do I mean? The Republican Party has long disliked spending public monies on education, let alone higher education. They are behind the push for university research to create ties to business for the sake of funding. The party also despises, for the most part, PURE basic research (ANYTHING for which they do not see an immediate or obvious business and money-making potential). They ONLY value directed, goal-based, potentially profitable research. Tied together, they cut funding for basic research, push for "cooperation" between business and academic researchers, with the result that in order to DO research, researchers now almost HAVE to get cozy with corporations.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
Sorry to say you are wrong. Corporate research, if it goes against the company line or perceived corporate good can be, and IS suppressed. Publishing of results can be held back until a patent is submitted...or they can be witheld indefinitely.
Tobacco company "scientists" looooong knew of ALL the negative effects of smoking. Where are those results? Where were they published? No where. The corporation suppresses the negative results and puts forth "evidence" that there is no harm in smoking.
It is irrelevant what you think about tobacco company lawsuits and culpability vs personal responsibility. What IS relevant is that corporations suppress scientific results ALL THE TIME if it is perceived as being dangerous to their goals of profit. This. Is. Wrong. The results, like them or not, MUST be published and accepted and should NEVER be suppressed.
The only thing that would make corporate sponsorship of academic research even REMOTELY palatable is if, 1) there are rules that prevent the suppression of scientific data, PERIOD; and 2) basic research must NOT be halted. Perhaps a certain amount of corporate profits should be required to support simple, basic, non-profit-based research. There is NO way to predict what simple basic research may produce. Some of the ultimate fruits of basic research may end up saving lives, making some company rich, or generally making people's lives better. Simply supporting applied research and profit-motivated research is extremely short-sighted and even dangerous.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
Depends on when/where you're speaking. Charleston, SC, circa 1800, it might be. Thebes, Egypt, circa 2000BCE, it'd probably get you executed.
We have systems that prevent abuses of the market - Microsoft, for instance. Our judicial system decides on these.
Problem: The judicial system is way slower than the advance of technology, and a damn sight slower than the methods to circumvent it.
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.
And if the corporations don't make what the people want; or, they make what people want but of poor quality? And if said corporations destroy the other corporations that *do* make what the people want?
Ah, yes, our justice system jumps in. See above commentary.
If journalism 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.
Not if the loudest voice keeps his mouth going and clamps the mouths of the other voices.
Indeed, this is the dream of the early Free Market pioneers.
True, but we're still a damn sight away from that. This all can be traced back to the late 19th century, when the governmental sport of the era was Trustbusting.
Lemme sum up academia's focus over the last, say, 5000 years.
DrQu+xum: Proof that the lameness filter doesn't work.
I'm sorry that they blocked you from the Playboy Web site.
What really needs to be addressed is academic honesty. For instance, the New England Journal of Medicine recently had a big fight over some research that was sponsored by pharmaceutical companies, and the conclusions of the publications were clearly affected by this. This is not only the responsibility of the journals, but also of the universities, to verify the integrity of their employees and their work. This would also protect the students from being forced into writing corporate advertizement.
Jon, why did you have to use the paradigm shift buzzword???
Thats the big "conspiracy" about cancer. Supposedly there is a treatment which will destroy cancer in a person and thats that, supposedly you can go to places like Canada or Europe for this where medical service is regulated by the government and not by the dollar bill, and supposedly America has the technology but the FDA has been holding it "pending testing" for a few years now...I'm not advocating this conspiracy theory...just passing it along. Monetarily speaking..treatment is best for an American healthcare system...but in other countries where medicine is regulated by the government, a cure is the best answer because it costs less on the taxpayers. What this whole topic looks at is an ultimate corruption of the American "core values"...by the book these institutions and corps are not wrong, but ethically they fester in their own shit. But as it goes...there is no law saying universities cannot make money off of their research, so it will be done, especially when they are starved for money by the government and people who are supposed to support them. This also ties into the who libertarian topics that have been cropping up about libertarian selfishness etc etc...if I had any sort of real funds to donate I would not donate to some organization that keeps the socially useless alive..I would donate to a school where people are trained to be a better part of society. Call me a troll, but we really don't need billions of dollars pumped into keeping the homeless and the mentally retarded alive...they call it social darwinism
- drink, fight, and fuck..thats all that really matters
The basic premise is that capitalism being involved in innovation is bad. Anyone who does something for gain is evil, and anyone who disagrees is part of a vast conspiracy to enslave everyone. Got it. Oh, and Bill Gates is the wellspring from which evil flows into the universe because he is willing to do things to make money that you don't think he ought to. Wake up. Journalists work for a living. They are paid. They will do what it takes to get more money if they want more money. Coders write code for money. They get money and do some neat things with it. And if someone likes some of the neat things they do for money they will get offers of more money. How many of the people who worked on various Linux projects now work for Redhat because the cash is pretty darn comfy? Academic researchers are not saintly figures. They are all too human: greedy, unsavory, and generally arrogant. Someone wants what they have and they are willing to accept money to give it to them. I have seen researchers lie, cheat, and steal in the name of grant money. I even know one lab researcher who was willing to engage in outright fraud in order to gather donations for a lab. The last time I checked these projects were jointly funded by public and private money. Maybe what we really need to do is stop milking taxpayers to benefit corporations. Have a nice little free market for funding. Get government out of our pockets and out of schools. If companies want to fund research, or if private individuals want to, they can. And they should reap whatever rewards they can contract from it. I know, there is that old argument about the common good and pure research not being profitable, etc. I don't really think anyone believes this anymore. The Human Genome Project looks to be the basic building block for a hell of a lot of profit. Getting in at the ground level of such a thing is the cheapest way to make sure you are around when it's all over. Businesses know this. It's about time we realized that they have a stronger motive to fund real ground breaking research than the government does. And speaking of public funding for grants: They are generally awarded based on name recognition and a quid pro quo agreement. They aren't really awarded to the most qualified or the most important. They sometimes involve kickbacks and bribes. Some researchers really are working for a better world and to better the common good, but they are increasingly fewer and further between. How could it be any worse if at least there were a profit motive to keep things honest?
- I settled down long enough to write this and have now collected far too much dust. Damn Dust.
This insideous propagandizing begins at an early age. As someone who is known to have a knowledge of nutrition, I was asked by a registered nurse who knew absolutely nothing of the subject, to help her sixth-grade son with a homework assignment on nutrition. The curriculum was provided by Monsanto. These are the people who brought you the powerful neurotoxin known as Nutrasweet. Naturally, the lesson spoke glowingly of the same chemical that is treated by the FAA as a banned substance for commercial airline pilots.
The utter fiendishness of the pharmaceutical industry is the worst example. There are over six hundred known curative treatments for cancer. All of the most effective ones are banned in the United States. Here too, the research agenda is controlled by whore politicians who have sold their souls to the drug pushers. Worse yet, the public charities that purport to work to cure dread disease, instead vigorously suppress effective treatments. The charter of the American Cancer Society, for example, explicitly states that when a cure is found for cancer, the organization must dissolve. A six-figure income and lavish lifestyle is too much of a temptation for the weak of character to care about such things as the horrible suffering and dying of others.
I'm afraid all this is not new. It's just that it is just now becoming evident in the information technology arena.
`
Warning: It is a federal offense to impersonate The President.
The reality is far from what you may have imagined. Columbia Innovations Enterprises (CIE), a commercial arm of Columbia University, had been filling lawsuits across the country to extract royalty payments from some the generic patents the University owns.
Because it's difficult for a company to challenge the credibility of a university, most companies just settle it out of courts. IMHO, CIE's conduct is kind of sick.
#include "disclaimer.h"
How likely is an engineering college that gets scads of auto industry largesse to fund a researcher who suspects excessive environmental damage or unacceptable safety risks in a vehicle produced by one of its donor companies? Better yet, how likely is any collete to study how assembly-line machinery produced by oh, say, Bridgestone, can be made safe enough to not kill or maim the huma operators, if Bridgestone is among their corporate benefactors? Especialy considering that Bridgestone is historically more likely to SHUT A PLANT DOWN, PUTTING 1500 WORKERS ON THE STREET, rather than comply with a federal order to install a piece of safety equipment costing SIX DOLLARS PER INSTALLATION that would have saved 18 workers in Oklahoma City from death and scores other from amputations and other mutilations? Do you think such a corporation would not pul its funding at the first sign of potentially unfavorable (read: unprofitable) findings? Do you think the university people who decide whether to allow such research to begin or continue believe otherwise? Think Wackenhut would give money to a school of liberal arts to fund research on inmate conditions at public vs. private prisons, taking history and financial incentives into account? HELL, no. They'd find and fund whatever college blinks, drops its integrity, and takes the lucre. Doesn't necessarily mean the college is bad; just as a woman posing nude in Penthouse isn't necessarily a slut. Both were young, they needed the money. But the perception remains. Wackenhut doesn't have that kind of power, you say? Think again. The private prison industry is the nation's 7th-largest. And so it goes. The people who decide whether to grant tenure to a professor are the same peope who want money for the school, plain and simple. The state politician who champions this school or that is frequently either on the tape from the same corp interests that fund research, or they *are* those corporate interests, or both (see also "Clayton Williams Alumni Center"). Let's not mince words. We're talking about a very few, seriously evil, seriously rich people (note to fellow Texans: *frustrated sigh* No, I'm *not* talking about Jews) who are unduly influencing politics (meant to represent the people in general, not the financial interests of the already-wealthy), academe (meant to enlighten and inspire people to learn as much as possible about the universe and all in it, not to be led by the nose (sorry, wallet) down the primrose paths laid down for them, lest the powes that be decide to yank their money over to East Jesus Tech, where the university people are more willing to do bidness), and mass media. That's the worst one, in my opinion. Meant to inform, entertain, and keep up-to-date the populace, instead we get the following: "...And that's Sally Stricken, head of 'Benzene Kills Austin Chilluns Dead'; now, to prove how balanced and unbiased we are in our reporting, we give you the head of PolluteCo, David Dumpmeister..." "You know, Kathy, poll after poll shows that the people believe benzene is safe, healthy, and clean. In fact, our researchers found that most people polled don't even know what benzene is! And so you see, Kathy, why we need to deregulate the oil industry even more; so that we can legally sue people like Stricken, who have takena few isolated unrelated events like miscariages, birth defects, and 10-year-old kids dying of cancer, and assumed just because they were al within 2 miles of our plant, and just because our takns were leaking into their groundwater, and turned it into a personal crusade against our product and profits". Et fucking cetera. Corporations are NOT people. They are legal fictoins that allow people to take chances with little personal consequences to them. But plenty to those not fortunate enough to be major shareholders. They should be kicked in the teeth for every life ruined in the name of Higher Profits. They should be shut down when they act monstrously. They should be *heavily* regulated, to say the least. Maybe Bill Gates and Bo Pilgrim disagree with me. That's their right, and I can think of little else in politics that would make me happier than standing chest-to-chest against crooks like these. Universities could be temples of human enlightemnment. But instead they're turning into Wholly Owned Subsidiaries of the Corporate State of America. Makes me wish Adlai Stevenson were still kicking, but even if he were he probably still wouldn't be elected on account of his mouth. Blusher/Longshot
Judge: Ma'am, are you showing contempt for this court? Mae West: Ah was doin' mah best to hide it, your honor.
His pithy little missives at the end of American Justice have already proven him a whore.
One-ton tomato
The thing is we all need edukating, some more than others... That Penis Bird guy (and the first posters) that come here really need to be taught something/anythink cause they are sooo stewpid.
Yes, the spelling mistokes are intentional....
If Universities are run more like a business, it would seem to follow that the most successful university would become the most wealthy as well, attracting the best profs, etc. Yes tuition to that u might be more expensive, but as a business competing for students, the school would have ot offer competitive rates!! The no. 2 school would be trying to attract better profs, charging a more competitive tuition, etc. Get it? I think the major problem in general is the fact that governments are so heavily involved in economics. MHO
The Academia had also produced the likes of Martin Luther King Jr and his supporters. But IF: "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." Is that such a good thing? Maybe some change is in order?
"Only Real Men Have FABs." -W. J. Sanders III
I work at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management as a Solaris and Linux (and occasionally NeXT(!)) administrator. The strange thing about this building is that about a third of the rooms in this building are `sponsored' by somebody. Some of these sponsored rooms are just offices! Each one has a plaque above it saying that somebody helped pay for it.
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).
--
Ski-U-Mah!
How can schools hope to stay afloat while government funding for education is falling faster than hot grits down a troll's trousers?
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.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
You will probably find that the companies that benefit from the research also funded it. In the academic community, I would suspect the majority of grant money comes from industry looking for research to help their given field. Without industry funding the research, it probably wouldn't occurr.
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!
--
Mike Mangino
Sr. Software Engineer, SubmitOrder.com
Mike Mangino
mmangino@acm.org
"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. "
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!
Too many people under-estimate the value of research for researches sake. Sure, from a business perspective there might seem no point, or it might seem very risky. But who knows where it will go? Who knows what might spin off from it? Sometimes a the results of piece of research end up being applied to something completely and utterly different, perhaps many years later.
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.)
I lived in Champaign during that period, and worked half a block from Spyglass (the company that licensed Mosaic from UIUC). IMO, UIUC lost Mosaic out of pure stupidity, not because of corporate avarice.
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?
It is amazing and frightening at how narrow-minded the readership of slashdot seems to be. Most of the responses to Jon's article seem to be attacking him on minor semantic points. He's not saying "it's bad for universities to make a profit." He's saying that we should be discussing whether or not this is good.
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!
---sheath
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
For one, it means that instead of researching an area that will do little but stimulate the mind of the professor and his little grad students, they are more likely to put out a product that will have impact far outside of academia.
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.
--
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
Of course, if the students used skills that were honed in university classes, focused by university faculty, or done in conjuncture w/ university projects, then I think the university has a legitimate claim to some of the spoils.
...
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.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Of course the creative work of students using university machines belongs to the students, not the university. I would never argue such a ridiculous position.
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).
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
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.
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.
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.
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.
That's a common idea but pretty naive. The concept of "own time" generally doesn't exist in professional corporate employment (at least in the US). Anything you do, at any time, that is even vaguely related to your job function, automatically belongs to your employer. The same is likely true for a student, if not for any other reason, because the notion of "on your own time" is rather hard to define for students.
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?
This semembers me of the book "The O-Zone": There are tax-payers ("owners"), which have privileeges and are paying to the state, and there are normal people, who don't and who only works, and there are "foreigners" who live in the suburbs... Everyone (not foreigners, but they may be hunted) is recorded. Everything is recorded. Oh, and if you don't pay your tax (As an owner), you becom an ordinary person...
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.
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
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.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
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.
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
;-)
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
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
Communism as a socio-political system failed everywhere it has been tried." Under what criteria has it been considered a failure?
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
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
keeping a check on the freedom and prosperity brought us by forces like technology and capitalism.
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
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
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.
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.
--
Katz takes some journalistic license, but hits an interesting point about the corporatization of America. And it's not that it's a sudden thing. The shift has been occuring for some time in academia, politics, etc... The more sudden shift is in the mindset of people in these institutions. It's no longer just admitted grudgingly that research at Universities needs to make money. It's become acceptable to openly admit it.
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
One of the most interesting paradoxes in the free market is that many firms, which are larger than entire economies, are NOT run in a free market manner. I mean, they might as well be old-style communism internally, in the sense that production is organized centrally. So why are they the inevitable form taken in free-market capitalism? Several reasons- the advantages to scale in the sorts of markets we find in modern world, the effect of corporate legal status, and the phenomenon of moral diversification (it's complex, but basically, corporations are beholden to stock holders- but there are so many stock holders, and so many of these holders hold shares in so many companies that they don't care about anything but profit. This is not to say the stock holders dont care about any social goods- but rather that their interest in every individual company they own is so small that profit is the only motive that effectively survives in toto)
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.
They have found that its more profitable to take away peoples choices, than to produce good products.
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!
--
+&x
still feelin' good, eh Phil?
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)
--
+&x
sorry if that sounded a bit radical, but my point is that the concept of IP can be easily tainted by an unchecked profit motive, especially in a society where everyone can stand up to their leaders and ask for legislation. When the beneficiaries (sp) of the IP protection system lobby to extend their rights to fatten the bottom line, they do so by removing the natural rights of citizens. If the system isn't "tweaked" to check those abuses, it can easily become a negative force for both the market and society. The growing software patent issue is a great example of this. The music industry is another.
--
+&x
but this leads down the road of...
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.
--
+&x
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.
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.
Linus wasn't in the US. He wasn't in professional corporate employment. The same is not true for a student.
At least you spelled jetson properly.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Did you form a government? Or was it formed for you? Did you have a choice about the form of the government? No, you didn't. Pure libertarianism is just giving you the choice of the form of government you want. If you want to live in a socialist sub-state of a libertarian state, get a bunch of your buddies together, buy some land, and go for it. Libertarians have *no* problem with this.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Sure the CEO was elected. We voted with our dollars. If you have any doubt about that, organize a conspiracy to stop buying Pepsi, and see how long its CEO lasts.
My children *certainly* take in more advertising than public education. They get zero of the latter.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Of course. He did it on his own time on his own computer.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
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
... hi bingo
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.
------
If a tree falls on an anonymous coward yelling 'first post' in the forest, does anybody hear?
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.
War is necrophilia.
And this is as it should be, the only way *I* can conceive of, the way it's been since one man established dominion over another. Politics, war -- it's all been done over money!
... if only you'd put your money where your too, too big mouth is.
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
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
And who is able to stand outside of the monetary influences and say that the farmer should be allowed to modify his environment so that he can get more money?
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
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
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
Perhaps "captilism" hasn't taken into account natural resources, but capitalism does. Further, capitalism does not require "continuous growth"; this is simply a strawman argument constructed by critics of capitalism to somehow "prove" that capitalism is somehow evil.
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...
One farmer at the beginning of this century could feed about forty. One farmer now can feed ten times that many. What allowed this miraculous development? Technology! Fertilizers, improved equipment, better processing and distribution systems (though not to those ucky third-world folks, I concede) and the like.
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.
You dummy! The corporations produce X and shove into your head that you want it!
*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"...
Look at the medical system in the USA. Doctors are so well-paid that medicine attracts not the people who want to cure people, but those who want to get rich quick. So? You get doctors who want to process as many patients as they can, suboptimally, and recommend more treatment than is reasonable just to make a buck. To get an idea of who is treating you, look at how many honest med students there are. They're out there, for sure, but they're hard to find!
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.
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.
..don't panic
Look, we're a *nation* (talking about US here). It is ludicrous that everybody should just make up their own local governments. Sounds great on paper, but tell me, how do we handle international trade, and law? How do we decide foreign policy, let along domestic? How do we even ensure the constitution is being respected, which is at least the essential function of the federal government anyway? Sorry, I don't want to live in some balkanized confederation. The US hasn't been a confederation in a long time, and amen. I want the same rights in California that I do in New York. I also want goods and services to be about the same, and I want public services to be available. There is simply a mandate for federal government of *some* type. Now, sure, we can trim down government to get it out of our business, but there has to be some (theoretically neutral) party to ensure the constitution is being abided by. If we don't have a federal government we might as well not even be a nation and just dissolve into seperate nation-states or something.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Well at least it was under the guise of "national security" and protecting the world. Now it is just about who can patent what gene or chemical or process the fastest and market it. I think a lot of that could be considered typical "public domain" work that universities used to do.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Well I think a lot of people on the net have a libertarian streak, as I do. But I part with pure libertarianism when it approaches plain irresponsibility. I think taken to the extreme (anarchy), pure libertarianism is just replicating the "natural state" we form governments to avoid in the first place. The next best thing, libertarianism in the form of citizen, consumer, and labor rights, and removal of big business influence over government and policy, but not forgetting a few fundamental responsibilities we do have to each other as a nation (respecting commonly owned property, like the air, water, etc., basic guidelines for products and services, fraud, etc.), is Nader and the Green party.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
The only thing that is surprising about this "corporatization" is that people are surprised. Big corporations feed the media, and the media in the hands of a precious few own a monopoly on perception. Here is just one example: the presidential debates, the single most important deciding factor of the next leader of the last superpower of the western world is funded by tax-deductable donations from corporations like Anheuser-Busch, and AT&T (and previously Philip Morris), and controlled by a commission run by Republicans and Democrats funded by big corporations, which virtually sprung up overnight to impose an arbitrary and artificially high 15% barrier to entry (3 times the threshhold for federal matching funds). History showed us what effect this can have: Ross Perot, whom one out of five Americans (~19%) voted for in '92, was reduced to 8% after being refused admission for the presidential debates in '96. And Perot also had billions of his own money he could spend to fight the system in the first place.
"Grilled tenderloin for fundraiser: $1,000 a plate. Campaign ads filled with half-truths: Over $10 billion. Finding out the truth: Priceless."
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
In fact, the years of the Hearst dominated media are a good example of business having a great, overt power over politics.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
No one can say human beings don't deserve what they get. :-(
First, make it work, then make it right, then make it fast, then, make it bloated!
Actually, your post appears to exhibit a poor understanding of the nature of scientific research. When you say science is "based on facts", you are making some unwarranted assumption about the nature of facts.
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.
First, make it work, then make it right, then make it fast, then, make it bloated!
You, sir, are an idiot.
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.
"I'm an old-fashioned type of guy. I worship the Sun and Moon as gods. And fear them."
The boundary of understanding of physics from at least the perspective of string theory is a relatively well-funded endeavor in the world today.
(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.
Disclamer - Opinion of Person
>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
Imagine all the people...
>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
Imagine all the people...
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 that helped win World War II.
Ultamitely, people will buy what people want; and the corporations will make what the people want.
People wanted the AARD detection virus in Windows 3.1?
People wanted the CSS content scrambling system to prevent them from watching their own movies?
People want to pay a 50 cent piracy tax on blank cds?
People don't want to buy digital music online?
People wanted the Macrovision scrambling system so that they couldn't use their VCR to change inputs?
People wanted to be gassed, beaten, and starved in Seattle?
People wanted to have their ears ripped off at the Republican National Convention?
People didn't want the right to reverse-engineer for interoperability?
People WANT brittney spears?
I'm not sure corporations will make what the people want. I think they will use their wealth to obtain control, and use their control to limit our choices - and we will blindly take the best choice they offer us.
but i could be wrong.
--
What happens when you outlaw guns
It seems to me that exploiting patented technology developed on campus to generate revenue is going to free these institutions not enslave them. Which situation do you think is more healthy; an organization which is living hand to mouth and constantly needs to beg corporations, the government and alumni for research grants and funding which heavily influences the research areas explored or a financially independent entity which can choose it's own path and might even tend to pursue more valuable intellectual endeavor?
I know what I think is better.
The trouble with the argument as presented by Katz is that it simply bemoans the change and rather foolishly assumes that things in the past were much better. That just isn't true, academia was never a utopian ideal Katz assumes it was.
Since the earliest universities in America were created to train preachers, these schools have always been the intellectual captives of their sponsors.
When I was in school in the sixties, it was the Defense Department. (Remember Darpanet? Remember the Vietnam war?) Frankly, I prefer the corporations.
I would say the corporate influence has two purposes. One is to fill the void left by the withdrawal of governmment. The other is to inject some value into the outdated curriculla.
These days a corporate certification is of much more value than a university degree. I would argue this is not the result of a corporate plot, but of the failure of the universities.
Geez, where to begin...
.edu ("Damn, Columbia.com is already taken!"). Survive without Government subsidy -- THAT is the Free Market, not this Corporate Welfare bullshit.
If a researcher wants to make big bucks, here's a novel idea: WORK FOR A FSCKING COMPANY! Ever hear of Bell Labs? Xerox PARC ring a bell? Ever look for "IBM" or "Apple Computer" in the patent database?
Universities, both public and private, receive substantial amounts of taxpayer-derived money both directly (e.g., grants) and from their status as educational institutions. The public should not have to subsidize research which primarily benefits corporations. If they want to become profit-centered institutions, they should be stripped of their educational status and forced to incorporate -- no more grant money, no more tax-free donations, no more
The other beef I have is other posters saying that profit-driven research will lead to more products the consumer wants. NOBODY knows what products they want 20, 30, or 50 years from now, because they don't know what will be possible then. High-end research -- the kind done by Universities, defines what is possible down the road.
For-profit research also raises the question: Profitable when? Most companies only look at this or next quarter's bottom line. Experiment for the reader: Go to Company X and tell them the product of your research will be hugely profitable, but only after fifteen years of constant investment. Until then it will just be a cash sinkhole. Wait for reaction.
The Soviet Union fell behind the US in the technology race because they lacked a critical component in the flow-down from high-end research to everyday products. They had world-class physicists and mathematicians at the high-end. They had engineers who were very innnovative working with the materials at hand (witness the Mig-25). What they lacked was that middle component that moved technology between the two ends -- and that was profit-driven companies.
We had all three components, but I'm afraid we'll end up sacrificing the high-end component to feed the profit appetite of the middle -- to whip out the cliche, we'll kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. In the end we'll wind up with the ultimate bitchin' version of today's technology, not tomorrow's.
Like it or not, we do *not* live in a true Capitalist state. Not-for-profit organizations -- the Government and its labs, and the Universities -- make substantial contributions to our technology base which companies later run with, and I'd like to keep it that way.
The question is why any of this is necessary. The football team at UVa is a HUGE money-MAKER. Why do they need corporate sponsorship?
The school charges a lot - i went there too. Out of state students pay for all their education, plus some of the education of the instate students. Just from tuition. Then of course the school makes money selling memorabilia, garbage, etc. Why do they need to make more money from selling magazines? They don't. The Lawn, by the way, is the original part of the school designed and built by Thomas Jefferson. It is one of the most beautiful parts of any campus in the country and is a recognized architectural masterpiece and part of our cultural heritage. Why is it for rent for selling women's magazines?
When I look around at the world i see that we put up with a LOT of crap our grandparents would have never tolerated. Some things simply should not be for sale.
Scientifically speaking and with the notable exception of biology, we have not made much progress for 20 years. Or at least not as much as we could have done, I think.
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.
This is a joke! What about the thousands of academic researchers that are now working in biotech start-ups? Really, it must be a joke.
I'll do it for cheesy poofs.
I take it then that Katz doesn't make any money from his writing? If he does it's very strange that he is able to make the sort of comments he does since it directly contradicts his central thesis about money's influence.
Think again. I worked in alumni affairs at Case Western Reserve Uni. and most of the money spent on the school was provided by Alumni. I'm talking MILLIONS. Now for state schools there is more Government money, but most private schools are funded by their rich alumni.
What about what people NEED?
You'll be changing your tune when you get some obscure form of cancer where research was ABANDONED because the number of people to sell healing drugs to, was too small to justify, due to too small profits.
Research needs to be conducted AGGRESSIVELY in ALL area because of one simple word: Serendipity.
Discoveries are always made when we're not looking, that's a basic component of research. If it doesn't have a use right now, who cares, it will someday. And with this wonderful networked world, sooner than later.
But ultimately this is all good. It will just hasten the revolution.
Rich...
Ignore Alien Orders
The real problem is that when a university develops something patentable, they get the patent. If this was a corporate system and the university was treated like the contractor that it is, there is no way they'd be allowed to keep that patent. It would go back to whomever paid them to develop it, i.e. the government or private groups.
This is why NASA is effectively losing tons of money on research. They give someone a multimillion dollar grant to figure out how to make a single part. That person does so, but all the stuff they build in order to do the research and actually make the part they get to keep. Essentially all NASA gets is a recipe how to make it. They have the cookbook, but they have to pay even more to use the kitchen to bake the cake.
This is a problem because it means a lot of non-profit research foundations are being shafted. They get their new medical technology, etc. However the universities are the ones actually making a killing when the technology is implemented. All this means is the non-profit research groups are quickly running low on money.
So far I've gotten all my Karma from telling people they are wrong... :)
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 afree 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.
I'm sorry but this just isn't a true statement. Artists want to make money... they always have, even in the days of the Renissanse. They are apart of the market just like we are today. Politians have been greedy thieves throughout history, people who want power and money... while there are some who genuinely care about the people I think the majority fit right into the Marketplace. American culture is sadly all about making money and it has been pretty much from the early 1800s when the Industrial Revolution came along.
Allow me to shift gears and comment as well on your issue with university patents: I attend a university and frankly I'd love to see my school develop new technology and sell it. Why? Because it benefits me by keeping my tuition down, providing me with smaller class sizes by adding buildings and gives me a school that I can be proud of. While I doubt my school does this now, I think its a great idea. It doesn't disservice the students at -- most of whom probably will not make some kind of break-through invention that will award them millions. This way everyone gets a little slice of the pie. Personally I don't see why JonKatz would have a problem with this because thats the so called "Corporate Republic" giving money to the higher cause of Education.
Corporations are obviously not the best thing in the world but we wouldn't have technology without them. The media itself is a corporation so maybe we shouldn't trust Jon Katz either :)
I have written my own article about corporations and technology. If anyone is interested you can read it here: The Technology of Sharing and the Leadership of Corporations
Never knock on Death's door:
The Anti-Blog
I agree with your practical comments on Africa, but refering to another comment of mine "do you belive in the eternal ownership of property?" in particular the "american" continent is owned by? If the poorer contries of the world gained the power to truly threaten the rich ones, would the money grabbing commercialists happily kill them all off because "they don't buy or products anyway"?
I am a white man, and I also have not enslaved anyone directly, but my simple presence in a nation such as Ireland, buying clothes made in sweatshops etc. etc. (I try to put my money where my conscience is, but as we all know it can be very hard to really tell who is who when you are handing over money). I live in a rich country in a poor world, and my richness is perpetuated by the continued suffering (in relative terms) of the majority of the planet. If I gave away every penny I earned I would still be rich to most of the planet, the only way I could resolve this problem would be to give away everything I own and live in one of the coutries with a more average wealth, and this is not what I am advocating.
Two questions, if you have so much food and money, why are so many people hungry? What makes you believe that your countries economic engine can run the world?
I have never suggested a "crazy back-to-Nature love fest" all I would ask is that we try to remeber that this planet belongs to all of us and as you say we must show far more respect for it. I don't want to revert to hunter gatherers, I am not luddite, I just entirely agree with you that: We just don't seem to agree on the simple fact that capitalist ideals must be compromised to prevent this.
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
And who is able to stand outside of the monetary influences and say that the farmer should be allowed to modify his environment so that he can get more money? 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? 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). 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.
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
I must admit I am overplaying the devil's advocate role to a degree (though not much), but thank you also for recognising that I am not trying to flame or troll, but simply to reveal how I see these things. /. (and I regard /. as it's posters) for some reason seems to always defend the capitalist ideals while slating the coporationist. Corporationism is the logical conclusion of capitalism and it is not acceptable.
You say that "I don't believe that poverty+nuclear power=ability to hold the world hostage. The entire world would unite against any country that tried to do that. " but can it not be argued that the entire rich world has been holding the poor world to hostage? I was trying to simply evoke the realisation on people that we (the people lucky enough to be born in the richer section of the planet) should be in a vulnerable position, we are the minority. Instead we are holding all the "money" and living our luxurious lives at the expense of others (ask all the kids in your country who wear Nike's if they profit from capitalism, and do not try to argue with me that we are providing good jobs to the workers just because it is better than nothing, would you work for the equivalent of those wages their or in your own country?).
From your remaining points, the capitalist ideals (sorry but my upbringing refuses to let me believe they are truly American ideals) you claim are "responsible for the greatest increase in wealth and prosperity, for the greatest number of people, harming the least amount of people, in history" may be, however as you so simply put it "Can it be replaced by something better? I certainly hope so!". I personally feel disgust with the corporatist tack that I feel the American (and in this case I have no problem singling America for particular though not solitary attention) policy makers have taken, and my readings of slashdot certainly agree with this (Napster, 2600, etc.). I just always feel that
I have to say that the one aspect of this I feel you (Moofie) are missing is that we are all on an evolutionary chain, and just because the system we rich slashdot readers have has the best history, does not mean that it even came close to being good. I do not have the answers, but I feel strongly that the attitude we (rich people) have collectively taken is sickening, and I for one would be willing to sacrifice my posessions (I would still have the extreme privilege of an education to degree level) to bring a level of equality. To the people who asked me to give these up, I refuse to do this in isolation as it would be a token gesture of meaningless consequence, but I am happy to sacrifice another 10-30% of my income to help force the world bank to drop the debts they have promised to, to give even more to all the people in my society (Ireland) worse off than I am, and to grow the pool of money that my already quite generous country offers internationally to the needy (I have no problem making my country subsantially poorer to make hundreds of poor countries minorly richer). I get sick every time I hear someone slam a "welfare" system or taxation for wealth redistribution, quite simply, the current systems work well for us on the best side and do not destory the less well off, however we can and should do better, for the equlaity of humanity.
And to finish (because I feel that this deserves an on-topic story to itself) what genuinely makes me sick to the pits of my stomach is the ideals frequently esposed which state "fuck anyone poorer than me, I deserve it", to each of you (and this is NOT directed at Moofie) be very very afraid, someday those souls you feel happy to leave ground down (and you repluse at the idea of aiding in any way, even any form of "socialist" welfare system) will rise, and you will fall as a consequence (even if only to approach their level from above) and who do you think they (the majority) will want to shaft? Maybe it won't be you, but if not it will be your ancestors. Let us all build for a happier future now.
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
I see a similar issue here in academia. They shouldn't focus on commercial appplications because the market is good at that!! Instead, they should be focusing on studying what the VC's and commercial enterprises don't want to do but that would benefit the public good.
I don't the outcome of the commercialization trend is inevitable. Money is a means, not an end, and we can choose to value academia, education, democratic space, . But if we don't speak out, like Katz has done, and actively challenge this trend, it is certainly threatening much of the non-profit sector.
Michael Weiksner, founder of Quorum.org a politics forum w/open editorial control
Hey democracy lovers, add Quorum as a c
It was because companies were making the university's research into closed-source, proprietary software of which redistribution was forbidden.
Which was quite contrary to the goals of a university, and open research. Which is happening (again, on a larger scale) now.
What do we do?
Do what Stallman did. Work to feed ourselves, yes, but only participate in open research in the universities. Walk away from a bad situation. Don't end up like the guy in Florida (*) who was imprisoned and put on an chain-gang (!) for "stealing" his own work. (which some company claimed rights to). Most of us here are NOT poor, we have choices.
Freedom and a Pentium II, or slavery and a quad Pentium III, it is quite distressing how many of us will take the second option.
(*) He is Petr Taborsky, more info can be found here: http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/INST/jun97/student.ht ml. According to that article, he is now a convicted felon. I.E. he has lost some legal rights under law for the rest of his life. Keep that in mind for those of you that think the intellectual property law isn't dangerous.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
It seems to me that Katz's main complaint is that many scientists become pawns of corporations. But why is this bad, beyond the obvious reason that it empowers corporations and if you think that all corporations are bad, then... In the same sense that politics is corrupted when the money/power reasons for involvement outweigh public service reasons, science is corrupted when money rather than search for mystery/understanding is why people get into science. We could criticize "career" scientists in the same way we criticise "career" politicians.
>Katz say money bad.
Well, it is the potential strings attached to that money that is probably more troubling than the money in itself. It's all well and good if Glaxco or someone puts money into university research and society as a whole benefits from progress made in medical research and Glaxco gets a reasonable return on it's investment. I don't personally have a problem with this straightforward scenario.
But, if the independance of the researchers is somehow undermined by the threat of withholding money, then you could have a problem. "Here, this $100 million ought to tide you over for a bit on that cure-for-baldness research you are doing. BTW, why are all your best grad students still working on that dead-end cure for juvenile diabetes research project? Heck, the profit potential for a baldness drug is 100 times that of almost anything else. We sure would like to see a few more of your top people working on 'our' project (wink, wink, nudge, nudge)."
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
You and RMS can go live in a commune where everyone lives via subsistence farming and no one is paid for software development, but I strongly suspect that the amount of quality code that comes from inside such a place will diminish rapidly.
I personally want to be rewarded for my work. With money comes leisure and all kinds of fun material items like computers and their variants (Ala the Playstation 2, Dreamcast, and Super-Mega-N'Cube-Sync box from Nerdtendo) and I like to have those things. I doubt I'll achieve my dream of owning a Ford GT40 without either making a contribution upon which I am then paid, or stealing someone else's. I personally believe that the former is far less a sin than the latter.
So, "Tech is fine and dandy, but where's my royalty check?" If I were independently wealthy, I'd still put together websites and such. Since I'm not, I choose to spend the majority of time I put into such things making money, which I enjoy having and spending. Money is not an end to me, but a means, and I intend to get my hands on large quantities of it, and then use it for my own evil goals, muahahahaha(tm).
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
...seem to run against the grain of your argument. Many of our most prestigious and hallowed institutions have been run as businesses since their inception. The act of taking money for research makes sense...you get to do more research. Privatization makes sense. The projects that demonstrate commercial viability fund more research into some projects that are not as commercially viable.
You use the same argument that I used for some time, but in a different area: commercialism taints academic progress. I used to complain how funds and effort were channeled into the football program at Georgia Tech and the University of Georgia...until I found out that the programs' incomes paid for themselves, every other sport, and much, much more. Hey, I misunderstood how important these funds are to the school's very existance, and I think you misunderstand, as well.
What'dya mean there's no BLINK tag!?
Bullshit.
We will see the world turned into walled communities, where those inside live high on the hog, and those outside get to live in shantytowns and garbage dumps. That's where the corporate republic is leading us.
Corporations do not care about anything except the bottom line. They could care less about any ideals such as freedom or love for your fellow man. They don't give a shit about the environment. They don't give a shit that they rape 3rd world countries and leave the citizens there with nothing. As long as their stock value looks good, that's all that matters.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
Sure, some people are a little more willing to break a few rules if they see a dollar sign at the end of the tunnel, but generally, these people would have been weeded out by the rigorous training in medical/journalist/research ethics. Or, they became lawyers. Science has always been a field where underpaid professors spend all the time in the lab and then only gain street cred for their work. Why not cut them in on the profits their research might garner?
I think I see what is really worrying people, and that is the similarities between programmers and scientists. Programmers spend a lot of time manipulating data into coherent, usable structures. Scientists do the same.
I understand the argument that large-body corporations are beginning to appear as dangerous Non-state Actors in the international political world, but I can't see a way in which society could exist without them. Sure, they didn't exist in this form 100 years ago, but who'd have thought near-instant global communication was possible then, either? Corporations will become the next nation-states in the political regime. Proctor and Gamble has their own solvency, since they stretch beyond the grasp of various nations. So does Microsoft, Apple, Sun, Oracle, IBM, and millions of other groups. Welcome to the 21st Century, era of corporate politics. The TwenCen notion of political legitimacy requiring control of contiguous areas of land is now defunct.
But where do we go from here? Excellent question. We will see stability evolve from these new Non-State Actors as stability arose following the Franco-Prussian war in Europe. The Great Peace. Let us only hope that we don't tie the hands of researchers by forcing them into accepting only what Universities offer and not garner royalties from their hard work and effort.
So there I was. Naked. In a refrigerator. With a potroast on my knees. Smokin a cigar. That's when it got REALLY weird.
The CEO of a major corporation is not elected; his appointment is decided by a small group of peers. Business, therefore, is essentially an aristocracy. How many complaints have we seen in this thread about Katz's "old world" ideas? Well, an aristocracy is a very, very old idea. Most of them have eventually been torn down by popular revolutions or major wars.
Business, however, has been given free run of the world's social and economic fabric. The tax laws and antitrust legislation that are complained about so vigorously by so many are not serving to stunt this growth in any significant way. This is where the problem lies -- not in any fundamental inflection point, where everything changed, but in a steady and almost unnoticed trek down the road to corporate control of society.
No, I am not completely in support of the Communist model of government, or Anarchy; both are extreme over-simplifications of an incredibly dynamic and mutable set of issues. However, I think that the evidence speaks for itself: governments are more or less powerless against the largest corporations in the world, children take in more advertising that public education, and no one is considered a successful contributor to society unless they "make it".
The illusion of capitalism's suitability as a general framework for social policies then creates a danger the equal of any Communist regime: the complete obfuscation of the workings a government. We are no longer a Democratic society, we are a capitalst one; since capitalism has no meaning outside the context of economic transactions, then anything falling outside those boundries is suddenly exempt from any overriding philosophy.
It's also truly sad to me to see a "geek" say, "Tech is fine and dandy, but where's my royalty check?" Aren't we supposed to be the ones who can see past the money, and into the value of things like open source? Or even, dare I say it, something being a Good Thing, simply because it is a clever hack or truly new idea?
But I guess I'm just not being a good, productive citizen, 'cause I have hopes and goals in life other than turning a profit.
Corporatists are willing to separate us have access to that its lawyers and secrets, perhaps even better, volunteer to the context and participatory than ever.
And the widening rift between gets much as "the puritans" or other consideration. Magic, the primary means safe, flawlessly-planned enclave from illegal sexual imagery or are flames, or Chickclickers don't want to re-define itself. There was reported in which are harassed, humiliated, sometimes possible to censorship and communications from Amazon.com.
This is one of the theater frequently. Tell them you be impossible working conditions, job markets are then sold any indication, it seems to this new national TV variety of AllAdvantage, a gradual erosion of them in how technology and popular culture and the technological life for new wisdom says Kate, a new, hybrid, and geneticists, for help of their female movement - corporatism -- gave him someone to hide myself in ways to our information.
The Libertarians appear to mass-market, monopolize and software is probably the megacorps hae been another in cyberspace. There is divulged, it much. The Digital Age.
Yes, but how many other slashdot opinion collumnists are there... oh, that's right, none other. If Katz is so dull, perhaps Slashdot ought to give us another voice to listen to?
Free BeOS, runs from a Linux partition
Where's the insult generator?
Free BeOS, runs from a Linux partition
Blah blah blah. All together.. USELESS!
Is this all Katz talks about is this imaginary society? I can see him sitting about a musty, parlor with a dozen or so eggheads in tweed jackets, pipes, and syncophants tut-tutting about the death of intellectual America and the unsavory rise of technocrats and libertarians who are usurping power through uppity start-up ventures and online publishing.
I can hear him complaining about the Death of the Cafe Society.
I hear him complaining about the gall of universities that require their professors actually show up for class and teach rather than sending in barely literate GA's.
I hear him complaining about the lack of intellectuals as advisers in politics since the 1960's.
I see him ignoring the stifled yawns and empty desks as he ponders what could/should have happened with an effective Communist Party in the US in the 1972 elections.
I listen to him complain about the demise of publishing outlets for intellectuals, Harry Potter on the NYT booklist, how hard it is to find a nice tweed jacket with those patches on the elbows, and the shortage of fawning, demur, busty, college coeds.
I laugh my ass off as his kind fades away with each year until they are relegated to the history books with corsets, 8-track tapes and Edsels.
In addition, I would note that while $100M that Columbia receives in patent royalties may seem like a lot, in an institution with annual gross revenues of a few billion dollars (mostly tuition), this is not a dog-wagging tail. This is especially true as most universities actually lose money on research, since providing the infrastructure costs more than grants bring in in indirect cost reimbursement (see below), and those that do make any significant money tend to make almost all of their money on one or two patents---so profit from research becomes a big crap-shoot. The real marketplace value of research to universities is as P.R.
University technology transfer offices are less important for making money for the university than for impressing superstar faculty whom the univeristy wants to hire and who want to know that if they come, the university will support them in their quest to make millions off their research. The millions do not, in general, materialize, but supporting these fantasies is an increasingly significant part of the hiring process.
Even more significant for a university, though, is attracting good students, and here research acts as a loss-leader, as the economists Robert H. Frank and Philip J. Cook describe in The Winner-Take-All-Society . The argument here is that good students, all other things being equal, would prefer to go to a university that produces a lot of Nobel Prizes, even if their tuition is helping subsidize the research (Frank and Cook argue unpersuasively that the increasing importance of research has driven hyperinflating college tuitions, but fail to account for the fact that four-year liberal arts colleges, where much less research is done, have suffered similar inflation). Again, there is nothing new in the .com world that we haven't seen before with the defense industry or biotechnology.
One of the best serious historical looks at the interaction of university research and the commercial sector is the first half of David C. Mowery and Nathan Rosenberg's Technology and the Pursuit of Economic Growth . A more contemporary account of the cutting edge can be found in Lewis M. Branscomb's Industrializing Knowledge: University-Industry Linkages in Japan and the United States . Both books provide strong evidence that Katz's alarmism reflects neither anything fundamentally new nor anything so seriously alarming or threatening as he would have us believe.
The barbarian hordes are selling women's magazines on the hallowed greens of our University lawns!
Our noble warriors of the gridiron have been stained with the horrid logo of a shoe manufacturer!
Great painters are rotting in the guilded cages of wealthy benefactors who wish to be seen supporting the arts (even as they lure the unsuspecting young artists out of the poverty from which all true art must come)!
The savages are even daring to use human cadavers for safety research!
Will the horrors never end? My fragile constitution cannot possibly stand the strain of it all! Ooooh, the pain, the pain...
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
It can't. Fortunately, capitalism does not require continuous growth.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Last I checked, our replacement rate in the USA is about 0.85 per person. If the rest of the world was more like the industrialized West, we would be having debates about the best way to increase human procreation, rather than whether we need to slow population growth down.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
The problem is, as usual, Jon is jumping on a bandwagon that left 50 years ago. The academic community has been under the thumb of the "military industrial complex" since the fifties, everybody vying for the coveted research grant.
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. Congress isn't paying attention either; it's much too busy trying to pass laws requiring local libraries to keep Johnny off the Playboy Web site.
The reason that there is little public debate, is because this "paradigm shift" is mostly illusionary. Universities in the United States, have always been for profit organizations. Adding patents to the tuitions, alumni contributions and government research grants just isn't that big an issue. And don't confuse the University making money with the researchers making money. Yes they will continue to lie and cheat to get the lion share of research funds, but this is nothing new. Neither is the corporate encroachment anything new, 25 years ago, when I was a student at CSUN, the big issue was the "Foundation", the corporation that owned all the facilities (ie:book store, cafeteria) had interests and connections with the South African Apartheid.
I'm less worried about the possibility of corrupting good scientists into giving bad results than I am about the possibility of distracting them from helping me understand my world, which includes plenty besides profit motives. Or are we going to outsource that job to the legions of tired, mass-market theologians that are in it for the money too?
Pah. I serve a higher cause than mere manners: pedantry is its own reward.
Besides, if I wasn't an ill-mannered, pettifogging, sanctimonious, loudmouthed, over-educated pedant, how would people know I was a lawyer? Seeing the suit, they might think I was an accountant or something low-class like that there./p.
-- AndrewD
A Maze of Twisty Little Laws, All Different.
This is a Yin and Yang world: any good solution has an element of bad that goes along with it, any bad solution has an element of good that goes with it. There are no perfect solutions. You don't seem to recognize that.
Criticism is easy; talk is cheap. If you have a better way, show everyone. Don't talk, DO. Kick everybody's asses with your better way. Create a better life for more people. Like the Japanese after WWII everyone will recognize your way is better and change to it. Until then you are just spouting 'eco slogans' in the hope of being able to seize political power you don't deserve.
It is not power which corrupts, it is UNDESERVED power which ATTRACTS the corrupt. Those who seek power they don't deserve are corrupt to begin with.
The reason I concluded you were ridiculing his post was the sarcastic tone of the language in your post.
Here would be a way to phrase such points without sarcasm:
"There is a downside to the solution you have given. We may be exhausting the natural resources of the planet at such a high rate that future generations may be left with no way to even live. Have you fully considered that downside to your solution?"
If you are critical of someone's solution to a problem when you have no alternative to offer you ARE pulling a power game; you are trying to make yourself look good by making someone else look bad.
You hope to leave the reader with the implied idea that "Of course, being far superior I could easily come up with a better answer", and THAT is a power game. That is the point of my 'Put up or shut up' paragraph.
Asking questions without having the answers is appropriate if you are trying to learn something. Asking questions without having the answers in the hope of making someone else look bad, because you know they don't have the answers either, is a cheap and sleazy trick. Do you now understand the If you don't have the answers, don't ask the question mentality?
I can't imagine that any other articles on /. are under half the scrutiny as Katz's are. Ooh, he missed the P on the keyboard by a centimeter! Let's burn him at the stake!
I seem to have discovered an example of conflict of interest between corporation and university:
A doctor recommended Terbinafine to kill toenail fungus. I did some research about this drug on the Internet, and discovered that the university research was funded by the drug company which makes Terbinafine.
Research showed that even small quantities of this drug kill fungus. The drug is fungicidal, not just fungistatic. The drug has a half-lifetime in the body of 200 to 400 hours.
However, the conclusions of the research were that the drug should be taken in doses of 2 capsules a day for months. The drug company sells Terbinafine for about $7 US per capsule.
It is unsettling to realize that the research was paid for by a company which has a strong financial interest in the results of the research.
(Futurepower is a trademark.)
Don't forget who is doing a lot of the research work, STUDENTS. How much are they getting paid? Next to nothing compared to their industrial counterparts (at my university there is a pay cap at $14 an hour for students, and I keep ramming my head against it). We have all heard stories about professors taking advantage of research assistants (delaying graduation, etc). Imagine how immoral it is to use students in this way for commercial gain.
You have to realize that in many professions a student NEEDS to do research to be advance in the market place. I had a roommate studying microbiology. He had to TRY OUT so that he could VOULENTEER for the research lab. Why? Having the lab on his resume would significantly increase his chances of getting into medical school (same goes for TA's in his major, they are unpaid volunteers).
Luckily the computer science major isn't that bad (nobody would dream of working for free), but we are always hit over the head by $14 hour pay cap.
I am in an interesting position. I am both a professional and a student. I did work in a research lab for a year and a half, but if I knew my work was going to be sold by the university for a profit (and not given to the public for the good of mankind) I would not have tolerated the low pay.
Selling the work of those who NEED the time in the lab (microbiology majors) is nothing more than profiting from slave labor.
This essay cuts directly to the heart of an important issue that is often well below the awareness level of the average citizen. Daily I am confronted with reports of thus-and-such findings in some poll or some study in my newspaper, on the television, on the radio. As an academic, I am prone to dismiss these things out of hand as probably belonging more to the class of "paid advertising" than "robust research". Even though I am well aware of the increasing inroads of Corporate America in universities, I find myself assuming that if the study has been conducted by members of the academic community it is ensured to be objective. In this light, I think that the author provides a service in reminding us all that we must be careful in assessing the reliabilities of reported results from any sources, not just the popular media.
The best point of this article is buried deep within the text:
"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."
It is critical to note that over the period discussed in this piece (late 70s - late 80s), the money provided in terms of government and public support for universities declined sharply, especially with respect to major state research institutions. Reduced cash flows from these previously stable sources had to be replaced somehow, if the organizations were to survive. Universities had a large supply of competent and enthusiastic researchers and a demand for funds. Corporations brought the cash to the table, and wanted the benefits of high-powered researchers without the expense of maintaining them in-house. In economic terms, this is the proverbial Match Made In Heaven.
Is it appropriate to criticize universities for buying into this deal, or to criticize corporations for providing it? It may be better, instead, to direct one's attention to the governmental policies that catalyzed the cash-crunch in the first place. The People elect lawmakers according to policy preferences; the People, ultimately, are responsible for this situation.
I note, as an ironic aside, that at my institution, the influence of the corporate pressures on research are far more prevalent in the sciences than they are in the business school
I work at Columbia University in one of these groups Katz appears to be talking about. We have had revenue generating copyrighted and patented material in my department since 1993, so this is nothing new. The only thing that's new is the amount of money being collected.
Most of the point of this article is irrelevant, though, and betray's Jon's lack of perspective on this idea of money-making. Most scientists toil in obscurity for years, and their work is never recognized by anyone outside of a small clique of their peers. It is a rare project indeed that is funded based on it's potential to make money.
On a three-year grant, most projects create no usable output for 2 years and 10 months. It is only in the last two months that anything remotely resembling a marketable idea/commodity/process is generated. And once the project is completed, who cares if the university sells it for money?! That only generates more cash flow into the institution to fund more new research! That is much better than relying on the whims of institutions like the NSF, NEA or NEH, which are subject to political influences, as we should all well know.
Until and unless there is a large portion of research undertaken solely based on it's potential profitibility (and I strongly assert this is not the case now), universities are well within their bounds of intellectual property creators to feel entitled to profit from their investments.
And since the market only pays for things which are useful (arguable point?), the university is only going to profit from things that benefit a large number of people, after all...
The greatest thinkers of the 20th century were all from the 1st half of the century - Einstein, Bohr, Turing, Godel, Wittgenstein, Ramanujan. There were many more educated people in the 2nd half who were better fed, had better health care and more opportunities and freedom to do whatever they wanted to, yet I can't think of one who has the stature of any of the six mentioned. (Feynman? Hawkings? .... no ) Why is that so? Is it because all the really big, tough problems and ideas have been figured out or is that all those people who could potentially provide mankind with the profoundest insights have been distracted by the intrusion of popular and commercial culture? Surely there must be some pretty awesome minds among the billions of people around today. Could it be that they are all busy writing software, designing microprocessors, identifying and patenting genes and looking out for stock options to be bothered about tensor geometry, number theory and epistemology? Have the cultural conditions that nurtured Einstein and Godel disappeared forever?
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...
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.)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
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".
The copper bosses killed you, Joe. 'I never died', said he.
To all but Katz such statements border on the self-serving and reflect unpardonable amnesia.
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.
ELITISM: It's always lonely at the top. Uninvited company is rarely welcome.
The point of research is to develop technology for the good of society, right? So what's wrong with combining that with capatalism?
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.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
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.
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.
---
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
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.
...if linus would have studied in a corporate run university where everything that counts is making money?
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
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
At my school, Harvey Mudd College, corporatism is even integrated into the curriculum to some extent. Seniors in some of the "classic" disciplines like chemistry or biology still do research for theses, but computer science and engineering students are required to participate in at least a year of "clinic" for graduation.
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.
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.
Disclamer - Opinion of Person
It's not news that academics are swayed by money. For literally hundreds of years, what research got done and what types of findings were generated has been driven by who pays (start with Christopher Columbus and other exploratory expeditions ... work through the North and South pole expeditions at the turn of the 20th century ... you get the idea).
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.
how exactly is this worse than the cold war era, when the majority of research at our major universities was funded by the "military industrial complex"?
--
All the "examples" you mention have _nothing_ to do with research. They simply concern student lifestyles. While that may seem important to students, I can't conclude from the evidence you provide that there is any effect on research.
:)
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
Because you're not a researcher. They don't go to their jobs so that you can feel that "phew! there is a place on earth that corporations can't touch!" Rather, they take on their jobs because _they_ find it interesting. It's their lives and their work. Don't be so presumptutious to think you can or should have any control over it up and above what you pay to them in taxes and/or tuition.
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.
Yeah, you're right. This is why governments and corporations suppressed the polio and measles vaccines -- because it would have dramatically lowered cases and taken away something for them to treat. How could we have missed such a vast conspiracy.
(The truth is that curing a disease is a much bigger and more complicated problem to tackle than is treating symptoms).
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.
- The Sigless Wonder
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.
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.
Well, you can't get equity, but you can buy debt 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..).
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
Let me begin by saying that I am a student at Columbia University, and that I fully support their decision to profit from patents and other intellectual property. Your opposition to this, I think, reflects a poor understanding of the nature of scientific research.
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
Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.
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
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Recently there have been reports about how hard it is for schools to retain professors in the technology sector because many professors could be making tons more money if they were in the workforce developing patents for companies and actually working to create new products.
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?
Many posters have been crying "what's wrong with formerly starved researchers making a little money?"
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.
"You can't get something for nothing." - my grandfather, on the stock market and Reaganomics.
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.
Free BeOS, runs from a Linux partition
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.
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
You can't be too surprised that universities get jealous when they see their ideas make people multi-millionaires and they don't get a penny. There was a project here at the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign called Mosaic a little while ago. The project leader graduated and then founded a new company designed on the project, which became Netscape. The university now keeps tighter reign of their "intellectual property". According to their policies, if a student uses university computers for a personal project, the university owns the rights to all the work done. Something to think about.
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.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
Here's a story 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 in the school newspaper.
A recent partnership with Microsoft (!)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 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).
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!")
Every few days, the Katz machine churns out another big chunk of crap, weaving whatever is upsetting the geeks into some great conspiracy involving the "Corporate Republic". What exactly is he trying to acheive?
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.