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New Russian Science City Modeled On Silicon Valley
Hugh Pickens writes "Russia's rich scientific traditions and poor record of converting ideas into marketable products are both undisputed, cited as causes for the Soviet collapse and crippling dependence on mining and petroleum. Now the NY Times reports that the Russian government, hoping to diversify its economy away from oil, is building the first new scientific city since the collapse of the Soviet Union modeled, improbably, on Silicon Valley and jokingly referred to as Cupertino-2. 'The whole country needs some sort of breakthrough,' says Viktor F. Vekselberg, the Russian business oligarch appointed co-director of the project. 'The founding of the innovation city, in form and substance, could be a launching pad for the country as a whole.' The new town is intended to advance five scientific priorities — communications, biomedicine, space, nuclear power, and energy conservation — and to encourage cross-fertilization among disciplines. Property will not be owned, but rented, and the government will offer grants for scientists who struggle to find private financing. Once developed, the city is intended to incubate scientific ideas using generous tax holidays and government grants until the start-ups can become profitable companies. Its backers in government and the private sector describe it as an effort to blend the Soviet tradition of forming scientific towns with Western models of encouraging technology ventures around universities. 'In California, the climate is beautiful and they don't have the ridiculous problems of Russia,' says Andrey Shtorkh, publicist for the new venture, adding that to compete, Russia will form a place apart for scientists. 'They should be isolated from our reality.'"
Well, I hope that this centrally-dictated economic activity works better than the 20th century ones did.
Pirate Party UK
... unless they pack it into one giant building and call it an arcology.
Though I couldn't link to it now, several weeks ago I read an analysis of this plan that was rather pessimistic. Earlier Russian scientific communities were, for all the lip service paid to science, really dedicated to furthering atomic weaponry. There was never a great diversity of scientific exploration going on within them, and Russia thus has no experience with establishing communities that can actually create profitable technologies that will boost the country's economy.
They have intelligence and creativity. Their biggest challenge will be isolation from the corruption that seems endemic to Russia in this time. Corruption is pure poison to economic systems intended to be based on merit in markets. Like adding >300% to your company's overhead...how do you compete, even with fantastic ideas/tech?
Was never built. It grew.
putting a group if geeks in one spot and throwing money at it wont work, the Japanese did the same and it failed miserable. You have to have not only bright scientists but people who know how to manage and sell the ideas that are created by these people. Im an ideas man in my company but I will be the first to admit without good assistance from those around me I would have given up on many of my concepts within the first hour.
A major defect of capitalism is that it will tend to cater to the lowest common denominator. If everyone invests in the idea that science (evolutionary bioengineering, alternative energy development, vaccines, space exploration) is bad, then the whole economy and culture is going to go south pretty quickly. When China owns the factories and the intellectual property, things won't be looking so good.
And if Palin and Huckabee end up bickering over which day should be Jesus Day, all I can say is, good game America. It was fun while it lasted.
Personally, I think there need to realistically be three things, in proper order
These three conspire to attract rich people and nerds as the article states. That SUN (Stanford University Network), HP and Google are directly from Stanford, and that Oracle got it's start as a government project are quite good examples.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Specifically, I'm referring to your argument that "Science is one thing that if done right under socialism works best."
Under capitalism, science is often bent to the needs of the patron/employer/investor.
Under socialism, science is often bent to the political needs of the "people" as interpreted and enforced by the government.
Neither case must necessarily lead to a poor outcome. However, it's naive to think science can be completely unfettered from the society that supports it. All forms of government and economy concentrate power into the hands of a few at the expense of the many. Those few then use that power to shape the actions of others to suit their own needs and beliefs.
Gloss: Lysenko was the director of the Lenin All-Union Institute of Agricultural Sciences, who decreed as a matter of state ideology (among other bizarre rubbish) that desirable traits in plants were not heritable, but instead could only spread through grafts and nongenetic methods. In short, he was a Lamarckian who could ruin a scientist's career, or worse, for daring question the validity of official state science.
Under Lysenko, agricultural science in the USSR was, from the late 1920s until 1964, based on ideology rather than the scientific method, and this led to uncounted misery for Soviet citizens due to massively underperforming or failed crops.
Wikipedia has a decent article about it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism
Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?
"NO" Says the man in Washington, "It belongs to the poor."
"NO" Says the man in the Vatican, "It belongs to God."
"NO" Says the man in Moscow, "It belongs to everyone."
I rejected those answers. Instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose...
Rapture!
The Charm School was a 1988 thriller novel by Nelson DeMille. :)
A training facility was set up in Russian so spies could be trained to infiltrate American society by living in a fake US town.
Could copying/dreaming about/improving US communications, US biomedicine, Russian space hardware, Russian nuclear power, and EU/Asian energy conservation really geek up young Russians?
Surly a picture of Putin with Alexander Lebed above the communal lab and the hint that Moscow U/city papers could be
canceled if grades drop would be enough to motivate any young Russian.
If your really really good, no Obama style City Year near Mayak for you
Geeks and nerds like the free range freedoms of the USA not gilded gulags.
Learn from China and send them to the USA and get them educated for free, then as they get homesick debrief them.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
It's not a silly idea. Russia is positioning itself as an "energy power", and energy projects need heavy industrial infrastructure. The USSR was good at that.
Fusion would be a good goal. Or thorium reactors. That's a problem that may yield to organized, determined effort and money. The USSR still has a big nuclear program, and resources to draw upon.
or place to sit. It's hindered by widespread corruption and still quite criminalized economy. Tax breaks will be used for tax evasion by unrelated businesses and grants will be stolen by corrupted officials. Right now high-tech, which is by its nature quite transparent and vulnerable for extortion can not compete with different shady and semi-shady businesses. The way to grow hi-tech in Russia is not to pour money into it, but clean corruption from the government, especially local authorities. Do it and high-tech will flourish without any outside interventions.
Paul Graham also writes that it might actually be possible to buy a Silicon Valley, or something very close to it, by investing a billion dollars or so in a city with the right environment that will be conducive to the growth of startups. Perhaps someone in Russia read Graham's article and decided that they had the kind of political will (which Graham says is so unlikely) to pull it off.
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
This will be another manner, in which government money will be pumped into the pockets of the government officials.
It has been proposed by the government there that in order to 'promote' innovation, the firms, who will be allowed to enter the zone will be selected by government officials. In the zone they will not have to pay taxes I think but the most important aspect of this is that whoever is in the zone will be getting government contracts WITHOUT any competition. So that tells you everything you need to know about what will happen. The firms selected will be the ones close to the government officials selecting them and they will get the contracts for any 'innovations', which in reality will not promote any innovation, except one type of innovation: an easier way to siphon money for the politicians and their friends/relatives/people with the right attitude towards doing business, if you know what I mean.
You can't handle the truth.
I have an IT background and a decade of experience working with/for Russian government IT-related agencies.
There're several cities in Russia with strong academic traditions which were the analogue of Silicon Valley during Soviet times (Novosibirsk is the best known of all).
There're cities near Moscow which even have high-tech-production infrastructure (Zelenograd, a "microchip city" of Soviet times) - they are not being used.
What government does is building "Silicon Valley" in a empty field near Moscow - easier to launder money this way.
I'm willing to bet a thousand bucks that there are only three possible outcomes:
1) 90% of funding laundered to offshore banks, 10% is spent on administrative expenses (shiny sport cars for management), project is silently closed and written off;
2) 90% of funding laundered to offshore banks, 10% is spent on administrative expenses (shiny sport cars for management), scape goat it found and publicly spanked (but not too hard), project is closed and written off;
3) 90% of funding laundered to offshore banks, 5% is spent on administrative expenses (shiny sport cars for management), 5% is spent to build a couple of buildings and hire 10 scientific-looking guys. They are made into media stars to show how great new "Silicon Valley" is. Project is declared a huge success. After a year the funding is cut, project is silently closed and written off.
There's no other possible outcome given the amount of corruption in Russia and this government track record.
A city with the sprawling suburban charm of San Jose with ... Russian weather?
Where do I sign up?
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
They'd most likely change the tax laws retroactively, send you a huge bill (plus penalties, plus interest, plus interest on the penalties) totalling ten times the entire world's GNP[1], seize the company and then sell it in an open auction with only one bidder who happens to be one of Putin's puppets.
If you're lucky.
[1] GGP?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
The problem, however with government-funded basic research is the lack of useful applications. A centrally-funded scientist has no reason -at all- to convert his discovery into an actual invention, so this will generally not happen.
Perhaps an example : in the 20th century cars were invented. The basic principle of the explosive engine, however, had long been demonstrated by "patronized" scientists (scientists working for royalty), and was generally well-known. Actual test explosion-based engines had rotated (a few times) 150 years before the invention of the car (granted, due to lack of useable fuel they weren't practical, but still. One such engine was built into some of the first machine guns).
So it seems to me the answer is somewhere in the middle, on the one hand provide generous subsidies, on the other hand forcing scientists to go into the private sector. Perhaps a time limit on employment at universities would provide the right incentives ? Make it generous, say 16 years. But after 16 years, every cent of subsidy stops, and they have to find a private investor.
The same problem poses itself in general problem solving. The time horizon that is a property of rational thought. What is rationally optimal for the next 3 seconds will generally be a very different beast from what is rationally optimal for the next 10 years. And, while perhaps only relevant for the catholic church and evolution, is radically different from rationally optimal stuff with a 500 year time horizon.
Let's take global warming and having children, and compare the optimal actions depending on time horizons :
3 seconds : optimal course is to ignore global warming, children are not even theoretically possible
10 years : optimal course is to ignore global warming (except that it might relieve social pressures, or gain one power, but you cannot scientifically defend it), children are not advisable
50 years : moderate actions to prevent global warming would seem to be rational. Children might be nice to have.
100 years : large costs to prevent global warming seem justified, although one should also take into account that oil will be gone long before this time passes. In this time period, obviously it is absolutely essential to have sufficient children to carry on after you're dead. The more, the better.
500 years : ignore global warming (after all, wel WILL run out of oil in less than 50 years, so what's the big hubhub all about ?). Instead, focus on lots of children, but keep in mind that the ideology must survive : so limit the amount of children high enough to expand, but low enough so that each can get a good education.
The "Russian tradition of building secret towns?" Towns like Oak Ridge, TN, or Los Alamos, NM, or Hanford, WA, maybe? Explain again how this project is doomed to fail as a government effort to make a technological leap. On the contrary, our own experience is great success doing this sort of thing. Nor is this an American peculiarity--the Germans very successfully built an entire town at Peenemunde to develop and construct V-2 rockets. In fact, here in America we capitalized on this success by moving its authors, notably Werner von Braun, to Huntsville, AL where we created yet another failed government experiment to land men on the moon...
I'm thinking that people should read a bit less Ayn Rand science fiction and a bit more actual history.
Relax, they do not hope to create a new Silicon Valley. They are not that dumb. Putin, for one, is pretty smart guy and he knows it's not going to work. It's not the first time, you know. There were a host of other so called 'national projects' before this. (Nanotechnology, anyone?) What this really is a way to siphon government money into private pockets of government officials, create some impression of work they do, and boost morale and pride of the general populace as a bonus side effect. It's much easier, you know, than address and fix the real problem -- total corruption of every government institute, starting from traffic patrol and all the way up the president himself.
We've been there, seen that. Nothing new, really... Move along, people -- just another day in Russia....
'In California, the climate is beautiful and they don't have the ridiculous problems of Russia,' says Andrey Shtorkh, publicist for the new venture, adding that to compete, Russia will form a place apart for scientists. 'They should be isolated from our reality.'"
While I certainly won't disagree that California seems to be isolated from everyone else's reality, I think he has it backwards in that scientists should be isolated. The hell they should! Scientists need to be in society to see what problems it faces and be inspired to find solutions for them. By isolating them, you are effectively removing some of the best stimulus available for them.
Not only that, but the economy is the best way to determine the feasibility of a product. So what they've done here is to guarantee every crack pot scheme ( and face it, fellow scientists, we have a lot of them. Even if they seem AWESOME to us at the time, we do come up with some doosies ) gets an equal shake with a genuine idea.
I don't see this ending well for them, but I hope I'm wrong.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!