Re:High Prices Make Textbook ‘Piracy’ Acceptable to Most Stu...
by Jiro on Sunday June 04, 2023 @05:52PM
(#36189944)
We don't have teleportation devices or antigravity shoes because making those things is not possible, and you can't make impossible things possible by throwing money at them.
And of course this becomes worse if you're using other people's money. If you're throwing your own money at an impossible task, you'll run out (or your investors will run out). If you're collecting the money as taxes and then throwing it at the impossible task, you can waste as much of it as you want. If you're telling people "do this impossible task or I shoot you", you end up doing a lot of shooting and not much teleporting.
Re:High Prices Make Textbook ‘Piracy’ Acceptable to Most Stu...
by nickpeterson on Sunday June 04, 2023 @06:54PM
(#36190333)
You sound like a paid shill for big gravity.
Re:High Prices Make Textbook ‘Piracy’ Acceptable to Most Stu...
by eli_gottlieb on Monday June 05, 2023 @03:59PM
(#36202662)
That doesn't seem like a remotely good reason to pay loads of money to administrators in Antigravity Logistical Inclusion Tracking while the PhD students in quantum gravity can't afford rent.
>That pretty much answers the question of why we don’t have teleportation devices or antigravity shoes. Common sense suggests that if you want to maximize scientific creativity, you find some bright people, give them the resources they need to pursue whatever idea comes into their heads, and then leave them alone. Most will turn up nothing, but one or two may well discover something. But if you want to minimize the possibility of unexpected breakthroughs, tell those same people they will receive no resources at all unless they spend the bulk of their time competing against each other to convince you they know in advance what they are going to discover.
https://thebaffler.com/salvos/of-flying-cars-and-the-declini...