What does that have to do with publicly funding science?
Comment on ‘Extremely worrying’: Argentinian researchers reel after election of anti-science president
JustMy2c@lemm.ee 11 months agoNOT TRUE IN CASE OF ARGENTINA. DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH EFFECT SOCIETY HAS FROM 150% INFLATION? go to argentina and you’ll vote right wing too!
Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 months ago
sj_zero 11 months ago
This is the big problem with putting science on a pedestal and proclaiming that everyone ought to just follow what science tells them misses: there's more to running a society than individual measurements and conclusions.
There's economics, there's civics, there's internal politics, there's geopolitics, there's human nature, there's group psychology, and more; and every new angle added to the pile interacts with every other angle on the pile.
Argentina, like many countries, tries to be all things to all people and ends up being nothing to anyone. The high inflation is in large part caused by government largesse. They have massive debt they ran up during the good times that eventually suffocated their government (good times coming to us too soon!) And then they had to spin up the money printer to keep all these commitments. As the number of pesos in existence rises, the number of pesos required to pay for goods and services rise too. It's a hidden tax paid for by everyone who needs to use money and it isn't so hidden in Argentina.
That's how talk of inflation can relate to public funding of science, because Argentina is only funding things by printing money and stealing from everyone who uses money.
One can argue that public funding of many things has a positive impact, but often people proposing such funding don't consider the broader impact of those decisions. Historically, government debt or inflation has had an outsized impact on history. For example, high inflation in the Weimar Republic (caused in large part by crippling war reparations) was one of the big factors that primed the German public to be receptive to the message of the national socialists. The people asking for more funding in the Weimar Republic likely didn't think such an outcome was possible because they didn't consider all the angles of the situation.
This multifaceted view of the world ironically is somewhat contrary to science, which isolates individual variables to understand them better. That way of thinking is science's superpower, but that superpower is a critical weakness when changing one variable can have an effect on millions of other variables that are all interrelated often in non-linear or unintuitive ways.
The insights science gives us are important, no doubt, but if that's all it took then we wouldn't bother with elections, we'd just put our top science people in charge and become the most powerful nations on earth. Instead, ideologies that call themselves "scientific" are also responsible for some of the most terrible atrocities in the history of the world, and more mass suffering and death than every other bad ideology in history combined.
Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 months ago
This is the big problem with putting science on a pedestal and proclaiming that everyone ought to just follow what science tells them misses: there’s more to running a society than individual measurements and conclusions.
There’s economics, there’s civics, there’s internal politics, there’s geopolitics, there’s human nature, there’s group psychology, and more; and every new angle added to the pile interacts with every other angle on the pile.
Literally nothing to do with cutting funding to science. You don’t have to stop funding science to fund these other things, and it is a joke to think any right wing figure who is elected is going to cut science to fund the arts.
That’s how talk of inflation can relate to public funding of science, because Argentina is only funding things by printing money and stealing from everyone who uses money.
Last year the Argentinian government spent $87 billion in USD, but what actually caused inflation for the entire country is giving CONICET $400 million in USD? That does not pass the sniff test.
Historically, government debt or inflation has had an outsized impact on history. For example, high inflation in the Weimar Republic (caused in large part by crippling war reparations) was one of the big factors that primed the German public to be receptive to the message of the national socialists. The people asking for more funding in the Weimar Republic likely didn’t think such an outcome was possible because they didn’t consider all the angles of the situation.
‘If you publicly fund science there will be another Hitler’ passes the sniff test even less.
The insights science gives us are important, no doubt, but if that’s all it took then we wouldn’t bother with elections, we’d just put our top science people in charge and become the most powerful nations on earth.
Good thing you don’t have to do that to publicly fund science?
Instead, ideologies that call themselves “scientific” are also responsible for some of the most terrible atrocities in the history of the world, and more mass suffering and death than every other bad ideology in history combined.
What did CONICET do that you would consider one of the worst atrocities in the history of the world? Because that’s what’s having funding cut.
sj_zero 11 months ago
Spending money you don't have that you print into existence causes inflation which causes lots of bad things. That's a simple fact. The inflation caused by spending money you don't have takes food out of the mouths of the common man. You can twist things up to try to change that fact, but the angry libertarian won the election because the common man thinks big changes need to be made. In the past, the angry guy wasn't a libertarian. Angrily sniff all you want, that's already happened.
You can say "But my thing is special!" yeah, it's special to you. And a lot of stuff is special to the people it applies to. There's welfare programs that'll need to be cut too. I strongly suspect education programs will have to be cut. You're not special, and stuff that's more immediately painful that defunding a science institute will need to happen to bring things back into equilibrium because a lot of cuts need to be made. A lot of more people much more deserving of help are likely to lose that help in the near future. People who don't have high education and careers who can probably pivot into somewhere in the private sector.
There's two phases to spending money you don't have: The part where you spend the money, and the part where you pay the money back (or in this case, the part where you balance the massively unbalanced budget and start the process of monetary tightening). It feels great to spend the money, but it hurts way worse to fix things. Argentina is in terrible shape. High debt at a high interest rate, and it's trying to make up the difference by printing money so their peso is collapsing every year. Because nobody wanted to cut anything because there was such a great argument for spending that money, now a lot of stuff people want will have to be cut to get to equilibrium.
You don't even need to argue with me, I'm just the messenger. This is just the truth of reality in front of you. It isn't going to change anything even if you "win" an argument with me. It won't bring down inflation by one basis point, and it won't change the fact that this guy won the election and might bring in some serious budget cuts just as he was elected to do, including the thing you like.
LuckyBoy@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Oh man, you’re going for a reality check if you think that neo liberalism politics, anti science, climate change denial is going to solve any of your problems. Maybe it will solve, for the 1%.
JustMy2c@lemm.ee 11 months ago
People downvoting me have not been to Argentina lately.
Basement tankies.
COMUNISM IS A GOOD IDEA WHAT A SHAME ALL THEIR LEADERS ARE ALWAYS CROOKS ALWAYS.
natebluehooves@pawb.social 11 months ago
Dude. You are arguing with people who are explicitly NOT tankies. Nobody is claiming communism is a solution, just saying that going for the anti-intellectual guy with no implementable policies is not going to help. He is a rent seeker that is good at riling up crowds.
He is a populist.
JustMy2c@lemm.ee 11 months ago
YOU DO NOT KNOW THE HORROR OF THE LAST DECADE. FU
Tavarin@lemmy.ca 11 months ago
Electing a far right clown isn’t going to fix things though. It never has.
Something_Complex@lemmy.world 11 months ago
It wasn’t that close of a call dude. You still have 45% of your country that might disagree
JustMy2c@lemm.ee 11 months ago
Nope, they are just the meek. Milei will indeed be a president for Argentina. Not for some party. Even if hyper right&religious like n idiot IT IS MERELY BETTER AS THE ALTERNATIVE CAREER POLITICIANS.
Something_Complex@lemmy.world 11 months ago
[deleted]JustMy2c@lemm.ee 11 months ago
Indeed. But HISTORY has already spoken.
Dude, don’t be party-ist. Don’t compare with usa
PEOPLE ARE HUNGRY IF INFLATION IS 150% FOR A YEAR.
can you imagine several years?
LITERALLY ALL SAVINGS WILL HAVE DISSAPPEARED.
can you even begin to comprehend this…? If so, you’d QUICKLY leave your left wing rethoric and join WHATEVER SIDE gets rid of all those incapable career politicians… Dude…
And please do downvote me if you are so inclined. I do not gather points here.
frunch@lemmy.world 11 months ago
“my house isn’t on fire enough, let me pour some gas on it and really get those flames a-burnin” ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
JustMy2c@lemm.ee 11 months ago
Nope. Contiued stealing by comunist narcos has driven entire country (continent) to ruins.
GO BACK TO VENEZUEEEEELAA
frunch@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Exactly how does electing a clown fix the problem though
JustMy2c@lemm.ee 11 months ago
Maybe go and find out the real situation. I also hate Trumo and bolsonaro
But noboa & Milei are LITERAL HEROES.