Cats are (almost) liquid

My agenda is that I think it's completely rationale to ask about the merits of publicly funded research and debate that topic. You may not like that question or my responses, but that is my assertion here.

> completely rational to ask about the merits of publicly funded research

Sure, but asking asking non-experts on some web forum to make guesses at the answers, and insulting the people whose job it is to do this work based on your assumptions of how it works, is a bad way to go about answering that question.

I was rooting against you in this exchange until you said this , because I took your initial plea for authority to be a cop out from joshmcginnis's argument, because I'm a human and have biases and sometimes put the quality of "earnestness" behind my beliefs above others' (i.e., whether I agree with them or not, my counterpart is equally sincere in what they believe in as me). That disposition is unwise and I think my realization of this underpins what I found striking about the comment that you just made.

In a way, I think this is what joshmcginnis is guilty of here...but I want to believe that he's aware that he's being provocative, but being provocative is the entire point. Your initial response of deference and the overall response that his comments are receiving from others are decent representations of how the mere questioning of certain institutions (online, pseudonymously, through relatively obscure channels) can be seen as problematic.

It is something like social science as performance art. Or the other way around?

There's an extremely annoying pattern you see a lot, where someone with a naive understanding of an extremely complicated topic will bust in and say "you are all idiots who are obviously doing it wrong!" without having any understanding of the deep, complex history of the topic. They think they know better than the experts, because they found what looks like an obvious, surface-level problem. After all, why haven't those idiots noticed this problem and fixed it??

If they're lucky, someone who actually knows what they're talking about will walk them through how it's actually a very complex topic, and what looked like an obvious problem is actually just a visible imperfect outcome of what is the best way we've managed to optimize the problem space. Others in this thread are taking this approach. Bless 'em.

But, I think it would be better if people didn't do this in the first place. Research funding is a super complicated topic involving hundreds of people and processes. No, it's not perfect, but it's the best approach we've got. If you want to improve a complex system, you need to go engage with it, understand how it works, understand how the problem occurred (if it even is a problem!), and find a way to fix it without making things worse. This is really hard work! Just busting into a topic and loudly complaining on some random web forum doesn't accomplish anything, except if you're lucky making someone else spoon-feed you the answers you could've found yourself.

Usually it's just ignorance, but sometimes it's more sinister, as it is also a useful approach for pushing an agenda to other non-expert readers. "Look how much money we waste on public science funding! We should reduce that funding. Look at these corrupt self-serving bureaucrats! We should put someone else in charge, and I know just who it should be." Hmm...

I agree with you in principle and I wouldn't want to allege the entirety of what you've said to joshuamcginnis's approach or motives. But I agree with you in principle.

I can also see how any perceived conflict in the top-down relationship between authoritative institutions and the general population can frustrate a person (i.e., a member of the general populace), especially when the institutions are portrayed as vague identities ("the experts") and the complexities that they operate under are a part of a broader network of institutions and entities that themselves seem to thrive under incongruence with respect to the said top-down relationship.

So to draw attention to an issue in a frustrating matter, can be seen as a natural human response. At times it may even be necessary. If not, then we reach a point where we wind up denying of their natural inclination to be frustrated with what they perceive to be (and quite often) an injustice to society, irrespective of class distinctions. And a person does not necessarily need to be an "expert" to point or argue against that.

Not everyone is willing to resign themselves to "it's the best we've got", if that's not what they believe and resignation, or willful engagement with a system perceived to be corrupt, is tantamount to affirming the system itself, which is unimaginable and even more frustrating (read: insanity-inducing).

I say all of this, assuming good faith and not from the perspective of ill intent or ignorance that you've presented (which again, I agree with in principle).

Pardon the commas.