Like NunoSempere, I appreciate the brutal honesty. It’s good and refreshing to see someone recognize that the lies in the thing that a) their society views as high-status and good and b) they personally have a vested interest in believing is really good.
I think this is an important virtue in EA, and we should applaud it in most situations where we see it.
I think your review for post of the decade is very generous.
Like your review now, the other original comments are credulous and warm. This makes perfect sense and should be the default when welcoming someone new who is sharing a risky and confrontational story.
But a more prosaic explanation is that they are a frustrated person who hates the org they are in.
What makes me skeptical of the poster is the gears-level content in the OP tries to express in writing.
This begins with the basic funding of the Society. The Society states, that the basic funding is in place so that research projects can be undertaken whose payoffs lie too far in the future to be of interest for private companies [2]. Although this particular explanation does not make a lot of sense, it is true that the basic financing gives absolute freedom to pursue research that is for whatever reason (market failures etc.) not economical for companies, but could be extremely valuable. However, an unrestricted basic funding also allows for interventions that are not within this space.
This is describing basic research, and there is no reason to be skeptical of this, as the OP is.
It’s true that this can be dysfunctional but the OP provides no evidence.
Furthermore, since the Fraunhofer Society also does contract research for the industry it provides an unfair comparative cost advantage. If you were to provide contract research privately you would have to beat the Fraunhofer Society by far more than 30% in efficiency since you have to pay your competitor.
It’s unclear what the poster means. People outsource to research firms all the time.
I will try to quickly give an idea about how bad the situation is. I have worked only on a handful of projects so my sample size is limited to say the least. One project that is supposed to mitigate the “plastic problem” relies on inventing a thermoplastic material that can be mechanically repurposed infinitely often. Not having a particular background in chemistry, I know that this is almost certainly physically impossible, not speaking of whether this intervention would be effective if it were.
This seems ungenerous. Moonshots are a thing.
It is possible that this was ill advised, but we have to take the OP’s word for it, again.
“I have contacted the colleagues from the Institute B. I just want another Institute on the title page of our project description to give the project more weight (importance)”
But credentials and references are a thing. Also, scientists don’t just add co-authorship costlessly, there’s a process of vouching or gatekeeping that implies trust. This is a real signal.
“If you are not a scientist, than you do not have to work scientifically”
Without more context, it’s unclear why the OP believes this is a problem.
When I told a senior scientist about CoolEarth, she replied:
“When it comes to climate change, we have to stop thinking in numbers”
When I asked her why, she said : “Because you can´t just throw a couple of dollars at the ground and ask mother nature to do it one more year”
So the poster doesn’t like being warned against a myopic focus on measurable results and being promoted some potent but illegible alternative. Doesn’t this sound a little familiar ?
Like you, I rounded all of these in favor of the OP because the poster is not an English speaker. I’ve never had to elaborate in a foreign language how an institution was really a shell of rent seeking hacks coasting on warm feelings and technobabble. But whatever the truth is, it probably shouldn’t be going into the same queue with the post of the decade.
You say:
It’s good and refreshing to see someone recognize that the lies in the thing that a) their society views as high-status and good and b) they personally have a vested interest in believing is really good.
I like your critique! I must admit that I was very unhappy with the org but already left it at the time when I wrote this post.
However, I want to push back on some of your points. The Fraunhofer Society indeed conducts somewhat basic research, although the results are much more predictable than in the case of say foundational physics research. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this and I am not sceptical of it. In the post I wanted to point out that the organisation has an unhealthy relationship with grantmakers. This leads to a situation where there is no incentive for the institution to actually provide any valuable research results. I have a better understanding of game theory now and would improve upon the post, if that would be considered helpful.
I think this would be really valuable! Linch really liked your post and note that he has good judgement and is well respected.
In the post I wanted to point out that the organisation has an unhealthy relationship with grantmakers… no incentive for the institution to actually provide any valuable research results. I have a better understanding of game theory now
I’m no one important, and I could be the only person who has this opinion:
I find that if I didn’t agree with someone’s judgement on a deep issue like institutions, when they add applied math (graph theory, control theory, bayesian statistics, game theory, etc.) this often won’t change my opinion. I could be wrong about this, and I would like to learn if I am. I just like to state this up front.
improve upon the post, if that would be considered helpful.
I think you should post a new post, or write the changes as a comment.
Almost no one will notice an old post being changed.
That said, this is a supposedly large basic research group that I’ve never heard of before, which I feel like is a bit of evidence against them actually being really impressive?
Their “notable projects” section also feels a bit underwhelming to me, given that they have a comparable research budget to a large American research university.
Like NunoSempere, I appreciate the brutal honesty. It’s good and refreshing to see someone recognize that the lies in the thing that a) their society views as high-status and good and b) they personally have a vested interest in believing is really good.
I think this is an important virtue in EA, and we should applaud it in most situations where we see it.
I think your review for post of the decade is very generous.
Like your review now, the other original comments are credulous and warm. This makes perfect sense and should be the default when welcoming someone new who is sharing a risky and confrontational story.
But a more prosaic explanation is that they are a frustrated person who hates the org they are in.
What makes me skeptical of the poster is the gears-level content in the OP tries to express in writing.
This is describing basic research, and there is no reason to be skeptical of this, as the OP is.
It’s true that this can be dysfunctional but the OP provides no evidence.
It’s unclear what the poster means. People outsource to research firms all the time.
This seems ungenerous. Moonshots are a thing.
It is possible that this was ill advised, but we have to take the OP’s word for it, again.
But credentials and references are a thing. Also, scientists don’t just add co-authorship costlessly, there’s a process of vouching or gatekeeping that implies trust. This is a real signal.
Without more context, it’s unclear why the OP believes this is a problem.
So the poster doesn’t like being warned against a myopic focus on measurable results and being promoted some potent but illegible alternative. Doesn’t this sound a little familiar ?
Like you, I rounded all of these in favor of the OP because the poster is not an English speaker. I’ve never had to elaborate in a foreign language how an institution was really a shell of rent seeking hacks coasting on warm feelings and technobabble. But whatever the truth is, it probably shouldn’t be going into the same queue with the post of the decade.
You say:
I thought you said you worked in tech?
I like your critique! I must admit that I was very unhappy with the org but already left it at the time when I wrote this post.
However, I want to push back on some of your points. The Fraunhofer Society indeed conducts somewhat basic research, although the results are much more predictable than in the case of say foundational physics research. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this and I am not sceptical of it. In the post I wanted to point out that the organisation has an unhealthy relationship with grantmakers. This leads to a situation where there is no incentive for the institution to actually provide any valuable research results. I have a better understanding of game theory now and would improve upon the post, if that would be considered helpful.
I think this would be really valuable! Linch really liked your post and note that he has good judgement and is well respected.
I’m no one important, and I could be the only person who has this opinion:
I find that if I didn’t agree with someone’s judgement on a deep issue like institutions, when they add applied math (graph theory, control theory, bayesian statistics, game theory, etc.) this often won’t change my opinion. I could be wrong about this, and I would like to learn if I am. I just like to state this up front.
I think you should post a new post, or write the changes as a comment.
Almost no one will notice an old post being changed.
Ah yeah you’re right I was probably being overly credulous.
That said, this is a supposedly large basic research group that I’ve never heard of before, which I feel like is a bit of evidence against them actually being really impressive?
Their “notable projects” section also feels a bit underwhelming to me, given that they have a comparable research budget to a large American research university.