iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Replies

Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

Here is another thing "the market" won't pay for but benefit from: the costs of training PhD students. Of course, Atlas does not mention this. He would be happy if American higher education, a massive export industry that is the envy of the world, is gutted. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/are-univer...

Private organizations simply will not—and cannot— step into the breach to cover the costs of training. While the collective benefits of training a highly educated scientific workforce are great, it remains too costly for individual companies to take on. This training is the pipeline for scientific innovation. Shutting it down might save money today but with disastrous long-run effects.

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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

Actual American greatness came after World War II based on a partnership between universities and the federal government to make huge investments in science. It gave America an extraordinary edge over the rest of the world. But people like Atlas want to dismantle that partnership.

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Marijo Cook @marijocook.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

This was accelerated by a Republican president: Eisenhower. Odd how no one in the present GOP ever mentions him.

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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

America had a model of scientific innovation that clearly worked and is now being attacked by people who don't understand science. The market will not just produce less science and train fewer scientists; it will also be less likely to share scientific breakthroughs for the public good.

Third, the private sector will not treat knowledge as a public good. Rapid scientific development requires that we share and disseminate the knowledge that we create. The private sector acts in proprietary ways to ensure they enhance profits. Federal research funding does the opposite. It requires scientists to widely share the innovations, tools, and data that they generate. For example, NSF spends a good portion of its budget funding shared resources, like telescopes or detailed data collection efforts. NIH behaves in a similar fashion. These resources are shared widely (with careful and rigorous protections for human subjects) across the scientific community and the private sector.

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