🌻🌼🌱
People who think that there would be no scientists or "innovation" without capitalism seem to be living in some imaginary world where scientists get paid a lot. People become scientists *despite* capitalism. Capitalism tries to sabotage science at every turn.
Jan 30, 2019 at 7:33pmWeb
Show thread🌻🌼🌱Jan 31, 2019

For context, I am currently doing a science degree with the intention of becoming a researcher. The biggest thing I am worried about is having to complete a phd while being paid very little, and most likely even once I finish my phd, since I live in a capitalist society and will have to use all of that money just to survive. Although I still plan on going into research, if surviving becomes too difficult, I may have to abandon my dream.

I know someone who loves maths and is doing a maths degree, but decided to not go into academia due to obvious capitalist issues such as needing money to survive.

We do not need capitalism for science or art. It is actively suffocating us while pretending to be on our side.

Show threadAnneJan 31, 2019
@Some_Person I found that there was mostly enough money to live off, it was the isolation of moving to a random continent every few years and the exhaustion of being expected to work countless hours that were the hardest.
Show threadAnimo 🌻Jan 31, 2019
@Some_Person
OK let's do it...its just the hierarchy in the scientific field that causes all our problems.
Be they be journals or the hierarchy in the institute we r working in.. (+ money required of course)
I am in my final semester of PhD now..looking forward for a better way to do science😇
Show threadApis 🐝 CeranaJan 30, 2019
@Some_Person
Oh gods, this. So much this. I’ve endured so much capitalism-related anxiety because of my decision to become a scientist. And practically everyone working in science has to constantly beg for money just to continue doing whatever it is they’re trying to do!
Show threadLike a goth, but olderJan 30, 2019
@Some_Person You haven't seen the Australian government in action.
OTOH, Big Pharma seems to find science quite fundable.
I think the economic environment/system/whatever is orthogonal to either science or innovation.
Show threadBob Mottram 🔧 ☕ ✅Jan 30, 2019
@Some_Person They're also ignoring the 200,000 years of innovations which happened before capitalism arrived.
Show threadEugen RochkoJan 30, 2019
@Some_Person Correct but I think people generally conflate authoritarianism and communism when they say stuff like that. For example, scientists who believed in genetics were purged in the USSR because genetics did not align with state policy (see: Trofim Lysenko). So I think as long as the state does not get in the way of science, the economic model alone does not matter.
Show thread_&Jan 30, 2019

@Gargron @Some_Person this misses the mark somewhat. Economic models are results of state policy, and unless the model is "near total affluence for all, state lets anything go" the economic model intrinsically interferes with science.

Science is done by scientists, and so long as the nature of their livelihood and the nature of their publications are tied, their livelihood (incomes and expenses both) can be used to warp their publications

Show threadTroy, the Animal Boy 🇲🇽 🦍Jan 30, 2019
@Some_Person yeah right now scientists are working really hard for the government trying to prove that video games cause real world violence instead of… solving actual problems. Either they aren't real scientists or they're being exploited for no reason. Both are because of capitalism.
Show threadMarek ĽachJan 30, 2019
@🌻🌼🌱 @Eugen > I think as long as the state does not get in the way of science, the economic model alone does not matter.

True.

And interestingly also, people in the West conflate authoritarianism with communism way more often than they do authoritarianism (fashsm) with excessive capitalism...

So excessive capitalists meddle in science too, historically, and in the case of righ-wingers and for-profit climate-change deniers also in the present. Which is bad for science that way....
Show threadAnimo 🌻Jan 31, 2019
@Some_Person
Science in capitalism is just waste of resources and time..
Show threadSilver Spook GamesJan 31, 2019
@Some_Person Capitalism is a bunch of rich white Nazi fortune-inheritors gaslighting the globe into disbelieving 97% of scientists, murdering respect for science, academia, & truth itself. Capitalism destroys scientists ability to make living beyond contorting opioid molecules to better murder capitalism-impoverished masses with overdoses. Capitalism literally exterminates all scientists on Earth when oiligarchy causes a Permian extinction-like event, kills all of the biosphere above cockroaches
Show threadSilver Spook GamesJan 31, 2019
@Some_Person Yeah, I'd say capitalism sabotages science.
Show threadRosemiseryJan 31, 2019
@Some_Person (*DISCLAIMER* This is looking through the lense of the fall of man take things with a grain of salt.) I have a theory humans becoming scientist was inevitable. Like if humans hadn’t fallen, science (defined as The observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena) would have been THE religion. A way of enjoying, worshiping, and learning about God. Not to say people don’t use it as that now, but it’s not the primary use.