this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2024
543 points (79.6% liked)

Science Memes

11437 readers
1286 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago (2 children)

You're dead on. Science is a process. I can science the shit out of baking soda and vinegar to make a volcano, and I don't need government funding to do it. What you science is effected by capitalism, but capitalism is just a scare word. No matter what you want to do, if it requires a significant amount of power or work to create your materials, a cost is accrued somewhere, and someone has to pay it, whether it costs dollars or beaver pelts.

[–] trashgirlfriend@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

This is reductive to the extreme.

Clearly if all you want to do is to build a baking soda volcano you can go ahead.

It's also pretty clear that baking soda volcanoes aren't the kind of science the meme is talking about.

[–] leftytighty@slrpnk.net 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Capitalism isn't just about "things need funding" the point of the meme is that capitalists determine what gets funding. A socialist state might put economic force behind other scientific endeavors, ones driven by capital are intended to create profit. The profit motive drives innovation instead of the pure ideological pursuit of truth or any other driver.

[–] dariusj18@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Correct, capitalism is just a system intended to prioritize capital using markets. Science is a methodology of determining truth. As a method, it is tautologically "perfect" because all failures are to be accounted for by the very methodology. The choices that capitalist systems make and socialist systems would make may be different, but the decision-making process itself could be run scientifically.

[–] leftytighty@slrpnk.net 3 points 2 months ago

This is a fair point. It becomes a matter of which questions we're asking as a society, though. Of course we are not at a stage where capital is the only driving force for science (thank goodness for public funding) but it's not far fetched that we might be, and a world where questions are only asked in the context of profit generation (and unsatisfying answers are suppressed) is a dystopian world indeed.

It's fair to say capitalism is having a negative impact on science (e.g. journals) but it's not as dire as what's suggested