You are viewing a single comment's thread from:
RE: We Need to Decentralize Scientific Research!
YES! I have been telling my fellow students and friends for weeks that science has to become decentralised. Its ridiculous that science is figuratively in the hands of corporations now! As a scientist you do not get funding if you do not research areas that corporations want you to research. Researching in universities allows for a bit more flexibility but then it also gives a lot less money. In the end its the rich that decide what is researched and not the people. By democratizing science it gives power back to the people to decide on what they want the scientific community to study. Love this post and love blockchain for the possibilities it can bring!
Perfect! What students do you have? What are you teaching? How can we leverage this to drive more traction to these sites and movement?
Exactly! Yes.
I study neuroscience/human biology. I am also a co-founder of an NGO called Global Education Movement (check it out on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GEMovement/) which aims to revolutionise education and make high quality education accessible to everyone. In GEM we believe education has become too institutionalised and it needs to be brought back to the people (i will write a post on this in the upcoming days). In general, i think any project in education/science which tries to bring power back to the people needs to involve academics who are fed up with the system (and trust me, there are many of them). Have you been working on anything regarding this? Or more of an idea you have been playing around with?
Yes!! Thank you! (For being part of a solution that is :) )
I look forward to your post! I checked out a bit of GEMovement, on facebook! I love it. Solid concept and it looks like it's gaining traction. I am following and can't wait to see it develop further.
I absolutely have been working on solving this issue for myself! My approach (one that I'm passionate about) of decentralizing science (and knowledge as a whole) is to create tools to better understand ourselves, for ourselves (so we don't need other institutions to tell us). That is my idea of true decentralization :)
I have been applying and developing alternative strategies for decision making and methods for us to better understand the world ourselves.
I just started a series on decision making. How I Learned To Make Decisions! A Framework For Decision Making to Decide a Better lIfe (Step 1)
It's one of the many tools I hope to share and better develop to help us better understand our world :) I would love some feedback if you have any, as these tools are open-source :)
This is essentially my purpose on Steem and my blog. To share methods that empower us!
Thanks for following us! And I will be following you too :)! and cant wait for the series on decision making to develop. And i am super happy to see that other people also see that science needs to be decentralised! to create tools to better understand ourselves, for ourselves (so we don't need other institutions to tell us). That is my idea of true decentralization I definitely agree!
Which people? The same people who vote this political system into existence? First people must be educated, then they can vote and decide on which research to fund etc. As it is, I worry that "giving the power to the people" will bring the same results as giving the power to another arbitrary group of rich people.
I agree that people need to be educated, however the system we have no fails at this. The gap in knowledge between common people and scientist has become increased drastically. Thats why people like Trump and Brexit happened, because common people feel that they are left behind by the elite that governs now and thus are easily influenced by populist ideologies. Its the fault of the educated that such a gap exists and it has to be fixed.
True. I myself didn't pursue an academic career because I didn't want to preach to like-minded individuals in Ivory Towers.
The only solution I see is "intellectuals" (whatever field they're in) going into the media, in whatever form. Ricky Gervais for instance studied philosophy and biology, and yet he's spreading his message to the masses. In ancient Greece there wasn't such a big divide between the people who "thought" and those who didn't. That's because the Greek theater was there to close that divide. The modern intellectuals have relinquished control of his omnipotent weapon to the demagogues, and they're paying for it now. That's partly because an intellectual is by his nature shy and withdrawn: not all scientists can suddenly go Bill Nye or Carl Sagal or Neil Degrasse Tyson on your ass! There's a lot to be done, but mostly I think religion is the first thing that needs to go away, because that's primarily (I think) the thing that keeps most people in one camp, closing their ears to whatever the other camp has to say. They don't want to listen to the educated, if educated = atheist.
I agree on most of your points. Especially on media bridging the gap between the "elite" and the people. Thats why I think steemit has such a potential, but its also dangerous because information on steemit is seen as valuable if the community likes it. But if you have a uneducated community = uneducated information being appreciated. And yes, most scientists are shy and withdrawn but they need to work on opening up towards people to bridge this gap!
Very well put.