Fund people, not projects IV: Scientific egalitarianism and lotteries
nintil.com/funding-lotter
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I've been enjoying these! One high-level thing I can't help wondering, just given the absolute amount of money we're talking about here: if you pumped 2x the cash into the current system, would you no longer really need to worry about how to direct funding?
Maybe it's a silly question, given the massive rise in e.g. NIH funding over the last few decades—clearly the system can absorb lots more. But I keep naively feeling that the real problem is that the cash is "too precious," and it'd be better to focus on going post-scarcity.
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Though with NIH apparently the doubling really didn't solve that much and had its drawbacks
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Replying to
Well that's like saying if we had Big Brains or picture-perfect memory what's the point of Orbit :p
I find the question of efficiency particularly interesting; holding inputs constant, how to get the most of the stuff. Of course, more inputs tend to translate to more outputs
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My suspicion is that most of the gains can be unlocked with a more efficient use of resources now available. It's also politically more feasible I guess,
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