Well, it's been awhile since I've posted anything on this wildly popular blog. I have the twinge of an urge to do so now after watching a Frontline show on a proposal for an open pit copper/gold mine in Alaska. The CEO of the mining consortium lamented about the obstacles to executing 'big projects' brought on by people with environmental priorities. There's a stink of backroom scheming and dark alley salivating over profits behind these kind of proposals, however rational and considered are the concerns about 'coexisting' or 'making it work for all concerned'.
But that's not what I'm on about.
There is a subset of the population, in almost any field, where people are intoxicated by the idea of the Big Project. In my own field of science I've been around people who pushed for Big Science - ever larger, highly collaborative endeavors, across disciplines, involving large numbers of researchers in projects requiring huge amounts of money. They get delirious about these Big Science projects. Their eyes glaze over as they fantasize and proselitize about the many wonders and benefits that will rain down on all. Somehow they seem to think that good science will not get done without huge amounts of money, massive inputs of infrastructure, vast numbers of graduate students, all pumping out paper after paper - not to mention large amounts of PR. All the better to get more research funding.
Well, it's good to get students trained, and it's good to get research done and published. But face it, most research papers are garbage, and Big Science only increases the depth of the dump pile. It gets to be like a treadmill, and it's dubious how much value derives from the Big Project mentality.
It's really all about Big Prestige. With Big Prestige comes Big Funding, and with Big Funding comes more Big Projects, and with more Big Projects comes more Big Prestige.
Oh well...that's the way it is...it isn't pretty, and if one looks through history at the most elegant and insightful science one will see that little of it came from Big Projects.
It's a kind of sickness that has its roots in the bowels of the capitalist system and the marketplace. I see that as a problem.
Bigger is Better...
or not.
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That's what I used to say till all these assholes who are trying to scam me popped up. Die motherfuckers, die.