Your comments seem to be guiding others away from participating in such
projects. And yet, to me, seem like they are probably similar to many people
out there. So, I wanted to show you the "devil's advocate" from the other side
of the issue. You will see that my distrust is in the wisdom of the government
(which changes every 4-6 years, or otherwise has incentives to provide only
short-term results), not with the university scientists that have devoted
lifetimes to research. For those that believe the government should pay for all
the research required, I'll just remind you that for every dollar that goes in
to the government, much of it is consumed in paying interest on debts for past
grand mistakes and misuse of the money we entrusted them with. It would be MUCH
more efficient if your dollar went directly to the research of your choice.

"somebody" <x### [at] ycom> wrote:
> "Saul Luizaga" <sau### [at] netscapenet> wrote in message
> news:49b61e20$1@news.povray.org...

> The question is if the inconvenience is worth for some uncertain gains to
> third parties that may or may not benefit you? A lot of people will not
> bother. My resolution is simple: Give some immediate benefit, however
> little, and you'll get a lot more people contributing (*).

Ironic that you feel a small but immediate benefit directly to you would have
great value, but you apparently fail to see that your contribution, being small
and immediate has great value as well.

> ...If the project is
> promising enough, it's not hard to justify spending a little to get it
> going. If not (as in SETI, for instance), well, it would be waste for people
> to volunteer anyway.

The projects are working to feed, and cure all of mankind. To study the climate
that you made small and immediate impacts upon. And invent enzymes that will
help consume carbon dioxide to try and put the climate right again. For me, the
projects are more then promising enough.

>
> Basic research is already funded through universities, government and even
> the industry.

Of those, industry would be the only one that could afford to provide a
compensation system like you describe. As you see in the rest of this thread,
the public does not trust industry.

>Sure, we can all use additional funding for a lot of things,
> but one question that always lurks in my mind for research asking for
> volunteers or donations is that if it was deemed unpromising by the
> aforementioned channels for the researchers to resort to public.

Going to the public shouldn't be a "last resort". After all, the "channels"
*are* the public. It doesn't mean they know where to best drop YOUR research
dollars. You spend more in medicare taxes, paying for people that are suffering
from these diseases today, then you are being asked to contribute. It's a
trivial sum. On the order of $10 a month of electricity to keep your computer
running rather then sitting idle. And of that, during the winter, you'll be
saving about $8 in heating costs.

It would cost more to try and compensate people for this grand expenditure, then
you would be providing to the project of your choice.

>What do *I*
> know about proteome folding to judge whether the research is valid and
> promising, or if it's simply a way for a few researchers without good ideas
> or plans to publish a paper about nothing?

You aren't being asked to pay a researcher's salary, nor for their facilities.
You are being asked to provide computing power that your government and
university system has been unable to provide to the extent required.

If you feel curing cancer, and feeding the world are not "good ideas"... then
you're right. Humanity isn't worth working to improve. So, stop trying to do
your part by dismissing the efforts of those that are.


>Don't get me wrong, I'm just
> being the devil's advocate here, but you see that it's not enough to have
> good intentions. I see a lot of volunteer effort with good intentions wasted
> on bad projects already. This is also where compensation comes in handy,
> because you know that researchers willing and able to compensate are on to
> something and not just attempting to use the "grid" just because they can.
>

So, you would feel better about it if Pfizer or Merck were behind the project?
And they were willing to pay you $10 a month for your help? ...I don't see how
you are doing to get them to agree to both pay you, and release the results to
the public. If you see that happen, you *KNOW* the drugs are going to be priced
accordingly. The money they spend comes from somewhere.

You also find that where there is money, there is corruption. And people will
devise ways to falsify the results they send back to the researchers. Trying to
fake having spent a month of computing time to get the $10, and contribute
nothing but garbage. Keeping the system free of these incentives helps reduce
the incentives to do such distructive things.

> (*) Yes, I know that people invest in ventures as well, without any
> immediate benefits provided. But in that case, there's a contract on
> potential benefits/dividends.

The "contract", on the website, says the results are made public. That's a tough
contract to write. Here, you don't understand proteome folding, but the people
that do will do all the work for you, and then give away their results, good or
bad, for everyone to use. That doesn't sound at all to me like the last drug
commercial I saw on TV.

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