You could stop trying to “invest”. Like instead of hoping for numbers that go up, you could offer local collectives interest-free loan or in general just give money to community organizations that would be helpful to you in situations were you would have relied on investments.
Or buy bonds in companies (including co-operatives) that you think are ran in a morally acceptable ways.
I mean call me a capitalist pig, but I think investing can be a crucial funding mechanism for science, journalism, coding, or any public good / innovation that doesn’t necessarily make a direct profit. Like right now science is falling apart because it was overly reliant on government funding and Trump has done a really good job of halting that. Even ignoring the salaries, science is expensive. Like $100/day just for supplies to run a single lab plus a couple 3k purchases every month. Public donations just aren’t a realistic funding mechanism for that.
I think young scientists like myself should be putting the bulk of our salaries into personal research endowments (Yeah, like FIRE). Like, it’s giving up on retirement and home ownership, but I’m not willing to give up my research. Heck, even with that plan there are serious problems with how to fund equipment or rent lab space unless I come into a lot of money… Sorry, I think I’m spiraling into despair.
My point is that we need independent funding mechanisms. Like, yes tenure has shown that not every scientists will keep working without being on a financial treadmill, but if a scientist proves willing to sacrifice their personal finances for their research goals having a larger organization like a university match their investment with “matcher” research-endowments seems reasonable, and those funds might work if they start as donations that are then invested as endowments (after you prevent admin from taking a huge bite out of it).
You could stop trying to “invest”. Like instead of hoping for numbers that go up, you could offer local collectives interest-free loan or in general just give money to community organizations that would be helpful to you in situations were you would have relied on investments.
Or buy bonds in companies (including co-operatives) that you think are ran in a morally acceptable ways.
I mean call me a capitalist pig, but I think investing can be a crucial funding mechanism for science, journalism, coding, or any public good / innovation that doesn’t necessarily make a direct profit. Like right now science is falling apart because it was overly reliant on government funding and Trump has done a really good job of halting that. Even ignoring the salaries, science is expensive. Like $100/day just for supplies to run a single lab plus a couple 3k purchases every month. Public donations just aren’t a realistic funding mechanism for that.
I think young scientists like myself should be putting the bulk of our salaries into personal research endowments (Yeah, like FIRE). Like, it’s giving up on retirement and home ownership, but I’m not willing to give up my research. Heck, even with that plan there are serious problems with how to fund equipment or rent lab space unless I come into a lot of money… Sorry, I think I’m spiraling into despair.
My point is that we need independent funding mechanisms. Like, yes tenure has shown that not every scientists will keep working without being on a financial treadmill, but if a scientist proves willing to sacrifice their personal finances for their research goals having a larger organization like a university match their investment with “matcher” research-endowments seems reasonable, and those funds might work if they start as donations that are then invested as endowments (after you prevent admin from taking a huge bite out of it).