@Canageek @bgcarlisle If you're not doing science to the benefit of humanity, then please quit now. If you're worried that some other company is going to monetize your research before you do, then go work for that company.

@mjog @bgcarlisle I'm working on sensors to detect gases that kill people and we don't have plans to monetize them? I'm not sure where you got that impression from?

@Canageek @mjog Please untag me from this!

@mjog Reading papers on organic sythesis doesn't help humanity. Giving them access to the lifesaving drug that you make with that paper does. I'm a chemist and I couldn't do any of my research outside of a professionally equipped lab (and it would be dangerous to do so), so it would be near-pointless for me to have access to those papers outside of an academic institution.

@Canageek What you actually mean is, "I can't think of a reason why anyone else would want to read these papers, except for companies to steal my ideas" and concluding apart from that, that no other such reason exists. Come on, really?

@mjog No, I think other academic and non-profit researchers could benefit from them. However, I think that if for-profit companies want to use them, they should have to give the taxpayer some money back. (Recall, I also want governments to manage journals). That moves the burden of paying for the journal from the taxpayer onto industry.

@Canageek Yes, the citadel argument, you said it before. It's still bogus.

So how do you get your funding? From a Government? How do Governments get their funding — from taxpayers. Companies pay tax, so companies are funding your research.

This is an argument for taxing companies properly, not avoiding OA.

@mjog Canadian companies do. Which means American and European companies get access for free without giving anything back.

@Canageek Which is an argument for a whole lot of other stuff that isn't "don't do OA".

Many more people have been screwed by companies in worse ways than you or I, as highly privileged people working in the academy, will ever suffer.

Avoiding OA maybe solves the problem for you (but it won't will because companies can always just buy access), and it sure doesn't solve those the problems caused by capitalism for everyone else.

@mjog I don't think OA solves any problems, to be honest. Doing science costs money. My lab spent $2,000 on *gloves* last year. I don't see the point of free papers, if you don't have the money to actually use them

@mjog I mean, if you really think the public would benefit from my papers how about a non-profit licences on all scientific research? Like, a CC-NC? That way J. Q. Public gets access free, as do academics, but Phizor has to pay for upkeep?

@mjog I've lived through a VERY anti-science government in Canada that did everything it could to shut science down. That is why I don't want funds for maintaining records coming out of the standard tax pool. I want it to have its own pot of money that doesn't require the government to remember it in its budget every year.

@mjog If we really want to go full open access, then some sort of an endowment system might work? They work for universities, and quite a few of those have been around for a long time.

@Canageek Who funds the endowments? Where to those people get their money from?

@mjog Government grant to start things off? That or nationalize the journals and use their massive profits as seed money? I'm fine with it being arms-length government, I just want to make it as hard as possible for a future Harper government to defund them.

@mjog This is the government I saw destroy a hundred years of climate data in the name of saving money. If the journals have their own pool of money it is harder to justify shutting them down to save money, you know? The CBC is still in operation due to not wholly relying on government money.

@Canageek The government can enact laws to do whatever not likes, irrespective of whether the data is public or private, so that's still an argument to go and campaign for progressive parties.

Look this has been fun, and I'm sorry your past government was so shit, but stop using that as an excuse to harm others. Bye!

@mjog As will your approach when access to the papers isn't funded and we lose 50 years of data down the line.

@Canageek Australia is reducing research funding year on year as well. That's an argument to go out and campaign for progressive political parties though.

@mjog Politics is short lived as well. This data has to survive hundreds of years. I mean, if we could pull it off, the best way would be to found a religious order around it, or give it to the Dutch Water Board or something.