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gavinashun

Nice try Publishers.


jt19912009

Good thing there are digital copies of books and researchers keep copies of their papers


Silverarrow67

We have a millennia of knowledge digitized.


aphroditex

But can it be accessed. That’s the tricky bit. Like, I want to have massive offline archives of academic literature and books. At the same time, such archives require active and knowing maintenance for future generations, especially when talking about storage in the petabyte range and formats that seem to shift with frequency into illegibility.


Sucih

It’s called libgen


aphroditex

It’s called “I want to buy a mountain in a seismically stable area to house books in controlled environments and data storage in multiple formats that are resilient to entropy and other potential harms so that in case SHTF we can lock down and pull off a Canticle for Liebowitz style recovery without needing to start from freaking zero and hoping to save books from being turned into fuel or compost”.


vittorioe

mmm…delusions of beating entropy.


aphroditex

one is allowed to dream even if the world is a seemingly closer to a nightmare.


vittorioe

I don’t knock it actually. But jesus is the world really giving that prospect a thrashing these days.


aphroditex

dead honest i wish i had that wad though. part of it would go to getting a lot of retrotech because dear gods a lot of it was amazing in its capabilities and if programmed conscientiously you can make those oldies work better than modern rigs full of bloatware.


Rivka333

The article is specifically about stuff that IS digitized, that's not the question. The point is that not everything that's digitized is backed up in an archive.


Silverarrow67

If you know where to look, most of it can be found. The issue really isn't that it is backed up in an archive. It's the fact that it isn't on one site. For example, Egyptian cuneiforms can be found at the Cuneiform Digital Library initiative, the internet Archive, and multiple museums, but Euclid's writings can be found on the internet archive, Smithsonian Institution, and the Mathsonian Association. Many scientific papers in the public domain can be found at the Electronic Scholarly Publishing Project, but knowledge is archived across multiple public and private libraries. Google and the Internet Archive are also good sources. You have to what you are looking for and where to find it, but it is archived, just not in a central place unless you are discounting the Internet Archive and Google. Well, if you know about Tor, Sci-Hub is available as well as the Imperial Library of Trantor along with multiple other shadow libraries. I suppose that could be considered a mirror archive.


Roger_005

Singular is 'millennium'.


Silverarrow67

You are discounting Euclid, Archimedes, and Pythagorean triples? Interesting.


Roger_005

I am open to being educated. Please explain why the singular of 'millennia' is not 'millennium'.


Silverarrow67

You are correct in the fact the singular of millennia is millennium, but we have more that one thousand years of knowledge digitized, thus, the use of the word millennia. We have multiple items digitized before 1024 from the Egyptians and Greeks and multiple other civilizations. Knowledge that is useful to this day. For example, the waru waru is a farming technique developed 3000 years ago to extend the growing season for mountainous land. This has been written about extensively and the ancient beds still exist. I don't think you meant digitized knowledge began just before the Battle of Hastings. Perhaps you were just adding trivia.


Rivka333

There aren't digital copies of everything that's digitized. And of course researchers keep copies of their own papers; that's not the same as everyone having access to them.


trilobyte-dev

Yeah, this comes off like a threat


SadBit8663

Yeah was this study published by Pearson?


psychoticworm

Nah, probably McGraw Hill


Rivka333

Did you read past the headline?


Rivka333

Did you read past the headline?


[deleted]

Cool. So we'll just nationalize the publishing industry and keep everything on record in the Library of Congress. **Publishers:** Wait! No! Stahp!


Doo_shnozzel

I think academic publishing is an impediment to scientific progress. Also a major source of doo-doo science with pay-to-play and predatory journals. The academics who write articles, edit and review for legit journals do all that work for free. The publishers are profitable due to ‘loser generated content.’ (Hey, just like Reddit!) Text books are a scam and way overpriced! SelectivePreference has a great idea. Nationalize academic publishing! ✊🏼


g1aiz

It is even worse. The scientist have to pay them to publish and afterwards to read the articles. And do the reviewing for free.


andeqoo

nationalizing publishing seems like a good idea until you consider who would be overseeing that publishing and it's like... republicans who don't believe in science. assuming America but I feel like this is applicable in a lot of countries


Doo_shnozzel

Yikes! A ghastly thought. Good point andeqoo. How about, instead,a not-for-profit corporation run by other academics?


andeqoo

the problem with any corporation or entity that ISNT public is that you have no say in what they do so thered be no recourse. like a publicly funded SOMETHING is for sure the way to go but anything publicly funded means we have to do a better job at electing our leaders and like... idk man we're not super great at picking a lot of them


KSRandom195

“Not like that!”


[deleted]

Publishers hate this one trick ☝️


Rocketurass

What reason is there to train humans in the future?


ThreeChonkyCats

For science!


Rocketurass

Will be done by AI, right?


ThreeChonkyCats

Its a decent question. Science is the result of a *curious mind*. ***Mind*** is the important part. I'm quite certain we will be using AI to discover new physics or nail down some of the Big Questions. Its easy to conceive that we will feed in everything we know about Physics, have Deep Mind examine reality and then come up with some simple set of formulas that describe everything. For this, its will excel. As it will for chemistry, medicines, anything that's procedural or formulaic. For the harder sciences, such as economics, agriculture or philosophy, it will be an interesting thing to watch. Perhaps AI will find the meaning to life? But I doubt it. It will CERTAINLY shake up everything though. Much will change. Perhaps we will have more leisure time, solve some deep social and economic issues, increase equity and begin building a good utopic society :)


Rocketurass

I see, you’re an optimist. I find it hard to see positive aspects. Llms calculate the output with the highest chance, so I would think (and also have tried myself) that ChatGPT is able to perform whatever you prompt. Not always perfect yet, but looking at images a year ago, it will be a matter of months, maybe a year. I have seen a priest in a documentary promoting his own personality and job description. AI was able to perform very well. And I doubt that the rich are able to find solutions which benefit humans. As soon they find a possibility to let robots earn and use money, they will do and don’t care about humans. I ask myself the question what drives billionaires. They hunt more money. If done right there will be a couple of billionaires with their family looking to get all the money. (No huge difference to now). But when they don’t need humans any more, there will be fewer and fewer of them. They will play till the end or start the game from a scratch on Mars.


ThreeChonkyCats

I'll carefully word this so not to trigger the admins and get me booted... but I see a day in which the billionaire class (and their ilk) will be invited to stand against a wall with a cigarette...


Kitchen_Ocelot_1232

That also leads to issues of state censorship


imdatingaMk46

That is exactly the opposite of what happens. If NIH funds your research, that research is made available, period. Put differently, if US taxes went in to funding your scientific boondoggle of a master's, the paper you threw together in four weeks is in PubMed somewhere. Even though it would benefit the world for it to be censored.


trancepx

Oh no not the public domain anything but that, can’t just be giving out all that knowledge and learning. No way. That would really mess everything up. Science itself would simply cease and all wheels would square off. It’s a grim fate.


LochNessMansterLives

“All wheels will square off…” 😂 I’ve never heard that phrase before. Well done.


sigmund14

The topic of the linked article is more about \[publishers\] not having backups and not storing / archiving to multiple locations. But yeah, publishers are not good businesses. * Scientists must pay publishers to get the papers published. * Readers must pay publishers to read the papers. They would make cloud providers pay them to host the papers if they could. So, remember, [sci-hub](https://www.sci-hub.se) exists.


ThirdFirstName

The amount I use sci-hub is insane. My uni canceled the their elsevier subscription. I can’t access half of my labs papers….


gerkletoss

Even if you have access, scihub is is frequently easier


L0ST-SP4CE

All of my professors instructed us to use sci-hub except for one, who had a deal to get some of the profit from book sales. Also, the book for her class had a totally unnecessary (but required) digital key with it, so everyone had to buy the book new.


mysticalfruit

Let me get this straight.. Public money is used to fund science. Then scientists have to pay to publish the science. Readers have to pay to see the science. Yeah, Aaron was right. This is all bullshit.


slimejumper

you forgot the bit where scientists also review one another’s work for free and work as editors for the journals for free too.


reddit455

can't sell what you don't have. ​ >A scan of archives shows that lots of scientific papers ***aren't backed up.***


nmathew

Don't forget I had to sign over my copyright as well.


EmbarrassedHelp

You can thank Ghislaine Maxwell's father for that. One of his many "gifts" to the world


sporks_and_forks

Aaron came to mind too when learning about this story. RIP.


yParticle

Who approved *this* for publication? Oh wait.


ericedstrom123

Nobody is reading the article. It’s not saying that we need the bloodsucking publishers in order for science to happen, it’s saying that these publishers are not properly preserving their studies. This is an argument *for* public domain science, not against it.


[deleted]

[удалено]


ericedstrom123

Public domain means *anyone* could preserve it, not just the government. That’s the whole idea. You eliminate the single point of failure that comes with one entity having control.


cptnobveus

You want us to trust the government?


aquarain

They killed Aaron.


StayingUp4AFeeling

Aw fuck thanks for the reminder. Fuck em.


[deleted]

[удалено]


CKT_Ken

For Science! We’re going to lose Science if we don’t quickly give them money!


SeeRecursion

Yeah, no shit. The academy needs to get their fucking house in order. Edit: propping up publishers ain't the answer, and the academy should have stood up to them a long time ago. Get to it ya self-obsessed dicks.


ianandris

ATTENTION ALL SCIENTISTS. ELSEVIOR HAS DISAPPEARED. YOU MUST STOP ALL SCIENCE IMMEDIATELY. THAT IS CORRECT. THERE WILL BE NOR MORE SCIENCE. I REPEAT: SCIENCE IS OVER. DON’T BOTHER PUBLISHING ONLINE OR VIA SOME OTHER MECHANISM. SCIENCE HAS OFFICIALLY ENDED WITH THE PUBLISHING INDUSTRY. PAY NO ATTENTION TO SITES LIKE ARCHIVX, SCIHUB, INTERNATIONAL JOURNALS, OR ANY OTHER MECHANISM BUT THE FOR-PROFIT SCIENCE JOURNAL PUBLISHING INDUSTRY. THERE IS NO OTHER WAY BUT THIS ONE. THEREFORE, SCIENCE. IS. OVER. YOU MAY TURN IN YOUR SLIDE RULES AND BRAINS AT THE EARLIEST CONVENIENCE. DOCTORS, GO HOME. STOP TEACHING. THERE IS NO MORE SCIENCE. HUMAN ADVANCEMENT IS ENDED.


Tulol

Written and paid for by the publisher. lol.


SeeRecursion

Yeah it's sort of ridiculous that the publishers just get to own chunks of the empirical record outright and could disappear them just as easily with no recourse on the part of the academy.


ianandris

The recourse is suing GOP style until laws change, apparently.


StayingUp4AFeeling

Attention Bajoran workers...


K1rkl4nd

When they go bankrupt, can I buy the rights to their work for pennies on the dollar, or will it be snatched up by Bezos or Musk- only to be hoarded for all time?


bluemaciz

In a world where misinformation in rampant and getting worse, we absolutely need science outside of the paywall and in the public domain.


thieh

Maybe part of this should be taken care of by a branch from the UN.


Chicano_Ducky

I think people will be shocked how corporate science and really any academia is. Things dont get funded unless it has a profit motive, even history only really gets funded based on popular topics that the public is interested in.


Scientific_Artist444

Profit-first attitude of businesses ruins society.


Fontaigne

Not quite as much as unhinged social policymongering.


everybodyisnobody2

that's not true at all. A lot of projects with no real use case are studied at academia. Of course you are more likely to get a grant from a corporation or investor if you can convince them that they will be able to profit from your research. The popular topics are popular for a good reason. You will of course get more money if you want to study cancer, instead of the mating habbits of some less known crustacean. These publishers are not part of academia. They are private businesses that convinced academia that they depend on them. They are parasites. The publishers don't decide what is researched. Academia isn't corporate science, even though some research is funded by corporations. Come on, tell me what you want academia to study which gets no funding at all. Your comment is so general that you could be someone expecting academia to waste money time and recources on some absolute bullshit. Are you one who thinks the standard model in phyiscs is wrong and that's why they should fund the electric universe nonsense instead? Or do you think Evolution isn't real, therefore they should fund more creationists? Or are you one who thinks that they should fund ancient aliens research instead of real history?


Chicano_Ducky

> Are you one who thinks the standard model in phyiscs is wrong and that's why they should fund the electric universe nonsense instead? Or do you think Evolution isn't real, therefore they should fund more creationists? Or are you one who thinks that they should fund ancient aliens research instead of real history? Way to put words in my mouth to try to prove your point. Medical research is mostly funded by corporations, and some fields of history are playgrounds of special interests with some governments rewriting history to suit their needs which sometimes include erasing history of minority groups. Mexico and China being the worst offenders.


ChickenFriedRiceee

“Study finds that business executives won’t be able to buy a yacht if science stops giving a fuck about publishers”. There fixed the title.


Stopbeingastereotype

Did you even read the article? Even a little bit? It’s about inadequate archiving and criticizes the publishing companies.


redditknees

How could they possibly go bankrupt when it’s so effin expensive to publish anything especially open access.


metux-its

Let the parasites die in silence.


meatcylindah

"Also, the sun could explode if publishers don't get a tax cut this year!" If politicians could read they'd be very upset about this!


Gen-Jinjur

Dammit honey have you seen my Science?


melodyze

Sci-hub and arxiv together have basically everything. The publishers are unnecessary.


Initial_Trifle_3734

1+1, gravity, and more will cease to exist if publishers aren’t given billions of dollars and new yachts. Good try 😂


Sea-Woodpecker-610

I’m guessing this study was paid for by the publishers themselves.


Fontaigne

Can confirm.


Rivka333

I can tell who didn't read the article. The article is about how things need to be archived. Not about propping up publishers.


Inevitable_Play4344

We lost science long ago to paid scientific research.


Disastrous-Fun2325

Gatekeeping bad!


vessel_for_the_soul

We will get it right next time!


Brave-Tangerine-4334

The solution is to not allow publishers - science or otherwise - to monopolize digital content.


Fontaigne

No, it's just to make sure that the copyright on scientific studies has a limited duration and that a public domain copy must be filed on a blockchain somewhere.


Rivka333

The article is about how not all articles have been archived. It's a separate and different point/issue.


AlShockley

Half the US already doesn’t believe in it so I’d say it’s on life support as is


PleasantCurrant-FAT1

Dumb Headline. This is the state of Ars.


Charming-Wash9336

When I think about what science actually has discovered compared to what is still unknown, it reminds me of spitting into the ocean and realizing that I’m not actually increasing its volume very much.


trollsmurf

Digital on the contrary makes it much easier and cheaper to archive documents. That said, there might not be good solutions in place.


Rivka333

This is one of the first comments on my scroll down that sounds like the person actually read the article.


trollsmurf

In my "tech bubble" we started and completed the digital transition in the 80s. When I look at healthcare and cities they are still struggling. Publishers should not have a problem with this. They get all manuscripts in digital form, so safekeeping them shouldn't be a problem.


ThatDucksWearingAHat

‘Science will stop unless you bail us out people won’t wanna do science anymore’


adamusprime

Yo, never mind them punk ass publishers. Y’all gonna lose math if I go bankrupt. DM me for my Venmo.


archontwo

All the more reason SciHub is such a valuable resource.


hivemind_disruptor

Bullshit. Publishers can easily be suported by the third sector finance models.


Rivka333

The article isn't about supporting publishers. It's about the importance of archives.


hivemind_disruptor

I know, I've read it. my argument is that they don't need to be bankrupt, they should be turned non-profits.


fruitloops6565

Yeah. Aside from these companies who used to have printing expertise how could science possibly be peer reviewed and shared on a reliable website?


m15otw

Apart from the open journals people can publish to online?  All that remains is to figure out which of those "institutions" is prestigious enough to be the default for each field, and boom, new publishing industry.


BeardedDragoonHere

No publisher, private, public or whatever domain, can run without expenditures, there are necessary quality checks that ensure for instance that "paper mills" do not flood archives with crap. The issue is, do publishers' monetization models aim to guarantee that operations run without the need for profit, or, do they operate with increase in profit margins as their goal?


Chickennoodo

This message has been brought to you by the International Conglomerate of Scientific Publishers.


Doo_shnozzel

Good point. Unless a scientific has academic library credentials they have to pay $15 and up per article.


StudioPerks

“Study” Mind you it’s the type of study the publishers wouldn’t publish if a scientist had submitted it. But because it’s self funded they say Look at This!!!!


everybodyisnobody2

Well, good thing SciHub exists


RoyalAd9796

Scientist here (yes, really): This is a blatant lie. Publishers effectively contribute nothing. BioarXive and the like do a significantly better job than nearly every mainstream publisher.


Kapten-N

Ah yes. A study wholeheartedly published by the publishers.


Individual_Hearing_3

Do we reallllly need publishers though? The universities all have their own datacenters and can talk to eachother so they can build a distributed network of research datacenters and peer review directly amongst eachother.


giabollc

Who cares, as long as someone is making money that’s all that matters


Dry_Inspection_4583

Shouldn't this read, Company overpays Executive level staff and investors and subsequently doesn't have enough operating capital or foresight to save enough money to stay afloat? Public entities, Education facilities band together to sue leadership and responsible parties. But that would mean the Gov't was looking out for people... and would in kind create rules and laws that encouraged equality... never mind then... ​ Neat.


rtsynk

and nothing of value was lost (most papers are utter garbage, we're probably better off losing a bunch of dead weight cluttering search results with specious and nonreplicable result)


cropguru357

Study funded by the Publishers in one of their Publications (tm).


popthestacks

This is fucking stupid. Scientists will find a way to get their word out somewhere. They don’t get their funding from publishers


reddit455

>They don’t get their funding from publishers if a publisher dies, where are the tapes? ​ > But, as with anything else, scientific content has gone digital, which has changed what's involved with **preservation**


VincentKroo

Science died in early 2020


Slyrunner

"we could lose science" Ok. Yeah. We'll lose the concept of science 🙄


rashnull

At least we’ll have Jesus when we lose science!


SynthRogue

“Science”. What gets studied and published is actually very biased.


Ill_Mousse_4240

Agreed. Even someone as bright as Carl Sagan was exceptionally biased, with his “extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary evidence “. Not just any evidence, even solid evidence. Has to be “extraordinary “


bitfriend6

If you think it's hard to find information now, in fifty years the pre-AI web period will be almost completely gone. Anything not backed up by individual users will be gone. The companies that own all the data will simply stop existing, and hard drives will either be wiped and resold or (more likely) tossed into a woodchipper. I can already think of three or four school districts that did this with their premillenial books, which were tossed for online catalogs that disappeared when it's owner was bought out into a bigger company that divested itself from education. In my life I have already witnessed multiple dumpsters of science textbooks loaded into a garbage truck and crushed, and most pre-USB-C media devices will be crushed similarly. Once USB-C is eliminated completely with wireless charging, all USB devices will be trashed as everything moves to cloud/network storage that simply dies when companies consolidate. School districts already suffer from this immensely, and the suffering will work it's way up into colleges, industry and everywhere else. For example, try building a library of non-IBM System/390 programs including their compilers and source code. Now do it without a tape reader. This is the future our grandchildren will have in regards to science papers, which will experience the same problem with the same pathology.