"Kim Stanley Robinson - Forty Signs of Rain" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robinson Kim Stanley)

тАЬKeeps people working.тАЭ

On the savannah a view like this would have come from a high outcrop, where the troop would be
resting in relative safety, surveying everything important in their lives. In the realm of grooming, of chatter,
of dominance conflicts. Perfect, in other words, for a grant proposal evaluation panel, which in essence
was one of the most ancient of discussions: whom do we let in, whom do we kick out? A basic troop
economy, of social credit, of access to food and matesтАФeverything measured and exchanged in deeds
good and badтАФyesтАФit was another game of prisonersтАЩ dilemma. They never ended.

Frank liked this one. It was very nuanced compared to most of them, and one of the few still outside the
world of money. Anonymous peer-reviewтАФunpaid laborтАФa scandal!

But science didnтАЩt work like capitalism. That was the rub, that was one of the rubs in the general
dysfunction of the world. Capitalism ruled, but money was too simplistic and inadequate a measure of the
wealth that science generated. In science, one built up over the course of a career a fund of тАЬscientific
credit,тАЭ by giving work to the system in a way that could seem altruistic. People remembered what you
gave, and later on there were various forms of return on the giftтАФjobs, labs. In that sense a good
investment for the individual, but in the form of a gift to the group. It was the non zero-sum game that
prisonersтАЩ dilemma could become if everyone played by the strategies of always generous, or, better,
firm but fair. That was one of the things science wasтАФa place that one entered by agreeing to hold to the
strategies of cooperation, to maximize the total return of the game.

In theory that was true. It was also the usual troop of primates. There was a lot of tit for tat. Defections
happened. Everyone was jockeying for a lab of their own, or any project of their own. As long as that
was generating enough income for a comfortable physical existence for oneself and oneтАЩs family, then one
had reached the optimal human state. Having money beyond that was unnecessary, and usually involved
a descent into the world of hassle and stupidity. That was what greed got you. So there was in science a
sufficiency of means, and an achievable limit to oneтАЩs goals, that kept it tightly aligned with the brainтАЩs
deepest savannah values. A scientist wanted the same things out of life as anAustralopithecus; and here
they were.

Thus Frank surveyed the panelists milling about the room with a rare degree of happiness. тАЬLetтАЩs get
started.тАЭ



They sat down, putting laptops and coffee cups beside the computer consoles built into the tabletop.
These allowed the panelists to see a spreadsheet page for each proposal in turn, displaying their grades
and comments. This particular group all knew the drill. Some of them had met before, more had read one
anotherтАЩs work.

There were eight of them sitting around the long cluttered conference table.



Dr. Frank Vanderwal, moderator, NSF (on leave from University of California, San Diego, Department
of Bioinformatics).

Dr. Nigel Pritchard, Georgia Institute of Technology, Computer Sciences.