Feasibility of Independent Research Institutes

[lubuntu]

I was talking to some friends last night and became interested in the topic of independent(ei. non-government or university affiliated) research institutes.

While these sorts of things have typically been ruled out because of monetary concerns with the rapid advancement of cheap computing and technology could it enter the field of feasibility in the next few decades? Specifically, in areas of research where the equipment is not so expensive or you can rely on getting data from other site that have more extensive funding and are doing experiments you are interested in.

I see these institutes following a sort of non-profit organization model where they are funded entirely by private donations and may take significant work from volunteer staff. It seems like in the right fields and with the right level of technological advancement running such a thing could come down to the level of cash that is already easily gather by other types of non-profits and religions. Doing so would also allow more free research and put less focus of the higher education industry as pretty much the sole bastion of pure science.

The only organization I thiink of that does anything like this now is SETI. Are there others? Does this make any sense at all or is foolish? Say I became a bit more serious about something in this regard having getting a Ph.D. how would one even go about it?

 

[fss]

Sounds like you are looking for some sort of ivory tower of academia uninfluenced by governments, industries, or high-level scientific politics. It'll never happen. Among other reasons why:

-Scientific credibility is based in large part on peer review. You're going to need some sort of outside interaction (and the subsequent politics of publications) in order to get whatever results out in the open.

-Funding purely through private donations is highly idealistic and in my opinion a very unreasonable expectation, as is getting meaningful work out of qualified volunteers. Your SETI example isn't a very good one (again, IMO)- the people that donate their CPU cycles to the project aren't really doing anything other than number crunching (arguably they aren't even doing that- their computer is). The actual science is done by people being paid as part of the university system.

-Volunteer organizations always have funding problems. Why would a PhD "volunteer" to work full time for a fraction of what he or she could be making in the private or education sector for an institution that in all likelihood wouldn't be able to provide the same financial resources towards whatever area they were studying?

-Government funding is a huge part of scientific research in all sectors. Whether or not government funding translates to "government affiliated" is debatable.

 

[lubuntu]

Sounds like you are looking for some sort of ivory tower of academia uninfluenced by governments, industries, or high-level scientific politics. It'll never happen. Among other reasons why:

-Scientific credibility is based in large part on peer review. You're going to need some sort of outside interaction (and the subsequent politics of publications) in order to get whatever results out in the open.
.

Why does the ability to publish scholarly articles rely on being affiliated with a university? I'd imagine people at these sorts of institutes being very much a part of the broader academic community. And that at least the first generation of scientists working at places like this would have come from academic Ph.d. background.

-Funding purely through private donations is highly idealistic and in my opinion a very unreasonable expectation, as is getting meaningful work out of qualified volunteers. Your SETI example isn't a very good one (again, IMO)- the people that donate their CPU cycles to the project aren't really doing anything other than number crunching (arguably they aren't even doing that- their computer is). The actual science is done by people being paid as part of the university system..

I forgive you for not knowing this but I am not talking about SETI@Home, which isn't even part of the SETI institute. The SETI Institute is pretty much entirely funded by private donations, which includes salaries for the staff, with a number of very rich people like Paul Allen contributing the bulk.

-Volunteer organizations always have funding problems. Why would a PhD "volunteer" to work full time for a fraction of what he or she could be making in the private or education sector for an institution that in all likelihood wouldn't be able to provide the same financial resources towards whatever area they were studying?

Constantly on this forum people bemoan how difficult it is to get an academic research job. I'm pretty sure most of us will go for Ph.D. because we want to do science not figure out how to make Wall St. rich or kill people more effectively. Creating another avenue towards this end could only be a good thing for us scientists and I am sure it would attract many. Volunteer is maybe to strong of a word, imagine instead a reasonable but modest salary.

-Government funding is a huge part of scientific research in all sectors. Whether or not government funding translates to "government affiliated" is debatable.

The idea here is that governments don't fund fundamental science enough and the purpose of the institute is to circumvent that and raise funds from the interested public directly.

I'm just throwing out a idea here so take anything too seriously. I doubt it is really feasible too- but especially in computationally heavy fields so much can be done so much more cheaply now. So why not extrapolate further. I hope I clarified my idea a bit better now. Thanks for the very good response FSS.

 

[fss]

Why does the ability to publish scholarly articles rely on being affiliated with a university?

To some degree it does, and to some degree it doesn't. It also depends on your field.

I forgive you for not knowing this but I am not talking about SETI@Home, which isn't even part of the SETI institute. The SETI Institute is pretty much entirely funded by private donations, which includes salaries for the staff, with a number of very rich people like Paul Allen contributing the bulk.

Point taken about SETI@Home. The SETI Institute originally received lots of government funding and conducts a large amount of research on government-owned facilities. I don't it'd be a great use of any private institution's money to go ahead and build another VLA, Arecibo, or Green Bank... but if you really want "no government involvement" that seems to be the way to go. Other SETI projects are cooperative with NASA (yes, the poster child of how not to run a research organization).

Volunteer is maybe to strong of a word, imagine instead a reasonable but modest salary.

I understand what you are saying in principle, but the reality is that people want to make money. Rare is the person that is idealistic enough to take that large of a pay cut to do the same thing.

The idea here is that governments don't fund fundamental science enough and the purpose of the institute is to circumvent that and raise funds from the interested public directly.

At least the US government funds lots of "fundamental science." Do you know how many taxpayer dollars went into the LHC? Not sure how much more fundamental you can get past "The Standard Model." It could be argued that it's a lot better to have governments direct funding- I'm willing to bet your average person isn't going to be so willing to toss their money into private research beyond those who are wealthy and interested enough that they already do it.

I'm just throwing out a idea here so take anything too seriously. I doubt it is really feasible too- but especially in computationally heavy fields so much can be done so much more cheaply now. So why not extrapolate further. I hope I clarified my idea a bit better now. Thanks for the very good response FSS.

Again I'm kind of playing Devil's Advocate here, but "computationally heavy" fields aren't always cheap. Lots of processing power gets very expensive.

 

[lubuntu]

I'm willing to bet your average person isn't going to be so willing to toss their money into private research beyond those who are wealthy and interested enough that they already do it.

These are exactly the people that would provide the largest amounts and they also seems to be the people typically most interested in science. It seems like to really evolve as a species we need to kind of move beyond all science being funded as kind of an aside to the defense industries. It just kind of pisses me off so few people care about science for sciences sake.

 

[Thermalne]

Summing up this topic in a small phase... People have to eat too.

 

[jbunniii]

Plenty of people voluntarily write open source software during their spare time. In principle, "open source" research should be just as feasible, although the viable talent pool would be smaller in most fields.

I wouldn't do it, because I'm not very interested in research projects and prefer to tinker with whatever interests me at my own pace. But then again I wouldn't want to write open source software, either. Too similar to my day job.

 

[lubuntu]

I'm very interested to see what Twofish-Quant has to say...

 

[lubuntu]

Summing up this topic in a small phase... People have to eat too.

Yeah, so what is your point?

 

[Vanadium 50]

Specifically, in areas of research where the equipment is not so expensive or you can rely on getting data from other site that have more extensive funding and are doing experiments you are interested in.

And why would those sites give away their data?

Collecting data - i.e. designing, running, testing and calibrating an experiment - is hard work.

It seems like in the right fields and with the right level of technological advancement running such a thing could come down to the level of cash that is already easily gather by other types of non-profits and religions.

Easily gathered? It's evident that you have not spent much time doing this. Raising a significant amount of money - millions - is hard work.

I forgive you for not knowing this but I am not talking about SETI@Home, which isn't even part of the SETI institute.

That's mighty kind of you to be so forgiving, considering that you never mentioned The SETI Institute, just "SETI". Fss shouldn't be expected to read your mind and figure out what you meant when you write unclearly.

Volunteer is maybe to strong of a word, imagine instead a reasonable but modest salary.

If today's salaries of scientists are unreasonable and immodest, by how much do they need to be reduced to be reasonable but modest? 50%? 75%? Obviously it has to be a big number: a small reduction won't make a dent in the cost of operation.

 

[lubuntu]

Plenty of people voluntarily write open source software during their spare time. In principle, "open source" research should be just as feasible, although the viable talent pool would be smaller in most fields.

I wouldn't do it, because I'm not very interested in research projects and prefer to tinker with whatever interests me at my own pace. But then again I wouldn't want to write open source software, either. Too similar to my day job.

Open source software is kind of like what I mean as in a lot of the types of research I imagine this working well for would essentially be specialized software development projects.

 

[lubuntu]

And why would those sites give away their data?

Collecting data - i.e. designing, running, testing and calibrating an experiment - is hard work.
Easily gathered? It's evident that you have not spent much time doing this. Raising a significant amount of money - millions - is hard work.

I don't anything about any of it that is why I am asking. I say it is easy to gather in the sense the amount of money required would be on the scale of other small scale non-profits. Maybe it would only work for work that did not directly do anything with experiment I don't know.

That's mighty kind of you to be so forgiving, considering that you never mentioned The SETI Institute, just "SETI". Fss shouldn't be expected to read your mind and figure out what you meant when you write unclearly.

Okay... After three years on these forums I don't understand why you are so consistently snarky and disagreeable.

If today's salaries of scientists are unreasonable and immodest, by how much do they need to be reduced to be reasonable but modest? 50%? 75%? Obviously it has to be a big number: a small reduction won't make a dent in the cost of operation.

I may have misspoke it would probably make more sense for the costs to be cut from more efficient and cheaper technology than from personnel. Not to mention the much lower overhead than governmental and university labs.

I have to say I don't quite see why responses thus far have been kind of negative in tone. Sure it is pretty idealistic, but don't we all kind of agree that the current state of science is a little sad for our society? Even if something in this vein isn't the correct answer clearly alternative avenues to allow more fundamental science to be done is atleast something scientists should be thinking about.

 

[fss]

I say it is easy to gather in the sense the amount of money required would be on the scale of other small scale non-profits.

I think small-scale research at a scientifically valuable level is not feasible. Micro-loans or micro-grants tend not to promote longevity of study, especially given that you're looking for world-class scientists to staff your institution.

Not to mention the much lower overhead than governmental and university labs.

There's overhead in any large organization (assuming that's what you're going for). Depending on the size of your organization, overhead becomes comparable to government agencies, but will probably still be higher than a university lab (whose overhead is hard to calculate anyway; do you count students, who are technically paying to work in a lab?)

...but don't we all kind of agree that the current state of science is a little sad for our society?

No. In fact, I would argue that "pure" science has never seen better times than the present. Scientists are typically allowed to be scientists without a Church, Inquisition, or dictatorial government watching their every move. In terms of dollars, governments have never been so generous.

Even if something in this vein isn't the correct answer clearly alternative avenues to allow more fundamental science to be done is atleast something scientists should be thinking about.

Fundamental science is done all the time in many different locations. I think that for some reason you think university- and government-sponsored science isn't "real science." Most people would disagree.

 

[jbunniii]

Open source software is kind of like what I mean as in a lot of the types of research I imagine this working well for would essentially be specialized software development projects.

Check out how many people have solved the problems at Project Euler, for instance, without a dime of compensation:

http://projecteuler.net/

I recognize that many of these are not "research" problems, but there are clearly quite a few intelligent people out there with time on their hands.

Here is another example, a research-oriented forum for mathematicians. It is more focused on targeted Q&A than on collaborative research, but again it illustrates how many people are willing to spend serious unpaid time on this kind of thing:

http://mathoverflow.net/

 

[lubuntu]

Another Round...

I think small-scale research at a scientifically valuable level is not feasible. Micro-loans or micro-grants tend not to promote longevity of study, especially given that you're looking for world-class scientists to staff your institution.

Not that small scale I mean the level of a few dozen people and on the order of 10 million in funding.

There's overhead in any large organization (assuming that's what you're going for). Depending on the size of your organization, overhead becomes comparable to government agencies, but will probably still be higher than a university lab (whose overhead is hard to calculate anyway; do you count students, who are technically paying to work in a lab?)

You might be right I don't know enough about it. It seems like a independent organization could be a little more flexible with non-technical staffing for instance.

No. In fact, I would argue that "pure" science has never seen better times than the present. Scientists are typically allowed to be scientists without a Church, Inquisition, or dictatorial government watching their every move. In terms of dollars, governments have never been so generous.

True, but it could be much better. Again I know I am being really idealistic so try to respond within that sort of hypothetical context. You can say "That will never happen, things have never been better,etc,etc." I know this. Almost everything in the world has never been better than it is now but there is still vast room to improve. I'm talking on the scale of long term human civilization not just what is feasible in the next 10 years. But based on idea at hand what sorts of things could we possibly do if there became room for a few dozen or so small and influence independent research institutes. How might that change the scientific community?

Fundamental science is done all the time in many different locations. I think that for some reason you think university- and government-sponsored science isn't "real science." Most people would disagree.

I don't think that at all. I am just observing that pretty much the only pure science being done in modern times is done in those settings and thinking about how we might be able to expand from there.

 

[fss]

Not that small scale I mean the level of a few dozen people and on the order of 10 million in funding.

Who knows, in a perfect world you might get a useful result.

You might be right I don't know enough about it. It seems like a independent organization could be a little more flexible with non-technical staffing for instance.

Probably. The ability to be more flexible doesn't always mean the end result is "better."

True, but it could be much better. Again I know I am being really idealistic so try to respond within that sort of hypothetical context. You can say "That will never happen, things have never been better,etc,etc." I know this. Almost everything in the world has never been better than it is now but there is still vast room to improve. I'm talking on the scale of long term human civilization not just what is feasible in the next 10 years. But based on idea at hand what sorts of things could we possibly do if there became room for a few dozen or so small and influence independent research institutes. How might that change the scientific community?

Well if you want to be idealistic then the sky's the limit. If everything was perfect and there existed a perfectly objective environment with no ethical, financial, or regulatory constraints then scientific progress would probably advance very quickly. Hundreds if not thousands of small research groups would pop up everywhere and come up with quick, efficient solutions to all of our problems.

 

[lubuntu]

Who knows, in a perfect world you might get a useful result.



Probably. The ability to be more flexible doesn't always mean the end result is "better."



Well if you want to be idealistic then the sky's the limit. If everything was perfect and there existed a perfectly objective environment with no ethical, financial, or regulatory constraints then scientific progress would probably advance very quickly. Hundreds if not thousands of small research groups would pop up everywhere and come up with quick, efficient solutions to all of our problems.

Hmm...let me try to put it another way maybe.

In our society at least in the US there is a very anti-science vibe. It is seen as expendable and ridiculed by the general populace.

What I envision is circumventing the will of the general populace in deciding how much science gets done and of which type - by circumventing the need government funding. This might be accomplished in at least two ways:

a. Raise funds from people specifically interested in the research being done. Including very rich technical types who have been known to do this(Paul Allen and his ilk).
b. Reduce the required cost to do research by leveraging exponential improvement in technology.

Part b is obviously highly dependent on the sort of research being done. Something like the LHC is still going to be really expensive for a long time to come.

I don't see these sorts of ventures replacing the current science infrastructure but rather complementing it and providing some insurance against the whims of government and defense spending. Currently, there are pretty much two types of bodies that do fundamental science i) Universities ii) Governments. I am looking at the possibility of a third and what it could do differently.

Do you think that a third type is unnecessary? Unfeasible? Unwise? Do you have better suggestions the sort of institute that might fill that gap? In the long term do you see our science as always being done by these two styles of institutions.

It may be that any really cutting edge science will by its nature require the resources of the largest possible body available, currently national governments. However what if it was decoupled from politics and science was seen as an independent thing not done by governments but by private institutes who raised funds directly from people who are interested in the work regardless of national affiliation.

I know I sound like an insane hippy dude:tongue2:, but I like talking about this stuff...

 

[fss]

In our society at least in the US there is a very anti-science vibe. It is seen as expendable and ridiculed by the general populace.

What gives you that impression? I don't get that impression at all. When I tell people I work/ed at CERN, those who have heard about it go "Wow, that must have been really neat!" (but it wasn't) or ask "What's that?" followed by the first question after the "world-eating black hole" reference is made.

What I envision is circumventing the will of the general populace in deciding how much science gets done and of which type - by circumventing the need government funding. This might be accomplished in at least two ways:

So you want the general population- which you just stated has no interest in science and is "ridiculed"- to decide on how funding for science is spent?

a. Raise funds from people specifically interested in the research being done. Including very rich technical types who have been known to do this(Paul Allen and his ilk).

Why is this desirable at all? Not everyone can be an astronaut, and not everyone's science dollars should go into space elevators, space planes, or building the next Death Star. This will just result in numerous "flashy" science disciplines being overfunded and numerous less-glamorous disciplines being even more underfunded than they are now.

b. Reduce the required cost to do research by leveraging exponential improvement in technology.

This is a pretty loaded statement. Earlier you claimed you wanted to get a small group of smart people together; now you want to leverage technology? Technology doesn't produce science.

I don't see these sorts of ventures replacing the current science infrastructure but rather complementing it and providing some insurance against the whims of government and defense spending.

You still have not spoken (perhaps on purpose) to the fact that governments are the single largest contributor to the scientific community even discounting those fields which would traditionally be identified with defense spending (and honestly you can relate pretty much anything to national defense if you really want to). What is wrong with government being a driver of scientific research?

Currently, there are pretty much two types of bodies that do fundamental science i) Universities ii) Governments. I am looking at the possibility of a third and what it could do differently.

What is your specific problem with universities, governments, and the different ways in which you think they fall short of your ideal? Perhaps your next post should start with listing why each body is hindering scientific progress so everyone is on the same page.

Do you think that a third type is unnecessary? Unfeasible? Unwise? Do you have better suggestions the sort of institute that might fill that gap? In the long term do you see our science as always being done by these two styles of institutions.

I am open to being convinced otherwise, but years in the university system and years in both public and private sectors lead me to believe that each has its ups and downs. Even in "non-standard" companies like Google there are problems with the way things get done, or don't get done. I also think that if your idea was actually viable it would have been done already.

 

[lubuntu]

I'm too tired to dig up specific examples but I am pretty sure that anti-science and anti-intellectualism are much more rampant in the US than you are accounting. Look at how many people think the world is 6000 years old or deny evolution for starters.

I do want it to be driven by the populace, we are them who else is there to drive it? But more on a volunteer basis than being mandated by the government and being too easily manipulated for political gain my politicians with selfish concerns. I think a donation system allows that. I can't really speak to whether or not only flashy projects would get money. I mean you could probably argue the same thing for the current system...

I know that the government is doing most of the science funding now and there is a lot of great work being done. You seem to think I resent the current system much more than I actually do. I am just looking at alternatives to beef up the science being done world wide.

I am less looking at releasing science for some great hindrance than expanding it to encompass different types of institutes with different origins and goals than the traditional pillars of research science.

It may be that it was( and still isn't) feasible for something like this to exist but that it may be with further advances in technology and society. Just because we haven't seen it take off yet doesn't mean much.

Does anyone know any other independent research institutes that run in a similar style to the SETI Institute?

 

[fss]

I'm too tired to dig up specific examples but I am pretty sure that anti-science and anti-intellectualism are much more rampant in the US than you are accounting. Look at how many people think the world is 6000 years old or deny evolution for starters.

And I am pretty sure you are extrapolating an extraordinarily small and vocal subset of the population onto the beliefs of the larger whole.

But more on a volunteer basis than being mandated by the government and being too easily manipulated for political gain my politicians with selfish concerns. I think a donation system allows that. I can't really speak to whether or not only flashy projects would get money. I mean you could probably argue the same thing for the current system...

So instead of being manipulated by politicians with selfish concerns you want it to be dominated by the general populace with selfish concerns. What has that gained you? You just said above that you thought that people "in general" think the world is 6000 years old. Do you think it's bad that the government chooses not to fund research to back this theory up?

 

[twofish-quant]

The only organization I thiink of that does anything like this now is SETI. Are there others? Does this make any sense at all or is foolish? Say I became a bit more serious about something in this regard having getting a Ph.D. how would one even go about it?

You can start a non-profit corporation and get an IRS tax exemption letter for a few hundred dollars. The problem with starting a research institute is that you'll be spending 95% of your time with fundraising. People that do Ph.D.'s usually don't have the skills or interest doing that, which is why they tend to work for institutions in which someone else is in charge of fundraising.

 

[twofish-quant]

Why does the ability to publish scholarly articles rely on being affiliated with a university? I'd imagine people at these sorts of institutes being very much a part of the broader academic community.

Because Ph.D.'s have to eat and universities have money.

The SETI Institute is pretty much entirely funded by private donations, which includes salaries for the staff, with a number of very rich people like Paul Allen contributing the bulk.

Sure and if you are close friends with Paul Allen and has an idea that he wants to fund with several million dollars, then you are set. Most people aren't friends with Paul Allen.

Constantly on this forum people bemoan how difficult it is to get an academic research job. I'm pretty sure most of us will go for Ph.D. because we want to do science not figure out how to make Wall St. rich or kill people more effectively.

Something that I figured out is to do science, you need money, so the next question is where is the best place to learn about money. :-) :-) :-)

Also, if you want to start a foundation, you need rich friends, now where do you go so that you can become friends with rich people. :-) :-) :-)

Volunteer is maybe to strong of a word, imagine instead a reasonable but modest salary.

That's fine. So where you are going to get the money to pay for reasonable but modest salaries? Let's take a salary for a post-doc ($35,000). With overhead that ends up being $50,000/year. Unless you have a rich uncle, you will find it a total pain in the rear end to get $50,000/year.

I doubt it is really feasible too- but especially in computationally heavy fields so much can be done so much more cheaply now. So why not extrapolate further. I hope I clarified my idea a bit better now. Thanks for the very good response FSS.

Sure lots can be done, but to pull something like this off, you will find yourself spending most of your time on financial and political issues, and doing the sort of work that most Ph.D.'s don't find particularly appealing.

 

[twofish-quant]

Plenty of people voluntarily write open source software during their spare time.

But curiously enough most people that work on open source software get paid for it. All of the major open source projects have rather deep pocketed corporate sponsors, and full time staffs that are working on projects.

 

[twofish-quant]

I say it is easy to gather in the sense the amount of money required would be on the scale of other small scale non-profits. Maybe it would only work for work that did not directly do anything with experiment I don't know.

Most small scale non-profits have budgets in the $100K range and are nowhere near able to fund science research.

I may have misspoke it would probably make more sense for the costs to be cut from more efficient and cheaper technology than from personnel. Not to mention the much lower overhead than governmental and university labs.

Technology is expensive, and research and development is frightfully expensive. Also government and university labs are pretty low overhead places as they are. The other thing that you'll find is that a lot of things that look like "useless overhead" aren't. For example, if you don't have a secretary that takes phone calls, you'll be having scientists spend most of their time missing appointments.

One problem with people that talk about "waste" is that they often benefit from free stuff that they don't realize costs. For example, take a computer lab. To have a well running computer lab or research library is very expensive, but people don't see the cost and assume that it's due to waste.

I have to say I don't quite see why responses thus far have been kind of negative in tone.

Because we've done fundraising and tried to run organizations, and we realize what a pain in the rear end it is. Again, if you want to start a foundation, then this is a very good thing, and you should go ahead and do it. What you'll find is that you'll be a full time administrator and fundraiser rather than having anything to do with science, but that's fine if it's what you want.

Sure it is pretty idealistic, but don't we all kind of agree that the current state of science is a little sad for our society?

It's not that bad.

Even if something in this vein isn't the correct answer clearly alternative avenues to allow more fundamental science to be done is at least something scientists should be thinking about.

If you want more fundamental science done, then there isn't any substitute for voting for Congressmen that will fund science, and convincing people that their taxes should be raised for science research. However, then the problem is that you end up with knife fights with other scientists that argue that *their* science should be funded.

 

[twofish-quant]

Not that small scale I mean the level of a few dozen people and on the order of 10 million in funding.

A independent non-profit with $10 million is *huge*.

It seems like a independent organization could be a little more flexible with non-technical staffing for instance.

The trouble with an independent non-profit is that you have to pay market rates for researchers. Universities can pay way, way below market for researchers by promising them a Ph.D. at the end.

 

[twofish-quant]

What I envision is circumventing the will of the general populace in deciding how much science gets done and of which type - by circumventing the need government funding.

One problem then is that then you have to consider the the will of the people that hand you money which can be just as annoying.

Also I don't see why you should try to circumvent the need for government funding. If you are the type of person that is willing and able to talk a rich billionaire into funding jet cars, you really should be going into politics and convincing voters that science is good. Become a lobbyist.

I don't see these sorts of ventures replacing the current science infrastructure but rather complementing it and providing some insurance against the whims of government and defense spending.

You are going to find that donors and private companies are even more fickle than governments. At least governments have the option of printing money.

I don't think that you can avoid government funding. I don't think that you should.

However what if it was decoupled from politics and science was seen as an independent thing not done by governments but by private institutes who raised funds directly from people who are interested in the work regardless of national affiliation.

I don't think you can or should decouple science from politics, and I'm curious why you are trying.