The tension seems to come from the idea either working or not working. Supposedly if the idea does not work there is huge sunk cost with no payoff and others that have not latched on an idea for long are forward.
If one were proud about the exploration that could successfully end in a negative result. Existence proofs are nice but impossibility proofs are nothing to sneeze at. If everybody wants to p-hack their media-sexy idea into a paper and nobody wants to do replications, on research community level there can also be issues about setting incentives of impressiveness vs research.
In the process of making a blog about an idea that ultimately went nowhere, the entertainment value of reading the blog is still around. It all does not need to hang on that one nail. Maybe the real treasure was the researchers we made along the way?
The tension seems to come from the idea either working or not working. Supposedly if the idea does not work there is huge sunk cost with no payoff and others that have not latched on an idea for long are forward.
If one were proud about the exploration that could successfully end in a negative result. Existence proofs are nice but impossibility proofs are nothing to sneeze at. If everybody wants to p-hack their media-sexy idea into a paper and nobody wants to do replications, on research community level there can also be issues about setting incentives of impressiveness vs research.
In the process of making a blog about an idea that ultimately went nowhere, the entertainment value of reading the blog is still around. It all does not need to hang on that one nail. Maybe the real treasure was the researchers we made along the way?