AHC: Public Laboratories as commonplace in the developed world as libraries

Your challenge is to have the following type of public institution be as commonplace in the Western World and other developed countries as libraries are in OTL:

The name of the institution would be "Public Laboratory", or "People's Laboratory" in socialist states.

These would be research institutes in which the layman could do experiments concerning the natural sciences. They would have access to laboratory equipment, various chemicals, electronic devices and invertebrate research subjects. There would also be a library section with textbooks of science.

In social-democratic or socialist states, the usage of these laboratories could be free with a Students' ID or below a certain age.

For example you could go up to a counter, buy/ask for some sulfuric acid, an electromagnet, and a jar of fruit flies, then you could enter a laboratory and do experiments.

Exiting these places would be through an airport-style security check, so you couldn't sneak hazardous and controlled substances out, but in the lab you would be free to try making heroin, meth or high explosives.

Legal substances could be taken out freely, so the place could double as a kind of state-owned Radio Shack or farmer's store.
 
I think your scenario is like asking...

"Have public stamp-collecting shops be commonplace in the Western World."

In other words, take a hobby that has minimal following IOTL, and somehow get it so widely loved to the point where people consider facilitating the hobby to be a basic obligation of government.

I think you'd need to radically re-orient human nature in order to do that. As it stands, the vast majority of people are content to enjoy the benefits provided by scientific research, while leaving the actual work to paid professionals, or hobbyists as the case may be.
 
I really like the idea - I mean, I really like it - but I have a very hard time imagining it happening... Having public laboratories that would actually be more than just glorified chemistry sets would be obscenely expensive. And I have a hard time imagining a situation where enough of the population has the desire and the education and the time to make use of something like this.

And that's without getting into the liability issues, which would be tremendous in democratic states.
 
Reading is leisure, and beyond the purchase of books and shelves and whatnot requires no expense.

Lab equipment is expensive (even glassware you'd think was cheap is surprisingly pricey).

The biggest danger from libraries is a papercut, or a shelf collapsing on you, one is likely but has mild consequences, the other is unlikely.

Labs are high risk with high consequence environments. Electricity, fumes from chemicals, biological agents, you name it there are many things that can maim, or even kill you.

So the only way you can get Public Laboratories to be popular is to somehow make humans less risk averse and more profligate. Good luck.
 
I can see the Soviet Union and maybe East Germany going through with this if they were in a better economic situation.
 
What if we pitch our sights a little lower to start with, and aim not for "as common as public libraries", but at least "a thing"?

Let's suppose we have a much more science-loving culture than OTL - not implausibly so, but a society willing to put a significantly higher percentage of its GDP into science. Right now, the way most academic laboratories get funded is through grants from the NSF and other private and public entities. Let's suppose that this society is sufficiently science-enthusiastic to just want to skip the grant application process - anyone who can show they're sufficiently well-trained in a relevant scientific discipline is automatically funded up to some reasonable amount. Scientists still need to find a university or somebody to pay their salary, and there's still grants for really big projects, but basic lab equipment and supplies are automatically funded. And, to make things more economically efficient, they set up public laboratories to get economies of scale and improve oversight.

I dunno, it's still not super-plausible, but I think something like this might be possible.
 
Here's a scary idea, what if its an environment wherein Prohibition never ended? Consider that the equipment used to create moonshine, speedball heroin, crack cocaine, ecstasy, and crystal meth, can all be found in most high school chemistry labs. As proof, a substitute teacher in high school showed how to refine Wild Turkey into bourbon. As for crystal meth, just watch Breaking Bad. If it's going to become that common, this is one consequence...

Second, beware explosives. From Macgyver to Mythbusters, the lure is too easy. The same substitute teacher taught how to make smoke bombs and exploding paper. This was in 1991, before the Oklahoma City bombing showed what fertilizer mixed with triggers could do....
 
Let's suppose that this society is sufficiently science-enthusiastic to just want to skip the grant application process

Yes, but everything else depends on that supposition. How do you get society to be so science enthusiastic in the first place?
 
Yes, but everything else depends on that supposition. How do you get society to be so science enthusiastic in the first place?

Well, I had some notes on this for an atompunk TL I never ended up writing. I was planning to start with a "Young Scientists' League" to get kids interested in science young, basically analogous to the boy scouts but with chemistry sets instead of woodburning kits, and a technocratic ideology in place of OTL's libertarianism, including a terrible-but-inspiring science fiction novel to kick it off. This in turn leads to: the emergence of a powerful lobbying group on behalf of government-funded science projects; a network of think-tanks pushing this technocratic ideology; and, most of all, emergence of a subculture of "New Men" who follow technocratic ideology. This was all supposed to take about 30-40 years to reach fruition, starting in 1945.

Now, that particular TL probably wouldn't see anything like this - the technocratic ideology I had in mind is too bureaucratic, and would definitely keep the funding process under the control of central authorities, rather than just funding people automatically. But maybe we could take some ideas from there and turn it into something usable?
 
Weren't businesses which rented space in a public auto repair place somewhat common in the United States?

I think you had to hook up the exhaust to a hose so it would be safely taken out. I don't know if the business would rent out tools somewhat similar to a library.
 
A nice idea but totally impractical. As someone has mentioned lab equipment is really expensive, and it is insanely easy to totally screw up a delicate balance you need to use if toy are doing any serious chemistry. A careless/stupid/ham-handed individual could damage tens of thousands of dollars of equipment in a heartbeat before doing something stupid like blowing something up, creating noxious gas, and so forth. I won't even go in to the issues of the chemicals available, some are cheap, some expensive, and many dangerous - how many people you find in a public library would you trust to handle concentrated sulfuric acid safely? How about sodium or phosphorus?

Ever work in a metallurgical lab. Really hot furnaces, molten metals, instron testers, etc.

Again, nice if everyone was that interested in science, but certifying folks to work in these labs, equipping them, etc would be hugely expensive. And, at least in the USA, don't forget the lawyers...I can see the TV commercials now "Injured in a public laboratory - you are eligible for big bucks! Call Dewey, Screwem & Howe right now at 1-800-ISUEYOU"
 

Ian_W

Banned
There was something very close - the nineteenth century Mechanics School of Arts movement, which was tied up in the whole non-revolutionary socialism thing.

"The steam engine is the discovery of one who laboured as a mechanic; and we urge, give men of this class science – do not leave them to the crumbs which fall from the rich man's store, but let all that can, be imparted, and the steam engine is only the dawn of what will be achieved."

http://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/the_school_of_arts_movement

Basically, if you have Schools of Arts movement spread, then adult education of working people will allow semi-public facilities - you probably need to formally enrol in a class, and access to equipment would probably be restricted according to classes passed and so on ...but I think it's most of what the OP wants.
 
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