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UK scientists dropped from EU projects because of post-Brexit funding fears

theguardian.com

331–339 of 339 posts

Re: UK scientists dropped from EU projects because of post-Brexit funding fears

#331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And for millions and millions of people it was shit. Utter shit. Credit card chomping, crappy zero hour job, minimum wage, second hand clothes, crappy car, no life insurance, no pension, crap. Yep. Except for one teeny weeny insignificantly minor detail: these things have nothing whatsoever to do with the EU, and everything to do with the austerity/de-industrialization policies of neo-liberal UK governments, primaril…

what other option was there? I'm genuinely interested. The vote card said IN and OUT. Pathetic? Name calling, wow that's low. I love how butt hurt you are. The more furious rich people are the better the decision feels.

> what other option was there?

To address the description of the source of the problem offered upthread? Voting against the people actually responsible for the problems in UK elections (general elections and otherwise.)

If the problem is in Westminster, voting against the EU does nothing to solve the problem.

Re: UK scientists dropped from EU projects because of post-Brexit funding fears

#332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the last week, already, we have had senior government officials from several member countries recognising that this is not a realistic stance. Citation needed. I have never seen this, and a quick check reveals the opposite: "Ms Merkel added: “We have spoken to Britain and made clear there will be no negotiations with Britain until they have made their application, and there will be no cherry picking.”" http://www.…

The idea that nobody will discuss anything is simply unsustainable, given the timescales and uncertainty involved. http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/09/philip-hammo... http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/02612186-467b-11e6-8d68-72e9211e86...

You do understand the difference between "negotiation" and "having an informal chat with colleagues"?

Re: UK scientists dropped from EU projects because of post-Brexit funding fears

#333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that nobody will discuss anything is simply unsustainable, given the timescales and uncertainty involved. http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/09/philip-hammo... http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/02612186-467b-11e6-8d68-72e9211e86...

You do understand the difference between "negotiation" and "having an informal chat with colleagues"?

It does seem we are talking at cross purposes.

Re: UK scientists dropped from EU projects because of post-Brexit funding fears

#334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh? Academia has definitely been hit hard by austerity like the rest of the public sector. There have been basically no pay rises since the Tories came in.

If you think "basically no pay rises" is what austerity means then I think you just proved my point for me ... edit: To clarify (given the telling off below), the rest of the public sector in the UK has seen massive budget cuts with 20, 30, 40% loss not being uncommon in some departments, or in the BEST case (like the NHS) large workload increases with extremely small or no budget increases. It's hard for me to imagi…

Can you give me an example of a public sector job that has taken a 40% pay cut? I'm really interested to know.

Re: UK scientists dropped from EU projects because of post-Brexit funding fears

#335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There probably should have been some more options on the paper, seeing as how people voted Leave for many disparate reasons and with many disparate ideas (or no idea at all) of what to do instead, and there is no way to keep all of them happy. In fact there may be no way to keep any of them happy, since apparently many of them voted Leave for impossible/EU-unrelated reasons: to keep non-EU immigration down; to spend…

Oh I get it now - you get money from the EU. Haha, fuck me. You couldn't care less about either argument, you just want your money to keep flowing. Shit man, I feel sorry for you. Welcome to the real world.

Please comment civilly and substantively or not at all.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: UK scientists dropped from EU projects because of post-Brexit funding fears

#336
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a result of majority voters voting in favour of Brexit and to recover the democratic deficit and negotiate UK's exit from the EU a new PM has been appointed who did not support Leave. She was selected by Westminster which is largely supportive of Remain It would be very hard not to conclude that it is actually Westminster that is retarding democracy.

I happen to agree we should have an election, but I would point out: 1) Unlike EU commissioners, people can vote Theresa May out at the next general election. 2) The UK has a parliamentary democracy. It is not a presidential system. Theresa May was elected by her constituents. 3) Of the 14 prime ministers since the end of the Second World War, half of them (including Theresa May) assumed office between elections.

Of the 7 that did, only 3 were re-elected. Maybe because they were unelectable in the first place :-)

Re: UK scientists dropped from EU projects because of post-Brexit funding fears

#337
post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think that? The vote was met with such shock that it has re-raised the prospect of Scottish independence, and caused calls for referendums on Ireland, and has triggered the start of a small movement for independence for London (yes, most of the people who signed the change.org petition probably did it as a joke/out of anger, but there are groups organising more serious endeavours), and the signals all…

It's sort of like D&D. Everyone in the country had rolled their character. Assume one roll of a D20. People who rolled 13+ were doing OK in life. 19s and 20s were rich. 1 to 12s are poor. Cameron (our DM) came along and gave us all a free re-roll. People with 10 or less voted yes. 11 - 15 were about 50/50 depending on risk aversion. 16 - 20 voted no. The numbers are almost always going to sway in favour of change, th…

The problem is that it is not at all clear how many would have voted leave if they knew what specific version they would get. It's not as easy as saying these options have been tried (and as someone else pointed out: only certain variations have been tried - most of these issues are down to domestic politics), because people who voted because they believed in "left-exit" may very well have preferred to remain rather than end up with "right-racist-exit" for example:

One side was allowed to sell a fairy-tale that was customised for each recipient, while the other had to deal with reality. The fairy-tales may have been appealing, but only one of them can even potentially become reality.

The reality is that we're ending up with something that nobody voted for, because it hasn't been put together yet. The only thing we do know is that it won't look like any of the promises, because most them have already been shown to be lies.

As it stands, remaining is the most democratic option, as it is the only promised alternative that actually exist and that we have an indicator of the level of support for, and the only option that doesn't rule out substantial subsets of the others later on.

Barring that, many of us will do what we can to minimise the ability for the Leave voters to harm us, by fighting for independence.

> And for millions and millions of people it was shit. Utter shit. Credit card chomping, crappy zero hour job, minimum wage, second hand clothes, crappy car, no life insurance, no pension, crap.

And I respect that a lot of people got it hard. But none of that has anything to do with the EU, and everything to do with the same governments that have been lying to you for decades (and yes, I include New Labour in that).

Brexit is going to affect those of us who are most angry about this least in most respects. I can deal with the economic fallout. I'll benefit from the housing market collapsing, as we can afford to take advantage of it. The impending interest rate drop means I will now pay less on my mortgage per month than I had budgeted with paying per week when we took it out before the financial crisis.

Meanwhile those in the most precarious situations are likely to get hit by slowdowns coupled with the effects of a government that doesn't give a shit about them.

And with the EU gone, a bunch of regulations that have prevented successive UK governments from stepping all over you will be gone.

If this country doesn't get ripped apart by independence movements, it will be torn apart through anger that'll make the winter of discontent seems like a polite garden party at the current rate when people realise the effects of Brexit.

Re: UK scientists dropped from EU projects because of post-Brexit funding fears

#338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ugh should've checked my sources a little better. Your criticisms are fair, but I stand by the spirit of my comment - especially the final sentence.

You are obviously correct in that this decision was not based on pragmatism (which seems very un-britsh to me). Your post also illustrates what the decision was actually based on: misinformation. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I'm not sure that pragmatism is a stereotypical British trait.

Re: UK scientists dropped from EU projects because of post-Brexit funding fears

#339
post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [ edit: must have touched a nerve. +1 to -4 in an instant. ] Or perhaps people simply disagree with you, tosser.

Personal attacks are not OK on Hacker News, even clever ones.

His name is tosser. Where's the attack?
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