Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

science.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 1001 posts

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#51

Post by freshpots »

mjfl wrote: post #32
dan_can_code wrote: post #3

The cynic in me thinks that the US is going to roll over and take this fascist shake down. The optimist in me thinks that the people will rise up with a resounding NO and do something about it. Right now I'm not sure which I believe.

Reposting because my previous comment was unjustly flagged: The US just facilitated a genocide in the previous administration. This is not just me saying this - this is the consensus ruling of the International Court of Justice at the UN.

Barring all of the hyperbole of your comment, I find it astounding how you're unaware of this with such a "thumb on the pulse" of world news:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2025/feb/04/benjamin-...

Trump said Palestinians have “no alternative” but to “permanently” leave Gaza due to the devastation left by Israel’s war on Hamas. He described Gaza as a “pure demolition site” and claimed Palestinians would “love to leave Gaza”. “I don’t know how they could want to stay,” he said.

Trump’s comments marked the first time he has publicly floated the permanent relocation of Palestinians from Gaza. The US president’s remarks in effect endorsed ethnic cleansing of the territory over the opposition of Palestinians and the neighbouring countries.

Trump is literally for completely ridding Gaza of the Palestinians so Israel can colonize it. An ACTUAL genocide.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#52

Post by bix6 »

Miraste wrote: post #43
dekhn wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note this isn't representative of the tech industry in general. When I worked for Google I visited NIH, sat on study groups, and helped advise program managers how to move more compute to the cloud. Like many other techies in SV I have a PhD in a quantitative science and understand how NIH works. My efforts were entirely designed to help update the establishment, not tear it down, and that's true for the wide swath o…

Unfortunately, that subset is the tech community leadership.

Not leadership, just the loudest.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#54

Post by joe_the_user »

dan_can_code wrote: post #3

The cynic in me thinks that the US is going to roll over and take this fascist shake down. The optimist in me thinks that the people will rise up with a resounding NO and do something about it. Right now I'm not sure which I believe.

The thing I find strange is that the other wealthy and powerful stand for the destruction of things that gave the US a huge competitive advantage. The average person isn't hit immediately by the destruction of science. But a far-sighted person with some power should by self-interest not want this.

And this, I think, points to the corruption of the entire political class in America with just being upshot.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#55

Post by ocschwar »

bawolff wrote: post #4

Seems like a good opportunity for other countries to recruit scientists. I think its underappreciated how much of America's modern success comes down to attracting scientists and intellectuals from war torn europe in the 30s-50s.

Some of my favorite novels are David Lodge's campus novels, and an element in them is the never-ending lure of American academia for British scholars.

Now it's the EU's turn. Computer science is already becoming very, very French. See you guys in Grenoble.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#56

Post by hinkley »

bawolff wrote: post #4

Seems like a good opportunity for other countries to recruit scientists. I think its underappreciated how much of America's modern success comes down to attracting scientists and intellectuals from war torn europe in the 30s-50s.

The World Wide Web essentially exits due to grants from the NSF and alumni from those grants starting Netscape.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#59

Post by dmagee »

There seems to be a lot of negativity from the HN crowd about this. But, the reality is that your fellow Americans voted for this. If you don'y like it, you're going to have to convince people that it's a bad idea. Getting worked up about Trump or Musk or SV bros isn't getting us anywhere.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#60

Post by saalweachter »

acdha wrote: post #45
robbiewxyz wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Small nit, but these folks 100% can not be described as the "tech community". They're owners of big tech monopolies, their VC backers, and our new oligarchs. Tech community, however, they are not.

That feels like a No True Scotsman argument after decades of chasing VC approval, prestigious jobs at those huge companies, and adopting their practices and software. I don’t like the oligarchy either but it’s a huge part of the tech world under any definition I can come up with. We’re having this conversation on a board run by one of the VC firms with partners who are openly supportive of what’s going on, after all…

I mean, HN doesn't have a leg to stand on, but I would say there's a difference between "big tech" and "tech startups", community-wise.

People who love working at Big Tech love it for everything people who go for the Startup World hate, and vice versa.

Post reply on HN