Everyone at NSF overseeing the Platforms for Wireless Experimentation is gone

Post by neilv » Tue, Feb 25, 2025, 2:40 AM UTC

carterschonwald wrote: post #44

abirch wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In addition to these scientists, I heard from my friends in academia that they will be taking fewer PhD students because they're unsure of the funding. We may be looking at a lost decade.

My fear as well. I’m not sure if even a magic wish to rearrange stuff back to the before January state of affairs is possible at this point. Write to your representatives. I fear that if they don’t pull off something the only ethical and responsible thing is civil war. This shit is insane and will destroy everything I like about our government. Also to quote every true patriot: the only good Nazi is a dead Nazi. I’m…

Post by koolba » Tue, Feb 25, 2025, 2:41 AM UTC

abirch wrote: post #31

polairscience wrote: post #28

This is true for many programs for reasons that will be hard to understand if you aren't a scientist. The NSF program managers are often pulled out of academia for brief periods of their career to do various tasks as experts. This means they are often probationary. This is the only way to hire people with deep expertise on the topic-du-jour. The trump administration fired in wide swaths many probationary employees at…

In addition to these scientists, I heard from my friends in academia that they will be taking fewer PhD students because they're unsure of the funding. We may be looking at a lost decade.

Post by andix » Tue, Feb 25, 2025, 2:42 AM UTC

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #63

abirch wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In addition to these scientists, I heard from my friends in academia that they will be taking fewer PhD students because they're unsure of the funding. We may be looking at a lost decade.

> We may be looking at a lost decade. We're looking at the US wilfully letting go of the possibiility of remaining the most powerful nation in the world. Reduced health, reduced education, reduced funding for research, reduced international aid programs (which both garner goodwill whilst also creating a bulwark against those who profit from misery), reduced oversight / regulation of the power of capital, alienation o…

Post by 01HNNWZ0MV43FF » Tue, Feb 25, 2025, 2:45 AM UTC

UncleMeat wrote: post #77

sneak wrote: post #50

Consent matters. There is no worse tyranny than to force someone to pay for something they do not want to buy, simply because you think it would be good for them. I am vehemently pro-research and pro-education, but these tax-funded programs are not it. There must be some meaningful connection to the delivery of value, otherwise this stuff is just public-private wealth transfer. This seems obvious to me. Why should th…

I can think of a large number of vastly worse tyrannies. The outcome of this is not going to be a smaller government that achieves 80% of its previous goals with 70% of the spending. The outcome of this is going to be massively chaotic organizations and less efficiency because of the huge fucking wrecking balls slammed into everything by people that have publicly spoken about their goal to destroy the post-new-deal s…

Post by ihsw » Tue, Feb 25, 2025, 2:48 AM UTC

andix wrote: post #80

chii wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you've read the three-body problem series (or the tv show) [spoiler incoming] - - - - the way to stop humanity from being able to fight back (against alien invasion) is not via weapons, but via disabling science. It's a long term strategy. So the conspiracy theory that trump is a russian asset (or is influenced by them at the least), seems plausible, if you imagine that such removal of science and research funding…

Those concepts are not science fiction, they were very often used in the past already. Just read about how the most famous dictators in history came to power, and what they did first. Discrediting scientist is a standard step for most dictators. They only keep the bare minimum they need for the military and surveillance.