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Everyone at NSF overseeing the Platforms for Wireless Experimentation is gone

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Re: Everyone at NSF overseeing the Platforms for Wireless Experimentation is gone

#181

Post by joquarky »

pizza wrote: post #165
digitaltrees wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not far away from dying. I would argue that it’s already too late. The trump administration has shown that it can seize the power to control spending which is constitutionally an exclusive power if congress and courts can’t and won’t do anything about it. We are past a constitutional crisis, republicans had a theory of a unitary executive and prove they can stream roll other branches. Now trump and others are ta…

Here are some new concrete developments that I doubt the founders of the democracy would say are fine: - the Executive Branch now has presumptive - if not absolute - immunity against all criminal official acts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_v._United_States_%282024... - universities must obey Trump's culture war agenda, otherwise they will be de-accredited and a fine equal to the value of the entire university…

> otherwise they will be de-accredited

Who decides the ultimate authority on accreditation anyway?

Why can't we just start a new trust network?

Re: Everyone at NSF overseeing the Platforms for Wireless Experimentation is gone

#182

Post by _heimdall »

digitaltrees wrote: post #117
andix wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You forgot "wilfully letting go of democracy". US democracy is far away from dying, but who knows how much longer it can keep holding up.

It’s not far away from dying. I would argue that it’s already too late. The trump administration has shown that it can seize the power to control spending which is constitutionally an exclusive power if congress and courts can’t and won’t do anything about it. We are past a constitutional crisis, republicans had a theory of a unitary executive and prove they can stream roll other branches. Now trump and others are ta…

Trump is continuing a trend that has been going on since at least Bush Jr. Presidents for a couple decades now have been moving more power into the executive branch.

Obama and Biden both talked about undoing this, but neither did. The Patriot Act still exists, three letter agencies still have authority to spy on American citizens, and immigration laws still defy what's written on the Statue of Liberty (I think most have forgotten how harsh Obama was on southern immigration).

Re: Everyone at NSF overseeing the Platforms for Wireless Experimentation is gone

#183

Post by garden_hermit »

Mathnerd314 wrote: post #126
Kindra wrote: post #32

Notwithstanding the other awful aspects of all of this, there’s a certain vibe of, “people who don’t understand how a system works attempting to act like they know how the system works and are too cowardly to admit they are breaking everything.” This just reads like “Character Limit” except replace Twitter with the federal government.

Sometimes the only way to know something is important is to shut it off and see if anyone complains. For example, lots of stories in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9629714 . Now certainly the Trump administration could have been more careful, but they only have 4 years so the Facebook motto of "move fast and break things" applies.

Thats fine for a sofrware startup because it fundamentally doesn't matter. Who cares if your silly website fails after you experiment, no one gets seriously hurt.

Shutting off the government means that things can be irreparably damaged. Losing a generation of scientists because of random cullings at the NSF will have effects for decades.

In the worst case, "moving fast and breaking things" with the government will kill people. For example, many patients were kicked off clinical trials during the NIH funding freeze. Abroad, the end of PEPFAR could kill untold numbers of people.

Re: Everyone at NSF overseeing the Platforms for Wireless Experimentation is gone

#184

Post by Mathnerd314 »

jbaber wrote: post #150
Mathnerd314 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes the only way to know something is important is to shut it off and see if anyone complains. For example, lots of stories in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9629714 . Now certainly the Trump administration could have been more careful, but they only have 4 years so the Facebook motto of "move fast and break things" applies.

I wouldn't do this if there were lives at stake. e.g. turning off circuits in a hospital to see which ones are really necessary. It's a very strong claim to say no lives depend on any federal funding.

All of the important programs have temporary restraining orders. That's actually the standard the judge applies, "is there a possibility of irreparable harm?" (e.g. lives lost). It's not perfect but no system is.

Re: Everyone at NSF overseeing the Platforms for Wireless Experimentation is gone

#185

Post by jfengel »

MyOutfitIsVague wrote: post #88
xnx wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Step 1: Fire people to "save" single digit billions Step 2: Give 100's of billions in tax cuts to the richest

4 Trillion in tax cuts, actually.

The way tax cuts are reported, it sums up over the lifetime effect of the cut, usually ten years.

So this is hundreds of billions per year, and 4 trillion in total effect on the debt.

Re: Everyone at NSF overseeing the Platforms for Wireless Experimentation is gone

#186

Post by ajross »

cyberax wrote: post #170
digitaltrees wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not far away from dying. I would argue that it’s already too late. The trump administration has shown that it can seize the power to control spending which is constitutionally an exclusive power if congress and courts can’t and won’t do anything about it. We are past a constitutional crisis, republicans had a theory of a unitary executive and prove they can stream roll other branches. Now trump and others are ta…

The US is a strong federative country. Individual states are almost literally _states_ (as in "country") and have a lot of power. They can impose their own carbon taxes, net neutrality rules, fund research, etc. And more importantly, their local democracy is going strong.

States have "power", but not money. There are no state level science grants anywhere at the scale of the linked article.

Re: Everyone at NSF overseeing the Platforms for Wireless Experimentation is gone

#187

Post by kragen »

devmunchies wrote: post #90
dqv wrote: post #59

Interesting approach to competing with China on wireless technology. I would have thought the US having a competitive edge over China in terms of research and development would be important to Republicans.

The federal govt can’t be the majority of technological innovation. If we’re lucky this vacuum will be filled by an even larger private sector innovation hub like Xerox park and bell labs.

It will be largely filled by Chinese universities and Chinese companies working together. Non-Chinese researchers will probably have to go to Europe.

Re: Everyone at NSF overseeing the Platforms for Wireless Experimentation is gone

#188

Post by amluto »

devmunchies wrote: post #90
dqv wrote: post #59

Interesting approach to competing with China on wireless technology. I would have thought the US having a competitive edge over China in terms of research and development would be important to Republicans.

The federal govt can’t be the majority of technological innovation. If we’re lucky this vacuum will be filled by an even larger private sector innovation hub like Xerox park and bell labs.

Various institutions that, among other things, receive federal grant money, make up an enormous amount of technological innovation. The federal government deciding it doesn’t want to pay out money that it has already contracted to pay is not going to help these institutions succeed at their innovation mission.

I, personally, believe that much of the current financial structure of the universities is broken, and the structure of the “indirect costs” causes strongly misaligned incentives, but arbitrarily and massively lowering the rates on zero notice is not the solution. I’ll note that no one involve in DOGE seems to have an actual proposal to improve the situation — they just seem to want to shut everything off.

Re: Everyone at NSF overseeing the Platforms for Wireless Experimentation is gone

#189

Post by _heimdall »

pizza wrote: post #165
digitaltrees wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not far away from dying. I would argue that it’s already too late. The trump administration has shown that it can seize the power to control spending which is constitutionally an exclusive power if congress and courts can’t and won’t do anything about it. We are past a constitutional crisis, republicans had a theory of a unitary executive and prove they can stream roll other branches. Now trump and others are ta…

Here are some new concrete developments that I doubt the founders of the democracy would say are fine: - the Executive Branch now has presumptive - if not absolute - immunity against all criminal official acts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_v._United_States_%282024... - universities must obey Trump's culture war agenda, otherwise they will be de-accredited and a fine equal to the value of the entire university…

Impoundment, or rather the idea that it is an issue, is a weird concept in general. Congress legislates executive directives that should be acted upon and provides a budget. They don't say "spend every dollar we give" and they rarely define metrics for success to know if the executive branch is meeting their goals.

The fact that the Trump administration is able to so easily chest the game and roll back agencies is a side effect of congress writing thousands of pages of legislation without ever bothering to define precisely what is expected of the executive branch.

Re: Everyone at NSF overseeing the Platforms for Wireless Experimentation is gone

#190

Post by ncallaway »

late2part wrote: post #107
andix wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Who is the dictator here? Obviously the states that run these schools will raise taxes to fund the state schools, no?

> Who is the dictator here?

I’d say the leader of the executive branch who is unconstitutionally restricting (without an act of Congress) money that Congress lawfully appropriated, thereby seizing most of the power of the purse.

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