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Why I'm resigning from the National Science Foundation

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Re: Why I'm resigning from the National Science Foundation

#51

Post by mlinhares »

eig wrote: post #42
glitchc wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The parent commenter is not speaking about science as a whole, they are speaking about US dominance in science. You state that "hiccup won't stop or even slow down science in the US. All it will do is take government out of the equation." I disagree and I would suspect most scientists reading that statement would also disagree. I too have seen many bright people turning away from the US because of this. I am personal…

Germany could have invented the atomic bomb and decimated the world if it wasn't for the Nazi stupidity.

Re: Why I'm resigning from the National Science Foundation

#52

Post by pbhjpbhj »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #46
amanaplanacanal wrote: post #10

Evidently the president appointed one of his personal attorneys to be the new librarian of Congress. The library turned him away because Congress hasn't approved him. It seems it's becoming more of a clusterfuck just about every day.

It's not a clusterfuck. The librarian of congress move was a deliberate hostile attempt attempt by the executive to take control over the legislative branch. Just like AFL vs John Roberts is a hostile attempt to take over the judicial. It's an concerted attempted authoritarian takeover through bureaucratic methods. When they exhaust this, you'll see them frustrated and declare states of emergencies. The founders wrot…

"It's not a clustefuck" ... proceeds to describe a clusterfuck ...

What was your intention here?

Re: Why I'm resigning from the National Science Foundation

#53

Post by candiddevmike »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #9
vessenes wrote: post #3

Good read; too long to sway public opinion though. The most convincing and interesting thing I’ve read about the US’s science standing is just a reminder that it wasn’t always considered a global science leader. A few people saw the opportunity created by Nazi ideological purges of scientists and built, among other things, Princeton’s IAS. Considered most charitably, the current administration sees itself as trying t…

> too long to sway public opinion Our founders were aware of the perils of letting public opinion write public policy. We’ve spent a lot of the post-Cold War era dismantling that anti-populist infrastructure. To the extent I see a guiding light out of this mess, it’s in reducing the electoral fetishism that has dominated post-90s democratic discourse. There is more to democracy (and more pointedly, republics) than po…

The US has (almost by design?) a system the favors tyranny of the minority. I'd argue the opposite: that the majority of voters are not well represented. Our two party system with capped Congress member count (which is reflected in the executive branch) and useless Senate only serve a minority of (monied) interests in the country.

Re: Why I'm resigning from the National Science Foundation

#54

Post by throwaway5752 »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #52
throwaway5752 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a clusterfuck. The librarian of congress move was a deliberate hostile attempt attempt by the executive to take control over the legislative branch. Just like AFL vs John Roberts is a hostile attempt to take over the judicial. It's an concerted attempted authoritarian takeover through bureaucratic methods. When they exhaust this, you'll see them frustrated and declare states of emergencies. The founders wrot…

"It's not a clustefuck" ... proceeds to describe a clusterfuck ... What was your intention here?

A clusterfuck describes chaos and disorganization. This is just a deliberate attack, it is being executed well. It is just malicious.

Re: Why I'm resigning from the National Science Foundation

#55

Post by fooblaster »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #52
throwaway5752 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a clusterfuck. The librarian of congress move was a deliberate hostile attempt attempt by the executive to take control over the legislative branch. Just like AFL vs John Roberts is a hostile attempt to take over the judicial. It's an concerted attempted authoritarian takeover through bureaucratic methods. When they exhaust this, you'll see them frustrated and declare states of emergencies. The founders wrot…

"It's not a clustefuck" ... proceeds to describe a clusterfuck ... What was your intention here?

A clusterfuck generally implies a mishandled situation. The author is saying that there was intention behind the actions and that this outcome was the goal.

Re: Why I'm resigning from the National Science Foundation

#56

Post by ben_w »

Onawa wrote: post #26
howmayiannoyyou wrote: post #20

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shFUDPqVmTg Sabine highlights the problem with scientific funding in this video and it should be required watching before posting on this thread. Reform is needed. Some good will be tossed with a lot of bad. Its a cycle, a pendulum, and it will eventually tip to excess again sometime in the future. For now... fixing what is broken ought to be the priority.

Counterpoint, please consider watching Professor Dave discuss the issues with Sabine's talking points. While there are certainly problems within science, Sabine has the most nihilistic view of the field. https://youtu.be/nJjPH3TQif0

I think there may be a language issue here; to use her own words as best as I can remember them, excusing her bluntness under "perhaps I'm just German" — a messy kichen here in Germany would be described with the word "Chaos", and a mistake that a Brit would call "dropping the ball" would be described as "eine totale Shitshow".

This doesn't render her immune to the lifecycle of physicists, of course: https://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2556 and https://xkcd.com/793/

But that means I don't put too much credence to her summary of climate science or trans stuff: when it's the topic of inclusivity attempts, she's got the direct personal experience to play the "here's how well intentioned policies backfire" card; when it's the internal politics within science, honestly that reminds me a lot of software development's cycle of which language, framework, design pattern, and organisational orientation pattern (objects, composition, functional, etc.) is a code smell or the smell of coffee that one should wake up to, so it rings true even if I can't verify it.

Re: Why I'm resigning from the National Science Foundation

#57

Post by simpaticoder »

Onawa wrote: post #26
howmayiannoyyou wrote: post #20

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shFUDPqVmTg Sabine highlights the problem with scientific funding in this video and it should be required watching before posting on this thread. Reform is needed. Some good will be tossed with a lot of bad. Its a cycle, a pendulum, and it will eventually tip to excess again sometime in the future. For now... fixing what is broken ought to be the priority.

Counterpoint, please consider watching Professor Dave discuss the issues with Sabine's talking points. While there are certainly problems within science, Sabine has the most nihilistic view of the field. https://youtu.be/nJjPH3TQif0

>Sabine has the most nihilistic view of the field

"The field" in her case is "particle physics". And she's been making a very good case against the non-science being done in that field. Unfortunately, like physicists tend to do, for some reason, she's branched out into criticizing "not her field" as well, sometimes even non-science topics, to far worse effect. She's become an excellent example of audience capture, a loss to us all (and a loss to credibility she earned within particle physics).

Re: Why I'm resigning from the National Science Foundation

#58

Post by malcolmgreaves »

howmayiannoyyou wrote: post #20

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shFUDPqVmTg Sabine highlights the problem with scientific funding in this video and it should be required watching before posting on this thread. Reform is needed. Some good will be tossed with a lot of bad. Its a cycle, a pendulum, and it will eventually tip to excess again sometime in the future. For now... fixing what is broken ought to be the priority.

The Republicans are not fixing anything that's broken with scientific funding. They are purposely making the problems worse.

Re: Why I'm resigning from the National Science Foundation

#59

Post by jjtheblunt »

Onawa wrote: post #25

As a federal contractor within NIH, I can tell you that the damage has already been done to the United States' dominance in science. Even if every action taken by current administration is reversed, the uncertainty for foreign scientists is too much. Many that I have spoken to are looking for their exit from either gov or academic research, or looking to leave the United States completely. The Trump admins cuts are n…

You didn't say what's wrong with ending up in industry, but mention it like it's bad?

Re: Why I'm resigning from the National Science Foundation

#60

Post by pbhjpbhj »

vessenes wrote: post #3

Good read; too long to sway public opinion though. The most convincing and interesting thing I’ve read about the US’s science standing is just a reminder that it wasn’t always considered a global science leader. A few people saw the opportunity created by Nazi ideological purges of scientists and built, among other things, Princeton’s IAS. Considered most charitably, the current administration sees itself as trying t…

>Considered most charitably, the current administration sees itself as trying to return to an era of imperialism for the good of the country.

I mean there's charitable interpretation, then there's being an emu and pretending that the transfer of massive wealth to Trump and his cronies through stock market manipulation (after removing checks on said manipulation, apparently) isn't just wide scale theft. $3.4B to only two of Trump's circle {Trump bragged in a recent video} direct from the pockets of regular investors through market manipulation - I could well imagine the total is trillions.

'I'm stealing from you for your own good'!

Hmm.

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