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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

#151

Post by daveguy »

ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote: post #145
mystraline wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A clusterfuck us usually no real plan, and everyone deciding on their own, causing chaos. No, what we are seeing is a coup. The USA has exhausted in causing coups in other parts of the world. Now, we are in a coup caused by the USA government. The executive branch is captured. The courts are captured. Most of Congress is captured. Those left over whinge about 'illegal' and basically send out more emails for more dona…

>the exec, the courts, and a majority of congress I genuinely don't understand how this can be a coup when all three branches agree. I mean sure, we are well outside the strict scope of Constitution, but that ship left generations ago.

It won't be a coup if they abide by the results of the 2026 election. Last time an election didn't go their way, they did not abide by the results.

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

#152

Post by fsckboy »

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…

thanks for the pointer. I looked up AFL vs John Roberts, and the lawsuit seems straightforward and has a reasonable basis.

https://reason.com/volokh/2025/05/04/america-first-legal-fou...

"The suit was prompted by the refusal of the Judicial Conference and Administrative Office to respond to AFLF's FOIA requests for copies of communication with the offices of Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and Representative Hank Johnson, two legislators who have worked overtime to stir up ethical allegations against sitting Supreme Court justices. The Judicial Conference and Administrative Office rebuffed the requests on the grounds that each are exempt from FOIA."

"The basis for AFLF's suit is that the Judicial Conference and Administrative Office are not part of the judiciary, but are instead executive branch agencies subject to FOIA. According to AFLF, neither entity is a "court," and insofar as each has other responsibilities, including the promulgation of rules governing federal courts and responding to Congressional inquiries, each is an "agency" under FOIA."

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

#153

Post by hedora »

voxl wrote: post #90
itsoktocry wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

SARSv1 was very similar to COVID-19 (which was originally called SARSv2).

Under Obama, a team of US scientists working internationally (including in China) detected SARSv1 early enough to stop it from becoming a pandemic. That team had blocked other pandemics over the years.

Trump fired that team early in his first term, preventing the US from running the early response to COVID in China.

Here is a list of current epidemics the US is either intentionally not responding to, or where the response stopped working since Trump got in office:

- Measles

- Avian Flu

- Tuberculosis

- Screw worm

At least one of those is going to hit the US hard in the short term, and Trump’s intentional sabotage of our public health infrastructure will be to blame.

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

#154

Post by [deleted] »

voxl wrote: post #81
jarjoura wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to be a contrarian right now, and it’s hard to disagree that an entire generation of science progress will be severely slowed because of this incompetence. However, deep scientific cultural do roots exist here and won’t be stamped out by some fearmongering. The entire western world is under populist pressure right now, not just here. So even if you imagine someone moving out and studying in a different country…

Have you ever applied for a grant? Do you understand how science in the USA is funded? How it is unique? Will the rest of the world absorb the scientists in the US? Probably not, that is honestly their mistake and missed opportunity, but all the same probably not. Fine, so you're right? Scientists just stick it out? No. The best scientists will definitely leave. Those are the very ones we always wanted to attract. Th…

[deleted]

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

#155

Post by jjtheblunt »

libraryatnight wrote: post #79
jjtheblunt wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Do you work in industry? I do and the notion that all or most science will be coming from MBA driven decision making makes me want to throw up. Industry does the wrong thing for a higher return on a regular basis. That's not what I want driving science.

I worked for a decade at a major research university, and then couple decades in places devoid of MBA types, in the most obvious case because Steve Jobs wasn't into that, nor was the part of Motorola Labs or Sun etc where i was.

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

#156

Post by Onawa »

naasking wrote: post #134
The5thElephant wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not doing basic research, and your research is entirely driven by short-term profit motives rather than long term benefit of humanity.

[flagged]

Please provide evidence of fraud in government funding. I have yet to see any real evidence of fraud from the DOGE reports, just contracts and projects that don't align with the current administration's world view and priorities.

Yes, scientists are human and there are certainly instances of scientific misconduct that take time to root out. In the grand scheme of things, funding for science generates many times its value in economic output.

https://g.co/gemini/share/816aa7510c1a

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

#157

Post by jsbg »

fzeroracer wrote: post #128
jsbg wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> realize that you will most likely end up in industry. > Things are quite bleak right now... you think it's bleak that one's research now has to be profitable rather than being subsidized by people paying taxes?

Why does research have to be profitable? There are many, many smaller diseases and cancers which affect a small subset of the population which will never be 'profitable', but it's important to research for the sake of scientific progress. I fundamentally do not understand how one can be so enthralled by capitalism that they believe we should not research anything unless a shareholder can generate a profit somewhere a…

> Why does research have to be profitable?

Because it's the only way to get a job in industry.

I find it repugnant that theoretical scientists feel entitled to some of my income.

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

#158

Post by AStonesThrow »

kmeisthax wrote: post #100
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

You're broadly right, but I would argue that the "anti-populist infrastructure" is specifically responsible for electoral fetishism. The thing to remember is that in the 1950s and 60s the US government was basically running a censorship regime and had manufactured an anti-Communist consensus. They had to do this because democratic politics back then meant political parties actually listening to their constituents. In…

You want to know what I think? I have begun to believe that McCarthyism and the “Red Scare” and the House Committee, while purporting to be “anti-communist” were inwardly concerned about Eastern Bloc Jews gaining the upper hand domestically.

Now some Jews were Communist sympathizers and some weren’t. But there were just so many who flooded in from staunchly Eastern-Bloc, Soviet-dominated areas that they were sure to gain powerful footholds in Western society.

McCarthy and the House couldn’t afford to be perceived as “anti-Semitic” so they chose to couch everything in patriotic anti-Commie terms. But in hindsight, look at how miniscule the influence has been here from Soviet Communism, compared to ideologies of Eastern-Bloc Jews [many who are quite secular and Americanized].

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

#159

Post by jsbg »

vunderba wrote: post #144
jsbg wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> realize that you will most likely end up in industry. > Things are quite bleak right now... you think it's bleak that one's research now has to be profitable rather than being subsidized by people paying taxes?

Didn't the space race help usher in consumer technology such as CAT scanners, GPS, digital imaging, etc.?

How do you know those scientists and engineers would have contributed less to society had they been employed based on supply and demand instead of central planning?

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

#160

Post by kashunstva »

jsbg wrote: post #92
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…

> realize that you will most likely end up in industry. > Things are quite bleak right now... you think it's bleak that one's research now has to be profitable rather than being subsidized by people paying taxes?

> you think it's bleak that one's research now has to be profitable … ?

The connection between new knowledge and profit is often indirect and cannot be clearly predicted beforehand. And, why must something be profitable in order to justify it? Are there no valid outcomes other than profit?

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