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WH proposes rules giving political appointees final approval on research grants

scientificamerican.com

201–210 of 676 posts

Re: WH proposes rules giving political appointees final approval on research grants

#202

Could oversight like this lead to politics overriding science? Sure, of course. But to even ask the question presumes that politics isn’t already overriding science within the academy, just from a different direction.

The old way is a magnet pulling everything toward the industrial military consumer complex.

This new direction turns the magnet around and pushes away everything else.

Re: WH proposes rules giving political appointees final approval on research grants

#203

More of the same at this point. If you are politically connected, or stay in an narrow lane of approved work, you get your grant. But if you stray from the politically approved path, or appear disloyal to our First Citizen and the Party, then your grant will be canceled. The remaining supporters of the incumbent party like to claim that they aren't actually doing anything worse than in the past, and if anything they…

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Re: WH proposes rules giving political appointees final approval on research grants

#204
post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Emigrate where? And why do you assume that the country you're gonna emigrate to will have the funds necessay to fund the research? US grants are the biggest and most generous in the world. I think the USG spends over $900 Billion every year. Europe spends about 1/10th of that. Other option is China but as a foreigner, you will never get a grant there unless you work for someone else.

> Emigrate where? And why do you assume that the country you're gonna emigrate to will have the funds necessay to fund the research? If the choice is between $0 in the US and >$0 someplace else, you emigrate to >$0 if you want to continue your research.

I wonder where you suggest researchers go that is both granting funding and not attaching similar or more stringent strings to the money?

Re: WH proposes rules giving political appointees final approval on research grants

#205
post #176

If you want to stay a scientist, you have to emigrate. The art of continually licking the right asses to keep funding going is not science.

Emigrate where? And why do you assume that the country you're gonna emigrate to will have the funds necessay to fund the research? US grants are the biggest and most generous in the world. I think the USG spends over $900 Billion every year. Europe spends about 1/10th of that. Other option is China but as a foreigner, you will never get a grant there unless you work for someone else.

1/10th?

US: $848B (2024)

EU: $508B (2024)

---

UK: $102B (2023)

Switzerland: $22B (2023)

Norway: $8.2B (2024)

OECD "Gross domestic spending on R&D"

Re: WH proposes rules giving political appointees final approval on research grants

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think China needs the kind of scientists disproportionately affected by the bad orange man's vendetta.

You mean Vaccine researchers? Or renewable energy researchers?

oh, don't be coy.

https://nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov/files/NSF-Terminated-Award...

I wouldn't even need to cherry pick.

Re: WH proposes rules giving political appointees final approval on research grants

#207
post #176

If you want to stay a scientist, you have to emigrate. The art of continually licking the right asses to keep funding going is not science.

Emigrate where? And why do you assume that the country you're gonna emigrate to will have the funds necessay to fund the research? US grants are the biggest and most generous in the world. I think the USG spends over $900 Billion every year. Europe spends about 1/10th of that. Other option is China but as a foreigner, you will never get a grant there unless you work for someone else.

Does the US spend that much anymore? How much are you willing to compromise the integrity of your research to get your slice of what’s left?

Re: WH proposes rules giving political appointees final approval on research grants

#208
post #176

If you want to stay a scientist, you have to emigrate. The art of continually licking the right asses to keep funding going is not science.

Emigrate where? And why do you assume that the country you're gonna emigrate to will have the funds necessay to fund the research? US grants are the biggest and most generous in the world. I think the USG spends over $900 Billion every year. Europe spends about 1/10th of that. Other option is China but as a foreigner, you will never get a grant there unless you work for someone else.

> I think the USG spends over $900 Billion every year. Europe spends about 1/10th of that

Do you mean that the EU spends 1/10th that, rather than Europe? Because France, Germany and the UK all spend €100-150bn each in grants depending on how you set your definition, and that’s atop the EU’s grant money.

Just eyeballing the figures across different countries, it looks like the USG distributes approximately the same amount in grants per capita as the EU & UK. Certainly not a 90% diff.

Re: WH proposes rules giving political appointees final approval on research grants

#209

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> Also it really is sad to see “Hacker” News be “World News”. More Zig and less White House, please.

I have been on this website for 17 years (ugh that's scary), and people have been posting variations of this remark the entire time. It's a tiresome sort of post the thousandth time.

Politics have always been a consistent part of this website: it's a big part of the world that hackers live in, and barring rule enforcement to the contrary, hackers will always find politics interesting and want to talk about it.

If you want a website with a more narrow focus, there's always lobste.rs.

Re: WH proposes rules giving political appointees final approval on research grants

#210
post #169

if the Dems don't also take back the Senate, this country is done it will take longer than this decade, maybe even next, to restore the brain loss and faith in secure jobs for research basically this country will just become a highway of non-stop warehouses, alternating ICE prisons vs "AI" datacenters science, medicine, all research and development just gone to other countries

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