WH proposes rules giving political appointees final approval on research grants • Hacker News Board

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

#461

Post by SpicyLemonZest » Sat, May 30, 2026, 6:42 PM UTC

swed420 wrote: post #438

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by "manufactured consent for each other the whole time"? I'm familiar with the Noam Chomsky book Manufacturing Consent , but this book was about the dynamics that shape coverage decisions in mass media, not some concrete process which Person X could perform "for" Person Y. I also struggle to see how it can be that different Presidents with often directly contradictory policies could both be serving t…

> What do you mean by "manufactured consent for each other the whole time"? > I also struggle to see how it can be that different Presidents with often directly contradictory policies could both be serving the same ruling class interests. Using the polarizing topic of COVID (whose risks remain in 2026) as an example, we can answer both of your questions: https://www.thegauntlet.news/p/how-the-press-manufactured-co...…

Covid is a great example, because outside of hyperpartisan spaces, it was not a polarizing topic at the time these pieces were written. As the second link details, by 2022, the American people strongly felt that there were more important problems to tackle and we would have to eventually accept Covid as a fact of life. Ms. Doubleday perceives her problem to be with "the press" because she's out of touch, and doesn't realize that they're simply reporting what most Americans want and how most Americans feel.

People who are concerned about "corporatism" have the same problem. I often see them get confused and frustrated when the news presents "big government" as a scary thing that people are worried about - doesn't everyone know big business is the more important concern? Most Americans don't agree with them (https://news.gallup.com/poll/701054/perceived-threat-big-bus...), but if all your friends think big business sucks and government programs are great, it's hard to know that this is something you should check.

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

#462

Post by notahacker » Sat, May 30, 2026, 6:44 PM UTC

izacus wrote: post #436

notahacker wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, me pointing out the people exactly like me totally can and do fill in boxes like this and secure grants is totally "insulting a race and sex". I thought it was supposed to be the libs who were grievance mongers desperate to feel discriminated against... Honestly, if filling in those boxes with anything other than a diatribe against the suitability of women and minorities and poor people to do research is "follo…

If filling those boxes was so easy, you won't have issues filling up republican boxes with content they want to hear to get funding, right? That's what happens when academia politicizes themselves - they become part of the game. And that means begging for scraps of who ever is currently on the top. It's horrible... but you said yourself - you just need to fill some boxes correctly.

Except, of course, that it isn't a matter of simply filling in checkboxes stating how research is going to contribute towards Americans' greatness. It's a matter of mass retrospective cancellation of research funding and the replacement of peer review with commissar review by the sort of people that can't tell the difference between transgenic and transgender and block the publication of studies if they don't align with the administration's position on vaccines

Nobody honestly believes the two are equivalent.

Ultimately an argument that an application question with option for researchers to state they have an equal opportunities policy is as much of an imposition as legislating for studies to be retrospectively defunded if the clinical outcomes don't align with the administrations' preferred pseudoscience says more about you than it does about past politicization of science...

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

#463

Post by somenameforme » Sat, May 30, 2026, 6:47 PM UTC

9dev wrote: post #378

amazingamazing wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world should be more independent and self sufficient. It will be better in the long run.

To what goal? USAID and similar programs always had the indirect benefit of opening up foreign markets to the USA. It's just short-sighted out of sheer economic considerations - and that's ignoring the ridiculous recklessness of pulling the rug under millions of people. Hundreds of thousands have died due to the USAID cuts; those deaths could have been prevented by approaching this in a more professional manner.

Stability. In 'decentralized' systems, if any entity does something dumb, the impact is localized and consequently negligible. By contrast in centralized systems, one misstep by the central power can trigger catastrophic consequences. Another benefit of decentralized systems is that sometimes those dumb things end up being brilliant, and so we end up with a much richer system with a better idea of what works and what doesn't work, what's stable and what isn't, and so on.

Decentralized systems also help local entities develop and grow into their own. Necessity is the mother of invention and centralized systems largely remove the necessity of local expertise which cripples efforts to advance it. This is the 17th declared major outbreak of ebola in the DRC. One would think that by the time you've had a few major ebola outbreaks, let alone 16, you'd be building up a rich body of expertise, knowledge, and competence, but that does not really seem to be the case.

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

#464

Post by throwaway85825 » Sat, May 30, 2026, 7:06 PM UTC

gwerbin wrote: post #168

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…

>If you are politically connected, or stay in an narrow lane of approved work, you get your grant.

That's how its always been, it's just that most people are not attuned to academic politics.

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

#465

Post by kashunstva » Sat, May 30, 2026, 7:14 PM UTC

wisemanwillhear wrote: post #391

gammarator wrote: post #358

Here's a more concise summary of the proposed changes: https://elizabethginexi.substack.com/p/summary-of-key-change... I don't think any practicing scientist of any political persuasion will think these are good for science. Science progresses by sharing knowledge openly and publicly, so others can evaluate it, criticize it, and build on it. These severe restrictions on collaboration, publication, and public communic…

Why does science need to be through the government? Irrespective of the proposal, science research is just as open after this change as before so long as it's funded by private citizens who can control the channels through which they donate to this work. On the other hand, if we can't get private citizens to donate to science research, then they are not likely to vote for it either--polls don't register much of a con…

Given the apparent low levels of scientific literacy among the U.S. public, I can’t imagine their ability to discern priorities or worthwhile lines of investigation would be any more useful than a coin toss. Or worse.

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

#466

Post by SubiculumCode » Sat, May 30, 2026, 7:21 PM UTC

SubiculumCode wrote: post #352

simonw wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You mispoke on that issue? No grant. You were of the wrong political perssuassion? No grant. Hurt the feelings of X group? No grant." Are you talking about not getting the grant in the first place, or are you talking about grants being cancelled after they had been approved and you had taken the money and started doing the funded work? Those two situations are different.

They are different situations, but both are equally applicable here. 1. Grants can be canceled at will. 2. All grants are approved or denied by political appointees, who are instructed to only treat peer review as advisory considerations.

For those who disagree, see [1]

[1] https://elizabethginexi.substack.com/p/summary-of-key-change...

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

#467

Post by sandworm101 » Sat, May 30, 2026, 7:23 PM UTC

tremon wrote: post #415

sandworm101 wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, any research related to weapons programs. Jobs/grants in the fields of laser research, AI, material sciences, mathematics, chemistry and aerospace are safe... so long as you dont talk to outsiders.

so long as you dont talk to outsiders outsiders like... their immediate family back home?

Yes. Having "foreign contacts" is bad, even family members. If the family was somewhere like china then these would be called "adversarial foreign contacts". Culture has changed in the last ten years. People with grandparents in china are having significant problems when applying for jobs/clearances.

https://clearedjobs.net/guides/security-clearance-foreign-co...

>> A foreign national spouse who is a citizen of the United Kingdom will be evaluated very differently from a foreign national spouse who is a citizen of China or Russia. Both must be disclosed fully, but the national security concern level is substantially different. Applicants with significant ties to adversarial countries face more intensive investigations and, in some cases, may not be eligible for certain programs even if their individual loyalty is not in question.

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

#468

Post by BrenBarn » Sat, May 30, 2026, 7:24 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #74

kxrm wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be forgetting that one man is making these calls, not the people.

Yes, the man who the people picked to be the CEO of the executive branch for a 4-year term.

That is assuming that the system under which they picked him was a reasonable instantiation of democratic principles, which it is not.

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

#469

Post by SubiculumCode » Sat, May 30, 2026, 7:26 PM UTC

SoftTalker wrote: post #360

gwerbin wrote: post #168

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…

My father was a Ph.D., a research scientist at a large state university. After understanding how political everything is under the surface, he cautioned me from ever working in a field that depended on government funding. "What one administration gives you, the next one can take away" is close to a literal quote. Outsiders like to imagine that the pure pursuit of science without any agendas is what university researc…

As someone actually in the field at a research university, who regularly applies for grants and has served on study section review boards for NIH federal grants, I have to do a strong disagree. Has it ever happened? Sure. Is it the norm? Not until now.

Also as someone who lost a grant from this administration for supposed DEI (it was fucking biology, but ignorant fucks didn't give a shit), I also want to say fuck them.

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

#470

Post by inglor_cz » Sat, May 30, 2026, 7:28 PM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #431

inglor_cz wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$$$$$ > €€€ or ££ With a few exceptions like Switzerland, American levels of compensation for highly qualified people just can't be matched anywhere in the Western world. Saudi Arabia or UAE maybe, but these don't even try to pretend to be socially and politically liberal.

> With a few exceptions like Switzerland, American levels of compensation for highly qualified people just can't be matched anywhere in the Western world. Gross compensation yes. But if you begin deducting stuff like the absurd American housing costs, private healthcare, saving up for deductibles, the need to own, insure, fuel and maintain a car to do everything because almost nothing is accessible by public transpor…

Still, until Trump started his latest round of madness, we had a huge brain drain from the EU to US and not vice versa. Were they all stupid?

They weren't. Our highly taxed and relatively stagnant economies are more affordable & attractive for poorer people, but the well-paid professional class was simply better off in the US. Especially with some optimizations, such as: get your professional degree for free in Germany, then move to the US for its high salaries without a debt to pay.