The year I didn't survive

I think economic factors and the health of society at large are one of the largest parts of this. I'm young and didn't get to grow up in an innocent time, and anyone older than me seems worse off. The only way I think I can make things work is to make drastic life choices like relocation, and live pretty alternative lifestyles like off grid for economic security.

I'm always wondering where the interesting people went, but maybe they became just like everyone else.

Sometimes, you just have to walk out on it all. Pack a go-back, open the door and go. You are not the domain of some vampire of suck to park their life in. You can just leave them and start over. Relationships should not a trap door function.

This resonates with me very deeply. In the last few months of my 40th year, I exited my 2nd company - somewhat against my wishes (although I could've chosen differently). The day that deal closed my mother went into coma after complications from a routine hip surgery, and died after 9 weeks of intensive care. A few months later my dad had a brain hemorrhage leading to dementia; and due to a variety of factors I ended up taking care of a 4 year old and a 2 year old alone during weekdays; the emotional fabric of my marriage fell apart too.

It was a quadruple loss - losing the company I wanted to continue, losing my mother (who had provided emotional support), my father (who had previously been full of good advice), and then realizing that the support system that remained was not available.

Obviously this is different from losing a partner and father-of-a-child to cancer, but emotionally I recognize my own state ca. 2.5 years ago in this article - complete with the realization that the person I was before all of this is not around any more.

For quite a number of people the early 40s have some pretty brutal transitions in store.

That said, the nadir of the grief and loss is also in the rear-view mirror, and a few years later things are definitely looking up. We may not be the person we used to be, but there is such a thing as wisdom, and I think I have a much more nuanced and empathetic world view today, and a deeper appreciation of the value of lifetime.

No they didn't look at other grants!

They looked at a handful of cherry picked charities that love to donate to high profile projects. Universities subsidize these grants internally to get other donations!

When I get money from say the Gates foundation, they are almost always topping up existing research not doing something new. On a high profile topic donors are attracted to.

These cherry picked foundations also give very little money; well under 1% of what we bring in. So the lack of indirect costs has a minor effect on the system that gets balanced by other well meaning donors.

Had they looked at other grants they would have seen that the indirect costs are in line with what NIH was paying. The bulk of other grants includes NSF, DARPA, ONR, etc.

Or they could have asked, when a corporation gives a university money, what do they think is a reasonable overhead rate? Because we don't accept money from for profit entities at anything less than the full overhead rate. And corporations pay it because it's reasonable. That's because they fund a lot of research and because they aren't a charity we would subsidize with other donations.

Or they could ask. When a corporation gets an NIH grant, what are their indirect costs? Are university indirect costs in line? After all everyone needs to keep the lights on.

Corporations are not subject to the cap at all! They can get a grant and charge 100% overhead. This only applies to universities. The government could not give a biotech company a grant with 15% overhead, no company would ever take it.

I have seen the indirect costs that some major corporations charge. 100% is low for them! And the government pays it. In every single contract with industry.

Except for universities. That they single out to dry to drive into insolvency.

So no. They didn't look at other grants. They could have computed countless statistics against tens of millions of grants for hundreds of billions of dollars. They picked the most elite nice small charities that give out a few hundred grants that we fund ourselves for the most bleeding heart projects.