Presumably next he will nominate Kushner, Dr. Oz and a few donors... What a shame for a country.
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Is this something Putin specifically wanted, or just a general "Putin wants a weaker USA, and this action results in a weaker USA"?
Trump fires NSF's oversight board
131–140 of 383 posts
Re: Trump fires NSF's oversight board
#132There’s a lot of political commentary in these threads about how dumb the admin is this and that, sarcasm, etc. but is anyone able to share why this is such a truly beneficial org to our country? I’m just out of the loop on this and I’m genuinely asking, I have never really heard of them. But by the reactions in the comments they’re like the most blessed org of our country and accelerate innovation and advancement of…
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Re: Trump fires NSF's oversight board
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
Best I could tell, we were already there. DJT is simply a symptom. He’s what results after too many years of misrepresentation. He gets blamed for being the cause because those who actually led us into the decline don’t want to own their role in the mess. The fact that he got reelected is proof the status quo had lost the plot. Sure, he’s a scoundrel, but ultimately he’s a scapegoat.
Odd, why can't Trump be both cause and symptom? Surely, he has made things uniquely worse, and in ways that would not have happened without him.
Do what you gotta do to feel good. But giving a free pass to all the other contributors - the ones loudest about who is to blame - is foolish, at best. To each their own.
Put another way, in terms of the political status quo, what changed between his two term? Hint: not a damn thing. That ain’t his fault. Your bias has blinded you
Re: Trump fires NSF's oversight board
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is the kind of scientific research which companies don't generally pay for because it doesn't have direct commercial application, but that companies and the economy benefit from enormously because you can use the results of that science to build a great deal of useful commercial things.
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See sibling comment - NSF also funds science which doesn't have direct or indirect commercial applications (I shouldn't have implied that only commercial applications matter): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47906005
What kind of an agenda does studying Gendered impact of COVID-19 in the Arctic carry?
Re: Trump fires NSF's oversight board
#135There’s a lot of political commentary in these threads about how dumb the admin is this and that, sarcasm, etc. but is anyone able to share why this is such a truly beneficial org to our country? I’m just out of the loop on this and I’m genuinely asking, I have never really heard of them. But by the reactions in the comments they’re like the most blessed org of our country and accelerate innovation and advancement of…
> It’s just a foundation? Please just let me know We are each responsible for learning ourselves, and we live in a time where that is easier than ever. I find it odd your default position is to assume it is not important.
My default position is not to assume it’s not important. I’m actually assuming it’s important from everyone’s negative comments. So since I don’t know much about what sort of advancements they’re engineering ( no one is really answering the question specifically I guess bc I can definitely wiki search them too.) so I want to know historically what have they improved and funded that has benefited society etc. so yeah I guess I can just ask AI since you’re saying don’t talk to other humans here…
Re: Trump fires NSF's oversight board
#136There’s only one reason to get rid of all the smart people, shenanigans are afoot.
This quote in particular struck me as way out there.
“Maybe one way to say it from the administration's perspective,” Stassun says, “is that this group of presidential appointees was advising the Congress to not follow the president's wishes."
Re: Trump fires NSF's oversight board
#137There’s a lot of political commentary in these threads about how dumb the admin is this and that, sarcasm, etc. but is anyone able to share why this is such a truly beneficial org to our country? I’m just out of the loop on this and I’m genuinely asking, I have never really heard of them. But by the reactions in the comments they’re like the most blessed org of our country and accelerate innovation and advancement of…
So... This is worth a personal Google search on your part. This organization is a large part of the life blood for all research and development in the United States. It funds research, students, projects.
You know how the US had people from all over the world trying to get into our schools, and how they regularly figured things out important economic healthcare and other discoveries by being ahead of the curve? This group is a huge reason why.
Here's a good link for just 9 things that came from nsf funded studies. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/16/science/federally-funded-... the first being GPS. There are way more and the obvious ripple down effect of having trained people who went into industry and innovated in the private sector.
Re: Trump fires NSF's oversight board
#138I suppose that's a very effective way to stem the tide of pesky educated libruls. Not so smart now, are you? Just another day of America getting exactly what they twice voted for.
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Re: Trump fires NSF's oversight board
#139Presumably next he will nominate Kushner, Dr. Oz and a few donors... What a shame for a country.
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Re: Trump fires NSF's oversight board
#140There’s a lot of political commentary in these threads about how dumb the admin is this and that, sarcasm, etc. but is anyone able to share why this is such a truly beneficial org to our country? I’m just out of the loop on this and I’m genuinely asking, I have never really heard of them. But by the reactions in the comments they’re like the most blessed org of our country and accelerate innovation and advancement of…
https://i.ibb.co/qM5xgPZ6/fascism-five-stages.png
The NSF is an independent federal agency that funds roughly a quarter of all basic academic research in the US, laying the groundwork for technologies like the Internet backbone and MRIs. The NSB is its governing body, composed of top scientists who serve staggered six-year terms specifically so no single administration can wipe out the entire board at once. That continuity is designed to insulate scientific priority-setting from political pressure, ensuring American research funding is directed by objective merit rather than political patronage. Dismissing all members simultaneously removes the exact oversight mechanism built to prevent political offices from dictating scientific agendas.
From a political science perspective, this is an institutional move Robert Paxton described in his stages of fascist development. His framework identifies patterns where political actors weaken or bypass independent bodies designed to constrain executive power. In Paxton's fourth stage, the exercising of power, an executive consolidates control by actively dismantling these checks. Centralizing control over scientific governance by firing the board for opposing a budget cut is hollowing out an independent institution; it's a pathway Paxton documented whereby institutional checks are weakened in ways that accumulate over time.
https://election.princeton.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Pa...