I can't help but think that there is a deliberate effort to remove the US from it's position in the global geopolitical arena. And not merely as a by-product of policy decisions but specifically to damage the American reputation.
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U.S. researchers face new restrictions on publishing with foreign collaborators
141–150 of 299 posts
Re: U.S. researchers face new restrictions on publishing with foreign collaborators
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Giving up is not a strategy. Nor is it what I advocated. > Regulations are painful in that they obviously reduce economic productivity That's usually true, but it's not the main problem. The main problem is that the regulations don't actually regulate, in the sense they need to. All they do is entrench the incumbent corporations that paid good money for them, by making it harder for competitors to enter their marke…
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> Getting rid of government regulations in their entirety just cedes all the decision making power to corporations.
The massive power that corporations have, as compared to individuals, is itself a product of the fact that our society has evolved now for well over a century to have government regulations that are bought by corporations to favor them. So you are correct that we can't just instantly scrap every government regulation, but not change anything else.
That does not mean that the regulations, on net, are doing more good than harm. It just means we've gotten ourselves into a very deep hole, which we can't climb out of in a short time. But at the very least we could try to stop digging.
Re: U.S. researchers face new restrictions on publishing with foreign collaborators
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Bureaucrats who must follow the rule of law is what you want. Under Chevron we had the opposite of that: bureaucrats who had ridiculously wide latitude to make their own rules. What we actually need is for congress to take back control instead of passing all power and authority to the executive branch.
Are you saying Congress should be domain experts every area they allocate funds to? From maritime safety to preschool nutrition, congress should be expert enough in everything to specify all important details, and then the agencies (staffed by actual domain experts in each area) are mere accountants to execute the policies? I don’t think it’s workable. At best it just swaps lobbyists for civil servants.
Ostensibly, who's paying their salary is important. Lobbyists, paid for by corporations with a vested interest in things going their way, is far worse than civil servants who's salary comes from taxpayers, and who's responsibility is to them, and not corporate interests. Ostensibly.
Re: U.S. researchers face new restrictions on publishing with foreign collaborators
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The US is a Russian style oligarchy FTFY. From the outside, people can easily see it.
Even Russian people? Anyway, I wonder what comes after the USAA.
As a Russian national: no, the USA is not yet at nearly the same level of corruption.
The main bulwark against Russianification is not the Congress or the SCOTUS, it's the true federative nature of the US. States have a lot of very real autonomy and they limit the amount of corrupt overreach.
Re: U.S. researchers face new restrictions on publishing with foreign collaborators
#145If it was their actual goal to destroy the US leadership role in research worldwide, they couldn't do more than they are.
Unfortunately, we are seeing the decline of the USA. The rest of the world is going to move on without us.
I think we’ve seen the decline of the USA and have already moved on without them. Not everything important is US-centric and about AI and oil
Re: U.S. researchers face new restrictions on publishing with foreign collaborators
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
Dumpty's loyalty is with whoever will give him the most money and power as a person. Always has been.
Maybe money but clearly not power. The American voting population gave him more power than pretty much anyone in many senses of the word “power,” yet he’s clearly not loyal to the American voting population. So I think money or wealth is the bigger weight here.
The American voting population was manipulated to give him power. The ones which helped with manipulation are effectively in control.
Or do you think all the wedge issues organically crystallized in voters' minds?..
Re: U.S. researchers face new restrictions on publishing with foreign collaborators
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Very sad to see the US fall away from the rule of law, into kleptocracy. This is what is so hard for me to handle, and it really feels like I'm grieving a death. Because no matter what happens, even if some things eventually get better, I feel like the US as I knew it is dead - there is simply no coming back from the fact that it's been laid bare how quickly and easily vast swaths of our political leadership would…
The primary system means that nobody with any principles is left in the Republican Party, unfortunately. But not all is lost. Many are very eager for the reins of power to come back and for laws to be enforced. Sure, the Trump regime may tell itself that it's immune from tax audits ever again, but that's not legal and as soon as the force of law is back there are many eager attorneys with high principles that will be…
I wonder, is there an appetite left to remain a democracy, or more like an appetite for an autocrat who pays a little more attention to the façade and doesn't go out of his way to offend even his most loyal followers?
Re: U.S. researchers face new restrictions on publishing with foreign collaborators
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a very common thing for corrupt governments. No rules are clear, so that those at the top can dictate whatever they want whenever they want. Which means that the only safe route is to always be on very very good terms with leadership. Very sad to see the US fall away from the rule of law, into kleptocracy. See also the way that grants are now being distributed at NCI and NSF. Only very large grants for many m…
> Very sad to see the US fall away from the rule of law, into kleptocracy. This is what is so hard for me to handle, and it really feels like I'm grieving a death. Because no matter what happens, even if some things eventually get better, I feel like the US as I knew it is dead - there is simply no coming back from the fact that it's been laid bare how quickly and easily vast swaths of our political leadership would…
how quickly and easily vast swaths of our political leadership would sell out to completely destroy our Constitutional principles
This is not something done to us by leadership. This is a democracy; we voted for this.
We have another election coming up momentarily. We have the opportunity to put a stop to this. There's good reason to think that the election will not be entirely fair, but there are limits: if people are genuinely against this, they will turn out and say so.
We'll see what happens, but even in the best possible case, tens of millions of people will come out to say "Yes, destroying American science is exactly what I want". This is not a leadership problem. This is an us problem.
Re: U.S. researchers face new restrictions on publishing with foreign collaborators
#149This could be understandable if some rationale was provided, but it's worse than that: > Neither agency has publicly issued new formal guidance describing these requirements. Instead, officials are informing grantees individually, leaving researchers confused and concerned. They've not even made it official. They're just randomly flagging.
This is a very common thing for corrupt governments. No rules are clear, so that those at the top can dictate whatever they want whenever they want. Which means that the only safe route is to always be on very very good terms with leadership. Very sad to see the US fall away from the rule of law, into kleptocracy. See also the way that grants are now being distributed at NCI and NSF. Only very large grants for many m…
> No rules are clear, so that those at the top can dictate whatever they want whenever they want. Which means that the only safe route is to always be on very very good terms with leadership.
Exactly. That’s why dictatorships are so adverse to the rule of law, despite many (notably the macho-nationalist ones) being ostensibly for "law and order".
> Very sad to see the US fall away from the rule of law, into kleptocracy.
Yes, it is sad. It’s Hungary all over again, just with a world-spanning blast radius.
Re: U.S. researchers face new restrictions on publishing with foreign collaborators
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Very sad to see the US fall away from the rule of law, into kleptocracy. This is what is so hard for me to handle, and it really feels like I'm grieving a death. Because no matter what happens, even if some things eventually get better, I feel like the US as I knew it is dead - there is simply no coming back from the fact that it's been laid bare how quickly and easily vast swaths of our political leadership would…
how quickly and easily vast swaths of our political leadership would sell out to completely destroy our Constitutional principles This is not something done to us by leadership. This is a democracy; we voted for this. We have another election coming up momentarily. We have the opportunity to put a stop to this. There's good reason to think that the election will not be entirely fair, but there are limits: if people a…
It is an information problem. A majority of voters believes in the nonsense that is spread on social media, and are not properly informed about important topics.