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NSF faces shake-up as officials abolish its 37 divisions

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Re: NSF faces shake-up as officials abolish its 37 divisions

#161

Post by bilbo0s »

boxed wrote: post #96
burnte wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're even sending letters to foreign governments "ordering" them to cut all DEI programs. OTHER GOVERNMENTS. Insanity.

They sent one to the municipality of Stockholm. The majority leader in Stockholm responded by suggesting they could just turn off the water and sewer system for the embassy :P

I thought HN User burnte was being hyperbolic in the assertions that post put forth.

Then I read a few articles.

sigh.

I mean, I guess we'll try to find competent and sane leaders again in 4 years. I don't know? There's not much else we can do at this point if this is the level of irrationality you're dealing with.

I'll add in way of explanation to non-US citizens that in the US, we've always had a fixation on certain minorities, one in particular, that has teetered on what I would call "unhealthy". That's where a lot of this comes from. Still monumentally irrational behavior, but I just wanted to offer some explanation of the national psychology driving these kinds of non-sensical actions.

Re: NSF faces shake-up as officials abolish its 37 divisions

#162

Post by timschmidt »

_djo_ wrote: post #116
jjice wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe pedantic, but the US as a whole didn't vote for it in the 2016 election. Clinton won the popular vote in 2016, but Trump had more electoral votes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_States_presidentia...

Unfortunately a majority of American voters saw what happened in the first Trump term and decided that they wanted more of it, with even fewer controls and restrictions. The OP is correct, Americans collectively own this just as other countries' nationals have owned responsibility for the bad governments they've put into power. If the general response is one of absolving themselves of responsibility there won't be th…

> Unfortunately a majority of American voters saw what happened in the first Trump term and decided that they wanted more of it, with even fewer controls and restrictions.

I'm not sure this accurately conveys the situation. American voters have been dissatisfied with the lesser of two evils choice foisted upon them every 4 years for decades. We're 75 years into endless wars. Massive numbers of union high paying jobs have been shipped overseas since the 80s hollowing out the middle and working class.

One could easily see the votes as being more anti-establishment than anything else.

edit: I love how people downvote comments they don't like in political discussions, even when they're just attempting to foster understanding by sharing a perspective, and not prescriptive or pejorative in any way.

Re: NSF faces shake-up as officials abolish its 37 divisions

#163

Post by insane_dreamer »

SubiculumCode wrote: post #92

We absolutely cannot let science be hit by 50% budget cuts at NSF and NIH. It would be absolutely devastating to our standing in the world. Scientists will ABSOLUTELY leave to Europe and Canada to continue our research. I know that I would.

Only Congress can stop it. The only chance there is of doing anything is for the Dems to take the Senate and House in the midterms, but the math in the Senate is very much against that happening.

Re: NSF faces shake-up as officials abolish its 37 divisions

#164

Post by hyeonwho4 »

tessierashpool wrote: post #126
busterarm wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That ended up not being the gotcha that y'all thought it was and CNN had to add a correction on their fact-check because mice were indeed being administered cross-sex hormone therapy, just not for the purpose of changing their sex. One of the experiments in particular was to determine how gender-affirming care would affect humans, which indeed makes it at odds with the administration's DEI policy and is not just them…

[flagged]

The White House press release had links to the eight grants in question. The claimed values of the grants were inflated by the press release, but they did actually involve studying the effects of cross sex hormone administration, so in this case the claims of confusion between "transgender mice" and "transgenic mice" were the fake news. (Also, the claimed 8M USD over N years is peanuts compared to the money spent annually on developing actual transgenic mice.)

Re: NSF faces shake-up as officials abolish its 37 divisions

#165

Post by damnitbuilds »

alabastervlog wrote: post #135
damnitbuilds wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nevertheless, the sane center, not DEI, not MAGA, is where the Dems have to go to get votes.

Attempting to be diet-Republican won't convince people to go for them instead of the full sugar version. This is literally what they keep trying, and it doesn't work.

You think the center is diet-Republican ?

And the way to get more votes is to be more extreme ?

There's the problem, right there.

Re: NSF faces shake-up as officials abolish its 37 divisions

#166

Post by insane_dreamer »

ThinkBeat wrote: post #57

Hmm the budget is supposed to be approved by congress is it not? Trump can certainly tell people what he thinks the funding should be, but until a budget is voted through it is not final? Or does this agency fall under the White House direct financing of some sort?

He's already shown his disregard for Congress. Look at USAID, CFPB etc. all funded/authorized by Congress.

It's clear it doesn't matter what the Congress budget says.

Re: NSF faces shake-up as officials abolish its 37 divisions

#167

Post by _djo_ »

jasonhong wrote: post #109
ThinkBeat wrote: post #68

Having employees of academic institutions doing the vetting sounds like it could easily evolve into a conflict of interest. "" The initial vetting is handled by hundreds of program officers, all experts in their field and some of whom are on temporary leave from academic positions. ""

Having served on several NSF review panels, NSF (and academia in general) manages conflicts of interest rather seriously. You cannot review proposals if you have collaborated with any of the investigators of a proposal within the past few years (the time is well defined but I don't recall what it is off the top of my head). Also, NSF program officers can have conflicts as well, for example if you are on leave from a…

Those cheering on the current administration's actions and the wrecking ball of Musk and DOGE have such a distorted view on the way the US government works. The ethical standards maintained regarding conflicts of interest, the inability to receive gifts, transparency, and fraud prevention are all taken extremely seriously and have been for many decades. The US has had a civil service whose skills, experience, and professionalism many other countries envied and tried to replicate.

The changes being made now will deprofessionalise and politicise large parts of the US civil service. The US will be poorer for it.

Re: NSF faces shake-up as officials abolish its 37 divisions

#168

Post by [deleted] »

tgv wrote: post #50
analog31 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. We did not elect the party majority in Congress or the Supreme Court. If anything, the weakness of our constitution has spoken. Take this as a lesson, and defend your democracy while you still can.

Maybe somewhat indirectly, but the US population did elect those people in the usual sense of the word.

[deleted]

Re: NSF faces shake-up as officials abolish its 37 divisions

#169

Post by insane_dreamer »

analog31 wrote: post #28
LightBug1 wrote: post #6

[flagged]

No. We did not elect the party majority in Congress or the Supreme Court. If anything, the weakness of our constitution has spoken. Take this as a lesson, and defend your democracy while you still can.

We elected the Prez and Senate majority who appointed 3 SC justices, "flipping" the Court hard right. So yeah, we own that too :/

Re: NSF faces shake-up as officials abolish its 37 divisions

#170

Post by analog31 »

tgv wrote: post #50
analog31 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. We did not elect the party majority in Congress or the Supreme Court. If anything, the weakness of our constitution has spoken. Take this as a lesson, and defend your democracy while you still can.

Maybe somewhat indirectly, but the US population did elect those people in the usual sense of the word.

They "elected" candidates who were chosen for them.
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