Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

NSF director to resign amid grant terminations, job cuts, and controversy

science.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 259 posts

Re: NSF director to resign amid grant terminations, job cuts, and controversy

#191

Post by standardUser »

sathackr wrote: post #4

One thing I don't understand is people resigning on principles. If something bad is happening to an organization that I hold a significant amount of clout and power in, I'm not just going to leave and hand the reigns to someone on 'their side' -- I'm going to stay and fight and try to make whatever impact I can. So many people are just leaving...instead of fighting. Which seems like it's going to have the effect of j…

Or, find a new job that pays better and enjoy your life working for somehow you don't acutely hate. Sounds like all upside to me.

Re: NSF director to resign amid grant terminations, job cuts, and controversy

#192

Post by anigbrowl »

sathackr wrote: post #4

One thing I don't understand is people resigning on principles. If something bad is happening to an organization that I hold a significant amount of clout and power in, I'm not just going to leave and hand the reigns to someone on 'their side' -- I'm going to stay and fight and try to make whatever impact I can. So many people are just leaving...instead of fighting. Which seems like it's going to have the effect of j…

By resigning you take the initiative, control the timing, and can put out a statement of what the problem is. If you don't resign and refuse to play along with unethical/illegal directives, you get fired and unethical people who issued the directives tell a story about how you're a saboteur or something. Whoever gets their story out first is likely to set the tone for subsequent public debate.

You might be overestiamting how much 'clout and power' people in public life have. Few of them are known outside of their specialty field, so they really don't have much clout. And their power is quite limited; you may have noticed that multiple inspector generals (who are legally independent of the executive branch) were fired early in the administration. Several of them went to court and have obtained judgments that their firings were illegal, but the damage is already done.

Re: NSF director to resign amid grant terminations, job cuts, and controversy

#193

Post by 0x5f3759df-i »

tootie wrote: post #154
jimbokun wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two failed impeachment attempts, countless lawsuits, and now the Supreme Court has more or less inoculated Trump from any further prosecution attempts. The checks and balances have all been exhausted. There are no bullets left in the gun.

Checks and balances aside, a plurality of people voted for this. They saw Jan 6 happen. They saw all the lawsuits and criminal charges. They saw the impeachments. And they just want him anyway. It's been debated ad nauseum already and I don't think anyone has given a satisfactory explanation for how he keeps doing this.

I think the only explanation is that the endless lies coming out of his mouth allowed many uninformed people to build their own Trump in their heads out of all the possible lies they liked the most. They then simultaneously believed everything they didn’t like were the actual lies. A kind of choose your own adventure.

That and term 1 Trump really was basically what was left of the Republican establishment running things while Trump did his reality TV show presidency.

So people wrongly assumed the same people would be there to stop him from driving the country off a cliff.

Re: NSF director to resign amid grant terminations, job cuts, and controversy

#194

Post by sanderjd »

fluidcruft wrote: post #185
sanderjd wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, people have got to stop buying into this unitary executive stuff! Independent agencies have oversight and accountability. Congress can do whatever they want with them whenever they want. I think it's imminently reasonable to say that agencies shouldn't be independent of the executive, and that's the default if the legislation passed by Congress (and signed by the current executive!) doesn't specify otherwise. Bu…

I agree but only to the point that an independent agency setup by Congress exercises powers granted Congress by the Constitution and does not conflict with powers explicitly granted to other branches. (And it's pretty unclear to me how the NSF, which is ultimately a method for Congress to spend money, could relate to any Executive powers)

Yeah that's the thing, what powers are even granted directly to the executive by the text? It seems to me that the whole unitary executive theory is based on the clause "The executive Power shall be vested in a President", where "the executive power" is never well defined.

Re: NSF director to resign amid grant terminations, job cuts, and controversy

#195

Post by ziddoap »

ojbyrne wrote: post #168
ziddoap wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm going to stay and fight and try to make whatever impact I can. Can you give me some examples of how you would fight? Boss comes in (or whoever more powerful than me, e.g. someone acting on the president's orders), says something with the gist of "Do this, or get fired". What are the next steps that I can take that won't get me fired, but also count as fighting back?

I think 4 year olds know how to do that. Follow the exact letter of what they say, but doing everything else outside the bounds of "do this" the way you want to. I.e. "It's time for bed" means "I'm going to continue to play, just in my bed." "Go to sleep" means "Pretend to sleep for 5 minutes, then go back to playing." When confronted, say that you woke up after 5 minutes.

What they said is "you get less money" and "fire half the people". One of those you can literally not do anything about. I'm not sure how to fire people but do it in the way is the way "I want to".

Re: NSF director to resign amid grant terminations, job cuts, and controversy

#196

Post by ziddoap »

angry_octet wrote: post #186
ziddoap wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to "maliciously comply" or be obstructive to someone giving you 55% less budget. They just... give you less money. That's it. I guess you could slow down the firing process for a bit? That would be a minor obstruction for a short period of time. Then what? Anyways, "how-to" guides on malicious compliance probably don't tackle situations where an external team, acting on behalf of the president , come into y…

Congress is the body that decides budget, not the President. Convince Congress and you will win budget, and legislative directives to accomplish specific tasks. Putting a man on the moon required Congress. People are now routinely absolving GOP Congress critters, when they are the actual decision makers.

I'm not sure how the NSF Director should/could by themselves convince congress to not do the funding cut, but sure.

Re: NSF director to resign amid grant terminations, job cuts, and controversy

#197

Post by matheusmoreira »

sathackr wrote: post #4

One thing I don't understand is people resigning on principles. If something bad is happening to an organization that I hold a significant amount of clout and power in, I'm not just going to leave and hand the reigns to someone on 'their side' -- I'm going to stay and fight and try to make whatever impact I can. So many people are just leaving...instead of fighting. Which seems like it's going to have the effect of j…

If you're responsible, things are going to hell and you don't have the means to fix things, your only option is resignation. If you don't, then when things inevitably go to hell, people will blame you for it. By resigning, you're washing your hands of the matter.

Re: NSF director to resign amid grant terminations, job cuts, and controversy

#198

Post by dfxm12 »

sathackr wrote: post #4

One thing I don't understand is people resigning on principles. If something bad is happening to an organization that I hold a significant amount of clout and power in, I'm not just going to leave and hand the reigns to someone on 'their side' -- I'm going to stay and fight and try to make whatever impact I can. So many people are just leaving...instead of fighting. Which seems like it's going to have the effect of j…

Not everyone has such strong principles, the ability to lead under such different parameters or the wherewithal to deal with the circus that is the current administration.

Reading the tea leaves, this guy has less clout and power then he had assumed and fighting has a different meaning when people are threatened with getting disappeared to El Salvador.

Maybe he might also have something else lined up.

Re: NSF director to resign amid grant terminations, job cuts, and controversy

#199

Post by timschmidt »

jltsiren wrote: post #151
timschmidt wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> postdocs > inherently trainee positions Do we live on the same planet? I understand that the point of being an academic is to always be learning, but there's no place on earth I know of that thinks of someone with a PhD as a trainee. > the main options are becoming a PI or choosing a teaching-focused position. There are some staff scientists and similar, but such positions are rarer than tenured professors. Implyin…

A postdoc is a training position, where the individual further develops their skills and tries to build an independent profile while being mentored by a more senior academic. PhDs who work in someone else's projects without focusing as much on personal development typically have other job titles, such as project scientist or staff scientist. Receiving a doctorate does not mean that you have finished your training. So…

The number of academics who achieve a 50 year career is vanishingly small. I can think of a handful I met in a decade. To call the other 99.9% of academia in-training is a bit of a mis-nomer, whether it's the accepted terminology or not. That was my point.

Re: NSF director to resign amid grant terminations, job cuts, and controversy

#200

Post by SoftTalker »

tootie wrote: post #154
jimbokun wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two failed impeachment attempts, countless lawsuits, and now the Supreme Court has more or less inoculated Trump from any further prosecution attempts. The checks and balances have all been exhausted. There are no bullets left in the gun.

Checks and balances aside, a plurality of people voted for this. They saw Jan 6 happen. They saw all the lawsuits and criminal charges. They saw the impeachments. And they just want him anyway. It's been debated ad nauseum already and I don't think anyone has given a satisfactory explanation for how he keeps doing this.

Because they saw the other side doing nothing about the things they cared about, while also scornfully telling them they were wrong, racist, hateful, and stupid.

Trump could easily have been defeated by a centrist Democrat who focused on kitchen table issues not fringe social ones, and was able to discuss and debate them coherently.

Post reply on HN