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What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

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Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#211

Post by bad_haircut72 »

colingauvin wrote: post #191
bad_haircut72 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

?? healthy people stay alive, sick people will die. Of course this is terrible but "we will all die without publically funded research" doesnt hold water. Again Im not in favour of the cuts I just cant understand how the USA continues to borrow/print money and it doesnt all come crashing down. I dont think even Trump is anti-medicine, just pro fiscal responsibility.

I can't tell if you're intentionally misunderstanding, or not. So I'll spell it out: public non-biased research is a public good. Oil companies weren't going to publish research saying leaded gas was bad. Tobacco companies weren't going to publish research saying cigarettes were bad. Have fun being healthy when you inhale leaded gasoline every day. Forget about things like, you know, the internet. Or any medicine. BT…

I feel the same way back haha, are you intentionally misunderstanding me? Nobody is claiming research is bad! I dont want to see it cut either. I want the government to be running a surplus though. You can argue we should cut other places like military or whatever, I agree thats probably wiser, but what Im asking is, surely we can only prioritise what to spend once we are back to surplus

Ive also been told in the past that its somehow ok that the government never breaks even, I can handle that maybe Im too stupid/uneducated to get it... but nobody ever even tries. Use little words, Im sure we will make progress. How can the government continue to exist and not go broke if it continually spends more than it brings in?

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#212

Post by agnishom »

bad_haircut72 wrote: post #178
colingauvin wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can they afford not to? Subtract public research funding from the economy. Go ahead - see what's left. I'll shortcut it real quick - we're all dead from lung cancer and leaded gasoline, so there's no one to do the calculation.

?? healthy people stay alive, sick people will die. Of course this is terrible but "we will all die without publically funded research" doesnt hold water. Again Im not in favour of the cuts I just cant understand how the USA continues to borrow/print money and it doesnt all come crashing down. I dont think even Trump is anti-medicine, just pro fiscal responsibility.

"healthy people stay alive, sick people will die" that's a tautology. I do not know you, but I am willing to bet that there are some people who you know who'd have a far worse life if it was not for modern publicly funded research

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#213

Post by magicink81 »

scarab92 wrote: post #151
flocciput wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> forced to NOT include == "not being allowed to include" i.e. a restriction on free speech with more worrying implications than "injecting dumb politics"

Diversity statements were used to facilitate race-based grant approvals. They should never have been legal.

Never were legal.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#214

Post by hinkley »

caycep wrote: post #96
hinkley wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The World Wide Web essentially exits due to grants from the NSF and alumni from those grants starting Netscape.

the irony of Andreesen now being one of those now gloating over its destruction

Is he really? Where? I'm no Eric Bina but I ate from the same table and would be happy to remind him of the petulant brat reputation he left behind in the halls of NCSA.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#215

Post by bilbo0s »

bamboozled wrote: post #196
unsnap_biceps wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the former is most likely. The people are largely unhappy with how things have been and it's unlikely to get materially worse for the majority of people in the near term, so I don't think there will be a fire lit under enough of the population to rise up. If it gets bad enough that most people are starving, rather then just struggling, we'll see action, but I doubt it'll get there anytime soon.

If it gets bad enough that most people are starving, rather then just struggling, we'll see action, but I doubt it'll get there anytime soon. It's mostly too late to do anything at that point. People won't even have money for ammo.

Something depressingly self defeating about people paying money into the system to acquire ammo for the purposes of..

bringing down the system?

Win or lose, I'm thinking money is flowing up to the same people.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#216

Post by wrl »

lumost wrote: post #210
scarab92 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s not that many jobs going in academia in other countries, and you’ll be looking at a significant pay cut due to the strong US dollar. Most likely, people who leave academia will be leaving for industry instead. I do feel for those in the hard sciences, they have become collateral damage in what is mostly a battle between politicians and humanities departments.

I've been suspicious that the quality of life cut is distinct from the pay cut. Living in a dense European city, you do not need a car, healthcare is free, and you are generally afforded more time off and a stricter wlb compromise compared to the US. One doesn't need to eat takeout as often if there is time to cook. Depending on the country, rent/housing costs are more or less under control. On the other hand swiss/N…

Swiss maybe, but as a Dutch resident who was just in SF for the holidays... SF food is definitely more expensive.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#217

Post by nerevarthelame »

magicink81 wrote: post #192
throwfgtpwd234 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrecked how? Fixed how? Can you describe either or are you just saying words?

US scientific research funding is largely driven by nepotism and favoritism. Insiders know but don't talk too much about it. They have a few options: a) just quietly stay in the system trying their best to do good work b) join the gravy train through social climbing c) quietly leave and move on with their careers.

If that's true, and you've offered no evidence to support that it is, canceling funding for anything tangentially associated with "DEI" doesn't seem like it actually solves any of those problems.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#218

Post by mastersummoner »

jacobgkau wrote: post #182
aqueueaqueue wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It just needs something small to be taken away or happen that ignite and capture the collective imagination.

Something small like in-person gatherings for several years in response to a pandemic? Like someone else in the thread claimed was a made-up problem that's only in peoples' heads? It's really interesting seeing how widely varied peoples' definitions of these things are.

The pandemic was a national emergency. Covid was an extremely contagious disease without a lot of existing immunity. The right call was made for the safety of several hundred million Americans. Most other countries made the exact same one.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#219

Post by bad_haircut72 »

agnishom wrote: post #212
bad_haircut72 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

?? healthy people stay alive, sick people will die. Of course this is terrible but "we will all die without publically funded research" doesnt hold water. Again Im not in favour of the cuts I just cant understand how the USA continues to borrow/print money and it doesnt all come crashing down. I dont think even Trump is anti-medicine, just pro fiscal responsibility.

"healthy people stay alive, sick people will die" that's a tautology. I do not know you, but I am willing to bet that there are some people who you know who'd have a far worse life if it was not for modern publicly funded research

I dont dispute this at all - I want the research, I would pay higher taxes to support it, but it baffles me how the government can continually lose money and people handwave away the entire issue

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#220

Post by karaterobot »

magicink81 wrote: post #192
throwfgtpwd234 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrecked how? Fixed how? Can you describe either or are you just saying words?

US scientific research funding is largely driven by nepotism and favoritism. Insiders know but don't talk too much about it. They have a few options: a) just quietly stay in the system trying their best to do good work b) join the gravy train through social climbing c) quietly leave and move on with their careers.

This is pretty vague and gestural, I'd love specific examples to support your accusation. I work on NIH funded grants, and while I don't write the grants, I'm reasonably familiar with the process. I disagree with your assessment when it comes to any grant I've been involved with. I've never seen corruption like that. These grant proposals look a lot like private sector bids: here's what we want to do, and how it aligns with your mission, and here's how we plan to do it, and how much we're asking for. The process is competitive, and a committee decides on the outcome. Everything has oversight, and is very procedural. Before working on NIH grants, I worked in the private sector doing large contracts for 13 years, and the downside of the way the NIH does it is not corruption, if anything it's bureaucratic slowness and overcaution. The private sector was much shadier and prone to cronyism, and has nothing to teach the government on that count... believe it or not.
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