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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

#251

Post by refurb »

Ok, so all payments are paused while funding is reviewed? Allowance for emergency payments to keep the lights on?

This is taxpayers money and these agencies report to the President under the executive power. A shocker that government agencies might need account for spending.

And I’m sorry “its not a lot of money” doesn’t fly when all the “its not a lot of money” is $8 trillion dollars. The federal deficit will never get smaller if nobody looks at the “its not a lot of money” line items.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#252

Post by bad_haircut72 »

stainablesteel wrote: post #241
amluto wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go read the article. All of this is a few drops in the bucket. There are some absolutely enormous line items that, by themselves, put us well into deficit territory. On top of that, these things make the US money . We have, by far, the strongest pharmaceutical and medical technology industry anywhere. Those companies pay taxes. (Those companies also screw us and the government over in myriad ways, and that should be…

the "drops in the bucket" mindset is the problem, the federal government absurdly overspends and we've not had any serious politicians to address the issue. the interest on our debt is going to bankrupt us and there will be nothing left afterwards if these things aren't reeled in and examined. political opponents of the newly elected administration are obviously going to go fully hysterical over any change, they alre…

I feel like were on the same side but youre gonna need a (credible!) source that US govt money was funding virus research in China, that doesnt seem to pass the sniff test

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#253

Post by lanstin »

sseagull wrote: post #230
qwe----3 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck getting 500k+ grants in other countries. If you leave there won't be a shortage of postdocs looking for a new tenure track position.

Depends on the kinds of positions. There's more to academia than tenure-track faculty (which isn't in my future at all anyway). People around me tend to be in the RSE (Research Software Engineer) scene, which is growing in Europe. I, and many of my cohort, could fit in as research staff or faculty in many different disciplines. Wouldn't get rich or famous, but certainly have a comfortable living working on interestin…

That sounds nice.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#254

Post by kentm »

throwfgtpwd234 wrote: post #199
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.

While the Unabomber, Luigi Mangione, and Communism may have correctly diagnosed socioeconomic pathologies their prescriptions were largely counterproductive. It is magical or superficial thinking to believe that aggressive chaos is somehow curative or better than following a more consultative and cooperative process like first assessing and auditing an organization thoroughly by eliciting input from all parties at al…

Sorry do you really think Musk and Trump are eliciting input from all parties and carefully gathering data before giving recommendations? Because given how frequently they talk about the “radical left” and “marxists” I really don’t think they are considering dissenting opinions in good faith. They invariably insult people who have the slightest disagreements with them, even when those people have facts and data on their side.

And Musk has stumbled into several known right-wing conspiracy theories based on knee-jerk reactions, so I find it far more likely that he’s just fishing to validate his pre-held knee-jerk opinions rather than doing a careful investigation.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#255

Post by yibg »

dan_can_code wrote: post #3

The cynic in me thinks that the US is going to roll over and take this fascist shake down. The optimist in me thinks that the people will rise up with a resounding NO and do something about it. Right now I'm not sure which I believe.

Roughly half the voting population wants a king. It's not just rolling over, this is welcomed with open arms.

I try to understand how the "other side" is thinking about this. Disagreements on policy aside, why would "freedom loving Americans" want a king that can rule unilaterally?

Not trying to start a flame war or pose a gotcha question, I'm genuinely curious. What am I missing?

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#256

Post by arrosenberg »

scarab92 wrote: post #244
caycep wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I don’t think that is a fair characterisation of Andreessen. He’s always been a Democrat, including supporting Obama and Clinton. His recent support of Trump appears to be a tactical reaction to some of the misbehaviour during the Biden administration such as debanking political rivals and encouraging race-based hiring.

He's pretty explicitly said it's because the Biden administration tried to do the smallest amount of regulation in the tech industry. When Obama and Clinton let the tech barons run wild, he was happy to be a Democrat.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#257

Post by bad_haircut72 »

jaredklewis wrote: post #243
drivebyhooting wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social security and Medicare are inexpugnable liabilities.

Social security yes, but it seems to me that reducing the cost of Medicare and Medicaid should be very much possible. We need to provide healthcare but it should be possible to make that less expensive

Im gonna start a downvote party on myself haha but here we go - if you want cheaper healthcare, get rid of the medical licence!! Let the free market work. Of course it wont be better but rich people will pay theough the nose for the top level of care, middle class will get the best care the market can provide for what they can afford and lower class will get someone regurgitating chatGPT - but it _will_ be cheaper.

I continue to post this, not even fully convinced - Im scared I wouldnt be able to afford good care without govt subsidies, but I am open to the idea at least. I dont think care in the USA would be worse overall

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#258

Post by [deleted] »

Dalewyn wrote: post #136
lanstin wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The weird spanner in the works is that while people may be unhappy, they are unhappy because of things they believe that aren't true. Covid response in the US wasn't that bad; global warming really is causing the floods and fires and hurricanes and the EVs really are helping, as would methane emissions rules and so on; if people think the bi-coastal elites are looking down on them (and they are), like so what; that's…

[flagged]

[deleted]

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#259

Post by avs733 »

sanderjd wrote: post #190
electriclove wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I contend that there existed too much incompetence across what the government has been funding. I’m looking forward to a ‘change’ for more competence, efficiency, innovation, accountability, etc

This is hopelessly naive.

With a focus on the hopeless part.

I feel more and more like a large portion of the American public exists at the weaponized intersection of the subbing Kruger effect and Chesterton fence. They hear so many vague platitudes about waste that it’s just taken as dicta without evidence. That somehow provides a global mandate to break anything.

If we survive this I hope that the government workforce starts to get more respect of the hard work they do on complicated problems to make fair processes and that they stop getting just blanket accused of incompetence for ideological gain.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#260

Post by kristjansson »

throwawaymaths wrote: post #66

just two days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42910829 the problems that led to these frauds are structural --no amount of patching the system will fix this. maybe we should consider the possibility that we are due for a refactor, which is often painful, but especially painful for people (or code) with an entrenched incentive to continue existing. i dont mean to defend what the administration is doing but I…

Whatever rational refactor/rewrite you want does not start with `find . -iname 'dei' -delete`.
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