This ends science in the United States.
You can't really enroll graduate students for a 5 year PHD project if their funding can be pulled at a moment's notice like this.
New executive order puts all grants under political control
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Re: New executive order puts all grants under political control
#32"You may not be interested in politics, but politics is interested in you."
Re: New executive order puts all grants under political control
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
Go deeper - why does anti-intellectualism emerge?
Nationalist populism sacrifices academics and intellectuals to create a divide between “the people” and the presumed said “elite,” which is then weaponized for political gain by the actual “elite” (political, economical, etc). These movements rely on emotional resonance and simplified narratives, as opposed to educated, informed discourse. My crude take on the underlying root cause is resentment, discontent, and simi…
It also does this so that when intellectuals call out their bullshit they can more easily dismiss it as hysteria.
Re: New executive order puts all grants under political control
#34[dead]
Re: New executive order puts all grants under political control
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nationalist populism sacrifices academics and intellectuals to create a divide between “the people” and the presumed said “elite,” which is then weaponized for political gain by the actual “elite” (political, economical, etc). These movements rely on emotional resonance and simplified narratives, as opposed to educated, informed discourse. My crude take on the underlying root cause is resentment, discontent, and simi…
It also does this so that when intellectuals call out their bullshit they can more easily dismiss it as hysteria.
Indeed, but that’s why humiliating them is so effective as a response (think South Park’s latest season). Their outlet for the humiliation and resentment they feel is anger and attempts at grasping power, and when that doesn’t lead to the desired outcome, they have no way to cope with the consequences of not reaching the expected status outcome. They demand respect and control, and to deny them that is to deny them their validation and belief of their value. A bully or authoritarian without control is like a dethroned monarch; still convinced of their right to rule, but forced to live in a world that no longer bends to their demands.
Re: New executive order puts all grants under political control
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m not aware of anything stopping it except for perhaps how the system is set up. Like if I want to fund a pet study that I’m interested in, can I just call up Harvard and offer the lab $1M to work on it? I’ve never heard of anyone doing that, but I’m not really sure why it doesn’t exist (which is why I’m asking if anyone else knows).
That does happen: foundations will fund specific research and universities apply and get it. What is often different is that foundations rarely put out open calls outside the areas the foundation is specifically interested in. That is where government funding tends to be better: covers many more areas than foundations tend to be interested in. There’s nothing stopping foundations from doing that, but I haven’t seen i…
> That does happen: foundations will fund specific research and universities apply and get it
For instance, the Chan Zuckerberg Institute before Zuck decided he had to appear to hate science in order to curry favor with the current regime.
Re: New executive order puts all grants under political control
#37There's a reason the Americans discovered how to make atomic weapons first and it's because their researchers were living under a less oppressive state that wasn't motivated by anti-intellectualism and dumb ideology.
While I agree in spirit on the concern about political interference in science, the Manhattan Project was actually one of the most secretive, tightly controlled government programs in US history. In addition many scientists involved (like Oppenheimer) later faced political persecution during the McCarthy era. American atomic research succeeded despite, or perhaps because of, intense state control and funding
Yeah it probably isn't the best project to highlight the sentiment, but it was well known one and immediately came to mind in a period that had the contrasting factor.
I don't particularly think that the secrecy or control of a single group really reflects on the overall culture however. We wouldn't call phreakers authoritarian just because they weren't publishing their exploits in the newspaper or letting any new person fully into their circle.
Also the prosecution and harassment of communists/leftists and minorities in the US during that era is why I stipulated less oppressive rather than unoppressive.
Re: New executive order puts all grants under political control
#38Related paulg tweet: https://x.com/paulg/status/1951996478555357530 "The Trump administration has suspended the funding of Terence Tao and the Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics at UCLA."
The replies to his tweet are a cesspool. Why do people still use Twitter?
You have to be logged in to see the comments. So…
Re: New executive order puts all grants under political control
#39There's a reason the Americans discovered how to make atomic weapons first and it's because their researchers were living under a less oppressive state that wasn't motivated by anti-intellectualism and dumb ideology.
But they didn't. An Australian nuclear scientist working for the UK Rutherford (New Zealander) labs | Tube Alloys | MAUD program told them how to. It took a while to convince the US scientists who were mainly interested in making big hot piles for power. The actual building of atomic weapons (Trinity, Fat Man and Little Boy) took place under a fully authoritarian ultra secret State directed militarily controlled prog…
Interesting. How about we replace the USA (I mostly highlighted the US because that's where this site and the population that use it is based) with the Allies. And being authoritarian isn't about having secretive or highly controlled group (which makes sense given what they were working on and the stakes), but rather the general cultural interpretation of freedom perceived by those who are likely to be doing research. And while you can argue that the USA had authoritarian overtones then as well, the key point is that they weren't as overt as having to greet everyone with good tidings for your supreme leader and keep all your opinions strictly in line with the party's. Notes released from the German scientists (I think Heisenberg comes to mind?) revealed they weren't highly motivated by the regime's philosophy despite supporting it outwardly while those who were the most invested into the Nazi ideology never published much of note.
Re: New executive order puts all grants under political control
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
It also does this so that when intellectuals call out their bullshit they can more easily dismiss it as hysteria.
Indeed, but that’s why humiliating them is so effective as a response (think South Park’s latest season). Their outlet for the humiliation and resentment they feel is anger and attempts at grasping power, and when that doesn’t lead to the desired outcome, they have no way to cope with the consequences of not reaching the expected status outcome. They demand respect and control, and to deny them that is to deny them t…
This is circumlocution. Who is they? Them? What? You're just reciting words. What dialectic is this? Ok let me try in random generalization speak...
Nothing in physics requires us to buy into the political documents; if the average person isn't owed anything under the rules, no one is.
Either we're science driven where only politics makes someone special and we should then moderate that because in reality, they are not special, just a button pusher, just a signature. Or we're a bunch of idiots living in a trailer park.
Seems you subscribe to the whole "everything is a mystery to politics" when it's just biology self-selecting and we should fucking moderate that. With violence if necessary. Because fuck them. They aren't owed anything either, they're just manipulating politics.