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MAGA Is Winning Its War Against U.S. Science

paulkrugman.substack.com

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Re: MAGA Is Winning Its War Against U.S. Science

#31

Post by bediger4000 »

surgical_fire wrote: post #17
PigeonHolePncpl wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Economically? No idea. Global trust? I'd give it 20-40 years.

That presumes a sharp correction in the direction the US is heading, whatever it is. Is that a given?

No. Sure, MAGA Republicans are only 25-30% of the population, but most of the people share at least some beliefs that would hold the entire nation back. There's widespread economic illiteracy, that leads to people generally favoring monopolies, and not believing in economy of scale in some circumstances. It's an article of faith that the press has a liberal bias. Lots of people distrust elections. There are lots of authoritarians, which is the fertile ground that let Trump take power in the first place.

Re: MAGA Is Winning Its War Against U.S. Science

#32

Post by rolph »

tim333 wrote: post #26
PigeonHolePncpl wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Economically? No idea. Global trust? I'd give it 20-40 years.

Maybe they could elect someone normal next time around?

the big problem we have is we really dont nominate candidates publicly, there is a process the party goes through vetting nominees.

when the public voting occurs there is a line up of some familiar and some a case of who is that from where?

recently it has been, "really? is that the best candidate that party has to proffer? they both did it, now what?"

Re: MAGA Is Winning Its War Against U.S. Science

#33

Post by throwworhtthrow »

The article charts a Nature survey that shows "percent trusting the scientific community" was sub-50% for both D's and R's from 1985-2015. That's more interesting and concerning to me than the relatively recent divergence in partisian opinion. I'd wager we return to that status quo within 10 years, but even that state seems dire.

Re: MAGA Is Winning Its War Against U.S. Science

#34

Post by insane_dreamer »

nis0s wrote: post #14

I hate that it happened because of a political reason, and many topics affected were unnecessarily targeted, but it’s 1000% true that many labs were overfunded, and accumulated resources which were essentially spent on ego bullshit. There need to be more cuts and selective funding of research labs, in general. Sadly, funding R1 does not guarantee that you’re going to get anything meaningful from that research as a no…

better to have some overfunded labs who are able to receive more PhD candidates, than underfunded labs who have to cut their graduate programs

besides, what happened was funding was cut altogether, not redirected from "underperforming and overfunded labs" to "high performing and worthy labs"

Re: MAGA Is Winning Its War Against U.S. Science

#35

Post by w0de0 »

surgical_fire wrote: post #16
jruohonen wrote: post #3

From the liked NBER study: "Between 58 and 68 percent of citations to Chinese publications come from other Chinese publications, even for breakthrough work. This contrasts sharply with other regions, where cross-border citation rates are substantially higher." https://www.nber.org/digest?page=1&perPage=50

Interesting. I wonder if within my lifetime it is possible that Chinese will become the main language one has to learn to be on top of things, with English becoming more niche. These shifts happen slowly I presume. There was a point where a lot of people learned French as a lingua franca, and it transitioned to English over decades.

Unlikely. Adaptability of the language to new concepts as well as ease of adoption for second language learners matters. English - indeed every other candidate global language (Spanish, French, Portuguese, Arabic) - excel Chinese in these respects. I’d wager that even we’re American hegemony to go the way of the UK, English will persist. It may become more Indian or Singlish, but this demonstrates its strength.

Re: MAGA Is Winning Its War Against U.S. Science

#36

Post by spwa4 »

WOW. EU paper authorship is also back to 1980 levels. But still. I mean, I get that this is still better than the US, but wtf.

I wish Krugman had included that total papers has gone up spectacularly, and would not hide the absolute numbers. Plus I don't like that he's not being very clear on the distinction of social vs "hard" (positivist) sciences.

But wtf.

Re: MAGA Is Winning Its War Against U.S. Science

#37

Post by M95D »

rolph wrote: post #32
tim333 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they could elect someone normal next time around?

the big problem we have is we really dont nominate candidates publicly, there is a process the party goes through vetting nominees. when the public voting occurs there is a line up of some familiar and some a case of who is that from where? recently it has been, "really? is that the best candidate that party has to proffer? they both did it, now what?"

No, that's not a/the problem. You had the chance to vote independent - Bernie. You didn't.

Re: MAGA Is Winning Its War Against U.S. Science

#39

Post by w0de0 »

w0de0 wrote: post #35
surgical_fire wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. I wonder if within my lifetime it is possible that Chinese will become the main language one has to learn to be on top of things, with English becoming more niche. These shifts happen slowly I presume. There was a point where a lot of people learned French as a lingua franca, and it transitioned to English over decades.

Unlikely. Adaptability of the language to new concepts as well as ease of adoption for second language learners matters. English - indeed every other candidate global language (Spanish, French, Portuguese, Arabic) - excel Chinese in these respects. I’d wager that even we’re American hegemony to go the way of the UK, English will persist. It may become more Indian or Singlish, but this demonstrates its strength.

were*

Re: MAGA Is Winning Its War Against U.S. Science

#40

Post by xphos »

throwworhtthrow wrote: post #33

The article charts a Nature survey that shows "percent trusting the scientific community" was sub-50% for both D's and R's from 1985-2015. That's more interesting and concerning to me than the relatively recent divergence in partisian opinion. I'd wager we return to that status quo within 10 years, but even that state seems dire.

I think that is the Nixon effect followed up my the messaged opinion of the Regan administration that the government shouldn't be trusted despite doing 1000s of things that should earn a little bit of trust.
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