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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

#371

Post by ctrlp »

bawolff wrote: post #4

Seems like a good opportunity for other countries to recruit scientists. I think its underappreciated how much of America's modern success comes down to attracting scientists and intellectuals from war torn europe in the 30s-50s.

I would think if you are a European national this situation would have a silver lining in perhaps incentivizing European scientific investment to remain at home and strengthen those nations' scientific research institutions and grant programs. If the U.S. sees fit to rework its institutions, that's its own business. If funding in the U.S. dries up, then doesn't it make sense to go your own way and seek funding in your home country?

So I think you're right. This could be a big opportunity for countries to poach some of these scientists or to repatriate those scientists who have left their home countries.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#372

Post by nicce »

khazhoux wrote: post #364
ergonaught wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By the time there is any actual mass recognition of what is happening, nevermind any attempt to intervene, it will be far too late. There was a successful coup and the USA as such has fallen, now presumably on the route to failing.

Not a coup. Trump said he was going to dismantle the government, and the majority empowered him to do so.

If we want to predict things, look no further than Project 2025

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#373

Post by Gabriel54 »

tills13 wrote: post #360
Gabriel54 wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unethical race-based preferences is what those policies have been trying to fix. I understand that that is the stated intention. I also believe they are racist and discriminatory. > Not sure you’re aware of this, but academia used to be basically off-limits to anyone not white and male. I also understand this. And now it is not. What is the point here?

My guy you aren't getting it. You were lied to. You bought it. You are just plain wrong and openly propagating a lie as fact and you seem to be doubling down.

Is this also a lie?

From psychology department at University of Washington [1]:

> I advise deleting the statement below as it shows that URM [underrepresented minority] applications were singled out and evaluated differently than non-URM applications (which is not allowed as [redacted] noted)

> At a faculty meeting, someone whose name is redacted “informed faculty that the Hiring Committee had three outstanding candidates and so they used DEI to distinguish and select a first offer"

[1] https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty-issues/diversity...

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#374

Post by BrenBarn »

kortilla wrote: post #283
amelius wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> USA is a place where you can go from $100k to $100m vesting if you are lucky. That very few do achieve this isn't the point: you cannot do it, in almost any other economy. That's a kind of lottery-mentality that Europe doesn't want to attract anyway.

That’s not lottery mentality and thinking that it’s equivalent is why Europe isn’t innovating. If someone wins the lottery and gets rich, society isn’t better off. If someone starts a new company that made a cure for some disease and gets rich, society is much better off. You absolutely want to attract people that want to make huge breakthroughs with unlikely odds of success.

> You absolutely want to attract people that want to make huge breakthroughs with unlikely odds of success.

It's fine to want that and to attract those kind of people. What you don't want is to attract people who want to do that in order to make a lot of money.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#375

Post by ctrlp »

wrl wrote: post #216
lumost wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A desiccated Swiss roastie will cost more than a michelin restaurant in SF.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#376

Post by scarab92 »

miki123211 wrote: post #347
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 do feel for those in the hard sciences Those in the liberal arts probably have it even worse, as their experience usually doesn't translate to industry at all. No idea if that kind of "research" is funded the same way as hard sciences in the US though, it definitely is there.

It's the hard sciences I feel for because they typically deliver good returns on taxpayer funded research expenditure, and are generally disciplined enough to keep their head down and focus on their work, rather than engage in culture wars.

In contrast, the humanities made their own bed. They became politically partisan, engaged in systematically discriminatory hiring practices, and routinely conduct research that the public perceive to hold little utility.

Ultimately academics need to keep in mind that they rely on the generosity of taxpayers to fund their research. If the public aren't happy that they are getting value for money they will defund these programs.

I hope that the blowback is contained to the humanities departments, but guilt by association is unfortunately a thing in politics.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#377

Post by apical_dendrite »

anonylizard wrote: post #209
Trasmatta wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no amount of patching the system will fix this. > maybe we should consider the possibility that we are due for a refactor People in tech need to stop with those analogies. A government is not a codebase. You can not apply the principles of "refactoring" and "patching" in the same way. It just doesn't work like that. But the problem is we have a bunch of people (some malicious, some clueless) trying to do exactly th…

Government is exactly a codebase. Government bureaucracies is essentially constricting human judgement to more robotic code-like behavior, that's the only way to build large systems. You say government is not like code, then what exactly is it? Can you describe it in an effective way? Or are you just going to raise your hand up and say there's nothing we can do about it, nothing we can do about the $2 trillion/year t…

This is so naive.

Not all of government is the DMV.

Government has a massive policymaking function, which is not "robotic code-like behavior". It's about solving nuanced, challenging problems. Government has a huge research function.

And tech has created some great things, but it's also created some really terrible things, mostly because of this "move fast and break things" mentality that doesn't consider the consequences of its actions.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#378

Post by willvarfar »

bilbo0s wrote: post #205
willvarfar wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China, for example, could set up a very European-style English-speaking institute in Hong Kong or Macau with high salaries to attract scientists. Singapore and South Korea too. One day Americans might well follow the money and the research freedom?

China's drowning in their own PhD's. The competition is fierce, and the pressure is enormous. The best and brightest over there are insanely capable men and women. In all honesty, it's hard to see China wanting many of the PhD's that would be available from the US in a worst case scenario NSF/NIH funding collapse. There may be a place for the top 0.1%? But for 99.9% of PhD's, there are Chinese replacements that are,…

There's also the angle that enticing the brains away from 'the west' is about denying the west something.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#379

Post by cma »

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 openly neo-reactionary for fucks sake

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#380

Post by whycome »

bawolff wrote: post #4

Seems like a good opportunity for other countries to recruit scientists. I think its underappreciated how much of America's modern success comes down to attracting scientists and intellectuals from war torn europe in the 30s-50s.

I don't think Operation Paperclip was about "attracting".
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