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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

#431

Post by skissane »

baq wrote: post #414
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.

Not happening. Getting significantly more than $100k is close to impossible in most careers in any other country and the dollar is the safest currency to get paid in. Not convinced the desperate folks who want to move despite these are good hires. Anecdotally the only people working any job at all outside of USA that I’ve met were doing that because of their non-US wives not liking it stateside. This isn’t a large gr…

> Not happening. Getting significantly more than $100k is close to impossible in most careers in any other country

There are literally millions of people around the world who earn significantly more than US$100K and don’t work in the US.

e.g. in Australia, many medical specialists earn more than US$200k - it is common for experienced oncologists, cardiologists, paediatricians, gastroenterologists, etc, to earn more than US$200k.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#432

Post by refurb »

a_puppy wrote: post #393
refurb wrote: post #251

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…

Federal money is allocated by Congress, and the President is required to spend the money as allocated by Congress. The President does not have authority to cut spending. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impoundment_of_appropriated_fu... > Ok, so all payments are paused while funding is reviewed? ... This is taxpayers money ... A shocker that government agencies might need account for spending. Reviewed for what? Reviewe…

The idea that the President, the head of the Executive branch, has zero power over Executive branch spending down to the agency level, because Congress said X must be spent and dammit they must spend it, makes no sense.

By that logic and taken to an extreme, Congress could pass a budget law (overriding the executive’s veto) to set executive spending for specific agencies to only be spent on computers, say the FBI, and the executive is powerless to Congresses control over the executive function to carry out the laws that the Congress has passed?

So clearly the intention is one of checks and balances, for example the President can’t spend money Congress does appropriate but also has some power over how that money is spent as such to exercise the power of the Executive.

So let’s see what the Constituion says as per Congress.gov!

“The constitutional dimensions of impoundment disputes have been confined to the political branches. The Supreme Court has not directly considered the extent of the President’s constitutional authority, if any, to impound funds.16 However, a case decided in 1838, United States v. Kendall,17 has been cited as standing for the proposition that the President may not direct the withholding of certain appropriations that, by their terms, mandate spending.18”

https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artII-S3-3-7/...

Very interesting! Sounds like something he may want the Supreme Court to rule on!

I for one look forward to getting some clarity on this issue.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#433

Post by underdeserver »

Spivak wrote: post #385
77pt77 wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I don't know what to tell you, if you think the cuisine available in the US isn't great it's because you aren't looking. The "tossed salad" nature of the country comes out in full force to create a food scene that holds its own against anywhere in the world. Even if you restrict yourself to classic American cuisine the food is still world class. One of my absolute favorite things to do any time a friend from overseas…

Uhh, if you're comparing to the UK, maybe. Walk into a random restaurant in any big city in the US and you're going to have a bad time.

Walk into a restaurant in Paris, Milan, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Tel Aviv, Seoul, Tokyo, Lisbon, the food is going to be much better.

Maybe at the top, the very best restaurants, the US holds its own. But the standard for the average restaurant is low.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#434

Post by throwawaymaths »

dauhak wrote: post #271
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…

I'm very pro some systematic auditing/cleaning of out sclerotic waste, but I don't see how anyone can look at the way this is being handled and not be incredibly worried I think it's the second-order stuff here. Even assuming Musk were to do a fantastic job at just clearing out inefficiency in a smart way (which seems unlikely given the actions he's taken/leaks around cutting funding based on key-word matching etc.),…

> make changes with 0 transparency/accountability seems like it does just stupid amounts of harm to the integrity of the system

pray tell who was accountable for the grant issuance in the first place? was congress approving every disbursal? could the citizenry vote up/down on every RO1 or SBIR that went past the NIH desk?

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#435

Post by yibg »

tokioyoyo wrote: post #369
yibg wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Not an American, but my 2c - a good chunk of people are actively trying to find a reason why their lives are worse than others, haven't gotten better in decades, and are seeing how life is fine across the pond despite not being the richest country in the world. They'll keep blaming everyone, and everything, and whatever comes into their sights. At the same time group of people will exploit it for their gains, as "fig…

I don't disagree with any of this and I can definitely see this in the election results. But this has been the case for a while now. The US has lagged other developed nations on many indicators for a long time. Income inequality, life expectancy, education, you name it. There was a lot of heated debates and intense feelings during the Obama era too.

But this time around something seems to have changed, where his supporters are ok with trump and team doing whatever. Be a forever president, rip up the constitution, rule by decree.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#436

Post by uecker »

scarab92 wrote: post #228
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…

To be competitive in academia in Europe, you’re not going to have as much free time as you expect. You’re unlikely to be able to afford to live in the center of a dense Western European city on researcher wages, and most of the jobs aren’t in the city center either, so you’ll probably still need a car. I think in the US people romanticise living and working in Europe to an unrealistic degree. There are good reasons w…

I lived in both the US for a while (Bay Area), but I am now back in Europa. Quality of life in Europa is really high and you can certainly live quite well in most Western European cities from a typical wage for a researcher. Although many people would indeed not need to own a car (public transport is often very good, in many places you can also get around via bike or even by walking), most do and this easily possible with common salaries. There are places which are expensive, but many cities are quite reasonable. Universal healthcare, a stable society, low crime are among the many advantages.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#437

Post by yibg »

stingrae wrote: post #384
khazhoux wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're misrepresenting. His side won, and now they get to do what they want. It's always that way, no? Like, isn't that the point of an election?

They get to do what they want within the rules established by the courts and constitution.

And this time, people don't seem to care about that anymore. Despite the right supposedly being the group that's all about the constitution and rule of law.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#438

Post by matwood »

BrenBarn wrote: post #374
kortilla wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 .

Until we fundamentally change how the world works, wanting to make a lot of money is no better or worse than any other reason to innovate.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#439

Post by matwood »

amelius wrote: post #89
ggm wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to believe some will move for lifestyle reasons, but the problem is the post war IPO landscape (post 1980s really) across biotech and ICT has made one stark barrier: 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. You have to be socially smart enough to see that a $100k salary and lifesty…

> 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 a kind of lottery-mentality that Europe doesn't want to attract anyway.

It’s not lottery mentality, it’s risk taking. And it’s something that the EU should be fostering. The US encourages risk taking where failing isn’t even seen as a bad thing.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#440

Post by energy123 »

boc wrote: post #9

Watching the tech community waltz into DC and pretend that they know how all the levers of government work is pathetic. Are there inefficiencies? Sure. Are there places to improve? Of course. But pretending that they can understand the intricacies of literally decades of institutional knowledge and deep connections across the globe in the course of a single weekend is asinine. We need to do better. The US government…

Technologists and engineers can be so damn arrogant. Learn some humility. You probably aren't that smart or valuable and people like you aren't the only people adding value to society.
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