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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

#591

Post by scarab92 »

jimkleiber wrote: post #578
scarab92 wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Academics should keep in mind that they rely on the generosity of taxpayers to fund their research. They don’t have an entitlement to other people’s money, and if they are perceived as wasting it or spending in discriminatorily then you should expect the public to become less willing to give it to you.

Ah, your post helped me realize that a lot of people probably have an anger or resentment towards academics. So maybe part of it is DEI, part of it is the resentment towards the kids in school who always knew the answers. I'm not saying this is what's coming from you, just reminded me of how many people have had so much animosity towards me over the years because of my intelligence, or maybe more so, my confidence in…

Polling tends to show public support for certain disciplines (e.g. medicine, engineering, hard science) and not others (e.g. social sciences)

I don’t think the public resent intelligence per se, but rather dislike when it is combined with judgementalism

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#592

Post by curt15 »

nlitened wrote: post #562
jmward01 wrote: post #490

This is a coup and we are calmly debating budgets. Debating the % of budget and how useful organization x is and if y will still get grant money, and, and, and... All of this is ignoring the big elephant in the room that there is one single person deciding everything that happens in government as if they were a king. The right thing to be debating is how we can stop this from continuing and how we can hold those resp…

> deciding everything that happens in government as if they were a king Isn’t it what the head of executive branch supposed to mean? Trump does exactly how he promised he would do if you elected him, and you guys elected him overwhelmingly to do exactly that.

The framers designed a system of government to be allergic to kings, having just fought off a king a couple years earlier.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#593

Post by jimkleiber »

Gabriel54 wrote: post #331
chasing wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unethical race-based preferences is what those policies have been trying to fix. Not sure you’re aware of this, but academia used to be basically off-limits to anyone not white and male.

> 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?

Not the OP, but I believe any distribution of limited resources could be seen as inherently discriminatory or racist or classist or whatever ist one wants.

If there is only 1 job but 10 candidates, the job has to go to someone. If everyone has the same scores on an exam, what's the fair way? Flip a coin? Perhaps. What if there are intangible skills/knowledge that are important for the job? One person has a better score on the exam, another person speaks a language (or dialect) that is important for the job. Maybe 9 of 10 come from one academic background, the 10th comes from a different one...which may actually provide a different perspective and provide new insights and break group think. Maybe one comes from a culture that is more confrontational, which means they may speak out more than others.

So many factors are intangible or at least not explicit and I think that's where "merit" can become so dimensionally reduced, not realizing how multidimensional each individual is.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#594

Post by tsimionescu »

jimkleiber wrote: post #538
scarab92 wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Purity spiral. The left won't be competitive in elections until they learn what it is, why it results in alienation of people who would otherwise support them, and find a way to escape it.

In other words, the left needs to learn how to love the right (and many people within the left). But I don't know if that's the case. I think there are a lot of people on the right who want the left to love them but believe that the people on the left do not love them. I believe the problem is that people need to learn how to feel loved. To realize that even our enemies are trying their best and most likely care abou…

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Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#595

Post by tremendoussss »

jimkleiber wrote: post #538
scarab92 wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Purity spiral. The left won't be competitive in elections until they learn what it is, why it results in alienation of people who would otherwise support them, and find a way to escape it.

In other words, the left needs to learn how to love the right (and many people within the left). But I don't know if that's the case. I think there are a lot of people on the right who want the left to love them but believe that the people on the left do not love them. I believe the problem is that people need to learn how to feel loved. To realize that even our enemies are trying their best and most likely care abou…

I am exactly who you are talking about, I live in a very purple city in the midwest. I grew up in a town of 3000 people, my family was Amish 4 generations ago. I'm also a 90s kid and grew up on south park. Turned into a redneck hippy.

It's a complete social poison pill in the city to have voted a certain way. Have had the same look of "how could you be that dumb" from people ranging from strippers to lawyers.

All I want is love and belonging, not sure how to feel love when I've heard the word "barbarian" to describe certain types of people. Not sure how to feel love when men's loneliness and suicide problems aren't being prioritized

Yeah, the hurt turns into anger sometimes, but yes, I need them too. For me to exist, my opposite has to exist, and I should love us both.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#596

Post by bamboozled »

bilbo0s wrote: post #215
bamboozled wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it gets bad enough that most people are starving, rather then just struggling, we'll see action, but I doubt it'll get there anytime soon. It's mostly too late to do anything at that point. People won't even have money for ammo.

Something depressingly self defeating about people paying money into the system to acquire ammo for the purposes of.. bringing down the system? Win or lose, I'm thinking money is flowing up to the same people.

lol yeah...

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#597

Post by kalleboo »

bakuninsbart wrote: post #446
77pt77 wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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> The USA passport is far from a strong passport. Plenty of better alternatives elsewhere. Also, that implies getting citizenship, a 5 year ordeal. This depends on the metrics chosen to evaluate. My german passport offers significantly more visa free travel options, but the German government is notorious for not really giving a shit about citizens getting stuck in crisis abroad. For example when the Sudan civil war b…

I don't have the links on me, but there were other crises where Europeans were quickly evacuated but the Americans dragged their feet, so it's more case by case than you make it seem.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#598

Post by addandsubtract »

jimkleiber wrote: post #578
scarab92 wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Academics should keep in mind that they rely on the generosity of taxpayers to fund their research. They don’t have an entitlement to other people’s money, and if they are perceived as wasting it or spending in discriminatorily then you should expect the public to become less willing to give it to you.

Ah, your post helped me realize that a lot of people probably have an anger or resentment towards academics. So maybe part of it is DEI, part of it is the resentment towards the kids in school who always knew the answers. I'm not saying this is what's coming from you, just reminded me of how many people have had so much animosity towards me over the years because of my intelligence, or maybe more so, my confidence in…

This... explains a lot. Taxes probably need a new phrasing, framing, and mind set. If the military can get $820b (13% of the pie) and be celebrated, then we need to get there with education, infrastructure, healthcare, etc. as well.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#599

Post by Ozark »

scarab92 wrote: post #566
concordDance wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had an idea in my head about what the word "coup" means and why it is bad and I'm struggling to figure out how it applies to this situation (possibly because being no-American I don't get their news). My understanding is the USA executive is an obscenely powerful position by the standard of the rest of the Western world and they can also delegate that power to accomplish specific objectives. Is this a coup of Musk…

It’s not a coup in any literal sense of the word, not even in the autocratic sense. The reason it’s being used is a combination of the US having never experienced a real coup, and thus it’s citizens not really knowing what the word means, plus one side of politics being sore losers after having lost an election and using whatever insult they can think of in order to deflect rather than self reflect on why they lost.

it's an auto coup where the legally elected leader takes more control than they were given https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-coup

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#600

Post by SushiFreak »

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…

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