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NSF faces shake-up as officials abolish its 37 divisions

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Re: NSF faces shake-up as officials abolish its 37 divisions

#631

Post by const_cast »

pstuart wrote: post #128
mattigames wrote: post #94

[flagged]

You seem to be implying that there's real waste to be cut and this is not necessarily a bad thing? If so, sure, but this is not the way to go about it.

I also don't accept the idea that there is waste.

It feels very much like a hindsight perspective. Sure, a lot (most?) scientific research will not be immediately beneficial to anyone. Some will never be beneficial. But you don't know that until you research it, that's why you're doing the research.

The only surefire way to prevent waste in research is to do no research at all.

Re: NSF faces shake-up as officials abolish its 37 divisions

#632

Post by absolutelastone »

Frost1x wrote: post #551
absolutelastone wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think their point is the billions in private investment which preceded those millions. I think this is a common issue in computer science, where credit is given to sexy "software applications" like AI when the real advances were in the hardware that enabled them, which everyone just views as an uninteresting commodity.

I wonder if it deals more with the approachability of software applications. If I even begin to think I’d compete with NVIDIA delivering similar hardware, I’d very quickly realize I was an idiot. Meanwhile as a single individual, there is still a reasonable amount of commercial markets of software I really do have some chance at tackling or competing against. As software complexity rises it’s becoming far less tracta…

That difference in difficulties is kind of the point. Imagine, as an extreme, a company makes a machine with certain functions performed based on which button combinations you press. A second company gets a patent for using the first company's machine for doing various tasks by pressing various button combinations, which are new uses of the machine no one had thought of yet. Now the second company has all the bargaining power in the market and so gets giant margins, despite doing a tiny fraction of the work it takes to make those tasks possible.

I wonder if our current system ended up this way because it is the most efficient in terms of specialization, or because the patent system drove things in this direction where the people last dealing with customers (i.e., those making the software layer) have the best info of what tasks the customers want to do with their computers, and hence patent the solutions first. Leaving hardware vendors no choice but to serve the software monopolies (one after another since the 80's).

Re: NSF faces shake-up as officials abolish its 37 divisions

#633

Post by const_cast »

virgildotcodes wrote: post #131
damnitbuilds wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

This is such a weird take. If Dems win ostensibly the negative consequences of their actions are the Republicans’ fault, and then if Republicans win their actions must be owned by the Dems? Why the weird causal swap? The actions of this administration are primarily the responsibility of… this administration and those who supported it.

No no, you're understanding it wrong. Of course if the dems win and then the consequences are their fault. And then if they don't win, we just follow that same logic and... it's the dems fault.

The formula isn't "opposite of who-dun-it", it's "dems always".

Re: NSF faces shake-up as officials abolish its 37 divisions

#634

Post by tstrimple »

jzb wrote: post #56
LightBug1 wrote: post #6

[flagged]

As someone inside the United States... I sort of agree with you, though not entirely. Where we are today is the culmination of decades of attacks on our institutions and public discourse. This is not majority will, but it is a failure of the majority to curb the attacks on our institutions. Collectively, we're to blame -- but at the same time, is it hard to understand why the majority of people in the U.S. haven't be…

At some level it falls back on the bullshit asymmetry problem. Lies are easy. Truth requires details and nuance. This is why the "free marketplace of ideas" is doomed to fail. Too many willfully ignorant people who desperately seek out comfortable lies. Far too many unscrupulous people willing to take advantage of the ignorant.

Re: NSF faces shake-up as officials abolish its 37 divisions

#635

Post by tstrimple »

warkdarrior wrote: post #594
0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After the head of the senate refused to let the president submit a new SC justice.

The head of the senate was elected, so presumably his actions reflected the wishes of his constituents.

Ultimately this is the problem. Conservative voters are the problem. They always have been from fighting to maintain slavery to fighting against women's suffrage to fighting against civil rights to fighting against LGBQT rights. People like Trump wouldn't matter if it wasn't for the tens of millions of conservative voters who support him and who cheer this bullshit on.

Re: NSF faces shake-up as officials abolish its 37 divisions

#636

Post by const_cast »

monero-xmr wrote: post #625
const_cast wrote: post #621

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Universities are different, who knows how they decide to admit people 2. In the private sector, white men are not disadvantaged. Give me a fucking break man.

Remember with the SEC tried (and failed after Trump’s win) to mandate every board have at least 2 “diverse” (no white dudes) members? Not a lot of merit there! https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2025/01/12/fifth-circuit-vac...

Why are you assuming that non-white people cannot have the necessary qualifications? If I didn't know any better, I'd conclude that reasoning is... racist.

The reality is there are more non-white, qualified people than you could possibly hire. The world is overflowing with them.

So if your board is 100% white men, that's really fucking weird. How did that happen?

The elephant in the room here is that white men are SIGNIFICANTLY more likely to be hired due to the color of their skin. Look at Trump's current admin - full of white men who aren't qualified, who are alcoholics, who are patently stupid, and on and on. But if you look at research, too, just having a white name is enough to increase your chance of being hired by 50%.

Re: NSF faces shake-up as officials abolish its 37 divisions

#637

Post by [deleted] »

coliveira wrote: post #194
insane_dreamer wrote: post #157

The fastest way for the US to lose its competitive edge and status as global leader is to reduce funding for scientific research and academic institutions. They are the Crown Jewels and the primary attraction for talent from around the world. The damage for the next four years is done. The question is, even if there's a major shift back to sanity with the next prez elections, it'll take years to build up trust and th…

> China will try but their credibility is low, which is the US's only saving grace This is your incorrect perception. The credibility of China around the world (outside the US) as a technology leader is already higher than the US. The current government is only cementing this perception.

[deleted]

Re: NSF faces shake-up as officials abolish its 37 divisions

#638

Post by MegaButts »

fakedang wrote: post #558
Frost1x wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know you’re being facetious, but I think there’s some nugget buried in this sarcasm. One issue with our ever increasingly intellectual focused economy is that it leaves behind people who may just not be cut out for these such careers. I’m not against having these economies (I too used to work in supercomputing, with national labs), they’re very necessary, but we need to find a way for people who might not fit very…

Well they ought to learn to code /s Or try out braindead jobs like HR /s Jibs aside, the key issue is that a lot of folks just seem to stop learning after a certain point, even if it's their chosen occupation since decades. And it's not just limited to the factory workers themselves - how many of us have met a stubborn doctor unwilling to try out a new treatment mode, or a senior banker too stubborn to learn basic Ex…

> if they have the mentality to improve upon themselves

There's the rub. In my experience, and I understand anecdata is only so useful, people that really want to keep learning more than they have to are quite rare. I doubt that group is even 10% of people. If you only surround yourself with nerds who code for fun, you are going to have an extremely biased view on this issue.

Re: NSF faces shake-up as officials abolish its 37 divisions

#639

Post by monero-xmr »

const_cast wrote: post #636
monero-xmr wrote: post #625

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember with the SEC tried (and failed after Trump’s win) to mandate every board have at least 2 “diverse” (no white dudes) members? Not a lot of merit there! https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2025/01/12/fifth-circuit-vac...

Why are you assuming that non-white people cannot have the necessary qualifications? If I didn't know any better, I'd conclude that reasoning is... racist. The reality is there are more non-white, qualified people than you could possibly hire. The world is overflowing with them. So if your board is 100% white men, that's really fucking weird . How did that happen? The elephant in the room here is that white men are S…

What’s weird is obsessing over the minute racial details of every person like it’s the antebellum south. The only thing that matters is if someone can do a job - period! Being denied advancement in your career because you don’t have enough drops of black blood, or don’t have enough homosexual sex, is insanely wrong!

Re: NSF faces shake-up as officials abolish its 37 divisions

#640

Post by urda »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #490
coliveira wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> China will try but their credibility is low, which is the US's only saving grace This is your incorrect perception. The credibility of China around the world (outside the US) as a technology leader is already higher than the US. The current government is only cementing this perception.

I was talking about scientific research and specifically academic institutions. China only has a half-dozen of top academic institutions with high credibility: Peking U, Tsinghua U, Fudan U, Zhejiang U, and _maybe_ one or two others (Renmin U in some fields). There a number of mid-level unis, and the rest are low credibility (for lots of reasons). By comparison, the US has 100+ (you could even argue 200+) well respec…

Exactly, coliveira is either really out of touch of reality, or is parroting state-propaganda they have read. Both really bad looks for them.
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