NSF faces shake-up as officials abolish its 37 divisions • Hacker News Board

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

#751

Post by fakedang » Sat, May 10, 2025, 7:06 AM UTC

Ray20 wrote: post #684

bilbo0s wrote: post #671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Demanding other nations follow our laws is “rational”? And “natural”? Uh.. yeah.. Agree to disagree. In fact, I think our entire unhealthy fixation on minorities is irrational. But hey, obviously enough voters believe in this trump nonsense that it will continue unabated.

>Demanding other nations follow our laws is “rational”? And “natural”? From a political point of view, in the current circumstances - yes. >unhealthy fixation on minorities is irrational Who has unhealthy fixations? The current administration? This "fixation" brought it popular vote win. The Voters? They were voted exactly against unhealthy fixation on minorities.

> From a political point of view, in the current circumstances - yes.

A kind message from RotW to the US - bugger off.

If the US has a gripe against certain minorities, keep that cancer to your borders.

I think Americans, left or right, are in a for a rude awakening when these four years are up.

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

#752

Post by fakedang » Sat, May 10, 2025, 7:12 AM UTC

i80and wrote: post #206

inverted_flag wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I mean, I guess we'll try to find competent and sane leaders again in 4 years. I don't know? There's not much else we can do at this point if this is the level of irrationality you're dealing with. There are absolutely not going to be free and fair elections 4 years from now. People really need to start preparing for this reality.

I still think it's possible we'll have free elections still, assuming the SAVE act fails. If it passes, as a democracy we're probably failed beyond repair in my lifetime.

Honestly, I don't get the logic behind opposition to the SAVE Act. In nearly all functional democracies (and many poor-functioning ones), you are required to show a state-issued ID document.

If the failure of the SAVE Act was the only thing allowing a Democrat victory, then there's something seriously wrong with the American democratic system.

I mean don't Americans have at least one document issued by the state proving that they are, you know, American?

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

#753

Post by [deleted] » Sat, May 10, 2025, 7:14 AM UTC

chairhairair wrote: post #43

The NSF budget is ~$10billion. That's about half of NASA's, 1.2% of the DoD's, 0.5% of the discretionary budget ($1.7 trillion). Why is this the focus of the admin? Science is one of the few things the US is doing well.

[deleted]

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

#754

Post by Ray20 » Sat, May 10, 2025, 7:23 AM UTC

watersb wrote: post #733

Ray20 wrote: post #673

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They've been an ally in a strategic location for decades. Ally in what? Typical gaslighting. Before the invasion, no one could find Ukraine on a map and no one considered it an ally (if they even knew it existed). To such extent that many Ukrainians in the USA before 2014, when introducing themselves, often said they were from Russia - just to avoid having to explain what is Ukraine. >They were invaded by Russia. Ye…

>> They were invaded by Russia. > Yes. But what is the war being fought for? Someone breaks into your home. Kills family members. They're still coming in. You tell your kids to get behind you. Then you turn to face the invader. That's what this war is being fought for.

>You tell your kids to get behind you.

Rather, you hide behind your children, the invaders scream that they only want your money, but you kick the children closer to the attackers so that they slow them down at the cost of their lives, while simultaneously locking your front door and barricading the windows so that the children cannot escape from the house instead of dying at the hands of the attackers, as you want.

The children are crying, screaming that they don't want to die, asking you to let them go. But you are adamant: they must die for you.

Why? For what? There is no answer. Their job is to die, not to ask questions, and if they don't want to die at the hands of invaders, they will die at your own hand.

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

#755

Post by TheOtherHobbes » Sat, May 10, 2025, 7:24 AM UTC

yupitsme123 wrote: post #710

monooso wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The assumption that if something doesn't have a clear and immediate ROI it can't possibly have any value is extremely myopic.

Sure, but there needs to be some justification or measuring stick to decide what's worth researching and what isn't. Otherwise you're just burning up money and labor on fruitless tasks. Reading some of the comments in this thread it sounds like people are in favor of spending any amount of money on researching any topic without any discrimination whatsoever. That doesn't sound like a good idea to me.

Strawman. No one is suggesting that. These programs are vetted by people whose job it is to assess realistic returns.

It's far more extreme - and far less rational - to assert they're worthless, and therefore need to end, based purely on vibes and ideology.

This entire discussion is a 180 from the truth.

These programs shouldn't need defending. Whatever the cranks believe, the returns have been proven decade after decade after decade.

The people who are axing them are the ones who need to justify themselves, not just economically but constitutionally and morally.

So far they've only tried to justify themselves ideologically, which is not even close to being a credible argument.

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

#756

Post by vkou » Sat, May 10, 2025, 7:28 AM UTC

userbinator wrote: post #749

vkou wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm glad you took the time to point that out, because, as we all know, in the history of the universe, they have never made a non-viz minority hire who also happens to be completely incapable of doing the job. --- When a viz-minority hire sucks, it's clearly DEI's fault, we shout from the rooftops. When a non-minority hire sucks, crickets .

Guess what happened to quality around the time all the DEI stuff started shooting up in popularity around a decade ago? Everyone sees it. Everyone experiences it. No one wanted to talk about it, until things reached a breaking point.

You're going to have to make a much better argument of connecting the dots if you're going to blame the enshittification of everything on... Black people and women.

None of you folks are ever 'afraid of talking about it', because any time this subject comes up, we see a full broadsides of tenuous, frequently mask-off racist nonsense.

Meanwhile, the champions leading the fight against the DEI boogieman have a truly amazing knack for both being, and appointing some of the most ignorant, least qualified individuals to ever hold positions of power... And are now speed-running their way through breaking everything.

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

#757

Post by rwyinuse » Sat, May 10, 2025, 7:29 AM UTC

MegaButts wrote: post #638

fakedang wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Nerds who code for fun often also have the advantage of being single and childless. One's capability for learning and self-improvement really diminishes once you have one or two small kids at home. It's pretty much like working two full time jobs until they go to school and become more independent.

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

#758

Post by Ray20 » Sat, May 10, 2025, 7:40 AM UTC

fakedang wrote: post #751

Ray20 wrote: post #684

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Demanding other nations follow our laws is “rational”? And “natural”? From a political point of view, in the current circumstances - yes. >unhealthy fixation on minorities is irrational Who has unhealthy fixations? The current administration? This "fixation" brought it popular vote win. The Voters? They were voted exactly against unhealthy fixation on minorities.

> From a political point of view, in the current circumstances - yes. A kind message from RotW to the US - bugger off. If the US has a gripe against certain minorities, keep that cancer to your borders. I think Americans, left or right, are in a for a rude awakening when these four years are up.

>A kind message from RotW to the US - bugger off.

And if they don't? The US military budget is almost the same as the military budget of all other countries combined. And as you probably understand, for a good reason.

Why would the US bugger off with such a military budget? If the US were ready to bugger off, they wouldn't have such a military budget.

>If the US has a gripe against certain minorities

Looks more like domestic populism. It doesn't seem like the new administration is doing well, the trade war is going badly, peace between Russia and Ukraine is not in sight - so they are trying to score cheap points by provoking the Democrats to make various unhinged, crazy and delusional statements about minorities. Just so that current administration could at least look not so bad compared to their opponents

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

#759

Post by robocat » Sat, May 10, 2025, 7:48 AM UTC

patagurbon wrote: post #473

josephcsible wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money. More seriously, the NSF isn't the focus of the admin. They're going through every federal agency making cuts, not singling out this one in particular.

Unlike a lot of government spending research spending provably increases revenues by more than expenditures.

Citation?

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

#760

Post by PeterStuer » Sat, May 10, 2025, 7:50 AM UTC

As an outsider this artcle is unclear to me. Is this a (middle)management restructuring, cutting down the bureaucratic overhead, or will less actual projects be funded?

(I get some here are upset about the DEI stuff being weeded out, but that is not what my question is about)