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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

#821

Post by cmontella »

ggandv wrote: post #819
ddahlen wrote: post #38

I have been in and out of the academic world my entire career. I have worked as a programmer/engineer for two universities and a national lab, and worked at a startup founded by some professors. There is huge uncertainty with the people whom I have worked with, nobody seems to be sure what is going to happen, but it feels like it wont be good. Hiring freezes, international graduate students receiving emails to self d…

Generally concur but I wish we wouldn’t squander credibility by making claims like, “travel for attend conferences (a key part of science!).” Oh come on. Conferences are a monument to waste if ever there was. It’s all kickbacks and hotel and airline industry lobbying and protectionism. Some conferences may be better than others I’m sure, but no, science does not depend upon travel to conferences.

Science absolutely depends on people meeting and exchanging ideas. Whether that happens at a conference as they exist today is one thing, but if you don't spend money on getting people from around the world to meet and exchange ideas, you're going to lose a key aspect of the scientific process.

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

#822

Post by sheepscreek »

sixothree wrote: post #750
sheepscreek wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s in it for people like the current Trade and Treasury Secretaries, heck even the V.P? In their previous lives, they seemed levelheaded - yet here we are. Is it just pure selfishness, “if I don’t do it, someone else will” mentality?

The VP seems level-headed? He's a moldable piece of wet clay. How can you even begin to suggest stability would come from this person?

“seemed” - past-tense. Before he became VP nominee. He had an arguably strong vocal stance against many things he stands for now. Truly perplexing. You’re both right in basically calling this “opportunistic” or supremely mouldable, perhaps even morally flex and incompetent behaviour. It’s a shame.

Still I wonder if post current admin, there is a way these people could still redeem themselves. I want to think that at least some are using the new found focus to get shit done for good, perhaps at the expense of looking like puppets or yes men/women (publicly).

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

#823

Post by CamperBob2 »

sheepscreek wrote: post #822
sixothree wrote: post #750

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The VP seems level-headed? He's a moldable piece of wet clay. How can you even begin to suggest stability would come from this person?

“seemed” - past-tense. Before he became VP nominee. He had an arguably strong vocal stance against many things he stands for now. Truly perplexing. You’re both right in basically calling this “opportunistic” or supremely mouldable, perhaps even morally flex and incompetent behaviour. It’s a shame. Still I wonder if post current admin, there is a way these people could still redeem themselves. I want to think that at…

I want to think that at least some are using the new found focus to get shit done for good, perhaps at the expense of looking like puppets or yes men/women (publicly).

I imagine a lot of them rationalized their decisions that way, as you suggested earlier. "If I don't take this job with Trump, he'll give it to a corrupt crony or some random nutcase. But if I do take it, I can work for positive change from the inside. Hmm. I really don't have a choice, do I?"

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

#824

Post by Henchman21 »

simpaticoder wrote: post #583
myko wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much this. Anyone who has paid attention to trump's work knows the goal is to destroy the USA

I've paid attention, and I don't think his goal is to "destroy the USA". His goal is self-enrichment, and side-effects don't matter. He is a master at promising the world, and then deflecting blame when he doesn't deliver, and yet the people love him anyway. It is very easy to destroy something under those circumstances without having the goal of destruction. See Hanlon's Razor.

I agree with what you’re saying here, but I think it’s important to note that as much as Mr. Trump is convinced he is in charge, there are quite obviously people pulling his strings. He’s a useful tool for more powerful people to wield, and their goals loosely align.

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

#825

Post by pstuart »

const_cast wrote: post #631
pstuart wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Almost any large organization is likely to have inefficiencies/waste -- it's the nature of the beast.

These actions are framed as "cost cutting" but it's idealogical warfare -- they hate these institutions and are trying to destroy them.

Notice that the military industrial complex will not only not be touched, but will be getting even more spending.

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

#826

Post by hitekker »

asdsadasdasd123 wrote: post #360
beej71 wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every DEI program I've ever been involved in has been 100% about selecting people _purely_ on merit. Not race, not gender, not whether or not they're trans. The DEI trainings are about completely ignoring those factors when hiring. I'm curious what they call your trainings on the matter.

Every DEI program I've been involved in has had target quotas which put pressure on hiring managers to reach those quotas, but still "hire on merit". And then they hire a viz minority engineer who thinks translating a js file to python means renaming the file extension.

I was a hiring manager and saw this happen firsthand. So much pressure to hire people with the right skin color or gender, even if they outright failed an interview. Some of the ones who were fast-tracked later struggled and then got fired. One of them even stole the company laptop.

The founder of TripleByte observed how companies lied about their hiring from the outside: https://x.com/jesslivingston/status/1884652626467303560

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

#827

Post by fakedang »

gitremote wrote: post #816
fakedang wrote: post #752

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 prov…

"Q: Is it true that under the SAVE Act married women will not be able to register to vote if their married name doesn’t match their birth certificate? A: The proposed SAVE Act instructs states to establish a process for people whose legal name doesn’t match their birth certificate to provide additional documents. But voting rights advocates say that married women and others who have changed their names may face diffi…

Hah, seriously? Is that even a valid excuse?

Nearly every country I know of has solved the married woman name-change issue. The US literally does not have a process to manage official name changes?

It's literally so darn simple everywhere - previous official issued ID, marriage license copy, 2 newspaper ads stating the name change. There might be minor variations here and there depending on the country, but that's all you need to get your name changed anywhere on official documents. The real headache comes in changing previous unofficial documents afterwards, such as certificates, etc.

This is literally not an excuse for the Arsenal of Democracy.

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

#828

Post by fakedang »

Ray20 wrote: post #758
fakedang wrote: post #751

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

The US overpays for a lot of its defence equipment. Given that recently a $125 million French aircraft was downed by a $50 million Chinese aircraft at least 3 times, it remains to be seen how cost effective the US military arsenal actually is in a prolonged fight against its main adversary.

As for Europe, USA's main adversaries are not really our problem - in fact, one of America's newfound allies is a problem for Europe.

So why exactly should Europe follow America's laws? Because world police or some thing?

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

#829

Post by benzible »

Loughla wrote: post #663
benzible wrote: post #652

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Faulty intelligence" accepts that DOGE / Russell Vought / Project 2025 are sincerely concerned with government spending. The evidence says that this is deliberate sabotage of government functions to erode public trust. Consider: Douglas Holtz-Eakin (former Republican CBO director) noted DOGE is specifically "going into agencies they disagree with" for ideological reasons, targeting programs that are a tiny fraction…

Something, something small enough to drown it in the bathtub. This isn't new. Republicans have always worked to erode government offerings to justify further cuts. What is new is the scale and speed. Is there literally nothing Congress can do or are they just doing nothing?

Yes, but Grover Norquist thought the path was tax cuts → Congressionally mandated spending cuts → worse government. Trump/2025/DOGE's big innovation has been skipping the first step and simply ignoring Congress' "power of the purse" and unilaterally (and illegally) withholding spending as they see fit [1]

The US constitutional system was always built on "norms," good faith, and an assumption that even personally corrupt actors in power won't act to burn the whole system down, or will fear the consequences of the rule of law. It's always been the case that Congress and the Supreme Court don't have cops or soldiers at their command, so the enforcement powers of 2 out of 3 branches of the federal government rely to some extent on fears that the system will find some way to dole out consequences, or a good faith belief in the rule of law. Even Nixon resigned once the Supreme Court ruled that he had to release the tapes.

However, the Supreme Court has essentially ruled that a president (at least, a Republican president) is immune from personal consequences for everything, so at this point an authoritarian-minded president can behave as a king. Congressional Republicans would likely prefer not to cede their power but more than that, they don't want to cross Trump for fear of being defeated in a primary by a Trump-backed challenger. The appeal of a job that at this point almost exclusively consists of debasing oneself is beyond me.

[1] A great primer on exactly why this illegal withholding of congressional spending is unconstitutional can be found in Senator Murphy's confrontation with DHS Secretary Noem earlier this week. Murphy documents how the department is illegally impounding funds, violating Supreme Court orders, and ignoring statutory requirements - creating precisely the constitutional crisis predicted when an administration decides it can simply disregard Congress's power of the purse: https://www.murphy.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/murphy...

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

#830

Post by freejazz »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #812
freejazz wrote: post #623

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how your post doesn't fall for exactly what you claim to be criticizing. You do not engage with the substance of anything I said and instead just name call. I'm not talking about the route, I'm talking about the destination. A socialized medical plan is incredibly popular on both sides of the political spectrum and polls well with Trump's supporters. That's not an avenue, that's a destination. I have a f…

It's because most people on the left are not aware that there even is a right wing populism. To them it is an oxymoron. Pulling someone out of that "it's an oxymoron" hole takes a long time. I don't want to go back and forth with you here trying to explain what right wing populism is here, and the philosophy behind it.

Once again you are just talking about "left" and "right" not engaging with anything I discussed while accusing me of being in denial of "right wing populism" which is facially not the case.

I don't "not believe" in right wing populism, I disagree with your assertions of how it functions and what its goals are and how that relates to your notion that populists want the same thing regardless of whether they are "left" or "right" and that it's just "different paths."

>It's because most people on the left are not aware that there even is a right wing populism.

This isn't even remotely true. What "left"ist stuff are you reading?

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