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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

#861

Post by [deleted] »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #832
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…

"deliberate sabotage of government functions to erode public trust." Is there any non-dystopian reason to do this? Is the end game really the collapse of the US?

[deleted]

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

#862

Post by benzible »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #832
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…

"deliberate sabotage of government functions to erode public trust." Is there any non-dystopian reason to do this? Is the end game really the collapse of the US?

One person's dystopia is another's Christian nationalist authoritarian paradise. Vought / Project 2025 have been quite explicit in their goals. They believe that they're at war with secular institutions and what they call the "administrative state" - any government function that operates independently of direct political control by the executive branch. That is an explicit goal of doing away with the US Constitutional system. Vought has justified this through conspiratorial nonsense, claiming that the "deep state" has already brought about a "post-Constitutional" order via bureaucratic overreach.

Their plan will mean impoverishment of most of the population, as well as removal of a substantial part of the population through deportation but they're not particularly concerned with that. In their eschatology, non-believers (which includes not just atheists but Catholics, Jews, Muslims, and even other Protestant denominations they deem insufficiently pure) are literally destined for eternal torture in hell. Some of the more extreme elements actively look forward to this as divine justice. Their apocalyptic worldview frames everyone outside their narrow in-group as either potential converts or enemies destined for damnation. Why worry about climate change, democratic institutions, or social welfare when the faithful will be raptured away while the unrighteous suffer? This theological framework makes it remarkably easy to dismiss the suffering of others as either deserved or irrelevant in cosmic terms.

Musk has a different set of motivations. Some of it is just straightforward corruption - killing off agencies and firing specific individuals who have pushed investigations of his various enterprises, as well as awarding contracts to himself (e.g. the FAA Starlink contract, which is genuinely terrifying).

But as far as his motivations to decimate government more generally, I think it's a combination of things. He seems to genuinely believe that dismantling government oversight will unshackle great men such as himself to bring about some techno-libertarian utopia. But I think a lot of it is that his brain has just been pickled by right-wing social media and he's a bit of a useful idiot. The fact that this aligns with Christian nationalist goals is just a convenient overlap.

Then there's the Stephen Miller wing, who are primarily motivated by racism (of course, all of these factions are extremeley racist).

It's all quite grim.

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

#863

Post by [deleted] »

Ray20 wrote: post #803
rad_gruchalski wrote: post #791

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> based on the existence of tens of millions of illegal immigrants Oh, hello Trumpist Number. Like apparent “millions” who died in the Ukraine war.

>Oh, hello Trumpist Number. Like apparent “millions” who died in the Ukraine war. And this kind of reaction is the main reason why the Democrats lost even the popular vote. Nice work.

[deleted]

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

#864

Post by rad_gruchalski »

Ray20 wrote: post #803
rad_gruchalski wrote: post #791

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> based on the existence of tens of millions of illegal immigrants Oh, hello Trumpist Number. Like apparent “millions” who died in the Ukraine war.

>Oh, hello Trumpist Number. Like apparent “millions” who died in the Ukraine war. And this kind of reaction is the main reason why the Democrats lost even the popular vote. Nice work.

Thanks. I live on another continent.

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

#865

Post by damnitbuilds »

tomhow wrote: post #856
damnitbuilds wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Post, sir, and the mods be damned ! I did. It is indeed unfortunate that people vote down posts in discussions like these not because they are incorrect, but because they disagree with the facts presented. More Reddit than HN. But short of mods tracking down downvoters and having them justify their actions, I don't see how to de-Reddit it.

On HN it's almost always been considered fine to use downvoting to express disagreement [1] As moderators we don't particularly care what opinion you express, but it's everyone's responsibility to comment in a way that doesn't break the guidelines [2]. The most relevant to you in this thread are these ones: Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes. Comments should get more th…

At [1] I see:

"So I think that the up and down arrows should not express agreement, but insightfullness or truth. Not opinion."

Which is exactly opposite to the statement you cite it in.

I am making fact-based arguments. I see no fact-based counter-arguments, mostly nonsense and/or abuse that break [2]

One can understand people's dislike of Trump. I share it. But that should surely not prevent us from being able to discuss the motivation for his actions, based on cited facts.

But if a mod thinks this place, like Reddit, is just not the place to quote facts to people who do not want to read them, discuss them, or even allow them to be shown, and I do not anyway know how a mod would stop them, beyond a lot of tracking down downvoters, I guess it is also beyond redemption. Tant pis.

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

#866

Post by damnitbuilds »

anigbrowl wrote: post #845
damnitbuilds wrote: post #775

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I've already explained why that claim makes no sense, and you've made no effort to address that observation.

You wrote: "You can't have DEI in math itself" And I quoted it and pointed out that I had not said anything to the contrary.

And you reply now "I've already explained why that claim makes no sense".

What claim? Your statement, or my pointing out that I did not disagree with it?

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

#867

Post by tomhow »

damnitbuilds wrote: post #865
tomhow wrote: post #856

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On HN it's almost always been considered fine to use downvoting to express disagreement [1] As moderators we don't particularly care what opinion you express, but it's everyone's responsibility to comment in a way that doesn't break the guidelines [2]. The most relevant to you in this thread are these ones: Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes. Comments should get more th…

At [1] I see: "So I think that the up and down arrows should not express agreement, but insightfullness or truth. Not opinion." Which is exactly opposite to the statement you cite it in. I am making fact-based arguments. I see no fact-based counter-arguments, mostly nonsense and/or abuse that break [2] One can understand people's dislike of Trump. I share it. But that should surely not prevent us from being able to d…

The comment I linked to is from Paul Graham, the founder of this site, and the principle he expressed in that comment was that downvoting for disagreement was fine, because upvoting for agreement is also normal. The quote you cited was from a reply but we haven't adopted that; we've always upheld pg's principle.

> I am making fact-based arguments. I see no fact-based counter-arguments, mostly nonsense and/or abuse that break [2]

It's fine to state facts, and we want this to be a site where everyone can discuss difficult, controversial topics. But that can only happen if people are kind and respectful, and make their own efforts to observe the guidelines. The main problem with your style of commenting is that several of your comments contain personal swipes. If other commenters break the guidelines, you should flag them or email us to point them out, but you're only in a position to do that if you show, through your actions, that you're making an effort to respect the guidelines yourself.

The guidelines that are most relevant in this case are:

Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.

Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.

When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."

Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#868

Post by AdamN »

sneak wrote: post #835
saagarjha wrote: post #768

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't both heavily propped up with government funding?

I don’t believe so, no, but even if they were - isn’t funding private businesses to do research (that have a stake in success) better than the state doing it directly and not caring if it works or is effective or not?

You'd have to make that case. Even the naive answer would be 'no' but I can't think of a reason why a narrowly focused business is better than a government-backed enterprise when it comes to doing research. It's not worse necessarily, but it's not better either.

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

#869

Post by apercu »

hermitShell wrote: post #227
apercu wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Is there any evidence towards this allegiance? Why should we attribute to malice what we could attribute to incompetence, or greed?

Your eyes and ears for the last 9 years?

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

#870

Post by apercu »

coliveira wrote: post #212
apercu wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

If you're going with the great conspiracy of GOP as Russian assets, you should also add Elon Musk and the other tech robber barons as Russian assets as well.

No argument there!
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