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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

#931

Post by tormeh »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #281
ggm wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to believe some will move for lifestyle reasons, but the problem is the post war IPO landscape (post 1980s really) across biotech and ICT has made one stark barrier: USA is a place where you can go from $100k to $100m vesting if you are lucky. That very few do achieve this isn't the point: you cannot do it, in almost any other economy. You have to be socially smart enough to see that a $100k salary and lifesty…

There's a lot of other benefits to the USA attracting high skill talent than just salary: * English language school system so your kids (if you have them) will speak a world language. * Racially and culturally diverse cultures, cuisines, and communities. * Exposure to goods from most of the world, even if marked up. * Availability of international franchises headquartered in other countries in major metros. * A stron…

Canada and Australia are immigration nations. The UK definitely is not.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#932

Post by dennis_jeeves2 »

WatchDog wrote: post #650
boc wrote: post #9

Watching the tech community waltz into DC and pretend that they know how all the levers of government work is pathetic. Are there inefficiencies? Sure. Are there places to improve? Of course. But pretending that they can understand the intricacies of literally decades of institutional knowledge and deep connections across the globe in the course of a single weekend is asinine. We need to do better. The US government…

The strategy is: Shut down everything, and see who complains. If the complaints seem well reasoned, then you adjust course. You can certainly argue that it is crude, but it’s simpler than trying to deeply analyze and understand a very complicated system. Carl Icahn has a story[0] about firing 12 floors of people that seems relevant [0]: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WSatPoD2W-o

>You can certainly argue that it is crude, but it’s simpler than trying to deeply analyze and understand a very complicated system.

Exactly.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#933

Post by rayiner »

oramit wrote: post #829
rayiner wrote: post #783

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m pretty sure the coup happened in the 1930s when the government created the modern system of unaccountable executive agencies and a Supreme Court, under duress, approved it.

Why this amorphous "the government" wording? The people elected Congress and Presidents, who did this over decades with popular support. Executive agencies are not unaccountable. They have specific charters and there is a huge volume of rules they have to follow. eg:( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administrative_Procedure_Act ). Congress writes their budgets every year and the heads of those agencies are reviewed at…

> unaccountable

Accountability means democratic accountability. The APA is not meaningful democratic accountability--it just means that lawyers like me end up running the country.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#934

Post by dennis_jeeves2 »

sashank_1509 wrote: post #356

I got to hand it to Elon Musk, I was in the “nothing ever happens” camp and he completely, absolutely proved me wrong. The Great men theory of history posits that a lot of History happens due to the action of a few great men. Great has a baggage of positive connotation, I prefer calling it the “Important People of History” theory (to also be gender neutral). It posits that if Hitler didn’t exist, Germany wouldn’t go…

>I was in the “nothing ever happens” camp and he completely, absolutely proved me wrong.

Me too.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#935

Post by groestl »

jimkleiber wrote: post #542
newsclues wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny how democracy works, I recall an election recently not a coup. Government is not a monolith, this isn’t the action of one single person, but the result of tens of millions people voting for change (that you disagree with).

People voting for an elected official is different than that elected official breaking the law. People can't vote to break the law. They can vote to rewrite the law, sometimes, depending on how the law is written. Often in the US we vote for elected officials who write law and then the elected president who enforces the law. So whether tens of millions of people voted for Trump doesn't mean Trump can just disregard l…

> People voting for an elected official is different than that elected official breaking the law

Not if the elected official pledged to break the law before being elected.

> People can't vote to break the law.

That's exactly what they did.

> As far as I know, that's not how the rule of law works in representative democracies.

I fear that's also not what the US has become now.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#936

Post by lnwlebjel »

AlexandrB wrote: post #855
hall0ween wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you explain more about the "highly discriminatory and ideological" behavior you've seen? Is it across the board, in the sciences? For example, is a neurosurgery lab at UC Davis working on glioma research either discriminatory and ideologically driven?

Here's a good account of some of it: https://unsafescience.substack.com/p/the-last-four-years-wer...

I can't deny that person's experience but mine has not been that at all.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#937

Post by booleandilemma »

tormeh wrote: post #931
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a lot of other benefits to the USA attracting high skill talent than just salary: * English language school system so your kids (if you have them) will speak a world language. * Racially and culturally diverse cultures, cuisines, and communities. * Exposure to goods from most of the world, even if marked up. * Availability of international franchises headquartered in other countries in major metros. * A stron…

Canada and Australia are immigration nations. The UK definitely is not.

The national dish of England is chicken tikka masala, last time I checked.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#938

Post by lnwlebjel »

magicink81 wrote: post #192
throwfgtpwd234 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrecked how? Fixed how? Can you describe either or are you just saying words?

US scientific research funding is largely driven by nepotism and favoritism. Insiders know but don't talk too much about it. They have a few options: a) just quietly stay in the system trying their best to do good work b) join the gravy train through social climbing c) quietly leave and move on with their careers.

Insiders have little say. NSF is probably the most merit based system in all the US government. Literally any other program (defense?) is less merit based.

Also, if nepotism and favoritism are the criteria for removal, let's start with the Executive branch.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#939

Post by dennis_jeeves2 »

causal wrote: post #794
batushka5 wrote: post #768

As an european I envy so much this great purge - here entire castes build on feeding from grant money, perpetuating DEI, green transition, gender studies etc. Overnight nothing-scientist/ NGO profesionals carreers are over, like in those "AI stole my job" videos. Sadly EU still holds strong perpetuating this grant bottom feeding, poisoning academia and discrediting NGOs.

I'd like to offer: both can be bad. Any large system is going to have a lot of inefficiencies, and something to dislike for everyone. But its overall function can still be important enough that taking a sledge hammer to the whole thing is still much more harmful than whatever motivated picking up the hammer.

>Any large system is going to have a lot of inefficiencies

Hence one needs the free market. The govt. typically lack the checks and balance that the free market automatically provides hence it _always_ results in bloat.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#940

Post by tremon »

qwe----3 wrote: post #160
amelius wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> USA is a place where you can go from $100k to $100m vesting if you are lucky. That very few do achieve this isn't the point: you cannot do it, in almost any other economy. That's a kind of lottery-mentality that Europe doesn't want to attract anyway.

Yeah, in Germany the rich stay rich.

Whereas in the US the rich get richer? Or the poor stay poor? What's your point?
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