What's happening inside the NIH and NSF • Hacker News Board

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#951

Post by fxj » Wed, Feb 05, 2025, 9:04 PM UTC

lumost wrote: post #210

scarab92 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s not that many jobs going in academia in other countries, and you’ll be looking at a significant pay cut due to the strong US dollar. Most likely, people who leave academia will be leaving for industry instead. I do feel for those in the hard sciences, they have become collateral damage in what is mostly a battle between politicians and humanities departments.

I've been suspicious that the quality of life cut is distinct from the pay cut. Living in a dense European city, you do not need a car, healthcare is free, and you are generally afforded more time off and a stricter wlb compromise compared to the US. One doesn't need to eat takeout as often if there is time to cook. Depending on the country, rent/housing costs are more or less under control. On the other hand swiss/N…

30 days of vacation plus 24 days for overtime are very often found. especially in university/governmental jobs.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#952

Post by chinathrow » Wed, Feb 05, 2025, 9:04 PM UTC

burnerboy wrote: post #777

insane_dreamer wrote: post #761

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other big elephant in the room is that the self-appointed wanna-be ruler, Musk, owns companies which have received very large amounts of both government (taxpayer) grants and contracts. Back in 2015, the LA Times reported Musk's companies had received nearly $5 billion in grants. That's taxpayer money. Plus there's the SpaceX contracts--not saying those are unwarranted, certainly SpaceX deserves the contracts mor…

He also has massive business operations in China, a country which clearly wants a weakened US. WSJ also reported in October about how Musk has been in regular contact with Putin.

At this point, it looks like Elon went fully rogue.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#953

Post by booleandilemma » Wed, Feb 05, 2025, 9:04 PM UTC

herodotus wrote: post #842

Another win for China. While the US guts its research capacity, China already dominates scientific research (according to Perplexity, 29% of the most highly cited peer reviewed articles are authored by Chinese scientists). Of course all those people who voted for this regime don't believe that there is any benefit to funding science. After all, what did science ever do for them? (OK, except for the science of pick-up…

Do you not think DEI is harming US research capacity?

What do you honestly think China thinks of our DEI initiatives?

They're laughing at us in Chinese.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#954

Post by tormeh » Wed, Feb 05, 2025, 9:09 PM UTC

CalRobert wrote: post #589

mnky9800n wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno man my salary is six figures and I’m an academic scientist living in the Netherlands. My life is much higher quality than the equivalent could buy me in anywhere worth living in the USA. Like I agree the salaries can be low but you simply don’t need to make 300k usd to have a nice life here. I have a flat in the middle of the city of Utrecht where I cycle to work and pop off to the pub after and the gym is tw…

Hear hear - Utrecht might be the finest city in the world, too. And Europe is missing a gigantic opportunity right now. The fact that talent is cheap, there's a strong social safety net, and we don't have enormous amounts of entrepreneurship is really strange.

It's easier to run a startup in the US, so why do it anywhere else? The financing is easier, the labor laws more business-friendly, and the native market bigger. And that's how it's going to stay for the foreseeable future. EU internal market integration has been paused for decades, weakening labor laws is a non-starter in any European country, and European pension funds are generally not allowed to invest in index funds, let alone something as risky as VC. If you think the EU will ever catch up, think again. The political will to do so is just not there.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#955

Post by anonistheback » Wed, Feb 05, 2025, 9:12 PM UTC

tstactplsignore wrote: post #392

Gabriel54 wrote: post #141

Despite all the hyperbole in this thread I will try to speak plainly. It has become tiring to see how DEI has affected all aspects of academia. Hiring people based on race, awarding grants to work exclusively with members of a particular set of minorities, etc. I'm sure most people choose to close their eyes to such things and move on and focus on the actual important work but there must be unimaginable waste going o…

This is simply a delusion detached from reality. I am a white man in STEM academia. I've never been discriminated against once. None of my white male colleagues have either. They are all successful in academia. And my colleagues who aren't white men are in no way inferior. Just let us vote and ask if we feel discriminated against or oppressed because of DEI. We'll vote no. It's simply a delusion that DEI is some unme…

That is because none of your colleagues who think so would ever tell you. The problem with this is that the ideology has led to a point where I and many like me will simply never tell someone like yourself what they think of.

Even now that it's "better" I would only write something like this anonymously in fear of a future person seeing and judging my beliefs. I have personally watched in corporate and academia the effects. I am small fish but have personally wanted to hire someone who I thought was the most qualified for the position and was rather non obviously told to not because the team already had to many white men. We instead had to go with my 3rd choice a female who while great did not have the technical skills I valued in the first.

The main problem is people who say things like you do is that you don't realize you have a very incomplete picture. Those who disagree with the ideas will literally never say them. In many career paths saying your beliefs that don't align is basically career suicide.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#956

Post by malwrar » Wed, Feb 05, 2025, 9:20 PM UTC

1832 wrote: post #944

malwrar wrote: post #926

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Enslaving people because you deem them inferior to your own race. This is irrelevant to the discussion of hiring in 2025, unless you believe your fellow “white” population harbors literal beliefs of a.) racial identity and b.) racial superiority, that c.) the “white” people making hiring decisions are actively excluding candidates based on these beliefs, and that d.) application of a nonwhite bias is just and measu…

I proclaim that no such preference exists in the US in 2025!

Hah definitely now, tho we’ll see how things play out.

I really hate how poisoned the well has become on this topic, there’s definitely elitism and exclusion that should be systematically addressed in hiring. I’d support programs promoting cheaper and universally-accessible paths to getting skilled jobs (e.g. accepting projects/certs/etc or offering literal job training) as long as they were open to anyone regardless of protected characteristics. You shouldn’t need to mainline an ivy-league path your entire childhood to have a chance at being hired at Google. I think such programs would be far less controversial and produce real value for real people.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#957

Post by volkl48 » Wed, Feb 05, 2025, 9:23 PM UTC

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.

Historically/as national origin story, no.

But it has in recent decades accepted quite a large number of immigrants, and is at this point at a higher foreign-born % than the US, if still lower then Canada or Australia.

That's not quite the same as having a culture rooted in the immigration narrative, but it has changed significantly.

And I'll also mention that while integration of significant immigration into an existing society is clearly a challenging prospect everywhere, the UK is overall, doing noticeably better with it than most of it's European peers. Both from my subjective perspective as a somewhat regular visitor, and from a lot of the metrics I see.

This is a decent piece for the data side of that claim: https://samf.substack.com/p/the-truth-about-integration

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#958

Post by anonistheback » Wed, Feb 05, 2025, 9:28 PM UTC

stevenbedrick wrote: post #349

avs733 wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have written a version of this twice and deleted but just can't let this statement stand unopposed. This is, almost inherently at this point, a rant and my last contribution to this thread. This simply is not the case, I know it is something that you and many others believe is that case but you are being lied to by actual racists. I say that as a white man working in STEM academia. Academia had a long history and t…

Thank you for writing this- it aligns perfectly with what my own experience, as a white male in academia, has been with these issues. When I talk to people outside academia about “DEI”, it’s clear to me that whatever they think that term means, it has no relationship to anything I’ve ever seen in my career (involving faculty searches, recruitment of students and staff, education, involvement in clinical trial design…

I have personally hired less qualified candidates based on race and gender. I have made this choice from direct superior's comments as well as political requirements to climb the ladder of the organization I was in.

The truth is that if you are on the "left" your blind to what many are thinking. In person I will never tell you the bias or problems I see. I've learned doing so would make it nearly impossible to work with you.

Not saying you are "wrong" but the problem I an many like me face is that the softpower pressure to conform to left ideals mean I never do or say anything because I assume everyone around me would push back or push me out.

It's partly paranoia but it's also part of a factual experience I've had in highly liberal environments. They don't want to hear it and if they do you are damaged. Very different from the people we all know who are expounding and preaching liberal ideals in ever conversation they have.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#959

Post by chasing » Wed, Feb 05, 2025, 9:33 PM UTC

malwrar wrote: post #926

cat_theorist wrote: post #810

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hiring people based on race (white) and gender (male) is what happened _before_ Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives. Do you know what is the original and ultimate identity politics? Enslaving people because you deem them inferior to your own race. The civil war, the civil rights movement, and modern social justice movements are a response to this, not the root of the conflict. I'm a white guy in academia - no…

> Enslaving people because you deem them inferior to your own race. This is irrelevant to the discussion of hiring in 2025, unless you believe your fellow “white” population harbors literal beliefs of a.) racial identity and b.) racial superiority, that c.) the “white” people making hiring decisions are actively excluding candidates based on these beliefs, and that d.) application of a nonwhite bias is just and measu…

> ...unless you believe your fellow “white” population harbors literal beliefs of a.) racial identity and b.) racial superiority, that c.) the “white” people making hiring decisions are actively excluding candidates based on these beliefs, and that d.) application of a nonwhite bias is just and measured in the face of a-c.

I believe many of my fellow "whites" believe this, but more importantly it's pretty obvious that many of the most powerful "whites," including the current President and his boot-licking minion Donald Trump, absolutely believe this.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#960

Post by causal » Wed, Feb 05, 2025, 9:34 PM UTC

dennis_jeeves2 wrote: post #939

causal wrote: post #794

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Right, understanding that the government itself creates the space for the free market to operate, so any tinkering with it ought to be done carefully. New companies will replace old ones that die- and this is good. Failed states can and do happen, and it would be hubris to think it couldn't happen here.