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U.S. science is in chaos

scientificamerican.com

951–960 of 1001 posts

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#951
post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conservative views are very anti science, look at their consensus on climate change. Of course the universities were going to be mostly liberal. Like at their core conservatives are against change, that’s the “conserve” part of their name and science is a process that constantly updates our understanding of reality.

Liberal views are very anti-science on race. Some famous professors even lost their positions just for adopting the statistically correct position that the majority of the difference in outcomes between races is accounted for by IQ, which is mostly immutable after childhood, not some societal conspiracy against certain races.

Simple people are drawn to simple models of the world. IQ is an extremely simple model.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#953

Earlier quoted context omitted.

where in Canada? i've _never_ heard that, but if so, great.

Personally, I would go to Toronto. Decades ago I used to work for a Canadian company headquartered in Toronto and had development offices in the states. There was a project I needed to do with a distinguished engineer that required me to move to Toronto for a few months. I really liked it. TBH, there are very few cities in the US that I would say are on par with Toronto, and none are better. Now the Winters are bruta…

totally understand about winters and miss them, personally. i'm from pretty near toronto but us side of the border, a bit further west.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#954
post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. File under "bitter pills to swallow." It's so easy to sit in an air-conditioned house, with our 2-day delivered Amazon stuff, and just make pronouncements like degrowth, etc. Meanwhile about 99% of the humans who live in places that haven't fully industrialized are either working feverishly to industrialize like us, or are trying to find a way to move to an industrialized country because of how incredibly har…

> if we started making every societal decision to truly optimize for climate concerns to the exclusion of all other priorities. Effectively no one is arguing for this. You're ranting about a ghost.

No I'm not, because no matter what we do there is always a Climate Change Guy saying it's not enough and we're all gonna die if we don't do better.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#955
post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. File under "bitter pills to swallow." It's so easy to sit in an air-conditioned house, with our 2-day delivered Amazon stuff, and just make pronouncements like degrowth, etc. Meanwhile about 99% of the humans who live in places that haven't fully industrialized are either working feverishly to industrialize like us, or are trying to find a way to move to an industrialized country because of how incredibly har…

> I also suspect that our most committed enviro-leftists genuinely believe that their lifestyle is already fully aligned to their values -- they don't even own a car, take transit everywhere! They pay an extra $25 for carbon offsets when they fly, and they "recycle everything"! They live in a blue state that mandates high levels of "clean energy" in the power grid. You did it, you torched the strawman.

So you're saying that no Western leftists espouse degrowth policies that, if carried out, would lower their living standards while enjoying the luxuries our nonzero-carbon world provide them?

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#956
post #948
post #860

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://old.reddit.com/r/FirstTimeHomeBuyer/comments/1thk1bn... Cheaper than 120k?

Sure, you can find something with various budgets. As other said, that house is far away from the city centre (the reddit OP says so in the thread). You'll also probably need to spend a lot on upkeep and retrofits with buildings this old. Something in the city centre is more like 4800 euro/sqmt ( https://www.idealista.com/sala-de-prensa/informes-precio-viv... ). Just browse idealista in the city you want and you'll s…

Who cares if it is outside the city center? Looks like it is plenty urban. Even better, more real businesses priced towards locals paying 120k for an entire building, and no seasonal tourist businesses taking up space in the market priced for whoever can afford a four figure vacation to Valencia. Besides, OP said it was 20 mins by car to the city center. That seems perfectly reasonable in the american frame of reference towards distances to points of interest. The place looks turnkey too. Unfinished attic is pretty typical even in the US.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#957
post #860

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://old.reddit.com/r/FirstTimeHomeBuyer/comments/1thk1bn... Cheaper than 120k?

That must be outside of Valencia city at that price. And anywhere near Madrid or Barcelona (where most of the good jobs are), forget it. It'll be 350k for a 100m2 apartment or even more expensive in the popular neighbourhoods.

Op said it's 20 mins by car to the city center.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#958
post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What made places like Bell Labs, Xerox PARC, IBM Research, etc thrive? What happened to that mechanism, and can we have it back?

This is obviously an overly simple narrative, but one real factor: the Bell Labs model was built around giving brilliant people a lab and a bunch of funding, and leaving them on their own to explore for a while. Lots of blue sky goofy research, a lot of which ended up being useful. That has its own problems, including “which few brilliant minds get this opportunity?” and “how do we make the researchers accountable fo…

“how do we make the researchers accountable for actually getting something done?”

do we even need this? i think accepting that some will produce nothing useful is just cost of doing business. certainly better than imposing bureaucracy in name of accountability

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#959

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not much talent is going from US to Canada, it's almost always the reverse if you look at top canadian universities

US citizen moves to Canada on a CUSMA visa: - 30-50% pay cut - points and lottery based immigration system that penalizes them for each year you age after 30 - frequent unfavorable rule changes - fear of being trapped forever on a temporary visa and eventually sent back to the USA, poorer than their peers who stayed stateside. Canadian citizen moves to us on equivalent CUSMA visa: - huge pay raise - retire back home…

I don't know what a CUSMA visa is - I thought CUSMA was a trade deal?, but it seems very convenient to compare the standard Express Entry points-based immigration track versus (nothing) on the US side. Convenient is an euphemism, reality basically the opposite of what you're saying:

Moving to Canada:

- Rational points-based immigration system with transparent rules which you can actually look up and prepare for, start your life as a Permanent Resident with all but voting rights compared with a citizen, become a citizen in a few years.

Moving to US:

- Wait years for an H1B with a yearly lottery with 15% chance

- Wait another 10 years for a Green Card, equivalent to a PR card - Wait another ? years for full citizenship

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#960

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, research funding turned stupid before DOGE. I remember talking a guy who was struggling to write the mandatory diversity statement for a grant in quantum computing.

Whatever diversity sections were required in grant proposals are nothing compared to the situation right now. If your guy couldn’t say stuff like we will do outreach to local CCs, will design summer research programs, etc, then they’re just not a very good grant writer

Why attach this stuff to every grant? This guy was dealing was dealing cutting edge research using multi million dollar equipment. Stuff only a few people world wide know about. That’s difficult enough.

This leads to purely performative diversity statements that mean nothing in the real world.

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