The American science funding catastrophe | Hacker News Reader

The American science funding catastrophe

scottaaronson.blog

41 pointsnabla914 comments

It's unfortunately entirely inline with their political goals. There's been an ongoing attack on upper education, all sciences etc because they're viewed as being part of the problem. Like how Florida has been taking over and installing stooges in colleges to massive negative effect.

> There's been an ongoing attack on upper education, all sciences etc because they're viewed as being part of the problem

Let's be honest, it's coming from both sides. The illiberal left is just as guilty of crucifying academics it disagrees with as the neoauthoritarian right. (Not sure why I feel the need to qualify the latter with neo, but I don't think they'd wilfully authoritarian as much as authoritarian leaning. At least among the rank and file.)

No, it's not.

In academia? We’ve had folks on the far left cancelling research and teaching for years now. Anti-intellectualism is the domain of extremists of every stripe.

Not surprising when universities have been declared the enemy [1].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FR65Cifnhw

>you may or may not have realized you were voting for this, exactly, but this is what you’ve gotten.

I voted for Trump and I am loving what he has started to do.

Small government has been a Republican Party talking point for as long as I can remember, but noone has actually done it. Not even first term Trump.

This time it's clearly different, for the first time in my life we are taking gigantic hammers and crowbars to tear the government down to size. Yes, it will be painful for all of us (that includes me too) especially in the short-term, but it's something that I firmly believe needs to happen for an even better future and second term Trump is keeping his campaign promise.

We actually got a small glimpse of this during first term Trump when he essentially emptied the State Department and left it that way for the duration of his tenure. The world was surprisingly more peaceful than it ever was and the country did just fine diplomatically, despite loud cries to the contrary.

I want more of that. I want an empty State Department again. I want an empty bureaucracy. I want a small, effective, efficient government. And even better, these mandates come with a mandate for judging people on their merits alone. As a minority (Japanese-American) I am ecstatic that DEI has finally been viciously put out to pasture, I firmly believe that All Men Are Created Equal.

All of this is what I voted for, I am happy I can get to see it all happen for real. If you disagree, and obviously we do, that's unfortunate but we'll just have to agree to disagree.

> I firmly believe that All Men Are Created Equal.

That’s a nice sentiment if you ignore the fact that not all races have historically been treated equally. We may all be running the same rat race together, but a few of us were allowed to leave the starting line early.

When does the cut-off happen?

Can I claim that I, because of my ancestors in Europe that were routinely bull-dozed by competing empires, deserve compensation?

When the current president immediately blames the brown people for an air disaster, all I can tell you is, we're not there yet.

There's a shortage of air traffic controllers, and DEI policies have bungled hiring in the effort to constrain as much hiring as possible into minorities across practically every corporation.

So far government doesn't seem to be shrinking at all, just being made less effective. If you believe the work state employees do is worse than useless then go ahead and cheer.

I have trouble taking someone seriously when they look at all the functions of government and say not just that they are an ineffective use of tax dollars (cliché and debatable), but that we'd be better off if their funds were simply set on fire than put to use. Because that's what's happening now.

I think what you actually want to happen is for Congress to reduce budgets. Until that happens, you may want to keep the cork in the bottle.

>So far government doesn't seem to be shrinking at all, just being made less effective.

We're just getting started, it's barely 11 days since Trump got in and started. It will be a while until things settle into a new arrangement.

>If you believe the work state employees do is worse than useless then go ahead and cheer.

I sincerely believe that the US government does its best work when it is doing nothing beyond what is strictly necessary, which frankly isn't a lot compared to its size right now.

>that we'd be better off if their funds were simply set on fire than put to use.

Considering we're trillions of dollars in debt, I applaud not spending money. It's ridiculous that the state of our finances is considered acceptable.

>I think what you actually want to happen is for Congress to reduce budgets.

That is indeed one of the ultimate goals. We'll see if House Republicans get in line this time.

FWIW I'm glad you're here politely making your case despite the downvotes. I'll keep trying to understand your perspective.

The Germans have a saying that nicely illustrates the current situation in the US: "Den Teufel mit dem Beelzebub austreiben" ("Exorcising the devil with Beelzebub").

Unless people come to their senses and boot this insane POTUS and its misanthropist servants, it will end the same fate everybody in Europe had to suffer through during the first half of 20th century. There will be no winners because everybody will just lose. So sad to see this insanity being revived.

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