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Comment by jordanpg | Hacker News Reader

The reputational damage to US scientific prestige is incalculable. And all for amounts that are tiny slivers of the federal budget for research that benefits potentially everyone.

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Consider reading the original notice and decide if you should revise your opinion.

https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-25-0...

>tiny slivers

We have a saying in Japan that goes: "Even dust piled up will make a mountain."

Considering the monies concerned here are also tax dollars, I am wholly unsympathetic to the actual monetary sums. They could be 1 cent and my feelings on this matter wouldn't change: Audit every single line item and slash anything wasteful.

Collateral damage is unavoidable, and more importantly I don't care about collateral damage since we are finally getting the audits and cuts we the people demanded for way too long.

Ah yes, “collateral damage”.

What a wonderful phrase that came into prominence to euphemise the killing of hundreds of thousands to millions of innocent Afghans and Iraqis.

I believe your use of it here is equally appropriate considering what you’re suggesting.

I’m guessing none of you our your loved ones will be affected by that “collateral damage”.

Trump's tariffs if (when) enacted will adversely affect our family business, as will some of his other policies which I won't get into because of confidentiality.

I still voted for him.

Why? Because his policies are things the people have demanded for a very long time and they are things we need to do sooner or later for the better future of our country.

Even Musk admitted this will be painful in the short and possibly even mid term, but in the long term we will all be better off for it.

I demanded he be in jail but somehow you voted for a convicted felon over a prosecutor.

Dodged a bullet, I say

What was it like voting for Kamala in the primary?

nobdoy tell him

It was good. I voted for Biden which was implicitly a vote for Kamala. I don’t think this was an actual concern given that only partisans - definitionally - vote in non competitive incumbent primaries.

I think it's optimistic to think they'll be better off in the long term, personally. Other countries are ready to jump in as soon as the US appears deficient at something, even if it is a temporary deficiency. If the US ends up temporarily behind in AI research due to this, for example, it's unlikely they catch back up IMO. If you get behind, everybody is just going to start looking at whoever is ahead and the rich will get richer.

How long have European nations existed versus the USA?

The actual constituted nations of Europe as they exist today? Aside from the UK, not long. Most of them are states that came into existence in the 20th century. Germany was the 1980's. The rest are generally 19th century.

The key issue is we're not getting audits, we're only getting indiscriminate cuts .

I understand the concerns around using funds effectively, and I agree there's a lot of waste out there, but some of that is just required in the research space to learn. If we knew what to fund to do something, it's no longer research, it's engineering.

Overhaul the grant system to ensure that there's additional scrutiny in getting funding, focus on outcomes we want, audit the past research, but burning it all down doesn't help and just wastes what's currently in flight and we'll have to rebuild eventually, duplicating effort and thus wasting money.

I understand the emotional reaction, but it would do everyone a lot of good to take a step back, take a deep breath, and approach things in a measured and focused way.

They’re not “burning it all down”, they’re cutting indirect expenses from 30%+ to 15% — and administrators who were grifting are whining because their slush funds got cut.

You are correct. I was more talking about the overall cost cutting "program" which is much closer to the burn it all down, but that isn't the case with this article and I apologize for incorrectly commenting overly broadly out of context.

Even in this narrow context, the cuts are indiscriminate in their domain. Moreover, they are rolled out aggressively, carelessly, and abruptly -- a lot of "masculine energy." Science takes years and requires long-term planning. This move just pulls the carpet out; there absolutely is no need for this degree of urgency other than political gain.

These organizations can and will adapt. But as I said in my OP, the real, lasting damage is in prestige. In the meantime, scientists all over the world thinking about working in the US will think twice. Young adults thinking about becoming research physicians and doing biomedical research will think twice. Researchers making peanuts working at universities doing this research will go work in pharma on more lucrative projects.

>no need for this degree of urgency

Midterms are coming up in less than 2 years, and the next general in less than 4. Time is of the essence to get shit done so the people can decide if they want more or a change in course.

>lasting damage is in prestige.

Pride is a deadly sin for a reason, screw pride. We make America great again by striving for greatness, not puffing ourselves up with pride.

The time for measured approaches is long gone. Any administration of the last 50 years could have done that. But they didn't. It's time to slash and burn.

This isn't a fucking game where you get to flip the table when you don't get your way, throwing a temper tantrum, this is the lives of hundreds of millions of people and the respect for basic rule of law.

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