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Comment by devmunchies | Hacker News Reader

The federal govt can’t be the majority of technological innovation. If we’re lucky this vacuum will be filled by an even larger private sector innovation hub like Xerox park and bell labs.

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Various institutions that, among other things, receive federal grant money, make up an enormous amount of technological innovation. The federal government deciding it doesn’t want to pay out money that it has already contracted to pay is not going to help these institutions succeed at their innovation mission.

I, personally, believe that much of the current financial structure of the universities is broken, and the structure of the “indirect costs” causes strongly misaligned incentives, but arbitrarily and massively lowering the rates on zero notice is not the solution. I’ll note that no one involve in DOGE seems to have an actual proposal to improve the situation — they just seem to want to shut everything off.

Oh my god dude, who do you think is the major subsidizer of private industry research?

I didn’t say I was in favor of axing all govt positions and grants, dude.

You didn't say that, but you're supporting the guys who did.

This is the first thread ive commented on since trump was inaugurated and it’s sad to see HN has turned into Reddit.

emotionally charged, bad faith assumptions at the smallest whiff of independent thought.

Indeed you did.

US innovation is looking at how it can extract as much profit as it can in the next quarter.

They say on the internet, a direct result of DARPA funding.

Just like in healthcare, right? Where we are lucky the private industry has created...oh wait, most expensive healthcare system in the world, doesn't cover a third of the population, doesn't even crack the top ten in outcomes.

The regulators ain’t regulating. That’s their main job, not innovation.

Private sector research basically does not exist anymore, especially basic science research. A lot of truly revolutionary stuff starts in academia and spins into tech and biotech startups.

Not sure how you have such optimism. It will take a lot more than luck to rebuild what's being destroyed and we don't have what it takes.

[edit: Found a less condescending way to make my point.]

> If we’re lucky this vacuum will be filled by an even larger private sector innovation hub like Xerox park and bell labs.

Why would they do that when stock buybacks are more profitable for shareholders?

Why do you think the vacuum won't be filled by other countries willing to fund their scientists?

This is after all the same reasoning used to give tax breaks to get a factory to setup in town

It is not a zero-sum game. Less spending in the US does not magically becomes more spending elsewhere. It’s actually likely to become less spending in several countries, as military spending increases because of geopolitical instability.

Every single American cellular operator was part of this program.

It will be largely filled by Chinese universities and Chinese companies working together. Non-Chinese researchers will probably have to go to Europe.

It's going to be Huawei.

You do realize PARC and Bell Labs are long gone, right?

But the memories will live on in our hearts.

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