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Comment by xhkkffbf | Hacker News Reader

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They're pushing a 55% budget cut. There is absolutely no universe in which you can justify that with rhetoric around "DEI" science. This is going to cut very, very deep into basic STEM / biomedical research.

They're cancelling mRNA research, they're flagging research that uses words like "trauma" or studies how medications impact men and women differently. There's no sensible agenda behind all of this, it's just backlash and destruction done haphazardly. This is no different from the Department of Defense deleting the Tuskegee Airmen from the website because "DEI", except far far more consequential.

could the 55% budget cut be a bureaucracy reduction, not a dei issue?

They're not spending 55% of their budget on unnecessary administration. Though ironically, having their ideological crusaders check every science paper that mentions the word "bias"[1] to check that it doesn't also mention minorities they wish to normalise bias against will probably increase the administrative overhead...

[1]I think it's probably fair to assume that whoever concluded the word "bias" indicated a likelihood the paper was "woke" struggled with high school statistics and has never read an academic paper of any sort...

agreed: 55% seems high if a bureaucracy reduction, and agreed about paper checkers being overhead themselves.

“I’ve seen” doesn’t work rhetorically for public institutions like NSF. If you know of grants you want to use as examples, link to them.

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