What is this supposed to be? It's a link to a bunch of posts on some kind of social media platform that all say "uspol science funding". Am I missing something?
What a horrible outcome! NIST is, for most of its services, a self-funded agency and they define the acceptable standards for new tech. This makes no sense.
Edit: Too much time on screen today. My apologies for muddying the waters!
Sad to say but this will be the norm for the next 4 years, don’t expect any federal organization to come out intact. I’ve basically ruled out working as a federal employee as there’s no assurances about anything.
What's missing here is information on the relevant programs, their funding, objectives and results over time. Secondarily, details on who was let go, their job descriptions, accomplishments/work product.
Note that I am not either supporting or being critical of the cut. I don't have enough information to even be able to approximate a conclusion. And, frankly, it is likely this is the case for everyone posting on this thread.
Just saying that <insert department, program or people> was cut from government does not make it good or bad. Yes, of course, we know that there's tremendous waste in government. And we also know that there are functions and programs that are very important.
These kinds of post deliver no substance and sometimes seek to drive shock value and outrage. At the end of it, nobody really knows a thing about any of this other than the headline and nebulous, if any, details.
This is true for many programs for reasons that will be hard to understand if you aren't a scientist. The NSF program managers are often pulled out of academia for brief periods of their career to do various tasks as experts. This means they are often probationary. This is the only way to hire people with deep expertise on the topic-du-jour.
The trump administration fired in wide swaths many probationary employees at NSF with total disregard for what they were doing or why. Not evaluated efficiency cuts. Just thrashing about.
Science in the US will be chaotically torn apart by this and a host of other decisions.
Notwithstanding the other awful aspects of all of this, there’s a certain vibe of, “people who don’t understand how a system works attempting to act like they know how the system works and are too cowardly to admit they are breaking everything.”
This just reads like “Character Limit” except replace Twitter with the federal government.
Why shouldn't the three monopoly cellular players in the US do this work themselves? Is there some reason the NSF is doing industry research for them? Are we /honestly/ afraid of "falling behind" in cellular technology if the government doesn't do basic research?
There is no worse tyranny than to force someone to pay for something they do not want to buy, simply because you think it would be good for them.
I am vehemently pro-research and pro-education, but these tax-funded programs are not it. There must be some meaningful connection to the delivery of value, otherwise this stuff is just public-private wealth transfer. This seems obvious to me. Why should this research be subsidized? Why should government subsidies exist in general?
This isn’t crazy stuff. We would like a smaller federal government. Why is everyone acting like the sky is falling when an elected official does the things people voted for them to do?
(Note: I did not vote for this administration, but I am happy about some of the policy decisions that are being made (and unhappy about others).)
Interesting approach to competing with China on wireless technology. I would have thought the US having a competitive edge over China in terms of research and development would be important to Republicans.
Whoops, you're not connected to Mailchimp. You need to enter a valid Mailchimp API key.
Our site uses cookies. Learn more about our use of cookies: cookie policyACCEPTREJECT
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
12 Comments
avalys
What is this supposed to be? It's a link to a bunch of posts on some kind of social media platform that all say "uspol science funding". Am I missing something?
readthenotes1
Everyone whose funding is cut/questioned says it's wrong and/or inefficient.
They can't all be right and the US is running a $1.5T+ deficit and the national debt per citizen is $666k.
https://www.usdebtclock.org/
tomrod
What a horrible outcome! NIST is, for most of its services, a self-funded agency and they define the acceptable standards for new tech. This makes no sense.
Edit: Too much time on screen today. My apologies for muddying the waters!
knowknow
Sad to say but this will be the norm for the next 4 years, don’t expect any federal organization to come out intact. I’ve basically ruled out working as a federal employee as there’s no assurances about anything.
robomartin
What's missing here is information on the relevant programs, their funding, objectives and results over time. Secondarily, details on who was let go, their job descriptions, accomplishments/work product.
Note that I am not either supporting or being critical of the cut. I don't have enough information to even be able to approximate a conclusion. And, frankly, it is likely this is the case for everyone posting on this thread.
Just saying that <insert department, program or people> was cut from government does not make it good or bad. Yes, of course, we know that there's tremendous waste in government. And we also know that there are functions and programs that are very important.
These kinds of post deliver no substance and sometimes seek to drive shock value and outrage. At the end of it, nobody really knows a thing about any of this other than the headline and nebulous, if any, details.
So…where is the data?
polairscience
This is true for many programs for reasons that will be hard to understand if you aren't a scientist. The NSF program managers are often pulled out of academia for brief periods of their career to do various tasks as experts. This means they are often probationary. This is the only way to hire people with deep expertise on the topic-du-jour.
The trump administration fired in wide swaths many probationary employees at NSF with total disregard for what they were doing or why. Not evaluated efficiency cuts. Just thrashing about.
Science in the US will be chaotically torn apart by this and a host of other decisions.
https://www.wired.com/story/national-science-foundation-febr…
markus_zhang
Wonder who informed the author? And how did the DOGE thing go exactly?
Kindra
Notwithstanding the other awful aspects of all of this, there’s a certain vibe of, “people who don’t understand how a system works attempting to act like they know how the system works and are too cowardly to admit they are breaking everything.”
This just reads like “Character Limit” except replace Twitter with the federal government.
calvinmorrison
Good! Now lets eliminate more and more until there are no more people stealing my money.
timewizard
Why shouldn't the three monopoly cellular players in the US do this work themselves? Is there some reason the NSF is doing industry research for them? Are we /honestly/ afraid of "falling behind" in cellular technology if the government doesn't do basic research?
sneak
Consent matters.
There is no worse tyranny than to force someone to pay for something they do not want to buy, simply because you think it would be good for them.
I am vehemently pro-research and pro-education, but these tax-funded programs are not it. There must be some meaningful connection to the delivery of value, otherwise this stuff is just public-private wealth transfer. This seems obvious to me. Why should this research be subsidized? Why should government subsidies exist in general?
This isn’t crazy stuff. We would like a smaller federal government. Why is everyone acting like the sky is falling when an elected official does the things people voted for them to do?
(Note: I did not vote for this administration, but I am happy about some of the policy decisions that are being made (and unhappy about others).)
dqv
Interesting approach to competing with China on wireless technology. I would have thought the US having a competitive edge over China in terms of research and development would be important to Republicans.