Here's what I don't understand. Let's say you're a selfish multi-billionaire, essentially having won at life, and now you want more. Essentially the only things your money can't buy you are long life, health (both physical and mental), and perhaps the ability to explore places humans have never ventured and create things humans have never created. If you want any chance at these things, wouldn't you want to encourage as much scientific innovation as possible? Steve Jobs died at 56 of pancreatic cancer. Wouldn't these people want science to advance as fast as possible, before they too get cancer, or at least die of some age-related disease that science might otherwise have been able to cure?
Why is the billionaire class so dead-set on tearing down scientific institutions? It makes no sense even if you assume they're selfish assholes. It only makes sense if they are extremely stupid selfish assholes who are so blinded by their own evilness that they are cannibalizing their own futures for the fleeting sensation of their societal rank going up (due to them tearing down the rest of society around them). Is that really the explanation? I've never believed in purely evil cartoon villains before, but I just don't see any other explanation anymore.
They taught us that the renaissance/enlightenment was when we woke up and started caring about facts and now we were just in the process of refining the process, and that now all that willful ignorance is behind us.
I think Feyerabend had it right: Science is fundamentally anarchical. It will perennially offend those who are drunk with power.
We should've been learning to carry science forward despite powerful adversaries trying to shut us down–to take it underground like it was a criminal endeavor. Instead we focused on publication and on groveling after funding and no nobody knows what to do because the funding faucet has been shut off. And just when AI was starting to look like it might become a decent lab assistant. How sad.
The other mystery to unravel is the tech industry rallying behind a leader who wants to undo the very fabric of what makes the tech industry possible. Less taxes I get. Killing any chance of regulation so monopolies can continue to monopoly I get. I don't know why any non-cultist tech leader would want less science and technology education and research.
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11 Comments
pmags
The letter itself:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/31/health/scient…
shanekandy
Article:
https://archive.is/TOvAo
The letter:
https://archive.is/3rIir
jsight
[flagged]
fuckyah
[dead]
feoren
Here's what I don't understand. Let's say you're a selfish multi-billionaire, essentially having won at life, and now you want more. Essentially the only things your money can't buy you are long life, health (both physical and mental), and perhaps the ability to explore places humans have never ventured and create things humans have never created. If you want any chance at these things, wouldn't you want to encourage as much scientific innovation as possible? Steve Jobs died at 56 of pancreatic cancer. Wouldn't these people want science to advance as fast as possible, before they too get cancer, or at least die of some age-related disease that science might otherwise have been able to cure?
Why is the billionaire class so dead-set on tearing down scientific institutions? It makes no sense even if you assume they're selfish assholes. It only makes sense if they are extremely stupid selfish assholes who are so blinded by their own evilness that they are cannibalizing their own futures for the fleeting sensation of their societal rank going up (due to them tearing down the rest of society around them). Is that really the explanation? I've never believed in purely evil cartoon villains before, but I just don't see any other explanation anymore.
alfor
[flagged]
__MatrixMan__
They taught us that the renaissance/enlightenment was when we woke up and started caring about facts and now we were just in the process of refining the process, and that now all that willful ignorance is behind us.
I think Feyerabend had it right: Science is fundamentally anarchical. It will perennially offend those who are drunk with power.
We should've been learning to carry science forward despite powerful adversaries trying to shut us down–to take it underground like it was a criminal endeavor. Instead we focused on publication and on groveling after funding and no nobody knows what to do because the funding faucet has been shut off. And just when AI was starting to look like it might become a decent lab assistant. How sad.
Chinjut
[flagged]
hypertexthero
Why is the letter behind a NY Times paywall and not on the National Academies’ website at
https://www.nasonline.org/ ?
The Guardian — https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/31/scientists-l… — has a link to this Google Doc:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/13gmMJOMsoNKC4U-A8rhJrzu_…
1970-01-01
I agree with the letter, however there is merit to defunding due to the replication crisis. That should have at least been mentioned in the letter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis
spacemadness
The other mystery to unravel is the tech industry rallying behind a leader who wants to undo the very fabric of what makes the tech industry possible. Less taxes I get. Killing any chance of regulation so monopolies can continue to monopoly I get. I don't know why any non-cultist tech leader would want less science and technology education and research.