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A Trump-era purge of military scientists at a legendary think tank

86 points by SolaceQuantum 7y ago

roenxi 7y ago
Putting the Trump name on this probably got them more eyeballs, but it seems a bit of a pity. The story is genuinely interesting without branding another article with the president's label. It seems unlikely he is especially involved in this. Mentioning him unnecessarily politicises the story; the man stirs up strong feelings.
- sleazebreeze 7y ago
  The article mentions this: > A June executive order signed by Trump requires all federal agencies to slash a third of their independent advisory committees by September 30, with the goal of ultimately reducing the total number of such committees to no more than 350 from about 1,000 now. That indicates that Trump is directly responsible for these events. How is that politicizing?
- notfromhere 7y ago
  A political appointee appointed by Trump cut the committee. It's not politicizing, its just fact.
- jplayer01 7y ago
  "On March 28, Trump appointee Michael Griffin – the Pentagon’s chief technology officer – unexpectedly moved to terminate the group. Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, objected, telling Griffin’s office the scientists were crucial for keeping America’s nuclear stockpile secure, according to an NNSA official and others affiliated with the Jason program. Gordon-Hagerty’s agency offered to take responsibility for the program. She only needed Griffin’s signature to make it happen. Griffin refused." It's another case of a Trump appointee taking apart science-based or consumer-oriented institutions where possible. I'm not sure how you can say this is unrelated to Trump. He appointed the damn guy. If Trump isn't responsible for what he does, who the hell is? Just like the guy taking apart the EPA, or the guy taking apart the FCC. Are you saying Trump has nothing to do with any of this? Come on. edit: Fuck you guys. I'm tired of people apologizing for Trump, as if he never has anything to do with anything and he's just a clueless chump. He's a fucking blight on the Western world and helping destroy democracy in the US.
- IfOnlyYouKnew 7y ago
  The decision was made and is being defended by a direct appointee of the President: > On March 28, Trump appointee Michael Griffin – the Pentagon’s chief technology officer – unexpectedly moved to terminate the group. It's also done in accordance with an executive order signed by the President himself: > A June executive order signed by Trump requires all federal agencies to slash a third of their independent advisory committees by September 30, with the goal of ultimately reducing the total number of such committees to no more than 350 from about 1,000 now. There is nothing frivolous in mentioning the person responsible for a policy under discussion. While it may sometimes seem like there is too much Trump news, most journalists not directly covering the White House actually are fairly hesitant to invoke his name, because it invariably dooms any discussion. But in a case such as this, it would be journalistic malpractice not to show the line of causality.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - akhilcacharya 7y ago
    I think there's a natural tendency to want to believe this is a "normal" administration. It's clear, however, that we don't.
papito 7y ago
Ya'll are not aware of the level of anti-intellectualism and anti-expertise in the Soviet Union, are you? Well, it was so epic and catastrophic - there is a new show about it, called Chernobyl. To be accurate, there WAS science, engineering, and expertise, but it had to neatly align with the Party Line.
- OedipusRex 7y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OGAS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OGAS
  - mempko 7y ago
    Kind of interesting that the ARPANET was justified around military grounds and OGAS around economic grounds. I guess OGAS spiritually lives on the internet now with ad tracking and payment networks where a few companies have detailed views of economic activity.
    - notfromhere 7y ago
      It's pretty telling that its the reason why ARPANET succeeded and OGAS failed. But interesting to know that the idea of a decentralized network to manage production demand was already taking place - i always thought if the Soviets had something like that they would have lasted much longer.
      - OedipusRex 7y ago
        ARPNET didn't turn into what it is today because of military usage, and OGAS didn't fail because of it's resource management use. They lived or died because of money. The United States and Soviet Union both had to build all of the precursors and fabric that these systems would run on (telephone lines, computers, etc), which both did. The next logical step was for computers to co-opt existing national infrastructure and create a national network of computers. The Soviet Union faltering elsewhere is why OGAS didn't develop and ARPANET did.
whatshisface 7y ago
If you're not planning to engage in nuclear war with modern national superpowers, maybe you don't need a board of the top physicists on call for information about weapons research.
- SolaceQuantum 7y ago
  In the article, the board of top phycisists are also queried about waves and the safe storage of nuclear material. They also were the guys who state that the 'sonic attacks' in cuba were crickets.
  - SaintGhurka 7y ago
    That is an inaccurate characterization of the finding. They found that the sound that they heard was crickets. They did not determine what caused the injuries or illnesses. The linked article was careful with its wording.
- JamesBarney 7y ago
  If you're going to spend billions on maintaining a nuclear arsenal it makes sense to me to spend a few million to ensure it's well maintained.
- justin66 7y ago
  The intent has never been to engage in nuclear war. That doesn't mean you don't make contingency plans. Nothing has changed in that regard.
- mikeash 7y ago
  But we are planning exactly that. We still have hundreds of nuclear-tipped missiles ready to fly at a moment’s notice.
- cmiles74 7y ago
  I'd feel the same way about a space-based defense system but apparently it's full-steam ahead on that particular money sink.
- 7y ago
notfromhere 7y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Technology_Assessment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Technology_Assessmen... This is like when Gingrich killed OTA to make room for lobbyists and consultants to run roughshod. Guarantee this is going to lead to a fat contract for someone
- asark 7y ago
  > According to Science magazine, "some Republican lawmakers came to view [the OTA] as duplicative, wasteful, and biased against their party." Presented without comment.
  - notfromhere 7y ago
    "biased against their party" is both depressing and sad given the low standing of scientific knowledge in the modern GOP.
- cmiles74 7y ago
  Perhaps a space-based missile defense system?
drinane 7y ago
We're going back to a time in America (ie Making America Great Again) when the lights are candles and that cough just doesn't go away if we keep this up. MURICA!
leroy_masochist 7y ago
I read the article and didn't find any compelling examples of how the Jason team did anything that created actual value for the DoD specifically or US in general. AFAICT, this is a team of distinguished scientists that is kept on the government payroll so that the US has the best scientific minds available for national security issues. Sounds great in theory, but when a clearly sympathetic article's chosen examples of the good work the group does include nuggets such as, "In the 1960s, the Jasons invented a type of sensor that could detect enemy guerrillas in Vietnam and communicate their location to U.S. bombers", I dunno, I'm kind of skeptical. I mean, maybe that sensor had a subsequent use case for the space program or something, who knows.
- SolaceQuantum 7y ago
  One of the things pointed out that they identified when certain plans (eg. missile defense system) was not useful, and also that the sound heard during the 'sonic attack' were crickets.
  - leroy_masochist 7y ago
    Right, but they're hardly a single point of failure with regard to internal oversight of missile defense systems; that alone is a multiple $Bn per year endeavor with several competing bureaucracies analyzing weak points and areas to improve. The cricket thing is just a hypothesis; the article itself says that, "No definitive cause of the illnesses has been determined". I don't have a dog in this fight, I'm just kind of skeptical.
    - SolaceQuantum 7y ago
      They're not a single point of failure, they're one of a myriad of important analysis of weak points and areas to improve. Note that in the article the scientists are not defining the illness, merely were able to identify the source of the sound. I'm mostly skeptical at the skepticism. Why wouldn't one want to retain world class researching talent to be queried at a moment's notice regarding anything that could possibly threaten the country?
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
godshatter 7y ago
Am I the only one that was shocked to find out that we have around a thousand independent advisory committees on the payroll? As someone who is a citizen of the US and who is not a Republican or a Trump supporter, I think we do need to scale back funding in a large number of areas of the government given the huge amount of national debt we have taken on. Having around a thousand advisory committees seems ridiculous. Maybe the Jason committee should have been spared, maybe not, but I can't claim to be upset that we are trying to cut back.
- frtlp 7y ago
  Perhaps the roughly $700B defense budget could make up those cuts? :)
  - godshatter 7y ago
    I would be very happy indeed if that ever became a thing. In my opinion, we should have just enough of a military to be able to protect ourselves and stop policing the rest of the world, or whatever it is we think we're doing.
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  If you're "not a Republican or a Trump supporter", you maybe should be glad that independent advisory boards exist. Someone has to say "your plans conflict with reality" (when that's accurate), and it seems unlikely to be the people Trump surrounds himself with...
- antonvs 7y ago
  That's one advisory committee per 327,000 people in one of the most (technologically) advanced nations on the planet. You could more plausibly argue that we need more advisory committees, but really, the number is not the issue.
- yummypaint 7y ago
  None of this is about saving money. If it were we would be addressing the biggest sources of waste first. These committees are often the only means by which people with competency in the relevant area get put in the room when decisions are made. Cutting back on them is like skipping birth control to save money.
Animats 7y ago
There's an argument that the Jasons have outlived their usefulness. They're mostly physicists, who were more important in the atomic age. One of the books about them indicates that they need more bio and social science expertise. That was written in the terrorism age. That's not why Trump got rid of them, of course.
- addicted 7y ago
  That's an argument for them being expanded or modified.
SamReidHughes 7y ago
If giving a bunch of academics vacations in La Jolla is so useful to the bottom line, maybe Google, Apple, or Walmart should buy their services instead.
liberte82 7y ago
> In Oceania at the present day, Science, in the old sense, has almost ceased to exist. In Newspeak there is no word for 'Science'. The empirical method of thought, on which all the scientific achievements of the past were founded, is opposed to the most fundamental principles of Ingsoc. And even technological progress only happens when its products can in some way be used for the diminution of human liberty. (2.9.30). > The Party employs science and technology to curtail human freedom and privacy, and to control human behavior.

86 points by SolaceQuantum 7y ago

Putting the Trump name on this probably got them more eyeballs, but it seems a bit of a pity. The story is genuinely interesting without branding another article with the president's label. It seems unlikely he is especially involved in this. Mentioning him unnecessarily politicises the story; the man stirs up strong feelings.

sleazebreeze 7y ago
The article mentions this: > A June executive order signed by Trump requires all federal agencies to slash a third of their independent advisory committees by September 30, with the goal of ultimately reducing the total number of such committees to no more than 350 from about 1,000 now. That indicates that Trump is directly responsible for these events. How is that politicizing?
notfromhere 7y ago
A political appointee appointed by Trump cut the committee. It's not politicizing, its just fact.
jplayer01 7y ago
"On March 28, Trump appointee Michael Griffin – the Pentagon’s chief technology officer – unexpectedly moved to terminate the group. Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, objected, telling Griffin’s office the scientists were crucial for keeping America’s nuclear stockpile secure, according to an NNSA official and others affiliated with the Jason program. Gordon-Hagerty’s agency offered to take responsibility for the program. She only needed Griffin’s signature to make it happen. Griffin refused." It's another case of a Trump appointee taking apart science-based or consumer-oriented institutions where possible. I'm not sure how you can say this is unrelated to Trump. He appointed the damn guy. If Trump isn't responsible for what he does, who the hell is? Just like the guy taking apart the EPA, or the guy taking apart the FCC. Are you saying Trump has nothing to do with any of this? Come on. edit: Fuck you guys. I'm tired of people apologizing for Trump, as if he never has anything to do with anything and he's just a clueless chump. He's a fucking blight on the Western world and helping destroy democracy in the US.
IfOnlyYouKnew 7y ago
The decision was made and is being defended by a direct appointee of the President: > On March 28, Trump appointee Michael Griffin – the Pentagon’s chief technology officer – unexpectedly moved to terminate the group. It's also done in accordance with an executive order signed by the President himself: > A June executive order signed by Trump requires all federal agencies to slash a third of their independent advisory committees by September 30, with the goal of ultimately reducing the total number of such committees to no more than 350 from about 1,000 now. There is nothing frivolous in mentioning the person responsible for a policy under discussion. While it may sometimes seem like there is too much Trump news, most journalists not directly covering the White House actually are fairly hesitant to invoke his name, because it invariably dooms any discussion. But in a case such as this, it would be journalistic malpractice not to show the line of causality.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- akhilcacharya 7y ago
  I think there's a natural tendency to want to believe this is a "normal" administration. It's clear, however, that we don't.

papito 7y ago

Ya'll are not aware of the level of anti-intellectualism and anti-expertise in the Soviet Union, are you? Well, it was so epic and catastrophic - there is a new show about it, called Chernobyl. To be accurate, there WAS science, engineering, and expertise, but it had to neatly align with the Party Line.

OedipusRex 7y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OGAS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OGAS
- mempko 7y ago
  Kind of interesting that the ARPANET was justified around military grounds and OGAS around economic grounds. I guess OGAS spiritually lives on the internet now with ad tracking and payment networks where a few companies have detailed views of economic activity.
  - notfromhere 7y ago
    It's pretty telling that its the reason why ARPANET succeeded and OGAS failed. But interesting to know that the idea of a decentralized network to manage production demand was already taking place - i always thought if the Soviets had something like that they would have lasted much longer.
    - OedipusRex 7y ago
      ARPNET didn't turn into what it is today because of military usage, and OGAS didn't fail because of it's resource management use. They lived or died because of money. The United States and Soviet Union both had to build all of the precursors and fabric that these systems would run on (telephone lines, computers, etc), which both did. The next logical step was for computers to co-opt existing national infrastructure and create a national network of computers. The Soviet Union faltering elsewhere is why OGAS didn't develop and ARPANET did.

whatshisface 7y ago

If you're not planning to engage in nuclear war with modern national superpowers, maybe you don't need a board of the top physicists on call for information about weapons research.

SolaceQuantum 7y ago
In the article, the board of top phycisists are also queried about waves and the safe storage of nuclear material. They also were the guys who state that the 'sonic attacks' in cuba were crickets.
- SaintGhurka 7y ago
  That is an inaccurate characterization of the finding. They found that the sound that they heard was crickets. They did not determine what caused the injuries or illnesses. The linked article was careful with its wording.
JamesBarney 7y ago
If you're going to spend billions on maintaining a nuclear arsenal it makes sense to me to spend a few million to ensure it's well maintained.
justin66 7y ago
The intent has never been to engage in nuclear war. That doesn't mean you don't make contingency plans. Nothing has changed in that regard.
mikeash 7y ago
But we are planning exactly that. We still have hundreds of nuclear-tipped missiles ready to fly at a moment’s notice.
cmiles74 7y ago
I'd feel the same way about a space-based defense system but apparently it's full-steam ahead on that particular money sink.
7y ago

notfromhere 7y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Technology_Assessment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Technology_Assessmen... This is like when Gingrich killed OTA to make room for lobbyists and consultants to run roughshod. Guarantee this is going to lead to a fat contract for someone

asark 7y ago
> According to Science magazine, "some Republican lawmakers came to view [the OTA] as duplicative, wasteful, and biased against their party." Presented without comment.
- notfromhere 7y ago
  "biased against their party" is both depressing and sad given the low standing of scientific knowledge in the modern GOP.
cmiles74 7y ago
Perhaps a space-based missile defense system?

drinane 7y ago

We're going back to a time in America (ie Making America Great Again) when the lights are candles and that cough just doesn't go away if we keep this up. MURICA!

leroy_masochist 7y ago

I read the article and didn't find any compelling examples of how the Jason team did anything that created actual value for the DoD specifically or US in general. AFAICT, this is a team of distinguished scientists that is kept on the government payroll so that the US has the best scientific minds available for national security issues. Sounds great in theory, but when a clearly sympathetic article's chosen examples of the good work the group does include nuggets such as, "In the 1960s, the Jasons invented a type of sensor that could detect enemy guerrillas in Vietnam and communicate their location to U.S. bombers", I dunno, I'm kind of skeptical. I mean, maybe that sensor had a subsequent use case for the space program or something, who knows.

SolaceQuantum 7y ago
One of the things pointed out that they identified when certain plans (eg. missile defense system) was not useful, and also that the sound heard during the 'sonic attack' were crickets.
- leroy_masochist 7y ago
  Right, but they're hardly a single point of failure with regard to internal oversight of missile defense systems; that alone is a multiple $Bn per year endeavor with several competing bureaucracies analyzing weak points and areas to improve. The cricket thing is just a hypothesis; the article itself says that, "No definitive cause of the illnesses has been determined". I don't have a dog in this fight, I'm just kind of skeptical.
  - SolaceQuantum 7y ago
    They're not a single point of failure, they're one of a myriad of important analysis of weak points and areas to improve. Note that in the article the scientists are not defining the illness, merely were able to identify the source of the sound. I'm mostly skeptical at the skepticism. Why wouldn't one want to retain world class researching talent to be queried at a moment's notice regarding anything that could possibly threaten the country?

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

godshatter 7y ago

Am I the only one that was shocked to find out that we have around a thousand independent advisory committees on the payroll? As someone who is a citizen of the US and who is not a Republican or a Trump supporter, I think we do need to scale back funding in a large number of areas of the government given the huge amount of national debt we have taken on. Having around a thousand advisory committees seems ridiculous. Maybe the Jason committee should have been spared, maybe not, but I can't claim to be upset that we are trying to cut back.

frtlp 7y ago
Perhaps the roughly $700B defense budget could make up those cuts? :)
- godshatter 7y ago
  I would be very happy indeed if that ever became a thing. In my opinion, we should have just enough of a military to be able to protect ourselves and stop policing the rest of the world, or whatever it is we think we're doing.
AnimalMuppet 7y ago
If you're "not a Republican or a Trump supporter", you maybe should be glad that independent advisory boards exist. Someone has to say "your plans conflict with reality" (when that's accurate), and it seems unlikely to be the people Trump surrounds himself with...
antonvs 7y ago
That's one advisory committee per 327,000 people in one of the most (technologically) advanced nations on the planet. You could more plausibly argue that we need more advisory committees, but really, the number is not the issue.
yummypaint 7y ago
None of this is about saving money. If it were we would be addressing the biggest sources of waste first. These committees are often the only means by which people with competency in the relevant area get put in the room when decisions are made. Cutting back on them is like skipping birth control to save money.

Animats 7y ago

There's an argument that the Jasons have outlived their usefulness. They're mostly physicists, who were more important in the atomic age. One of the books about them indicates that they need more bio and social science expertise. That was written in the terrorism age. That's not why Trump got rid of them, of course.

addicted 7y ago
That's an argument for them being expanded or modified.

SamReidHughes 7y ago

If giving a bunch of academics vacations in La Jolla is so useful to the bottom line, maybe Google, Apple, or Walmart should buy their services instead.

liberte82 7y ago

> In Oceania at the present day, Science, in the old sense, has almost ceased to exist. In Newspeak there is no word for 'Science'. The empirical method of thought, on which all the scientific achievements of the past were founded, is opposed to the most fundamental principles of Ingsoc. And even technological progress only happens when its products can in some way be used for the diminution of human liberty. (2.9.30). > The Party employs science and technology to curtail human freedom and privacy, and to control human behavior.