4 ms·

Some of these changes, if continued and expanded, will likely have long-term negative effects on the US's position in science. I have my issues with NIH but to

by dekhn 2y ago

Some of these changes, if continued and expanded, will likely have long-term negative effects on the US's position in science. I have my issues with NIH but to fix NIH requires subtlety. This seems more designed to "punish those liberal researchers" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cutting_off_one%27s_nose_to_spite_one%27s_face https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cutting_off_one%27s_nose_to_sp...

whyenot 2y ago
This is surgery with a butter knife. It's going to cause a lot of unnecessary disruption and pain which could have been avoided with a more nuanced approach. What we are seeing with this and some of the new administration's other initiatives, is the abandonment of US soft power in the world.
- dekhn 2y ago
  Huh, I like the way you phrased that: "abandonment of US soft power in the world". But I think there is also punitive aspect: they are intentionally "punishing" the people at NIH they perceive as being liberal and favoring other countries.
  - tired_and_awake 2y ago
    It's a good point. There is a target on the back of scientists who do research that is perceived as social science but is infact biology. Seems like they then construct myths of waste/corruption (just read this thread) and punish everyone.
  - gunian 2y ago
    the purge is real :)
- grahamj 2y ago
  Even if these idiots wanted subtlety they're too stupid to make it happen. They just want to do big, bold things but have no idea how to actually make anything better.
  - dekhn 2y ago
    I knew a guy who was the president of a co-op house at UC Berkeley (basically, a student-run housing system decoupled from the university). They had regular meetings and he described one of the challenges: while most people who came to the meetings just wanted to vote on measures to buy food and change policies, there was a subgroup that "just wanted to fuck shit up". You know, like during a protest there are always some people who go around doing unncessary damage to unrelated/innocent businesses. They just enjoy breaking things and enjoy making people mad. It's not a perfect analogy but I see Trump and his cronies as a "fuck shit up" contingent- they seem to genuinely enjoy making their enemies unhappy by breaking things, regardless of the societal cost of their actions.
    - monkeycantype 2y ago
      I was at some of those meetings, though unlikely to be the exact same ones :) At the meetings I attended the furious debate was whether we allowed a volunteer group cook food in our kitchen to feed homeless people. The interesting thing about this debate was that to make a decision, you had to have a position on what the coop was, Was it cheap housing for students, or was the cheap housing something that emerged from committing to a practice of cooperative behaviour? Supporting the volunteers cooking in our kitchen came at a cost, many volunteers were homeless, some had mental health issues. I felt it was morally right to let them use our kitchen, And I know that for this I did get labeled by some as pursuing chaos as performative social justice points and to upset opponents, But from my perspective I sincerely believe it was the right thing to do. When parallels like this are revealed, it really makes me wonder how the orange cult people and I ended up on such different paths, both as a response to dissatisfaction with the status quo, why have the stories they’ve been told resonated with them when they seem so inauthentic to me, and why is the more progressive ideology that seems reasonable to me so distasteful to them
    - e40 2y ago
      I like this analogy. I've had the thought many, many times over the last 8 years that many people seem to like breaking things because their perceived enemies will be unhappy. Was this co-op perhaps Barrington Hall? I had good friends that lived there while at UCB. To my young eyes it was absolute anarchy.
- duxup 2y ago
  I sometimes like to imagine if I was president ... how hard would it be to find someone in a given department who could lead it and know better than the communication restrictions as we have here. Granted, I fear the folks in charge now DO know better and the side effects are intentional ... but I wonder if it would be possible to pick someone and get it reasonably right.
UltraSane 2y ago
This is what happens when you let a horse in the hospital. It wrecks stuff
- ashoeafoot 2y ago
  Which the voters in majority voted for as they considered stuff already wrecked for them
  - UltraSane 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - krapp 2y ago
      To be fair, people were saying this about voting for Trump back in 2016, that he was their "bull in a China shop" and they didn't care what he did as long as he wrecked the establishment. It's basic accelerationism - destabilize the system and force radical social change through the chaos. And it seems to be working.
      - UltraSane 2y ago
        a small percentage of Trump voters are accelerationists.
        krapp 2y ago
        A much larger percentage would seem to sympathize with the accelerationists' goals, even if they're ignorant of their methods.
    - Jerrrry 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - UltraSane 2y ago
        Some things are too fundamental to be simple "disagreements" in a society. Disagreements over slavery led to the Civil War.
narrator 2y ago
As the token Trump supporter on HN, let me give you what I think's going on. I think they are doing an ideological purge. They want to get rid of anyone promoting transgender science. I think RJK JR. wants to get rid of anyone he thinks is against his MAHA agenda. They want to get rid of any pandemic scaremongering too. Peter Hoetz said that Bird Flu will start once the trump administration takes office for example.[1]. Hoetz who is a major figure in the vaccine research industry said that "starting January 21st we've got some big stuff coming down the pike starting with H5N1..." and after the Fauci pardon anything is possible. The bird flu outbreak had been behind a lot of food inflation. I wouldn't put it past people on the radical left who want to hurt the Trump administration to hype the bird flu pandemic to drive up food prices through mass culling of livestock. [1] https://x.com/TaraBull808/status/1865026704504426860?t=hZnEkH4NC4sa6Pvk8ymcdg&s=19 https://x.com/TaraBull808/status/1865026704504426860?t=hZnEk...
- pseudalopex 2y ago
  > As the token Trump supporter on HN In a minority most likely. Not even close to alone. > Peter Hoetz said that Bird Flu will start once the trump administration takes office for example.[1]. No. He said we have big picture stuff coming down the pike starting January 21. Like a flu wide spread in birds already, that jumped species already, that could develop human to human transmission. He framed it clearly as a present danger the incoming administration would inherit. Even without the removed context about Kennedy's claims no vaccines are safe and effective and vaccines cause autism. > The bird flu outbreak had been behind a lot of food inflation. I wouldn't put it past people on the radical left who want to hurt the Trump administration to hype the bird flu pandemic to drive up food prices through mass culling of livestock. Whoever the radical left are, they don't decide about culling livestock. What agenda do you think was behind the culls driving up food prices before the election? And do you expect tariffs and deportations to lower food prices?
  - Jerrrry 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - 2y ago
mike_hearn 2y ago
NIH staff openly conspired against both the public and the President last time Trump was in charge in many different ways. What Fauci and his grantees did wasn't subtle, so the fixes aren't going to be subtle either: the NIH needs either to be abandoned entirely or it needs a massive purge and culture change. Fundamentally a civilized society cannot tolerate bureaucracies that act like they did during COVID. Fauci is gone now but unfortunately the NIH as an institution is deserving of any and all damage Trump does to them. Frankly if I were in his shoes I'd be going much further than mere freezes.
- ChicagoDave 2y ago
  [flagged]

by dekhn 2y ago

whyenot 2y ago

This is surgery with a butter knife. It's going to cause a lot of unnecessary disruption and pain which could have been avoided with a more nuanced approach. What we are seeing with this and some of the new administration's other initiatives, is the abandonment of US soft power in the world.

dekhn 2y ago
Huh, I like the way you phrased that: "abandonment of US soft power in the world". But I think there is also punitive aspect: they are intentionally "punishing" the people at NIH they perceive as being liberal and favoring other countries.
- tired_and_awake 2y ago
  It's a good point. There is a target on the back of scientists who do research that is perceived as social science but is infact biology. Seems like they then construct myths of waste/corruption (just read this thread) and punish everyone.
- gunian 2y ago
  the purge is real :)
grahamj 2y ago
Even if these idiots wanted subtlety they're too stupid to make it happen. They just want to do big, bold things but have no idea how to actually make anything better.
- dekhn 2y ago
  I knew a guy who was the president of a co-op house at UC Berkeley (basically, a student-run housing system decoupled from the university). They had regular meetings and he described one of the challenges: while most people who came to the meetings just wanted to vote on measures to buy food and change policies, there was a subgroup that "just wanted to fuck shit up". You know, like during a protest there are always some people who go around doing unncessary damage to unrelated/innocent businesses. They just enjoy breaking things and enjoy making people mad. It's not a perfect analogy but I see Trump and his cronies as a "fuck shit up" contingent- they seem to genuinely enjoy making their enemies unhappy by breaking things, regardless of the societal cost of their actions.
  - monkeycantype 2y ago
    I was at some of those meetings, though unlikely to be the exact same ones :) At the meetings I attended the furious debate was whether we allowed a volunteer group cook food in our kitchen to feed homeless people. The interesting thing about this debate was that to make a decision, you had to have a position on what the coop was, Was it cheap housing for students, or was the cheap housing something that emerged from committing to a practice of cooperative behaviour? Supporting the volunteers cooking in our kitchen came at a cost, many volunteers were homeless, some had mental health issues. I felt it was morally right to let them use our kitchen, And I know that for this I did get labeled by some as pursuing chaos as performative social justice points and to upset opponents, But from my perspective I sincerely believe it was the right thing to do. When parallels like this are revealed, it really makes me wonder how the orange cult people and I ended up on such different paths, both as a response to dissatisfaction with the status quo, why have the stories they’ve been told resonated with them when they seem so inauthentic to me, and why is the more progressive ideology that seems reasonable to me so distasteful to them
  - e40 2y ago
    I like this analogy. I've had the thought many, many times over the last 8 years that many people seem to like breaking things because their perceived enemies will be unhappy. Was this co-op perhaps Barrington Hall? I had good friends that lived there while at UCB. To my young eyes it was absolute anarchy.
duxup 2y ago
I sometimes like to imagine if I was president ... how hard would it be to find someone in a given department who could lead it and know better than the communication restrictions as we have here. Granted, I fear the folks in charge now DO know better and the side effects are intentional ... but I wonder if it would be possible to pick someone and get it reasonably right.

UltraSane 2y ago

This is what happens when you let a horse in the hospital. It wrecks stuff

ashoeafoot 2y ago
Which the voters in majority voted for as they considered stuff already wrecked for them
- UltraSane 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - krapp 2y ago
    To be fair, people were saying this about voting for Trump back in 2016, that he was their "bull in a China shop" and they didn't care what he did as long as he wrecked the establishment. It's basic accelerationism - destabilize the system and force radical social change through the chaos. And it seems to be working.
    - UltraSane 2y ago
      a small percentage of Trump voters are accelerationists.
      - krapp 2y ago
        A much larger percentage would seem to sympathize with the accelerationists' goals, even if they're ignorant of their methods.
  - Jerrrry 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - UltraSane 2y ago
      Some things are too fundamental to be simple "disagreements" in a society. Disagreements over slavery led to the Civil War.

narrator 2y ago

As the token Trump supporter on HN, let me give you what I think's going on. I think they are doing an ideological purge. They want to get rid of anyone promoting transgender science. I think RJK JR. wants to get rid of anyone he thinks is against his MAHA agenda. They want to get rid of any pandemic scaremongering too. Peter Hoetz said that Bird Flu will start once the trump administration takes office for example.[1]. Hoetz who is a major figure in the vaccine research industry said that "starting January 21st we've got some big stuff coming down the pike starting with H5N1..." and after the Fauci pardon anything is possible. The bird flu outbreak had been behind a lot of food inflation. I wouldn't put it past people on the radical left who want to hurt the Trump administration to hype the bird flu pandemic to drive up food prices through mass culling of livestock. [1] https://x.com/TaraBull808/status/1865026704504426860?t=hZnEkH4NC4sa6Pvk8ymcdg&s=19 https://x.com/TaraBull808/status/1865026704504426860?t=hZnEk...

pseudalopex 2y ago
> As the token Trump supporter on HN In a minority most likely. Not even close to alone. > Peter Hoetz said that Bird Flu will start once the trump administration takes office for example.[1]. No. He said we have big picture stuff coming down the pike starting January 21. Like a flu wide spread in birds already, that jumped species already, that could develop human to human transmission. He framed it clearly as a present danger the incoming administration would inherit. Even without the removed context about Kennedy's claims no vaccines are safe and effective and vaccines cause autism. > The bird flu outbreak had been behind a lot of food inflation. I wouldn't put it past people on the radical left who want to hurt the Trump administration to hype the bird flu pandemic to drive up food prices through mass culling of livestock. Whoever the radical left are, they don't decide about culling livestock. What agenda do you think was behind the culls driving up food prices before the election? And do you expect tariffs and deportations to lower food prices?
- Jerrrry 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - 2y ago

mike_hearn 2y ago

NIH staff openly conspired against both the public and the President last time Trump was in charge in many different ways. What Fauci and his grantees did wasn't subtle, so the fixes aren't going to be subtle either: the NIH needs either to be abandoned entirely or it needs a massive purge and culture change. Fundamentally a civilized society cannot tolerate bureaucracies that act like they did during COVID. Fauci is gone now but unfortunately the NIH as an institution is deserving of any and all damage Trump does to them. Frankly if I were in his shoes I'd be going much further than mere freezes.

ChicagoDave 2y ago
[flagged]