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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

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-february-2025-firings/ https://www.wired.com/story/national-science-foundation-febr...

abirch 2y ago
In addition to these scientists, I heard from my friends in academia that they will be taking fewer PhD students because they're unsure of the funding. We may be looking at a lost decade.
- polairscience 2y ago
  We'll be very lucky if it's a lost decade. One of the many factors that made the US a technical powerhouse were the long threads across disciplines where people could do focused research. you had to reapply for grants but generally could be sure that important programs would stay in place. This breaks all of that. It seems poised to break research as we know it. As one of the many researchers that will likely lose their career to this, I will be forced to choose between stopping work that benefits both the public and industry or moving abroad to one of the many nations that do appreciate such effort. We are about to not only lose our future efforts but also hemorrhage current talent. I'm surely not the only person who's inbox\phone exploded with messages after the news broke with collaborators abroad offering to help me start a lab at their institute. Europe will gladly do take backsies on their WWII brain drain.
  - peterlada 2y ago
    China is not losing this decade, the scientific gap will add to the growing chasm of future outcomes between the two superpowers.
    - teleforce 2y ago
      This reminds me the so called dark ages where western people just conveniently skipped through 1000 years of very productive knowledge of development and contributions from the Arab and Muslim world centered around Toledo, Spain and Baghdad, Iraq as it never happened [1]. The false narative is that it's straight from Greek and Roman era to the Renaissance era as if mathematicians and scientists were just fall asleep in the entire world where in actual fact in the Arab and Muslim world many thousands of books from Greece/Rome/India/China were painstakenly translated (no Google translate, no printing press) and many more new books were written. [1] Toledan Tables: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toledan_Tables https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toledan_Tables
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
  - rob74 2y ago
    And this is just one of many ways the US is currently shooting itself in the foot (or, if you prefer, cutting off its nose to spite its face). Thanks, Elon! Putin and Xi must be cheering... > Europe will gladly do take backsies on their WWII brain drain. ...until the extreme-right populists (supported by the current US administration) come to power there too?
    - tialaramex 2y ago
      Populism requires that you're popular. Brexit clones were extremely popular for the right across Europe right up until Brexit actually happened, and then suddenly they all remembered they'd never wanted anything to do with such a stupid plan and began scrubbing praise for it from their materials, back to "reform" and tinkering at the edges. The trick is to be First. You can sell "Just do X and it'll be great" unless the people have already seen what a disaster X is.
- carterschonwald 2y ago
  My fear as well. I’m not sure if even a magic wish to rearrange stuff back to the before January state of affairs is possible at this point. Write to your representatives. I fear that if they don’t pull off something the only ethical and responsible thing is civil war. This shit is insane and will destroy everything I like about our government. Also to quote every true patriot: the only good Nazi is a dead Nazi. I’m so angry and mad and wanting to help fix it. My near term approach is write expansively to all my city state and congressional reps. We already have diarrhea inducing corruption happening in plain view. We have walking piñatas for an urgent need to do campaign finance reform. I’m not sure if there’s any way to save some of the institutions and programs that make this country actually great without a straight up secession/civil war for the coastal states. I’m very very scared. And angry.
  - neilv 2y ago
    On HN, "revolutionary" is an adjective, and it means making a lot of money. :)
  - setikites 2y ago
    Calling your elected representatives daily is more effective. The app 5 calls makes it easy.
    - 20after4 2y ago
      5 * 0 is still 0. They aren't listening.
    - scarface_74 2y ago
      Unless you are in a swing district that isn’t gerrymandered to death, your representative could care less about what you think. Their first objective is not to get primaried. The biggest check on the administration is the Senate which confirms executive nominees. The Senate is definitely not “representative” of anything when Wyoming gets two Senators just like California.
    - gs17 2y ago
      Unfortunately, mine very proudly proclaim how much they agree with what's going on. And they're also very proud of gerrymandering the state so they don't need to listen to anyone.
- bongodongobob 2y ago
  We're losing an entire generation at least. The pain that these cuts are going to cause won't be felt overnight. It will be felt over decades. "Things have been set into motion that cannot be undone".
  - 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
    Just like the Supreme Court :(
- BLKNSLVR 2y ago
  > We may be looking at a lost decade. We're looking at the US wilfully letting go of the possibiility of remaining the most powerful nation in the world. Reduced health, reduced education, reduced funding for research, reduced international aid programs (which both garner goodwill whilst also creating a bulwark against those who profit from misery), reduced oversight / regulation of the power of capital, alienation of prior allies, reduced safety nets for the vulnerable, increased rhetoric against poorly defined 'foreign types', anti-intellectualism. It's a helluva vacuum being created, and I'm not particularly optimistic about what's going to fill it.
  - andix 2y ago
    You forgot "wilfully letting go of democracy". US democracy is far away from dying, but who knows how much longer it can keep holding up.
    - late2part 2y ago
      [flagged]
    - digitaltrees 2y ago
      It’s not far away from dying. I would argue that it’s already too late. The trump administration has shown that it can seize the power to control spending which is constitutionally an exclusive power if congress and courts can’t and won’t do anything about it. We are past a constitutional crisis, republicans had a theory of a unitary executive and prove they can stream roll other branches. Now trump and others are talking about a third term. They play it off as a joke but that’s how they have succeeded in moving the goal posts already.
      - pizza 2y ago
        Here are some new concrete developments that I doubt the founders of the democracy would say are fine: - the Executive Branch now has presumptive - if not absolute - immunity against all criminal official acts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_v._United_States_%282024%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_v._United_States_%282024... - universities must obey Trump's culture war agenda, otherwise they will be de-accredited and a fine equal to the value of the entire university endowment will be leveraged - https://www.mediaite.com/politics/trump-vows-to-seize-endowments-from-universities-practicing-discrimination-under-the-guise-of-equity/ https://www.mediaite.com/politics/trump-vows-to-seize-endowm... - President-elect Donald Trump and his top advisers have long cited impoundment, a little-known legal theory [... that] essentially claims that any president has unilateral authority to ignore Congress’s funding bills and withhold or “impound” funds meant for programs, agencies, or departments deemed unsuitable by the White House. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/white-house/3244202/trump-impoundment-federal-bureaucracy-trigger-supreme-court-battle/ https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/white-house/3244202/...
- koolba 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - digitaltrees 2y ago
    When legal and predictable processes are undermined no one can rely on the government being a good actor. A good reputation takes generations to establish and seconds to destroy. No one will trust the government now.
    - koolba 2y ago
      > When legal and predictable processes are undermined ... Being legally undermined is hardly a bad thing. We voted for unified Republican control of both branches of the legislator and the POTUS. You might not like the outcomes, but there's nothing illegal about what the executive branch is doing, how it's doig it, or the legislation that Congress will be passing in the coming months. > ... no one can rely on the government being a good actor. A good reputation takes generations to establish and seconds to destroy. No one will trust the government now. The prior administrations should have kept that in mind before they squandered our money. It's unfortunate that useful and deserving projects will temporarily get caught in the blast radius. But there's been so much waste an lack of accountability that something like what we're seeing for the past few weeks is the only recourse.
      - kelnos 2y ago
        "We" didn't vote for that. 49.8% of voters did, or about 23% of all people living in the US. > there's nothing illegal about what the executive branch is doing Why do you believe that? There are a lot of people filing lawsuits saying that there's a ton illegal about how the executive branch is doing things, and quite a few judges agree enough to order Trump to stop doing what he's doing until we can figure out what's going on.
      - digitaltrees 2y ago
        But this isn’t legal. Doge is not a validly created department because it wasn’t created by congress. Elon musk was appointed by the president after congressional advise and consent. The termination has violated employment law pass by congress specifically to shield the federal employees from partisan attacks and influence. The fact that the federal bureaucracy has been a non-partisan professional workforce has been on of the greatest strengths in the world. What musk and trump are doing will introduce corruption in government by turning it into a spoil system. They are making new hires swear allegiance to trump directly not the constitution. Also not legal. And when they’ve lost in court they have actively defied the rulings. Oh and that’s after lying about the fact that Elon’s running things to make their position more favorable. Shall I go on?
- ajmurmann 2y ago
  Lost decade for the US and the beginning of the Chinese century for others
- seanmcdirmid 2y ago
  Maybe China will start accepting international PhD students? I don’t see anyone else who could pick up the slack.
  - mnau 2y ago
    No point unless coupled with ability to immigrate. Why would China educate foreigners only to see them leave? There is no payoff. It makes sense in US because of for-profit universities and easier immigration. That is not situation over there.
    - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
      The US doesn't really have many for-profit universities, and those that are for-profit don't attract a lot of international PhD students. We do (or did?) have a lot of research to be done, and we would never be able to do it without international PhD students (including from China and India). China has some immigration, and people will be attracted to stay if the research jobs are good and accessible. If China takes over the USA's role of the preeminent world power, they will have access to and need to leverage world talent to do so.
- dang 2y ago
  Recent and related: Penn to reduce graduate admissions, rescind acceptances amid research cuts - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43144940 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43144940 - Feb 2025 (646 comments)
- throwawaymaths 2y ago
  to steelman the issue: what if there was overinvestment in science? as in we chased money after talent that didnt exist, or was mismatched to the difficulty of the available and fundable open questions. a few things: you'd expect a lot of fraud and misallocated science to have been recently uncovered. after the cuts, you would expect the quantity of science to go down, but the quality to go up
  - mplewis 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - throwawaymaths 2y ago
      go get a degree in science and come back with your take.
- jmcgough 2y ago
  Biochemist friend moved across the country for a post-doc and three months into it is waiting to be let go. She is now looking at options outside the country, specifically China, given the incredible instability here.
- grandempire 2y ago
  1. Most science PhD students are international. So funding their education has questionable domestic political value. 2. Those people don’t just disappear. If there aren’t PhD programs they will do something else. 3. It’s hard to argue we are at some optimal level of PhD students and that if we cut back the system won’t work. Most academics agree we have too many.
chii 2y ago
If you've read the three-body problem series (or the tv show) [spoiler incoming] - - - - the way to stop humanity from being able to fight back (against alien invasion) is not via weapons, but via disabling science. It's a long term strategy. So the conspiracy theory that trump is a russian asset (or is influenced by them at the least), seems plausible, if you imagine that such removal of science and research funding is meant to disable american technological progress for decades to come. This would be a strategy that outlasts the tenure of the russian asset.
- andix 2y ago
  Those concepts are not science fiction, they were very often used in the past already. Just read about how the most famous dictators in history came to power, and what they did first. Discrediting scientist is a standard step for most dictators. They only keep the bare minimum they need for the military and surveillance.
  - ihsw 2y ago
    [dead]
  - late2part 2y ago
    Who is the dictator here? Obviously the states that run these schools will raise taxes to fund the state schools, no?
    - MyOutfitIsVague 2y ago
      The dictator is still in the oven, but it's nearly ready. Just needs a topping of constitutional crisis and a suspension of elections and it'll be done.
      - dragonwriter 2y ago
        You don't need to suspend elections you just need to subvert them. For-show elections make good dictatorial theater.
intermerda 2y ago
It was already bad last time when the objective was to just enrich the fossil fuel industry - https://archive.is/DywH6 https://archive.is/DywH6. This time the purge is all-encompassing. If science and education is suppressed, it's easier to control the masses.
consumer451 2y ago
Sean Carroll has a very informative, and impressively apolitical post/podcast about the recent de-funding of science in the USA. I have seen it appreciated across the political spectrum. It is worth a read or listen, and hopefully a share. This is the most sober-minded analysis of this turn of events that I have seen so far. https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2025/02/12/bonus-cuts-to-science-funding-and-why-they-matter/ https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2025/02/12/bonu...
stronglikedan 2y ago
> Science in the US will be chaotically torn apart by this and a host of other decisions. Seems unnecessarily alarmist speculation to me. :shrug: I'd rather see how this plays out, since no one can possibly know at this point.
- freen 2y ago
  We have seen it happen over and over again. When was the last time real science came out of Russia?
  - hayst4ck 2y ago
    I wouldn't put down Russia's achievements. They did manage to effectively disable their greatest geopolitical enemy and cause us to destroy ourselves. All the weaponry in every other country on earth couldn't harm America more than what they did with social media, some highly skilled "recruitment," and smart leveraging of monetary resources. They got us to vote against Ukraine at the UN without a gun. Even the worlds best weapons aren't that effective.
    - BLKNSLVR 2y ago
      Further than that, they got the President of the United States to claim the Ukraine started the conflict. All it took was Putin explaining to Trump the scale of the mineral wealth of Ukraine that they could split between them. Thank fuck Australia is a long way from Russia. But on the other hand: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-02-22/australia-meets-china-over-chinese-naval-live-fire-drills/104968322 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-02-22/australia-meets-china...
    - freen 2y ago
      That not science, but yes, Putin has completely succeeded geopolitically. As has been shown multiple times in debates, the only actually adversarial environment Trump has allowed himself to participate in (Obama went to the GOP and explained the ACA to them for three hours, in a town hall setting, completely televised.) Trump has shown himself to be completely and totally manipulatable. Easily baited, played like a glass harp, so to speak. But that is not science.
_heimdall 2y ago
> Not evaluated efficiency cuts. Just thrashing about. Personally I'm not sold on their tactics so far, but there is another way to view this than thrashing out. Non-probationary federal employees are protected and not easily fired. If one honestly believes the government is bloated and so far into debt that the budget needs to be balanced at all costs, cutting anyone and anything you can may make sense. Normally you wouldn't throw good food overboard, but if the ship is sinking you may have no choice other than to throw out anything that isn't bolted down.
- russdill 2y ago
  Government employee payroll makes up a tiny fraction of the budget. It's actually a horrible place to start.
  - _heimdall 2y ago
    > It's actually a horrible place to start. That depends on what the options are. The executive branch likely does have authority to fire probationary employees. They likely don't have authority to immediately fire non coronation dry employees or to end programs and departments created congress. This may be the best lever they think they legally have today. If that is the case, and that's an if, they are trying to stick within the letter of the law despite how it is often being reported.
    - russdill 2y ago
      They legally have all the branches. They can use Congress to cut programs they don't want
- consumer451 2y ago
  Where exactly is the proof that the ship of government funded science in the USA was sinking? If you don't mean just US funded science, then what evidence is there that the USA was sinking in general? When I look at the graph of debt increase, it was actually decreasing. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1366899/percent-change-national-debt-president-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1366899/percent-change-n...
whalesalad 2y ago
The loss of their jobs is all part of gods plan, apparently https://www.mediaite.com/politics/house-republican-tells-fired-federal-workers-god-has-a-plan-in-hostile-town-hall/ https://www.mediaite.com/politics/house-republican-tells-fir...
- insane_dreamer 2y ago
  true, except the GOP didn't bother to look up which gods the plan belongs to (turns out its the plan of the Chinese gods)
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
hayst4ck 2y ago
> This is true for many programs for reasons that will be hard to understand if you aren't a scientist. It is a decapitation strike. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decapitation_(military_strategy) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decapitation_(military_strateg... Ukraine is more or less a proxy war between America and Russia, which is also between John Locke's Social Contract and Thomas Hobbes Leviathan, which said simply is whether rules are made in respect to reason (law) or in respect to power (order). It's also a fight over who are the final enforcers of law. Are citizens the last line of enforcers of the law or is "law" always enforced by the strong against the weak? America has the world's largest military and a world ending nuclear arsenal, so direct conflict is unconscionable. That means what's left is high leverage asymmetric warfare. Russia corrupted America's elites (and German elites to a significant degree, too), either through money, compromising material, or the promise of power. Some of those elites are people like Peter Thiel, who are absolute power houses of the American surveillance capitalist state. Private intelligence companies were leveraged to divide the American public and then conquer it. America is experiencing a decapitation strike. By compromising our leadership, our economy and technological flywheel is being destroyed, our ideology is being corrupted, and trust in us has been decimated. Our closest allies now see us as someone who must be weakened and defended against. We abandoned Ukraine. There is no argument that Trump's America is good faith in any way. It's a decapitation strike. The point is to damage us and our future, and we're letting it happen. Our military that took an oath to protect us from enemies foreign and domestic have failed their obligation. Now America at large is rejecting the evidence of their eyes and ears. Americans are obeying in advance. https://snyder.substack.com/p/decapitation-strike https://snyder.substack.com/p/decapitation-strike (https://archive.is/1xkxK https://archive.is/1xkxK)
jhbadger 2y ago
And the worst thing is that they may have misunderstood what "probationary employees" were. In federal speak, they are new employees, but the new regime may have thought they were "bad" employees, based on the idea of "probation" in the criminal justice sense.
- consumer451 2y ago
  We live in such a moronic time that I believe the reason that we are dropping the post-WWII Rules Based Order, is that it is also called the "Liberal" International Order. [0] Watching a historic empire destroy itself is beyond words. I will miss Pax Americana. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_international_order https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_international_order
  - rayiner 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - consumer451 2y ago
      The fact that people who by all appearances are intelligent human beings, could post things like this... Nero plays his cithara. I am at a loss for words. I guess the real problem with propaganda is getting high on your own supply. edit: As an example, the Supreme Court overturning Chevron deference was a decision against un-elected officials making government calls, instead of the law makers, aka Congress. Now, just months later, here we are. The exact opposite is happening. The most un-elected, un-appointed person in US government history is holding the purse strings, and not a chirp. While Musk's cithara gently weeps.
      - rayiner 2y ago
        You should read some books on history and foreign affairs. Most of the world hates the “liberal international order” because it’s an excuse for the U.S. to impose its values on the rest of the world. DOGE revealed that USAID was funding political unrest in my home country (where activists recently overthrew the government). The U.S. has finally turned a corner on it only because the deep staters started turning that same attitude inward, pointing it at Ohio instead of India. Death of liberal internationalism isn’t something anyone should mourn. There’s no inconsistency between Loper Bright and DOGE. Both reflect separation of powers. The judiciary interprets the law, not the executive branch. But the executive branch—which consists of the President and his agents—decides how to make discretionary spending decisions and hiring and firing of federal employees. Everyone is staying in their lane. (You’re incorrect that DOGE is “holding the purse strings.” Congress has passed appropriations bills that delegate massive discretionary authority to the executive. DOGE, under Trump’s directions, is countermanding spending decisions made by executive civil servants, not Congress.)
throwawaymaths 2y ago
there are two tiers of program managers. there are those that are pulled from academia, as you say, but theres a 3-5x? multiple of "junior' PMs that are say MS or BS scientists, rarely PhD (usually the case when the PhD is... subpar), these are career and eventually thet are promoted to senior management and decision making roles.
- rsfern 2y ago
  I don’t know what the distribution of advanced degrees is among NSF program managers, but I strongly reject the implication that career program managers are somehow a lower tier or less well suited for the job. I’ve personally served a few times as an NSF panel reviewer for a career PM that does not hold a PhD, and they are awesome. They have a background in the startup world and ask really insightful question and know how to build effective groups of experts and efficiently guide discussion to get actionable feedback from them in a really short timeframe. A lot of PhDs are not great with these skills, and I’ve learned a ton about evaluating the potential impact and risks of research proposals by interacting with this person. Also, this attitude is kind of counter to the egalitarian notion a lot of HNers hold that you don’t need a formal CS degree to be a great software dev.
  - throwawaymaths 2y ago
    yeah well i worked with a high level DARPA PM that it turned out her phd was overinterpreting noise and her PI (francesco stellaci) railroaded the postdoc that tried to call foul. by the way, that PM, last i checked had left DARPA and was working on a microfluidics nanodrop blood diagnostics company -- you cant mke this shit up!! and a DOE biotechnology pm that was excited to be on the project -- but by his own admission couldn't remember what a promoter was. fucking clown cars. > you don’t need a formal CS degree to be a great software dev. not at all the same. the point here is about incentive structure. If you're a great scientist, why aren't you doing the science? something made you decide instead to be a career bureaucrat.
    - rsfern 2y ago
      sure - there are absolutely lousy PMs as well as great PMs, but this kind of situation happens in all kinds of organizations and I think you are overgeneralizing. There are lots of reasons that excellent scientists might not want to actively do research anymore. Being a PM seems like a nice way to get a broad exposure to cutting edge research without dealing with the (IMO) overwhelming incentive structure in academic science, driving a narrow research program at a national lab, or leaving the world of open science to as an industry researcher.
aaron695 2y ago
[dead]

abirch 2y ago

In addition to these scientists, I heard from my friends in academia that they will be taking fewer PhD students because they're unsure of the funding. We may be looking at a lost decade.

polairscience 2y ago
We'll be very lucky if it's a lost decade. One of the many factors that made the US a technical powerhouse were the long threads across disciplines where people could do focused research. you had to reapply for grants but generally could be sure that important programs would stay in place. This breaks all of that. It seems poised to break research as we know it. As one of the many researchers that will likely lose their career to this, I will be forced to choose between stopping work that benefits both the public and industry or moving abroad to one of the many nations that do appreciate such effort. We are about to not only lose our future efforts but also hemorrhage current talent. I'm surely not the only person who's inbox\phone exploded with messages after the news broke with collaborators abroad offering to help me start a lab at their institute. Europe will gladly do take backsies on their WWII brain drain.
- peterlada 2y ago
  China is not losing this decade, the scientific gap will add to the growing chasm of future outcomes between the two superpowers.
  - teleforce 2y ago
    This reminds me the so called dark ages where western people just conveniently skipped through 1000 years of very productive knowledge of development and contributions from the Arab and Muslim world centered around Toledo, Spain and Baghdad, Iraq as it never happened [1]. The false narative is that it's straight from Greek and Roman era to the Renaissance era as if mathematicians and scientists were just fall asleep in the entire world where in actual fact in the Arab and Muslim world many thousands of books from Greece/Rome/India/China were painstakenly translated (no Google translate, no printing press) and many more new books were written. [1] Toledan Tables: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toledan_Tables https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toledan_Tables
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
- rob74 2y ago
  And this is just one of many ways the US is currently shooting itself in the foot (or, if you prefer, cutting off its nose to spite its face). Thanks, Elon! Putin and Xi must be cheering... > Europe will gladly do take backsies on their WWII brain drain. ...until the extreme-right populists (supported by the current US administration) come to power there too?
  - tialaramex 2y ago
    Populism requires that you're popular. Brexit clones were extremely popular for the right across Europe right up until Brexit actually happened, and then suddenly they all remembered they'd never wanted anything to do with such a stupid plan and began scrubbing praise for it from their materials, back to "reform" and tinkering at the edges. The trick is to be First. You can sell "Just do X and it'll be great" unless the people have already seen what a disaster X is.
carterschonwald 2y ago
My fear as well. I’m not sure if even a magic wish to rearrange stuff back to the before January state of affairs is possible at this point. Write to your representatives. I fear that if they don’t pull off something the only ethical and responsible thing is civil war. This shit is insane and will destroy everything I like about our government. Also to quote every true patriot: the only good Nazi is a dead Nazi. I’m so angry and mad and wanting to help fix it. My near term approach is write expansively to all my city state and congressional reps. We already have diarrhea inducing corruption happening in plain view. We have walking piñatas for an urgent need to do campaign finance reform. I’m not sure if there’s any way to save some of the institutions and programs that make this country actually great without a straight up secession/civil war for the coastal states. I’m very very scared. And angry.
- neilv 2y ago
  On HN, "revolutionary" is an adjective, and it means making a lot of money. :)
- setikites 2y ago
  Calling your elected representatives daily is more effective. The app 5 calls makes it easy.
  - 20after4 2y ago
    5 * 0 is still 0. They aren't listening.
  - scarface_74 2y ago
    Unless you are in a swing district that isn’t gerrymandered to death, your representative could care less about what you think. Their first objective is not to get primaried. The biggest check on the administration is the Senate which confirms executive nominees. The Senate is definitely not “representative” of anything when Wyoming gets two Senators just like California.
  - gs17 2y ago
    Unfortunately, mine very proudly proclaim how much they agree with what's going on. And they're also very proud of gerrymandering the state so they don't need to listen to anyone.
bongodongobob 2y ago
We're losing an entire generation at least. The pain that these cuts are going to cause won't be felt overnight. It will be felt over decades. "Things have been set into motion that cannot be undone".
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
  Just like the Supreme Court :(
BLKNSLVR 2y ago
> We may be looking at a lost decade. We're looking at the US wilfully letting go of the possibiility of remaining the most powerful nation in the world. Reduced health, reduced education, reduced funding for research, reduced international aid programs (which both garner goodwill whilst also creating a bulwark against those who profit from misery), reduced oversight / regulation of the power of capital, alienation of prior allies, reduced safety nets for the vulnerable, increased rhetoric against poorly defined 'foreign types', anti-intellectualism. It's a helluva vacuum being created, and I'm not particularly optimistic about what's going to fill it.
- andix 2y ago
  You forgot "wilfully letting go of democracy". US democracy is far away from dying, but who knows how much longer it can keep holding up.
  - late2part 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - digitaltrees 2y ago
    It’s not far away from dying. I would argue that it’s already too late. The trump administration has shown that it can seize the power to control spending which is constitutionally an exclusive power if congress and courts can’t and won’t do anything about it. We are past a constitutional crisis, republicans had a theory of a unitary executive and prove they can stream roll other branches. Now trump and others are talking about a third term. They play it off as a joke but that’s how they have succeeded in moving the goal posts already.
    - pizza 2y ago
      Here are some new concrete developments that I doubt the founders of the democracy would say are fine: - the Executive Branch now has presumptive - if not absolute - immunity against all criminal official acts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_v._United_States_%282024%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_v._United_States_%282024... - universities must obey Trump's culture war agenda, otherwise they will be de-accredited and a fine equal to the value of the entire university endowment will be leveraged - https://www.mediaite.com/politics/trump-vows-to-seize-endowments-from-universities-practicing-discrimination-under-the-guise-of-equity/ https://www.mediaite.com/politics/trump-vows-to-seize-endowm... - President-elect Donald Trump and his top advisers have long cited impoundment, a little-known legal theory [... that] essentially claims that any president has unilateral authority to ignore Congress’s funding bills and withhold or “impound” funds meant for programs, agencies, or departments deemed unsuitable by the White House. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/white-house/3244202/trump-impoundment-federal-bureaucracy-trigger-supreme-court-battle/ https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/white-house/3244202/...
koolba 2y ago
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- digitaltrees 2y ago
  When legal and predictable processes are undermined no one can rely on the government being a good actor. A good reputation takes generations to establish and seconds to destroy. No one will trust the government now.
  - koolba 2y ago
    > When legal and predictable processes are undermined ... Being legally undermined is hardly a bad thing. We voted for unified Republican control of both branches of the legislator and the POTUS. You might not like the outcomes, but there's nothing illegal about what the executive branch is doing, how it's doig it, or the legislation that Congress will be passing in the coming months. > ... no one can rely on the government being a good actor. A good reputation takes generations to establish and seconds to destroy. No one will trust the government now. The prior administrations should have kept that in mind before they squandered our money. It's unfortunate that useful and deserving projects will temporarily get caught in the blast radius. But there's been so much waste an lack of accountability that something like what we're seeing for the past few weeks is the only recourse.
    - kelnos 2y ago
      "We" didn't vote for that. 49.8% of voters did, or about 23% of all people living in the US. > there's nothing illegal about what the executive branch is doing Why do you believe that? There are a lot of people filing lawsuits saying that there's a ton illegal about how the executive branch is doing things, and quite a few judges agree enough to order Trump to stop doing what he's doing until we can figure out what's going on.
    - digitaltrees 2y ago
      But this isn’t legal. Doge is not a validly created department because it wasn’t created by congress. Elon musk was appointed by the president after congressional advise and consent. The termination has violated employment law pass by congress specifically to shield the federal employees from partisan attacks and influence. The fact that the federal bureaucracy has been a non-partisan professional workforce has been on of the greatest strengths in the world. What musk and trump are doing will introduce corruption in government by turning it into a spoil system. They are making new hires swear allegiance to trump directly not the constitution. Also not legal. And when they’ve lost in court they have actively defied the rulings. Oh and that’s after lying about the fact that Elon’s running things to make their position more favorable. Shall I go on?
ajmurmann 2y ago
Lost decade for the US and the beginning of the Chinese century for others
seanmcdirmid 2y ago
Maybe China will start accepting international PhD students? I don’t see anyone else who could pick up the slack.
- mnau 2y ago
  No point unless coupled with ability to immigrate. Why would China educate foreigners only to see them leave? There is no payoff. It makes sense in US because of for-profit universities and easier immigration. That is not situation over there.
  - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
    The US doesn't really have many for-profit universities, and those that are for-profit don't attract a lot of international PhD students. We do (or did?) have a lot of research to be done, and we would never be able to do it without international PhD students (including from China and India). China has some immigration, and people will be attracted to stay if the research jobs are good and accessible. If China takes over the USA's role of the preeminent world power, they will have access to and need to leverage world talent to do so.
dang 2y ago
Recent and related: Penn to reduce graduate admissions, rescind acceptances amid research cuts - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43144940 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43144940 - Feb 2025 (646 comments)
throwawaymaths 2y ago
to steelman the issue: what if there was overinvestment in science? as in we chased money after talent that didnt exist, or was mismatched to the difficulty of the available and fundable open questions. a few things: you'd expect a lot of fraud and misallocated science to have been recently uncovered. after the cuts, you would expect the quantity of science to go down, but the quality to go up
- mplewis 2y ago
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  - throwawaymaths 2y ago
    go get a degree in science and come back with your take.
jmcgough 2y ago
Biochemist friend moved across the country for a post-doc and three months into it is waiting to be let go. She is now looking at options outside the country, specifically China, given the incredible instability here.
grandempire 2y ago
1. Most science PhD students are international. So funding their education has questionable domestic political value. 2. Those people don’t just disappear. If there aren’t PhD programs they will do something else. 3. It’s hard to argue we are at some optimal level of PhD students and that if we cut back the system won’t work. Most academics agree we have too many.

chii 2y ago

If you've read the three-body problem series (or the tv show) [spoiler incoming] - - - - the way to stop humanity from being able to fight back (against alien invasion) is not via weapons, but via disabling science. It's a long term strategy. So the conspiracy theory that trump is a russian asset (or is influenced by them at the least), seems plausible, if you imagine that such removal of science and research funding is meant to disable american technological progress for decades to come. This would be a strategy that outlasts the tenure of the russian asset.

andix 2y ago
Those concepts are not science fiction, they were very often used in the past already. Just read about how the most famous dictators in history came to power, and what they did first. Discrediting scientist is a standard step for most dictators. They only keep the bare minimum they need for the military and surveillance.
- ihsw 2y ago
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- late2part 2y ago
  Who is the dictator here? Obviously the states that run these schools will raise taxes to fund the state schools, no?
  - MyOutfitIsVague 2y ago
    The dictator is still in the oven, but it's nearly ready. Just needs a topping of constitutional crisis and a suspension of elections and it'll be done.
    - dragonwriter 2y ago
      You don't need to suspend elections you just need to subvert them. For-show elections make good dictatorial theater.

intermerda 2y ago

It was already bad last time when the objective was to just enrich the fossil fuel industry - https://archive.is/DywH6 https://archive.is/DywH6. This time the purge is all-encompassing. If science and education is suppressed, it's easier to control the masses.

consumer451 2y ago

Sean Carroll has a very informative, and impressively apolitical post/podcast about the recent de-funding of science in the USA. I have seen it appreciated across the political spectrum. It is worth a read or listen, and hopefully a share. This is the most sober-minded analysis of this turn of events that I have seen so far. https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2025/02/12/bonus-cuts-to-science-funding-and-why-they-matter/ https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2025/02/12/bonu...

stronglikedan 2y ago

> Science in the US will be chaotically torn apart by this and a host of other decisions. Seems unnecessarily alarmist speculation to me. :shrug: I'd rather see how this plays out, since no one can possibly know at this point.

freen 2y ago
We have seen it happen over and over again. When was the last time real science came out of Russia?
- hayst4ck 2y ago
  I wouldn't put down Russia's achievements. They did manage to effectively disable their greatest geopolitical enemy and cause us to destroy ourselves. All the weaponry in every other country on earth couldn't harm America more than what they did with social media, some highly skilled "recruitment," and smart leveraging of monetary resources. They got us to vote against Ukraine at the UN without a gun. Even the worlds best weapons aren't that effective.
  - BLKNSLVR 2y ago
    Further than that, they got the President of the United States to claim the Ukraine started the conflict. All it took was Putin explaining to Trump the scale of the mineral wealth of Ukraine that they could split between them. Thank fuck Australia is a long way from Russia. But on the other hand: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-02-22/australia-meets-china-over-chinese-naval-live-fire-drills/104968322 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-02-22/australia-meets-china...
  - freen 2y ago
    That not science, but yes, Putin has completely succeeded geopolitically. As has been shown multiple times in debates, the only actually adversarial environment Trump has allowed himself to participate in (Obama went to the GOP and explained the ACA to them for three hours, in a town hall setting, completely televised.) Trump has shown himself to be completely and totally manipulatable. Easily baited, played like a glass harp, so to speak. But that is not science.

_heimdall 2y ago

> Not evaluated efficiency cuts. Just thrashing about. Personally I'm not sold on their tactics so far, but there is another way to view this than thrashing out. Non-probationary federal employees are protected and not easily fired. If one honestly believes the government is bloated and so far into debt that the budget needs to be balanced at all costs, cutting anyone and anything you can may make sense. Normally you wouldn't throw good food overboard, but if the ship is sinking you may have no choice other than to throw out anything that isn't bolted down.

russdill 2y ago
Government employee payroll makes up a tiny fraction of the budget. It's actually a horrible place to start.
- _heimdall 2y ago
  > It's actually a horrible place to start. That depends on what the options are. The executive branch likely does have authority to fire probationary employees. They likely don't have authority to immediately fire non coronation dry employees or to end programs and departments created congress. This may be the best lever they think they legally have today. If that is the case, and that's an if, they are trying to stick within the letter of the law despite how it is often being reported.
  - russdill 2y ago
    They legally have all the branches. They can use Congress to cut programs they don't want
consumer451 2y ago
Where exactly is the proof that the ship of government funded science in the USA was sinking? If you don't mean just US funded science, then what evidence is there that the USA was sinking in general? When I look at the graph of debt increase, it was actually decreasing. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1366899/percent-change-national-debt-president-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1366899/percent-change-n...

whalesalad 2y ago

The loss of their jobs is all part of gods plan, apparently https://www.mediaite.com/politics/house-republican-tells-fired-federal-workers-god-has-a-plan-in-hostile-town-hall/ https://www.mediaite.com/politics/house-republican-tells-fir...

insane_dreamer 2y ago
true, except the GOP didn't bother to look up which gods the plan belongs to (turns out its the plan of the Chinese gods)

deleted 2y ago

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hayst4ck 2y ago

> This is true for many programs for reasons that will be hard to understand if you aren't a scientist. It is a decapitation strike. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decapitation_(military_strategy) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decapitation_(military_strateg... Ukraine is more or less a proxy war between America and Russia, which is also between John Locke's Social Contract and Thomas Hobbes Leviathan, which said simply is whether rules are made in respect to reason (law) or in respect to power (order). It's also a fight over who are the final enforcers of law. Are citizens the last line of enforcers of the law or is "law" always enforced by the strong against the weak? America has the world's largest military and a world ending nuclear arsenal, so direct conflict is unconscionable. That means what's left is high leverage asymmetric warfare. Russia corrupted America's elites (and German elites to a significant degree, too), either through money, compromising material, or the promise of power. Some of those elites are people like Peter Thiel, who are absolute power houses of the American surveillance capitalist state. Private intelligence companies were leveraged to divide the American public and then conquer it. America is experiencing a decapitation strike. By compromising our leadership, our economy and technological flywheel is being destroyed, our ideology is being corrupted, and trust in us has been decimated. Our closest allies now see us as someone who must be weakened and defended against. We abandoned Ukraine. There is no argument that Trump's America is good faith in any way. It's a decapitation strike. The point is to damage us and our future, and we're letting it happen. Our military that took an oath to protect us from enemies foreign and domestic have failed their obligation. Now America at large is rejecting the evidence of their eyes and ears. Americans are obeying in advance. https://snyder.substack.com/p/decapitation-strike https://snyder.substack.com/p/decapitation-strike (https://archive.is/1xkxK https://archive.is/1xkxK)

jhbadger 2y ago

And the worst thing is that they may have misunderstood what "probationary employees" were. In federal speak, they are new employees, but the new regime may have thought they were "bad" employees, based on the idea of "probation" in the criminal justice sense.

consumer451 2y ago
We live in such a moronic time that I believe the reason that we are dropping the post-WWII Rules Based Order, is that it is also called the "Liberal" International Order. [0] Watching a historic empire destroy itself is beyond words. I will miss Pax Americana. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_international_order https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_international_order
- rayiner 2y ago
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  - consumer451 2y ago
    The fact that people who by all appearances are intelligent human beings, could post things like this... Nero plays his cithara. I am at a loss for words. I guess the real problem with propaganda is getting high on your own supply. edit: As an example, the Supreme Court overturning Chevron deference was a decision against un-elected officials making government calls, instead of the law makers, aka Congress. Now, just months later, here we are. The exact opposite is happening. The most un-elected, un-appointed person in US government history is holding the purse strings, and not a chirp. While Musk's cithara gently weeps.
    - rayiner 2y ago
      You should read some books on history and foreign affairs. Most of the world hates the “liberal international order” because it’s an excuse for the U.S. to impose its values on the rest of the world. DOGE revealed that USAID was funding political unrest in my home country (where activists recently overthrew the government). The U.S. has finally turned a corner on it only because the deep staters started turning that same attitude inward, pointing it at Ohio instead of India. Death of liberal internationalism isn’t something anyone should mourn. There’s no inconsistency between Loper Bright and DOGE. Both reflect separation of powers. The judiciary interprets the law, not the executive branch. But the executive branch—which consists of the President and his agents—decides how to make discretionary spending decisions and hiring and firing of federal employees. Everyone is staying in their lane. (You’re incorrect that DOGE is “holding the purse strings.” Congress has passed appropriations bills that delegate massive discretionary authority to the executive. DOGE, under Trump’s directions, is countermanding spending decisions made by executive civil servants, not Congress.)

throwawaymaths 2y ago

there are two tiers of program managers. there are those that are pulled from academia, as you say, but theres a 3-5x? multiple of "junior' PMs that are say MS or BS scientists, rarely PhD (usually the case when the PhD is... subpar), these are career and eventually thet are promoted to senior management and decision making roles.

rsfern 2y ago
I don’t know what the distribution of advanced degrees is among NSF program managers, but I strongly reject the implication that career program managers are somehow a lower tier or less well suited for the job. I’ve personally served a few times as an NSF panel reviewer for a career PM that does not hold a PhD, and they are awesome. They have a background in the startup world and ask really insightful question and know how to build effective groups of experts and efficiently guide discussion to get actionable feedback from them in a really short timeframe. A lot of PhDs are not great with these skills, and I’ve learned a ton about evaluating the potential impact and risks of research proposals by interacting with this person. Also, this attitude is kind of counter to the egalitarian notion a lot of HNers hold that you don’t need a formal CS degree to be a great software dev.
- throwawaymaths 2y ago
  yeah well i worked with a high level DARPA PM that it turned out her phd was overinterpreting noise and her PI (francesco stellaci) railroaded the postdoc that tried to call foul. by the way, that PM, last i checked had left DARPA and was working on a microfluidics nanodrop blood diagnostics company -- you cant mke this shit up!! and a DOE biotechnology pm that was excited to be on the project -- but by his own admission couldn't remember what a promoter was. fucking clown cars. > you don’t need a formal CS degree to be a great software dev. not at all the same. the point here is about incentive structure. If you're a great scientist, why aren't you doing the science? something made you decide instead to be a career bureaucrat.
  - rsfern 2y ago
    sure - there are absolutely lousy PMs as well as great PMs, but this kind of situation happens in all kinds of organizations and I think you are overgeneralizing. There are lots of reasons that excellent scientists might not want to actively do research anymore. Being a PM seems like a nice way to get a broad exposure to cutting edge research without dealing with the (IMO) overwhelming incentive structure in academic science, driving a narrow research program at a national lab, or leaving the world of open science to as an industry researcher.

aaron695 2y ago

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