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The Continuing Crisis, Part IX: Inside the NIH Now
- gttalbot 2y agoMuch too quiet here on HN on this post Science underpins technology, people. If you want to see the US rapidly lose its place in the tech world over the next decade, this is a great way to go about it.
- jvanderbot 2y agoYes of course. The problem is what can be done? The usual arrangement of letter writing or donating and voting is just more of the same cycle. I'm not by any means in favor of what's going on, but some steam has to be let out of the system. And the real problem is trust in our institutions. What can be done about that?
- adamtaylor_13 2y agoMy thoughts exactly. I certainly have throes of people on Facebook complaining about this, but what shall I, the individual, do about this? I have my causes to which I devote great time and personal effort, but if I stopped my life for every minor disaster I would spend my life shaking my fist at my computer. I quite like my life and I don’t intend to spend it getting rage baited by never-ending news cycles. Give me an action to take, not an emotion to feel.
- BenFranklin100 2y agoHow old are you? What is happening now at the NSF and NIH will knock the US off its technological perch in less than 15 to 20 years. We are already fighting to maintain an edge as it is. What this means to you personally and other tech workers is that many of the well-paying tech jobs will be going elsewhere.
- harimau777 2y agoAt this point I'm not sure that's a bad thing. It would be kind of great to be able to get a decent job somewhere that isn't a dystopia.
- BenFranklin100 2y agoWhatever buddy.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- saulpw 2y agoIt's not a bad thing...for those other countries. As an American you're not going to be able to get those jobs. You think a Chinese company is going to want to hire a remote American worker, who is 10 time zones away, doesn't speak the language, doesn't know the culture, and who wants to work only 40 hours a week? Maybe not even if you're willing to work for $20/hour.
- intended 2y agoWhy would there be decent jobs? And what makes you think there wont be only more dystopia if this descent isn’t arrested? Like, it can ALWAYS be worse.
- davidw 2y agoI'm nearly 50 and have watched politics swing back and forth all my life. That's not what is currently happening. It's not a minor disaster. It's something we'll take generations to recover from, if ever. We can't do much, individually. Find people in your community working on stuff you care about and get out there and pitch in. Get involved. Make sure your local school district isn't banning books or being cruel to trans kids. Make sure you have good city councilors. A friend of mine made this in the area where I live: https://deschutesgrassroots.com/ https://deschutesgrassroots.com/
- MaysonL 2y agoCall and write your Congresspeople. Picket a Tesla dealer. Get vaccinated.
- trhway 2y agoIn addition i'd also suggest looking at deep roots of why half the country is cheering it up. They don't want their country to go down the drain. Then why? It was pretty illustrative how MAGA was cheering the stopping of condoms money to Kenya in the Trump's speech. It looked like a caricature example of the government waste. Well, condoms there is one of the most effective ways to slow down HIV spreading. I'd bet MAGA wouldn't want more people there to get HIV. I'd bet MAGA just didn't know it. To me the "[not]know" is the root keyword in all that destruction happening now.
- brookst 2y ago> I'd bet MAGA wouldn't want more people there to get HIV That is incredibly charitable. Kudos, I guess, but not at all in line with what I’ve seen.
- jvanderbot 2y agoIf it were free, I guarantee every single maga republican I know would be ok with it. It's an issue of tradeoffs, and the tradeoffs were never clearly articulated even to me the most staunch supporter of foreign aid. We've just accepted it and all such programs because we can see, because we trust, that the analysis was done and is valid. Government does not currently have that level of trust with half the country, and worse has active distrust.
- harimau777 2y agoAt this point, I'm not sure it matters that much. You can't convince people who want to be ignorant.
- 20after4 2y agoI think you drastically underestimate people's hatred. MAGA do indeed want for more people in Kenya to get AIDS.
- johntitorjr 2y agoMass protests and non-violent civil disobedience. I hope that we don't reach a point where going beyond that is required.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- bloomingkales 2y ago[flagged]
- grandempire 2y ago> on the wrong side of history I don’t think history is a progression of superior morals or thinking, or that there are ethical “sides” to it.
- bloomingkales 2y agoSure, go back in time and talk to the Abolitionists or those who opposed Civil Rights. It's not gray, that's a big misconception. Dang is completely wrong about censoring and flagging discussion on a fucking coup in America. If the discussion devolves a million times, then let it devolve a million times. It's necessary. Whatever, it's only month three, not too late.
- grandempire 2y ago> civil right. Abolitionist Notice that your ability to label things with a strong moral charge refers to a handful of historical events from the past 200 years. Everything before that gets really fuzzy, is multi-faceted, and doesn’t evoke emotion.
- bloomingkales 2y agoLike what? Do you mean like should we or shouldn't we enslave people to build the Pyramids? Is that what you mean? Like, that's just how it was back then and so its like, okay? So like, that's just how it is now days, so like, whatever Dang is doing with this is like, morally alright? Put a bow on this for me.
- grandempire 2y agoIf someone came up to you and said “I supported X side in the hundred years between England and France” 1) are they on the wrong or right side of history? 2) would anyone in 2025 have their moral sensibilities hurt?
- ModernMech 2y agoChain yourself to a Tesla dealership. I'm serious. Getting Elon Musk to cry about how unfair he's being treated on TV amidst the damage he's doing will do more to hasten his departure than any letter or check you can write.
- fallingknife 2y agoThe institutions have lost trust by sneaking political decisions through under the guise of science. Science can tell you what will happen if you make a certain decision, but it can't tell you what decision to make because that is a fundamentally non scientific question. They can regain trust by acting in a trustworthy manner.
- jvanderbot 2y agoYeah I agree with this. If these tradeoffs were articulated and then everyone was allowed to personally buy "foreign aid bonds" then people could put their money to work in what mattered to them. Instead the whole country funds programs that half of them don't trust, regardless of who is in charge.
- SecretDreams 2y agoI've noticed on HN that any post involving less wholesome takes on the US admin and/or doge leadership become brigaded quite heavily with more lower quality discourse than the normal fare. It's a really interesting phenomenon. And I'm kind of surprised the community allows it.
- davidw 2y agoTBH, politics is and should be taken elsewhere because it is much more important than most of what we discuss here and therefore could easily crowd out everything else.
- SecretDreams 2y agoBut there's a strong intersection between STEM, policy, and downstream innovation/employment - not to mention any ethical dilemmas along the way. Not discussing and/or allowing bots to overrun any such discussion and drown out dissent has never in the history of man left to immediately better times in STEM.
- davidw 2y agoI'm not sure what the right answer is: if HN were to change its policy and focus on the authoritarian assault on the US in all its forms, it would easily crowd out everything else, and draw in a bunch of people interested in only politics. It's sure hard to ignore. IDK, maybe some enterprising person should start a "hackers for democracy" web site where we can share ideas or something.
- SecretDreams 2y agoI don't think removing the rule is the play. Could be nice to relax it Fridays or the weekend. TGIF rules.
- lolinder 2y ago> draw in a bunch of people interested in only politics. This is already happening. I'm finding myself visiting the site less and less and enjoying my time here less and less because every single thread is getting hijacked by people who just want to talk politics. That I largely agree with the general mood is exactly the problem: I don't need HN to work me up into even greater despair, I come here to engage my mind on useful things and talk about complex ideas with interesting people. But the interesting people are increasingly retreating from the nonstop anger cycle that's been feeding this site's engagement this year.
- jmclnx 2y ago>If you want to see the US rapidly lose its place in the tech world over the next decade, this is a great way to go about it. Too late, unless DOGE is stopped now and Trump is impeached, the US will lose its lead in tech and health (pharma) and many other industries. Pure and simple. Already the smartest of the smart are leaving the US for Europe and probably China. If this is allowed to continue, in 6 months to a year, the US will be isolated and a third rate economy. All it will have is a first class war machine, which will not bode well for the world.
- jimbokun 2y ago> All it will have is a first class war machine And that won't last for much longer after losing those other sectors, either, as military dominance is a function of economic and technological superiority.
- lolinder 2y ago> Much too quiet here on HN on this post This whole topic has been done to death on HN, and this post doesn't contribute much that hasn't already been discussed extensively. Science underpins technology, but we've had 2-3 DOGE-related topics pinned to the front page at a time nonstop since the inauguration and the subject is bleeding incessantly into every other submission on the site. Rest assured you'll have another 500+ comment rage fest in the near future, probably this week. This one just doesn't have enough going to feed the rage spiral—it's pretty blase compared to the dosage we've worked ourselves up to.
- bloomingkales 2y ago[flagged]
- ModernMech 2y agoIf things go for much longer it'll be too late. In many ways it already is. Scientists I know are changing careers. Thinking of moving. Other countries are thinking about how they can take advantage of the brain drain. Even if things turn around today so much damage has been done already that it'll be felt for a long time.
- bloomingkales 2y agoThe only hope we have is that Trump is a true circus ring master. He cancels the previous admin things and reinstates them with his name and a republican spin.
- foxglacier 2y ago[flagged]
- acdha 2y agoYou’re making two big mistakes in that comparison. The obvious one is simply magnitude: people are losing funding for entire labs and research projects years in the making, which details careers and destroys capacity which will have to be rebuilt when America resumes funding research. The second error is conflating the impact on research: losing a grant _prevents_ science from happening but those DEI changes were very minor additions to an existing research program. Doing outreach doesn’t harm science, and often helps the researcher improve their ability to communicate their work to non-specialists. Considering a wider range of students or employees similarly doesn’t hurt research: you still didn’t have to hire someone unqualified, but maybe you gave a chance to someone from a less-prestigious university. In some cases, it even made for better science: for example, medical and safety research being careful to include women in their experiment planning benefits half of the population.
- foxglacier 2y ago"destroys capacity which will have to be rebuilt" Maybe that's a good thing to break up some of the corruption and waste in the system. Or maybe it doesn't have to be rebuilt because there's already too much publicly funded science? There has to be an optimum amount and who's to say we're not already above that? Of course if money was free, then the more the merrier. But remember everything the government spends comes at the expense of opportunity cost, either to the government or the people paying for it in tax and inflation.
- Henchman21 2y agoPERHAPS, and bear with me here, I know it's gonna be a stretch... Perhaps those scientists you think ought to have been protesting "DEI" had zero problems with it? Perhaps they actually supported it? Perhaps that "statistic they dredged up" was actually meaningful to them and their community? Nah, can't be that. Must be them simply hungry for cash. Not a desire to do research, just basic human greed. That's really all they're capable of, right?
- denom 2y agoThe post war scientific edifice is being shattered in a monumental act of vandalism. It’s not just defunding childhood cancer research, but also dismantling the very idea of agency in the broader society. Science and basic research are worth pursuing. And the cost is a pittance.
- brookst 2y agoThe oligarchs can’t stand to see a single dollar go to a legit purpose though.
- RRWagner 2y agoNo, the oligarchs can't stand seeing a single dollar go to the poor, and when one is a billionaire, everyone else is poor.
- iimblack 2y agoWhat blows my mind is how short sighted it is. Even the oligarchs benefit from scientific research. Even the oligarchs lose money when our industries move to other countries.
- linguae 2y agoThis reminds me of something Alan Kay (of Xerox PARC and Apple fame) wrote when talked about how those who profited from the results of research have not “paid it forward” through funding future research: https://worrydream.com/2017-12-30-alan/ https://worrydream.com/2017-12-30-alan/ “As I pointed out in a previous email, Engelbart couldn't get funding from the very people who made fortunes from his inventions. “It strikes me that many of the tech billionaires have already gotten their "upside" many times over from people like Engelbart and other researchers who were supported by ARPA, Parc, ONR, etc. Why would they insist on more upside, and that their money should be an "investment"? That isn't how the great inventions and fundamental technologies were created that eventually gave rise to the wealth that they tapped into after the fact. “It would be really worth the while of people who do want to make money -- they think in terms of millions and billions -- to understand how the trillions -- those 3 and 4 extra zeros came about that they have tapped into. And to support that process.”
- forgotpwagain 2y agoIt is worth mentioning that China is heavily investing in biotechnology and they are getting genuinely good at the more commodified parts of the industry. This blog post [1] is long and aimed at a biotech expert audience, but one summary line that stands out is that "the drug industry is having its own DeepSeek Moment" [2]. To that end, I believe that this is the time to invest in the US biotechnology ecosystem so that we remain competitive with China. The ongoing crisis at the NIH is antithetical to this goal, as Derek Lowe's blog posts describe. [1] https://centuryofbio.com/p/commoditization https://centuryofbio.com/p/commoditization [2] https://www.wsj.com/health/pharma/the-drug-industry-is-having-its-own-deepseek-moment-68589d70 https://www.wsj.com/health/pharma/the-drug-industry-is-havin...
- tkel 2y agoHonestly it's odd and out-of-touch to be motivated by being "competitive with China". Who cares? If you are a normal US resident, you care about improving the lives of you and your community, not competing against some far-away nebulous group of people whom you have never met and will never interact with. All while big brother is telling you that those far-away strangers are somehow your enemies. It makes sense as a rhetorical way to motivate action, but it's rather simple, short-sighted, manipulative, and divorced from reality for 99% of people. I also reject the notion that progress is a zero-sum game, that we have to "compete" at all, that there needs to be a winner and a loser here. We could just as well work with others to improve the lives of us and our communities. Why isn't the notion "cooperate with China to uplift all"? Perhaps releasing your models under a MIT license is actually the right move here that is in everyone's best interest, perhaps the US should be following their lead?
- nradov 2y agoSounds good, but in the end possession of sovereign territory is a zero-sum game. Perhaps you could convince the Chinese Communist Party to stop trying to seize it from our allies? Because allowing China to dominate the Indo-Pacific Region certainly won't benefit normal US residents in the long run.
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- marcus_holmes 2y agoBut... why? Why would anyone just destroy scientific research in their own country? What do they hope to gain from this?
- makeitdouble 2y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward > The Great Leap Forward stemmed from multiple factors, including "the purge of intellectuals, the surge of less-educated radicals, the need to find new ways to generate domestic capital, rising enthusiasm about the potential results mass mobilization might produce
- marcus_holmes 2y agoYeah, I guess. Destroying the political "enemy" becomes more important than anything else. I thought that only happened in socially backward, ideology-riddled, far-off places like Cambodia or China. Not advanced Western democracies.
- krapp 2y ago"Socially backward" and "ideology riddled" describes the US pretty well. And "far off" in the sense that American culture is intentionally isolationist and separatist, and Americans tend to be aggressively ignorant about the rest of the world. Most Western democracies are more safe and have a higher standard of living and score better on the Human Freedom Index and other metrics than the US, and have "advanced" features like socialized healthcare and education, which the US does not, so one could argue the US isn't even advanced as Western democracies go. Having one's system of laws based on the vague and archaic prose of a Constitution written for an 18th century pre-industrial agrarian slaveowning society isn't very advanced as far as modern constitutional law is concerned.
- grandempire 2y ago> better on the Human Freedom Index Weird that all the metrics keep telling everyone their life is better, but people don’t feel that way. You can’t summarize the human experience of freedom in an index.
- patriciarulph55 2y agoMy LO has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's officially for 5 years. Memory was lost, didn't remember his mother, or past life, acted like a 12 yr old. he was 75, He had some terrible night as he kept asking to go to the bathroom and get up at night. The doctor prescribed a sleeping pill (zolpidem), but it had a very bad side effect on him (delusions and hallucinations) and we decided not to give it any more and went for the Neuro X program that was introduced to us by his primary care doctor, he was on the Neuro X program for Alzheimer’s disease from Uine Health Centre for 6 months. The treatment relieved symptoms significantly, After the treatment he’s all of a sudden back active again, almost all his symptoms are gone, no signs of agitations, his sleeps pattern are back to normal. His memory loss has greatly improved and he tells stories about his past life, we got the Neuro X program from uinehealthcentre. com. I want to clarify that my comment is not a paid promotion or any form of advertisement. I am absolutely confident that this program offers a viable solution and hope someone find it helpful.
- tim333 2y agoReads like an ad though.