6 ms·

Hundreds more NSF grants terminated after agency director resigns

74 points by rntn 2y ago

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
kashunstva 2y ago
If this administration had an actual plan for priorities in science, I suppose I could understand shuffling grant funding among them. But there is no plan other than to destroy. While I no longer live in the U.S. and would never return, I grew up there & did benefit enormously from access to public academic institutions and to the Federal grants in science research that allowed them to thrive. Seeing this whole apparatus dismantled and sold-off for scrap is beyond sad. Finally the party that has striven for so long, since at least the late 1950s, to eliminate public education - and perhaps the whole academic enterprise is on the verge of achieving results beyond its wildest imagination. I hope that they are satisfied now; but doubt they are.
- bitxbitxbitcoin 2y ago
  It’s just plain old antiintellectualism.
- bboygravity 2y ago
  I'm not American and I find it hard to believe that there is actually no strategy behind this whatsoever? I get that it's what media are screaming at the top of their lungs (orange man bad etc), but there must be more behind this, no? Then again, they did put JFK jr. in charge of making infectious disease research impossible. I couldnt think of a worse person for that or politics in general.
  - natbennett 2y ago
    Talk to employees working at Federal agencies.
  - ipython 2y ago
    If there were a plan, one would hope they would have shared it? This is my frustration - there is clearly no plan, but smart people will assume that there must be one, because they bring their own biases of how they approach problems and project that onto trump.
    - matwood 2y ago
      Trump has always been a terrible executor even when getting the initial idea correct. See all his failed businesses. In this case, along with the tariffs, his frame of reference is 40+ years out of date. He thinks that people will do whatever they have to in order to work with US. That the best and brightest won’t leave. That other countries will bow down to his will. That’s not the world today, even if a lot of Teslers are made in the US.
  - jfengel 2y ago
    There hasn't been time for any kind of coherent review of the programs. A few programs receive enough outrage, and they're restored almost immediately. So no, I don't think there is any kind of strategy beyond "cut any budget item that my constituents don't care about, especially if it makes liberals angry".
  - rat87 2y ago
    There no strategy. They put rfk Jr in charge of public health. Orange man is bad. Or more specifically he's a selfish corrupt liar who doesn't really care that much if he destroys the country. To the extent that he'd prefer to be a king or dictator he'd prefer economy and military to be strong while he's in control but even that falls to his whims and instincts which are authoritarian, racist and conspiratorial. He's too intellectually lazy to learn how things work. Of course some of his subordinates are far right true believers but even then flattering Trump corruption and incompetence rule the day more then ideology.
  - deepsun 2y ago
    To answer your question -- they say "to save money". The question is still open whether it actually saves the announced sums, or whether it saves anything at all.
    - adra 2y ago
      The benefits of education on a country are decades long to fully see the positive outcomes. How do you expect differently by destroying said institutions? Your kids or likely kids kids will be feeling the decision of today as the beginning of the dark ages (at least in the US). Without innovative people able to achieve great progress, where does society, , hell humanity go? At the very least from a here and now position, it's a strong signal to continue pulling money out of the US and into countries that have better long term outlook.
  - avs733 2y ago
    > The guidance said that in the event of a request that “violates or doesn’t follow proper procedures”, employees were to contact Dorothy Aronson, the NSF’s chief information officer. “Do not give any indication that the request will be denied,” the guidance statement noted. Two members of DOGE, Luke Farritor and Zachary Terrell, were quickly given complete access to NSF grant-management systems despite statements in the guidance to staffers that they should initially receive read-only access. I feel like “don’t make them follow policy” and “we’re going to lie about the access they have” is pretty telling as to whether there’s more behind this
  - shermantanktop 2y ago
    “orange man bad” is a pretty good example of a thought-terminating cliche (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A9 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3...).
  - dmvdoug 2y ago
    No, there is no more to this. They fucking eliminated grants for studies on transgenic mice because they thought that was the same thing as transgender. That’s the level of thought and care put into this.
- pl_trw 2y ago
  The strategy is to destroy an opponents centres of power. This is the result of the liberalisation of academia over the last 40 years. The spread of opinions in a mathematics department on social issues should reflect the general populations. Yet the few foolish enough to express conservative views can expect to be terminated. I hope the next generation of institution builders keep this lesson in mind: you need buy in from all tax payers when you're spending their money. Edit: Responses in this thread give me little hope for American academia correcting course before it is destroyed. One can hope something better comes from its ashes.
  - matwood 2y ago
    What ‘conservative views’ are being terminated in mathematics departments?
    - mindslight 2y ago
      Presumably it's the fault of mathematics departments for not admitting more dunces who could be taken in by the flag-draped anti-Americanism of talk radio, and then coddling them with kid gloves to avoid hurting their feelings.
  - jpcookie 2y ago
    [dead]
  - nemo 2y ago
    The claims of the liberalisation of academia are part of a propaganda campaign from the people currently destroying academia - that narrative is totally disconnected from my experienced reality as someone who worked through an MA and a PhD. There's always been lefties in the Humanities, and there's been little change there over the last 50 years that I've seen. There used to be more Communists than there are now.
    - pl_trw 2y ago
      [flagged]
mindslight 2y ago
Truly an administration that values intelligence and the intellectual work required to support modern society, or at least you might think so reading supportive rationalizations from otherwise smart people. At least Mao's Great Leap Forward was trying to help his country, as misguided as it was. Chairman Plow's Great Leap Backwards is going to consign us to the dust bin of history.
frogperson 2y ago
Trump is actively trying to destroy America from the inside. There is no other explanation that really makes sense.
- jfengel 2y ago
  I don't think that explanation holds. If it did, there would be more outrage from his own party. He is doing what they want. You perceive that as destroying America, which is why you didn't vote for him. But they think that this is good for the country. Polls suggest that they would return him to office a third time, given the chance.
  - rat87 2y ago
    He is destroying America whether that's his aim or he is just incompetent. Most people didn't vote for this. Many don't care and others are just blinded by partisan bias and cult membership
  - mindslight 2y ago
    They think this because they are gullible and their media and leaders have been long bought by big business, which is now subservient to China and other international capital - literally that same exact globalist dynamic they think they are somehow fighting. If they would bother listening to their fellow citizens they might have a chance at understanding any of the ways they've been thoroughly pwnt for the past few decades, but they prefer the comforting "facts" from their own fictional universe instead. (and just to preempt the inevitable "both sides" whataboutism - no, my quarrel is currently with the party currently and rapidly destroying our country)
  - ujkhsjkdhf234 2y ago
    Red states are notoriously rank lowest in education, healthcare, and quality of life. So yes, if those are the policies they are unleashing on America then they are destroying America. The simple answer is that they are corrupt and want to be authortarians with complete control and dumbing the population goes a long way to that goal. So is controlling the "truth"
  - 2y ago
Neywiny 2y ago
I didn't understand why these people resign. It looks cowardly. I'm not in a position to need to make that decision for myself but I would hope that if I ever am, I'll be dragged kicking and screaming.
- TimorousBestie 2y ago
  It’s a nice sentiment, but the federal govt can make your life pretty miserable they get a hankering to do so.
  - Gigachad 2y ago
    The US will just send you to an off shore concentration camp if you try to get in the way.
- tokai 2y ago
  I don't understand your sentiment. Nothing honorable in sticking around to be forced to do the wrong thing. A leader bowing out is at the same time the most powerful signal they can send to their superiors. An innumerable amount of hurt has been borne by 'good' people that hung in there when they should have walked away.
- adamredwoods 2y ago
  They know the system, but the system is changing. I also wish they could stay and use their power to delay and obfuscate to protect their employees and their goals. This is a power of being a manager, at the least. I also suspect that since funding is cut, their removal might decrease expense.
ChrisArchitect 2y ago
More discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43786304 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43786304
perihelions 2y ago
https://archive.is/CSiYr https://archive.is/CSiYr
perihelions 2y ago
- "Another affected scientist is Eric Wustrow, a computer and network-security researcher at the University of Colorado Boulder who studies censorship in authoritarian countries. Millions of users rely on Wustrow’s tools, which can evade firewalls, to access the Internet freely. His award of more than $450,000 was terminated last week." Previously discussed on HN, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36531485 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36531485 ("How the great firewall of China detects and blocks fully encrypted traffic [pdf] (gfw.report)" — 285 comments)
ZunarJ5 2y ago
When the dust settles and this terrible moment has passed, may something better bloom and grow in the ashes of this mess.
- Vilian 2y ago
  Hopeful we learn to not depend or allow behemoth of countries to take over the global economy

74 points by rntn 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

If this administration had an actual plan for priorities in science, I suppose I could understand shuffling grant funding among them. But there is no plan other than to destroy. While I no longer live in the U.S. and would never return, I grew up there & did benefit enormously from access to public academic institutions and to the Federal grants in science research that allowed them to thrive. Seeing this whole apparatus dismantled and sold-off for scrap is beyond sad. Finally the party that has striven for so long, since at least the late 1950s, to eliminate public education - and perhaps the whole academic enterprise is on the verge of achieving results beyond its wildest imagination. I hope that they are satisfied now; but doubt they are.

bitxbitxbitcoin 2y ago
It’s just plain old antiintellectualism.
bboygravity 2y ago
I'm not American and I find it hard to believe that there is actually no strategy behind this whatsoever? I get that it's what media are screaming at the top of their lungs (orange man bad etc), but there must be more behind this, no? Then again, they did put JFK jr. in charge of making infectious disease research impossible. I couldnt think of a worse person for that or politics in general.
- natbennett 2y ago
  Talk to employees working at Federal agencies.
- ipython 2y ago
  If there were a plan, one would hope they would have shared it? This is my frustration - there is clearly no plan, but smart people will assume that there must be one, because they bring their own biases of how they approach problems and project that onto trump.
  - matwood 2y ago
    Trump has always been a terrible executor even when getting the initial idea correct. See all his failed businesses. In this case, along with the tariffs, his frame of reference is 40+ years out of date. He thinks that people will do whatever they have to in order to work with US. That the best and brightest won’t leave. That other countries will bow down to his will. That’s not the world today, even if a lot of Teslers are made in the US.
- jfengel 2y ago
  There hasn't been time for any kind of coherent review of the programs. A few programs receive enough outrage, and they're restored almost immediately. So no, I don't think there is any kind of strategy beyond "cut any budget item that my constituents don't care about, especially if it makes liberals angry".
- rat87 2y ago
  There no strategy. They put rfk Jr in charge of public health. Orange man is bad. Or more specifically he's a selfish corrupt liar who doesn't really care that much if he destroys the country. To the extent that he'd prefer to be a king or dictator he'd prefer economy and military to be strong while he's in control but even that falls to his whims and instincts which are authoritarian, racist and conspiratorial. He's too intellectually lazy to learn how things work. Of course some of his subordinates are far right true believers but even then flattering Trump corruption and incompetence rule the day more then ideology.
- deepsun 2y ago
  To answer your question -- they say "to save money". The question is still open whether it actually saves the announced sums, or whether it saves anything at all.
  - adra 2y ago
    The benefits of education on a country are decades long to fully see the positive outcomes. How do you expect differently by destroying said institutions? Your kids or likely kids kids will be feeling the decision of today as the beginning of the dark ages (at least in the US). Without innovative people able to achieve great progress, where does society, , hell humanity go? At the very least from a here and now position, it's a strong signal to continue pulling money out of the US and into countries that have better long term outlook.
- avs733 2y ago
  > The guidance said that in the event of a request that “violates or doesn’t follow proper procedures”, employees were to contact Dorothy Aronson, the NSF’s chief information officer. “Do not give any indication that the request will be denied,” the guidance statement noted. Two members of DOGE, Luke Farritor and Zachary Terrell, were quickly given complete access to NSF grant-management systems despite statements in the guidance to staffers that they should initially receive read-only access. I feel like “don’t make them follow policy” and “we’re going to lie about the access they have” is pretty telling as to whether there’s more behind this
- shermantanktop 2y ago
  “orange man bad” is a pretty good example of a thought-terminating cliche (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A9 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3...).
- dmvdoug 2y ago
  No, there is no more to this. They fucking eliminated grants for studies on transgenic mice because they thought that was the same thing as transgender. That’s the level of thought and care put into this.
pl_trw 2y ago
The strategy is to destroy an opponents centres of power. This is the result of the liberalisation of academia over the last 40 years. The spread of opinions in a mathematics department on social issues should reflect the general populations. Yet the few foolish enough to express conservative views can expect to be terminated. I hope the next generation of institution builders keep this lesson in mind: you need buy in from all tax payers when you're spending their money. Edit: Responses in this thread give me little hope for American academia correcting course before it is destroyed. One can hope something better comes from its ashes.
- matwood 2y ago
  What ‘conservative views’ are being terminated in mathematics departments?
  - mindslight 2y ago
    Presumably it's the fault of mathematics departments for not admitting more dunces who could be taken in by the flag-draped anti-Americanism of talk radio, and then coddling them with kid gloves to avoid hurting their feelings.
- jpcookie 2y ago
  [dead]
- nemo 2y ago
  The claims of the liberalisation of academia are part of a propaganda campaign from the people currently destroying academia - that narrative is totally disconnected from my experienced reality as someone who worked through an MA and a PhD. There's always been lefties in the Humanities, and there's been little change there over the last 50 years that I've seen. There used to be more Communists than there are now.
  - pl_trw 2y ago
    [flagged]

mindslight 2y ago

Truly an administration that values intelligence and the intellectual work required to support modern society, or at least you might think so reading supportive rationalizations from otherwise smart people. At least Mao's Great Leap Forward was trying to help his country, as misguided as it was. Chairman Plow's Great Leap Backwards is going to consign us to the dust bin of history.

frogperson 2y ago

Trump is actively trying to destroy America from the inside. There is no other explanation that really makes sense.

jfengel 2y ago
I don't think that explanation holds. If it did, there would be more outrage from his own party. He is doing what they want. You perceive that as destroying America, which is why you didn't vote for him. But they think that this is good for the country. Polls suggest that they would return him to office a third time, given the chance.
- rat87 2y ago
  He is destroying America whether that's his aim or he is just incompetent. Most people didn't vote for this. Many don't care and others are just blinded by partisan bias and cult membership
- mindslight 2y ago
  They think this because they are gullible and their media and leaders have been long bought by big business, which is now subservient to China and other international capital - literally that same exact globalist dynamic they think they are somehow fighting. If they would bother listening to their fellow citizens they might have a chance at understanding any of the ways they've been thoroughly pwnt for the past few decades, but they prefer the comforting "facts" from their own fictional universe instead. (and just to preempt the inevitable "both sides" whataboutism - no, my quarrel is currently with the party currently and rapidly destroying our country)
- ujkhsjkdhf234 2y ago
  Red states are notoriously rank lowest in education, healthcare, and quality of life. So yes, if those are the policies they are unleashing on America then they are destroying America. The simple answer is that they are corrupt and want to be authortarians with complete control and dumbing the population goes a long way to that goal. So is controlling the "truth"
- 2y ago

Neywiny 2y ago

I didn't understand why these people resign. It looks cowardly. I'm not in a position to need to make that decision for myself but I would hope that if I ever am, I'll be dragged kicking and screaming.

TimorousBestie 2y ago
It’s a nice sentiment, but the federal govt can make your life pretty miserable they get a hankering to do so.
- Gigachad 2y ago
  The US will just send you to an off shore concentration camp if you try to get in the way.
tokai 2y ago
I don't understand your sentiment. Nothing honorable in sticking around to be forced to do the wrong thing. A leader bowing out is at the same time the most powerful signal they can send to their superiors. An innumerable amount of hurt has been borne by 'good' people that hung in there when they should have walked away.
adamredwoods 2y ago
They know the system, but the system is changing. I also wish they could stay and use their power to delay and obfuscate to protect their employees and their goals. This is a power of being a manager, at the least. I also suspect that since funding is cut, their removal might decrease expense.

ChrisArchitect 2y ago

More discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43786304 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43786304

perihelions 2y ago

https://archive.is/CSiYr https://archive.is/CSiYr

perihelions 2y ago

- "Another affected scientist is Eric Wustrow, a computer and network-security researcher at the University of Colorado Boulder who studies censorship in authoritarian countries. Millions of users rely on Wustrow’s tools, which can evade firewalls, to access the Internet freely. His award of more than $450,000 was terminated last week." Previously discussed on HN, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36531485 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36531485 ("How the great firewall of China detects and blocks fully encrypted traffic [pdf] (gfw.report)" — 285 comments)

ZunarJ5 2y ago

When the dust settles and this terrible moment has passed, may something better bloom and grow in the ashes of this mess.

Vilian 2y ago
Hopeful we learn to not depend or allow behemoth of countries to take over the global economy