4 ms·

> Got any friends who work in companies that make scientific equipment, reagents, etc? They might not have a job already, or soon. Nothing to lose any more? Th

> Got any friends who work in companies that make scientific equipment, reagents, etc? They might not have a job already, or soon. Nothing to lose any more? Then go and protest, hard. It's too late to undo the damage already caused, but a huge part of why Trump was able to rise to power was because there was by far not enough protest against him.

ngangaga 1y ago
> but a huge part of why Trump was able to rise to power was because there was by far not enough protest against him. There are a lot of reasons to be skeptical of this claim. For one thing, it's not clear that trump voters respect protestors in the first place. For another thing, we're an extremely geographically distributed population, and most of our cities already swing strongly blue. This means protesting is generally a high-effort, low-return activity. Whatever will provide friction I do not know, but I don't think protests are going to play a major role outside of maybe providing a narrative about how angry people are. But it's important to note that a significant number of people vote for Trump because he makes certain people angry.... If the right people "protest" in a ridiculous enough manner, you're going to likely strengthen the resolve of his base. Granted, I suspect this isn't much of an issue with science funding, but it's something to keep in mind. My attitude is: if this country doesn't want science research, let it, follow the research overseas, and let your absence speak for itself.
- mschuster91 1y ago
  > There are a lot of reasons to be skeptical of this claim. For one thing, it's not clear that trump voters respect protestors in the first place. They do respect one thing, just like their master does: strength. Show up in force, in overwhelming numbers, and all these "don't tread on me" people suddenly find out that, whoops, they aren't the top dogs any more. It used to be the case that you got beaten up or worse for showing up in KKK outfits, these days you got pseudo-edgy kids on social media with them.
harikb 1y ago
You are underestimating the risk to people who protest and how bad it needs to get before people are pushed to it. Distribution is somewhat like this... Say there are 10,000 people affected by this 5,000 probably have skills to pivot to something else, don't give a shit about future billionaire's kid's problem. People wouldn't want to be scientists if they can't also have a decent career. 2,000 people have means to survive and can't afford to fight the thugs on street 2,000 people are desperate, but otherwise marginalized by current admininstration (immigrant, mexican, black, muslim,... whatever) but don't want to sacrifice their extended family too. 1,000 people are desperate, have the courage to fight (probably white). If the future of curing the billionaire's kid relies on 1,000 people sacrificing their life... oh well....
immibis 1y ago
Protests do not accomplish political change, have never accomplished political change, and will never accomplish political change. They are good for one thing and one thing only: meeting other people who are just as angry as you about something. From which you might decide to take actions that actually cause some political change.
- mschuster91 1y ago
  > Protests do not accomplish political change, have never accomplished political change, and will never accomplish political change. France's "yellow vests" or Germany's "Pegida" might disagree with you on that one. Both were pretty darn effective.
  - immibis 1y ago
    Citation needed on their effectiveness.
    - agumonkey 1y ago
      yeah sadly i think they couldn't reach very high, at least materially, even though a lot of people gave a lot of themselves to do so. they achieved a lot of recognition socially though
      - immibis 1y ago
        As I said > They are good for one thing and one thing only: meeting other people who are just as angry as you about something Also, Pegida was Nazis protesting that there wasn't enough Nazism happening, so I don't know why you bring them up as an example of a successful protest.
        agumonkey 1y ago
        I only meant it for french yellow vests, not pegida (i didn't even knew about them before this)

ngangaga 1y ago

> but a huge part of why Trump was able to rise to power was because there was by far not enough protest against him. There are a lot of reasons to be skeptical of this claim. For one thing, it's not clear that trump voters respect protestors in the first place. For another thing, we're an extremely geographically distributed population, and most of our cities already swing strongly blue. This means protesting is generally a high-effort, low-return activity. Whatever will provide friction I do not know, but I don't think protests are going to play a major role outside of maybe providing a narrative about how angry people are. But it's important to note that a significant number of people vote for Trump because he makes certain people angry.... If the right people "protest" in a ridiculous enough manner, you're going to likely strengthen the resolve of his base. Granted, I suspect this isn't much of an issue with science funding, but it's something to keep in mind. My attitude is: if this country doesn't want science research, let it, follow the research overseas, and let your absence speak for itself.

mschuster91 1y ago
> There are a lot of reasons to be skeptical of this claim. For one thing, it's not clear that trump voters respect protestors in the first place. They do respect one thing, just like their master does: strength. Show up in force, in overwhelming numbers, and all these "don't tread on me" people suddenly find out that, whoops, they aren't the top dogs any more. It used to be the case that you got beaten up or worse for showing up in KKK outfits, these days you got pseudo-edgy kids on social media with them.

harikb 1y ago

You are underestimating the risk to people who protest and how bad it needs to get before people are pushed to it. Distribution is somewhat like this... Say there are 10,000 people affected by this 5,000 probably have skills to pivot to something else, don't give a shit about future billionaire's kid's problem. People wouldn't want to be scientists if they can't also have a decent career. 2,000 people have means to survive and can't afford to fight the thugs on street 2,000 people are desperate, but otherwise marginalized by current admininstration (immigrant, mexican, black, muslim,... whatever) but don't want to sacrifice their extended family too. 1,000 people are desperate, have the courage to fight (probably white). If the future of curing the billionaire's kid relies on 1,000 people sacrificing their life... oh well....

immibis 1y ago

Protests do not accomplish political change, have never accomplished political change, and will never accomplish political change. They are good for one thing and one thing only: meeting other people who are just as angry as you about something. From which you might decide to take actions that actually cause some political change.

mschuster91 1y ago
> Protests do not accomplish political change, have never accomplished political change, and will never accomplish political change. France's "yellow vests" or Germany's "Pegida" might disagree with you on that one. Both were pretty darn effective.
- immibis 1y ago
  Citation needed on their effectiveness.
  - agumonkey 1y ago
    yeah sadly i think they couldn't reach very high, at least materially, even though a lot of people gave a lot of themselves to do so. they achieved a lot of recognition socially though
    - immibis 1y ago
      As I said > They are good for one thing and one thing only: meeting other people who are just as angry as you about something Also, Pegida was Nazis protesting that there wasn't enough Nazism happening, so I don't know why you bring them up as an example of a successful protest.
      - agumonkey 1y ago
        I only meant it for french yellow vests, not pegida (i didn't even knew about them before this)