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I understand that the government is now too coarse to use soft power, and maybe it wasn't even working as well as it used to, but it is bizarre to undercut the

I understand that the government is now too coarse to use soft power, and maybe it wasn't even working as well as it used to, but it is bizarre to undercut the sciences when their military capability is derived almost entirely from high technology since they can't field or lose lots of soldiers. I get they want to be Rome 3.0 or some bullshit, but Rome was famous for investing in engineering. A bunch of dunces. Or perhaps they are so far up their own assholes that they think AI is going to do research by itself with no funding from now on. Ironically enough, the guy that coined the term "soft power" recently died. He did his doctorate with Henry Kissinger.

zaptheimpaler 8mo ago
They're happy to fund the military, they have a list of words [1][2] that they use to flag grant applications, including "female", "bias", "political" and others. Cuts seem to be directed at biomedicine, health and social studies. [1] https://grant-witness.us/ https://grant-witness.us/ [2] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/07/us/trump-federal-agencies-websites-words-dei.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/07/us/trump-fede...
- deleted 8mo ago
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- tehjoker 8mo ago
  That's true, I've seen it in action, but at the same time... the number of grants and the rate of grant issuance has been very slow. They aren't using a scalpel to eliminate all the "woke". They are also attacking Harvard, the number 1 science university in the US. There's a scandal at Harvard last month where the Dean of Science was fired because he was protesting against eliminating graduate students in the sciences (they eventually settled for something like firing him and 50% cuts to my knowledge). I have no love for Harvard by the way, I never thought I would be defending them.
  - Joel_Mckay 8mo ago
    The Harvard budget alone is larger than most other countries. Some things are more important than grant money, and don't necessarily improve with larger budgets. =3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lai9QhBibk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lai9QhBibk

zaptheimpaler 8mo ago

They're happy to fund the military, they have a list of words [1][2] that they use to flag grant applications, including "female", "bias", "political" and others. Cuts seem to be directed at biomedicine, health and social studies. [1] https://grant-witness.us/ https://grant-witness.us/ [2] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/07/us/trump-federal-agencies-websites-words-dei.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/07/us/trump-fede...

deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
tehjoker 8mo ago
That's true, I've seen it in action, but at the same time... the number of grants and the rate of grant issuance has been very slow. They aren't using a scalpel to eliminate all the "woke". They are also attacking Harvard, the number 1 science university in the US. There's a scandal at Harvard last month where the Dean of Science was fired because he was protesting against eliminating graduate students in the sciences (they eventually settled for something like firing him and 50% cuts to my knowledge). I have no love for Harvard by the way, I never thought I would be defending them.
- Joel_Mckay 8mo ago
  The Harvard budget alone is larger than most other countries. Some things are more important than grant money, and don't necessarily improve with larger budgets. =3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lai9QhBibk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lai9QhBibk