6 ms·

> whether there are black holes at a redshift of 10 or not is not a partisan issue. Anything that depends on a basic understanding of the scientific process, a

> whether there are black holes at a redshift of 10 or not is not a partisan issue. Anything that depends on a basic understanding of the scientific process, and resulting scientific facts is absolutely a partisan issue right now.

nikanj 3mo ago
And the real partisan question is ”should the US fund studying the black holes”, not the actual science question
- helterskelter 3mo ago
  At this point I wouldn't be surprised if they thought it was a DEI thing.
  - iAMkenough 3mo ago
    If the 20-something’s at DOGE proved anything last year, the keyword “black” associated with grant funding probably put the research on a list of DEI cuts.
    - apical_dendrite 3mo ago
      This is getting downvoted, but it's actually true. DOGE repeatedly used naive keyword searches to kill funding for projects that often had nothing to do with DEI. > Among them was a $349,000 grant to replace an aging HVAC system at the High Point Museum in North Carolina. “Improving HVAC systems enhances preservation conditions for collections, aligning with the goal of providing greater access to diverse audiences,” the ChatGPT DEI rationale stated. > Another federal employee, whose primary job function is managing relations with private equity-held businesses, was placed on administrative leave "pursuant to the President's executive order on DEIA," per a dismissal memo reviewed by BI. https://www.businessinsider.com/doge-wrongly-flagged-jobs-programs-dei-equity-2025-3 https://www.businessinsider.com/doge-wrongly-flagged-jobs-pr...
    - ryandrake 3mo ago
      I don't know why you're getting downvoted. This is exactly the kind of expertise and competence we have in the Administration right now. It is totally believable that they would do a substring search for "black" and "trans" and defund black hole research and transistor science.
      - tombert 3mo ago
        It is a little impressive how actively bad they are at this. I haven't had that much respect for Elon since he called the cave diver a pedophile, but something I didn't realize until the 2025 administration started is how lazy everyone involved with it is. As far as I can tell, no one in that administration has, at any point in their life, ever examined any of their own opinions or actions, or looked up the "why" of any of the programs that they declared as "wasteful". That or they're just idiots. Tough to say.
      - m-ee 3mo ago
        They have said in depositions that they just did substring searches or fed lists to chat gpt, it’s not even a question.
- twothreeone 3mo ago
  Which really tells you more about the state of mind of people asking that question. What kind of person isn't curious about the puzzle of their own existence, or the nature of the physical reality they live in (and yes, by "being curious" I mean "being willing to put a tax dollar amount to them")?
  - wins32767 3mo ago
    That's foolish. There is certainly an amount of money on funding research that is unreasonable! Determining where that line should rest is an inherently political question. Determining who should get funding for that is also a political question. The latter question was able to be papered over for many years because the scientific community generally contained roughly equal members of both parties. Since that isn't true any longer now "science" is getting treated like interest group just like all the other groups within the country. It's definitely going to hurt the country in the long run, but acting like this wasn't going to happen eventually when the university system purged itself of moderates and conservatives is foolish and obscures the part of the problem that came from the universities themselves.
    - khalic 3mo ago
      lol, are you implying science is dying because, you believe, less and less scientists are “conservative”. Do you have any notion of how ridiculous that sounds?
      - wins32767 3mo ago
        I'm not implying I'm stating that if you depending on the tax base of the entire country to pay your bills you need to ensure that you cultivate the support of both parties.
        khalic 3mo ago
        This is a fictitious scenario invented to make the conservatives the victims… when they are the ones in power, killing the science. No amount of mental gymnastics trumps that fact
- GolfPopper 3mo ago
  The real "partisan" question is, "What can the GOP leadership and their owners loot without immediate negative consequences for themselves?"
chasing 3mo ago
It certainly is when people are typing the word "black" into the search field when deciding what programs need to be cut...
- rurp 3mo ago
  Seriously. I hope everyone understands that this literally happened at a massive scale. So many projects were killed simply because the project name had a word on the banned words list. The idiots at doge and elsewhere have simply ctrl+f searched "woke" terms and ended projects without the faintest idea of what they were killing. All in the name of saving negative federal dollars.
- vjvjvjvjghv 3mo ago
  To be honest, research funding turned stupid before DOGE. I remember talking a guy who was struggling to write the mandatory diversity statement for a grant in quantum computing.
  - Ar-Curunir 3mo ago
    Whatever diversity sections were required in grant proposals are nothing compared to the situation right now. If your guy couldn’t say stuff like we will do outreach to local CCs, will design summer research programs, etc, then they’re just not a very good grant writer
    - albedoa 3mo ago
      It's every time with these freaks: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44294782 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44294782
    - vjvjvjvjghv 3mo ago
      Why attach this stuff to every grant? This guy was dealing was dealing cutting edge research using multi million dollar equipment. Stuff only a few people world wide know about. That’s difficult enough. This leads to purely performative diversity statements that mean nothing in the real world.
like_any_other 3mo ago
[flagged]
solid_fuel 3mo ago
I’m very familiar with the evangelical types who are running the federal government right now. Anything that doesn’t support the claim that the earth is only 5000 years old is considered a partisan issue to these fuckers.
- Carioca 3mo ago
  While this is a good long-term heuristic, I'd describe the upper rungs of government as more cynical on matters of science and theology than a typical fundie. The only relevant difference is that you might be able to push it back a bit on "strategic interest" types of arguments
- themafia 3mo ago
  It seems like they did all this to please Elon Musk and advantage SpaceX. The people at the top are nihilists. They don't even believe the things they say.
BLKNSLVR 3mo ago
They would fund research to promote redshift and suppress blueshift. The scientists need to market their research to exploit the biases of the administration. Sad that it's come to this.
ghtbircshotbe 3mo ago
Not to mention the petroleum industry funding anti climate change "science" for the past 50 years.

nikanj 3mo ago

And the real partisan question is ”should the US fund studying the black holes”, not the actual science question

helterskelter 3mo ago
At this point I wouldn't be surprised if they thought it was a DEI thing.
- iAMkenough 3mo ago
  If the 20-something’s at DOGE proved anything last year, the keyword “black” associated with grant funding probably put the research on a list of DEI cuts.
  - apical_dendrite 3mo ago
    This is getting downvoted, but it's actually true. DOGE repeatedly used naive keyword searches to kill funding for projects that often had nothing to do with DEI. > Among them was a $349,000 grant to replace an aging HVAC system at the High Point Museum in North Carolina. “Improving HVAC systems enhances preservation conditions for collections, aligning with the goal of providing greater access to diverse audiences,” the ChatGPT DEI rationale stated. > Another federal employee, whose primary job function is managing relations with private equity-held businesses, was placed on administrative leave "pursuant to the President's executive order on DEIA," per a dismissal memo reviewed by BI. https://www.businessinsider.com/doge-wrongly-flagged-jobs-programs-dei-equity-2025-3 https://www.businessinsider.com/doge-wrongly-flagged-jobs-pr...
  - ryandrake 3mo ago
    I don't know why you're getting downvoted. This is exactly the kind of expertise and competence we have in the Administration right now. It is totally believable that they would do a substring search for "black" and "trans" and defund black hole research and transistor science.
    - tombert 3mo ago
      It is a little impressive how actively bad they are at this. I haven't had that much respect for Elon since he called the cave diver a pedophile, but something I didn't realize until the 2025 administration started is how lazy everyone involved with it is. As far as I can tell, no one in that administration has, at any point in their life, ever examined any of their own opinions or actions, or looked up the "why" of any of the programs that they declared as "wasteful". That or they're just idiots. Tough to say.
    - m-ee 3mo ago
      They have said in depositions that they just did substring searches or fed lists to chat gpt, it’s not even a question.
twothreeone 3mo ago
Which really tells you more about the state of mind of people asking that question. What kind of person isn't curious about the puzzle of their own existence, or the nature of the physical reality they live in (and yes, by "being curious" I mean "being willing to put a tax dollar amount to them")?
- wins32767 3mo ago
  That's foolish. There is certainly an amount of money on funding research that is unreasonable! Determining where that line should rest is an inherently political question. Determining who should get funding for that is also a political question. The latter question was able to be papered over for many years because the scientific community generally contained roughly equal members of both parties. Since that isn't true any longer now "science" is getting treated like interest group just like all the other groups within the country. It's definitely going to hurt the country in the long run, but acting like this wasn't going to happen eventually when the university system purged itself of moderates and conservatives is foolish and obscures the part of the problem that came from the universities themselves.
  - khalic 3mo ago
    lol, are you implying science is dying because, you believe, less and less scientists are “conservative”. Do you have any notion of how ridiculous that sounds?
    - wins32767 3mo ago
      I'm not implying I'm stating that if you depending on the tax base of the entire country to pay your bills you need to ensure that you cultivate the support of both parties.
      - khalic 3mo ago
        This is a fictitious scenario invented to make the conservatives the victims… when they are the ones in power, killing the science. No amount of mental gymnastics trumps that fact
GolfPopper 3mo ago
The real "partisan" question is, "What can the GOP leadership and their owners loot without immediate negative consequences for themselves?"

chasing 3mo ago

It certainly is when people are typing the word "black" into the search field when deciding what programs need to be cut...

rurp 3mo ago
Seriously. I hope everyone understands that this literally happened at a massive scale. So many projects were killed simply because the project name had a word on the banned words list. The idiots at doge and elsewhere have simply ctrl+f searched "woke" terms and ended projects without the faintest idea of what they were killing. All in the name of saving negative federal dollars.
vjvjvjvjghv 3mo ago
To be honest, research funding turned stupid before DOGE. I remember talking a guy who was struggling to write the mandatory diversity statement for a grant in quantum computing.
- Ar-Curunir 3mo ago
  Whatever diversity sections were required in grant proposals are nothing compared to the situation right now. If your guy couldn’t say stuff like we will do outreach to local CCs, will design summer research programs, etc, then they’re just not a very good grant writer
  - albedoa 3mo ago
    It's every time with these freaks: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44294782 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44294782
  - vjvjvjvjghv 3mo ago
    Why attach this stuff to every grant? This guy was dealing was dealing cutting edge research using multi million dollar equipment. Stuff only a few people world wide know about. That’s difficult enough. This leads to purely performative diversity statements that mean nothing in the real world.

like_any_other 3mo ago

[flagged]

solid_fuel 3mo ago

I’m very familiar with the evangelical types who are running the federal government right now. Anything that doesn’t support the claim that the earth is only 5000 years old is considered a partisan issue to these fuckers.

Carioca 3mo ago
While this is a good long-term heuristic, I'd describe the upper rungs of government as more cynical on matters of science and theology than a typical fundie. The only relevant difference is that you might be able to push it back a bit on "strategic interest" types of arguments
themafia 3mo ago
It seems like they did all this to please Elon Musk and advantage SpaceX. The people at the top are nihilists. They don't even believe the things they say.

BLKNSLVR 3mo ago

They would fund research to promote redshift and suppress blueshift. The scientists need to market their research to exploit the biases of the administration. Sad that it's come to this.

ghtbircshotbe 3mo ago

Not to mention the petroleum industry funding anti climate change "science" for the past 50 years.