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You’re digging in your heels only because people here are trying to point out facts that you assume are challenging your broader point, and not because you beli

by dahart 2mo ago

You’re digging in your heels only because people here are trying to point out facts that you assume are challenging your broader point, and not because you believe the items are true? Why not actually find out if they’re true or not? I have personally looked at each one of the items in @bilsbie’s list, as you can plainly see above. I totally recommend that you take some time to do the same, instead of just thinking it’s believable. You’ll either have real ammo for the thread, or more understanding of why people here are protesting. Either way you win, you get more real factual information. By aligning yourself with these “specific items”, and by assuming that protest of them somehow makes them more believable, you’ve made it quite a bit harder to get your own general point across in this thread, speaking of waste. > I support science funding Yes! Me too. See, we agree on a lot of things. I just wanted to make sure it’s clear that doing science necessarily involves some failure, and it’s not possible to invest in science without expecting some of the grants to not work out. There’s no such thing as 100% efficiency when it comes to investment. Some waste will happen. The grants I would call waste are the ones that involve grift or scientific dishonesty, and not the grants that go to silly sounding things. Science funding in the US is under fairly intense budget pressure, BTW. Many many (probably most) academics complain about the lack of funding. The people who tend to make lists like @bilsbie’s often seem to be somewhat ignorant of the process of applying for funding and how much scrutiny goes into every grant. > it’s worth pointing out that supporting funding for science isn’t necessarily the same thing as funding other academic pursuits. Great, let’s start there. Take all the science grants out of @bilsbie’s list, and let’s discuss the non-science academic funding that’s wasteful. Three of the seven items were complaining about science funding, and the other four items were non-academic. So what would that be? What “other” academic pursuits would you put on the list of waste?

ericmay 2mo ago
> Why not actually find out if they’re true or not? Because I don't care about those specific items and whether those specific items are true or not. What does it matter? The broader point is the government wastes money, and sometimes those dollar figures are relatively small (few million here or there) but nonetheless we should stop wasting money. > Three of the seven items were complaining about science funding, and the other four items were non-academic. So what would that be? What “other” academic pursuits would you put on the list of waste? Wasn't one of those goat yoga? I'm all for having folks do research on things like that if they'd like, but should the government sponsor such "scientific" research? Maybe there's a compelling case for it. I am not too sure which is why I continue to emphasize I'm not overly concerned with the specific items on the list that was shared - instead I was concerned with folks who seemed to think that just because it's a few million we don't need to care. You can read the responses for yourself. Here's a selection: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49125445 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49126154 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49130720
- dahart 2mo ago
  It’s hard to have any serious discussion if you don’t care what’s true and simply have unsupported opinions. How do you actually know the government is wasting money? Do you have any first hand knowledge? How do you propose to fix the waste if you don’t know where it is exactly? If you don’t care about those specific items, then why are you defending them as representing the broader point? They are not true, therefore they do not support your broader point. If you care about the government wasting money, you should care about whether the examples are true or not, and you should reject misleading and bad faith claims because they will cause people to label you as a political shill, and more importantly they might impede fixing any real actual spending waste. If you want to reduce waste, it’s critically important that the list of waste be factually accurate. Otherwise, you’re adding to the waste and not reducing it. If you can’t make an honest and true list of waste, it calls into question whether there is any such waste, it directly challenges your broader point. The list @bilsbie provided is a list that Elon Musk retweeted, and Elon Musk has at this point earned a reputation as a fabulist when it comes to government spending and efficiency, he has lost nearly all good will and has done damage and caused additional government waste without fixing any problems. > Wasn’t one of those goat yoga? […] should the government sponsor such “scientific” research? The government DID NOT sponsor goat yoga. It’s a fabricated false claim. There is a 50+ year history of bogus political attacks on science funding, which is why I keep bringing up the Golden Goose Awards. The fact is, science funding is not wasting money. Unless there’s dishonesty involved, there are no small science grants you can point at that demonstrate government waste, you’re looking in the wrong place. We do need to care about waste, but we need to care about the big waste first. The war in Iran has wasted more money this week than @bilsbie’s entire list (even if they were true, which they aren’t).
  - ericmay 2mo ago
    At the end of the day I've already stated my opinion here and I don't really have much else to say as I'm just repeating myself. I was never defending the specific claims (true or otherwise) and was defending the need to eliminate waste even if the elimination are small-potato line items.

by dahart 2mo ago

ericmay 2mo ago

> Why not actually find out if they’re true or not? Because I don't care about those specific items and whether those specific items are true or not. What does it matter? The broader point is the government wastes money, and sometimes those dollar figures are relatively small (few million here or there) but nonetheless we should stop wasting money. > Three of the seven items were complaining about science funding, and the other four items were non-academic. So what would that be? What “other” academic pursuits would you put on the list of waste? Wasn't one of those goat yoga? I'm all for having folks do research on things like that if they'd like, but should the government sponsor such "scientific" research? Maybe there's a compelling case for it. I am not too sure which is why I continue to emphasize I'm not overly concerned with the specific items on the list that was shared - instead I was concerned with folks who seemed to think that just because it's a few million we don't need to care. You can read the responses for yourself. Here's a selection: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49125445 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49126154 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49130720

dahart 2mo ago
It’s hard to have any serious discussion if you don’t care what’s true and simply have unsupported opinions. How do you actually know the government is wasting money? Do you have any first hand knowledge? How do you propose to fix the waste if you don’t know where it is exactly? If you don’t care about those specific items, then why are you defending them as representing the broader point? They are not true, therefore they do not support your broader point. If you care about the government wasting money, you should care about whether the examples are true or not, and you should reject misleading and bad faith claims because they will cause people to label you as a political shill, and more importantly they might impede fixing any real actual spending waste. If you want to reduce waste, it’s critically important that the list of waste be factually accurate. Otherwise, you’re adding to the waste and not reducing it. If you can’t make an honest and true list of waste, it calls into question whether there is any such waste, it directly challenges your broader point. The list @bilsbie provided is a list that Elon Musk retweeted, and Elon Musk has at this point earned a reputation as a fabulist when it comes to government spending and efficiency, he has lost nearly all good will and has done damage and caused additional government waste without fixing any problems. > Wasn’t one of those goat yoga? […] should the government sponsor such “scientific” research? The government DID NOT sponsor goat yoga. It’s a fabricated false claim. There is a 50+ year history of bogus political attacks on science funding, which is why I keep bringing up the Golden Goose Awards. The fact is, science funding is not wasting money. Unless there’s dishonesty involved, there are no small science grants you can point at that demonstrate government waste, you’re looking in the wrong place. We do need to care about waste, but we need to care about the big waste first. The war in Iran has wasted more money this week than @bilsbie’s entire list (even if they were true, which they aren’t).
- ericmay 2mo ago
  At the end of the day I've already stated my opinion here and I don't really have much else to say as I'm just repeating myself. I was never defending the specific claims (true or otherwise) and was defending the need to eliminate waste even if the elimination are small-potato line items.