9 ms·

The case for overhauling American science

55 points by andsoitis 2mo ago

jlund-molfese 2mo ago
It's a surprisingly short article https://archive.ph/DhZkR https://archive.ph/DhZkR
tolugenius 2mo ago
Achieve link (https://archive.is/20260813145232/https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2026/08/13/the-case-for-overhauling-american-science https://archive.is/20260813145232/https://www.economist.com/...) Maybe I read it wrong but it seems the case being made is to overhaul the current NSF...with a different NSF? Like I'm failing to see what specifically the current government is doing to hamper AI progress that there should be a "focus on harnessing AI and out-competing China", and what harnessing AI actually means.
- derbOac 2mo ago
  It means funneling public funds to AI and AI-adjacent companies that grease the wheels enough with the administration. It's like everything else: the administration decides it can control funds however it wants, regardless of what was legislated, and leverages those funds for quid pro quo transactions. Say what you will about how to improve academics and scientific research, but the current administration's modus operandi is not the way.
  - zmgsabst 2mo ago
    That’s every administration. See previous requirements for ideological statements to receive funding.
    - UltraSane 2mo ago
      Not at all. The Trump administration is the most corrupt in a long time.
- deleted 2mo ago
  [deleted]
- rayiner 2mo ago
  The difference is giving more power to researchers directly and side-stepping university administration and overhead. See: https://www.nsf.gov/policies/document/indirect-cost-rate https://www.nsf.gov/policies/document/indirect-cost-rate
  - matthewdgreen 2mo ago
    Some of this overhead is nonsense. A lot of it is training and fellowships. Some of it exists because the government has strong regulations to prevent self-dealing and fraud. I certainly think some of those regulations could be relaxed, but I’m not sure this administration would produce better ones.
    - rayiner 2mo ago
      I'd argue we have over-corrected on that stuff. Go back and look how processes worked in the 1950s and 1960s. People used to write relatively short proposals to do quite massive works. It's the meme: "You can just do stuff!" I'd argue that this is one of the advantages of Anglo and Anglo-American culture that has become eroded over time. I've been reading about the British East India Company and how much discretion employees were afforded in carrying out their work: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/04/east-india-company-original-corporate-raiders https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/04/east-india-com.... They had like 35 employees in London and managed to take over Mughal India, which was a gunpowder empire with guns, cannons, 4-5x the state revenues and 25x the population of Britain. Pound for pound it's probably one of the most effective organizations in history.
      - Natfan 2mo ago
        effectiveness does not equate moral or ethical goodness
        rayiner 2mo ago
        Organizational effectiveness and efficiency is a moral virtue. It's a force multiplier that you can apply to whatever end you think is moral or ethical.
jdw64 2mo ago
The term 'overhauling' is typically used as a weapon in framing battles. It is usually employed by an emerging faction, or a group dissatisfied with the existing establishment, to frame their opponents as evil. The logic is truly absurd. They argue that investments have surged while results have diminished. This is a given. Just like a gold mine, gold is easily extracted at first, but the deeper you dig, the more expensive extraction becomes. The article dismisses things like "spending half their time on paperwork" as mere bureaucracy, but these are necessary procedures to ensure the transparent execution of public funds. Shifting power and capital from universities to private AI companies effectively dismantles this public oversight. Transitioning to a "new initiative" is simply a move to siphon academic power and prestige toward their own agenda. In reality, the exodus of scientists to the private AI industry leaves immense room for scientific neutrality to be compromised. Of course, it is undeniable that inefficiencies and flawed practices do exist in certain areas of academia. Furthermore, once researchers enter the corporate world, they are bound by NDAs. The trajectory of science then becomes subordinated to the creation of short-term market value, rather than the pursuit of truth or long-term value generation. History has clearly shown the consequences of eating your seed corn just because you are hungry. I do not understand why they are proceeding this way.
- ineedaj0b 2mo ago
  Are you versed in the history of corporations and US government during WW2?
  - oliculipolicula 2mo ago
    Even post-WW2. I'm sympathetic to PP's POV thus I'd really like to extract fallacies from it. Your q seems to suggest that setups like Bell Labs (but not to forget ARPA) were probably on the Pareto front of how to organize science. Not sure if the WH isn't just being reactionary or is indeed interested in moving back towards that Pareto frontier, but there's something else unemotional to ponder given that we don't know if China has their own BL/ARPA Yes, it's the promising q of whether/how Bell Labs/ARPA were "eating their own seed corn" by using "market-based mechanisms" _internally_ to allocate their assets. Towards finding anomalously-low-hanging fruits (<-- this goal obsoletes PP's gold-digging metaphor btw--- economists hate those Andrew Jacksons just lying there on uh, the virtual pavement!) It's probably a q that [a libertarian rag like] the Economist would be exploring too, if they felt the urge to work hard. At the very least they should try writing real hit-pieces on ARIA, which _was_ going to be led by Highnam from DARPA, after all. Sorry about the snark >DARPA has succeeded over the decades in part because many of its gambles have NOT paid off. That is a sign that it is investigating truly radical ideas, rather than confining itself to the sorts of safe scientific bets best left to industry or more conventional research institutions. (Ignore the logical error there?) https://archive.ph/HPVpo https://archive.ph/HPVpo https://www.war.gov/About/Biographies/Biography/Article/4047931/dr-peter-highnam/ https://www.war.gov/About/Biographies/Biography/Article/4047... https://archive.ph/yz1XK https://archive.ph/yz1XK https://archive.ph/rU2Q6 https://archive.ph/rU2Q6 https://aria.org.uk/ https://aria.org.uk/
nullbio 2mo ago
[flagged]
- ks2048 2mo ago
  > live in literal castles. lol. For example?
  - burnt-resistor 2mo ago
    Other kings said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built it all the same, just to show 'em. It sank into the swamp. So, I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So, I built a third one. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp, but the fourth one... stayed up!
  - nullbio 2mo ago
    https://student-cms.prd.timeshighereducation.com/sites/default/files/berry_college.jpg https://student-cms.prd.timeshighereducation.com/sites/defau... https://student-cms.prd.timeshighereducation.com/sites/default/files/bryn_mawr.jpg https://student-cms.prd.timeshighereducation.com/sites/defau... https://student-cms.prd.timeshighereducation.com/sites/default/files/notre_dame_2.jpg https://student-cms.prd.timeshighereducation.com/sites/defau...
kennywinker 2mo ago
> The focus should be on harnessing AI and out-competing China Lol. Braindead take. First of all, who cares if we invent next-big-technology before china? We’ll get them to make it for us and then they’ll be better at it than us because they make it and we don’t. > writes Michael Kratsios, the White House science chief Ah, yes. That makes the braindeadness of the take make sense. This is just more anti-science bullshit from a gov that hates science. Once you get past the talk, it’ll boil down to “we should only give NSF funding to companies that kick back enough cash to the trump 2028 campaign fund”
- ineedaj0b 2mo ago
  You’ve let your worldview get so small your counterpart is convinced Biden funded the Covid pandemic to steal the 2020 election. He’s got all the proof, as I’m sure you do too. Take a breather for a few months.
  - zmgsabst 2mo ago
    For the record, the conspiracy is Obama and Trump funded the COVID-19 pandemic via EcoHealth Alliance (and Trump funded the vaccines in late 2019, before COVID was public) in direct circumvention of the Obama era prohibition on dangerous gain-of-function. I think we need to keep our conspiracy allegations accurate: We’re not doing anything constructive to strawman one group was a way to insult another.
  - kennywinker 2mo ago
    You’re suggesting I’m a conspiracist. But the track record of quid pro quo and kickbacks are public knowledge - my only new assertion is “hey looks like they’re running that same play again” - where’s the conspiracy?
- qwerpy 2mo ago
  Weird seeing such emotionally charged angry comments.
  - selectodude 2mo ago
x313 2mo ago
This is the full proposal: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Science-A-New-Golden-Age.pdf https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Scienc... It's pretty thoughtful about diagnosing the problems of the current system, but I don't know about the solutions. Disbursing money to researchers directly (or via industry) seems captive to the same incentives as disbursing money via universities.
- burnt-resistor 2mo ago
  It reads like the goals are to: - Give money to quacks and less credible individuals - Permit ideological discrimination of awards - Eliminate oversight and increase corruption - Funnel money into dubious things
  - throwawaypath 2mo ago
    [flagged]
    - mrtesthah 2mo ago
      You may think your cynicism displays wisdom, but it actually just reveals your own passivity and subservience to those who would dominate and rob you of your future.
      - gr_norm 2mo ago
        I've noticed this sort of ideology taking over social media, probably because it selects for firing off vapid dunks over sincere engagement with the complexities of the world. I fear it's destroying our ability to think for ourselves, here to the benefit of the ruling class for whom science holds inconvenient truths.
        GPerson 2mo ago
        The most corrupt people of all time are running the show and you’re criticizing the guy who’s cynical about it?
deleted 2mo ago
[deleted]
deleted 2mo ago
[deleted]
redwood 2mo ago
Worlds apart these two men Vannevar Bush and Michael Kratsios. My how far we've fallen. "Bush joined the Department of Electrical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1919, and founded the company that became Raytheon in 1922. Bush became vice president of MIT and dean of the MIT School of Engineering in 1932, and president of the Carnegie Institution of Washington in 1938" "Kratsios graduated from Princeton University with a bachelor's degree in political science in 2008. After graduating from Princeton, he worked as an analyst at Barclays Capital and the Lyford Group International. Kratsios served as the chief financial officer of Peter Thiel's Clarium Capital. He later became a principal at Thiel Capital and served as Thiel's chief of staff. "
- A_D_E_P_T 2mo ago
  > Kratsios graduated from Princeton University with a bachelor's degree in political science in 2008. After graduating from Princeton, he worked as an analyst at Barclays. . . Okay, in all seriousness, what would a person with this background know about the natural sciences? He's had no professional or academic exposure to them. It's a bit weird that a complete non-scientist can loftily decree, with a perfectly straight face, precisely how science ought to be "overhauled". (By funneling money to AI companies and "competing with China," no less.)
  - zmgsabst 2mo ago
    MBAs declaring how fields they know nothing about should operate is our general model of business since the 1980s or so. I don’t think it has worked well, but this is continuing the trend rather than a deviation.
    - gr_norm 2mo ago
      There's a definite feeling that things are coming to a head on this one; it feels unsustainable in a way it hasn't before. People tire of the society-wide rot brought on by boundless greed whose benefits ordinary people will never reap, and whose consequences they will bear alone.
    - 2mo ago
corsendonk 2mo ago
[flagged]
- fn-mote 2mo ago
  Painting with such a broad brush is useless. Science continues to work. Some of the institutions have serious flaws, but going back to leaches and bloodletting is only going to get all of your money taken by the tech companies who know that randomized trials, A/B testing, and staggered rollouts are science too. (/joking)
- croes 2mo ago
  Science created multiple vaccines against it in a short period of time
  - b0rtb0rt 2mo ago
    that would be even more impressive if the vaccines actually worked
    - croes 2mo ago
      They did and do prevent the death of the vaccinated and prevented spreading the infection but the virus evolved so only the protection worked but not the spreading prevention.
markvdb 2mo ago
Elementary respect for the scientific process and community. Respect for the intellectual culture it feeds on. Those would be a good start.
jjk166 2mo ago
Between American science and American government, I know which one I want to see overhauled.

55 points by andsoitis 2mo ago

It's a surprisingly short article https://archive.ph/DhZkR https://archive.ph/DhZkR

Achieve link (https://archive.is/20260813145232/https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2026/08/13/the-case-for-overhauling-american-science https://archive.is/20260813145232/https://www.economist.com/...) Maybe I read it wrong but it seems the case being made is to overhaul the current NSF...with a different NSF? Like I'm failing to see what specifically the current government is doing to hamper AI progress that there should be a "focus on harnessing AI and out-competing China", and what harnessing AI actually means.

derbOac 2mo ago
It means funneling public funds to AI and AI-adjacent companies that grease the wheels enough with the administration. It's like everything else: the administration decides it can control funds however it wants, regardless of what was legislated, and leverages those funds for quid pro quo transactions. Say what you will about how to improve academics and scientific research, but the current administration's modus operandi is not the way.
- zmgsabst 2mo ago
  That’s every administration. See previous requirements for ideological statements to receive funding.
  - UltraSane 2mo ago
    Not at all. The Trump administration is the most corrupt in a long time.
deleted 2mo ago
[deleted]
rayiner 2mo ago
The difference is giving more power to researchers directly and side-stepping university administration and overhead. See: https://www.nsf.gov/policies/document/indirect-cost-rate https://www.nsf.gov/policies/document/indirect-cost-rate
- matthewdgreen 2mo ago
  Some of this overhead is nonsense. A lot of it is training and fellowships. Some of it exists because the government has strong regulations to prevent self-dealing and fraud. I certainly think some of those regulations could be relaxed, but I’m not sure this administration would produce better ones.
  - rayiner 2mo ago
    I'd argue we have over-corrected on that stuff. Go back and look how processes worked in the 1950s and 1960s. People used to write relatively short proposals to do quite massive works. It's the meme: "You can just do stuff!" I'd argue that this is one of the advantages of Anglo and Anglo-American culture that has become eroded over time. I've been reading about the British East India Company and how much discretion employees were afforded in carrying out their work: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/04/east-india-company-original-corporate-raiders https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/04/east-india-com.... They had like 35 employees in London and managed to take over Mughal India, which was a gunpowder empire with guns, cannons, 4-5x the state revenues and 25x the population of Britain. Pound for pound it's probably one of the most effective organizations in history.
    - Natfan 2mo ago
      effectiveness does not equate moral or ethical goodness
      - rayiner 2mo ago
        Organizational effectiveness and efficiency is a moral virtue. It's a force multiplier that you can apply to whatever end you think is moral or ethical.

jdw64 2mo ago

The term 'overhauling' is typically used as a weapon in framing battles. It is usually employed by an emerging faction, or a group dissatisfied with the existing establishment, to frame their opponents as evil. The logic is truly absurd. They argue that investments have surged while results have diminished. This is a given. Just like a gold mine, gold is easily extracted at first, but the deeper you dig, the more expensive extraction becomes. The article dismisses things like "spending half their time on paperwork" as mere bureaucracy, but these are necessary procedures to ensure the transparent execution of public funds. Shifting power and capital from universities to private AI companies effectively dismantles this public oversight. Transitioning to a "new initiative" is simply a move to siphon academic power and prestige toward their own agenda. In reality, the exodus of scientists to the private AI industry leaves immense room for scientific neutrality to be compromised. Of course, it is undeniable that inefficiencies and flawed practices do exist in certain areas of academia. Furthermore, once researchers enter the corporate world, they are bound by NDAs. The trajectory of science then becomes subordinated to the creation of short-term market value, rather than the pursuit of truth or long-term value generation. History has clearly shown the consequences of eating your seed corn just because you are hungry. I do not understand why they are proceeding this way.

ineedaj0b 2mo ago
Are you versed in the history of corporations and US government during WW2?
- oliculipolicula 2mo ago
  Even post-WW2. I'm sympathetic to PP's POV thus I'd really like to extract fallacies from it. Your q seems to suggest that setups like Bell Labs (but not to forget ARPA) were probably on the Pareto front of how to organize science. Not sure if the WH isn't just being reactionary or is indeed interested in moving back towards that Pareto frontier, but there's something else unemotional to ponder given that we don't know if China has their own BL/ARPA Yes, it's the promising q of whether/how Bell Labs/ARPA were "eating their own seed corn" by using "market-based mechanisms" _internally_ to allocate their assets. Towards finding anomalously-low-hanging fruits (<-- this goal obsoletes PP's gold-digging metaphor btw--- economists hate those Andrew Jacksons just lying there on uh, the virtual pavement!) It's probably a q that [a libertarian rag like] the Economist would be exploring too, if they felt the urge to work hard. At the very least they should try writing real hit-pieces on ARIA, which _was_ going to be led by Highnam from DARPA, after all. Sorry about the snark >DARPA has succeeded over the decades in part because many of its gambles have NOT paid off. That is a sign that it is investigating truly radical ideas, rather than confining itself to the sorts of safe scientific bets best left to industry or more conventional research institutions. (Ignore the logical error there?) https://archive.ph/HPVpo https://archive.ph/HPVpo https://www.war.gov/About/Biographies/Biography/Article/4047931/dr-peter-highnam/ https://www.war.gov/About/Biographies/Biography/Article/4047... https://archive.ph/yz1XK https://archive.ph/yz1XK https://archive.ph/rU2Q6 https://archive.ph/rU2Q6 https://aria.org.uk/ https://aria.org.uk/

nullbio 2mo ago

[flagged]

ks2048 2mo ago
> live in literal castles. lol. For example?
- burnt-resistor 2mo ago
  Other kings said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built it all the same, just to show 'em. It sank into the swamp. So, I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So, I built a third one. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp, but the fourth one... stayed up!
- nullbio 2mo ago
  https://student-cms.prd.timeshighereducation.com/sites/default/files/berry_college.jpg https://student-cms.prd.timeshighereducation.com/sites/defau... https://student-cms.prd.timeshighereducation.com/sites/default/files/bryn_mawr.jpg https://student-cms.prd.timeshighereducation.com/sites/defau... https://student-cms.prd.timeshighereducation.com/sites/default/files/notre_dame_2.jpg https://student-cms.prd.timeshighereducation.com/sites/defau...

kennywinker 2mo ago

> The focus should be on harnessing AI and out-competing China Lol. Braindead take. First of all, who cares if we invent next-big-technology before china? We’ll get them to make it for us and then they’ll be better at it than us because they make it and we don’t. > writes Michael Kratsios, the White House science chief Ah, yes. That makes the braindeadness of the take make sense. This is just more anti-science bullshit from a gov that hates science. Once you get past the talk, it’ll boil down to “we should only give NSF funding to companies that kick back enough cash to the trump 2028 campaign fund”

ineedaj0b 2mo ago
You’ve let your worldview get so small your counterpart is convinced Biden funded the Covid pandemic to steal the 2020 election. He’s got all the proof, as I’m sure you do too. Take a breather for a few months.
- zmgsabst 2mo ago
  For the record, the conspiracy is Obama and Trump funded the COVID-19 pandemic via EcoHealth Alliance (and Trump funded the vaccines in late 2019, before COVID was public) in direct circumvention of the Obama era prohibition on dangerous gain-of-function. I think we need to keep our conspiracy allegations accurate: We’re not doing anything constructive to strawman one group was a way to insult another.
- kennywinker 2mo ago
  You’re suggesting I’m a conspiracist. But the track record of quid pro quo and kickbacks are public knowledge - my only new assertion is “hey looks like they’re running that same play again” - where’s the conspiracy?
qwerpy 2mo ago
Weird seeing such emotionally charged angry comments.
- selectodude 2mo ago

x313 2mo ago

This is the full proposal: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Science-A-New-Golden-Age.pdf https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Scienc... It's pretty thoughtful about diagnosing the problems of the current system, but I don't know about the solutions. Disbursing money to researchers directly (or via industry) seems captive to the same incentives as disbursing money via universities.

burnt-resistor 2mo ago
It reads like the goals are to: - Give money to quacks and less credible individuals - Permit ideological discrimination of awards - Eliminate oversight and increase corruption - Funnel money into dubious things
- throwawaypath 2mo ago
  [flagged]
  - mrtesthah 2mo ago
    You may think your cynicism displays wisdom, but it actually just reveals your own passivity and subservience to those who would dominate and rob you of your future.
    - gr_norm 2mo ago
      I've noticed this sort of ideology taking over social media, probably because it selects for firing off vapid dunks over sincere engagement with the complexities of the world. I fear it's destroying our ability to think for ourselves, here to the benefit of the ruling class for whom science holds inconvenient truths.
      - GPerson 2mo ago
        The most corrupt people of all time are running the show and you’re criticizing the guy who’s cynical about it?

deleted 2mo ago

[deleted]

deleted 2mo ago

[deleted]

redwood 2mo ago

Worlds apart these two men Vannevar Bush and Michael Kratsios. My how far we've fallen. "Bush joined the Department of Electrical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1919, and founded the company that became Raytheon in 1922. Bush became vice president of MIT and dean of the MIT School of Engineering in 1932, and president of the Carnegie Institution of Washington in 1938" "Kratsios graduated from Princeton University with a bachelor's degree in political science in 2008. After graduating from Princeton, he worked as an analyst at Barclays Capital and the Lyford Group International. Kratsios served as the chief financial officer of Peter Thiel's Clarium Capital. He later became a principal at Thiel Capital and served as Thiel's chief of staff. "

A_D_E_P_T 2mo ago
> Kratsios graduated from Princeton University with a bachelor's degree in political science in 2008. After graduating from Princeton, he worked as an analyst at Barclays. . . Okay, in all seriousness, what would a person with this background know about the natural sciences? He's had no professional or academic exposure to them. It's a bit weird that a complete non-scientist can loftily decree, with a perfectly straight face, precisely how science ought to be "overhauled". (By funneling money to AI companies and "competing with China," no less.)
- zmgsabst 2mo ago
  MBAs declaring how fields they know nothing about should operate is our general model of business since the 1980s or so. I don’t think it has worked well, but this is continuing the trend rather than a deviation.
  - gr_norm 2mo ago
    There's a definite feeling that things are coming to a head on this one; it feels unsustainable in a way it hasn't before. People tire of the society-wide rot brought on by boundless greed whose benefits ordinary people will never reap, and whose consequences they will bear alone.
  - 2mo ago

corsendonk 2mo ago

[flagged]

fn-mote 2mo ago
Painting with such a broad brush is useless. Science continues to work. Some of the institutions have serious flaws, but going back to leaches and bloodletting is only going to get all of your money taken by the tech companies who know that randomized trials, A/B testing, and staggered rollouts are science too. (/joking)
croes 2mo ago
Science created multiple vaccines against it in a short period of time
- b0rtb0rt 2mo ago
  that would be even more impressive if the vaccines actually worked
  - croes 2mo ago
    They did and do prevent the death of the vaccinated and prevented spreading the infection but the virus evolved so only the protection worked but not the spreading prevention.

markvdb 2mo ago

Elementary respect for the scientific process and community. Respect for the intellectual culture it feeds on. Those would be a good start.

jjk166 2mo ago

Between American science and American government, I know which one I want to see overhauled.