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Are you being serious? Are you actually not aware that Elon Musk ran the federal government department tasked with cancelling federal grants and firing governme

Are you being serious? Are you actually not aware that Elon Musk ran the federal government department tasked with cancelling federal grants and firing government employees in 2025? How is it possible that you are not aware of this?

WalterBright 1mo ago
Present some evidence that he cut NSF spending.
- jryan49 1mo ago
  A quick Google search will show you... https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/04/26/national-science-foundation-doge-cuts/83282784007/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/04/26/nati... You're just willfully ignorant
  - WalterBright 1mo ago
    Asking for evidence is not "willfully ignorant". People making claims have the onus of backing them up. Anyhow, the link to the canceled projects is: https://airtable.com/appGKlSVeXniQZkFC/shrFxbl1YTqb3AyOO?jntvk=allRecords&jntvk%3Aview=plaeS6fTnZvbmtQRS&jntvk%3Asort=eyJwZWw4ZlRSME8ycmFObWNUYyI6W119&jntvk%3Agroup=eyJwZWw4ZlRSME8ycmFObWNUYyI6W119 https://airtable.com/appGKlSVeXniQZkFC/shrFxbl1YTqb3AyOO?jnt... I looked at maybe a dozen at random, and only one seemed to have anything about scientific research. Of course, that is not a complete survey, but none of them looked important. I'm sure there are a few that are important. Which one(s) do you think are most important?
    - nrr 1mo ago
      I might be biased, but everything under the Division of Mathematical Sciences in the MPS directorate is important. Math is one of those weird fields that tends to touch everything else even if not directly, and it's impossible to know prima facie which areas of research will be useful downstream to the sciences and engineering.
      - WalterBright 1mo ago
        I can go for that, as long as the research proposals are actually about math research.
        nrr 1mo ago
        The stuff in Airtable seems to be. The lion's share of what's there is research that has applications to, like, sensors and robotics and AI, even if the abstracts themselves don't state that, likely because the PIs behind those proposals aren't aware of those applications of their work. (Just to illustrate how mathematicians can sometimes embody the archetype of Hans Guck-in-die-Luft: I had someone tell me once that there were no applications of ODEs or PDEs to the sciences or engineering.)
        WalterBright 1mo ago
        > Hans Guck-in-die-Luft I have to upvote you just for that reference! My mom tore out Die Geschichte vom Daumenlutscher, thinking it would be disturbing to my young mind.
      - remarkEon 1mo ago
        Most of the important maths research is funded by the Department of War. NSF is a good chunk, I'd have to look it up, but I wouldn't be concerned about this at all. Math is important for the war planners, always has been always will be.
        nrr 1mo ago
        Thanks for sharing. I don't work on weapons as a matter of deep conviction, so I'll continue to be concerned about this.
        remarkEon 1mo ago
        My point is math is a weapon.
    - keeda 1mo ago
      Are we looking at the same link? I scrolled through a bunch of them and I could not find a single one that was NOT related to scientific research. The UI is horrible so I can't link anything on that page, but here's what I see when I click that link: https://i.imgur.com/LzwDuKl.png https://i.imgur.com/LzwDuKl.png (Edited to add, these are the abstracts, because I can't fit both in one screen /facepalm: https://i.imgur.com/yQKHViO.png https://i.imgur.com/yQKHViO.png) Maybe there's a different filter or ordering being applied somewhere?
      - WalterBright 1mo ago
        Maybe you and I have different views on what constitutes scientific research.
        keeda 1mo ago
        Here is the list of projects I see (warning, text OCR'd from the screenshot) -- how many of these would you say are NOT scientific research? Collaborative Research: Bounding global ice volumes over the last glacial cycle using reconstructions of Bering Strait flooding Collaborative Research: Effects of government-insured mortgages Basic Plasma Science Facility Renewal Studies in the Climate Dynamics of Moist Process Variability and Change NeTS: Medium: Provable Guarantees for Network Protocol Implementations Collaborative Research: Ideas Lab: RNA-encoded Molecular Memory (REMM) Research: Process and consequences of social partner choice revealed by multilayer network analysis Collaborative Research: Towards the Foundation of Approximate Sampling-Based Exploration in Sequential Decision Making Travel Grant: International School/Symposium for Space Simulations (ISSS) and Interrelationship between Plasma Experiments in the Laboratory and in Space (IPELS) RAPID: Measuring Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) Composition During and After the Los Angeles Wildland-Urban Interface Fires GEM: Fundamental Properties of Dawnside Auroral Polarization Streams and Their Role in Magnetosphere-Ionosphere Instabilities and Dramatic Events PFI-TT: A Rapid Multiplexed Diagnostic Tool for Serology of Tick-Borne Diseases

WalterBright 1mo ago

Present some evidence that he cut NSF spending.

jryan49 1mo ago
A quick Google search will show you... https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/04/26/national-science-foundation-doge-cuts/83282784007/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/04/26/nati... You're just willfully ignorant
- WalterBright 1mo ago
  Asking for evidence is not "willfully ignorant". People making claims have the onus of backing them up. Anyhow, the link to the canceled projects is: https://airtable.com/appGKlSVeXniQZkFC/shrFxbl1YTqb3AyOO?jntvk=allRecords&jntvk%3Aview=plaeS6fTnZvbmtQRS&jntvk%3Asort=eyJwZWw4ZlRSME8ycmFObWNUYyI6W119&jntvk%3Agroup=eyJwZWw4ZlRSME8ycmFObWNUYyI6W119 https://airtable.com/appGKlSVeXniQZkFC/shrFxbl1YTqb3AyOO?jnt... I looked at maybe a dozen at random, and only one seemed to have anything about scientific research. Of course, that is not a complete survey, but none of them looked important. I'm sure there are a few that are important. Which one(s) do you think are most important?
  - nrr 1mo ago
    I might be biased, but everything under the Division of Mathematical Sciences in the MPS directorate is important. Math is one of those weird fields that tends to touch everything else even if not directly, and it's impossible to know prima facie which areas of research will be useful downstream to the sciences and engineering.
    - WalterBright 1mo ago
      I can go for that, as long as the research proposals are actually about math research.
      - nrr 1mo ago
        The stuff in Airtable seems to be. The lion's share of what's there is research that has applications to, like, sensors and robotics and AI, even if the abstracts themselves don't state that, likely because the PIs behind those proposals aren't aware of those applications of their work. (Just to illustrate how mathematicians can sometimes embody the archetype of Hans Guck-in-die-Luft: I had someone tell me once that there were no applications of ODEs or PDEs to the sciences or engineering.)
        WalterBright 1mo ago
        > Hans Guck-in-die-Luft I have to upvote you just for that reference! My mom tore out Die Geschichte vom Daumenlutscher, thinking it would be disturbing to my young mind.
    - remarkEon 1mo ago
      Most of the important maths research is funded by the Department of War. NSF is a good chunk, I'd have to look it up, but I wouldn't be concerned about this at all. Math is important for the war planners, always has been always will be.
      - nrr 1mo ago
        Thanks for sharing. I don't work on weapons as a matter of deep conviction, so I'll continue to be concerned about this.
        remarkEon 1mo ago
        My point is math is a weapon.
  - keeda 1mo ago
    Are we looking at the same link? I scrolled through a bunch of them and I could not find a single one that was NOT related to scientific research. The UI is horrible so I can't link anything on that page, but here's what I see when I click that link: https://i.imgur.com/LzwDuKl.png https://i.imgur.com/LzwDuKl.png (Edited to add, these are the abstracts, because I can't fit both in one screen /facepalm: https://i.imgur.com/yQKHViO.png https://i.imgur.com/yQKHViO.png) Maybe there's a different filter or ordering being applied somewhere?
    - WalterBright 1mo ago
      Maybe you and I have different views on what constitutes scientific research.
      - keeda 1mo ago
        Here is the list of projects I see (warning, text OCR'd from the screenshot) -- how many of these would you say are NOT scientific research? Collaborative Research: Bounding global ice volumes over the last glacial cycle using reconstructions of Bering Strait flooding Collaborative Research: Effects of government-insured mortgages Basic Plasma Science Facility Renewal Studies in the Climate Dynamics of Moist Process Variability and Change NeTS: Medium: Provable Guarantees for Network Protocol Implementations Collaborative Research: Ideas Lab: RNA-encoded Molecular Memory (REMM) Research: Process and consequences of social partner choice revealed by multilayer network analysis Collaborative Research: Towards the Foundation of Approximate Sampling-Based Exploration in Sequential Decision Making Travel Grant: International School/Symposium for Space Simulations (ISSS) and Interrelationship between Plasma Experiments in the Laboratory and in Space (IPELS) RAPID: Measuring Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) Composition During and After the Los Angeles Wildland-Urban Interface Fires GEM: Fundamental Properties of Dawnside Auroral Polarization Streams and Their Role in Magnetosphere-Ionosphere Instabilities and Dramatic Events PFI-TT: A Rapid Multiplexed Diagnostic Tool for Serology of Tick-Borne Diseases