A return of Lysenkoism. Nice!

Next up: Lawmakers put Indiana pi bill back on the table.

New study shows: earth has four corners.

4 Earth Quadrants simultaneously rotate inside 4 Time Cube Quarters to create 4 - 24 hour days within one Earth rotation.

I'm betting in that particular time and place you couldn't privately conduct scientific research under Lysenkoism. It had to be approved by the government to exist at all. I'm no historical expert nor USSR expert though.

If these rules go into effect, is it not true that individuals, state governments, and non-governmental organizations could still fund scientific research that the federal government won't fund?

Of course there's still research that only the federal government could fund. A big example is e.g. DARPA and the Internet. Imagine if that was only funded and supported by a few states.

> If these rules go into effect, is it not true that individuals, state governments, and non-governmental organizations could still fund scientific research that the federal government won't fund?

This administration’s actions towards Harvard and other schools would suggest not. If a state or university is doing verboten research, the federal government can make them stop. Previously, that didn’t happen - it was unthinkable. Now, it’s forever on the table.

Brawndo's got what plants crave!

And a generation of young scientists starts packing their bags...

To where?

A Thielian sea steading homeless encampment for intellectuals in international waters named Titanic II.

To somewhere other than science

personally know american scientists who are well into the process of relocating their work to institutions in canada or europe

Similarly, I know several scientists who were born in Europe but were long-term residents of the US running university labs here who already moved back to Europe last year, when it became pretty obvious where this was all heading.

I think this works well if you're originally from Europe, but not otherwise.

Beyond the environment

But then front might fall off.

Plenty of scientists can and will work in industry roles or quit entirely. It’s already a crazy proposition and should not be made any harder. Finding funding can be a brutal and continuous challenge that demotivates many.

If I were a young unencumbered scientist, I say this as someone born and raised in the US and having lived in EU for awhile, I would be going anywhere but the States. I’d rather take 1/4 the money to not be a part of whatever disgusting thing is happening currently.

They’re already doing it. To anywhere they can be safe.

Prospera. Thiel funded, independent of any laws of the country, no rules on ethics in science etc. /s

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pr%C3%B3spera

It would spell the start of major corruption and the end of American sciences. God, please do something about it!

You don't need God's intervention. If you trust the scientific establishment to make decisions on how to allocate taxpayer dollars, then vote for an executive who promises to do that. Definitely don't vote for the guy who campaigned on taking discretion away from unelected bureaucrats.

Many of us did vote for sane ideas, like allowing scientists to make decisions about science. For instance, we knew RFK Jr would be a disaster and here we are, dealing with a resurgence of preventable diseases.

In fact, "unelected bureaucrats" have been the key to whatever degree of success this democracy has enjoyed. Politicizing everything replaces non-partisan expertise with political loyalty and favoritism. It's a direct path to the destruction of critical institutions, undermining the public trust, and authoritarianism.

> In fact, "unelected bureaucrats" have been the key to whatever degree of success this democracy has enjoyed.

False. The idea of governance by "neutral technocrats" insulated from politics was nascent in the late 19th century. Woodrow Wilson wrote a seminal paper on it in 1887: https://ballotpedia.org/%22The_Study_of_Administration%22_by.... He took steps to implement the idea during his presidency, but the modern administrative state really arose in the 1940s. (For example, the Hatch Act, which prohibits civil service employees from engaging in electoral politics, was enacted in 1939.)

But America had already caught up to Britain as the richest country in the world (per capita) by 1870 or so, and had clearly surpassed Britain by 1900: https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/us-gdp-per-cap.... America's "success" is attributable to a stable republican democracy where GDP per capita has grown at a remarkably consistent 1.7% annually since the 1830s. It's not attributable to any political development that arose in the 20th century.

Perhaps if we'd had "unelected bureaucrats" in the 1800s, we would have done even better? Hard to say, really.

We had all these "unelected bureaucrats" post-WWII, and we did quite well in the following decades.

Scientists and academics fleeing the US is a new phenomenon, driven in no small part by these "unelected bureaucrats" being fired and replaced by political loyalists.

While you're correct in saying that we had lots of success before the establishment of the administrative state, it doesn't then follow that we'd have more (or better) success by abolishing it now. It seems like the opposite is slowly becoming true.

You start your comment with "False", but then fail to provide any actual evidence for why it's false.

Not exactly the start of major corruption.

The Trump 2.0 administration was already easily the most corrupt in American history well before these rules were proposed.

To their credit(?) they don't even try to hide it, they are just fully corrupt out in the open, because they know the cultists who support them will support anything they do.

It’s always the poor and uneducated voters that get the blame. It’s never the actual billionaires who got Trump elected and who control everything he does and much of the media zeitgeist because, you know, 100s of billions can really flood the zone. I don’t think you’re evil for being fooled, but try to think a bit deeper about where power and blame lie. It’s not uneducated rural folk the median yuppie finds uncool.

Why not both? I read an article recently about the Texas Senate race and one Republican voter they interviewed said it was about "the immigrants and the guns." So low information voters get a pass because they're awash in right wing propaganda? What happened to the oft cited right wing value of "personal responsibility"?

Because divide and conquer is why you remain insignificant.

Wait, wasn't that post revolution USSR / Mao's China ? Or in other words, only correct science is "Marxist" science

When Republicans start proposing Communist policies, they are MAGA, not Republicans.

Neither cited countries are/were communist, they are authoritarian. That’s the political system of government, capitalism and communism is the economic system.

Fine.

The two aren’t independent.

Marx’s idea of communism required a “dictatorship of the proletariat” as an intermediate stage between capitalism and communism. Lenin took that notion and, under the pretence of needing absolute power to prevent a counter-revolution, turned it into the totalitarian regime of the USSR. Since then, communism and totalitarianism have gone hand in hand.

With the aside that most of this bored me stupid 40 years past and still does today ...

Marx's "dictatorship" as used by Marx back in the days of late nights in the British Libraries wasn't the authoritarian "dictatorship" we associate with the term today.

  In the 19th century, the term "dictatorship" did not yet have the modern connotation of an authoritarian, autocratic one-man rule. Its meaning was derived from the ancient Roman dictatura, a constitutionally sanctioned office for a magistrate granted extraordinary powers during an emergency. For Marx and Engels, the "dictatorship of the proletariat" was not a specific form of government but a term for the class content of the state that would follow a proletarian revolution. 

~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictatorship_of_the_proletaria...

Sure, Lenin had a hard on for authoritarian behaviour and started the USSR trend of dangling a communist utopia as a reward for grinding through petty nitpicking committees and even more hard core authoritarians .. but that's more the bait and switch of human greed than any necessary coupling of communes and boot first hierarchies.

Yeah, I wasn't quite clear there. That's what I meant, that Lenin is the one who took the "emergency powers until communism is established" interpretation of "dictatorship of the proletariat", and turned it into "all the powers until forever". But that interpretation is effectively what became synonymous with communism just about everywhere — the USSR, China, Cuba, North Korea... Curiously enough none of the Communist states ever really transitioned from that intermediate state to full communism.

Sure, but

  effectively what became synonymous with communism just about everywhere

is a cultural association, not an actual real "always happens" coupling

  Curiously enough none of the Communist states

sorry, what actual communist states?

  ever really transitioned from that intermediate state to full communism.

of course not, they were all highjacked by opportunistic epaulette wearing authoritarians dangling a dream.

Much as, say, the notions of freedom, fairness, and making central north america great again has been a beard for robber barons.

Related:

What's Happening to Science in America

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48313687

Its all the way down to the bottom now, enjoy.

I'm curious to see how this is defended by the party members here.

Science should be guided by science, not ideology.

Science is a tool. It does not "guide", no more than a hammer guides.

The form of a tool guides its use. You can tell what a hammer is for just by picking one up.

You can probably tell it's for hitting things. But not what things

I get a research grant after peer review. The grant funds my salary and propels my career. I criticize Trump publicly about his graft. Trump tells them to pull my grant. My career takes a hit, and I lose my house.

Or I can be a chickenshit, and praise Trump and have a career, however pathetic. I routinely ask them to approve my results before publishing, just in case. I apply for grants looking at vaccines and autism. Every Friday, I spend an hour talking about how Trump is America's chosen one.

Guides as an astrolab or compass might

Do you have anything substantive to say beyond meaningless aphorisms?

Unfortunately, these are agency rules. Congress can intervene, but only with major legislative action, which is unlikely. There will be hearings and Senators will express great concern, but the Administration will probably be able to do whatever they want. If anything slows this down, it will be the courts.

If Congress wants to earmark that money for a particular purpose it can enact that into legislation. If it wants to empower the executive to make the decision, they can do that too.

Those are the only people who get to decide. Congress can’t turn over the expenditure of taxpayer funds to people who aren’t politically accountable.

> Congress can’t turn over the expenditure of taxpayer funds to people who aren’t politically accountable.

If Congress doesn't stop the executive and the Supreme Court overrules any legal blockades then ... I guess they can and are doing so RN.

> Congress doesn't stop the executive

Congress won't stop the executive because the party that won the executive also won Congress by almost 4 million votes. That's not a sign of the system not working, it's a sign of the system working as intended.

No, that's not accurate. Trump has subverted Congressional leadership to his dictatorship, and they routinely abuse their power to stop Congress from voting on things Trump finds politically inconvenient. The House is in recess right now to dodge a vote on the Iran War that Trump would be sure to lose.

No, it's a sign of the system working so horrifically badly that people have entirely lost sight of how it might actually be able to work.

> Congress won't stop the executive because the party that won the executive also won Congress by almost 4 million votes

I remember when Nixon stepped down because his own party could not support his transgressions. The Republican party did this. That is a sign of the system working as intended.

You claim to be radicalized by a pair of lawsuits against Trump, like out of every legal issue he was entangled with it was those two that convinced you that the Democrats were evil?

Guess what? The Democrats suck and their party leadership is just as complicit in the protection of the oligarchy as the GOP's. But what happened with those Trump lawsuits wasn't a weaponization, it was blowback on a man who has been sued over 4000 times and has been shown to embrace criminal behavior when it suited him. Same thing with his two impeachments.

What I believe really radicalized you is the Federalist Society. And just in my other comment about how kids want to belong, so do adults (it's a human thing). And your desire to belong and be part of the elite power base you have put your lot in with the Monarchists.

Bear in mind that the founding-era practice originalism anchors to was voting rights for white male property owners. It took three constitutional amendments to override that. The Federalist Society's originalist framework treats those amendments as the ceiling — not a foundation for further expansion of rights. That's a methodology with predictable winners and losers, and I'd note you're unlikely to be among the winners.

This is one of many reasons why originalism is a weaponized mechanism rather than some noble hewing to principles.

The Constitution is what makes this country great -- being a nation of laws of mankind vs living under the whims of a monarchy of a god-gifted king.

The courts have truly been the last line of defense.

Congress being neutered is not an accident, hopefully it will be less fucked if the power balance shifts.

And as the OP is inherently political in what it's calling out, that is not the motivation -- it's the science. I get the fact that in the end, everything's political but partisanship itself is a cancer on the body politic. Just as we seem to be in late-stage capitalism, we are entering late-stage democracy. It pains me that we effectively arrive here by choice.

Congress neutered itself, largely because it has been politically less risky to let the Executive branch do whatever they want, then either cheer it on or rage against it depending on party and what drives donations so congress members can get reelected.

The system is fundamentally broken.

I agree that it's fundamentally broken but I've been around to see it work and watch it fail.

The executive branch obviously is going to wield as much power as it can, but only one party is actually advocating for the executive as king.

So yes, both parties are the same when it comes to the corruption of the party leadership, but there are distinctly different platforms and ideals espoused -- and that difference matters.

> hopefully it will be less fucked if the power balance shifts.

We are never going back to where we were. That is past us now. There is only forward.

We are very much in uncharted waters and the rules have been thrown out the window. At the risk of repeating myself, wherever we are it is effectively collectively by choice. It's all about hearts and minds, but really hearts. I've come to the horrific realization that hate and stupidity are easily weaponized (I'm a slow learner), but hopefully that can be outnumbered.

> I've come to the horrific realization that hate and stupidity are easily weaponized

The FDR coalition was literally southern segregationists, immigrants, and black people, all in the same party. If "hate and stupidity" wasn't a barrier to people voting together in their material self-interest in 1936, it sure as hell isn't a barrier in 2026.

Wow man, FDR twice in a week and both cases awkwardly used.

But yes, he wielded populism masterfully. As you made a point about southern segregationists it should be noted that it was general economic populism without emphasis on race.

When Johnson championed the Civil Rights act it set the stage for the Southern Strategy where once race was a top tier issue that hate and stupidity was weaponized to move all of those segregationists to the Republican Party.

Rayiner, once again your point does not land because it is not cogent. Not only that, you missed the whole point of "hate and stupidity" as literally a unifying force as a tribal fury that is directed towards "others". In a contemporary case, it is against "liberals". I can only assume that you might have personal insight into this.

Your counterargument rests on the premise that nobody thought to weaponize "hate and stupidity" until the 1970s. That's not cogent.

> When Johnson championed the Civil Rights act it set the stage for the Southern Strategy

The concept of the “southern strategy” is not cogent. The backlash against the 1964 civil rights act happened in the 1968 election, when Wallace won 13% of the vote and 5 states. But all the Wallace states voted for Carter in 1976, along with all the other southern states besides Virginia. The south was Carter’s base—he only won the election by 2 points and lost New England, the midwest, and the west coast. Then three of the Wallace states voted for Clinton in 1992, plus several other southern states. Clinton also wouldn’t have won without the south. Your theory is that the reliable republican lean of the south states in the 1990s due to events that happened decades earlier. That’s a stupid idea.

The realignment instead lines up with the transition of southern economies from agricultural to industrial/services economies, i.e., the transition from “the south” to “the sunbelt.” That economic strategy is based on siphoning jobs from the northeast and midwest through low taxes and deregulation. That’s why Carter still won all the “solid south” (except Virginia) in 1976, and Clinton still won three of the five Wallace states in 1992. Virginia was the first southern state to transition to a sunbelt economy, followed by the piedmont south, with the deep south states like Louisiana and Kentucky trailing behind.

And where do you see common grounds material self-interest shaping todays political landscape?

People need a shared narrative of eg. a problem to solve, to come together. The right wing narrative today is deliberatetly targeted against any imaginary enemy, that does not subscribe to the narrative, which excludes/targets basically all left leaning people, all out groups. With this tribalistic setup in the centre, common ground is impossible.

> And where do you see common grounds material self-interest shaping todays political landscape

You’d think democrats would come up with a compelling one.

Not dismantling the country and devolving into autocracy is compelling to me, personally.

Pick one, it’s by choice or by hope, not both.

That makes no sense and is not what I was talking about.

American moderates are amazing. "Let's see how suburban republicans feel about this that Trump has done! He's really spoiled his chances next election!" You guys have been waiting for the non-fascist republican voter for more than a decade at this point.

The people who have the power of the purse should be accountable to the voters.

That’s Congress and they are.

The executive branch does not hold the power of the purse, and the fact that you can casually use that phrase in reference to the executive branch shows how far we’ve fallen as a country in a decade.

A very sad state of affairs.

This Congress has deferred to the president so hard, it's difficult to see where one ends and the other begins. Based on recent primaries the R party is only becoming more sycophantic.

At times they don't even cotify their subservience through the usual measures like legislation and committees, except where needed to slap down any roadblocks to the unitary executive.

They (Republicans in Congress) are all terrified of Trump, with some good reason (not that this excuses their dereliction of duty in any way).

It doesn't matter how aligned you are with his worldview, how much you vote alongside his wishes, if you aren't 100% loyal to him personally at all times you're politically dead in the Republican party in much of the US.

While Trump's ability to sway normal elections is next to non-existent anymore (see: the vast majority of special elections held since his inauguration where Republicans are getting roflstomped by Democrats), his endorsement still decides Republican primaries because there's still a lot of brainwashed Republican cultists on the Trump train.

The only hope for this country is the incompetence of the administration and the poor health of Dear Leader.

My hope is tempered, to say the least.

If you think the executive branch doesn't now have some de facto power of the purse, you haven't been paying attention for the last 16 months.

Even aside from who manages the purse, accountability doesn't need to mean being able to defend every single funding decision. That would be a sign of bad management in any business, for instance. To me it means competently managing an institution.

Indeed. Science has always been purely neutral and free any kind of social, cultural, institutional or economic pressures. That's the whole point!

Science? Maybe in an ideal world. However, how science actually gets done has always been at the mercy of social, cultural, institutional, and/or economic pressures.

Weren't they exaggerating to communicate sarcasm?

The country runs on the principles of the constitution, not the institutional principles of science. Control over spending of taxpayer funds always must remain within the political system.

Voters can always choose to turn over those decisions to scientists they trust. For much of the 20th century, that’s what voters did. But if they don’t trust the priorities of the current scientific establishment, they can also choose to put that control back in the hands of political appointees. The institutional principles of science cannot override the prerogative of voters to decide how their money is spent.

That's a lovely thought but it assumes, as with so many other things about our republican form of government, that the political appointees are good faith actors, at least with respect to funding of science. There are many reasons to suspect that the goal here is not just control of funding, but the defenestration of science more broadly because scientific findings tend to conflict with assertions politicians would like to make. I would submit that people flying on planes, using cell phones and computers, and going to the doctor don't want that, even if they think they do.

> That's a lovely thought but it assumes, as with so many other things about our republican form of government, that the political appointees are good faith actors, at least with respect to funding of science.

It doesn't assume that. It's simply a factual matter that the rules that govern the country are those of the constitution. And the institutional principles of particular fields are subordinate to the constitutional structure.

What you're overlooking is that everything is just people. Political appointees are people. But "institutions" are also people. "Science" is just people. And the important question is: who are the people who have the power to decide how taxpayer money is spent?

The only possible answer in a republic is that people accountable to the political system are allocated that power. People in the scientific establishment--people with degrees from universities and credentials from professional organizations--cannot be granted power to spend taxpayer money independent of the political system. They only have power over those decisions to the extent the political system chooses to confer that power.

The statement, "everything is just people" begs the question. That question is about appropriate roles.

No one is debating that Congress has the power of the purse. That is one of their primary roles. They appropriate, but obviously cannot and should not make every detailed decision, particularly where expertise is required and political neutrality is preferred. Accountability is another primary Congressional role. That comes through oversight, not day-to-day decision making on behalf of those being overseen.

Even if it were desirable to have politicians making decisions in place of scientists, granting that decision-making power to political appointees instead of Congress actually undermines the public's representation and further shifts the balance of power to the Executive.

> That question is about appropriate roles.

That's exactly what I meant when I said: "the important question is: who are the people who have the power to decide how taxpayer money is spent?" The answer obviously is: political actors. Ultimately it's Congress. And sometimes Congress has delegated that role to the President.

Within that framework, the institutional principles of "science" are irrelevant, except insofar as those principles are persuasive to political actors and ultimately voters.

The problem scientific institutionalists face is that they've squandered a lot of public trust over the decades. The left is skeptical of revolving doors between expert agencies and corporations and corporate sponsorship of scientific studies, while the right is skeptical that experts' politics aren't coloring their work. And in such an environment, it's entirely within voters' rights to elect political actors who promise to delegate fewer decisions to scientists.

You've restated your flawed assertions, you continue to reassign the roles, and you're conflating Congress with political appointees.

>The problem scientific institutionalists face is that they've squandered a lot of public trust over the decades

The left generally trusts science and the scientific community, while the right has fallen prey to the right-wing war on science and truth. This war was explicitly designed to enable exactly what is happening here—the transfer of more power to the right, rationalized by a seeded distrust of institutions.

Hence, it's not surprising that the people who want political appointees in charge of science are on the right.

> You've restated your flawed assertions, you continue to reassign the roles, and you're conflating Congress with political appointees.

That's at best a misunderstanding of the GP's argument, at worst a bad-faith response. GP said:

> "the important question is: who are the people who have the power to decide how taxpayer money is spent?" The answer obviously is: political actors. Ultimately it's Congress. And sometimes Congress has delegated that role to the President.

That is 100% correct. Congress controls spending. Congress delegated the details of that role in this case to the president, and the president wants political appointees making these decisions, not scientists and subject matter experts.

I don't like this state of affairs, but it seems to be an entirely legal one, consistent with the constitution and how our political system is set up. It sucks, but in 2024 the people decided that this is who they wanted in charge.

> The left generally trusts science and the scientific community

I'm not sure that's actually true in general. The left certainly is much more trusting of scientists than the right, but that trust is not absolute, and things have happened (like initial COVID response, as an example) to erode some of that trust.

> while the right has fallen prey to the right-wing war on science and truth.

Agreed.

>That's at best a misunderstanding...bad-faith...

No. Analyze the thread more carefully, particularly the original comment to which I replied. Should help any good faith reader to see that it's the opposite.

>That is 100% correct. Congress controls spending

You'll see that I actually introduced that fact originally to clearly delineate the roles, whereas GP was blurring / reassigning them to make his point. I added that Congress's other major role here is in oversight, which corrects the GP's assertion that political appointees are needed for accountability to the people. i.e. I'm saying that mechanism exists, Consitutionally. That destroys his primary argument—that this is about accountability.

You seemed to have overlooked that fact (in addition to my other points), in much the same style as GP. Perhaps his rhetoric has worked on you a bit here.

>Congress delegated the details of that role in this case to the president, and the president wants political appointees making these decisions, not scientists and subject matter experts.

That is not what's happening here, and reads like a complete misunderstanding or calculated twisting. The "in this case" bit is actively misleading. The OMB already executes spend management. There is no special "case" here. The regime is using the OMB to politicize the process by claiming it was partisan—i.e. using the same well-worn tactic in its ongoing attack on science and other matters.

>I'm not sure that's actually true in general

Of course it's true. Statistically.

>that trust is not absolute

Never the assertion. Immaterial.

>and things have happened (like initial COVID response

In fact, the left experienced a temporary bounce in scientific confidence during the initial COVID response, before settling down to pre-pandemic baselines. Meanwhile, the right experienced a roughly 20 point drop in confidence that has persisted.

You seem to be forgetting that one man is making these calls, not the people.

Yes, the man who the people picked to be the CEO of the executive branch for a 4-year term.

That is assuming that the system under which they picked him was a reasonable instantiation of democratic principles, which it is not.

And when they made Islam official religion of Bangladesh in the constitution, what’s your take on that?

My take is that they shed their blood to have their own nation and they're entitled to structure their affairs however they please. It that's also what precipitated my family to leave. Just because Bangladeshis have the right of self determination doesn't mean we have to or want to live in a country with them.

So you don't consider yourself Bangladeshi anymore?

only when rhetorically convenient i suspect

> Just because Bangladeshis have the right of self determination doesn't mean we have to or want to live in a country with them.

why do you believe you and and your family (parents and sibling) belong in the USA?

It seems like your argument is proving way too much. If next President announces that he feels rural hospitals are an inefficient use of resources, and so all residency programs outside of major metro areas are cancelled, would you accept that as a legitimate use of funding discretion? To me it would sound like an obvious campaign of retribution against groups he finds it politically convenient to punish. (A campaign of retribution I will happily support, if Trump gets away with things like this - but I'd prefer to avoid going down that road!)

I mean, if that's what the law allows, then sure, that would be a valid thing for the next president to do. It would be bad for the country to do so, but plenty of things that are bad for the country are legal for the government to do.

We'd have no choice but to accept that as a legitimate use of funding discretion, assuming that actually is the case (I don't know the law related to this, so I can't say). We can be upset at that decision, but we'd still have to accept it as legitimate.

Insofar as this is true, it only illustrates how illegitimate the system is.

The political system, representing the taxpayer (primarily via Congress), has always dictated scientific strategy--do we build the Superconducting Supercollider or cancel it; do we return a sample from Mars or not; do we sequence the human genome. How big a budget do we devote to medical research compared to physics, etc. Scientists advocate, but politicians decide.

However, the nuts-and-bolts day-to-day tactical decisions have before been made through expert peer review, by scientists. Given a fixed and finite budget set by Congress, what is the best way to make discoveries?

Having been on grant review panels, it's brutal--at 5 or 10:1 oversubscription rates, your peers will find any flaw in your proposal.

Political appointees are deeply unqualified to make these judgments. To take a very specific example: the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy is headed by Michael Kratsios. He has a BA in politics and has never written a scientific publication. (Every prior OSTP head was a PhD scientist.) The OMB memo says he and those like him should decide what to fund without deferring to scientists. How is he going to assess which of 50 proposals on (say) "hypothalamic SH2B1 neurocircuits and SH2B1 signal transduction pathways" is the good one?

He can't, so he'll either choose AI or graft. Both are destructive to our once world-leading scientific enterprise.

The division of responsibility you describe has no legal significance. All decision-making authority ultimately rests and must rest with the political system. Of course, the political system may choose to delegate certain decisions to experts and panels and whatnot. But that's a choice. The institutional principles of science are irrelevant except to the extent the political decision-makers find those principles persuasive (which they often do).

Our laws actually are written to reflect more or less what I'm describing. The laws governing HHS grants, for example, provide for various expert committees and whatnot. But they also provide the appointed director of the HHS tremendous discretion to override those decisions. That's not new--those laws are decades old.

> It's simply a factual matter that the rules that govern the country are those of the constitution.

How many times has this administration blatantly ignored the Constitution, starting with, for a simple example, separation of powers?

You're all locked in on "scientists should be beholden to the government, as that is the lay and law of the land" which ignoring the rather large mote that is "this current government couldn't give one single fuck about following the laws of the land", like issuing directives to federal agencies to consider federal court rulings as "advisory" or "not final" or "not applicable".

When the corruption of the law of the land starts at the top, you're busy insisting that those trying to follow the stated intention of the institutions that employ them ignore that because, well, what RFK Jr or worse, Stephen Miller, are the way we do things now, law, constitution be damned.

I don't think any of that is relevant to the argument. The fact of the matter is that Congress controls spending of taxpayer dollars, and at times has delegated some of the details of that to the executive branch.

There's no law that says "only scientists and subject matter experts can decide where grant money goes". Congress has largely left it up to the executive branch to set up a group of people, with whatever qualifications it wants (such as "loyal sycophant to the president"), to make these decisions.

I agree that this administration has taken a huge dump on the constitution, but that's a completely separate issue.

We can be angry that this what's happening, and adamant that scientists and experts should be making these decisions, but the people elected a Congress and President that wants to go another way, and that's how our system of government is set up.

We'll have to do better this November and in 2028 if we want to change things.

It's never a valid argument to say that we should ignore the law in one context because someone isn't following the law in a completely different context.

The question of whether scientists should have independence from the political system in deciding how to spend taxpayer funds is one that can be answered entirely starting from the principles of our republican government, without any consideration of what else the current administration may or may not be doing.

If everything is just people, why worry about the constitution at all?

> The only possible answer in a republic is that people accountable to the political system are allocated that power.

It's not that what's happening in the US with respect to science funding is not legal, it's just dumb. And, no, it doesn't have to be this way or that way because the constitution says so.

There are probably millions of spending decisions happening daily that are delegated, by elected or appointed officials, to non-elected or non-appointed people. In the scientific realm, spending decisions have been largely delegated to scientists since the end of WW2, and it's been very effective.

No, what it means is that scientists are vulnerable to punishment for speaking their minds about the administration. I will not live like that.

Only if voters remain loyal to the administration that does that, in which case that's exactly what should happen. If you want taxpayer dollars, you should make nice with the people taxpayers elect to represent them.

I do not intend to live in a country where supposedly unelected organizations think they have independent jurisdiction to spend public money independently of the political system.

No. We have a system of laws. Canceling contracts without cause as punishment for free speech is wrong.

> The country runs on the principles of the constitution, not the institutional principles of science.

Well no wonder we're so fucked. The constitution is a disaster.

> The country is supposed to run on the principles of the constitution

FTFY

But then your counter is likely some form of originalism as you've been instructed. The current administration and it's pet SCOTUS have no interest in the Constitution or they wouldn't be so hell bent on making POTUS king for life. A mad king at that.

"Science" can do as much science as it wants on its own dime then. Public funding should be guided by public oversight, not career bureaucrats.

> Public funding should be guided by public oversight, not career bureaucrats.

Isn't congress the elected, public oversight body? Or are you proposing that each and every employee of the federal govt be elected to prevent the horror of the 'career bureaucrat'?

Unless you're advocating for mass direct democracy, with public votes on everything under the sun, a certain level of delegation is inescapable at scale.

You say "career bureaucrats" as if they can't be fired or controlled, but that's obviously wrong (since they're being fired and/or controlled right now).

QED, they ARE still under public oversight. (1) Voters vote for (2) elected officials who oversee (3) agency bureaucrats.

I don't see what the core complaint is then. The guy the public voted for can refuse to spend public funding on a particular grant. There's no reason that it's somehow more pure to have the public vote for someone who appoints someone who appoints someone.

> “We warned of this exact form of government overreach in science a year ago,” says Colette Delawalla, founder of the science advocacy group Stand Up for Science. “It replaces expertise with political appointees, globally decouples the U.S. and completely guts our scientific ecosystem.”

If you want to be independent of the government, don't take money from the government. If you are mad because you don't agree with how the government is making decisions, say so. But don't pretend it has anything to do with "government overreach"

Science has often been funded by private and state benefactors. Regardless of the source, it's most often successful when the funds have few or no strings attached.

Perhaps more political oversight will make research more accountabile to the population at large. In this era I suspect it's far more likely to benefit the few, those born into power and fame who are consolidating their power. Scientists with resources and accountable only to other scientists are uniquely dangerous to those unwilling to give up their power.

Yeah, it's a little disingenuous to make an argument like that. This isn't overreach; it seems like it's completely allowed by the law written when Congress delegated spending decisions around these kinds of grants to the executive branch.

We may not like it (I certainly don't), but this is one of the times when Trump seems to actually be acting within his authority, and not pushing at or past those limits.

and so continue the decline to a dumber, poorer, nastier nation

Well, america had a good run i guess?

Hope china can step up and fill the gap.

People really need to read their history. When America definitively surpassed the UK in 1880 as the richest country in the world (per capita), it had operated for the previous century under the spoils system: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoils_system.

The notion of "governance by putatively neutral experts" was a progressive reform of the early-to-mid 20th century, which significantly postdates America's rise to the top. Rolling the government back to 1880-1910--when the modern administrative state was just a twinkle in Woodrow Wilson's racist eye--would hardly be a bad thing. That was a time of tremendous progress in America economically and technologically.

The spoils system…

> contrasts with a merit system, where offices are awarded or promoted based on a measure of merit, independent of political activity.

What is commendable about this? Why should anyone who isn’t close enough with political winners to get the spoils want this?

He's not commending it. He's using it to point out that the reaction, "Well, america had a good run i guess? Hope china can step up and fill the gap," is simplistic, hyperbolic and maybe a little hysterical.

Ah I read it as “the US was corrupt before, and that was OK because GDP was growing! So we are just returning to our roots now”

Now understanding the good faith argument better, doesn’t it even further support the ascendancy of China? The argument is: despite rampant spoils system corruption, the US eclipsed Great Britain on the strength of a large population with low trade barriers alone (both internal and external)

But China is now the country with the largest population and low trade barriers. So aren’t they playing the role of 1800s USA and we the role of Great Britain here in 2026?

Aside, I appreciate the content of your post, but it really does distract your point to sling insults like hysterical towards other commenters

>it really does distract your point to sling insults like hysterical towards other commenters

Thanks for this.

Not sure how hysterical the notion that China is in ascendency on the world stage and the U.S. is retreating.

Implying that this particular story ("WH proposes rules") is the final piece of evidence that might cause a reasonable person to conclude that the US is finished as world power does strike me as maybe a little hysterical.

If someone has an extremely simplistic view of how our society works and where our power comes from, then it is regrettable for that someone to even offer a prediction in public about whether our society's power will wane or (continue to) wax, especially a prediction as confident as "Well, america had a good run i guess? Hope china can step up and fill the gap."

And I love how Rayiner got downvoted severely for daring to point out that predicting the effects of this move ("WH proposes rules") is not as easy or as simple as many here seem to think it is.

Final piece of evidence? Of course not. But it's part of a stream of news for some time now that points in the same direction.

(And I have no idea why Rayiner was downvoted. I'm happy for them though—for sticking to principles and posting what may well be downvoted to oblivion. It's something I have become more comfortable with myself.)

Insinuating that the administrative state is racist by genetic fallacy while longing for a return to the era of Jim Crow is hypocritical enough for me to disregard his opinion.

The administrative state wasn’t merely created by the same progressives that gave us eugenics. It has its roots in the same dim view of the common man and how much agency they should be given. Woodrow Wilson and other progressives were deeply skeptical of democracy. He wrote: “And where is this unphilosophical bulk of mankind more multifarious in its composition than in the United States?” And his solution to that was to have the government run by experts insulated from democratic politics.

> [blah, blah, progressives are the real racists, blah]

I never argued that you don’t believe this. I guess you’re disputing the word “insinuating”? Fine, you’re explicitly saying the administrative state is racist.

> Last I checked you guys are the ones who went to the supreme court to defend racial discrimination in college admissions and racially segregated voting districts.

Nice tu quoque but I’m neither a Democrat nor a liberal. You make this mistake with people a lot! Have you considered not assuming everyone who disagrees with you is a liberal?

The person I actually replied to wondered why you got downvoted. Thanks for the demonstration.

> went to the Supreme Court…racially segregated voting districts

How is enforcing the two greatest anti Jim Crow laws (VRA and CRA), somehow, equivalent to returning to Jim Crow itself?

> the administrative state

I’m trying to understand better, but it just seems like you are very opposed to merit based hiring in government and I don’t understand why. I understand your appeal to history, but what could be a better approach than hiring on merit while also making those employees accountable to political appointees? Just replacing the entire ranks of government every 4 years?

> How is enforcing the two greatest anti Jim Crow laws (VRA and CRA), somehow, equivalent to returning to Jim Crow itself?

In both cases, republicans were the ones that wanted to enforce the civil rights laws. Democrats were the ones who wanted to violate the civil rights laws by treating people differently based on race. In SFFA they wanted universities to be able to discriminate against applicants based on race, and in Louisiana v. Callais, they wanted to draw racially segregated voting districts.

> the administrative state I’m trying to understand better, but it just seems like you are very opposed to merit based hiring in government and I don’t understand why.

Because the criteria we use for “merit” are degrees from elite universities, membership in professional organizations, etc. So while I think merit-based hiring for government is desirable in theory, what I think happens in practice is the emergence of a definable class of credentialed professionals, entry into which gatekept by non-government institutions like Harvard, etc. That turns over tremendous amounts of power to people and institutions that aren’t democratically accountable. And I don’t buy the premise that these credentialed professionals are any less political than anyone else. They, and the institutions they are affiliated with, have cohesive interests and pursue those interests in government.

I think it’s better to do what Trump did in 2024: get on stage with the people he intends to appoint to top jobs, and have them talk about what they want to do. Let voters see the team they’re voting for. Look, I also think RFK is a nutjob. But the response to that should be for the Democratic candidate in 2028 to get on stage with who they intend to appoint to HHS. Let them talk about their credentials and expertise and what they intend to do. Let them explain why RFK is a disaster and has made voters worse off. I think that’s a fantastic way for a democracy to operate.

> in Louisiana v. Callais, they wanted to draw racially segregated voting districts.

30 years of jurisprudence since Thornburg v. Gingles disagrees with this framing. That unanimous decision found racial districts a necessarily race-conscious remedy to race-targeted harm: republican gerrymandering of cohesive black communities in the south. Which was the same harm at play in 2026 Louisiana.

If you think a race-conscious remedy is more racist than race-targeted harm, you must also believe that minority communities have no right for representation. If that’s the case, be plain about your beliefs. Either way please stop publicly mistaking cause for effect regarding this topic of “racially segregated voting districts”

> If you think a race-conscious remedy is more racist than race-targeted harm

No, everyone agrees you can have a “race-conscious remedy” if there is a “race-targeted harm.” Lousiana v. Callais says that right on pages 17-18 of the slip op: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-109_21o3.pdf

But there was no “race-targeted harm” in Louisiana v. Callais. You’re wrong about the facts of that case. The original Louisiana map, with one black majority district, was a computer-drawn map and there was no evidence lawmakers had used race in creating the map. There was no compact district that would give you a second black-majority district in the state. The second district they had to add was quite gnarly: https://louisianaradionetwork.com/2024/01/16/35175/

Louisiana v. Callais nowhere prohibits using a race conscious remedy to fix a specific, race-conscious harm. It’s totally compatible with that principle.

> you must also believe that minority communities have no right for representation

They are entitled to the same “representation” as everyone else: being able to vote for a representation in a district drawn without regard to race. They’re not entitled to affirmative racial gerrymandering to create a certain number of majority-minority districts. It’s “one person, one vote,” not “one racial group, one House seat.”

> In both cases, republicans were the ones that wanted to enforce the civil rights laws.

Jeff Sessions in 1981 when he was the DA or ADA from Mobile, telling a judge in a lynching case of a black man that lynching wasn’t necessarily murder, doesn’t fill me with confidence about this take of yours.

> same progressives that gave us eugenics

ray, why are you now cosplaying as someone who doesn't believe in racial hierarchies?

Your comment suggests you think cronyism was in some part responsible for America's rise as a global power. Common sense would indicate that we became a power despite the cronyism, not because it, and you've provided nothing to support your wildly counter intuitive claim.

This is your comment basically:

People really need to read their history. When America definitively surpassed the UK in 1880 as the richest country in the world (per capita), tuberculosis was a leading cause of death: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuberculosis

The advancement of antibiotics did not happen until the mid 20th century, which significantly postdates America's rise to the top. It would be a great idea to rollback science to that time when we didn't have all these life saving vaccines and antibiotics.

> Your comment suggests you think cronyism was in some part responsible for America's rise as a global power.

Not at all. My comment was that America’s good run began a century before the 20th century practice of administration through independent experts. Thus, such administration cannot be a necessary condition for America’s “good run” as OP suggested.

Worth noting that the period you indicate is a an example of an America largely deploying inventions from the UK (e.g. the steam engine, steam locomotive, etc.).

The latter part of the 20th century and first part of this century is a story more of the US driving invention and deploying those inventions.

The techniques needed to go from lesser power to leading power are different from those needed to advance as a leading power. For Lebron to stay on top, he has to do different things than any of us would need to do to get into the NBA.

Different circumstances & different goals require different strategies.

That's fair, but I think your original comment could be much more clearly written.

"There was a spoils system in the late 1800s. It sure would be great if we could go back to that time." Technically these can be interpreted as unrelated statements (as apparently the statements are in your original comment), but most people would infer from that they were related and that the reason it would be nice to rollback to the earlier time was the aforementioned spoils system.

> but most people would infer from that they were related and that the reason it would be nice to rollback to the earlier time was the aforementioned spoils system

Except I explicitly referred to “[r]olling the government back,” specifically “the modern administrative state.” The two systems being compared are the old system where the executive branch was politically accountable (but suffered from patronage jobs), and the new system presided over by experts (but who are insulated from political signals).

My point is that the old system, with its shortcomings, empirically produced good results, as good as the new system, with its shortcomings. That’s not an argument that the spoils system was great in isolation. But it’s possible that political appointees aren’t as incompetent as you assume. Or credentialed experts aren’t as competent as you assume. Or that the gains from more administrative competence are outweighed by the loss of responsiveness to political signals.

You may as well argue for bringing back slavery also

The only reason this user won't defend that point is the HN rules. From what I remember, he strongly believes that the majority wants should be respected, so it's not that far-fetched to imagine that they would defend slavery if 51% of the voters wanted that.

it depends greatly on the majority though. e.g. he believes democracy should be suppressed ("crushed") in Muslim- majority nations, etc.

Wow, it's not often that you get to see someone unironically defend cronyism and nepotism as a goal to be reached rather than a cancer to be eradicated. I guess it really does take all strokes.

rayiner has previously written that he thinks all non-property owners in the US to be disenfranchised.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46885305

> Instead, the electorate should be narrowed to property owning people who have an IQ above 85 (within one SD of median) and two grandparents born in the U.S. (so culturally assimilated).

Really, nothing he writes is surprising.

I believe in a country where the top 75% or so of people vote and that directly influences the administration of government. You want a country where 100% of people vote, but their vote is merely a suggestion to the credentialed professionals and lawyers that actually run the country. I am by far the more egalitarian one.

Sure, if you think experts should run the country, you have no problem with the dumbest people voting. You can’t afford to do that if you think the effect of people’s votes should be direct and not filtered through an expert class that second guesses them.

The modern administrative state is rooted in early 20th century progressives like Woodrow Wilson, who lamented about the “unphilosophical bulk of humanity.” That’s the foundation of the modern civil service.

Lol mad scramble to somehow justify being a complete scumbag. The only vote we should be taking away is mouth breathing fedoraposters like you.

In your proposed change to who can vote, you'd not be able to vote and neither would your children. Does that mean you believe that you, and they, are part of the "unphilosophical bulk of humanity"? That you and they are among "the dumbest, least responsible people"?

I guess you don't even believe your own credentials as a lawyer make you qualified to vote.

Yeah, and Hitler made the trains run on time.

And the USSR experienced tremendous economic and technological progress under Stalin, propelling it to an industrial and military superpower second only to the US.

Similarly, Germany experienced great economic growth under the Third Reich.

To each his own, I guess, but personally I'll take a less corrupt and more equitable country over a wealthy and powerful one any day.

While there are also other reasons for the great progress of USSR under Stalin, it is likely that the most important cause was provided by the benefits that USSR got from being among the victors of WWII.

After the war, USSR incorporated totally or partially many countries and they transformed the remaining Eastern European countries into vassal states.

Especially during the first decade after WWII, USSR has stolen huge amounts of resources from those territories, in various forms, starting with what the Red Army has robbed during their so-called "Liberation" actions, then with huge so-called "War reparations" extracted from the countries that the Soviet Union itself had attacked, so they had been forced to attempt to defend themselves, but eventually they had to pay a lot for daring to do this, and then with various profits extracted from mixed companies established in the vassal states after the war and from various unbalanced contracts for economic exchanges with USSR.

The most affected was East Germany, from where entire factories have been moved to Russia, machine by machine and tool by tool, where they constituted the bases for new industries that were developed in USSR after the war.

While in some countries dictatorships have achieved economical progress mainly by internal means, under Stalin the greatest achievements were based on plundering most of their former neighbors, while the Soviet Union has greatly expanded territorially, mostly at its west, but also at its east.

The US also became the dominant superpower because of WW2, since much of the rest of the world powers suffered tremendous destruction - even those that won the war. Also, most of the western world's gold was sent to the US (they didn't fight WW2 for free) which allowed the USD to become the world's dominant trade and reserve currency.

> People really need to read their history.

agreed.

but i bet i can make a bunch of confounding factors appear.

from 1800 to 1870 gdp per capita growth rate was about 1.1 percent.

from 1870 to right before great depression growth rate was about 1.6 percent.

from start of great depression until 2022 it was about 1.8 percent.

economy and standards of living have gotten better faster as the state has gotten more bureacratic.

source: Maddison project database, see excel file here: https://www.rug.nl/ggdc/historicaldevelopment/maddison/relea...

Most countries you would consider "developed" in the world (and then some more) switched to having a professional, non-political civil service in the last 100 years, if they hadn't already had one.

Do you think that this maybe indicates something? Or did your analysis stop at the US border? Is it wise to base policies on a system that has not been used in more than 100 years based on the perception that this was some sort of golden age even if a cursory glance around the world show that no country you want to live in is run like that?

Fill what gap? That of state-controlled research? Early indoctrination? Mass supervision? Revisionism?

You were downvoted but yes, hoping a state-controlled, authoritarian, single party politically led, genocidal government will ”step up” to better less-political research is faith without reason and ignorant of history

Which country are you alluding to?

All of those also describe America, but in typical American extravagance, there's two parties

But it's got electrolytes!

My question is now: Which company is gonna buy the IRS now?

"Intuit IRS" has a ring to it. In the same umbrella org as Turbo Tax, for the obvious revenue-growth synergy, and long-term strategic alignment that unlocks tax-payer value.

That sounds a lot like Kemal Unakıtan model, that purported to privatise the Administration of Privatisation.

My vote is on Brawndo.

This may seem extreme, but it must be considered in the full context of the package of policy proposals that would also eliminate the grants themselves. This balances out any concerns of bias. See you in 50 years when we read about the consequences (on European electronics.) :')

Europe needs to get it's shit together. It has very not been together.

Nothing like the collapse of the global hegemon to spur you into action...

Though most of the people who say that kind of thing about Europe seem to have no problem with the people doing this kind of thing that is under discussion.

So was it a clear eyed critique of government policy or was it just idiotic support of fascism?

There's a dude in this thread openly supporting cronyism in government and there's been a general undercurrent of open contempt for democracy, so we can't really assume good faith and sanity from people.

It's a mix of bias, cluelessness and straight sociopathic malice that culminates into this insanity. We urgently need to establish a name and maybe even a pathological classification for it! People effected by this personality disorder should not be in any positions of power but eligible for professional help, therapy. If you disagree with this, then first seek a secondary professional medical oppinion from a Trump University Dr. med., before responding.

The natural state of all human political systems is autocracy. It takes constant vigilance to keep the train on the tracks and avoid that low energy state. The problem is that we only really see the consequences of these kinds of immensely stupid policies once every few generations. Nobody alive was around the last time we had this argument, so we get to do it all over again.

> The OMB is headed by Russell Vought, lead architect of Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 plan for the Trump administration.

This is far scarier than any single rule about research grants, and I'm not sure why nobody's talking about this.

The OMB writes the budget to enact federal policy. And critically, no federal regulation can exist with the OMB approving it. By making this appointment explicitly political, they have carte blanche to completely rewrite all federal regulations to be exclusively conservative ones. This would have been crazy to attempt before, but with Trump 2.0, this is the new norm.

One of the things they are doing right now (it's been approved and the rules are now active and legal, so it is now happening) is converting 50,000 civil servant jobs into political appointments. This means having a job in government no longer serves the whole nation, it's now an ideological function to serve a single political party. Literally weaponizes the federal government to punish opposing political views and enforce one view on everyone (there's no other point to political appointment). And if the party in charge ever changes, it now means everyone will be laid off and replaced. Every few years. So nothing will ever get done in government now, except for extreme short-term pushes for radical political agendas, because nobody will stay long enough to know how the government works to do anything else. Move fast and break things with the largest economy in the world, radical political agendas, and 380M people.

The OMB also can review and block all proposed legislation going to Congress, vet all official congressional testimony, and block any agency from publicly disagreeing with the President. Military generals, health officials, science experts, ecologists, intelligence directors... they can block all of them from giving any testimony to Congress. That's an actual power the OMB has.

They can also block money Congress has already allocated, meaning that your representatives in government are now completely useless, because whatever party is in the Executive can nerf anything your reps have passed. The Supreme Court could do something about it, but won't, because it's now a Conservative Supermajority. There is no reason for them to disagree because they already ideologically agree.

Finally, the OMB can issue a rule that every agency that wasn't officially under the Executive before, has to submit all its rules for Executive approval. Meaning the Executive would control all government agencies.

In any other context, in any other country, this would be called a single-party authoritarian coup. When they create rules that outlaw other political parties (that's what authoritarian governments do to retain single party control) - and assuming the democrats don't just give up - it will be the official start of civil war. Coming to you Fall 2028.

> This is far scarier than any single rule about research grants, and I'm not sure why nobody's talking about this.

Not sure what you mean. Lots of people have been talking about it since he was appointed to the role. I've known about it and been pissed about it for quite a long time now.

It seems seeding chaos is the only thing these guys know how to do. What happens (or happened) when the shoe is on the other foot and the other guy wants to push climate science and vaccines? Run to Texas courts to stop the federal government? Thereby wasting lot of time doing nothing.

I can only say Bravo to Americans who think this constant fighting is somehow going to help the country.

I think we all need to be honest with ourselves about the fact that they are very clearly not intending to ever allow the shoe to be on the other foot.

The upcoming midterms are very plausibly the last free and fair elections we will ever have in this country. As deeply unpopular as this administration is right now, the Democrats will need an enormous amount of luck for the size of historic landslide it will require to take the house and senate, and even then they need to do so by enough that they can impeach and convict.

That is just about the only plausible path towards preserving democracy at this point. And I’m not really holding out hope.

I’d be happy to be told that I’m wrong. So please, tell me I’m wrong.

If a conviction really happens wouldn't the very fine people just invade the capitol again?

Or Trump himself would simply refuse to step down, and have the might of the U.S. military brass behind him.

If you can’t tell, I am not hopeful.

> and have the might of the U.S. military brass behind him

Would he, though? I know the top US military brass have gone through some changes during this administration, but if the military sees a lawful impeachment and lawful conviction, I think enough would refuse (clearly illegal) orders to keep Trump in the White House.

Honestly I'd be more worried about the loyalists at the top of the FBI, US Marshals, Secret Service, etc.

Either way, it's incredibly improbable that Democrats will control a supermajority of the Senate next year (or, failing that, have enough Republican support to convict), so we probably won't have to find out what happens in this scenario.

> I think enough would refuse (clearly illegal) orders

The military executes clearly illegal orders to attack civilians on speedboats in the Pacific a couple of times a week. Not infrequently, they also kill the occupants when they are surrendering.

What are the "U.S. military brass" going to do?

A fuckup or two like ICE had and the whole narrative quickly turns to shit and the people push back.

People’s opinions only matter so far as they have to care about elections. Not having to worry about those sorts of nuisances is entirely the plan and they are frighteningly near succeeding at it.

I think you're wrong. I don't know that for a fact, of course, but I'm not that pessimistic.

I don't think Democrats will win the Senate this fall (though there's a chance they will, and I'd be happy to be wrong here). The House is reasonably likely. Either way, they won't have the supermajority needed to convict on impeachment.

Trump is doing a lot to try to destabilize elections and put his thumbs on the scale. His recent order telling USPS not to deliver mail-in ballots to anyone not on some list that the federal government is compiling is troubling. The SAVE Act is troubling, but fortunately still hasn't gained enough support to pass (though it's far from settled that it, or something like it, won't).

But I think a big strength in the US is that all elections, even for federal offices, are administered by the states. The federal government does have some constitutional say in how they're administered, but changes there generally require acts of Congress (which is hard, even with GOP control), and I expect any and all executive orders around election matters to be challenged in court, and hopefully largely thrown out. Red states will continue to do what they usually do to disenfranchise voters they don't like; nothing new there. Blue states will continue to be blue, and will do what they need to do to keep things as sane as possible. Purple states are a more difficult proposition, but there are few enough of them that it's easier for people to keep an eye on what's going on in them.

I think we'll know a lot more after we see what happens during the midterms (not by the outcomes, but in seeing what happens with the electoral process). I wouldn't expect the 2028 elections to be significantly different than what we see this fall. If the courts disagree with election-related changes the GOP have been trying to impose for this year, it's unlikely they'll be more amenable to them in two years.

I expect that the GOP (and MAGA folks in general) will reject the results of the 2028 presidential election if a Democrat wins. They'll dial up the "big steal" lies again, just as in 2020, and will push even harder with that narrative. Hopefully the law changes since then around vote certification will help avoid a repeat of all the crap we saw around that event. Will institutions stand up to that misinformation campaign? I'm not sure. I hope so, I think so, but I'm not sure. I'm cautiously leaning toward optimism.

I genuinely hope you’re right.

Americans and Republicans seem so fine with this. Amazing to see this happen live.

Republicans in power and the capitalist political class, sure. But the average American on the street? They don't want this.

They voted for this. In larger numbers than in 2020 and 2016.

What is this "this" you're referring to? Was this on the ballot? Did Trump announce that he would do this?

It seems very easy to just blame this on the voter like this.

I'm Canadian and I can tell you this was always part of Project 2025, which was extremely obviously the plan all along.

So I don't know. Assuming the American voter can read and and access to the internet, it's kind of pathetic to imply they couldn't have known

people in america have low political involvement after years of politicians ignoring their material needs. non-voters are the biggest group of voters. i think it’s by design.

64% us turnout. Canada 68%, UK 60%

America is not exceptional.

This = this person is clearly morally corrupt, displaying a pattern of behaviour over decades of being untrustworthy, a liar, and taking advantage for personal gains.

People decided to elect that person, it's part of the package.

Jan 6th 2021 was on the ballot. You vote for Trump, or said “they’re as bad as each other”, you reap what you sow.

I mean, Trump was all but outright saying "I am going to be comically terrible"; the people voting for him presumably knew at least the broad strokes of what they'd be getting, if not the fine detail.

The contents of Project 2025 were well publicised, so yes, the voters are very much to blame (assuming that the vote wasn't gamed by Musk et al)

non voters were the largest bloc and its understandable since lawmakers are largely unresponsive to their material needs. (bigger military budget every year, no universal healthcare plan, etc)

May I propose an alternative for our politicians? Rather that saying “you better take your medicine like a grown up and be responsible and vote for our side” try being _actually compelling_ for a change.

That’s it. Just offer the people what they want and stop catering to the ownership class.

You mean American voters have a clientele mentality.

Let me remind you any of you could run for a seat. You don't need to belong to any political party. You can even rise through the ranks inside a party. Trump is even an example of a complete outsider turning upside-down one of the two main parties!

Your complaint sounds a lot like "we tried nothing and we ran all out of ideas".

that is what i’m accusing the dems of.

just as well you can say the wealthy people our government caters to also have a clientele mentality. and they get most of what they want.

populists are running for more seats these days and they’re winning so maybe there’s hope.

But they're not willing to give up their 3rd Starbucks or the day or the door dash delivery or Amazon prime. They all too overworked. Only poors go to protests.

The average american on the street does not know how grant applications were approved before this change and they will continue to not know how grant applications are approved after this change.

it’s making the news a tiny bit more than before but we’re saying the same thing I think.

i also think the importance of grants is a bit academic, so not a day to day concern.

Grants are important because they fuel the process by which we create highly trained scientists. It's not a day to day concern (except for the people who depend on them), in the short term, but would have longer term effects.

I understand that there are people in the US who do not think that this is important and actually would prefer fewer scientists that are more poorly trained. There is nothing more infuriating then believing the world is flat and having some egghead prove it isn't.

I know grants are important. You know grants are important. When I say “academic” I mean not immediately relevant to most ordinary people who are trying to lay their mortgage etc. That’s a different group that the MAGA cult people who believe grants are a waste of public funds.

'A republic, if you can keep it'

Reply by Ben Franklin, when asked about what kind of govt the newly independent United States should have. The words seem particularly fitting in current times.

This means research projects will be optimised for political boasting.

Sounds terrible, but is it? It incentivises high-impact research (otherwise politicians can't boast about it), and less research into trivialities that common sense says aren't worth the public funding.

"less research intro trivialities that common sense says aren't worth the public funding"

In your eyes, science and research is a linear process, governed by some "common sense", in which important and high impact discoveries are found as an immediate and direct consequences of the previous important and high impact discovery?

I'm trying not to get angry at a stupid HN comment, but surely we can think through what we write sometimes.

A lot of political appointees struggled with Why should we pay for shrimp running on treadmills? (The case for curiosity-driven research)

~ https://www.statnews.com/2025/04/03/basic-science-curiosity-...

Some just couldn't grasp the why, others understood perfectly well why their major donors wanted to squash studies on environmental stressors that might impact fisheries.

Being curious definitely leads to discoveries. But important discoveries can also be made by saying "Topic X, if better understood, might lead to a cure for cancer - let's look into (and fund) that".

We could think of this problem as a slider from 0-100 where we allocate from 'none' up to 'all' our research budget to curiosity-driven research.

Political appointees having a say will likely move the slider toward the 0 (not necessarily to zero). I'm just not sure it's a bad thing.

Shrimp running treadmills, specifically, wasn't idle curiosity driven blue sky research though - it was tied to creating real metrics for measuring impact of change in marine environments on the health of the food we eat.

It's a good example of "political types" making a song and dance based on "common sense" to save trivial amounts of money while making the health of marine systems opaque for the benefit of political donors.

That's a bad thing for people at large, and a good thing for polluting mega corps that want to privatise benefits and socialise costs.

I see your point, that donors could influence political appointees to nix certain research topics for their own benefit.

How often does that actually happen, and wouldn't other institutions pick up the slack in most cases? (i.e. high value research doesn't cease to be high value just because one type of grant or institution refuses to fund it; it would therefore be attractive to other institutions/researchers)

Some benefits of having political appointees in the loop are that the pubic perceives (not necessarily 'gets') greater value from public research funding, and the people responsible for the funding (political appointees) are closer to the actual spending and are more involved in the allocative process, which should mean fewer expensive, hard-to-justify topics.

So we haven't found a cure for cancer because those silly scientists are too busy farting around with unimportant stuff? That's your take away here?

Consider one basic question: how much high-impact research do you think this would incentivize into global warming? Or is the looming global ecological catastrophe not high-impact enough?

> Sounds terrible, but is it?

Yes

> It incentivises high-impact research

It incentivizes work that sounds impressive to laymen. Actual work tends to be technical and might not sound super exciting.

If 20 years ago, a politician had to get up and explain that we were spending millions of dollars training computers to recognize a strawberry, likely the entire field of machine learning would not exist today.

It means research projects will also be optimized for political ideology. That's not good.

No, it incentivizes research that is aligned with the current administration's political ideologies.

> common sense says aren't worth the public funding

who is deciding what is "common sense"?

Thing about common sense is that it isn't.

After all the work to build a meritocracy and professional non political expert bureaucracy… in only a year they have reintroduced the spoils system. Politicians will now be given budgets to reward supporters with the financial spoils of their power. So gross

Great idea, all the US needed was scientific political commissars…

Another terrible blow to science. It's going to take decades to recover from this even after Trump and his corrupt cronies are gone.

Just add political commissars to army units (aka politruks) and horseshoe theory can be considered completely proven

Don't worry, everybody. This will take some time to have an effect. In the meantime, the people who actually make this country great will consign these criminals to the dustbin of history. It happened in 1890, you will see it happen soon, and I am there for it. I just hope it happens faster this time. I don't have 40 years to wait.

IF YOU ARE A SMART PERSON LOOKING TO DO SCIENCE AND OR RESEARCH: DO NOT COME TO THE USA.

They want to turn this place into a the real life version of idiocracy? So be it. The lay voter needs to see what voting badly does. They need to see consequences. The cure for cancer could be there in this research. WHO knows what could become of real mRNA research. But no. We just want to believe the world is 6k years old and some donor is gonna tell some begging scientists they get their funding or not.

this proposal is an extension of the WH crackdown on what it sees as misuse of USG funds for things that are deemed not in the best interests of the USG.

Among other things this proposal attempts to prevent:

1. prevention of DEI related grants

2. prevention of grants promoting anti-american ideologies

3. prevention of gain-of-function research (think covid-19)

4. prevention of ai-powered social media censorship research

5. prevention of FEMA dollars going to help undocumented immigrants

6. prevention of foreign aid dollars being spent in africa on gender ideology

It would but restrictions directly into the grant awards give strong tools to the USG to suspend the grant and prevent the money being dispersed via a subrecipient.

Am I wrong for thinking “good” for a lot of those points? Many are either harmful (I still haven’t heard what we actually expect to gain from gain-of-function research that makes up for the potential cost) to absolute wastes of taxpayer dollars.

You can agree with the stated goals and still disagree with the policy mechanism to achieve them. Indeed, much of the current administration's strategy appears to be to sane-wash the destruction of our scientific institutions while trotting out it's "goals" to non-critical observers. Of course, the true goals are what the policy actually accomplishes, which is to hollow out the capacity for competent dissent.

Are your stem cells pre August 9, 2001?

I, for one, rejoice at the upcoming American century of humiliation.

90 years ago we Germans called it Gleichschaltung.

Cancelling a grant at any time goes against the point.

How can anyone realistically plan resources, staff, whatever, if they have no idea it’ll be funded for a month or 20 years? They really want to destroy American ingenuity, science, all of it.

Just a bunch of white nationalist drones existing to keep the engine going is what they want.

Governemnt money should be approved by elected politicians or the President's electives. Until now the approach has led to abuse in many ways. Especially gatekeeping by professors on new ideas. Cold fusion comes to mind. Probably put behind by 40 years. I do not mind this new strategy by the President at all.