100% support (10s of millions of Americans do) many of these cuts when scientists are hired because they know someone, or are part of some “group” rather than being the best choice. Also not interested in funding anything not research related, including various “offices” that have nothing to do with supporting research. Lots of things to like about these cuts.
> 100% support (10s of millions of Americans do) many of these cuts
I doubt "10s of millions of Americans" can describe the core functions of the NIH
> when scientists are hired because they know someone, or are part of some “group” rather than being the best choice.
How do you think new appointees and hires in the NIH/HHS are selected? Political loyalty seems to be a better predictor than scientific impact or output.
> Also not interested in funding anything not research related, including various “offices” that have nothing to do with supporting research. Lots of things to like about these cuts.
The cuts and changes are dramatically impacting research support. Grant money is not being disbursed at the same rate since the new review changes began. You can more plainly characterize the changes as harmful to research in general than focused on removing whatever specific things you don't like.
You know so little about this, ad it is terribly frustrating to me. Scientists have been made out to be villains, when, on the whole, these are some the hardest working, most motivated people you will ever encounter.
They have absolutely no idea what they are destroying or why. An entire generation of scientists will be lost. It is breathtaking to watch what will surely be someday labeled as one of the greatest acts of intentional, national self-destruction ever.
The political right is obsessed with minimizing Type II error. They feel it's better to miss good research results than to have the wrong people performing the research or chasing the wrong ideas to start with (a false negative) and the further to the right they are on the spectrum, the more important minimizing the wrong people and ideas becomes. This leads to less discovery and successes because more research gets falsely rejected at the funding level.
The political left, of course, is the opposite and obsesses over Type I error. Accepting the wrong people and ideas is less important than getting good results. This leads to things like Lysenkoism, but also tends to reject less successful research, given the other checks and balances built into a healthy system.
If the first point of comparison you reach for is the Soviet Union in the mid 20th century, that would suggest that the American political left has not in fact, in recent times, been interfering with science to the same extent as the Trump administration currently.
I'm pretty sure only a small fraction of grants gave this issue, and the cuts have meanwhile being very wide, without any sort of intelligent approach (I know ppl doing stuff like material science at nasa that now have nothing to do because they cut costs of various inputs, while the very expensive lab equipment is sitting there now unused)
Can you cite any stats or studies that show that this is happening in any substantial amounts? This seems to be one of those "it just makes common sense" when the underlying data is ignored or assumed.
>100% support (10s of millions of Americans do) many of these cuts when scientists are hired because they know someone, or are part of some “group” rather than being the best choice.
Prove it. Prove this happens at a large scale. This is just nonsense talking points.
This should go without saying, but the person you're replying to obviously wants you to prove instances of scientists receiving grant money because they know someone or are part of a group. They are not asking you to prove the support of the people.
It's called the 2024 election. People have listened to so much propaganda aimed at destroying the anyone with credibility that can challenge whichever "truth" the propagandist chooses to push.
I'm sure the average person was completely fed up with the federal grant process for medical issues and it was a driving force in their voting decision. Excellent proof.
You're wrong, because if your karma fall below a certain number, your comments wont show up anymore. I can show you if you like.
People shouldn't be blocked from commenting because their karma goes negative. Spamming, hateful talk, etc should be a completely different system. Just because what you say is unpopular (in one place mind you) doesn't mean your words should be hidden.
As a libertarian right leaning guy I opened your story with pessimism but I really enjoyed it and greatly appreciated the personal responsibility you took in your situation. People should be inspired by this - it’s precisely because of personal responsibility that you are so successful.
> it’s precisely because of personal responsibility that you are so successful.
No it's not. It's absolutely not personal responsibility that gets people through addiction.
And if you read the entire article, this should stand out:
> I don't tell this story because I think it is clean, heroic, or universally applicable -- It isn't. I made TERRIBLE choices. I hurt people who loved me. I wasted chances that other people would have killed for. And even when I finally started doing the right things, I still needed luck, help, timing, forgiveness, and people willing to judge me by what I could do next instead of only by what I had done before.
That doesn't sound like personal responsibility that sounds like having people around you that stick around even after you mess up.
I've been an addict for over 20 years (and spent the last 10 clean). I've been in close to a dozen treatment centers. What set me apart from the others (and why I technically "made" it) had very little to do with me. What set me apart was having an insane support system and grace from people who loved me.
I could not have climbed out of the hole I dug on my own, that I am almost CERTAIN of.
At the same time, if I had felt as though I were owed "more", and indignant about being "wronged", I think it would have made me slightly vindictive and less-positive.
To me, "Libertarianism" is about the power of personal-effort and opportunity. Not everything will pan out if you "just try hard and long enough", but at least THINKING it will (even if you know it's unlikely) feels like a better mindset to me than the alternative.
I was commenting too much, and thus can't reply with the same account, but I wanted to say I do agree with the fact that while you can't control what happened to you in the past (and maybe even what led you to drugs in the first place), your addiction is yours and having a victim-complex (warranted or not) is pretty detrimental to getting clean.
I was pretty fortunate in that while I may not have had the picture perfect childhood, my family was always there for me and in no way shaped my decisions to use. So even if I wanted to feel like a victim, I'd get snapped out of it pretty quickly.
When I look back at what set me apart from most others (I've been in numerous treatment centers, jails, and hundreds of NA meetings), the one thing that stood out to me the most was my support system. Others probably had a greater desire or more to lose, but because desire alone isn't enough, didn't always make it through. One example, my mom would drive hours each weekend to come visit me in treatment. That just didn't exist for the others I was there with.
I was fortunate to have the help of others ("No man is an island unto himself") but I do think that having the mindset of not being owed anything helped me keep a positive perspective when things were their worst.
I'm not political, but I would consider myself left-leaning Libertarian.
My mother is an Ayn Rand-loving die-hard Libertarian that was very active in politics. She gave me a lot of her books that I read in my youth.
I was raised in a very "The world owes you nothing, you only deserve what you earn." and "by your bootstraps" capitalist family.
(Family did not pay for my first car, my community college, etc. "Go get a job, you bum!")
The original libertarians were anarchists, which is as far to the left as you can get. They adoption of the term on the right seems to date from the 1970s. Anarchists would typically see this version as rule by the rich, privatized tyranny.
You’re pretending like the vast majority of people are being oppressed by some military government but easily forget that tens of millions of us support the president and aren’t intimidated whatsoever by anything people like you could do.
In the beginning the people who vote for them may or may not support the ideology.
But once the regime is in place, over time a fraction of supporters start gaining benefits from it. Wealth, recognition, you name it. The regime controls resources of an entire country they can do it.
This core or supporters become the champions of the regime and will eradicate its competitors. Mentally or physically.
Example: try becoming an opposition party in Russia.
Historically if the erosion of institutions is already bad, there is no going back. Only external pressure (sanctions/wars) or civil war.
Elections work only if every group that has real power has agreed to yield it to institutions that will be elected. Either because they believe or because cumulatively the power they own is not enough to challenge the institutions.
> You’re pretending like the vast majority of people are being oppressed by some military government
I wasn't, or at least I don't think I am. What did I write that gave you that impression? I mainly wrote about freedom of speech and censorship, and nothing of meat about the military really, but maybe I don't realize what I wrote sounds like.
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