What's happening inside the NIH and NSF
1639 comments
·February 4, 2025bawolff
ggm
I want to believe some will move for lifestyle reasons, but the problem is the post war IPO landscape (post 1980s really) across biotech and ICT has made one stark barrier: USA is a place where you can go from $100k to $100m vesting if you are lucky. That very few do achieve this isn't the point: you cannot do it, in almost any other economy.
You have to be socially smart enough to see that a $100k salary and lifestyle outcome for your remaining working career is enough, if not better than the prospect of uplift into mega-wealth, if your IPR pans out the right way.
For career scientists who were on the NSF grant train, they'd cracked a magic egg open. Beneficial to both them and us, society at large. Well, the other economies do fund research. They fund it badly compared to the NSF, the paperwork burden is less I am sure, but so is the size of the pot and the duration. You may well spend more time hassling next grant, than doing the grant funded work.
I've known US scientists who moved to my economy (OZ) and they say its a great place to live, but they keep ties to US funded research because its what made them attractive to the non-US university or corporate research environment. If that tie is going to be cut, they're competing against one quality only: skill. Sure, a more level playing field. But that, and english language competency aside, it will be a competition against scientists from the rest of the world, who also used to go to the USA and now are seeking jobs in other economies.
Karrot_Kream
There's a lot of other benefits to the USA attracting high skill talent than just salary:
* English language school system so your kids (if you have them) will speak a world language.
* Racially and culturally diverse cultures, cuisines, and communities.
* Exposure to goods from most of the world, even if marked up.
* Availability of international franchises headquartered in other countries in major metros.
* A strong passport that offers visa-free travel to many locations and very favorable visa terms in many others.
and more.
My partner and I are (different) Asians and the higher-skilled members of our family who wanted to emigrate mostly rejected Europe because of non-English language instruction and honestly just feeling racially uncomfortable in most of Europe. I have some family in Germany (who like it there) so it's obviously not impossible, but European ethnostate thinking is just unattractive to a lot of non-Caucasian talent. Canada, UK, and Australia are not like this and have potentially a lot to gain if the US kneecaps its research bureaucracy.
lrem
Eh, that's not a unique set of strengths. In any European country I know about (at least a dozen) you can get all-English education from kindergarten to PhD. In some for free, in some that's paid, but probably not as expensive as in the US. Everything is really rather a matter of tradeoffs and bang-for-the buck rather than categorical differences. Some European passports offer more access, but without the downsides of the US one. The only matter in which I don't know how to compare is the racial issues, but I hear the US is not exactly free of those either.
coliveira
Most of these perceived advantages are not unique to the US. I think there are only two things that still make the US more attractive nowadays: higher salaries and more jobs available to immigrants than in other places. If these two things disappear, the whole proposition starts to fall apart.
tormeh
Canada and Australia are immigration nations. The UK definitely is not.
77pt77
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jillyboel
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michaelbarton
I totally agree with you. Scientist originally from the UK who moved to the Bay Area. Salaries are much much better here
I will say that for myself, money is a means to an end for living a “good” life. I am starting to wonder personally where the line is for the trade off between salary and its ability to translate into a good life here in the US
ggm
I should say $100k was a terribly bad choice of salary, for either $USD or "$plausible other economy" -the key point came across I think. Your decision to move on would be made even harder by the IRS: you have a very long tail of consequence for your 401k/roth, property, and even just income: they want to know worldwide income for a long, long time. I almost took a gig in the US from Australia and realized I'd drop out of lifetime rating in the Australian private health insurance model, I'd lose payment to australian superannuation and the US versions I made would not be considered tax friendly income, unless I spent a lot of time and money with an accountant. I decided against the move for other reasons but financial complexity paid it's part.
Having said that, I got stung by 49c in the doller on my British USS Pension transfer in (I'm 63) for the lump sum. Sometimes, you just can't win.
amelius
> USA is a place where you can go from $100k to $100m vesting if you are lucky. That very few do achieve this isn't the point: you cannot do it, in almost any other economy.
That's a kind of lottery-mentality that Europe doesn't want to attract anyway.
kortilla
That’s not lottery mentality and thinking that it’s equivalent is why Europe isn’t innovating.
If someone wins the lottery and gets rich, society isn’t better off. If someone starts a new company that made a cure for some disease and gets rich, society is much better off.
You absolutely want to attract people that want to make huge breakthroughs with unlikely odds of success.
ggm
I tend to agree, but having met some of the people who pursued this dream, they are very very inventive. They're smart. If that energy chasing a dream could be redirected, they'd be doing amazing things. Mostly, they wind up realizing that the goal is illusive, and re-pivot to a saner outcome but by that time they are fully vested in "america" as a plan.
The bounty here, is the people on the cusp of realizing its not going to pan out but who are both very smart, and smart enough to realize they need to pivot. It would be almost a given they are consciously walking away from IPO manna. I guess if you include it in the pre-sort on applicants, you get to winnow out the people still glued to money-is-the-prize.
BTW the EU would welcome more IPR inside the EU. Some amount of bonus may have to lie in the packaging, to get to where the EU wants to be on IPR. Novo Nordisk style.
matwood
> That's a kind of lottery-mentality that Europe doesn't want to attract anyway.
It’s not lottery mentality, it’s risk taking. And it’s something that the EU should be fostering. The US encourages risk taking where failing isn’t even seen as a bad thing.
fsckboy
>That's a kind of lottery-mentality that Europe doesn't want to attract anyway.
the problem with the European thinking you describe is not lottery vs sure-thing, it's the idea that everybody within a geography should should think the same way and not all mentalities "belong".
robocat
> That's a kind of lottery-mentality
You're the one incorrectly using the concept of gambling replying talking to someone taking about risk versus reward (investing).
It is hard for somebody who believes in gambling to win at investing.
The US has both monetary and social incentives to create new businesses. I live in NZ where founders are discouraged by financial incentives and by social incentives.
scarab92
> That's a kind of lottery-mentality that Europe doesn't want to attract anyway.
Except that it’s the opposite of a lottery.
It’s almost entirely based on your skills and the decisions you make.
There are right-place right-time effects, but it’s still your decision to be in the right place for the current time.
Europe’s economy is badly lagging the US economy, and it’s because culturally they hold these types of incorrect, fatalistic, zero-sum views towards success and innovation.
qwe----3
Yeah, in Germany the rich stay rich.
madhadron
> USA is a place where you can go from $100k to $100m vesting if you are lucky.
And this is irrelevant to (very conservatively) 99% of scientists in the NSF and NIH.
lxgr
Never underestimate the lengths many people will go to for a cleverly framed lottery ticket.
ascorbic
Most scientists that I know aren't motivated by the prospect of going from $100k-$100m. As long as they have a good wage, they are far more motivated by having decent funding and facilities for their work so they don't have to spend half their time applying for grants.
m463
> USA is a place where you can go from $100k to $100m
"Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires" - John Steinbeck
Juliate
But how do you expect officials that are so bad at transitioning professionally enough, to be good at maintaining and fostering an economy that will support this financial attractiveness?
sseagull
I’m a scientist currently on an NSF grant. I am certainly poking around other countries to see what’s out there, and I’m not the only one.
A lot of scientists (at least in my field, computational chemistry) have decent skills that are transferrable to other areas. So I expect quite a few to move on.
scarab92
There’s not that many jobs going in academia in other countries, and you’ll be looking at a significant pay cut due to the strong US dollar.
Most likely, people who leave academia will be leaving for industry instead.
I do feel for those in the hard sciences, they have become collateral damage in what is mostly a battle between politicians and humanities departments.
mnky9800n
I dunno man my salary is six figures and I’m an academic scientist living in the Netherlands. My life is much higher quality than the equivalent could buy me in anywhere worth living in the USA. Like I agree the salaries can be low but you simply don’t need to make 300k usd to have a nice life here. I have a flat in the middle of the city of Utrecht where I cycle to work and pop off to the pub after and the gym is two minutes walk and I have a 400m ice skating track twenty minutes bike away. And on the work side I have free compute on an 3000 cpu cluster with also an gpu cluster of h100s and lots of resources for travelling for conferences and other stuff like that. And a lot of my startup friends here are here specifically because they went to San Francisco and got investment offers around 1 millionish and then tried to hire around and all the engineers were expecting 250k+ and then came to Europe and found people just as good who work for 80-100k. That’s a completely different runway for them and they actually have time to develop a product because they don’t have to pay so much and their people are still happy with their lives. Like I do agree there aren’t that many jobs like mine and Europe needs to get their heads out of their asses and poach as many America based scientists and engineers right now as they can. But I think American based people have this idea of Europe that prevents them from seeing their options here. I do think Europe needs more resources and less bureaucracy surrounding big science projects but I’ll make that point when I have my own big science project haha.
lumost
I've been suspicious that the quality of life cut is distinct from the pay cut.
Living in a dense European city, you do not need a car, healthcare is free, and you are generally afforded more time off and a stricter wlb compromise compared to the US. One doesn't need to eat takeout as often if there is time to cook. Depending on the country, rent/housing costs are more or less under control.
On the other hand swiss/Netherlands food is expensive even by bay area standards.
miki123211
> I do feel for those in the hard sciences
Those in the liberal arts probably have it even worse, as their experience usually doesn't translate to industry at all.
No idea if that kind of "research" is funded the same way as hard sciences in the US though, it definitely is there.
null
regularjack
Are you saying that US is the only country in the world where there are many jobs in academia?
addicted
The U.S. has also become ridiculously expensive.
Yeah the dollar is stronger which is great to buy imports.
But you cannot import housing, most healthcare, most services like cooks, cleaners and bartenders.
null
qwe----3
Good luck getting 500k+ grants in other countries. If you leave there won't be a shortage of postdocs looking for a new tenure track position.
sseagull
Depends on the kinds of positions. There's more to academia than tenure-track faculty (which isn't in my future at all anyway).
People around me tend to be in the RSE (Research Software Engineer) scene, which is growing in Europe. I, and many of my cohort, could fit in as research staff or faculty in many different disciplines.
Wouldn't get rich or famous, but certainly have a comfortable living working on interesting problems.
esalman
It sounds as if the universe revolves around the US. Did you know that one of the biggest HPC cluster in the world is in Saudi Arabia? I know grad students who went there got duplex villas for free lodging.
Before you start criticizing Saudi government, the reason we are discussing this right now is because a fascist government is forcing scientists out of the US.
anonylizard
This, the US is the country most willing to make daring bets on innovation.
Europe will not spend even 0.1% of its pension/welfare fund on big research bets. The private investors their will only want real estate investments, not fancy wancy "VC".
Young talent will flow one way from other countries to the US, because they've already seen what the grass is like on their side.
bilbo0s
Yeah that's kind of the thing.
I think a lot of these guys and gals are fooling themselves with the whole, "find another country" thing. There is no other country that is A) doing research at these levels, B) Flush with cash, and C) needs you because they don't have a population that produces the necessary thinkers. That's basically only the US.
bigDinosaur
This is the obvious conclusion. As the US trashes its own research ability other countries can offer good conditions to the scientists. I've never seen an own-goal so great.
queuebert
I might move somewhere that gave me a person grant. The U.S. works primarily on project grants, where you are funded to do a thing, but that thing doesn't always work, and most of the time it's a bit contrived in order to appeal to the funding agency. (This is probably so the bureaucrats can exert power over what is studied.) The system would work much better if individual scientists got guaranteed salaries to study whatever seemed appropriate, and if you needed money for equipment you can request it. This would lead to more crazy ideas being explored and less derivative, p-hacked slop carried out by graduate student slave labor.
ocschwar
Some of my favorite novels are David Lodge's campus novels, and an element in them is the never-ending lure of American academia for British scholars.
Now it's the EU's turn. Computer science is already becoming very, very French. See you guys in Grenoble.
yodsanklai
France is extremely unattractive for research. Lecturers positions suck (high teaching load and you need to speak French). Full-time researcher positions are extremely hard to get, and they pay very little, especially junior position. 2500 euros per month, which isn't enough in Paris and just ok in a smaller city.
ocschwar
What kind of employment does INRIA offer?
AndrewKemendo
As a seventh generation American and 17 year Air Force veteran (long separated), I’m suggesting everybody the US who has any skills, talent, sociability or empathy to leave the United States as quickly as possible.
I think that that’s probably the best route for anybody who is currently in America and doesn’t want to deal with the next 20 to 50 years of total deprivation.
Unfortunately some of us can’t leave so the best most people can do is find some place safe to land.
willvarfar
China, for example, could set up a very European-style English-speaking institute in Hong Kong or Macau with high salaries to attract scientists. Singapore and South Korea too. One day Americans might well follow the money and the research freedom?
bilbo0s
China's drowning in their own PhD's. The competition is fierce, and the pressure is enormous. The best and brightest over there are insanely capable men and women.
In all honesty, it's hard to see China wanting many of the PhD's that would be available from the US in a worst case scenario NSF/NIH funding collapse. There may be a place for the top 0.1%? But for 99.9% of PhD's, there are Chinese replacements that are, frankly, better and cheaper.
Hate to bring it back to money like that, but there it is.
sangnoir
I see Chinese nationals in US labs thinking a return to China is a more attractive now than it was a few weeks ago. Chinese institutions should absolutely capitalize on this.
jimmydoe
China has been funding students from global south, that has big room to grow if China can overcome xenophobia problem in its culture.
As for PhD from developed countries, it’s gonna be hard as you said.
willvarfar
There's also the angle that enticing the brains away from 'the west' is about denying the west something.
UncleOxidant
Heck, China has a reproduction of Jackson Hole, Wy. (See the documentary Americaville)
hinkley
The World Wide Web essentially exits due to grants from the NSF and alumni from those grants starting Netscape.
riffraff
But WWW was made up at CERN, you might as well say it exists due to EEC grants.
hinkley
I’ve too many recollections of browser developers bitching and moaning about yet another memory leak they discovered in libwww to believe that.
And I said the web as we know it, not the web period.
caycep
the irony of Andreesen now being one of those now gloating over its destruction
hinkley
Is he really? Where? I'm no Eric Bina but I ate from the same table and would be happy to remind him of the petulant brat reputation he left behind in the halls of NCSA.
llamaimperative
Just the ol’ pull up the ladder trick
scarab92
I don’t think that is a fair characterisation of Andreessen.
He’s always been a Democrat, including supporting Obama and Clinton.
His recent support of Trump appears to be a tactical reaction to some of the misbehaviour during the Biden administration such as debanking political rivals and encouraging race-based hiring.
softwaredoug
The big thing is this isn't really about any real monetary savings. What we get out of these budgets is a bargain:
> The biggest single share of the NIH budget goes to the NCI ($7.8 billion in 2024), and the second-most to the NIAID ($6.5 billion) with the National Institute of Aging coming in third at $4.4 billion. (See the tables on numbered pages 11 and 46 of that link at the beginning of the paragraph for the details).
> And to put those into perspective, the largest single oulay for the Federal government is Social Security benefits ($1.4 trillion by themselves), with interest on the national debt coming in second at $949 billion, Medicare comes in third at $870 billion, and the Department of Defense fourth at $826 billion and Medicaid next at $618 billion.
kristjansson
Even quoting the NIH/NSF budgets (or their line items) misses the point of the current actions. Yes, they're smaller fractions of the USG budget, but they not immaterial.
This is not an attempt to 'save money' at the NSF and NIH (and USAID). A serious, rational effort to reduce their costs / increase their efficiency does not start with grep-ing manuscripts for 'underrepresented'. Part Five of TFA is on the money. This is an ideological attack on acronyms, and what they symbolize to the attackers. The actual agencies, their relative importance to the budget, etc. do not matter. The iconoclasts are here to smash the icons.
meijer
Note: pg appears to be "generally sympathetic" to what Musk is doing here.
causal
Thanks for sharing, worth having the full quote I think:
> I'm generally sympathetic to what you're doing. But I hope you will take your time and do it carefully. This isn't just a company. Companies are born and die within the system, and it's ok. But this is the system itself we're talking about here.
PG sounds nervous. I have to imagine there are a lot of nervous conservatives who didn't think it would go this far and are now too scared to stand in the way.
lightbendover
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khazhoux
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alienthrowaway
Killing mawmaw to own the libs.
nonethewiser
Is that what they are saying?
cubefox
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drivebyhooting
Social security and Medicare are inexpugnable liabilities.
pjc50
Everything is expendable if you kick in the door and fire everyone, like USAID. I think they're politically smart enough to not cut off the elderly voters, but who knows.
fgededigo
Unless you don't need any kind of voter anymore
jaredklewis
Social security yes, but it seems to me that reducing the cost of Medicare and Medicaid should be very much possible. We need to provide healthcare but it should be possible to make that less expensive
arrosenberg
Medicare would become cheaper tomorrow if the government would negotiate drug prices down. Trump isn't going to do that.
bad_haircut72
Im gonna start a downvote party on myself haha but here we go - if you want cheaper healthcare, get rid of the medical licence!! Let the free market work. Of course it wont be better but rich people will pay theough the nose for the top level of care, middle class will get the best care the market can provide for what they can afford and lower class will get someone regurgitating chatGPT - but it _will_ be cheaper.
I continue to post this, not even fully convinced - Im scared I wouldnt be able to afford good care without govt subsidies, but I am open to the idea at least. I dont think care in the USA would be worse overall
adrian_b
What I find ridiculous is that USA spends more on the interest on the national debt than either on Medicare or on the Department of Defense.
arrosenberg
What needs to be overcome? They're directly paid for through payroll taxes.
fnordpiglet
And it comes to about $120 per tax payer in total. I’ve had dinners that cost more. Give me my science and medicine please.
anon84873628
Gee, I'm still waiting for these proclaimed anti-socialists & anti-marxist to kill the most obviously socialist programs in the country.
ikiris
Everything is expungable if no one says no.
jonstewart
Of course it’s not about saving money. It’s about extinguishing facts. This is Orwell 101.
Empact
So you still believe government-funded research is equivalent to facts in 2025? What about the replication crisis? The political control of research finance e.g. in Alzheimer’s research?
It takes either an extreme amount of naïveté or motivated reasoning to maintain that perspective, IMO.
matwood
> The big thing is this isn't really about any real monetary savings.
Of course not. The big gain is for Trump and Musk to say they did something. Regardless of how someone voted, I can’t believe they are still falling for this shtick.
timewizard
Then why are drug prices in the USA higher than anywhere else?
We're being robbed by these people.
thatfrenchguy
So many brilliant researchers in the US are funded by NSF grants. Even beyond public research, just the private sector benefits just from the training (and associated freedom from not having to chase money and TA) that NSF fellows get is immense.
Injecting dumb politics and refusing grants just because people put the words "biases" in their application is a great way to appeal to Republicans's undereducated voters (see https://www.commerce.senate.gov/services/files/4BD2D522-2092... for an example of their idiotic rhetoric) but also a crazy gamble on the US's ability to be a superpower in two decades.
Just look at what happened in France when right-wing governments started defunding research: a slow but massive brain drain of the best minds. What does the current administration think will happen to our economy when they start burning future brains when they're at the seed stage?
0cf8612b2e1e
No matter what happens in the next few years, the damage is done. It is now known that the next administration could kill your apolitical career with the stroke of the pen if your ideas vaguely support the wrong team.
If you have talent, why deal with the (frequently) middling pay and the existential risk that could follow every election?
alaxhn
So you don't think being forced to include a statement on diversity in every single grant request reviewed by the NIH was "injecting dumb politics" but you do think that being forced to NOT include a statement on diversity in every single grant request is?
thatfrenchguy
There’s a very big difference there between “including a statement in diversity” and “your funding gets pulled because you previously included a statement about diversity”. The new administration is essentially pulling funding from everyone who got grants previously based on those criteria.
Who do you think benefits medium term from our best researchers getting less funding? The toll on our economy will only be visible in 15-20 years, and it will be massive.
timacles
Destroying the economy IS the goal it seems like.
These money shark guys that have got a hold of our government and economy since 2007 seem to have a long term plan that is specifically designed to destroy the US economy. Its counter intuitive, since their wealth is directly linked, but they have some kind of plan.
flocciput
> forced to NOT include
== "not being allowed to include"
i.e. a restriction on free speech with more worrying implications than "injecting dumb politics"
scarab92
Diversity statements were used to facilitate race-based grant approvals. They should never have been legal.
anonylizard
Compelled speech is far, far, far worse than constricting speech by every conceivable dimension.
Even in day to day interaction, forcing someone to be silent, is far more of a gentler 'social action' than forcing someone to speak.
tgma
Really? You see a narrow contextual restriction for irrelevant information in a grant/hiring packet to be worse than compelled speech?
bloopernova
I think people are more concerned about the economic fallout and the illegality of what is being done.
insane_dreamer
Including statements on diversity, and defunding projects because they have diversity are two very different things.
And yeah, as a white male who sees few women, and even fewer people from minorities other than Chinese and Indian, in the hard sciences (especially computer related), I definitely support efforts to try to include them more. It results in more diverse views of a problem, which often leads to better science.
stonogo
You call it "injecting dumb politics," but I call it "explaining why I shouldn't believe you'll just hire your buddies." It's an attempt to prevent the grift everyone claims is in research, but it's been politicized by bad-faith non-participants.
esalman
Let's not sugarcoat it. DEI is the new N-word. Only people who are covert racists would be bothered by a mere statement about inclusion.
nyc_data_geek1
It's very clear once you realize the people perpetrating this don't care one whit for the "economy" writ large, only their personal wealth and that of their cronies. The dumber, meaner and more desperate the population is, the easier the time they think they'll have ruling over them, as unto kings in this new gilded age.
Of course, they forget what came after the gilded age. It's raining stockbrokers - err, oligarchs!
dekhn
that's bad strategic thinking (obviously) because it places at a huge disadvantage to our main competitors.
nyc_data_geek1
What makes you think they care?
obelos
To a large degree their wealth is transnational and will move on to the next trough after emptying this one.
wileydragonfly
I’m in leadership at a place everyone here has heard of. We are in absolute panic behind the scenes.
nonethewiser
Why do you think your workplace will be affected?
twic
FWIW this comment would work on almost any HN post.
pizlonator
Hang in there. Hope for the best. Don’t give up.
throwfgtpwd234
Remember that that is the goal. Acknowledge the data and deal with it as another obstacle.
Also, I'm wondering if multiple universities could band together to file a TRO and/or a class-action lawsuit against the government for something like estoppel.
muaytimbo
It's past time these institutions were audited. I had an NSF fellowship and was on numerous NIH grants during my PhD work (Chemist). All of them, even in 2013, had DEI language that made it clear if you were a white/chinese/indian male you were not going to be funded. The institutions, already, were self sabotaging, doling out tons of taxpayer money, not to the best ideas, but to labs that had a few women of various colors other than white working in them. It pushed me and almost all of the other chemists (who were generally white/chinese/indian males) in my class to leave the field either after our PhD or post-doc.
stevenbedrick
I can only speak for my own experience, but this is 100% not what I have seen (as an NIH-funded white male PI, and one of many at my institution and in my field). I just submitted an R01 last week, and can firmly say that there is no "DEI" language in the grant application forms or in the program announcement; anybody who is interested can easily see the kinds of documents that are required in NIH grants: https://grants.nih.gov/grants-process/write-application/samp...
No "DEI" boogeymen in there.
jmcqk6
Wow so not a single white/chinese/indian male has been funded since 2013? For over a decade? That's an incredible claim. Literally.
user3939382
So sex and racial prejudice has to be 100% efficient to be wrong?
Facemelters
you know what they're talking about, don't play dumb
avmich
I don't know. Can you elaborate?
lbarron6868
This isn't an auditing. This is a gutting based on senseless and illegal procedures. You want to get rid of DEI, fine. That doesn't mean get rid of the whole agency. This is incredibly alarming.
ironhaven
Here is another perspective, there are many more deserving research proposals than there are grants. Even if they banned all minorities from grant funding there would still be many disgruntled and unfunded scientists languishing without grants.
l0t0b0r0s
I think the "many more deserving research proposals" more funding as well. So we should judge the proposals by merit, and not the immutable characteristic of the researcher. By the way, why should tax payers fund grants for foreign countries research and education?
insane_dreamer
I'm not disputing your personal experience, but I've worked on numerous science-related NIH grants over the past decade and the vast majority of performers were white (sometimes asian) males (myself included).
> The institutions, already, were self sabotaging, doling out tons of taxpayer money, not to the best ideas, but to labs that had a few women of various colors other than white working in them.
I'm calling this complete BS.
esalman
I am a male of Indian descent, my PI was white male and we collaborated with a number of Asian male PIs and postdocs. I was in PhD research starting in 2015. All of us were funded.
Quit the BS.
charintstr
This is an absolute trash take. I've been through the NIH grant process as a white male and there was absolutely 0 mention of diversity, DEI, or whatever other qualifying characteristic of my grant. It came totally down to the content of my proposal. You don't know what you're talking about
CamperBob2
This isn't an "audit." It's an extralegal raid.
username223
As Sir Ian Jacob said, the Allies won World War II because "our German scientists were better than their German scientists." Brain drain is a real problem for fascist countries.
lanstin
So should we move to Thailand or Canada or ???
username223
Canada, the EU, Australia, ...
Places with solid research institutions and less-dysfunctional governments.
DiogenesKynikos
The problem is that academic hiring is anemic in those places (as it will be in the US very soon, once Trump is done wrecking the NIH, NSF, etc.).
scarab92
CA, AU, and some EU countries are about to elect conservative governments
myheartisinohio
Canada where we can be debanked for supporting a protest.
antigeox
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anothercoup
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yibg
Part of me thinks this is just incompetence. People put in charge to "change" things without knowing what the thing is or does and just randomly mashing buttons.
electriclove
I contend that there existed too much incompetence across what the government has been funding. I’m looking forward to a ‘change’ for more competence, efficiency, innovation, accountability, etc
einrealist
The process is the problem. There is no oversight and accountability for Musk and his "DOGE". That's pure poison to Democracy and to a functioning society.
Musk is neither competent nor efficient. He looks at line items and makes stuff up. He destroys a hundred useful things to destroy a bad one. Details don't matter to him. Its the same con man mentality that feeds off the works of his workforce. People who think he is a genius are gullible.
cbracketdash
It's easy to dismiss eccentric people as conmen. But you have to consider, he has been at least partially instrumental in at least 2 impossible companies: electric cars and rockets.
Regardless of what you think of his intellectual capacity, he has a proven track record of organizing people to produce exceptional outcomes !
An inevitable characteristic of his algorithm is chaos: delete as many constraints and parts as possible. When things break, re-add those necessary parts.
justanotheratom
Can you give specific examples to back up your comments about Musk? I am quite gullible otherwise.
pizlonator
His manage-by-trolling technique is demonstrably effective in industry.
It’s just that government isn’t that.
throwfgtpwd234
What "competence"? What "efficiency"? What "innovation"? What "accountability"?
There is no accountability or efficiency in unelected technocrats blowing up what was working without a plan or subject matter expertise.
yibg
I have no problem with that. I don't even disagree with government waste, we all see it. If what trump and musk did was:
- Audit spending (at USAID or wherever else)
- Come up with details of where there is waste, being transparent about it for the public to see and review
- Use that to recommend change to congress / the president, again in full public view
Then I'd have no issues. The problem is, what's actually happening is:
- Musk and team are in there with no accountability and no transparency. We don't know what he has access to, what was done
- Unilaterally making changes without public review or oversight. It's a "trust me bro" stance.
- From the few things that has been published, many seem to be outright lies (50m on condoms) or extremely biased conclusions (IRS direct filing)
throw10920
Thank you for making an actually thoughtful comment with very reasonable points about the ways in which Musk et al are failing the taxpayers/citizens. I'd add on another one, from the article:
> On Sunday, CNN reported that DOGE personnel attempted to improperly access classified information and security systems at the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and that top USAID security officials who thwarted the attempt were subsequently put on leave.
Retaliation is very bad, especially when it comes to trying to protect national security information. As a semi-technical person running several large technical companies, even if he had zero experience with the DoD before, Musk should at the very least understand how important it is to guard your "IP".
l0t0b0r0s
>- Audit spending (at USAID or wherever else)
I dont need a line item list to know that USAID DEI Scholarships in Burma $45.00M is wasteful spending.
>Come up with details of where there is waste, being transparent about it for the public to see and review
The waste is right there in the name. Funding DEI Scholarships in Burma is not how the American people want their taxes spent.
>- Unilaterally making changes without public review or oversight. It's a "trust me bro" stance.
The public review was the presidential election. Making changes without oversight is what an executive order is.
freejazz
>I’m looking forward to a ‘change’ for more competence, efficiency, innovation, accountability, etc
Where do you see that? What accountability is present?
infogulch
20% of funding going to study replication is a good start.
sanderjd
This is hopelessly naive.
avs733
With a focus on the hopeless part.
I feel more and more like a large portion of the American public exists at the weaponized intersection of the subbing Kruger effect and Chesterton fence. They hear so many vague platitudes about waste that it’s just taken as dicta without evidence. That somehow provides a global mandate to break anything.
If we survive this I hope that the government workforce starts to get more respect of the hard work they do on complicated problems to make fair processes and that they stop getting just blanket accused of incompetence for ideological gain.
bamboozled
It's a little from column A and a little from column B.
chasing
Incompetence. Mixed in with a fair amount of malevolence. Mixed in with that rich guy thing of really hating smart people because why do they always keep telling me I'm wrong and embarrassing me in front of people if they were really so smart why aren't they rich like me huh?
jimkleiber
> Mixed in with that rich guy thing of really hating smart people because why do they always keep telling me I'm wrong and embarrassing me in front of people if they were really so smart why aren't they rich like me huh?
I never thought about it like this and it makes so much sense. I have financial (and maybe social) power therefore I should have intellectual power and if you show to people that you have more than I do, then I feel embarrassed and will use my financial (and social) power to make you feel embarrassed.
aqueueaqueue
He has 4yoe though. This is by design.
yibg
We all know years of experience doesn't always mean someone is qualified.
Meneth
Side note: the article's author is Derek Lowe, who also wrote this memetic piece on Chlorine Trifluoride: https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/sand-won-t-save-yo...
throwawaymaths
just two days ago:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42910829
the problems that led to these frauds are structural--no amount of patching the system will fix this.
maybe we should consider the possibility that we are due for a refactor, which is often painful, but especially painful for people (or code) with an entrenched incentive to continue existing.
i dont mean to defend what the administration is doing but I'm warning that everyone crying doom and gloom and threatening to move abroad, etc. might be eating crow. ironically, the very people most likely to move abroad (in it for the career, not for the principle) are biased to be the types bringing down our system of science. bad science is the science equivalent of a zirp.
Trasmatta
> no amount of patching the system will fix this.
> maybe we should consider the possibility that we are due for a refactor
People in tech need to stop with those analogies. A government is not a codebase. You can not apply the principles of "refactoring" and "patching" in the same way. It just doesn't work like that. But the problem is we have a bunch of people (some malicious, some clueless) trying to do exactly that.
tfigueroa
Precisely. There’s no wisdom in the approach. “I’ll try refactoring - that’s a good trick!” is a poor approach.
You can try it, but the consequences of a poor refactoring? Look to the planned economies and five year plans.
The government is not a codebase; that mistakes its artifacts for its process. And the importance of process - in politics, in government - cannot be overstated.
stainablesteel
yes you most definitely can apply these to government, what an insidious comment.
not only does it NEED to be done, people VOTED for it :)
anonylizard
Government is exactly a codebase. Government bureaucracies is essentially constricting human judgement to more robotic code-like behavior, that's the only way to build large systems.
You say government is not like code, then what exactly is it? Can you describe it in an effective way? Or are you just going to raise your hand up and say there's nothing we can do about it, nothing we can do about the $2 trillion/year titanic deficit?
Historical governments often needed little beyond an army and a tax collection system. And tax collection system was primarily data gathering and analysis, since if you knew how much property someone owned, you can easily tax them for an appropiate amount.
The tech way of thinking has proven extremely successful in many industries already. That's why tech companies (and tech adjacent ones, like say quant trading, or even index fund trading) have been so economically dominant, and utterly kicked out the traditional MBAs from their pedestals.
Stop being a self hating programmer who despises the mentality of tech.
apical_dendrite
This is so naive.
Not all of government is the DMV.
Government has a massive policymaking function, which is not "robotic code-like behavior". It's about solving nuanced, challenging problems. Government has a huge research function.
And tech has created some great things, but it's also created some really terrible things, mostly because of this "move fast and break things" mentality that doesn't consider the consequences of its actions.
vharuck
>You say government is not like code, then what exactly is it?
Government is mostly individuals deciding goals and attempting to convince others. Then rules are added to prevent harm to others or using corrupt methods of convincing. That "code" part is more like a moderated forum: necessary for the huge task, but it's just the framework for the actual content.
>Historical governments often needed little beyond an army and a tax collection system.
And historical computers used vacuum tubes. What's your point?
>The tech way of thinking has proven extremely successful in many industries already.
Even in tech companies, the richest people are almost always the smooth talkers. Because the best, and really only, way to get money is convincing somebody else to give it to you. You can do it by offering a better product or charming them.
Most government goals aren't technically difficult and certainly don't require advanced algorithms or fast computers. The real work is aligning people.
nullocator
- Part of government is the legal system which a Judge's whole thing is being endless nuanced in understanding and applying what the law means; I would not considered this constricted robot like behavior even though the law is literally a bunch of written down rules.
- Part of government is funding research that involves people doing real experiments collecting real data? Are novel experiments those of constricted robots or LLMs?
- Part of government are the dedicated every day folks who are doing the best they can despite being overworked and under resourced who have to make life and death decisions in the moment every day (air traffic controllers), who monitor and coordinate relief and management of disasters big and small in a very interconnected world (we just had a global pandemic, are culling record numbers of chickens, had a bad hurricane season, and large wildfires) these are not people behaving like robots they are just people following laws and regulations primarily passed via efforts of lobbyists, or else are those that are written in blood.
Don't like the way a part of government works? Reform it. Don't try to burn the whole thing to the ground by doing shit like emailing the people responsible for keeping planes from crashing into each other that if they want to they can fuck off for the next 8 months on the tax-payers dime and then find a new low-stress job. Don't like certain regulations or the ways laws are weaponized against everyone but corporations and the wealthy? I get it, me neither I'd like to see affordable housing too. Unfortunately, congress has the responsibility to fix that, not Donald Trump, not Elon Musk, nor any of his former SpaceX interns. If they want to make those changes they should get elected to congress or hell maybe for shits and giggles use some of that lobbying money for the common good they claim to care so much about.
dauhak
I'm very pro some systematic auditing/cleaning of out sclerotic waste, but I don't see how anyone can look at the way this is being handled and not be incredibly worried
I think it's the second-order stuff here. Even assuming Musk were to do a fantastic job at just clearing out inefficiency in a smart way (which seems unlikely given the actions he's taken/leaks around cutting funding based on key-word matching etc.), the higher-order point that someone can just buy their way into the President's inner-circle and have complete free-reign to seize government operations and make changes with 0 transparency/accountability seems like it does just stupid amounts of harm to the integrity of the system
throwawaymaths
> make changes with 0 transparency/accountability seems like it does just stupid amounts of harm to the integrity of the system
pray tell who was accountable for the grant issuance in the first place? was congress approving every disbursal? could the citizenry vote up/down on every RO1 or SBIR that went past the NIH desk?
dauhak
Hey man, if you wanna make a point just make a point - no need to try the whole snarky rhetorical thing
Ofc not every decision is fully democratic, but the people making them are beholden to rules and systems which are - or at the least, have a clear chain of command back to individuals who Congress has direct authority over. No one ever said you needed 100% democratic oversight on every action, as long as those actions are obeying the system that was democratically established
The problem is doing it in an extra-legal way, where the Executive Office is giving a crony power his branch doesn't/shouldn't be able to bestow, where people telling this crony no when he tries things he shouldn't be able to do all seem to get put on leave etc
kristjansson
Whatever rational refactor/rewrite you want does not start with `find . -iname 'dei' -delete`.
awfulneutral
Refactoring means incrementally changing things in a non-destructive way.
frickinLasers
> ironically, the very people most likely to move abroad (in it for the career, not for the principle) are biased to be the types bringing down our system of science.
What the hell are you talking about? I chose to get into science for the benefit of the masses, rather than, for instance, helping some corporation abuse human psychology to sell more ads. If there is no money to do the science, I have no choice but to emigrate.
edit: And to give you an example of the science being targeted by these early moves: pulse oximeters have a racial bias leading them to overestimate the oxygen saturation of minorities, which led to deaths during the pandemic. All the work toward addressing that issue at the FDA has now been terminated, because it's related to DEI.
throwawaymaths
> I chose to get into science for the benefit of the masses
why do you suppose most science benefits the masses?
a stunning amount of science is negative. homme hellinga cheating and claiming a triosephosphate isomerase, for example. stripey nanoparticles, as another. Thousands of western blots that were cleverly edited by unscrupulous postdocs. everything by diderik stapel. anil potti.
those are the ones that got caught. so many more got away with it.
and yes, if you can't tell, i know what the fuck I'm talking about.
> And to give you an example
why dont i give you an example. NIH is responsible for 80% of the budget of an NGO that collaborated with WIV and advocated for GOF research. on the grounds of likely being responsible in part for the deaths of millions worldwide maybe we should suspend funding to the NIH until all of its policies can be reviewed
tmerse
Luckily those things never happen in the private sector. Theranos?
frickinLasers
The small fraction of people perpetrating fraud does not warrant leaving science for private corps to pursue. The end result from that is companies sitting on their IP and suing anyone who comes up with something similar--with the cost passed on to consumers, and the pace of technology development slowing.
You still haven't explained how this is biased toward people "in it for the career, not for the principle."
esalman
You might be on to something here.
Yes there is structural issue.
When researchers see that appealing to DEI and inclusion make is easy to gain finding for, allegedly, research that is wasteful and not meritorious, everyone will attempt to do it.
Conversely, when appealing to "equality of white people" becomes more likely to get you funded, everyone will also attempt that. Which is going to be the case going forward. If you do not believe me, DJT has appointed someone at the helm of EEO commission who explicitly does this in their LinkedIn bio.
So the issue is structural, it is not dei or white power.
insane_dreamer
scientific fraud is absolutely a problem -- a universal problem, because it's inherently a human problem (it's inextricably tied to academic careers, so it's not really a money problem, it's a career problem--in other words, people aren't doing it to get rich, they're doing it to further their career or prestige; that doesn't make it any better, it just makes the context more complicated)
but what the admin is trying to do has nothing to do with "making science right". it has a very clearly stated goal of 1) rooting out anything remotely related to DEI; 2) rooting out anything related to previous investigations into Trump and the Jan6 attempted coup (see purges at FBI, DOJ); 3) cutting government spending (so there's money to pass a promised tax cut); 4) whatever Elon decides he wants to gut
None of these have anything to do with making science more honest and accurate. If that were the goal, you'd probably need to _increase_ funding because you'd need more reproducibility studies.
chasing
Refactor. Ha. This is just randomly and mindlessly deleting large chunks of code because you think it's woke.
Not a single personal alive thinks these institutions are perfect. But only morons think haphazardly defunding shit without understanding what you're breaking or what the real-world ramifications might be is a way to fix problems.
The past couple of weeks have historically stupid.
throwawaymaths
no not because it's woke. because it's broken. this is literally the system that let a person become the President of Stanford a federally granted research professor with years of fabricated data that absolutely fucked some people that i personally know. lets say, negative man-decades of research just among people in my limited circle. i guarantee you this was not an isolated incident
the sooner we cut this shit out, realize consequences, and start over, the better.
refurb
Ok, so all payments are paused while funding is reviewed? Allowance for emergency payments to keep the lights on?
This is taxpayers money and these agencies report to the President under the executive power. A shocker that government agencies might need account for spending.
And I’m sorry “its not a lot of money” doesn’t fly when all the “its not a lot of money” is $8 trillion dollars. The federal deficit will never get smaller if nobody looks at the “its not a lot of money” line items.
a_puppy
> Allowance for emergency payments to keep the lights on
This article notes that some federally-funded nonprofits "couldn’t access funds to make payroll": https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5115026-white-house-fund...
People rely on their paycheck to pay bills! If anyone stops getting their paycheck, that's not "keeping the lights on". Do you agree that any "review" mustn't prevent anyone from receiving their paycheck?
a_puppy
Federal money is allocated by Congress, and the President is required to spend the money as allocated by Congress. The President does not have authority to cut spending. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impoundment_of_appropriated_fu...
> Ok, so all payments are paused while funding is reviewed? ... This is taxpayers money ... A shocker that government agencies might need account for spending.
Reviewed for what?
Reviewed for whether the spending was authorized by Congress? If Musk finds that money is being spent in ways that are not authorized by Congress, and cuts that spending, great.
Reviewed for whether the money is being used efficiently to accomplish the goals set by Congress? Again, if Musk finds ways to stretch the same amount of money to accomplish more, that's great. For example, if Musk makes USAID more efficient so it delivers more aid for the same amount of money, that would be wonderful.
Or "reviewed" for whether Trump/Musk agree with them? It's illegal for the President to unilaterally cut programs just because he doesn't like them.
refurb
The idea that the President, the head of the Executive branch, has zero power over Executive branch spending down to the agency level, because Congress said X must be spent and dammit they must spend it, makes no sense.
By that logic and taken to an extreme, Congress could pass a budget law (overriding the executive’s veto) to set executive spending for specific agencies to only be spent on computers, say the FBI, and the executive is powerless to Congresses control over the executive function to carry out the laws that the Congress has passed?
So clearly the intention is one of checks and balances, for example the President can’t spend money Congress does appropriate but also has some power over how that money is spent as such to exercise the power of the Executive.
So let’s see what the Constituion says as per Congress.gov!
“The constitutional dimensions of impoundment disputes have been confined to the political branches. The Supreme Court has not directly considered the extent of the President’s constitutional authority, if any, to impound funds.16 However, a case decided in 1838, United States v. Kendall,17 has been cited as standing for the proposition that the President may not direct the withholding of certain appropriations that, by their terms, mandate spending.18”
https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artII-S3-3-7/...
Very interesting! Sounds like something he may want the Supreme Court to rule on!
I for one look forward to getting some clarity on this issue.
a_puppy
Congress quite literally has the power to pass laws. According to the Constitution, the President "shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed"; the President's oath of office requires that he execute the laws set by Congress. So for example, if Congress were to pass a silly law saying "the FBI shall spend exactly $X on computers, down to the cent", then the President would be required to make sure the FBI spent exactly $X on computers, down to the cent. The President has many powers, but "deciding not to execute the laws passed by Congress" is not one of them.
Quoting from the page you linked:
> Impoundments usually proceeded on the view that an appropriation sets a ceiling on spending for a particular purpose but typically did not mandate that all such sums be spent. According to this view, if that purpose could be accomplished by spending less than the appropriation’s total amount, there would be no impediment in law to realizing savings. Impoundments were also justified on the ground that a statute, other than the appropriation itself, authorized the withholding.
In other words, if Congress appropriates $X for the FBI to buy computers, then Congress didn't necessarily mean "the FBI shall spend exactly $X on computers, down to the cent". It could be interpreted to mean "the FBI may spend up to $X on computers". But Congress has clarified this ambiguity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Budget_and_Impou...
> the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 specifies that the president may request that Congress rescind appropriated funds. If both the Senate and the House of Representatives have not approved a rescission proposal (by passing legislation) within forty-five days of continuous session, any funds being withheld must be made available for obligation.
In other words, if Congress appropriates $X for the FBI to buy computers, but the President thinks $X is excessive, then the President may ask Congress for permission to spend less than $X. If Congress doesn't grant the permission within 45 days, then the President must go ahead and spend the full $X. Again, Congress literally has the power to set the laws, and the President is required by his oath of office to execute those laws.
Furthermore, the Supreme Court already ruled on this exact question: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Train_v._City_of_New_York
> President Richard Nixon was of the view that the administration was not obligated to disburse all funds allocated by Congress to states seeking federal monetary assistance under the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 and ordered the impoundment of substantial amounts of environmental protection funds for a program he vetoed, and which had been overridden by Congress.
That case seems directly analogous to what Musk is currently trying to do. Nixon lost that case in the Supreme Court.
Even if the Supreme Court did rule that the President had impoundment powers, it would probably be on the condition that "[the purpose of the law] could be accomplished by spending less than the appropriation’s total amount" (quoting from the page you linked). For example, the President would still be required to buy sufficient computers for the FBI, even if he spent less than $X on them. The President still wouldn't be able to just unilaterally decide "no, the FBI doesn't need computers, this is a waste of money".
So, I think it's already quite clear that Trump/Musk do not have the constitutional authority to just start cutting government programs. Do you agree? If not, which part do you want further clarity on?
tills13
This stuff is a rounding error against SS, Medicare, and the military.
refurb
It’s all a rounding error until it isn’t.
Doesn’t make tossing $50B out the window “ok”.
It’s like the people making a $100k who don’t know where all the money goes. It’s all just a rounding error, but rounding errors add up fast.
paulproteus
8 trillion is the amount the debt rose while Trump was in office last time: https://www.consumeraffairs.com/finance/us-debt-by-president...
How much do you think he will raise it by during this term?
refurb
Looking like it will go down this time! Isn’t that what everyone seems to be complaining about in this comment section?
odyssey7
This hurts, but it also presents an opportunity for rebuilding.
An outcome could be a greater diversity of voices influencing research, rather than the NSF and NIH continuing to serve as monoliths.
The NIH is the dominant force in medical research. Remember how theories for Alzheimer’s having an infectious etiology were sidelined for decades? And, to this day, for autoimmune conditions?
intended
Do people recognize what rebuilding entails?
odyssey7
I think it means the next administration would have to hire new people to offer grants to researchers. This would bring new perspectives into the process. There is never any shortage of researchers to fund.
And that the ranks of researchers, which are often stagnant due to a shortage of jobs for PhD holders, would experience turnover in the interim, creating openings for fresh voices when the funding resumes.
Ideally, imo, the grant process could be distributed across more organizations rather than being as centralized as it has been. The next administration might be free to do so if the existing orgs are no longer thriving at that time.
intended
why.. where will the money come from? And next administration?
This is 14 DAYS since election. March isnt even here yet. There are 4 tax filings before the next election.
Please take a look at things like demonitization, or many "harsh" medicine programs in other countries.
The fallout is going to be decades. The government is going to pivot to bread and circuses. The sides are going to get more entrenched, and then theres going to be riots and violence.
This will pass, and new crap will come in. This is banana republic territory, not America territory.
jbeam
[flagged]
watersb
Research labs wholly owned and operated by large corporations were prevalent sources of innovation throughout the 20th century in the United States.
Obvious, probably for Hacker News crowd:
• Bell Labs • Xerox PARC • IBM Watson, Almaden Research • Dow Chemical
I'm missing the big ones from petroleum and agricultural businesses. Aerospace.
I'm willing to believe that a political retreat from 21st century choices looks towards legendary captains of industry, rather than sprawling government bureaucracy, as a source of American greatness.
My attempt to frame this week's gleeful destruction of government institutions as a revitalization of the fountainhead.
But I don't know. It's easier to just call it the same old spiteful hatred of science that is as American as apple pie.
animal_spirits
From my basic understanding of Bell labs, the government granted AT&T a monopoly in communications with the condition that they spend a portion of their revenue on public research. The other labs I don’t know much about, but my guess is it was either similar situations or high corporate tax rates incentivizing spending profits on research to decrease their tax burden.
Seems like a good opportunity for other countries to recruit scientists.
I think its underappreciated how much of America's modern success comes down to attracting scientists and intellectuals from war torn europe in the 30s-50s.