1. Political Appointees Take Control of Grant Awards (§200.205). Senior political appointees, rather than career scientists or program officers, would now be required to conduct a "pre-issuance review" of every discretionary grant before it is awarded. These appointees are explicitly forbidden from deferring to peer reviewers or routinely ratifying their recommendations.
2. Peer Review Is No Longer Binding The rule explicitly states that peer review recommendations "remain advisory and are not ministerially ratified, routinely deferred to, or otherwise treated as de facto binding."
3. "Gold Standard Science" as an Undefined Political Test (§200.205) without defining it in any concrete or measurable way.
4. Active Grants Can Be Terminated at Any Time, for Any Reason (§200.340). The rule codifies and expands the authority to terminate active grants mid-award simply because they are "inconsistent with program goals or agency priorities."
5. DEI, Gender Research, and Related Topics Banned as Grant Conditions (§200.300)
6. Broad Prohibition on International Scientific Collaboration (§200.220)
7. "Domestic-First" Framework for Research Awards (§200.202(e))
8. Applicants Can Be Denied Based on Organizational "Affiliations" (§200.206)
9. E-Verify Mandated for All Grant Recipients (§200.303)
10. OMB Claims Direct Binding Authority Over All Agencies
There's 19 total, some might have merit with a bit of tweaking but the majority of this is flat out anti-science garbage.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Sunday May 31, @10:14PM (1 child)
> Active Grants Can Be Terminated at Any Time, for Any Reason
That's the problem with "company funded" research grants, they never give more than one round of experiments' funding at a time, invalidating the research because: when things aren't going the way they want, they terminate further investigation - skewing all results to "the happy places" for business.
With precedents like these, I think a healthy dose of "evidence based, law abiding, transparently accounted" qualifications for seeking political office could / should be instituted on the next pendulum swing.
🌻🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 01, @01:53AM
It's not about "research". It's just a heist (and cover up) of public funds in broad daylight, theft made legal. In the US, publicly funded science is truly dead. Now it's just political scientology.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 31, @11:14PM (13 children)
>5. DEI, Gender Research, and Related Topics Banned as Grant Conditions (§200.300)
Whatever will we do.. it's the end of american science.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 31, @11:22PM (12 children)
Did you ever learn about this one in school?
https://hmh.org/event/the-burning-the-tulsa-race-massacre-of-1921/ [hmh.org]
That's where we were before civil rights reforms got serious. Myself, I'd rather not go back there. I would rather live in a world that tells the truth about its past instead of denying that it happened.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 31, @11:55PM (4 children)
As long as you're focusing on race, you're focusing on the difference.
How many Jews can you identify? What's the last Jew joke that you heard? when was it? How are jews fairing in modern society?
If you want racial inter-mixing, treat them the same. As long as you treat them different, ... you're being racist.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by khallow on Monday June 01, @01:50AM
Keep in mind that there was a difference in the Tulsa massacre between the 300 or so people who were killed and the people doing the killing.
How does studying real ethnic conflicts from the 1920s not treat people the same?
(Score: -1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 01, @10:31AM
With a side of gaza strips. The jokes are actually kind of funny. But yea, the story is the same. Jews, like "whites" are persona non grata so their discrimination politically doesn't matter.
They don't care about racism, not in reality; the current thing is what sets the zeitgeist. It's how you can define racism as prejudice + power, have all the power and still not call it racism.
If you study the thinking of any time where "bad" things happened, it was always similarly justified by contemporaries and usually "legal". The very same "experts" we should trust usually supported and rationalized it. Then, maybe later, in hindsight...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 01, @04:54PM (1 child)
If you know you're supporting a system that consistently treats non-caucasians worse than caucasians, despite claims that it is indifferent to race, and you don't do something about it, you're racist. Until the system is fixed, justice necessarily involves treating certain racial groups differently explicitly, because the implicit system treats them unfairly.
Fighting against this means you're a racist. Does that offend you? being called racist because you support a system that is racist? Well shut the fuck up, nobody is apologizing because you have Big Feelings about being an asshole.
There's a reason 'woke' is a word with an exact, academic meaning and there's a reason racists have been working really fucking hard to obscure that. Racism depends on lies and unclear thinking.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 01, @05:56PM
What if I just don't care? Call me whatever you want. It's your religion and performative morality, not mine.
>nobody is apologizing because you have Big Feelings
Same. If you don't like ThE SySTeM, move to another country that you think is oh so much better and experience how they treat you. Might come to find out that in group preference is a human condition. Take your suicidal empathy friends with you.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 01, @10:17AM (6 children)
What does science or history have to do with grievance politics of DEI?
Have you heard of the Holodomor or the Rwandan genocide? Pogroms? The My Lai massacre was well into the civil rights era. Sounds like this is a thing we do as a species and you're kidding yourself.
Let's jump to 1960s Angola or the Congo. Hundreds of white settlers lynched, their property razed. Do you think they deserved it? Or was the same mechanism at play. This world doesn't tell the truth, it hyper focuses on one part of history to set an agenda.
And you know what? It's going to happen again in either direction or a new one. It's probably happening as we speak in some part of the world.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Monday June 01, @05:51PM (5 children)
The primary responsibility of the US government is supposed to be the safety and general welfare of all US citizens. The people living in Tulsa OK when it was destroyed were US citizens. So why would the US government want to both know about the historical incident and use that as hints to prevent a repeat?
Oh, I know: Because even now, in 2026, a lot of Americans look at the kind of citizens that lived in Tulsa at the time, or more recently Compton, or Harlem in NY, or Detroit, or eastern Cleveland, or lots of other places and think they aren't real citizens, they're people who escaped off the plantation and should be put back there by whatever force necessary. And those aren't exactly fringe views, seeing as how the current presidential administration is arguing, publicly, in court, that the Fourteenth Amendment doesn't say what it says in no uncertain terms about who is a citizen of the USA.
I'm also pretty sure you wouldn't have the same kind of "ho-hum, another genocide, whatevs" attitude if you knew anyone who was a victim of one. Because you are right that this stuff has happened very recently too: Just ask a Bosnian, Rwandan, Ukrainian, or Gazan. Why you think that somehow makes it OK because it's common, though, I really don't follow.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 01, @06:27PM (4 children)
" they're people who escaped off the plantation and should be put back there by whatever force necessary"
Sounds like a strawman. The complaints I actually see are mostly about crime and violence. If your exposure to minorities is only in that light, you might defer to pattern recognition rather than academic drivel. It becomes a cycle, poor reputation causes stereotyping, stereotyping leads to lost opportunity and poverty. Official consensus is to blame it on external factors giving people an easy psychological out to never take accountability for their actions when they're pinched between prejudice and the bigotry of low expectations.
"So why would the US government want to both know about the historical incident and use that as hints to prevent a repeat?"
Yea, that's exactly what's been happening. Not hyper focus on race and trying to score revenge points. I definitely want to hear from people who's mantra is "the only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination". Can't see how that could end badly or make things worse, not like there's a good 10-20 years of examples.
"Why you think that somehow makes it OK because it's common, though, I really don't follow."
Try harder. It's not OK but it's a part of the human condition and not something exclusive to certain groups or the west, as much as your kind tries to paint it that way.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Thexalon on Tuesday June 02, @02:08AM (3 children)
So here's the thing about that: Crime and violence is, by all available measurements, declining rapidly [nypost.com]. And yes, that includes among the people you're thinking do most of the crime.
But also, I know for a fact that discrimination is not about crime. As in, I have been in rooms where a candidate for a job, with no criminal record of any kind, was rejected solely because of their race and where people were passed over for promotions solely because of their race, completely illegally but they weren't caught. I know other people who have been in rooms where that has happened. I also have noticed numerous cases where people who were the same racial or nationality background as the boss got promoted much faster than everybody else. And I can tell you that the businesses that I've been in that pushed against those kinds of stereotypes got more talented people working for them and promoted in them as well - it turns out that racial discrimination is bad for business, but people do it anyways.
I've also been told I lived in a "bad neighborhood" despite crime being extremely low and the area being neatly mown lawns and successful local businesses and kids playing games outside, solely because a lot of my neighbors were black.
And the stats back me up too: For example, lots of studies have determined that a white guy with a felony conviction has better employment prospects than a black guy with no record. So don't tell me this is about crime, that's BS and you know it.
You can look at all of that and say "ho hum, that's just the way the world is", probably because you're a white guy who is quite confident you will never be on the receiving end of that sort of thing. Or you can say "that's morally wrong and factually stupid, and we should fix it".
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03, @08:40AM (2 children)
In a subset of cases, sure. Sometimes the discrimination is based on a person's race and sex, like being a white male. [latimes.com] Other times the discrimination is based on a person's sexuality, like being a heterosexual. [usatoday.com]
It is no sillier to assert that it is always about crime than it is to assert that it is never about crime. Like all things it is nuanced and there are plenty of examples to refute either blanket statement.
That's terrible. How did the internal corporate whistleblowing channel respond when you reported this incident? And how did the US Department of Justice Civil Rights Division - or equivalent if in another country - respond to your report of this incident? Did they blatantly ignore or dismiss the evidence you provided to them?
Likewise. How did the internal whistleblowing channel and federal civil rights division respond to their reports of such incidents?
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday June 03, @11:30AM (1 child)
It was a small company. The person doing the racism was one of the owners. There was no "internal corporate whistleblowing channel".
The agency that handles these kinds of complaints is the EEOC. They get approximately 80,000 reports annually. They take legal action on about 100. So to nobody's surprise, they did not respond at all to a relatively minor case. My state's agencies are even less funded and care even less.
The main mechanism for any enforcement of the anti-discrimination laws is that the wronged employee or candidate could file suit, but then the burden of proof is on them to prove that they have been discriminated against because of a protected factor, and proving that is extremely difficult most of the time. In the most blatant case I witnessed, I wasn't directly part of the interview process and could not get hold of the candidate's contact information to inform him of the opportunity to sue (and I did try). The person doing it was so bold as to announce his decision and his reason for it to the entire cube farm, he wasn't trying to be quiet about it in the slightest.
Usually, the people doing the racism don't say "We aren't hiring/promoting this person because they're $RACE". They say "We don't think this person is a good cultural fit for our organization" or "We don't see strong leadership potential in this person". Or in a recent application I heard of, it was "We think this person is too passive for this position" rather than "We think this person is too female for this position". The know that blatant racism is illegal, so they try to hide behind plausible-sounding excuses, and then just do it.
As for the discrimination I've faced personally, I've been penalized far more for being older than I ever was for being white and male and cisgender and straight.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05, @09:39AM
How long ago had this occurred? It doesn't sound even remotely within the last decade given the massive exposure to personal and financial liability such a blatant admission would entail in the current legal environment. Not that any such event occurring in the distant past makes it acceptable... But to point out that in the interim the pendulum has swung so far into the opposite direction where today there are a significant number of people who openly advocate for the exact same kind of discrimination but with the roles reversed.
Fair enough. But it would be rather naive to presume that only those in favor of discriminating against racial minorities or women would employ such pretenses. With the rise of DEI and mainstream culture rationalizing that it is okay to discriminate against certain scapegoated "oppressor" demographics this type of malfeasance cuts both ways.
How do you know you were penalized more by age than the other characteristics? Did they send you a rejection letter stating that as the reason and open themselves up to a massive lawsuit? Or perhaps the company was IBM?
Your anecdote of not knowingly experiencing discrimination according to those factors is all well and good. But that still does not justify perpetuating the exact same kind of discrimination according to those factors against groups you personally consider to be acceptable targets. And those who were actively discriminated against for such reasons are no less wronged regardless of whatever demographic they happen to be.
(Score: 5, Touché) by Whoever on Monday June 01, @12:55AM (12 children)
Where are all the people who voted for Trump? Why aren't they defending this policy?
(Score: 5, Funny) by JoeMerchant on Monday June 01, @01:42AM
'Murica FIRST, cuts waste, cuts fraud, gives money to the BEST people to get the BEST results, it's obviously the BEST policy for the GREATEST nation EVER!
🌻🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Monday June 01, @02:13AM
If they're thinking about it at all, they're happy that none of their hard-earned dollars are going to that crap. This administration is by and for the people who stuffed nerds into lockers, and they have no intention of paying them a dime to do all that weird stuff that nobody cares about. Let some suckers elsewhere in the world pay for science, we need that money for UFC fights and blowing stuff up in Iran.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 5, Insightful) by epitaxial on Monday June 01, @02:20AM
They won't ever know about it because their state propaganda channel doesn't mention it. At most all they will say is something about no more DEI research and the morons will stand up and cheer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 01, @09:52AM (1 child)
so you won't see them.
>Runs all people to the right of stalin out of a space.
>Where are all the trump voters?
>Whoa! GOT EM!
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 01, @03:37PM
God Awful People - GOP
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Monday June 01, @05:02PM (2 children)
They probably have jobs instead of government handouts to defend.
I voted for this and I'm happy about it. Along with like 99+% of the population.
The type of people who will be affected on the borders of this are exactly the type you'd expect and they are going to complain very loudly, but they certainly don't represent the values of 99% of the population. #4 is the only somewhat questionable one. Say you want to rent land to put a ... seismometer upon it or whatever. If its impossible to pull your funding for five years you sign a five year lease. That's tricky if they could in theory cancel next week. My guess is this will result in some middleman landlord BS that basically funnels grant money to unproductive middlemen in some financialization scheme (I'll buy the land as a private citizen then lease it month-to-month at a high cost and my high cost only benefits me not the general public or "science")
Overall nine steps forward, one minor stumble, whatever...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday June 01, @06:57PM
So if a scientist approached me and asked me what it would take to get a seismometer on my admittedly fairly small acreage, I would say something like "Happy to help, where do you want to site it, let's sort something out about power usage, how you read it, etc". Because I see the progress of scientific knowledge as more important than trying to make an easy buck. And I suspect most scientists do too, because it's way easier to make money being a Wall Street guy than a scientist.
That your first instinct when you see "science funding" is "who is skimming off most of it" better represents the problem in the USA than anything else, because it basically says there's nothing that won't be sacrificed for the Almighty Dollar. When even the churches start looking very much like pyramid schemes, we're already announcing the decision that small green pieces of paper are all that actually matter to us. And if that's really true, we can't accomplish anything at all as a society anymore.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03, @09:00AM
Agreed. As an independent this favorably exceeded expectations.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by driverless on Monday June 01, @07:10PM
It's not even original, the Reichsministerium für Wissenschaft, Erziehung und Volksbildung ("Reich Ministry of Science, Education and Culture") were doing this 90 years ago. The only real change is that their bogeymen of choice were Jews, not Chinese.
(Score: 3, Touché) by arslan on Tuesday June 02, @05:58AM (2 children)
Not an american or "Trump voter" as you put it, but maybe you can discuss the topic instead.
This particular clause, "5. DEI, Gender Research, and Related Topics Banned as Grant Conditions", seems to be a good move:
Perhaps you can park your ad-hominem and discuss the points, in particular how the above is bad?
My take, activism has no place in science grants - unless its specifically about the scientific impact of activism.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Tuesday June 02, @06:51PM
That's a strawman. No one said this was about activism -- you appear to be equating DEI with activism.
However, according to the rules above, a study about the scientific impact of activism is very likely to get struck out as relating to DEI.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Whoever on Tuesday June 02, @07:08PM
I should also point out the Galileo and Copernicus were considered activists in their day. Would you ban them?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Monday June 01, @02:16AM (7 children)
If this hobbling of science becomes the majority attitude, then America really is done. I was turned on to an interesting book, Day of Empire, that has as its theme that the mightiest empires in history became mighty by treating scientists and engineers fairly and respecting science. Most polities have ranged from mildly hostile to extremely hostile to science. One mighty empire I had always found particularly baffling was the Mongol Empire. How could a few uneducated horse archers take over such a vast area? The Mongols encouraged science and engineering, and did so at a particularly low time for science elsewhere in the world, that's how. America has been the home of academic freedom, and has been well rewarded for that.
Are these bullies who have seized power in America going to keep burning coal and oil out of spite and some really weird emotional attachment to wanting to "win" an argument with climate scientists, using their stock-in-trade bull, gaslighting, and snow jobs that never has and never will win a reasoned debate? Their thinking, such as it is, is so messed up. They profess not to care what science says, but they're obsessed with defeating science. Don't seem to get that you can't beat up facts. They try really hard to suppress facts they don't like through harsh and severe punishment of anyone who dares to dance with those disliked facts. Same goes for lies they don't like, not that that puts them on the side of reason. They fight lies with lies.
If science in America is being sunset, then it only remains to learn what other polity will take up the banner. Europe? Maybe. No, I do not see China emerging as the leading polity in the world, not so long as they continue to regard science as mercenarily as they do. India? Mmm, possible, but in recent years, India has regressed, choosing the anti-democratic Modi for their leader. America restoring its scientific programs, or Europe taking up the cause seem the most likely for the near future. What about Canada or Australia? I think not, not alone, because vast though their territories are, they simply aren't populous enough. However, they certainly could join with Europe. Brazil? Or Argentina? Or, or, Mexico?! I have long heard that English law has lead to freer societies than those based on Spanish or Portuguese law. I am unsure if that is somewhat propaganda, or does have a basis in fact. The fact is, that Spain was notorious for the Inquisition, bungling away its power and empire by being excessively conservative, so that, for instance, the mighty Spanish Armada was humbled and defeated in 1588. If that legacy persists in Latin America today, then it would seem that no Latin American polity will emerge as the haven and beacon for science. How about Russia? No way, not with a warmonger bleeding them in an utterly idiotic war. Is there any other place? Perhaps South Africa? Or Indonesia? To sum up, America has turned more hostile to science, yet may still be the best or 2nd best place in the world for science but only because most everywhere else is worse. If America should worsen, or some other place improve, then at some point America will see a scientific exodus to dwarf the trickle away that is occurring now.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Monday June 01, @02:52AM
> America has turned more hostile to science, yet may still be the best or 2nd best place in the world for science but only because most everywhere else is worse.
This sums up my feelings about recent events. While deeply disappointing to see much of the progress made during my lifetime being dismantled and discarded, I look around for "greener pastures" and find precious few. There are definite spots around the globe that are better than the US in one dimension or two, or ten, but the sum-of-all comparisons just don't justify pulling up stakes to try to live as an immigrant there vs stuck in our familiar ruts here.
🌻🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by zocalo on Monday June 01, @07:14AM (2 children)
If not, you should, because that's what seems to be the playbook here, whether the realise it or not. Seriously; what the US is doing to itself now is pretty much exactly what every single one of those historical empires did before it collapsed and was replaced by something else - which, in many cases, wasn't another empire or whatever, but basically turmoil; war (invasion or civil), some degree of anarchy, and a whole bunch of other less than great stuff to have to live through. Unfortunately for the rest of us, the effects tend to have a ripple effect, so no, we're not just going to get to watch from the sidelines and shake our heads sadly while we pass the popcorn.
That those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it is still very much the case, it seems.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Unixnut on Monday June 01, @09:02PM
And those that do learn from history can only watch in despair as they are dragged into yet another historic repetition by those that don't (or worse, those that do learn but state "this time it's different"), especially if the cycle is entering its difficult and destructive phase.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday June 02, @02:40AM
I came up with this notion of a "stupidity cycle". There's a more sophisticated version of it that I wish I could remember. Goes like this:
1. Life is hard, because people are ignorant.
2. Hard living drives people to become resourceful and smart.
3. Smart peoples' improvements make life easy.
4. Because life is easy, society isn't driven any more and people dumb back down. Repeat.
Yes, all these historical hyperpowers lost their mojo. I think they all failed not because it's the nature of things, in the idea of "planting the seeds of their own destruction", though it could look like that. I think it's because none of them were able to achieve what I think is the next step in civilization. That step is often called the End of History, in the sense that there will be no more wars. One way or another, until such time as it is possible to colonize other star systems, population growth has to end. The grim way is to overpopulate and send the excess boys away to die in war after war, and hope that doesn't get out of hand and go nuclear. Perhaps suffer through epidemics and famines too. The nice way is everyone settling for having no more than 2 kids on average, and, crucially, as fairly as possible.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Rich on Monday June 01, @12:19PM (1 child)
I recently saw the "Yamato" film. Towards the end, one of the characters makes a statement that pretty much sums it up, paraphrasing: "We're all going to die here, and our death and the loss of our great ship will be useless for the outcome of the battle. However, it will not be useless for future generations, as it will stand as a monument to remind them to choose knowledge and science over fanatism and religion to avoid such losses."
For China and science, I have to dissent. They have one of the strongest STEM drills in basic education worldwide, probably only behind Korea. This leads to a large workforce that has the mental tools to tackle about any scientific field. The Chinese merely choose to assign them to areas where it matters for them. Yesterday, I read a number that CATL has 2000 scientists assigned to their solid-electrolyte developments. Battery storage is where it really matters in the post-fossil age. The West is only going to be on a level playing field in the future if it catches up by being even better. And these increasingly hi-tech fields are not where slave labour and environmental derestriction would provide any gains. (Or are you calling this focus "mercenarily"? I feel there will be enough spillover into broader fields that this is not a real issue, the breakthrough has to be with bundled force, the rest will sort itself, along the German saying: "Nicht kleckern, sondern klotzen." )
As for Russia, I don't think they thought it was "useless" to invade. The brass told the government "We'll take Kiev in a week", much like that historic "We'll take Moscow by November" failure. And the government, in its geopolitical influence thinking, went along with it, in denial that their MIC is one huge mole hill and everyone runs Windows, so it was exactly known where they would be to be stopped. As a thought experiment, imagine the Mexicans get fed up with all the mass killings and cartel violence. They conclude everything the West has to offer has failed, and ask the Chinese for assistance with a brutal 1 million strong extermination commando. The U.S. would invade on the spot. (Or could you imagine a PLA division stationed in Tijuana - even without thinking about the much farther reaching Monroe doctrine?)
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Monday June 01, @10:34PM
What I mean by "mercenarily" is that China doesn't have the best attitude for really progressing in science. They do respect science. But they still keep scientists on short leashes. Academic freedom is limited. Heck, freedoms of all sorts are limited. What do they have to match the likes of Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and John Oliver? Nothing! They pamper scientists with stuff such as free room and board, and exercise equipment and such like swag. They expect useful results in exchange. That's mercenary. Free room and board, nice though it is, isn't what advances science. Further, their focus is on tech, not all sciences, especially not social science. They DON'T want any social scientists suggesting that democracy really would work better than their Confucian style Communism.
I could be wrong about all that. Maybe China has become more enlightened. If anyone knows better, do tell. Perhaps Hong Kong has shown China a thing or two.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Tuesday June 02, @01:37AM
There are other routes than public funding. I think science has already become hobbled for some time since so many of us consider publicly funded science the only possible route.
I suggest instead of going through a long list of feckless countries, you look in the mirror. You too have the power to fund science.
First, it was a lot of few, uneducated horse archers starting with some of the most advanced military technology and most competent military leaders of the day. By the end of the conquest of northern China, the Mongols had in excess of 100k of those guys, plus the siege engineers that they had captured. Their invasion of the Khwarazmian empire used an army of around a quarter of million. The technological and tactical superiority of the Mongolians meant they routinely took apart larger foes. As to scientific research, when they cared they mostly cared about military technology since that helped win wars for them. Everything else was uninteresting to them - Kublai Khan being the notable exception.
The empires that were conquered were heavily invested in science and powerful too. The Mongols were just in a different league.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by turgid on Monday June 01, @07:23AM (4 children)
Or at least it would be if ordinary people and innocent scientists weren't severely harmed by it. This is straight out of Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. It's almost as if the USA wants to die.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 4, Insightful) by canopic jug on Monday June 01, @07:52AM (1 child)
It's almost as if the USA wants to die.
Well there seems to be 1.5 full political parties devoted to that end. And there are many kompromats in office taking orders which can likely be traced via investments and PACs back to the Kremlin which does want it to die. I call it part of a larger attack because without a solid educational system, the US cannot have much if any of a future. That divestment from education and science started at the end of the 1970s with the Reagan administration. It has been the only long term policy or strategy over time. Sawing away at the education has been a way of sawing away at the US, and it has been going on for three generations now. To turn that around would take some serious effort and investment, both of which would have to be applied consistently over at couple of generations to even begin to see results.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday June 01, @02:20PM
> both of which would have to be applied consistently over at couple of generations to even begin to see results.
I graduated high school in the mid 80s, and my impression is that we're beginning to see the results of my idiot classmates from back then finally getting around to voting.
Thing is, I don't know that it was actually net better in the 70s, or 60s or 50s... it was better in some dimensions, and worse in others. From my perspective, I see a generation that's starting to die off who care a whole lot less about the well being of their children than the generation(s) before them did. In part, this feels like a result of life getting easier overall. Kids growing up in the 30s and 40s had more genuine challenges and hardships than those who grew up in the 70s and later, and the parents of these new kids born into the cushier world seem more apt to kick 'em out, stop supporting them, and put up the "I've got mine, now you F-off." signs.
While history is good to know as a reference point, it's a bad predictor of where things are actually going. Are the current policy changes in the US reminiscent of certain atrocities of the past? Sure. Has the US rounded up more than 5% of the population and shipped 'em to death camps? Not yet. Should the US contuinue down this path until that happens? I don't see how that would benefit more than the tiniest sliver of the population, but Brexit and every recent US presidential election including the Obama wins has demonstrated: you can convince the majority of voters of just about anything.
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 01, @10:14AM
The only thing that makes sense to me is that "depopulation agenda" I read about on some fringe sites, The Deagel Report. The Georgia Guidestones, Agenda 21. Club of Rome.
Destroy the support infrastructure. Keep us all occupied with boogymen while our resources are slowly taxed away. Monetary collapse. Bogus money. "Legally" "add liquidity" , causing inflation, then tax the money we "made" ( numerically, not in value. Then tax again for just having anything (property tax) while slowly but surely the wealth of a nation is legally extracted from the public and given to makers of law via taxation.
They will have us build their structures and the means to defend them, and enough stores to last through the inevitable famine/shortages resulting from allowing the infrastructure to deteriorate, then sic is on each other to fight over remnants, counting on the common people to lack the ability to fight the beast. I am seeing already where our technology and machinery is being designed with integral kill switches built in and IP laws in place to keep the common people ignorant of how the physics of how their stuff works. Make sure they have to have permission from a permission giver. Everything "classified" in one way or another.
I think this is what is behind this fervent rush into AI as the elite need to preserve the knowledge of building and operating the support infrastructure without having to deal with the people who built and ran it before.
It looks to me like the "elite" are planning on helluva surprise for us. Bankers. All done by usury and exclusive control of money supply and the convenience of currency. Economies of scale, the race to the bottom, and the ability to tax. Keep everyone ignorant until ready for the rug pull. Wait it out 20 years or so, and the whole world is yours, free and clear of anyone else's claims. They have all killed each other off, or defend their claim any more than a wolf can defend it's den from an armed hunter.
Reminds me of "Ardra" of Star Trek TNG.
Maybe I am full of shit and delusional. With what I have been seeing going on around me, I find myself at a loss to make any sense of it. Seems like the whole "civilized" world is hell-bent on destroying that which our ancestors built.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by istartedi on Monday June 01, @02:30PM
It's almost as if the USA wants to die.
There's a general phenomenon of people having all their desires fulfilled and then rotting. You see it in Hollywood a lot. Look at people with fabulous wealth, and there's often some self-destructive insanity. The USA is that, en masse. It didn't start with Trump. The institutions were self-hating, and the reactionaries are just self-hating in a different way.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 5, Funny) by turgid on Monday June 01, @08:50AM
Research grants science YOU!
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 3, Insightful) by pTamok on Monday June 01, @12:19PM (3 children)
Edward Tufte expands on this: "Feynman’s statement is the last sentence of his famous report on the shuttle Challenger accident in 1986."
https://www.edwardtufte.com/notebook/richard-feynmans-nature-cannot-be-fooled/ [edwardtufte.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Monday June 01, @02:28PM (2 children)
And still: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_pi_bill [wikipedia.org]
In 1897 the Indiana Senate considered a bill which changed the value of Pi... The Committee on Temperance to which it had been assigned had reported it favorably, but the Senate on February 12, 1897, postponed the bill indefinitely. It had been nearly passed, but opinion changed when one senator observed that the General Assembly lacked the power to define mathematical truth.
This likely only happened due to the coincidental presence and influence of Purdue University professor C. A. Waldo - reception in the local press was mixed, with initial mostly positive support.
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(Score: 2, Interesting) by VLM on Monday June 01, @05:27PM (1 child)
The pi bill is funny because of how its used in propaganda so heavily.
Basically, an elderly (declining?) old dude with lots of money and friends got a buddy not to propose pi=3 which is buried DEEP in the bill, but to "give a gift" which initially everyone thought was really nice. What politician dislikes free gifts?
Oh yes, something for free? We like that, vote yes. I wonder how many politicians bothered to read past the first paragraph LOL. Does it matter if its true or not if its free? Well, from a financial / political / leadership standpoint... no.
The definition of truth comes solely from authoritarianism still hasn't changed in academia / "science". He never actually claims its correct, just that the authorities approve.
Ironically he did "pay to publish" just like academics do today. So the "authorities" never supported him beyond cashing his check. Crazy old guy who used to be a respected doctor a few decades ago wants this to be his swan song; well there's worse ways to go out, his money is as good as anyone elses, print it.
Its interesting that the education committee who passed it unanimously, again, didn't rule on if its true, just that he was giving it to the state "for free". Sure, we like free things. It does not seem illegal to give a patent to the state, or so they thought, at the time. What are they going to do, rule its illegal to give gifts to the state? Who wants to be the politician most known for turning down a free gift? Nobody I guess. Is it even legal as an "officer of the state" to refuse a free gift?
Also I suspect there were numerous early practitioners of the "there is no such thing as bad publicity" going on. I highly doubt any other chair of the education committee has ever gotten decades of international attention, even if its mostly mathematicians making fun of it.
I think a key part of the story is intentionally avoiding the absolutely hilarious, numerous, sarcastic parts of the story. Like they referred this to the Temperance committee which focuses on not being drunk. Holy F thats a "slap in the face" level of sarcasm, implying the bill was primarily concerned with public drunkenness and alcoholism of the original author. In modern era I bet the elderly dude would have tried to file a lawsuit over that kind of reputation damaging tabloid level slap in the face.
But in 2026 its the usual people trying to grind the usual axe for the clicks on social media so we'll overlook the real story in favor of the straw dog "ha ha dumb politicians really believed pi was 3". Uh no.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday June 01, @06:57PM
> Who wants to be the politician most known for turning down a free gift? Nobody I guess.
Current negotiations around re-opening the Strait of Hormuz involve $300B in... money going to the recently bombed country to help them rebuild. Politically, these could never be reparations - that would be like the Emperor of 1920 Japan being asked to publicly admit he had gone senile and infirm, impossible due to the loss of face for the imperial institution. So, instead, we're going to "make smart investments with private money" (no doubt backed by schweeeeeetheart tax break deals) to do the rebuilding of the things recently blown up - not so different from what the little Bush did in Iraq, I believe - although this time I doubt we're getting as much ownership or "goodwill" from the owners of the re-constructed works.
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