You're welcome, of course, to make your substantive points thoughtfully.
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
It's not hard to effect change over time with a few memos (e.g. no more "pregnant people") and reviews. It may not be quick enough for certain items already in motion, but that really doesn't matter if the pipeline quickly empties out as the memos take effect.
The scorched earth policy is intended to sow fear.
> sanity check (why it is problematic): The phrase sanity check is ableist, and unnecessarily references mental health in code bases. It denotes that people with mental illnesses are inferior, wrong, or incorrect. Using an appropriate replacement will also clarify what is intended.
There are of course endless examples. Such sentiments are so absurd on their face, and yet they abound. The first thing "actual leadership" must do is speak the truth and acknowledge that there is a problem.
[1] https://it.uw.edu/guides/identity-diversity-inclusion/inclus...
Even if someone thinks DEI had to go, they ought to be aware that their beliefs are being used as nothing but a smokescreen for unparalleled destruction and plunder.
I think it was someone on the right, Steve Bannon or even Andrew Breitbarting, that said politics follows culture. So to focus on culture first.
They're trying to change culture at the political level, and I'm not sure that's how it works.
They don’t have an entitlement to other people’s money, and if they are perceived as wasting it or spending in discriminatorily then you should expect the public to become less willing to give it to you.
I'm not saying this is what's coming from you, just reminded me of how many people have had so much animosity towards me over the years because of my intelligence, or maybe more so, my confidence in my intelligence. A jealousy/envy/admiration all mixed together.
I don’t think the public resent intelligence per se, but rather dislike when it is combined with judgementalism
The Federal government found a niche in basic research for a few decades and funded the vast majority of that. Per NSF, today even basic research is <40% funded by the Federal government, again not due to a decline in Federal funding but due to vast increases in industry investment. This shift toward industry investment in basic research was not overnight, it has been a monotonic trend for decades. Over the last century, the areas where Federal research funding is critical have dwindled greatly in scope because industry spends more money and is willing to take more risks.
One of the more interesting stories here is why and how this change happened in the US, to the point where the vast majority of R&D is funded by industry even in areas historically dominated by Federal government funding.
The idea that the blatantly illegal actions by the current administration reflect public will simply isn't based in any kind of reality- just calling it out as a lie.
For example, I suspect the public strongly supports taxpayer funding of medical research, but strongly opposes taxpayer funding for social sciences.
