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Sure, but what has that to do with the administration's attack on funding and independence? As someone whose lost a grant award under the current administration's attack on science, I can tell you with assurance that this is more about political power and revenge than it is about improving scientific rigor. If we continue on this path, we will only get worse at science as a nation.

There are reforms that should be pursued: restructuring grants away from endless and arduous begging for money through the tedious grant process of today towards something more like block grants

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Fomite 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

Echoing this. I've had two grants pulled in the last admin, and one in this one, and all of them were very sweeping - and wildly inefficient, killing projects during the phase of ramping up, rather than productively working.

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homieg33 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> As someone whose lost a grant award under the current administration's attack on science, I can tell you with assurance that this is more about political power and revenge than it is about improving scientific rigor.

I'm sorry to hear this, but curious what makes you certain of this? Revenge for what? I ask, because I hear this same template over and over with this administration. eg. DOGE isn't about government efficiency its about revenge.

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andrewflnr 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

Literally nothing about their approach resembles an attempt at efficiency. Efficiency is a ratio of input resources to output. No part of the DOGE program I've seen or heard of even considers that relationship. Simply firing people at best results in reduced output, or hiring more expensive contractors. And you've flushed institutional knowledge down the toilet. It's like turning a car off and pretending you've boosted its fuel efficiency because nothing is burning. Except that the car saved you time on other tasks, oops. Firing people and then immediately having to rehire them is hilariously inefficient. Rewriting legacy software like they're attempting at Social Security is a classically inefficient blunder.

I don't know if it's all about revenge, but it's absolutely not about efficiency. It's an edgy teen's idea of tough governance. It's the epitome of penny wise, pound foolish. It's false economy all the way down.

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Fomite 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If for no other reason, if you terminate a grant for cause, you have to specify why.

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aaronbaugher 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

[flagged]

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dralley 5 days ago | parent [-]

How much more straightforwards do you need it to be? How about this?

> “We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected,” he said. “When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains. We want their funding to be shut down so that the EPA can't do all of the rules against our energy industry because they have no bandwidth financially to do so.

> “We want to put them in trauma.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBH9TmeJN_M

That's the current director of the Office of Management and Budget.

For the love of god dude, the White House posted a ICE deportation ASMR video. The House GOP posted this shit: https://x.com/HouseForeignGOP/status/1906008542382879094

You don't have to be paying that much attention to get the vibe that a lot of these guys do, in fact, enjoy cruelty for its own sake. Trump and Vance enjoy humiliating Zelenskiy in the Oval Office and insulting the entire country of Canada, threatening to annex them etc. They enjoy making heads of companies and nations come to them and beg (https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1086367432957...)

Noticing these things isn't an "emotional crutch", it's understanding the actual reality of the situation.

	▲	ModernMech 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		The only thing they're not doing is twirling mustaches.