You would think the "Freedom of speech" crowd was up to to arms over a list of banned words from the deep government.

But no, they still seem to busy on Twitter being angry about a Muslim Mayor in New York.

fluidcruft a day ago | parent | next [-]

I understand your impulse to say that but political appointees are the opposite of "deep government" so your expectation about what their supporters would think is completely wrong.

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walrus01 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

They can't seem to decide whether Zohran Mamdani is going to first implement total sharia law, or full red banner style communism. In response I have already seen people printing a few satirical tshirts with a mishmash of soviet era/hammer and sickle iconography and minarets and moons glorifying the Socialist Peoples Republic of Mamadanistan.

	▲	tdeck a day ago \| parent [-]
		It's very simple. Free speech means you should be able to say bigoted things and keep your job and/or highly paid speaking engagement. It doesn't mean you should be able to write an op-ed opposing genocide without being arrested, detained for months, and then deported. The "free speech" crowd has no interest in those issues.

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watwut a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

"Freedom of speech" crowd curiously picked whose speech is important freedom thing and whose speech is actually anti-free-speech, because it is uncomfortable for the former free speech.

Trying to remove this or that group from civil life and push them into helpless silent situation is important free speech. Protesting this person is not free speech, it is infraction against free speech. Offending certain group is important free speech and they should grow a thicker skin rather then responding. Responding to that is infraction, because bigot has free speech right to never hear something that does not make them feel good.

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analognoise a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I’ve found the “freedom of speech” crowd understands freedom the least; notably, that rights come with responsibilities. They want the rights, none of the responsibilities, and to be arbiters of the rights of others (again, they really don’t understand freedom and rights).

A similarly daft group are those who believe in “states rights”, and they make the same mistake: they want states rights, unless it contradicts other things they want. It’s not a real position, they’re fascists.

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dnautics a day ago | parent | prev [-]

since when does freedom of speech cover "getting money from the government". there is broad latitude for to government to restrict the speech of employees in general (if you are a nonappointed employee of the executive branch you cannot lobby the legislature as a matter of separation of powers, if youre in the military or privy to top secret materials, theres a ton of things you can't say).

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xenadu02 a day ago | parent | next [-]

I don't think your argument is a genuine one in this case.

The government is and always has been the primary driver of science research funding. There simply isn't enough of a known payoff for private investors to bother and private philanthropists have never come close to making up the shortfall. Or perhaps more accurately the government stepped in because private individuals would not and the risk was falling dramatically behind the world in research.

Now new administrations have always been able to influence grant awards. But rarely have they been so ... bad at their jobs? Who really thinks a keyword list is the right way to filter grant applications?

People have always been driven by ideology but the current US admin is just so stupid. Shockingly incompetently stupid. Even if you agree with their ideology do you really want this clown show being the ones implementing it in such a ham-fisted idiotic way?

	▲	ZeroGravitas a day ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> But rarely have they been so ... bad at their jobs? Who really thinks a keyword list is the right way to filter grant applications? Depends what you (and they) think their job is. RAGE was one acronymn thrown about and name-checked by the vice-president "Retire all Government Employees". Russel Vaught said: > We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. 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... We want to put them in trauma."
	▲	dnautics a day ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		> There simply isn't enough of a known payoff for private investors to bother and private philanthropists have never come close to making up the shortfall. not true. in the us, the government funds only about half of all research and development expenditures. > private philanthropists have never come close to making up the shortfall. you are certainly not thinking about university endowments. Numerically most university professors are operaring from a startup budget given by the university, not a grant. even in an r1, most professors do not come in with external money. > bad at their jobs? Who really thinks a keyword list is the right way to filter grant applications? i mean. i dont know which is dumber. thinking a keyword list is a good idea for cancelling grants or thinking that a grant application is the right way to filter for good science in the first place?
	▲	qsera a day ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		>Even if you agree with their ideology do you really want this clown show being the ones implementing it in such a ham-fisted idiotic way? Well, the alternative is to have a competent (debatable..) execution of a rotten ideology...

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hallgrim a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Well, the government funds science projects in general, and now they are limiting it based on a very loose list of terms related to ideas counter to their own ideology.

The idea of freedom of speech is to not limit expression of ideas counter to any one ideology.

Also, if corporations donating to political campaigns is speech, so should science funding be - which is now being restricted.

Their usual retort is: “we need more speech in the market place of ideas, not censorship”.

So why don’t they just fund right-wing-aligned projects instead?

Hypocrisy all around.

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dnautics a day ago | parent [-]

if those scientists were to raise money from private donors would they find themselves in jail, or their property confiscated to where they couldnt continue research? that is the definition of "freedom of speech".

if you accept money from the government, you must also accept the fact that that money is political. complaining that losing a barely earned privilege is a loss of freedom of speech is a fucking slap in the face of people who have actually fought hard for freedom of speech.

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hallgrim a day ago | parent | next [-]

Government funding didn’t use to be political. Humanities existed and got funding even during republican presidents.

It has been made political relatively recently. That’s one of my issues.

	▲	dnautics 19 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Government funding is political full stop. it might be bipartisan but it's still political, by definition. if you cannot accept this your policy opinions will always be hopelessly distorted.

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wtfwhateven 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

No, that is not the definition of "freedom of speech".

Please also read the first amendment.

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hallgrim a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Also, I know this isn’t the definition of free speech per se. Hence the nod at citizens united which made a farce of the whole concept.

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dnautics a day ago | parent | prev [-]

btw i have a phd in the hard sciences so i know what im talking about when i say grants are "barely earned privileges". they do not, in general, go to the most qualified or talented scientists, hence the word "grantsmanship" to refer to the skills required to obtain a grant that are not the pure scientific skill