If you are politically connected, or stay in an narrow lane of approved work, you get your grant. But if you stray from the politically approved path, or appear disloyal to our First Citizen and the Party, then your grant will be canceled.

The remaining supporters of the incumbent party like to claim that they aren't actually doing anything worse than in the past, and if anything they are just cracking down on things that they see as subjectively bad, so it's fine. And there's an element of truth in that: so much of American policy for a long time has been subject to agency interpretation and judicial review, and there was always room for political maneuvering and corruption in the system. Where the truth becomes a lie is the omission that this is the systematic ramping up from something that happens occasionally in a mostly-functioning system, to something that happens constantly and is systematically designed to facilitate corruption and politicization.

I don't think any practicing scientist of any political persuasion will think these are good for science.

Science progresses by sharing knowledge openly and publicly, so others can evaluate it, criticize it, and build on it. These severe restrictions on collaboration, publication, and public communication will damage science's naturally open, merit-based culture.

We will all suffer due to lost discoveries--maybe not today, but over years and decades.

Science and Educational purposes are valid 501(c)(3) purposes. A donation to a 501(c)(3) that funds open-source scientific software, public STEM education, basic research, science grants, or public-interest tech research can be deductible.

Up to 60% of Adjusted Gross Income can be tax-deductible as charitable contributions to a qualified 501(c)(3) with itemization, depending on the contribution type.

This would create a non-partisan defined/dedicated non-profit funding layer with serious governance that will benefit all sides. Might be possible to go global.

This would need serious structure: independent board, conflict-of-interest rules, grant review, public reporting, no private benefit, and probably fiscal sponsorship first.

Maybe this deserves a separate Ask HN to avoid derailing this thread: would people here actually support or help design a 501(c)(3)-style vehicle for public-benefit science and technology funding?

Having incentive to produce useful outcomes seems like it would be something folks would be in support of, but it appears many here think this is the end of the world just because it's Trump doing it. At least there's consistency in that regard. Le sigh.

This is not just picking which ideas the government supports. This sounds like it’s taking all the “fun” out of having grant funding.

Sure, that’s a flip remark, but doesn’t this have a similar sense of arguments against other government funded programs?

~SNAP food assistance is raising food prices~ [1] or ~SNAP food assistance is my tax dollars going towards anyone who says they’re hungry.~ [2]

And don’t forget to mention the replication crisis.

~Public funded grants let scientists go to parties and publish junk science.~

The cynical would argue it’s proof the scientific community is filled with charlatans milking a system that can’t police itself.

[1]: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DYNZT43R705/

[2]: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DY2k2MNxf97/

From a naive perspective, this sounds a lot like the breeding ground for Lysenkoism (Stalin-approved). In that example, aligning science to the party line led to a couple of famines. I say naive because there were other factors at play (e.g. it was forbidden to criticize Lysenko's theories).

The amount of capability that America is burning is impressive. I suspect that people outside of academia are not as alarmed, since its not part of daily life.

However it matters the same way that a drug discovery today is life saving 10 years down the line, after its gone through all the processes to go to market.

Example: "They're eating the dogs, the people that came in, they're eating the cats."

Cancel Haitian grants. And also round them up in deportation holding facilities.

So they’ll be sued. The theories will be tested and we’ll see exactly where the line is (eventually). And probably somewhere uncomfortable, given SCOTUS.

There are legitimate ways agency political appointees can set funding priorities. Like this year we’ll focus on Alzheimer’s. But of course, we should take the least charitable reading of this - that it’ll likely be used for shenanigans. Punish enemies. Award cronies. Go after junk science, etc.

(Unless you're doing science for military development. Then the funding spigot is open.)

And to those who say "oh, it's the same as it was before, just different ideologies" -- no, it is not at all the same. Not even comparable.

What is this, North Korea?

it will take longer than this decade, maybe even next, to restore the brain loss and faith in secure jobs for research

basically this country will just become a highway of non-stop warehouses, alternating ICE prisons vs "AI" datacenters

science, medicine, all research and development just gone to other countries

With this, I guess the US will end up as a third rate country much quicker.

It is all fascinating to me.

All those cancel-at-any-moment-in-time or ICE gunning down US citizens or "war versus Iran", next day no war, nope, it is war, no, it is not. Dementia ruling here. At the same time a few pocket away tons of money. This is like the chaos version of game, but ... stupid.

It's also interesting how quickly the USA becomes a de-facto country run by a mafia. Granted, this was obvious to many people for decades, and history shows that too, but it is fascinating how few internal blocks they have to a dementia king. It is like the ultimate pillage crew. How much money can they pillage? Anyone still remember Epstein by the way? How did he have that much money? Only two people organised sexy parties with the superrich? That story makes sense to anyone? Why is only Ghislaine in prison? Seems a bit bold to claim two people organised naughty parties involving underage people for the superrich.

Yeah, the USA has a few problems here ... thankfully dementia king is in bad health, but eyeliner-boy may simply take over without an election. Best democracy ever ...

Also it really is sad to see “Hacker” News be “World News”. More Zig and less White House, please. Redditors have infiltrated. The rate of political posts have increased dramatically since 2016 election.

Federal grants have always been subject to politics.

Sure, of course.

But to even ask the question presumes that politics isn’t already overriding science within the academy, just from a different direction.