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146 points MaysonL | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.201s | source
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gotoeleven ◴[] No.43959536[source]
I didn't look at every one on the list of these 1000 NSF grants that were cancelled:

https://airtable.com/appGKlSVeXniQZkFC/shrFxbl1YTqb3AyOO?jnt...

but I think if you skim the titles you can sense a theme.

Here's the very first one: "Cambio: A Professional Development Approach for Building Latinx-focused Cultural Competence in Informal Science Education Institutions" for a whopping 2.8 million dollars.

This is not basic research, this is not important research, this is left wing politics parasitically attached to scientific institutions.

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ruytlm ◴[] No.43959756[source]
This is some serious cherry-picking at work.

Look at the NIH grants listed, which by dollar value far outweigh the NSF grants listed: https://grant-watch.us/nih-data.html

Which part of preventing the spread of HIV is "left wing politics"? Or better understanding radiation exposure? Or developing anti-viral countermeasures?

Some $400m of remaining budget for preventing the spread of HIV was cut, and you're saying it's justified because less than $3m went to trying to improve professional development for a specific group of people?

I mean even look at the specific example you picked - $2.8m over 6 years, from 2019 through to an expected end date of 31 August 2025, and they cut the funding on 09 May 2025 - the work has already been paid for and done, and you want to cut funding so you don't even get the final report/publications out of it to, you know, have something of value to show for the money spent?

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gotoeleven ◴[] No.43959780[source]
I just took the first one from the list. The list the article gave. I didn't cherry pick anything. The general theme of the titles of the research grants makes me think that the ones with more innocuous sounding titles are actually just more of the same stuff, just disguised a little better. But I could be wrong. I'd love to see an example of some indisputably important research being cut.

And I dunno if you're being pollyannish or what but HIV research is often very tied up in left wing politics. It may or may not be in this case. For example: https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/new-california-law-r...

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1. foldr ◴[] No.43961091[source]
It’s very unclear what point you’re trying to make with the linked article.

First of all, it’s not an example of HIV research, so what could it have to do with links between left wing politics and HIV research?

Second, there isn’t anything “left wing” about the changes to California law made in 2017. It’s not a core tenet of right wing political philosophy that the penalty for knowingly exposing someone to HIV has to be higher than the penalty for knowingly exposing someone to any other communicable disease. It’s entirely possible to hold right wing political views but reject unjust laws passed at the height of homophobic AIDS panic in the 80s.

If you look into the details of prosecutions under the relevant laws, you find that many were patently silly and unjust. For example, HIV positive prostitutes were convicted merely for soliciting, without any evidence that unsafe sex (or indeed any sex at all) had subsequently taken place.

https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/HI...