Personally, as someone that has heard non-stop about how horrible the US is from Europeans ever since I was on the internet, I don't give statements from EU officials much weight. It isn't anything new.
I have family that has migrated _from_ Europe to the US, they still seem to hold this attitude that they know what is best for the US. They come live here for a higher quality of life and income, then go vacation in Europe like kings, talking about how much cheaper things are, without an ounce of irony. Not sure how they do it.
You have to be a special kind of ignorant to try and say it’s a higher quality of life with a straight face. On essentially zero of any of the metrics which are specifically designed to measure exactly this does the US come out on top. Thats just a jingoistic nonsense you heard somewhere and decided to repeat it like it was a fact.
What is US losing, relative to Europe/other countries?
I can't really think of many notable things to come out of Europe as of late... besides maybe covid vaccines but its hard to really say that when 90% of the wikipedia page for the "creators" is about research and contributions that they did (and could really only do) in the US.
You allude to it yourself in your example. People, from all over the world, were doing research in the US, because that’s the only place they could really do it. Now that this option is disappearing, the system will have to adjust and find another place. When that happens, US loses. Until it does, we all do.
People have been claiming "this is the end" of the US, for some reason or another, ever since I've been on the internet (since 2005).
This same sentiment was going around in 2016 when Trump was doing those ridiculous "bans" on immigration. Since then I would argue the US has only increased its influence and power over Europe. Europe needs help with the war and the US has already given immeasurable resources. Europe has almost no skin in the game when it comes to AI. Maybe that's a bubble but the point still stands.
Ofc I don't agree with what the current president is doing, but the idea that businesses and research will flock to Europe is amusing. They've certainly introduced enough barriers to ensure that won't happen.
I'm OOTL, but there _is_ a ton of waste when it comes to money we give out.
The article itself even says here:
> [...] the US government has cut scientific grants to academics working on diversity-related topics, halted biomedical grants to international partners, and demanded universities shut down academic units that “belittle” conservative ideas [...]
I'd say it's fair to question if taxpayers should be paying for "diversity related projects." The "belittle conservative ideas" thing is problematic, as that is totally subjective. However, I don't think anyone can say in good faith that most universities aren't incredibly bias. Having been in one circa 2020, it was not a welcoming place if you weren't firmly liberal/progressive. Of course I have to place my disclaimer that I'm not a fan of what Trump is doing, or the man himself for that matter.
New account because I’m a lazy lurker, but “diversity related” projects could be as simple as trying to balance the number of studies done primarily on white males vs other groups. Especially in biomedical research, the gender of the population studied has a profound effect on the relevancy of results.
By many measures, over 75% of studies have historically focused on white male populations, which for a variety of potential research/treatment areas, is important to control for.
Then it's subjective, what they define as a waste of money, this is par for the course when it comes to choosing what to fund.
You do not trust the current administration to be objective when it comes to cutting funding. I don't trust universities to be objective when it comes to funding.
I take any claims/studies from universities regarding gender/race with a huge grain of salt. There is too much room for bias and sensationalism. Not long ago there was a study claiming that white doctors were treating non-white babies with less care than white babies. However, the original authors made several mistakes and the study couldn't replicate.
Funnily enough, if you google percentage of medical studies that can't be replicated, you get 75% too :)
In the previous Trump term "diversity related topics" included things like biodiversity which is an important area of research and should be apolitical. Not because of a shift in focus, but because of top-down orders to not fund anything related to "diversity."
Conservatives in the past have also tried to belittle research grants to justify eliminating them, such as "studying X about fruit flies." It might sound silly to a lay person but drosophila is an incredibly important model organism from which many discoveries have come.
The problem is a highly political, often careless or incompetent, and sometimes blatantly corrupt administration taking a sledgehammer instead of a scalpel to so-called "waste."
> "diversity related topics" included things like biodiversity which is an important area of research and should be apolitical. Not because of a shift in focus, but because of top-down orders to not fund anything related to "diversity."
Do you have a source for this? How can you prove it was simply because it was "diversity related" and not because it someone, somewhere determined the budget needed to be cut because the spending was wasteful?
As far as I can tell, the budget never passed, so we have no way to know one way or another the effects.
I have never seen a government entity claim that cutting their budget wouldn't be catastrophic.
>One environmental researcher NPR spoke to, whose employer receives federal funding, confirmed that they have been advised to avoid the terms "climate change," "sustainable" and "sustainability." Even "biodiversity" is of concern to some of their colleagues because it includes the word "diversity."
(Please don't just respond to the quote - lots of context in the full article.)
I don't know if I can ever buy a non-Tesla car again (unless its a truck).
I'll check out Rivian next time though, as those look pretty damn good. Like you, I don't know of any other brands that are competitive enough for me. I want to like other car UX's but once you have a smooth UX its hard to go back to sluggish ones.
I'm not afraid I'll get stabbed but I'm not a fan of some dude staring daggers at my wife and I while he laughs and talks to himself. When I've traveled alone I've seen fights, peeing, groping and all sorts of stuff. Nobody I saw ever got killed but I can't say I miss public transit.
I think the biggest issue is the _vast_ majority of news is noise. It won't effect you. Maybe you could argue we should be "aware" of certain events happening but I'd argue most only complicate your life.
I would subscribe to a local news provider but I see no reason to ever subscribe to a national news outlet.
These luke-warm takes become even more luke-warm when you look at the competition.
You have Chrome, which disrespects it's users as a principle. And then you have chromium forks, which rely on Google for... let's see here... 99.99% of their application's code.
Mozilla might make mistakes, but next to Google, they are angel.
I have family that has migrated _from_ Europe to the US, they still seem to hold this attitude that they know what is best for the US. They come live here for a higher quality of life and income, then go vacation in Europe like kings, talking about how much cheaper things are, without an ounce of irony. Not sure how they do it.
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