The federal keyword lists that canceled billions in research funding

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wwalrus01 about 4 hours ago 39 commentsRead Article on highereddive.com

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Discussion (39 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

soundworlds•21 minutes ago

"Humanities" is literally on the list. As in, do not fund any Humanities research.

Also not allowed to use "solar energy", "Geothermal energy", "EV infrastructure", "electrification", "Hydrogen energy".

Welp, America, you either gotta kick this administration out, or enjoy cosplaying the 1800s.

hahahaa•15 minutes ago

Car powered by coal combustion via fast energy transmission systems. "Chemical coal".

whatever1•about 1 hour ago

Math professors at my alma mater were instructed to remove references to “inequalities” to increase their chances of getting funded. The <= and >= type of inequalities.

superhuzza•41 minutes ago

Yes, same with "diversity" for cellular diversity in the brain. Millions of dollars of grant money withdrawn.

beej71•42 minutes ago

We had some trouble with a geology grant that mentioned "mineral inclusion".

wnevets•30 minutes ago

Its important to note that US deficit spending is breaking records. They can't even pretend that they're saving money.

[1] https://finance.yahoo.com/economy/policy/articles/u-budget-d...

hahahaa•13 minutes ago

432bn/month is that right?

hn_throwaway_99•about 2 hours ago

These people who work for this administration are all so grossly and maliciously incompetent.

throwaway27448•about 1 hour ago

They are quite competent at causing enough chaos for those with inside knowledge and wealth to exploit.

slater•10 minutes ago

And for the next administration to be left holding the bag, teeing it up for another round of "see? SEEEE???? they're terrible at the economy!!" if a Democratic president wins the election

Varelion•about 2 hours ago

Should be criminal.

reverius42•about 1 hour ago

A lot of it is! We live in lawlessness (for those at the top) in the US.

piloto_ciego•38 minutes ago

Man, this is the kind of thing I have been trying to tell people. It's unsettling to think about, but I'm like, "look, there are no rules now, it's all a negotiation, the only real laws are the laws of physics and the rules someone selectively enforces under the threat of violence."

It would do us good if we remember this, because this sort of the basic state of nature that most people have lived under most of human history. I'm not saying this is how it should be, but a lot of people are still living in the pearl-clutched "but, that's against the rules!" despite there being basically no real rules for a decade.

When people realize that it's all nonsense, it's going to get weird.

sublinear•about 1 hour ago

Has there ever been an administration that wasn't tone deaf to the other side?

macintux•about 1 hour ago

Do not “both sides” this level of corruption and incompetence.

mrtesthah•25 minutes ago

Following the law is not a matter of partisan politics.

ajross•23 minutes ago

What's the counterexample of significant funding withdrawn by democratic administrations because of "possibly conservative" language in the output?

"Tone deaf" seems not to be capturing the essence of the malfeasance here.

floren•17 minutes ago

Biologists I know were reporting that they'd changed their grant proposals to study e.g. ovarian cancer in "non-male" mice

ChrisArchitect•about 2 hours ago

Banned Words List

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49319573

deadbabe•33 minutes ago

I wonder if just injecting a typo into each banned word when its used will be enough to bypass the keyword search for auto-banning.

bluecalm•20 minutes ago

Why not use an LLM to filter research they don't want to fund? Keywords list seem like the dumbest way to go about it.

rjrjrjrj•16 minutes ago

"Dumbest way to go about it" is SOP for this administration.

etchalon•about 2 hours ago

This is what right-wing Twitter brain gets you.

forestrywat•about 2 hours ago

That's just "Twitter brain" at this point, right? Hard to imagine anyone leftish still being there.

dools•about 2 hours ago

The trump admin is a hive of scum and villainy worthy of a comic book universe, and Musk is inextricably linked. Thus anyone using twitter or grok or buying a Tesla or using starlink is complicit.

EDIT: or working for these companies!! Couldn’t pay me enough to do it.

inigyou•about 2 hours ago

"admin" is what we call a regime that works properly. This one doesn't, so it's a "regime".

blints•32 minutes ago

Under the previous administration there were keyword lists that ensured that not only would you not get funding, but were subjected to a humiliating self-criticism session before being professionally ruined.

mrexroad•29 minutes ago

Citation?

blints•28 minutes ago

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/09/08/professor-sus...

secretsatan•22 minutes ago

It’s the usual stuff, they shut down speech on all sorts of topics, like the superiority of white christian men over everyone else