I appreciate creative thinking in this space, but unless I am misunderstanding, Gessen's argument amounts to large research universities abandoning scientific and medical research. This would solve one serious problem--being leveraged to capricious authoritarians--and create many others. - ThreadSky

jamalgreene.bsky.social • 4 days ago

I appreciate creative thinking in this space, but unless I am misunderstanding, Gessen's argument amounts to large research universities abandoning scientific and medical research. This would solve one serious problem--being leveraged to capricious authoritarians--and create many others.

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Comments

apearlma.bsky.social•4 days ago

Basic research of the kind "how does this weird thing work that maybe doesn't have any real use?" is where a lot of discoveries get made, is great at training new researchers, but are hard for a for-profit company to do. It would be extremely destructive to U.S. technology.

benmschneider.bsky.social•4 days ago

If the feds are going to withdraw funding no matter what (so it seems), isn’t it a choice between what Gessen proposes and closing? Doing less is better than nothing.

katharinapistor.bsky.social•4 days ago

As Gessen notes, the Trump admin is destroying science at NIH and elsewhere. Given that we should liberate ourselves from the idea that caving in will save science ms.

lakecountydem.bsky.social•4 days ago

I think there's some nuance to the "cave" (I don't know about all the schools being targetted, but Columbia damn sure did cross the line into antisemitism (remember those admin text messages?) and Northwestern's deal with protesters was horrific (I could name two dozen nations more worthy). (Ctd)

lakecountydem.bsky.social•4 days ago

That aside, universities won't simply cut-back research in pro-rata fashion: they'll make more deals with pharmaceutical and other big corporations, which come with their own strings (and the patents and trade secrets won't have the Bayh-Dole protections).

katharinapistor.bsky.social•4 days ago

Agreed. Less clear whether this is the reason or a pretext.

lakecountydem.bsky.social•4 days ago

Oh, with Trump I'm sure it's mostly pretext - so many of his biggest backers (Edelson, Ackman, etc.) want this, I just think a lot of the targetted schools proved worthy of sanction. And there's some objective evidence for that, e.g., the district court's ruling in a private suit vs. UCLA.

jamalgreene.bsky.social•4 days ago

That seems right (to a degree) as to Trump and his particular agenda, but changing the fundamental nature of research universities would be a much longer term societal change. I'm not pronouncing a judgment, or suggesting anything about "caving in," just trying to be clear about stakes.

henryporter.bsky.social•4 days ago

A lot of folks want just STEM. Is she occupying the open logical space of just humanities?

benecal.bsky.social•4 days ago

She plainly states how Trump is shaking down and subjugating universitities, but they cannot survive as is without outside funding for research, teaching hospitals, etc. Programs will be cut, people fired, salaries slashed, etc.

joeuchill.bsky.social•4 days ago

Just focus on knowledge, not research, assumes that research isn’t a component of education. Doing this would mean the end of PhD programs or any other kind of specialized education at the state of the art.

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