The posted article was about research to cure blindness with stem cells. The top comment implied that such research was being defunded.
I asked for an example that was not about defunding research on transgender mice. The only examples provided were for research that was confused with transgender research.
So it seems that Doge is not cutting research for curing blindness and the like but only for transgender and some related-sounding other studies that were lumped in together, which will probably be sorted out in time.
A decade ago I read this same advice in "The Curmudgeon's Guide to Practicing Law": spend at least a little time trying to solve the problem before you look to how other's have solved it. One benefit is that occasionally you may stumble on a better method. But the more common benefits is that it helps develop your problem-solving skills and it primes you to understand and appreciate existing solutions.
President Obama’s Cash for Clunkers program [1] where used cars in good condition were destroyed to increase sales of new cars seems to have been based on the broken window fallacy.
This is like complaining of unequal vehicles at an airport: A relatively few can fly very fast and hold hundreds of passengers, but most are earthbound-bound and can carry only a few passengers. Of course Silicon Valley has inequality: it’s home to some of the most impactful people on earth. Hobbling these people will do nothing to help the poor, just like crippling airliners will not improve the cars in airports parking lots.
No doubt the BBC has its flaws, but you take allies where you can find them. If you care about the truth, it’s important to call out government censorship. The foreign press is more likely to reveal unpleasant truths.
> Punishment by process is a favourite tactic of the Modi administration when it wants to intimidate or wear out those who dare to find fault with the prime minister or his party. In 2020 Amnesty International was forced to close its India operation after its bank accounts were frozen. Last year Oxfam India and the Centre for Policy Research, a think-tank in Delhi, suffered tax raids. Indian media outfits, journalists and activists who have offended suffer worse. Reprisals, whether carried out by the government or its enraged admirers, have included pulled advertising, detentions without trial and, for Gauri Lankesh, a journalist and critic of chauvinistic Hindutva ideology, assassination.
I read this article after posting one [1] on the muzzling of Seymour Herst’s revelation of how America blew up the Nordstream pipelines. Politicians of every country love to use state power to silence their critics. In America, the preferred method is currently to work through the media companies. [2]
To the extent that writing is like playing an instrument, one should try writing simply before trying to be stylish or entertaining. And for many purposes, simple writing is enough.
It seems to me that at the implementation stage, the things that never change and the things that do change are the same. For example, customers will always want low prices and fast delivery. Internet ordering and robots in warehouses are things that change. But the changes are better ways to fulfill the unchanging needs. So Bezos sees investments in internet ordering and robots as investments in what does not change. Whereas Andreessen sees the same investments as betting on change. So what difference does their point of view make if both entrepreneurs end up making the same investments?
A mistake that I've made before, that I think is quite common, is to assume government will enforce laws the way I would. Regarding speech, because I am a person of good will, tolerance, and open-mindedness, I assume government will enforce the law this way. This is a grave mistake. The people who would seek out jobs in which they can control other people's speech are exactly the sort of people who should not be given that power.
Even if the actual enforcers of speech law were honest, they would never be allowed to enforce the law where it is most needed, namely government itself. Wars are usually supported with lies. [1] [2] Will speech laws be used to punish government officials who lie the country into war? I think not. Instead, such laws will be used to protect powerful people, especially people in government. For example, in Citizen's United, a case that Democrats still criticize, the government was prosecuting the members of a small non-profit with felonies for publishing a 90-minute documentary critical of then Senator Hillary Clinton. [3]
Perhaps this was Google's strategy from the beginning. Introduce useful services into the Chinese market while accepting government restrictions, then when enough Chinese have become dependent on these services, try to negotiate the restrictions from a position of strength, knowing that China would not want to be responsible for leaving Google's Chinese customers without service.