Get the latest tech news
Why I'm Resigning from the National Science Foundation
I cannot participate in systems that require dishonesty as the price of belonging.
Even as the White House threatens the foundational tenets of constitutional democracy and continues to slash funding for essential social services, it is tempting to hope that the public institutions charged with promoting and protecting knowledge will, nevertheless, soldier on with their mission. The NSF can be understood not only as a catalyst of scientific promise for national purpose, but also as a guarded response to fears about centralized control over knowledge and thought, shaped by the dark shadows of the Third Reich and the emerging Red Scare. Last week, as the Board held its 494th meeting, I listened to NSF staff say that DOGE had by fiat the authority to give thumbs up or down to grant applications which had been systematically vetted by layers of subject matter experts.
Or read this on Hacker News