I have at least one friend who runs a biomedical research lab.
From conversations, here is what it going on:
- incoming students and researchers have been retracting their applications because of fear of ending up in detention for having something the regime doesn't like on their phone or on social media, or having their photo snapped at a protest about something the regime doesn't like, or their research being on a subject the regime doesn't like...or even something as stupid as the letters "trans" appearing as part of a word like "transgenic." (That's actually happened.)
- the schools have had to retract offers for others because there's no money to pay their stipends or for their lab/office space
- meeting with their administrations to discuss how long their schools can float salaries for lab staff. Admin assistants, scientific support staff like lab and animal technicians, and so on.
- planning phases of the euthanization of their organism / animal models
- planning phasing of the liquidation of lab equipment (in a market being flooded with such equipment)
My friends are talking about not being able to bear making their techs or researchers mass-euthanize research animal populations (typically rodents) and doing it themselves, in tears. Many of them justify the normal 'sacrifice' of research animals because their deaths help us advance science - but in this case, it's just because some transactional dickhead can't directly draw a crayon line between their research and GDP. But it's also because it's a visceral representation of scientific progress being destroyed. All to "own the libs" (but really to give billionaires tax cuts.)
One said they are trying to figure out what to do now that their career, which they have spent two decades of 60+ hour weeks on, is basically over - what little positions are left will see hundreds if not thousands of applicants. Salaries will plunge both out of necessity and a saturated labor supply.
The damage that has been done in less than 6 months to scientific research is immesurable and the consequences will be generational.
If you don't believe me, go through your list of friends, coworkers, family, etc and see who works in research and see what they're posting on social media or talk with them.
Got any friends who work in companies that make scientific equipment, reagents, etc? They might not have a job already, or soon.
Kids get into science in part because their parents or a family member is in science. Or they see a cool show on PBS about science. All that's going away. We're going to see a precipitous drop in the number of people pursuing scientific educations and careers.
Billionaires are about to find out that it doesn't matter how much money you have if your kid has cancer and there's nobody to treat them, no drugs being researched or manufactured, no diagnostic equipment (that was in part funded by research project grants), and o on.
> Got any friends who work in companies that make scientific equipment, reagents, etc? They might not have a job already, or soon.
Nothing to lose any more? Then go and protest, hard. It's too late to undo the damage already caused, but a huge part of why Trump was able to rise to power was because there was by far not enough protest against him.
You are underestimating the risk to people who protest and how bad it needs to get before people are pushed to it.
Distribution is somewhat like this...
Say there are 10,000 people affected by this
5,000 probably have skills to pivot to something else, don't give a shit about future billionaire's kid's problem. People wouldn't want to be scientists if they can't also have a decent career.
2,000 people have means to survive and can't afford to fight the thugs on street
2,000 people are desperate, but otherwise marginalized by current admininstration (immigrant, mexican, black, muslim,... whatever) but don't want to sacrifice their extended family too.
1,000 people are desperate, have the courage to fight (probably white).
If the future of curing the billionaire's kid relies on 1,000 people sacrificing their life... oh well....
Protests do not accomplish political change, have never accomplished political change, and will never accomplish political change. They are good for one thing and one thing only: meeting other people who are just as angry as you about something. From which you might decide to take actions that actually cause some political change.
yeah sadly i think they couldn't reach very high, at least materially, even though a lot of people gave a lot of themselves to do so. they achieved a lot of recognition socially though
> They are good for one thing and one thing only: meeting other people who are just as angry as you about something
Also, Pegida was Nazis protesting that there wasn't enough Nazism happening, so I don't know why you bring them up as an example of a successful protest.
> but a huge part of why Trump was able to rise to power was because there was by far not enough protest against him.
There are a lot of reasons to be skeptical of this claim. For one thing, it's not clear that trump voters respect protestors in the first place. For another thing, we're an extremely geographically distributed population, and most of our cities already swing strongly blue. This means protesting is generally a high-effort, low-return activity.
Whatever will provide friction I do not know, but I don't think protests are going to play a major role outside of maybe providing a narrative about how angry people are. But it's important to note that a significant number of people vote for Trump because he makes certain people angry.... If the right people "protest" in a ridiculous enough manner, you're going to likely strengthen the resolve of his base. Granted, I suspect this isn't much of an issue with science funding, but it's something to keep in mind.
My attitude is: if this country doesn't want science research, let it, follow the research overseas, and let your absence speak for itself.
> There are a lot of reasons to be skeptical of this claim. For one thing, it's not clear that trump voters respect protestors in the first place.
They do respect one thing, just like their master does: strength. Show up in force, in overwhelming numbers, and all these "don't tread on me" people suddenly find out that, whoops, they aren't the top dogs any more. It used to be the case that you got beaten up or worse for showing up in KKK outfits, these days you got pseudo-edgy kids on social media with them.
