Re Trump's budget calls for sensible cuts in research

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Jordan Pollack <pollack () brandeis edu>
> Date: March 18, 2017 at 7:36:28 AM EDT
> To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
> Cc: ip <ip () listbox com>
> Subject: Re: [IP] Re Trump's budget calls for sensible cuts in research
>
> Id like to get IPers opinions.  I have a 4 ft slide yellow sliderule with the center extended a couple of inches (its 
> a poster on a foam board, not wood or fiberglass) which I made for a scientist protest. Actually at 1440DPI I could 
> print the tick marks.
>
> I first tried "God Created Logs"  but nobody knows what a log is or how a slide rule can multiply by only adding. And 
> trying to mollify denialists only leads to more Noah's Ark creationist theme parks.
>
> Then I used "Extend the Age of Reason", and I got "Dude, whats Reason??"
>
> other idea for slide rule slogans appreciated.
>
>
> > On Fri, Mar 17, 2017 at 8:04 PM, Dave Farber <dave () farber net> wrote:
> >
> > ---------- Forwarded message ---------
> > From: Malcolm Slaney <malcolmslaney () gmail com>
> > Date: Fri, Mar 17, 2017 at 7:37 PM
> > Subject: Re: [IP] Re Trump's budget calls for sensible cuts in research
> > To: <dave () farber net>, John Gilmore <gnu () toad com>
> >
> >
> > Mr. Gilmore, 
> >
> > It’s quite possible that NIH does have some fat. But your argument is mostly about how NIDA is chasing a false 
> > premise.
> >
> > The way to fix the NIDA problem is to fix its charter (or for congress to get out of the research-direction 
> > business), NOT to simply lop 20% off the budget. (I suspect NIDA is mandated by congress, so with your argument for 
> > "sensible cuts" might even get the NIDA a larger part of the pie. :-(
> >
> > I think the real argument is whether our money is better spent on more arms and a wall in the southern desert, or on 
> > science and health and local infrastructure.
> >
> > - Malcolm
> >
> >
> > > On Mar 17, 2017, at 4:51 AM, Dave Farber <dave () farber net> wrote:
> >
> > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------
> > > From: John Gilmore <gnu () toad com>
> > > Date: Thu, Mar 16, 2017 at 11:37 PM
> > > Subject: Re: [IP] Trump's budget calls for sensible cuts in research
> > > To: <dave () farber net>
> > > Cc: ip <ip () listbox com>
> > >
> > >
> > > > The National Institutes of Health, for example, would be cut by
> > > > nearly $6 billion, about a fifth of the NIH budget.
> > >
> > > There is PLENTY of fat there that needs to be cut.
> > >
> > > The few stories below are just the beginning of the bloated and
> > > misused taxpayer money at the NIH.  NIH can easily afford to lose 20%
> > > of their budget and still do ALL of the important part of their work.
> > > Indeed, prioritizing what matters would IMPROVE their work.
> > >
> > > I'm not a Trump supporter, he's a malicious buffoon.  But that
> > > doesn't mean that every idea he has is a bad one, nor that every new
> > > departure from previous government practice is a terrible thing.
> > >
> > > When he does something good, I applaud; when he does something bad,
> > > I criticize.  That's how debate in society is best supposed to work.
> > > "Ad hominem" attacks based on who suggested an idea are foolish
> > > and counterproductive at sorting the good from the bad.
> > >
> > > I suggest that NIH should eliminate an entire one of the National
> > > Institutes -- NIDA, the National Institute on Drug Abuse -- which
> > > spends over $1B every year.  What's its important research?  It's all
> > > studies designed to prove that already-illegal drugs are bad for you.
> > >
> > > Wait, what?  If they're already illegal, declared "too harmful for
> > > citizens to be allowed to possess", worth throwing hundreds of
> > > thousands of citizens in for long jail terms, why waste tax money
> > > trying to prove anything about them?
> > >
> > > The real goal of NIDA is to provide faked "scientific" support for
> > > politicians who hate drug users.  They create scary headlines when
> > > studies are announced or finished.  And knowing the miniscule
> > > attention span of the media, they usually release the scary press
> > > release a week before any reporter can read the actual scientific
> > > paper.  So the scary headlines have come and gone, mission
> > > accomplished!, before any reporter can even notice that the scientific
> > > paper doesn't actually support the scary press release.  But
> > > occasionally their "scientific" lies so egregious that the press
> > > actually notices and the scientist is forced to retract them, like
> > > this time when NIDA and "Science magazine" (which were run by the same
> > > corrupt guy, it turns out) helped stampede Congress to pass the "Rave
> > > Act" to criminalize events where the customers bring and use illegal
> > > drugs:
> > >
> > >   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retracted_article_on_dopaminergic_neurotoxicity_of_MDMA
> > >
> > > Since many already-illegal drugs aren't actually bad for you, it takes
> > > a lot of twisted research, with a big government thumb on the scale,
> > > to try to "prove" that.  For example, "crack babies" don't actually
> > > exist, but scary headlines and pictures of malnourished babies sure
> > > did convince Congress to penalize crack-smoking black people with 100x
> > > the penalties of white people who snorted the same substance in the
> > > form of powder cocaine.  Don't believe me?  You never got the update?
> > > You aren't alone.  See Wikipedia:
> > >
> > >   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crack_baby
> > >
> > >   "Later studies failed to substantiate the findings of earlier ones
> > >   ...  Scientists have come to understand that the findings of the
> > >   early studies were vastly overstated and that most people who were
> > >   exposed to cocaine in utero do not have disabilities."
> > >
> > > NIDA has also spent many hundreds of millions trying to prove that
> > > marijuana is bad for you, and failed (but you might get a little cough
> > > in the back of your throat from smoking it, they discovered).  They
> > > fund underpowered studies over and over, bury the ones that by chance
> > > don't show harm, and publicize the ones that do by chance show harm.
> > > They strain to find "associations", e.g. between marijuana use and
> > > psychosis or depression, and then pretend that they've shown
> > > "causation".  But it's equally possible that people who were already
> > > psychotic or depressed tend to choose to smoke cannabis because it
> > > makes them feel better; it relieves their symptoms.  And in these
> > > papers I keep finding statements like "Our results cannot preclude the
> > > possibility that cannabis may exhibit an association with lung cancer
> > > risk at extremely high dosage."  I.e. they didn't PROVE that, in fact
> > > they proved the opposite at all other dosages, but to please NIDA, the
> > > paper includes the scary IDEA of a "possible" harm that they didn't
> > > even attempt to prove or disprove.  You can see a summary of this NIDA
> > > marijuana research in Wikipedia too:
> > >
> > >   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-term_effects_of_cannabis
> > >
> > > Meanwhile NIDA and all of NIH spent NOTHING, $0, over decades, on
> > > trying to see if any of those hundreds of politically disfavored drugs
> > > were GOOD for you.  Which is why there's so little research exploring
> > > the anti-cancer properties of marijuana (which were proven at UCLA by
> > > Donald Tashkin), or the anti-epileptic effects that have salvaged the
> > > young lives of thousands of kids.  Which is why Raphael Mechoulam, an
> > > Israeli scientist, not a US scientist, discovered the body's own
> > > internal regulatory endocannabinoid system, that no so-called
> > > scientist in the US even suspected was there (because non-hateful US
> > > research on marijuana is politically incorrect and never gets funded).
> > >
> > > I personally know a doctor, Donald Abrams, who applied for an NIH
> > > grant to study whether smoking marijuana actually does help AIDS
> > > patients.  (He worked in the AIDS ward at SF General Hospital, along
> > > with "Brownie Mary" Rathbun, and had seen many early AIDS patients
> > > improve after marijuana use.)  NIDA turned him down, explaining that
> > > if he rewrote the proposal to try to study how smoking marijuana HARMS
> > > AIDS patients, then they would seriously consider it.  After holding
> > > back the urge to vomit, he took the hint, rewrote the proposal, they
> > > DID fund it, and his study wasted a bunch of NIH tax money disproving
> > > NIDA's made-up theory that smoking marijuana harms AIDS patients.  And
> > > as a side result he showed that the patients' viral load was reduced
> > > (i.e. they got somewhat better from smoking pot).
> > >
> > > There's plenty of not just waste but actual malicious mischief at
> > > NIH that can and should be cut.  Bravo, Mr. Trump.
> > >
> > >         John Gilmore
> >
> >
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>
>
> -- 
> Jordan B. Pollack, Chairman        http://www.cs.brandeis.edu
> Computer Science Department        email:pollack () brandeis edu
> MS018,  Brandeis University        Phone/Fx:781-736-2713/2741
> Waltham Massachusetts 02454        alumni:www.Blints.org/join



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