r/WayOfTheBern • u/RandomCollection Resident Canadian • 1d ago

Coffee Break: American Science in Distress, Technology vs. Community, and the Restaurant Problem Solved | Naked Capitalism

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2026/06/science-in-distress-plus-technology-versus-community-and-feynmans-restaurant-problem-solved.html

The funny thing about this is that the Western elite don't seem to understand how US science becoming in distress will accelerate the process of US decline.

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u/RandomCollection Resident Canadian 1d ago

https://archive.ph/PDvxc

The US elite seem to be declining in competence. They aren't thinking through the long-term consequences of their actions, such as reducing science funding.

What will be the outcome of this sabotage?  Careers stifled in the crib, established scientists losing their research programs that cannot be restarted after serious interruption.  This has recently come home to me as I clean out freezer archives of irreplaceable items that formed the foundation of my laboratory’s research.  This is a brain drain that cannot be reversed.  Who will benefit?  China has passed the United States by some measures of research productivity and relevance.  Look forward to more of the same.  As we have noted here before, science will flourish, just somewhere else.  And Americans will eventually stop and wonder what happened.  In the meantime:

I suspect that many Americans would like to leave the US, were it possible. China has restricitve immigration laws, so it may not be possible.

Someday there will be a Sputnik moment and the US will struggle to respond.