CharonY

What is really troubling is that apparently web pages with information on health risks in youth, HIV testing and prevention and so on were pre-emptively removed. There is now an injunction to restore them. But it is a very bad sign that FDA, CDC and so on are removing information just because they might be affected by the executive order. This pre-emptive obeyance which clearly goes against the mission of the respective agencies is a sign that the dismantling is happening much faster than anticipated and is likely going have deep impact on public health and science in the USA. https://www.citizen.org/news/judge-grants-temporary-restraining-order-orders-cdc-fda-hhs-webpages-to-be-restored/ Also, multiple states have started a lawsuit against the 15% limit on indirect costs (may only apply to approved grants). The issue here really is that it will lead to collapse of the research landscape in the USA.

This is a prime example of made up threats. None of the things you mentioned here are real. And because of that the threat perception can persist forever. You could point out that the only arrests made not for protesting, but e.g., for blocking access to clinics. You could even point out that they are able to legally form fake clinics where women are given misinformation. But none of it would change the idea of victimhood. Heck, even the pope criticizing Trump doesn't do much to move the needle. As mentioned, merely existing and made visible seems to be proselytizing to some. And even worse, even when invisible, as they were before, they would just be attributed nefarious actions. After all, once invisible how would they be able to demonstrate that this not true? Open borders are an outright lie just as the idea of demographic change is just a thinly veiled version of the great replacement. In fact, it is very telling as there is the underlying assumption that anything but being white is a threat to their position (especially considering that many immigrants are socially conservative). Why is that, I wonder? You mentioned Snyder's book earlier. While I am not a big fan of such short reads I suggest you take a look at it, specifically: Among the four modes there is: - hostility to verifiable reality ("they are locking up abortion protestors") - endless repetition or incantations ("open borders", "LGBTQ agenda") Also from the Snyder: Not sure what you are trying to do here. The right has organized across borders, ample help from social media. Of course Europe is at risk, has been for a while. Specifically the refugee crises has led to the demise of many establishment parties and the rise of more radical parties. Yet again, folks found a threat, heavily amplified by some facts and a lot of fiction. To change ideology you don't need a war. Being lied to works just as well.

Uhhh, it only mentions one aspect that could be a liberal policy and that would be I mean, if trying to get folks equal rights results in autocracies, I would imagine that the democratic principles ain't that strong to begin with. Also I find it very interesting how that is phrased. Right-wing conservatives have worked very had to undermine democratic principles ranging from spreading blatant misinformation to incite culture and race wars, forming think tanks and societies that undermine checks and balances and putting anti-democratic forces into key positions, sowing mistrust into systems and also attempting the odd coups. And yet it is somehow liberal policies that caused all that? I mean come on, at least try to find Ockham's razor here. I will also note again that part of the autocratic playbook is to blame others for their actions. "Look what [they] make me do? Because of them I just had to overthrow democratic principles and build concentration camps. And taking away your rights is the only way to protect you from [them]." This has been best explored in fascism, where fascination with victimhood served as justification for the committed atrocities (and it is a common element in the identification of the rather diffuse characteristics of fascism). Also, how about I cite a few points from the book you mentioned and see if you can spot some overlap (BTW the book was published sometime around the first Trump administration): Why do we have something as stupid as the culture wars? Because some kind of enemy had to be found. And in recent times our lives have to be become so comfortable that folks decided to make up enemies and/or revive old tropes, such as immigrants. Again, there are no new ideas here.

Hugenberg's party (DNVP) has been discussed a lot also as an enabler of the NSDAP. The DNVP was a monarchist, national-conservative party which eventually tried to mellow up right before Hugenberg took over. He moved the party more to the right (closer to its origins) and advocated rule via non-parliamentary means. He did supported the NSDAP personally as they saw them as a means to combat the left parties and to make more inroads with the working class. At a range of events they enabled Hitler to be considered a respectable figure after his failed coup. I mean, where could one possible see any parallels to current events?

Liberty Cabbage https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100104899

Exactly, we have historic precedence and much of it is appealing to base human nature. If folks are afraid and feel that they are victims of something, you can make them to do virtually anything. Up and an including genocide. There are many, many books on fascism and other authoritarian systems and one can use those as a framework to describe the current situations. It is certainly not new. The only thing that really changes is the various mechanisms (e.g., social media). But the dismantling of protective (democratic) structures is very similar- erosion of power separation (Gleichschaltung) control of public narratives and so on. The issue is mixing up terminologies and methodologies from other areas really just obfuscate matters. And where things go is fairly simple, either the structures hold up and resist further erosion, or it doesn't. We have seen that cruelty is really only relevant to a minority of Americans at this point (and to be fair, same can be said in Europe, potentially Canada, too). So rather than thinking we are in unprecedented territory with only guesswork available to us, I would argue that we are stepping in very precedented territory and can draw hypotheses from there.

I think building a representative sample with an N of 30 is a bit too ambitious. Even with 100 it can be tricky but casting a wide net might makes things very difficult. Also, as it involves children, the ethics process is fairly involved. My suggestion is to try to make a more focused study and build a connection to an area or even just a school. Ideally a supervisor should be able to help out or at least provide some guidance. There are also additional rules working with minors in some jurisdictions, such as background checks, but I think it may mostly apply to direct interactions, rather than surveys. You will need to build a consent process involving the parents that has to pass the ethics review, which can take fairly long. I think your best chance is to get into contact with schools and ask them to help you to contact parents and discuss your project. Such projects take a surprising amount of legwork.

A lot of groups, including universities and societies are involved in the process and are trying to scrape as much as possible from webarchives. An early report on it was here https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/02/upshot/trump-government-websites-missing-pages.html?smid=url-share It is a bit of a repetition of what happened 2016- but in a much larger scale. And clearly not only things related to DEI will be targeted. In a way it is a scary experiment to see how fast one can plunge a nation into (deeper) ignorance.

Just so to outline that not only women and issues related to gender are targeted, the Trump administration is also trying to kill biodiversity and related environmental studies. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/10/climate/nature-assessment-trump.html?smid=url-share

Not a fan of this statement, are you?

I think I have been unclear, my apologies. What I was referring to is not the range of potential outcomes, but the false equivalency of the outlined outcomes. I.e. in an earlier post you have placed a variety of outcomes with vastly different likelihoods next to each other. So continuing the grab of power seemed, in your argument, just as likely as stopping and then suddenly do all the good things (or at least what his voters want). Or that voters despite already having voted him in once and then giving him an even stronger mandate the second time around, despite him and his group outlining all the stuff they want to do being so shocked that they will give Dems enough power for impeachment. Or now false flag operations (where the more likely targets would be folks he withdrew security details from...). Again, probably they are all non-zero likelihoods given how crazy things are going. However, the most likely scenario is a continuation of things he only has been started to do. In my mind, it does not make sense to make up all possible scenarios and treat them as roughly equivalent, especially as it would ignore the ramifications of ongoing events. There is a non-zero chance that he dies from a stroke in a few weeks. But clearly that is less likely than the ongoing dismantling of American institutions. I also have no idea what your idea of a psychopathology is. What is wrong with this government is fairly simple, they want to amass power in few hands. That is not a mental illness. But a threat to democracy and the power of the people. Where is the need to reframe it to something more abstract? Why be vague when we have specifics?

Going back to OP and reflecting on I use the forum, I noticed that my motivation is largely to look for perspectives of folks who I never met but had many interesting conversations with (OP is such an example). I actually think because I am surrounded by scientists in my job, I gravitate a bit more to things that I would rather discuss with friends rather than colleagues. I am not sure how true that might for others, though.

Or national-socialism (nazism) vs socialism. I honestly couldn't believe how otherwise seemingly very intelligent folks fall for that one (strangely, all examples were libertarian with small vs large government perspectives).

A couple of other issues that are happening in all this shit storm. The NIH is cutting overhead funding to 15%. These are funding in addition to the actual project cost (such as personnel and materials) that universities get. These cost fund things like building costs (space, electricity, heating etc.) and administrative cost (including HR, financial services, etc.). These were often up to 50% of the project cost. E.g., if you get funding for a project costing 200k to execute, the univ would get up to 100k in assistance. While there is some argument to be had whether that is really how things should be, in the US it has become a critical element to keep the research alive at universities. One big reason on the reliance for overhead is that public funding for universities has stagnated (or even been reduced) despite rising costs. However, cutting to 15% puts it in line with philanthropic donations, which clearly shows that the conservative idea of research and education should be controlled and disbursed by rich folks, not unlike how arts and science were conducted in before modernity. On another front, grant agencies are scrutinizing active grants and are using keywords to find grants that go against the administrations directives. The lists I found are (again) very telling and include for example: Advocacy, Biases, Barrier, Female, Minority, Trauma, Systemic, Victims, Socieconomic, Oppression, Polarization, Inclusive, Women. I will note that none of the lists mentioned "men" and and "male" only appeared as "male dominated". So in summary, the US is on a good path make folks (male and not-male) stupid again. Clearly, the current trend in the conservative mind (and they are too dominant to be called the far-right) is to use "free speech" as a cudgel and then do everything to not only limit free speech but also to limit thought. In a way it is quite clever, as they get to play both sides of the game (and it is also something that incidentally authoritarians are very good at). The number of folks losing their jobs and careers due to this administration's stance on DEI makes the long discussions we had on this forum regarding whether transgender rights could somehow potentially lead to someone losing their job quite ridiculous.

Very true and examples are already happening.

And then it can result in a cycle of purges which will severely undermine the mission of each agency (not only the FBI). Institutions work to a large degree because institutional knowledge is retained in the mid-ranks, so that even when leadership changes, things kind of continue to work. Techbros believe they are more clever than anyone else and have little issue to break things. After all, it is not them who need to fix things. They learned the master of pitching, though. Also, the whole mess will again move the baseline of what is acceptable. The US system is built on elements of outreach, and also a certain code of conduct where violating them could result in triggering some of the checks and balances. Now we are going to learn what happens if we throw away norms and let folks game the system.

The issue is that the core defenses are severely crippled and the scenario you outlined would basically require an 180 of the current situation. I think the way you describe things are actually a bit of black and white as the current trend is a slide into weakening of structures. I.e. it is a quantitative decline (which can become qualitative at some point) rather than a black and white situation (i.e. fascist or no). Basically it assumes that a sudden reversal is equally likely as a continuation of the current path. Both have a non-zero chance. But giving the power situation it is also not at 50:50. Very fair point. Bondi has already indicated that the DOJ will be a tool of the administration rather than one of the people as originally intended. Oh didn't you hear, there won't be an awakening. "Woke" is been outlawed

You are forgetting that much if it is no longer hypothetical. They are enacting things that they outlined in project 2025. This is less an educated guess, but simply just listing what they do now. What is your evidence that they will actually give up power and stop doing what they are doing now. Or do you not read the news and are merely blissfully unaware? Weimar failed because it had insufficient checks and balances. And in US only the judiciary remains. But even that is undermined by SCOTUS. As it turns out the pigeon chess strategy is superior.

That is the issue with folks with virtually unchecked powers due to their wealth. They also assume they are better than everyone else and cannot imagine being accountable to laws or anything else. I imagine that normal folks do not offer a horse to someone in exchange for sexual acts. Allegedly (and settled). During a flight. Just saying.

The pretty much gutted USAID already with planned layoffs of all but a few hundred employees (out of about 10,000) https://apnews.com/article/trump-usaid-layoffs-7e0a159d8a419c4c9388ab02e8259f23 And there are calls from Trump to shut it down entirely. If the void is not filled immediately, it will be catastrophic for a lot of people. And what they probably do not understand is that many of these projects are also protecting the US (and their interests). The simplest example includes public health help to contain HIV, ebola and other pathogens. But since they are probably going to shut down monitoring and support for other countries to do monitoring, we'll never now.

That is absolutely true. Engagement for better or for worse is driven by emotion and controversy. That is something that algorithms have learned and which we actually discourage. And another aspect is that we as a community have diverse expertise, but not enough critical mass in one particular area where it could spark certain in-depth discussions.

LLMs sometimes also just outright contradict themselves. I think there is a bit of a contradiction in the idea to try to train a system that cannot think to help someone else to think. Maybe it can be overcome eventually, but right now I don't see it. One aspect regarding self-learning: traditionally that is done with book, where folks often read context beyond what they expect. The reasons is simple, students do not know what they don't know and learning exclusively by writing questions will not reveal the gaps and I believe will strengthen misconception, based on the GIGO principle. In contrast, a prof or teacher can identify gaps and misconceptions and direct them to new sources they weren't aware of (or, more likely didn't want to read until being told to do so).

I believe the original idea was to keep a Religion section as a kind of containment area. When I joined (20 years or so ago????) there were tons of semi-religious threads pertaining to evolution (and, also in a mirror of some the recent threads, abiogenesis). I think some posters also used that to hone their arguments. I certainly learned to simplify my explanation of parts of evolution, which actually were quite useful also for teaching students.

Those that still exist, in any case.

All true (and I just wanted to seize on your comment to at least pretend to move slightly back on topic...:)). And yes the last point is really important.