Comment by JumpCrisscross
2 days ago
"In a parting shot before her retirement, the European Commission’s top science diplomat has castigated the US for destroying its reputation as a global scientific leader.
...
Speaking at the European Science Diplomacy Conference in Copenhagen, she did not elaborate on exactly how the US was wrecking its reputation.
...
The next programme, which starts in 2028, will also be more focused on European defence technology and industrial strength, raising questions over how welcome non-European partners will be, particularly in sensitive projects."
I am inclined to agree with her conclusion. But this is a political statement by a European diplomat selling her programme and asking for funds.
We can find better sources for documenting what’s happening. There is even nascent progress in measuring the harm.
Not entirely baseless though :
> the US government has cut scientific grants to academics working on diversity-related topics, halted biomedical grants to international partners, and demanded universities shut down academic units that “belittle” conservative ideas, or risk losing federal funding.
> These efforts have in some cases been overturned by courts or faced opposition from universities. And huge proposed cuts in federal research funding may be blunted by Congress. But still, the reputational damage has led Europe to attempt a poaching spree of disillusioned US academics.
Sure. But the editorialized titled makes it sound like we have evidence of the damage. The article doesn’t provide that, it’s citing a political speech.
For sure and it’s not even clear if there will be be a lot of long term damage. The next admin might roll all of it back and then some.
It doesn’t seem extremely likely at the moment but I also don’t think it’s super unlikely.
1 reply →
From the EU perspective, I can see why it pays to say the US is an unreliable or unnecessary partner. It may or may not be true, but cui bono: EU gets to reindustrialize and invest domestically. Seems like a great idea for EU and US both.
What makes you think the U.S continues to be a reliable partner for anyone anywhere?
The US doesn't have any partners anymore, except for some small countries like Hungary and Israel.
I think you'd be surprised how much intel sharing and cooperation happens behind the political curtains.
4 replies →
While America is appearing to be the abject fool here, it’s hard to take any of Europe’s criticisms like this seriously when even in the best of times they have constantly castigated us as fools.
They were calling us fools when we were inventing AI in 2015 too.
I think what we are doing today is horribly executed, but likely motivated by a farsightedness Europe can’t believe is there since we are all just dumb fools. (Collapse of globalism as a sustainable system)
>They were calling us fools when we were inventing AI in 2015 too.
were they? You invented AI in 2015? My Nokia had predictive text over 20 years ago
> but likely motivated by a farsightedness
Oh you're thinking two quarters ahead now?
I was on googles founding LLM research team so… yes?
> While America is appearing to be the abject fool here
I would just leave it at that.