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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   21838 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 27, 2025

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Funding is paused. There is no evidence for negative ramifications of the pause. Democrats are using their agents in the media to depict this as chaotic and bad. That’s because the effects of misinformation linger even when retractions are issued, though there is usually not a salient retraction issued anyway. The intention is to form a negative emotional memory in the consumer’s mind which strengthens for each story. I am filing this under “business as usual”.

Personally, I know several people who work at an FQHC who have suddenly been cut off from their funds and are in a state of disarray at this time. Although too soon to tell, if this continues for long, the network of dozens of clinics in the area will have to shut down. They provide medical and psychiatric care for many people in the area. This definitely would be a negative ramification.

Why wouldn’t there be negative effects for abruptly cutting off funding? You know what they say about the absence of evidence.

The net effect absolutely could be positive, but it’s not going to be free. I am certain the media will be blasting genuine sob stories from whatever percentage of Americans were actually depending on this.

You know what they say about the absence of evidence.

As the story of the dog that did not bark in the nighttime reveals, sometimes it is indeed evidence of absence.

To be clear, I expect the dog will bark, but Trump enthusiasts will cheerfully dismiss it as an injured cat.

Abandoning the metaphor—some people were getting money, and if this works, they won’t keep getting money. Even if this is a good thing, they are going to complain and dig up the most sympathetic first-generation college student flattened by student debt. It’s not a statistical argument, just a political one.

To be clear, I expect the dog will bark, but Trump enthusiasts will cheerfully dismiss it as an injured cat.

We've already learned from coverage of the alleged pet-eating Haitians that calling a cat a dog is "directionally correct" in Trumpworld. Surely the same applies if Peticare cuts injure a cat and I call it a barking dog?

There is no evidence for negative ramifications of the pause.

The pause has just begun. What measurable outcomes or evidence of decreased institutional efficacy would you accept as "negative ramifications," when the effects of the pause are analyzed?

What measurable outcomes or evidence of decreased institutional efficacy would you accept

You're already loading the question. Why should we assume that the institutions carrying out their functions is a good thing?

I’m not sure how else you’d phrase it.

If coffee says there’s No Evidence ™ of negative ramifications, he ought to have some measurable outcome in mind.

I like your VA example, except I don’t know how much of the VA is grant-funded. It’s a government agency, not a separate nonprofit, right?

I like your VA example, except I don’t know how much of the VA is grant-funded. It’s a government agency, not a separate nonprofit, right?

Yeah, I'll grant (heh) that this is a problem with Trump's sweeping approach, and it would be a lot easier to talk about costs and benefits if he tried something more targeted. But I was asked a question on what evidence to accept, and that's the type of thing I'd count as a negative. FWIW, someone else mentioned local clinics that are financed with grant money, I think that counts too.

"or" - what measurable outcomes of any kind would you accept as "negative ramifications," when the effects of the pause are analyzed?

You mentioned the VA in the other comment, if there's a measurable increase in waiting times, or some other decrease in service quality would do it. "Research", and other forms of paper pushing is at the lowest risk of me caring about it getting cut, unless it gets in the way of people doing productive work (like longer waiting times for construction permits, or something? I dunno).

"Research", and other forms of paper pushing is at the lowest risk of me caring about it getting cut, unless it gets in the way of people doing productive work (like longer waiting times for construction permits, or something? I dunno).

Here's 1,877 active and/or recruiting (hopefully...) clinical trials targeted at veterans' health problems. Do you consider this "paper pushing?" (Yes, many are the kinds of "community health" interventions that are easy to be cynical about, but there are also many potentially important RCTs and even basic science like "DNA Methylation Markers in Veterans Exposed to Open Burn Pits," just on the first page.)

Yeah. If we survived this long without them, I'm sure we can wait a bit more.

There's always room for more in the invisible graveyard!

Amazingly no one freaking out over this has decided to so much as lift a finger against the FDA and other invisible graveyard producers.

More comments

The White House said the pause would not impact Social Security or Medicare payments or "assistance provided directly to individuals." That means some food aid programs for the poor would not be affected, sources said.

Ok, so people (read: voters) will keep getting payments but the grants and funding to will be cut. It's not at all clear who any of this effects from that first article. As for medicine in poor countries...I'm sure China will be more than happy to fill that void.

I'm pretty sure Bush II did something similar during his second term. I was working at a non-profit. Some amount of funding stopped coming and we had to hustle for more state and charitable funding. I don't think it had any effect on the community, but maybe in the long run some services (like free dental, a school they ran) might have been stopped.

The Reuters piece was super vague, likely because the leak or memo or whatever was super vague. These things happen either out of malice against the rule-makers or to put people on notice. So the effect is a population of chicken-little's crying about the sky falling. Without more specifics it's almost impossible to set any parameters for what may or may not be a negative externality.

I think many here would agree that there's opposing standard of merit from the various NGO's and Universities and Whatever to compare against. We don't have anything aside from numbers going out and maybe the people employed. Grantees report all kinds of things that their program is definitely doing, but no one (I dunno maybe effective altruists) has done the work of presenting whatever the value-add is for society. Hence the, "Why should we assume their functions are good," statement.

So you'll get the people who never question the goodness of their programs screaming to the heavens, the people who doubt the goodness of these programs cheering in the streets and everyone else shrugging their shoulders and getting on with it.

There is no evidence for negative ramifications of the pause.

I mean, “negative” is in the eye of the beholder, but tautologically, the consequence of pausing federal grantmaking is that the people who were doing jobs funded out of federal grants are now no longer getting paid.

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