States should be in this business, too, and Illinois already is. Pritzker going whole hog on “we’re safe for scientists, and the more neon your hair is, the larger your grant” is going to eliminate all budget problems for the next 20 years if done unabashedly.
Now that’s a delicious idea if any can afford it.
I should imagine whatever states can afford it will try to fund ongoing research but guess what? That means mostly blue states, and DOGE (whatever its name, not looking for efficiency) will find some pretext to close it down.
Yes, we have to keep fighting. But anticipate their stupid moves. If it means research continues despite their naarishkeit, let it be.
it’s easy to wake up every morning and wonder what’s worth doing. And that’s enough. Keep doing that. I’m here, reach out.
Dammit I’m not even Ashkenasi! But they seem to have all the good words. Guess there’s a reason.
Hey, fam.
The entire world has been focused on demonising immigration especially anyone considered a refugee.... So that's probably going to slow that down, despite the value. I don't know many politicians that would go bravely to do that overtly
Cali be like: Give us your geeks, your nerds, your STEM kids yearning to breath free…
I love this
In week 2 or 3 I wrote letters to my entire state apparatus from the governor down to the water board asking them to be ready to catch all the noaa scientists when they fall. Some of that is happening, but not enough (because those grants aren't cheap which is why the feds have to do it)
This is probably happening, but it's not a headline generator (especially nationally) if a top professor leaves for Canada, Japan or Europe. Now, if it was a top basketball player going from college to a European basketball league instead of the NBA, it would get into the news...
Amusingly there been several headlines in Toronto about academics from the US moving here. Specifically the guy that studies fascism making a beeline to the University of Toronto was written about quite a bit here.
You must mean Tom Snyder. When he moved to Canada, I thought we must all be screwed.
Pretty much. I mean, there is still time to get him contained, but I don't think anyone is going to take action till things get much worse.
Do you mean Timothy Snyder, the author of On Tyranny? he discusses the move in this video. Super brilliant man. He didn't desert us, not at all. youtu.be/1GCp3Ki6umw?...
very good discussion - full of information.
This one also. He never fails to impress. youtu.be/idBWUEup_rg?...
Yes! My iPhone always seems to change Tim to Tom.
Thanks for this Flagging to view later!
Well worth the time. @timothysnyder.bsky.social, @hcrichardson.bsky.social, and @marcelias.bsky.social are my primary heroes at the moment.
Wild, cause I was talking about Jason Stanley That there was more than 1 says a lot. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
I was unfamiliar with his story. The day after the election, I called my son and told him if he and his wife decide to leave the US, I'm supportive. If I wasn't so old and had the means, I'd be out of here, providing I could get all of my children and grandchildren to come with me.
That made Aussie news too.
We didn't even hear about it. At least I didn't.
No, we didn't.
www.vanityfair.com/news/story/t...
I was coming on here to exactly that. 😊
They are doing this. People in the US will also have to find places abroad for HS, undergrads and grad students. It will take 20 years to put the student to scientist pipeline back in operation in the US:(
Denmark is offering a fast track process for up to 200 scientists this year.
The EU is indeed doing this www.politico.com/newsletters/...
Not so quietly now. www.france24.com/en/europe/20...
I'm going to science so hard now
Time to get all E = mc³ on that science thang.
Cube the squares and all that
"Stealing" 😆
Laughable amount compared to what the US just cut. This is really just window dressing.
If they can make this a better world, by all means go. The US has become a hostile environment for science.
@bencollins.bsky.social the next time I cut up an onion I’ll be thinking of you.
(With love, not a threat) 🧡
And like trade routes, the US brain drain will take decades to reverse.
Easy for rich states to do - sadly, many states rely on federal research grants…
Watch as Dubai starts throwing cash at medical researchers
Douche has already GIVEN it away.
Hell that is how we got Albert Einstein, Hans Krebs, and Fritz Haber History Doesn't Repeat, But It Often Rhymes
I hadn't put this two and two together. Thanks for being The Brain to this Pinky.
Wernher Von Braun
Blue states (and their universities) should be doing huge plans to attract and keep
Gavin Newsom in California is doing the opposite, gutting the UC and CSU budgets because we don't need universities apparently. The Onion version of Gavin is probably more intelligent.
Newsom isn't stupid, he's just a slimy smarmy gentrifying yuppie.
This is my hair from a few years ago. I have a PhD in STEM and was a professor in Illinois for a while. What is my grant value!
I'm not sure, but in my opinion, it should be increased substantially based on your exquisite taste. Love the color. Unfortunately, working in medicine within a hospital system, I had to sport what they deemed "hair color found in nature." WTF?
"this is the color of a well fed flamingo, which is in nature"
We tried those sorts of arguments and weren't met with success. Their color palate was: blonde; red/ginger; brunette; black; gray; white - boring.
MOAR SHRIMPZ!
U could have stood strong with robin's egg blue!
You’re top tier because color choice and hair length tell me everything about your tenacity, commitment, and resolve.* *knowing how difficult it is to maintain;)
Yeah, that sucked to maintain! Pretty much had to redo every 3-5 washings.
Brava!
Blue states need to just grab EVERY person fired from every agency or cabinet or department in the federal government and put them back to work on whatever they were doing in a state level role and figure out the money for it later.
So far Maryland is just trying to turn feds into prison guards and teachers and they are not interested in that particular career change.
My overly short answer is that most other countries' higher ed systems are struggling right now and there's not a ton of desire in those countries to put a ton of funding into colleges
Exactly right. There's a lack of acknowledgement that many Trumpian policy impulses also thrive (even predate) elsewhere, e.g. anti-education, anti immigration, isolationism etc. just without the Trump clown show
PM Harper in Canada was doing nearly everything Trump is in Canada besides heavy trade tariffs. Cutting education, research, dismantling Environment Canada, gagging researchers, firing thousands of government workers and scientists.
*cough* Brexit *cough* Also, actually that whole government was a clown show. Just not with quite the world-news-headline-dominating effects.
Yeah the UK is closing campuses I believe. Departments for sure.
Yes exactly re Canadian universities. Both the provincial higher ed systems and the federal research funding are in grim financial shape. The medical system has more capacity to absorb US healthcare workers however, and a huge need for them.
But Canadian cities can’t handle more renters!
Build housing. (respectfully)
Coming from the US with $US savings they'll be more than well placed to buy here.
Ok, but only would drive up prices in Toronto and Vancouver!
Plus higher ed policy is decidedly in the "low and slow" end of policy cooking over here. And I doubt even Trump can shock our politicians into suddenly increasing university funding in the long term. Higher ed has been slowly sliding down the priority lists on all sides of politics for years.
Already have Fermilab. Could set up a new Research Triangle Park between Bloomington, Champaign, and, uh, Decatur I guess?
If you put it in Decatur it is essentially equal distance with Champaign Springfield Charleston and Normal/Bloomington.
And then easy access to drug makers via 74 to Indy
kind of an awkward geography, but your best best for this is probably DeKalb (NIU) or Carbondale (SIU).
Minnesota is doing the same.
Have you yet considered an exploratory committee, sir?
bsky.app/profile/theg...
New York State should consider this also
@kathyhochul.bsky.social ⬆️
She’s too busy trying to ban masks to uphold science.
Only because she hates Jews.
Only giving grant bonuses to neon hair people is an attack on those that went the tattoo and piercing routes, which arguably have higher levels of commitment. Extra money to *everyone* that's has a little freak inside them!
That’s actually project 2025 goal- to have states fund science
Hell, all you’d need to say is, “We actually WANT to cure cancer and not privatize medical research,” and there would be FLOODS. Wait until DODGE starts selling our data to foreign powers, we’ll have personalized invitations to leave. 🤣
I love my large and fluffy governor, even if he's a billionaire.
did he actually say that? I love it. i hope he did!
Good for Pritzker
Pritzker can’t support the scientific community like NIH can. It would be nice but without federal funding most can’t survive here.
Well, better than not having any support at all, no?
Just about to say that I am in Minnesota and lost my job due to NIH funding cuts and grants not being approved.
J to the B don't f*ck around ✊️✊️✊️
They're probably spending this time bypassing what's left of the DOD, and all of the intelligence agencies that have been gutted. America is in a very vulnerable position right now. I'm truly surprised there have not been any attacks. I'm excluding the cyber attacks by DOGE, of course.
We need another billionaire to push through changes we need. Just like FDRoosevelt, who fought against the greediness of of his class that brought on the Great Depression. We need to see if Pritzker is this guy or just another corporate Democrat!
With FDR it got to the point where he had to call up his rich buddies and say “if we don’t throw the proles a few crumbs they’re going to kill us in our beds.” More diplomatically, I assume.
Need Bill or Melinda Gates to fund a new science research lab
...by being taxed out of billionairehood, just like all of their peers
Been seeing ads in nyc recruiting laid off fed workers to wok for the state government
I didn't know NYS was so committed to Stir Friday.
I love this Pritzer guy really hard. He’s got his eyes laser focused and never misses. I want him in the Oval bad, right away. 🇺🇸
I live in California and I think we should be doing this for skilled folks: Are you a nurse? Are you an OBGYN who doesn't want to risk prison from doing your job? Well here is zero-interest loan to help cover your living/moving expenses that will be turned into a grant after 5 years.
If I didn't already live in Washington, I would leverage these five colors for all they are worth.... Joking aside - This is happening, it is just a little... quiet.
And I don't know if everyone can just afford the extra ~$100 billion to woo us away ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsb2024...
I personally would accept much less than $100 billion ;> But yes, this is definitely (part of) the problem. We, as infrastructure, are quite extensive. And of course plenty of people are not looking to uproot their lives. It is... a mess.
Illinois, California, Massachusetts, and New York could clean up here based on the university systems and friendly state government if we could get some dang housing built so folks could afford to move here.
It's not the lack of housing units, but the greed. Landlords and capital funds are building an excess of "luxury apartments", and then let many of them stay empty. What's lacking is public housing, co-op housing and a general rent control.
Those states need to band together to do this, and let any other blue state join in. Pool their resources, pool their money, be some sort of United group of States. Could work!
The public systems in those states are severely defunded though. Neoliberalism has gutted public higher Ed (which is why they were so vulnerable to the federal grant cuts in the first place).
Yeah the real sad part is that the Clintonian centrism that’s ruled the party since 1992 has been a disaster for state governments too. Not just the interplay between federal and state, but centrist & neoliberal politicians in the statehouses have hollowed out a lot of things in state governments.
But the nice thing is that state governments are eminently fixable. Model legislation probably already exists to fix a lot of the problems. Lots of smart people on it, just have to pick the solutions that are 21st century solutions and not just more Bill Clinton / James Carville triangulation.
Where there’s a will, there’s a way….. Certainly one possible outcome of the current mess is people realizing what government does for them and why it’s bad when that money goes away.
What I'm fundamentally suggesting (although didn't draw it out in the post) is that these states and the liberal establishment at large needs to create a pro growth, pro wealth platform that shares its spoils with everyone. More science, more homes, more education. We can build bright.
The MAGA movement is fundamentally based on zero sum thinking, but that's clearly not how the world works. We owe it to ourselves and our kids to strive to build a healthier and more prosperous world for everyone.
The Funding gap is huge, and the efforts are already there (I know our tiny Finland already did some targeted adds on US scientists looking for new places) but the amount of funding needed to capture the US spending is so large, and many countries are fearful of being too openly "hostile".
Yeah, I think that's the crux of it. We'd love to steal a load of fantastic American researchers, we just... can't afford them.
Yeah, you can Their incomes are often tied to the grants they bring in
Also surprising amount of research conducted in other places also gets funding from the US, so antagonizing US can also hit from multiple angles.
I gather this is happening, albeit quietly. Australia, Europe - we/they are taking them
And Cape Town, too. 2 more families just this month applying for schools in my area.
I'm glad they're being accepted elsewhere
100%. USA has done STEM like nowhere else, and other countries have relied on our lead and expertise. Our brain drain is going to be swift, and we will become second world.
This is reason # 60,173 why I dig my Governor Pritzker more than I ever should any billionaire middle-aged white man.
Legitimately it could revolutionize that state; good bones but suffering rural and some urban parts.
Have i mentioned that i 🧡 Pritzker?
