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The China Problem

LeviF

By LeviF
in Politics, Polls, and Pundits

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LeviF
LeviF

It's well-demonstrated now: people who thought the Cold War was over were idiots.  The USSR fell and the USA propped China up in its place to allow our corporations to exploit cheap labor and proto-ca

Deranged Rhino
Deranged Rhino

We shouldn’t demonize the Chinese? Why not? Because they actively ***** up the containment response to the initial outbreak, knew they screwed the pooch, then lied to the world about it?    Or

LeviF
LeviF

Which is quite the change from them bailing out multinationals that sold our interests to China.  Maybe it's time to start re-evaluating who the leftist policies in the country actually sought to bene

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DrW RFA

DrW

Posted
Posted (edited)
3 hours ago, Reality Check said:

 

The NIH functions as a general contractor that subs out the research to various groups as essentially subcontractors.

 

When these contracts are terminated, they are essentially fired.

 

 

 

The term "general contractor" gives the impression that the NIH comes up with research plans. As you might know, this is not the case. The individual researcher (PI, "Principal Investigator") at University XYZ comes up with a hypothesis to solve a potentially interesting problem, designs experiments to confirm or disprove it, and asks the NIH for a grant. In 5-20% of all cases he/she will be successful. Officially, the money goes to the university which then passes it along to the PI. It is primarily the university's duty to obtain the required "financial disclosures" of outside funds from the PI. Believe me, I have to go through this process every year (our university wants the data even if you are not federally funded). Of course, I am not under the illusion that the university can check every detail in my disclosures, especially if foreign funds are involved. This task then falls to the NIH, and I agree with you that for a long time they did not do proper checks. I attribute this to sloppiness, or lack of awareness of the problem, and not to evil intentions. But we might differ on this conclusion.

 

And when an NIH grant expires, you are not "fired". You still get your salary from the university for all the other things you do (teaching, service).

Edited by DrW
Reality Check Veteran

Reality Check

Posted
Posted
8 hours ago, DrW said:

 

The term "general contractor" gives the impression that the NIH comes up with research plans. As you might know, this is not the case. The individual researcher (PI, "Principal Investigator") at University XYZ comes up with a hypothesis to solve a potentially interesting problem, designs experiments to confirm or disprove it, and asks the NIH for a grant. In 5-20% of all cases he/she will be successful. Officially, the money goes to the university which then passes it along to the PI. It is primarily the university's duty to obtain the required "financial disclosures" of outside funds from the PI. Believe me, I have to go through this process every year (our university wants the data even if you are not federally funded). Of course, I am not under the illusion that the university can check every detail in my disclosures, especially if foreign funds are involved. This task then falls to the NIH, and I agree with you that for a long time they did not do proper checks. I attribute this to sloppiness, or lack of awareness of the problem, and not to evil intentions. But we might differ on this conclusion.

 

And when an NIH grant expires, you are not "fired". You still get your salary from the university for all the other things you do (teaching, service).

 

In this case, the contracts were terminated, and thus these people were fired. It's semantics. These people simply didn't have their grants expire. I work on the side of the equation where I am in fact a sub-contractor in the digital space, and I can assure you, NIH is not unique. They have goals which exist in a working model based on priorities that the individual researchers are typically not aware of, one priority is guaranteed to be related directly with national security. For instance, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency has jurisdiction over the NIH "unofficially", and manage their own "sub-contractors" in that space. They don't even report to the Joint Chiefs, but strictly to Special Operations Command. When subcontractors function as channel partners in a space, the people at the research level are unfortunately looking at a one way mirror, while their work is shared with people outside of the NDAs and teaming agreements. The researchers are not aware of that, but that is the purpose of compartmentalization. I understand your disagreement with the semantics of how I describe it, but as a subcontractor my self who has to submit white papers often to get anything off the ground, it is best to view the bureaucracy you serve as a general contractor and yourself as the sub-contractor, for the sake of understanding the true nature of that business relationship. It's all the same business model when you have all parties seeking an expansion of a budget to prove a concept, and the eventual private sector rollout of a profitable solution. Good luck in your field, as it is ground zero for product development. Just don't fall into the trap thinking that there is no compartmentalized agenda controlling the space you work in. It is illogical and ultimately not profitable.

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DrW RFA

DrW

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, Reality Check said:

 

In this case, the contracts were terminated, and thus these people were fired. It's semantics. These people simply didn't have their grants expire. I work on the side of the equation where I am in fact a sub-contractor in the digital space, and I can assure you, NIH is not unique. They have goals which exist in a working model based on priorities that the individual researchers are typically not aware of, one priority is guaranteed to be related directly with national security. For instance, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency has jurisdiction over the NIH "unofficially", and manage their own "sub-contractors" in that space. They don't even report to the Joint Chiefs, but strictly to Special Operations Command. When subcontractors function as channel partners in a space, the people at the research level are unfortunately looking at a one way mirror, while their work is shared with people outside of the NDAs and teaming agreements. The researchers are not aware of that, but that is the purpose of compartmentalization. I understand your disagreement with the semantics of how I describe it, but as a subcontractor my self who has to submit white papers often to get anything off the ground, it is best to view the bureaucracy you serve as a general contractor and yourself as the sub-contractor, for the sake of understanding the true nature of that business relationship. It's all the same business model when you have all parties seeking an expansion of a budget to prove a concept, and the eventual private sector rollout of a profitable solution. Good luck in your field, as it is ground zero for product development. Just don't fall into the trap thinking that there is no compartmentalized agenda controlling the space you work in. It is illogical and ultimately not profitable.

 

Thank you for the detailed explanation. I work in basic biochemical research, in a field less sensitive to concerns of national security. In our field, when you see the grant scores handed out by your peers in the study section, you can pretty much predict who will get funded and who will not, without external input. But I can see that things might be different in more security-sensitive areas.

Reality Check Veteran

Reality Check

Posted
Posted
45 minutes ago, DrW said:

 

Thank you for the detailed explanation. I work in basic biochemical research, in a field less sensitive to concerns of national security. In our field, when you see the grant scores handed out by your peers in the study section, you can pretty much predict who will get funded and who will not, without external input. But I can see that things might be different in more security-sensitive areas.

 

It was very nice talking to you DrW. And of course, I wish you the best as a biochemical researcher. Never stop.

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Reality Check Veteran

Reality Check

Posted
Posted

 

 

This is a great discussion that explores the psychodynamics of the early Soviet Union under Stalin.

 

Stalin is widely considered the father of agitation propaganda and should be studied in order to understand the agitation propaganda we are dealing with now at the global level.

 

The USA is not alone in this conflict.

 

It's a few hours long, but very easy material to digest.

OldTimeAFLGuy Hall of Famer

OldTimeAFLGuy

Posted
Posted

...so how is it that the perennial power mongering frauds have played us like a broken fiddle for years across multiple administrations ON BOTH SIDES?.....why did the "light just go off recently"?.....vying for world dominance with Russia for years......what woke us up (if so)??................

wppete All Pro

wppete

Posted
Posted
15 minutes ago, OldTimeAFLGuy said:

...so how is it that the perennial power mongering frauds have played us like a broken fiddle for years across multiple administrations ON BOTH SIDES?.....why did the "light just go off recently"?.....vying for world dominance with Russia for years......what woke us up (if so)??................

 

 

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