Chat thread 1331: Just talkin’ chickens. This is better.

[plama]

Wait a minute.

New statement says he does not have COVID.

This is not

 

[plama]

A fucking

 

[plama]

Game

 

[TownieDeac]

Ahh grant sections, who wouldn’t want their future research judged by a group of people competing for the same dwindling amount of money.

theoretically:

A) it's not the same pot of money
B) it's not dwindling
C) they're senior enough researchers they just apply for and get grants with ease

in practice, you're probably right at least to some degree

 

[birdman]

Government could definitely use historians, philosophers, ethicists, and anybody who can write worth a shit. Hiring more people from humanities instead of law school could lead to a shift from focusing on what’s legal or what is moral and ethical with an eye toward understanding how we got to where we are.

I was think of a PhD degree as a research degree and focused on areas where the government could would benefit from research and research design perspective. But, I agree that there is large potential benefit for the Government to hire research historians, economists, sociologists etc. for crafting and implementing legislation rather than lawyers.

 

[TownieDeac]

birdman what the FUCK

 

[birdman]

I'm loving how far down the, "more Government employees is the answer" rabbit hole you're going.

There's no possible way you've ever interacted with the Government on any meaningful level if you think adding employees is the answer to fucking ANYTHING.

This is such an over used diatribe. I work with government natural resource agencies at the state and federal level every single day and every one of them could use more man power to be more effective agencies. They are mandated/required to do waaaaaaaay more than they can handle because every agency is under staffed and underfunded.

 

[birdman]

birdman what the FUCK

that's awesome. The crows around my house here have started whistling at each other in a way that sounds a lot like how I whistle at my dogs...its a bit freaky

 

[JuiceCrewAllStar]

aren't crows like mt. rushmore animal smart?

 

[JuiceCrewAllStar]

This is such an over used diatribe. I work with government natural resource agencies at the state and federal level every single day and every one of them could use more man power to be more effective agencies. They are mandated/required to do waaaaaaaay more than they can handle because every agency is under staffed and underfunded.

conservative strategy as old as time: underfund then claim poor performance then further underfund and so on

 

[Kory]

>break govt
>"look the govt is broken!"

 

[TimmyClutch]

this is second hand, but my dad goes to NIH 4x/year to review grants, and he always remarks they could bring in double the people and spend half as much if they didn't pay for car service from DCA to Bethesda and put them all up at the 4 seasons and give them big stipends

All you normies hating on TDY hotel rates and per diem for government employees, do you know how hard it is dine in Bethesda on $75 a day? A sausage egg and cheese bagel at Bethesda bagel is $8 by itself. Also no one stays at the Four Seasons, you do the Ritz so you can get Marriott points.

 

[TownieDeac]

All you normies hating on TDY hotel rates and per diem for government employees, do you know how hard it is dine in Bethesda on $75 a day? A sausage egg and cheese bagel at Bethesda bagel is $8 by itself. Also no one stays at the Four Seasons, you do the Ritz so you can get Marriott points.

lol the stipends are like $5000 for a 3 day weekend

 

[Donkey Deac Doug]

This is such an over used diatribe. I work with government natural resource agencies at the state and federal level every single day and every one of them could use more man power to be more effective agencies. They are mandated/required to do waaaaaaaay more than they can handle because every agency is under staffed and underfunded.

I work in the federal government, bro. Just...no.

One could fire half the people in my office tomorrow, bring in a single person from the private sector who isn't federal-lazy and see an overall improvement in service/work product.

 

[PhDeac]

even well educated people around here seem to cling to the "educated people always underperform against scrappy, entrepreneurial business types" myth

Could you explain this? I don't get what you're saying.

I'm loving how far down the, "more Government employees is the answer" rabbit hole you're going.

There's no possible way you've ever interacted with the Government on any meaningful level if you think adding employees is the answer to fucking ANYTHING.

he didn't say "more" he just said "differently educated/credentialed"

Yeah. If you think government employees suck, seems like changing the types of people government hires is a reasonable solution.

this is second hand, but my dad goes to NIH 4x/year to review grants, and he always remarks they could bring in double the people and spend half as much if they didn't pay for car service from DCA to Bethesda and put them all up at the 4 seasons and give them big stipends

Damn. I review NSF grants once or twice a year. They pay for flights to DC and then given us a reasonable stipend to pay for food, lodging, transportation, and a day in a half of on-site work. I think it's a pretty good investment to pay $10-15K or so for a knowledgeable panel that will end up recommending around $1-3M in funding.

theoretically:

A) it's not the same pot of money
B) it's not dwindling
C) they're senior enough researchers they just apply for and get grants with ease

in practice, you're probably right at least to some degree

This. The NSF process for putting together merit review panels takes all of this into account. Panels are for a specific funding program that has a specific budget.

A) NSF considers you a conflict of interest if you're on a proposal for that funding program. Usually you won't be asked to review in that case. However, I did get asked to review one or two proposals ad hoc for despite being an evaluator in a proposal. That's far less than the 8-10 I'd be reviewing on a panel.

B) Definitely not dwindling. NSF budgets are healthy and NIH budgets are huge. It's very competitive though.

C) Pretty much. I started doing panels before I got my first grant. I knew several program officers from being a post-doc and senior personnel on my mentor's grants and reaching out in my unsuccessful attempts to get a CAREER award. Usually the panelists are very experienced from various fields. I often end up reviewing grants in hard sciences and engineering because they want a social scientist who can look beyond curriculum and program development.

I was think of a PhD degree as a research degree and focused on areas where the government could would benefit from research and research design perspective. But, I agree that there is large potential benefit for the Government to hire research historians, economists, sociologists etc. for crafting and implementing legislation rather than lawyers.

Yeah. I think they'd benefit from researchers, practitioners, and scholars from all these backgrounds. We need people crafting and implementation who are knowledgeable in these fields, understand how variables impact outcomes, know the reality on the ground, can think creatively about the short and long term impact of legislation, and are concerned about the broader ethical implications.

>break govt
>"look the govt is broken!"

[insert Eric Andre meme here]

 

[JuiceCrewAllStar]

All you normies hating on TDY hotel rates and per diem for government employees, do you know how hard it is dine in Bethesda on $75 a day? A sausage egg and cheese bagel at Bethesda bagel is $8 by itself. Also no one stays at the Four Seasons, you do the Ritz so you can get Marriott points.

thank you for your service

 

[Kory]

Ph, have you watched Eric Andre or do you just know him through the memes

not hating, just curious (as someone who wrote a master's thesis on internet memes)

 

[JuiceCrewAllStar]

I work in the federal government, bro. Just...no.

One could fire half the people in my office tomorrow, bring in a single person from the private sector who isn't federal-lazy and see an overall improvement in service/work product.

what would their pay cut be?

I work with government attorneys a good bit, but admittedly not federal, and they aren't the problem

the 45 year old that's still a junior level staff in the ________ department is the one you have to be wary of

 

[DeaconCav06]

I work in the federal government, bro. Just...no.

One could fire half the people in my office tomorrow, bring in a single person from the private sector who isn't federal-lazy and see an overall improvement in service/work product.

My wife estimates about half of the people at her prior department could survive in the private sector.

 

[mako1331]

Dude my brother makes almost 200k a year and watches old wrestling videos all day. He’s a director and continues to get promoted. even though he mows his yard on company time and I’ve seen him hand a conference call to a cheerleader on a bus ride to an away game and tell her to hand it back to him if someone said his name. I’m not sure I buy into this whole private sector work is more difficult than the public sector.