alt.hn

6/22/2026 at 4:25:02 PM

NSF slashes research programs to support new tech initiative, insiders say

 https://www.science.org/content/article/exclusive-nsf-slashes-research-programs-support-new-tech-initiative-insiders-say

by strangeloops85

6/22/2026 at 7:58:04 PM

If you haven't read it already, it's really worth digesting the arguments Vannevar Bush made regarding funding basic science in 1945 (Science: The Endless Frontier) which resulted in the NSF as we know it being founded:

https://nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov/2023-04/EndlessFrontier75t...

"A nation which depends upon others for its new basic scientific knowl- edge will be slow in its industrial progress and weak in its competitive position in world trade, regardless of its mechanical skill."

I think FROs are certainly worth exploring, but if we're diverting vast amounts of funding to existing research infrastructure and talent to funding them, the opportunity costs are huge. This is not well appreciated, but universities are in fact very cheap places to do research compared to any modern alternative one might construct. I suspect FROs will end up being much more expensive just for structural reasons, and will end up re-discovering the university bundle slowly and piece by piece. Moreover, for many types of research they will have to effectively rebuild a range of infrastructure (facilities, equipment, etc.) that already exists at universities throughout the country.

None of this justifies blowing up the extensive basic research infrastructure we have today in pursuit of unproven experiments. Once they're proven, a conversation can be had about how to reconfigure existing assets and new government-funded approaches. But such discussions must include congress, the appropriators of the funds.

by contemporary343

6/22/2026 at 7:46:04 PM

You and people you know will lead worse and less fulfilling lives due to this. You, or someone you love, will likely die of causes that would have been preventable without this destruction of domestic science. Academic culture undoubtedly needed reform, but this evisceration bent on shortsighted retribution will help absolutely nobody.

by cayley_graph

6/22/2026 at 9:52:58 PM

[flagged]

by rayiner

6/22/2026 at 10:11:44 PM

That is an enormous budget cut; it is exactly an evisceration. And the general trend is to cut both science and its application. Trials for life-saving treatments _by biotech companies attempting to commercialize them_ are being halted or cancelled due to the science cuts and general corruption.

Many people have many complaints; many should be ignored. There's lots of money (and indeed, huge market incentive) to commercialize potentially successful science, and as such it has been done consistently. Curiosity-driven science must feed it, and the idea that it does not unambiguously benefit society at large, with extreme and breathtaking return on investment, is a fantasy perpetuated by those susceptible to the idiotic culture war.

by cayley_graph

6/22/2026 at 10:33:51 PM

[flagged]

by rayiner

6/22/2026 at 11:09:09 PM

Sorry, I'm not in the business of responding thoughtfully to low effort questions slung rapid-fire over the fence, which moreover take nothing I've said into account. Case in point, this comment; it seems innocuous but would take an extreme amount of effort on my part to reply to what is, I suspect, something you've made up your mind about.

I think it's clear from your other comments cited here that you're exactly who I'm talking about: a gullible soldier of the culture war who has perfected the art of wasting endless quantities of time arguing online.

by cayley_graph

6/23/2026 at 1:34:14 AM

> Sorry, I'm not in the business of responding thoughtfully to low effort questions slung rapid-fire over the fence

How is it “low-effort” to ask you to address a point raised in the article itself? The article talks about “decades” of complaints that the NSF isn’t focusing enough on applications. You’re the one who dismisses that in a low-effort way by saying “many people have many complaints.” I’m simply asking you to engage with the points in the article itself.

The fact that there’s been “decades” of complaints suggests it’s not some modern “culture war” issue. You’re the one who seems to be trying to shoehorn it into the culture war, instead of addressing the actual issue: the proper balance between fundamental research and applications.

by rayiner

6/23/2026 at 2:36:22 AM

Many words expended here to avoid asking an answerable question. Which complaints? Must I recapitulate the last 70 years of history of politics around science in the United States? You have fixated on a singular line from the article rather than reply substantively to anything I've said (which indeed responds to such complaints inasmuch as this is possible without hearing a specific one), because you have little interest in reaching a shared understanding of its subject material (you do not remotely care about any such historical complaints, or I would've heard one by now) relative to your desire to advance the culture war, as laid bare by your other comments. This sort of low-trust behavior, exacerbated by pretending otherwise, is typical of your unfortunate mindset.

The tactics of discourse you employ are tired and show no signs of improving. You've unfortunately lost the courtesy of a further response from me.

by cayley_graph

6/23/2026 at 12:34:40 AM

That's the game these guys play. It's rapid fire, low-substance Just Asking Questions again and again and again. There's never any actual thought behind it because there's no real desire to engage in the debate as a whole.

They don't have backing evidence and don't need it because they aren't starting from a position rooted in facts or logic, they start from a position rooted in feelings like "gender being a social construct makes me feel weird" and work backwards to whatever position they stake out.

The best move is always to aggressively call them out for what they are - gullible rubes at best and sociopathic liars at worst - and to not even bother engaging with the muck they sling.

by solid_fuel

6/22/2026 at 11:13:14 PM

“What is your response to my assumption?” lol

by jrflowers

6/23/2026 at 1:40:47 AM

[flagged]

by rayiner

6/23/2026 at 2:47:47 AM

And yet the correct word to use here is “assumption”

by jrflowers

6/22/2026 at 10:06:03 PM

Why is government research doing what the industry should be. The point of government research is to enable people to work on things without requiring some economical impact.

The fact you just happily ignore the political situation and the fact this is CLEARLY anti intellectual bullshit says all that needs to be said about you.

by voxl

6/22/2026 at 10:34:28 PM

> Why is government research doing what the industry should be

The government does plenty of applied research in conjunction with industry. E.g. DARPA.

by rayiner

6/22/2026 at 10:38:43 PM

Your entire ass is showing here, liar.

You claim that the cuts aren't actually harmful then turn around and clarify that it's good to hurt people: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48636815 that's how it is obvious to everyone here that you aren't even trying to engage in good faith.

The linked comment:

>> hurting people they don’t like

>> genuine desire to improve America

> We think these are related, just like you do. The difference is that you assume that hurting billionaires will improve America while we assume that hurting NGOs and postmodernist academics will do so.

> And that difference results from the fact that you think you can construct a new society without billionaires and industrialists that nonetheless offers the prosperity we have today, and more. By contrast, we think the way to get more prosperity is to do more of the things that made America prosperous in the past.

by solid_fuel

6/22/2026 at 6:00:30 PM

again, it's all Russell Vought

most people know who Stephen Miller is but the real monster is Russell Vought

Heritage Foundation's #1 enforcer, the destruction of science and academia is their top 10

if Vance, their prized successor, somehow gets the reins in 2029 country is absolutely cooked

* https://www.propublica.org/article/russ-vought-trump-shadow-...

* https://www.propublica.org/article/video-donald-trump-russ-v...

by ck2

6/22/2026 at 7:45:43 PM

They say they care about spending but ignore DOD financial shenanigans, which implies it's not about spending and only about what they like.

by pstuart

6/22/2026 at 8:38:15 PM

has nothing to do with money, it's about destroying science and medicine

president burns $2 million in federal funds almost every weekend golfing https://DidTrumpGolfToday.com

he took $100 million from park funds for his own birthday party

he just ransacked the nuclear missile maintenance program for almost a BILLION dollars to refurbish a half-billion dollar plane which he intends to keep somehow despite wildly illegal under emoluments clause

Iran War spent a BILLION dollars a day and has to be restocked

US funds and supplies Israel 2/3rd of their entire weapons supply (while they have universal healthcare)

again, not about savings, about destruction of science and medicine

by ck2

6/22/2026 at 9:01:40 PM

> US funds and supplies Israel 2/3rd of their entire weapons supply (while they have universal healthcare)

This is misleading.

Israel’s annual budget is $270 Billion, of which $45 Billion is military. US aid is around $3.8 Billion a year.

by throw36932

6/23/2026 at 2:06:39 AM

I don't know the numbers, but you and the parent are saying different things. The US could still be supplying 2/3s of Israel's weapons while only subsidising about 10% of that supply.

by tacomonstrous

6/22/2026 at 10:29:17 PM

Preach, brother. I'm saying that the GOP frames the cuts as "saving taxpayer money" vs the obvious "we hate science because it consistently proves that we're lying to you".

by pstuart

6/22/2026 at 4:41:04 PM

More or less a handout to the tech industry. This is just the STTR program with even less oversight and a questionable funding source.

Curious what the plan is when the academic pipeline for training researchers collapses entirely. AI all the things?

by TimorousBestie

6/22/2026 at 4:48:27 PM

I think it's also a way to reduce funding to universities (which are politically disfavored), since other things like arbitrary reductions to indirect costs didn't work. It also defies both congressional will in the appropriations bill (which is directorate-specific) and of course the whole charter and mandate of NSF, from Vannevar Bush's original case for it.

by contemporary343

6/22/2026 at 4:55:08 PM

Yeah, this is all well-attested.

It’s so weird. Presumably the conservatives still want the US to be a superpower, which presumably includes high-tech capabilities like global power projection, missile defense, and persistent space operations. At the same time they seemingly want a Cultural Revolution-like decimation of intellectuals.

I don’t see how they believe they can attain both objectives at once.

by TimorousBestie

6/22/2026 at 9:55:10 PM

The assumption is that the people in the universities who can build missiles can pretty easily be distinguished from those who can’t.

by rayiner

6/22/2026 at 10:53:29 PM

Anyone with a bare understanding of the history of science would understand how bad of an assumption that is.

You specifically have the much harder problem of explaining how you intend to maintain tech dominance with a Cultural Revolution and also without any foreigners or any of the many various groups of citizens you find personally undesirable.

by TimorousBestie

6/22/2026 at 11:10:33 PM

I’m pretty sure we can maintain technological dominance with the O-visa and E-visa programs.

by rayiner

6/23/2026 at 12:51:11 AM

The implicit assumption is that the people who would genuinely quality for the O visa would want to come to the US. That claim generally held in the past, however it has not been very true in the recent years.

Yes, you will get people who will 'qualify' for those visas, but the bar will and already is getting steadily lower.

by khriss

6/23/2026 at 1:52:58 AM

Apart from a COVID blip, O1 visa petitions have been steadily growing. They’re up 57% since 2013.

Long-term, I suspect skilled immigration will trend down. But for positive reasons: as India and China develop, more people will make the choice to stay home rather than come to America. Same reason we see little emigration from Korea and Japan anymore. It’s a good change, just like it was a good change when our post-WWII edge was reduced after Europe rebuilt. But the attraction of American capital likely still will bring the superstars here.

by rayiner

6/24/2026 at 2:16:03 PM

Well, good luck making those numbers work out. I think I’ll stick to studying Mandarin.

by TimorousBestie

6/22/2026 at 5:08:46 PM

> Presumably the conservatives still want the US to be a superpower,

I used to think that too, but it seems evident the current crop of conservatives is only interested in hurting people they don’t like and funneling money into the pockets of oligarchs. It’s pretty evident now that none of this is being done out of patriotism or a genuine desire to improve America.

by solid_fuel

6/22/2026 at 9:57:22 PM

> hurting people they don’t like

> genuine desire to improve America

We think these are related, just like you do. The difference is that you assume that hurting billionaires will improve America while we assume that hurting NGOs and postmodernist academics will do so.

And that difference results from the fact that you think you can construct a new society without billionaires and industrialists that nonetheless offers the prosperity we have today, and more. By contrast, we think the way to get more prosperity is to do more of the things that made America prosperous in the past.

by rayiner

6/22/2026 at 10:58:39 PM

By contrast, we think the way to get more prosperity is to do more of the things that made America prosperous in the past.

Like not wage foreign wars?

by NewJazz

6/22/2026 at 10:32:58 PM

Oh you mean like funding science? Dumbass.

by voxl

6/22/2026 at 10:43:50 PM

This is funding science. Literally just reallocating funding from one part of the pipeline to another.

by rayiner

6/23/2026 at 3:16:59 AM

You have to fund both ends of the pipeline or it dries up. You can't just fund the money end and expect money to pour out forever.

by DangitBobby

6/22/2026 at 10:30:16 PM

> We think these are related, just like you do.

Oh, we're all well aware that you think hurting people is the only way to improve the country.

> The difference is that you assume that hurting billionaires will improve America while we assume that hurting NGOs and postmodernist academics will do so.

Don't you know that lying is a sin? You can't even define "postmodernist". No. I've heard this screeching noise you're making many times but it always boils down to the same truth: you don't believe in hurting "postmodernist academics", you believe in hurting people who aren't straight, white, christians.

by solid_fuel

6/22/2026 at 10:46:33 PM

[flagged]

by rayiner

6/22/2026 at 11:05:08 PM

> How about “people who bring intersectional personal attributes into a discussion of science funding?”

Yeah, that's what I figured - you are in fact completely incapable of defining "postmodernist". I don't think anyone is surprised that you have no idea what you're talking about though, it's pretty obvious that you're just a really emotionally fragile guy who is having some big feelings about minorities existing.

By the way, I know there's no god, because if there was you would have spontaneously imploded from the sheer irony of whining about bringing “intersectional personal attributes into a discussion of science funding” in a post-DOGE world.

by solid_fuel

6/22/2026 at 11:07:49 PM

“By that definition, DOGE was postmodernist” is sincerely great, good job.

by TimorousBestie

6/22/2026 at 11:18:04 PM

0/10 on reading comprehension, repeat 5th grade. I'm sure that's not the first time you've been told that.

by solid_fuel

6/22/2026 at 6:21:30 PM

There's at least a subset of them who do not. They want isolationism. Almost a juche sort of mentality. Stop propping up Europe/NATO. "No more foreign wars" was their rallying point. The Iran war really brought them to the surface, a lot of them were very unhappy with the Trump administration about that.

by SoftTalker

6/22/2026 at 7:10:54 PM

> The Iran war really brought them to the surface, a lot of them were very unhappy with the Trump administration about that.

So, like...Thomas Massie and Rand Paul?

There were only four republicans in the House and four in the Senate to vote to limit war powers, and I don't think you could claim Murkowski or Collins are isolationists.

Or did you mean this subset was "very unhappy" in like a completely impotent and meaningless way, but they'll have been 100% against it six months or 2.5 or 4.5 years from now?

by magicalist

6/22/2026 at 7:11:44 PM

> Or did you mean this subset was "very unhappy" in like a completely impotent and meaningless way?

That’s how I understood it, yes. So unhappy that they’ll write him in for a third term.

by TimorousBestie

6/23/2026 at 4:31:34 PM

In our system we generally have the choice between two candidates. You can be "very unhappy" with one but still think he is a better option than the other one.

by SoftTalker

6/23/2026 at 11:51:40 PM

I think you successfully dodged the joke.

by TimorousBestie

6/22/2026 at 5:38:11 PM

> Presumably the conservatives still want the US to be a superpower

Why would you presume that? Isn't enough that they get rich and powerful as compared to others around them?

by exe34

6/22/2026 at 5:19:55 PM

[flagged]

by monknomo

6/22/2026 at 5:00:29 PM

[flagged]

by hilariously

6/22/2026 at 5:01:49 PM

[flagged]

by tennfown

6/22/2026 at 6:37:09 PM

But not even. At least in the domain I work in, there is virtually no interest of engaging with these NSF programs. Regardless of what's put in writing in the calls for applicants, there's still a significant prejudice that NSF - by being a part of the government - will be slow and ineffective at administering awards, and therefore it's a waste of time for any agile, fast-moving company.

On the flip-side, my academic colleagues are tearing out their hair trying to get some - any - funding to support their labs. I'm completely inundated with request from colleagues to provide an LOI or some other evidence that our company is interested in working with their lab on something. But that's even _less_ attractive for many private companies!

by counters

6/22/2026 at 10:05:55 PM

We have worked with many (NSF funded) research centers over the past decade. It (accidentally) became our speciality. If you know research centers that are looking for software dev firms that understand how to work with NSF funded grants and research centers, I’d love to connect.

by atonse

6/24/2026 at 2:44:01 AM

Can you share more about who you are and what your firm does?

Apologies if this interpretation is off-base, but I don't think it's a good thing that there is a nascent cottage industry of "software dev firms" that are elbowing their way into these grants. That is another glaring warning sign that what the NSF is doing right now is grossly inconsistent with what it is _supposed_ to be doing.

by counters

6/22/2026 at 5:12:34 PM

It’s a political revenge move, there’s no strategy toward a better outcome such as AI (however questionable that would be) as that’s not the point of it

by wahnfrieden

6/22/2026 at 6:31:45 PM

That seems like typical establishment / reactionary push-back. NSF is spinning up Focused Research Organizations, which are very effective ways of getting basic research done that wouldn't otherwise be funded, and to do so in a way that allows for commercial spin-offs. That's not a handout.

by adastra22

6/22/2026 at 7:10:46 PM

The whole point of an FRO is to have less oversight than a traditional government grant or contract.

by TimorousBestie

6/23/2026 at 6:57:06 AM

That is the point, but not the purpose. Traditional funding mechanisms leave large gaps across whole research areas. A more traditional government grant is small and focused, and only makes sense within the context of an ongoing research effort, e.g. in a university. That's great and fine, except that there are whole categories of things that existing labs and agencies do not do, yet are still too close to basic science for an industrial research lab to pick up.

For example, let's say you want to make a fundamentally different kind of microscope, or nano-fabrication lab. Something that requires many millions of $$ to setup, and further tens of millions to operate. That's too much for an SBIR grant, too expensive for industry to do on a lark. An FRO could setup the lab and run it for 5-7 years, accomplishing major research goals while proving out the concept. But it'll never get done on a spoon-fed sequence of small grants.

So you grant an organization $50M/yr to do this work, with broad freedoms to spend that money how they see fit, so long as progress is made towards the research goals. That's an FRO. Yes, technically that is a government grant with less regulatory oversight. But it's not libertarian philosophy that drives that outcome, so much as regulatory oversight is not setup to fund such efforts in the first place.

by adastra22

6/22/2026 at 7:39:49 PM

”For example, it allows NSF to make awards to nontraditional recipients such as a limited partnership or a venture capital firm, some of which might have been created solely for the purpose of receiving the NSF award. It also allows NSF to make additional awards without the need to review a new application.”

obvious grifting opportunity

by tacomonstrous

6/22/2026 at 8:08:15 PM

I think this is the larger point that is easy to miss.

Thinking about this as slashing science or making it more efficient or short sighted or innovative is all a distraction.

It’s just another opportunity to give money to the friends of those in government and take money from those you don’t. Say want you want about how it used to be, but this and the new rules around “political oversight” are just corruption and grift that are either wearing a mask of ideology or efficiency based on your political stance

by avs733

6/22/2026 at 5:49:19 PM

The next generation of life-improving technologies will likely come out of AI/robotics trained on high-quality data that hasn't been collected yet. Medical, ecological, resource and waste management, agriculture, home automation, etc.

Scientists are literal pros at identifying and collecting (if not organizing) high-quality data.

This really should be a period of supercharging basic science in recognition of that, not looting it.

by pphysch

6/23/2026 at 6:57:02 AM

Why does a couple billion not seem like all that much these days?

by sharts

6/22/2026 at 5:16:02 PM

Rest assured, this will likely come with no small amount of grift.

The Trump administration has already installed political appointees in America’s federal R&D organizations including the NIH and NSF. They have final say on funding decisions. These appointees override grant peer review and regular agency channels. It’s all part of Russel Vought/Project 2025’s unitary executive theory.

These NSF initiatives could well be the next logical step to channel millions of research funds to politically connected companies and organizations. Something similar happened with the recent Reflecting Pool fiasco where the federal contracts were give to Trump donors.

There’s no reason not to believe this will also happen to America’s federal R&D. Grift aside, there’s no reason either not to believe the funds will be given to Trump administration pet projects of dubious scientific value.

by BenFranklin100

6/22/2026 at 5:29:46 PM

>It’s all part of Russel Vought/Project 2025’s unitary executive theory

And its heavily inspired by the nazi Carl schmitt that created the legal foundation for Hitlers rule.

by Hikikomori

6/22/2026 at 5:17:37 PM

> Rest assured, this will likely come with no small amount of grift.

I naturally expect this money to go to tech companies who have time and time again proven their ability to innovate and thrive in the bleeding edge: basically Oracle.

by tennfown

6/22/2026 at 5:35:09 PM

I hope everyone gets it that it is sarcasm, painful as it is.

by srean

6/22/2026 at 5:33:51 PM

Oracle innovate? This must be sarcasm.

by jagged-chisel

6/22/2026 at 5:48:50 PM

> By levying such a large tax on its other programs, the agency appears to be defying a congressional directive in the final FY 2026 appropriations bill that “No [NSF] directorate shall receive more than a 5 percent reduction relative to the fiscal year 2024 enacted level.” That language was meant to address fears by the research community and some legislators that NSF, if its overall budget remained flat, might decide to grow TIP at the expense of its other directorates—a concern that now appears prescient.

What I find so hard to wrangle is that the Trump admin does almost everything in an illegal hamfisted way, whatever their doing gets stricken down by courts, and then a year later we’re just spending time and resources undoing the obviously illegal things they do.

This change even seems like a positive one I wish they should just pass a bill like a normal government.

by ianm218

6/22/2026 at 6:29:30 PM

This is not a positive change. Applied research that makes profits is for industry. Industry will never fund curiosity-driven research in any amount, so the government needs to do it. Redirecting government funding for a function already served by industry is stupid and just another vehicle for corruption.

by Ar-Curunir

6/22/2026 at 6:48:17 PM

> Created in 2022, TIP’s mission is to address the decades-old complaint that the agency, traditionally focused on curiosity-driven research with no obvious commercial value, needs to do more to make sure scientific discoveries eventually benefit society—in new jobs and products, improved health care, or a rising standard of living.

This seems like a decent initiative started under Biden’s pro technology/ industrial policy umbrella. It was launched as part of the hugely successful CHIPS act.

Your critique is a false dichotomy. There is a large spectrum between “purely curiosity driven research” and “research that has near term venture outcomes” where applied research lives. Something like the Bell Lans semi conductor and related research would fit into this. Not immediately venture scale focused research, but could lead to it.

Just because Trump is repurposing it for illegal grift doesn’t mean it’s a bad group to put resources into in general.

by ianm218

6/22/2026 at 7:13:55 PM

Yes. imho it's impeachable because the repeated defiance of Congress indicates an unwillingness to 'faithfully execute the laws'. I'm pretty sure you could measure the statistical probability of this being intentional rather than simply erroneous by looking at the distributions of affirmations or reversals in court decisions.

by anigbrowl

6/22/2026 at 5:27:19 PM

It’s to repay the bribes

by secretsatan

6/22/2026 at 5:55:01 PM

[flagged]

by wirtSalthouse

6/22/2026 at 5:28:11 PM

[flagged]

by charcircuit

6/22/2026 at 5:37:25 PM

Fundamental Science is responsible for most of the money being generated today, Einstein…

by khalic

6/22/2026 at 5:42:39 PM

What a hilariously fact- and understanding-free piece of ragebait.

by defterGoose

6/22/2026 at 11:15:25 PM

The entire program is $1.5 Billion. What's the current running total for the Iran war, again? The republicans care so much about making sure that tax payer money is spent well that they have dumped 30 times that into a pointless war already. In just a few months.

Like, don't you get it already? Nobody is falling for this idiotic "it's about the debt, we're fiscally responsible" bullshit anymore. You can come in here and plug your ears and screech about how all this grift is actually great for the country because 2 billionaires getting 1% more wealth is somehow worth more to you than 100 homeless people being fed and houses, but nobody believes it.

https://militaryspend.org/us-iran-war

by solid_fuel

6/23/2026 at 12:55:09 AM

Just... go away, will you? This constant game of mental gymnastics to interpret open and blatant grift by the supreme leader and his cronies as some kind of genius 4D chess which benefits the 'proud american people' is exhausting.

by khriss

6/22/2026 at 6:32:28 PM

Please don’t say things which reveal how stupid you are.

Essentially all technological advances today stem from fundamental research. It’s fine if you don’t want these advances, but then don’t complain when your life expectancy regresses.

by Ar-Curunir

6/22/2026 at 5:55:46 PM

“According to a June 18 memo…” That’s cool, bruh. Can we see the memo?

by wirtSalthouse

6/22/2026 at 6:17:51 PM

No. It's confidential and the reporter has seem it, but to protect their source isn't going to share it verbatim.

by Symbiote

6/22/2026 at 5:03:24 PM

That's not suspicious or anything...

by josefritzishere

6/22/2026 at 5:43:10 PM

15 years ago you could argue that venture capital wasn't funding enough advanced tech, so ideas were failing to cross the gap from pure research to commercial development. But lately there's capital available for quantum computers, fusion, synthetic bio, space exploration, asteroid mining, and lots more. The government is going to suck at funding the right things. They should leave tech transfer to private investors, and focus on funding pure science.

by tlb

6/22/2026 at 6:16:16 PM

> quantum computers, fusion, synthetic bio, space exploration, asteroid mining

Poster children for tech with no realistic commercial prospects. Projects in these fields have been pipe dreams for decades. Where are any commercial products in the areas of fusion reactors? Quantum computers? Asteroid mining operations?

If private investors want to fund this stuff, fine. As long as they don't come seeking bailouts later.

by SoftTalker

6/22/2026 at 7:39:14 PM

General Fusion's approach seems pretty realistically commercializable. They're struggling to get any funding though, probably a symptom of being in Canada.

by mitthrowaway2

6/22/2026 at 7:48:12 PM

A symptom of not bribing the Orange Purse King?

by actionfromafar

6/22/2026 at 6:49:41 PM

Not only that, but fusion itself is absolutely not what a tech venture capitalist wants to fund. The research horizon for fusion power is in the multiple decades. You're never going to find an investor that says "Yeah, I'll give you enough money to build a fusion reactor and do research for 20+ years in the hopes that you get something workable"

Fusion is literally still in the pure science stage that OP was telling governments to stick too.

by malfist

6/23/2026 at 4:41:17 PM

This is out of date. There are now a number of fusion energy startups, including Helion which has raised $1B from investors, mostly Silicon Valley ones you've heard of. It's not yet proven that the tech will work, but it is proven that investors are willing to fund it.

by tlb

6/22/2026 at 8:11:14 PM

The same thing could have been said about AGI 10 years ago.

by charcircuit

6/22/2026 at 6:40:07 PM

>The government is going to suck at funding the right things.

The government is actually really really good at funding the right things. The grant process has been extremely successful in directing funding efficiently towards cutting edge ideas. It does this by handing off the decision making to experts who review proposals rather than having political/profit driven kingmakers.

In contrast corporate/VC money mostly only funds the latest shiny bauble that may result in exit liquidity in a few years. The minority investments in things like fusion are still only applied work and are built on decades of unprofitable basic science.

In other words. Government funding has basically funded every science/tech breakthrough of the last 80 years.

by searine

6/22/2026 at 7:03:20 PM

Spot on.

by lowercased

6/22/2026 at 8:25:28 PM

> The government is going to suck at funding the right things

I'm pretty sure you have this totally backwards. People who study scientific development seem to think that the government is actually a really effective funder of research, and covers gaps that would never be addressed by private industry. See for example:

* https://www.aau.edu/newsroom/leading-research-universities-r...

* https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2022/07/government-fun...

* https://www.americanscientist.org/article/%E2%80%9Cwhy-are-w...

by tech_ken

6/22/2026 at 5:47:45 PM

Tax payers fund the research, they should get a cut of whatever company uses that research.

by downrightmike

6/22/2026 at 5:49:09 PM

Disagree heartily, the research should be for basic science that's not directly patentable. It should develop the base upon which everything else is built, that's the part of the science that can't get funded through private money. Leave the private money to the parts that can be monetized.

Of course, that's all generalities, sometimes directly monetizable stuff does come out of basic research. But the NFS should focus on basic research, because nobody else will in the US, and if we want to have it here at all, have the practitioners, have the knowledge, and then also reap the economic rewards because we have those people here, we need to fund the basic science that politicians love to mock and criticize.

by epistasis

6/22/2026 at 6:15:37 PM

That would be a crappy trade; today, the public benefits multiple times over as commercialization of technology drives the innovation economy. Who cares about sharing a measly fraction of direct profits when we all get long-term growth of our investment and retirement portfolios at upwards of 10% annually?

by counters

6/22/2026 at 5:52:59 PM

They do as soon as that company makes a profit, or anyone sells shares in that company.

by tlb

6/22/2026 at 6:03:09 PM

In theory, sure. In practice what the taxpayers get in exchange for their taxes is they are buying a better likelihood to not have the IRS drag them to jail or all their shit carried away / seized by feds, and the 'deal' ends there (unless you count whatever power you think you get from voting, LMAO). The taxes and public collection of profits are materially in possession of congress and/or the executive. The public is basically getting dick from that (most of FICA tax goes back to the public though maybe though not as ROI just redistribution so the poors don't riot), the politicians then use their money to bomb girls' schools in Iran or prosecute Amish for having an uninspected slaughterhouse or whatever else gets their sadistic jollies going.

The sooner the public learns that the public coffers aren't theirs, and will never be theirs, the better.

by mothballed

6/22/2026 at 6:44:52 PM

That is in part why corporate taxes exist.

by pfortuny

6/22/2026 at 6:50:33 PM

Sure they exist. But there's so many write offs and loop holes it doesn't really matter.

by malfist

6/22/2026 at 7:06:54 PM

Agreed. Imagine an IPO where you put in money and then get no returns. Who would invest?

by derbOac

6/22/2026 at 7:55:44 PM

Taxpayers get their cut through results being public for anyone to use. It's science for a better society at large, not for the benefit of the few that can wield it.

by speed_spread

6/22/2026 at 8:03:53 PM

> But lately there's capital available for quantum computers, fusion, synthetic bio, space exploration, asteroid mining, and lots more

Hmm I wonder how these were originally funded when it was less likely that they would work.

And by cutting funding now, I wonder what we're missing out on in the future.

by lostdog