Why would they spend money to replace it? The idea is to weaken and destroy the US and its institutions. Giving Palantir money might mean that security improves, and that goes against their goals. They have already demanded that Russia stop being treated as a cybersecurity threat in other areas of the government, this is a way to ensure that systems are vulnerable to attack.
These sort of government services are always under attack by private organizations. The US Gov doesn't have to give Palantir or whoever a contract, they just cede the ground, give the right people a heads up, and then make the new subscription service a "recommended service provider" as a solid to whichever of Elon's circle gets the nod.
In the UK the some "entrepreneur" was after monetizing access to the Land Registry a couple of years ago. Apparently the free UK Gov service was not fit for purpose it needed a paywall to make it better. Nothing as globally significant as the CVE database, but you can see if the vultures are going after small UK Gov services, something like the CVE database is absolutely a chance to add to the executive bonus pool.
Exactly. The Trump admin is well on its way tanking the USD with tariffs and getting every country (including the penguins) mad at us. The rationalization given by the admin for tariffs (trade imbalance) make zero sense, and they haven't offered anything else.
Ok have that argument on it's own and do it right legal, go through the legislature and discuss the appropriateness of public funding for private institution.
The Trump administration is not arguing or even considering that as part of their objectives here.
I am not up to date on all details, but how exactly is it overreach? It's a good question whether government should give money (9bn but I could be wrong) for research, but lets put that aside for now. (who determines what "research" is this? it could be quantum mechanics, or it could be "gender studies")
Curious as to why do you think this is an overreach.
"By August 2025, the University must adopt and implement
merit-based hiring policies, and cease all preferences based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin throughout its hiring, promotion, compensation, and related practices among faculty, staff, and leadership. Such adoption and implementation must be durable and demonstrated through structural and personnel changes. All existing and prospective faculty
shall be reviewed for plagiarism and Harvard’s plagiarism policy consistently enforced. All hiring and related data shall be shared with the federal government and subjected to a comprehensive audit by the federal government during the period in which reforms are being implemented, which shall be at least until the end of 2028."
Trump administration is now the defacto HR department for Harvard, and eventually all universities.
> cease all preferences based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin
But! Also! "The University shall commission an external party, which shall satisfy the federal government as to its competence and good faith, to audit the student body, faculty, staff, and leadership for viewpoint diversity, such that each department, field, or teaching unit must be individually viewpoint diverse."
Cease all DEI programs, but we require 'viewpoint diversity'...
"Every department or field found to lack viewpoint diversity must be reformed by hiring a critical mass of new faculty within that department or field who will provide viewpoint diversity; every teaching unit found to lack viewpoint diversity must be reformed by admitting a critical mass of students who will provide viewpoint diversity. If the review finds that the existing faculty in the relevant department or field are not capable of hiring for viewpoint diversity, or that the relevant teaching unit is not capable of admitting a critical mass of students with diverse viewpoints, hiring or admissions within that department, field, or teaching unit shall be transferred to the closest cognate department, field, or teaching unit that is capable of achieving viewpoint diversity."
You say that they are "demands". As if the taxpayers should automatically give billions to Harvard, no matter what Harvard does. That's insanity (to me at least).
"Harvard has in recent years failed to live up to both the intellectual and civil rights conditions that justify federal investment."
"The United States has invested in Harvard University’s operations because of the value to the
country of scholarly discovery and academic excellence. But an investment is not an entitlement. "
So basically, they are claiming that the Federal government will not invest money until Harvard gets rid of the communist/socialist rhetoric. As far as I can see, they are free to burn their money to fund communist ideals. Who says that they deserve taxpayers money by default?
It's amazing how communist problems always end with: "you eventually run out of other people's money"
> they are claiming that the Federal government will not invest money until Harvard gets rid of the communist/socialist rhetoric
They're changing the terms of the trade after a contract was signed. At the very least, this is the U.S. defaulting on commitments.
That said, I broadly agree with you--the U.S. shouldn't be funding Harvard. And the public shouldn't have a say--or continuing economic stake, the way we do with publicly-funded research--in what Harvard does and produces.
This is Trump's trademark move, writ large. We've all read the reports of him refusing to pay contractors after work is done, ignoring the contracts and saying "sue me". This is who he is, and he's just bringing this playbook (back) to the federal government, cheered on by people until they're personally and directly affected by this behaviour.
Research grants come with stipulations on how research is conducted, these grants were already granted so this is essentially breaking their contract. So there is no by default grant, generally the grants also don't delve into what the school can teach and hire for teaching which is very much protected by first amendment rights.
Considering a private university rights to hire and teach as they wish as communism is definitely an odd definition of communism I've rarely seen.
As if the taxpayers should automatically give billions to Harvard, no matter what Harvard does. That's insanity (to me at least).
AFAIK, Harvard doesn't get money for nothing -- it's primarily for research. The demands are orthogonal to what Harvard provides: top tier talent for whatever the government sees fit to fund.
It's amazing how communist problems always end with: "you eventually run out of other people's money"
It's always someone else's money. Roads suck? You probably have too many roads for other people's money to fix. The list goes on. Libertarian dreams of self-sufficiently die when their money has to pay for things. Unless you meant feudalism or plutocracy, where wealth primarily flows away from the working class.
Humans are creatures of community. There will always be taxes for any sufficiently developed people, the only hope is they serve the public good and aren't funneled into the oligarchs' pockets.
Banking as well, this is the kind of offering they've been looking for a while. Google just saw the demand decided to jump in while OpenAI and Anthropic probably calculated they don't have the manpower to deal with the support for this.
I have a hypothesis that the proportion of really nerdy kids that take to technology hasn't changed and it was always a subset of society. People with affinity for understanding their computer and that find technical concepts natural may just be the oddballs.
My son has found his way to it from watching youtube videos on history of computer viruses. I think it's the path from Minecraft, Minecraft hacks, Minecraft mods....
He recently asked me if we could install windows xp on virtual box like one of the youtuber he watches did. So we set that up. He has been watching youtube about secret features, testing them out and found out what happens when you delete random file in system32. He doesn't get why none of his friends understand anything he says to them about this stuff. In his mind he wonder why aren't they all watching this stuff? I had to explain he's got some pretty niche hobbies even by my standards.
I agree, the proportion of really nerdy kids is the same, it's the proportion of really nerdy junior hires that has changed. There are both more jobs and more people trying to earn good money in tech, so you can no longer assume that your devs are nerds that are happy to go beyond their skillset to squash a puzzling bug.
I'd expand on that and say that we're forcing computers onto people who don't understand them in the first place, which aligns with what you're saying.
The same number of people are interested in tech/computers and want to have a deeper understanding, but because tech has become so required, we're seeing people who are only going to do the bare minimum.
Timelines are very uncertain, also definition what would satisfy this statement of operating as a high income knowledge worker is very unclear. Is it for one task? Many tasks? Any task?
It's highly likely that these CEO will continue to hype up a singular examples and misrepresented claims that lead to setting outsized expectations. Already seeing expectations that all tasks are now possible and causing chaos in the corporate world of folks trying to be on the bandwagon.
Also wonder if it hides the true value that the symbiotic work of human with phd level AI assistant is going to out perform any autonomous agent for the foreseeable future.
Are we really looking at the best group of people that the current president could find to do these roles that agree with his policy platform? There was no one else with relevant experience willing?
The guilt isn't due to the simple fact of being prosperous it's more about the prioritization of self-interest over that of a win-win option that helps the broader good.
Would you consider Germany's CDU/CSU to be close to the republicans in the US? I pegged them more as being Democrat's equivalents. Macron is also more of a US democrat then a republican.
Is an odd fit I would have him with Labour. In canada he would lead the NDP.
That’s tricky- I’d say the modern CSU/CDU & Macron are closer in social policy to the Democrats but economically closer to the Republicans.
Looking at the CDU’s manifesto I think it’s overall more palatable to the Republicans. As the Democrats would likely never support corporate tax cuts or cannabis restrictions.
reply