this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2025
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In our recently submitted grants we had to change “traumatic brain injury” to “concussive brain injury” and “male and female mice” to “male and non-male mice” because traumatic and female are now verboten words that can get our grants killed. It’s insanity.

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[–] But_my_mom_says_im_cool@lemmy.world 3 points 12 minutes ago

When I was a teenager around my daughter’s age, pre 9/11, this kind of future was the kind of thing you would see in a ridiculous 80s dystopian action movie. We didn’t ever think we’d actually ever allow it to get that far as a society, surely we wild rise up to oppose. It’s just wild to my old ass how far we have fallen and how much people just shrug.

I was watching the Netflix hunt for Osama docuseries. And Bin Laden totally won. After 9/11 the US turned on its own people and used the modern technology of the military to set up a mass surveillance system and a way to easily do shit like this. And people allowed it while chanting “USA!” This is all part of it.

On a side note, i can’t wait till The Running Man becomes Reality once Trump starts throwing migrants into a life or death reality show where they’re hunted by neo Nazi ice agents

[–] VitoRobles@lemmy.today 1 points 29 minutes ago (1 children)

Where is all the outrage for word switching here?

The master/main folks are sure silent.

Or the male/female folks vs plug and socket?

I don't think anybody was against master/slave over primary/secondary.

[–] mholiv@lemmy.world 1 points 2 minutes ago

I think the difference is that those are reasonable and come from within the community of use. Even if a loud minority acted up for a few days.

The examples in the post are just silly and are forced onto the community of use by political overlords.

[–] LanguageIsCool@lemmy.world 8 points 1 hour ago

Conservatives are fucking morons lmao

[–] technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 1 hour ago

Yeah that's what happens when "science" is based on capitalism, fascism, etc. It's just more explicit now.

wake up babe, new politically correct has dropped

literally PC culture gone mad

[–] skisnow@lemmy.ca 30 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Wait I thought it was Woke that was supposed to be policing what language we used?

[–] NikkiDimes@lemmy.world 2 points 43 minutes ago

Something, something, every accusation, a confession

[–] jsomae@lemmy.ml 19 points 2 hours ago

God, that's so right-woke.

[–] ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml 46 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Me trying to get grants for my rat trebuchet

[–] Tropic420@lemmy.world 5 points 2 hours ago (3 children)

Is it operated by rats or throwing rats?

[–] Jankatarch@lemmy.world 19 points 2 hours ago (3 children)

Trebuchet of the rats, by the rats, for the rats.

Lowers binoculars and looks at my fellow Imperial gunners

See them? The rats are up to something.

[–] Aussiemandeus@aussie.zone 3 points 2 hours ago

Brilliant i say Brilliant

[–] GreenCrunch@lemmy.today 3 points 1 hour ago

I have two pet rats, and I'm pretty confident that they'd love a trebuchet. I could see one of them operating while the other is the ammunition.

Or, both operating with more conventional projectiles. Rats crave destruction and chaos. And also cuddles.

[–] tburkhol@lemmy.world 2 points 1 hour ago

If they can drive cars, they can work a trebuchet

[–] CMahaff@lemmy.world 14 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

I watched an interesting video recently on "Lysenkoism".

https://youtu.be/9RTAcbsQXFE

In short, it's a horrible example of what happens when party politics are more important than correct science. And it should all feel very familiar to what's happening in the US right now.

[–] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 2 points 1 hour ago

F me, the parallels are unreal.

[–] Kyle_The_G@lemmy.world 69 points 4 hours ago (4 children)

This is why politics and science shouldn't mix. The truth is the truth, no matter how inconvenient it is to your bottom line.

[–] ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 1 hour ago

Science has a huge shortcoming with desperate scientists wanting funding and making up just enough to keep it. The peer review process works when it's something that actually gets properly peer reviewed, but there's not much money in peer reviewing a claim that x molecule lowers your heart rate by 10%.

Science will be great if society ever got to the point of no longer needing money or barter. Which would happen due to science.

[–] FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone 86 points 4 hours ago (2 children)

Politics and Science will literally always mix. Science always exists in a political context. It’s not some platonic ideal.

The research that gets funded, published, advertised. The people that have the privilege to get degrees and academia jobs. Is all inherently political. It’s maybe more obvious now with Trump’s meddling, but it literally always has been this way.

I think it’s dangerous to look at science (especially social sciences, political sciences, economics, sociology, psychology etc.) without considering the political context.

[–] saddlebag@lemmy.world 9 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

I knee jerk upvoted the parent that this was responding to. Then I read your comment and I did a complete 180. This is obvious in retrospect and very insightful. Thanks

[–] ZoopZeZoop@lemmy.world 2 points 49 minutes ago

You can upvote good discussion and points that are wrong or you disagree with. I downvote assholes and people who add nothing to the discussion.

[–] Kyle_The_G@lemmy.world 14 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

I understand that, my point was in an ideal world expert panels and not politicians would get the final say in policy-setting and funding decisions. My main example is the clusterfuck the NIH and health department has become under the lunatic in charge.

I understand that this stuff is inherently political, I had to pivot on the narrative of my own master's thesis because of the "interesting" results we generated

[–] FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone 23 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (7 children)

But

  • Who decides who is the experts?
  • Who gets the opportunity to become an expert?
  • What are the experts taught at school?
  • Who picks the experts?

All this is political.

What you’re describing is technocracy. And it has major limitations.

[–] Kyle_The_G@lemmy.world 10 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

thats fair. I guess there is no such thing as a perfect system, there will always be conflict of interest and bias. I get your point too, just because someone is an expert in their field doesn't mean their knowledge translates to leadership and good judgement on funding decisions ect.

[–] wabasso@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (1 children)

I was thinking along your lines too, but have to concede the rebuttal as well. But I think we can still aim for the ideal of science proceeding as neutrally as possible once the funding is granted. Getting funding is the political interface. The question of “What should we do?” must be political, but “How should we do it?” can be left to science.

[–] Kyle_The_G@lemmy.world 3 points 2 hours ago

Ya its healthy to have this discussion. I still think the policy-makers should have a background in what they are governing but that is what advisory boards and councils are for. I definitely commented with too broad of a generalization with "no politics in science", I should have said I dislike when politics oversteps in medicine/healthcare/research... I do see the value however as this comment chain grows.

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[–] Gladaed@feddit.org 5 points 3 hours ago

That's just wrong. Everything is politics.

Politics not invading science means horrific human experiments at the extreme end.

Politics must decide where funding should go for public science projects. They must mix for that reason. Politics retaliate in the case of human designer babies in China. And that is considered good by some.

Just because a government is heinously terrible does not mean governing is bad. It just means that they do it badly.

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[–] RaivoKulli@sopuli.xyz 7 points 2 hours ago (1 children)
[–] arschflugkoerper@feddit.org 7 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Actually more inclusive terminology lol

[–] RaivoKulli@sopuli.xyz 5 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

I think the male is a bit hostile and problematic too. It should be non-male and non-female

[–] JcbAzPx@lemmy.world 6 points 1 hour ago (2 children)

Can't use the word female in any context so it would have to be non-male and non-non-male.

[–] ZoopZeZoop@lemmy.world 1 points 44 minutes ago

I prefer "those who is" and "those who ain't." Binary and inclusive.

[–] ConstantPain@lemmy.world 1 points 49 minutes ago

Just strip the distinction at this point.

[–] mostNONheinous@lemmy.world 133 points 6 hours ago (7 children)

The party that swears there are only Two Genders really seems to only believe in One.

There are two genders. Male and political.

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[–] mumblerfish@lemmy.world 49 points 5 hours ago (7 children)

I went through some of my papers partially supported by US grants and all of them use a bunch of forbidden words. This is basically pure maths, and you are not allowed to use "equality" as in the relationship between one expression and another is an equality? It is so increadibly stupid. Look:

A dangerous sign of wokeness

[–] Redjard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 30 minutes ago

@idunnololz@lemmy.world the = inside the spoiler doesn't render for me

[–] technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

Fascism is completely based on lies. The denial of math should be no surprise. It's a direct continuation of the ideology.

See also the conclusion of "1984". There's a good reason why it was about 2+2=?. Some things never change.

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