David Grosof

Wayward neuroscientist, healthtech start-up guy, lover of storytelling

[David Grosof @DavidGrosof]

@farman4x 98

[David Grosof @DavidGrosof]

@AblizAbby @PhysInHistory Teller wasn't a close friend but he was a gregarious and ambitious peer, whose political values and judgement were perceived to have overridden other values, and led to Teller's condemnation by a large fraction of the American scientific community for decades.

[FIRE @TheFIREorg]

This Wednesday, the Texas A&M System Board of Regents will vote on whether to give university presidents sweeping veto power over what professors can teach. Hiring professors with PhDs is meaningless if administrators are the ones deciding what gets taught.

Under the proposal, any course material or discussion related to “race or gender ideology” or “sexual orientation or gender identity” would need approval from the institution's president. Faculty would need permission to teach students about not just modern controversies, but also civil rights, the Civil War, or even ancient Greek comedies.

This is not just bad policy. It invites unlawful censorship, chills academic freedom, and undermines the core purpose of a university. Faculty will start asking not “Is this accurate?” but “Will this get me in trouble?”

That’s not education, it’s risk management.

FIRE urges the board to reject this proposal. And we will be there to defend any professor punished for doing what scholars are hired to do: pursue the truth wherever it leads.

[Gary Marcus @GaryMarcus]

Honestly Elon, ask *anyone* who works in science in America and they can give you a long catalog of errors.

Your cuts on NIH are too drastic.

Your cuts on NSF are too drastic.

Your cuts on university overhead are too drastic.

Letting people like Collins go in favor of likely replacements with far less scientific sophistication, insane.

Etc.

And your insults against Hinton (no friend of mine) are completely unfair and wide of the mark.

Please please take a deep breath and talk to some career scientists about the damage you have done and how to rectify it.

[Geoffrey Hinton @geoffreyhinton]

I think Elon Musk should be expelled from the British Royal Society. Not because he peddles conspiracy theories and makes Nazi salutes, but because of the huge damage he is doing to scientific institutions in the US. Now let's see if he really believes in free speech.

[Gary Marcus @GaryMarcus]

I retired from the American University system at age 49 (after 26 years) so have no direct stake in this.

But am here to say that drastically cutting NIH & NSF funding and reducing grant “overhead” to 15% are among the dumbest ideas I have ever seen.

America will never be the same. Science will take a huge hit; academic stars will leave; university reputations will crumble, and homegrown talent will be even harder to find.

Asia and Europe will profit.

Epic unforced errors.

[Walter Kirn @walterkirn]

Many years ago the New York Times paid all my expenses and held out a nice check on the simple condition that I hang out for a few days with David Lynch and write up the experience. I did the hanging out part, but it didn't really amount to an experience. I couldn't get a grip on him, at all. Because there was nothing to grip. I'm not saying he was shallow, more that he was truly elusive, meaning the "self" that was in there, supposedly, was simply that of an artist in his off hours. Which is like the self of a vaccum cleaner in its off hours. Meaning it just sits there. In his case, he smoked and drank coffee while he just sat there. And sometimes he said something. Nothing memorable. Anyway, the assignment completely defeated me in a way that no other magazine assignment ever has. I think I'll write about this at greater length soon, this non-experience I had with someone so eccentric he didn't even come off as an eccentric, but suffice it to say I'm sorry to hear he's gone. He kept alive in the minds of millions the figure of the artist, the artist as individual, useless to society at large and therefore invaluable to all.

[Liz Cheney @Liz_Cheney]

Donald, this is not the Soviet Union. You can’t change the truth and you cannot silence us. Remember all your lies about the voting machines, the election workers, your countless allegations of fraud that never happened? Many of your lawyers have been sanctioned, disciplined or disbarred, the courts ruled against you, and dozens of your own White House, administration, and campaign aides testified against you. Remember how you sent a mob to our Capitol and then watched the violence on television and refused for hours to instruct the mob to leave? Remember how your former Vice President prevented you from overturning our Republic? We remember. And now, as you take office again, the American people need to reject your latest malicious falsehoods and stand as the guardrails of our Constitutional Republic — to protect the America we love from you.

[David Grosof @DavidGrosof]

@boneGPT @karpathy Ant farms are exemplary aligned teams with a sensible division of labor compared to this.

[Shaiel Ben-Ephraim @academic_la]

Jamal Nazzal, the Fatah spokesperson, told the Israeli media, "We in FATAH are the legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people, operating under the PLO organization that Israel recognized according to the Oslo Accords, and we hold a clear agenda of seeking two states for two peoples according to international law." It would be nice if the Netanyahu government could say something similar.

[David Grosof @DavidGrosof]

@speechboy71 Nato Green has something to say: https://t.co/oWLZiw87tf

[David Grosof @DavidGrosof]

@1Nicdar @Liz_Cheney As she said, she values loyalty to the Constitution and democratic order and rule of law over policy alignment with a tyrant

[Liz Cheney @Liz_Cheney]

This is how dictators destroy free nations. They threaten those who speak against them with death. We cannot entrust our country and our freedom to a petty, vindictive, cruel, unstable man who wants to be a tyrant. #Womenwillnotbesilenced #VoteKamala

[David Cay Johnston @DavidCayJ]

@DavidCayJ
·
SCOTUS majority just ignored black letter law, letting Virginia purge voters.
Federal law prohibits such purges in 90 days before an election. Latest indication SCOTUS is no longer a court of law, but a court of Republican political power.
https://t.co/kCkHhEFRR5

[Shaiel Ben-Ephraim @academic_la]

No one actually thinks Kamala is anti-Israel. Some don’t like that she believes in a two-state solution and protecting innocent Palestinians. In other words, she believes support for Israel doesn’t come at the expense of the Palestinians. To some that is the ultimate sin.

[Arnold Schwarzenegger @Schwarzenegger]

I don’t really do endorsements. I’m not shy about sharing my views, but I hate politics and don’t trust most politicians.

I also understand that people want to hear from me because I am not just a celebrity, I am a former Republican Governor.

My time as Governor taught me to love policy and ignore politics. I’m proud of the work I did to help clean up our air, create jobs, balance the budget, make the biggest infrastructure investment in state history, and take power from the politicians and give it back to the people when it comes to our redistricting process and our primaries in California.

That’s policy. It requires working with the other side, not insulting them to win your next election, and I know it isn’t sexy to most people, but I love it when I can help make people’s lives better with policies, like I still do through my institute at USC, where we fight for clean air and stripping the power from the politicians who rig the system against the people.

Let me be honest with you: I don’t like either party right now. My Republicans have forgotten the beauty of the free market, driven up deficits, and rejected election results. Democrats aren’t any better at dealing with deficits, and I worry about their local policies hurting our cities with increased crime.

It is probably not a surprise that I hate politics more than ever, which, if you are a normal person who isn’t addicted to this crap, you probably understand.

I want to tune out.

But I can’t. Because rejecting the results of an election is as un-American as it gets. To someone like me who talks to people all over the world and still knows America is the shining city on a hill, calling America is a trash can for the world is so unpatriotic, it makes me furious.

And I will always be an American before I am a Republican.

That’s why, this week, I am voting for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.

I’m sharing it with all of you because I think there are a lot of you who feel like I do. You don’t recognize our country. And you are right to be furious.

For decades, we’ve talked about the national debt. For decades, we’ve talked about comprehensive immigration reform that secures the border while fixing our broken immigration system. And Washington does nothing.

The problems just keep rolling, and we all keep getting angrier, because the only people that benefit from problems aren’t you, the people. The only people that benefit from this crap are the politicians who prefer having talking points to win elections to the public service that will make Americans’ lives better.

It is a just game to them. But it is life for my fellow Americans. We should be pissed!

But a candidate who won’t respect your vote unless it is for him, a candidate who will send his followers to storm the Capitol while he watches with a Diet Coke, a candidate who has shown no ability to work to pass any policy besides a tax cut that helped his donors and other rich people like me but helped no one else else, a candidate who thinks Americans who disagree with him are the bigger enemies than China, Russia, or North Korea - that won’t solve our problems.

It will just be four more years of bullshit with no results that makes us angrier and angrier, more divided, and more hateful.

We need to close the door on this chapter of American history, and I know that former President Trump won’t do that. He will divide, he will insult, he will find new ways to be more un-American than he already has been, and we, the people, will get nothing but more anger.

That’s enough reason for me to share my vote with all of you. I want to move forward as a country, and even though I have plenty of disagreements with their platform, I think the only way to do that is with Harris and Walz.

Vote this week. Turn the page and put this junk behind us.

And even if you disagree with me, vote, because that’s what we do as Americans. https://t.co/eHFZ723I4H

[David Grosof @DavidGrosof]

@joshtpm @ThreadReaderApp unroll please

[Paul Graham @paulg]

If you haven't decided yet who to vote for, here's why I think you should vote for Harris.

[Laurence Tribe 🇺🇦 ⚖️ @tribelaw]

The front page of the New York Times opinion section yesterday read, in huge capital letters: “DONALD TRUMP/ SAYS HE WILL PROSECUTE HIS ENEMIES/ ORDER MASS DEPORTATIONS/ USE SOLDIERS AGAINST CITIZENS/ ABANDON ALLIES/ PLAY POLITICS WITH DISASTERS/ BELIEVE HIM.” In that section were the receipts: Trump’s own words outlining his fascist plans. “BELIEVE HIM,” the Times wrote.

[David Grosof @DavidGrosof]

@JoyceCarolOates @michele_norris @SkinnerPm You might enjoy reading Albert O. Hirschman's fine, short book "Exit, Voice and Loyalty" to enrich your thinking about staying ("voice") versus Ms. Norris' exit option.