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Comment by m52go | Hacker News Reader

Not sure since I don't watch much ESPN either but this is a trend across media properties. I just saw MIT Technology Review tweet something about Trump's politics...didn't make me very happy.

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MIT is an institution of higher learning. When the president says that climate change is a hoax invented by the Chinese to ruin the American economy, it goes beyond politics. Science isn't conservative or liberal. Science institutions are right to speak out against foolish policies that aren't rooted in science.

> MIT is an institution of higher learning.

MIT Technology Review is not an institution of higher learning. It's a magazine supposedly focused on reporting about science and technology.

> When the president says that climate change is a hoax

The tweet I mentioned had nothing to do with climate change...not sure where you got that from.

https://twitter.com/techreview/status/858577857110528000

This is a pretty interesting, fact-based article, what's the problem? I understand not wanting political opinions in a publication like this, but there's no discussion of whether the wall is a good idea or anything like that in here.

"The mission of MIT Technology Review is to equip its audiences with the intelligence to understand a world shaped by technology." I don't think ignoring any story that happens to involve a politician would help serve that mission.

>I understand not wanting political opinions in a publication like this

But that's exactly the problem.

Where in that article is there a political opinion?

Science funding is conservative or liberal. And when people force funding to a particular program, it is politics.

I think directing funding away from things can be political. It is like saying, "we don't want this question answered." Directing funding towards answering certain questions isn't political in my mind, though.

How about directing funding toward creationism, or alternative views of the causes of climate change (i.e., non-human ones), or the benefits of authoritarianism? How about when the Koch brothers fund research into the benefits of their brand of libertarianism?

Anything can be used politically.

Funding research is different than funding a specific result. The latter is definitely political.

The fact that there were votes to take someone's money away and give it to someone else makes it political no matter what it is spent on.

That description is a misconception, IMHO.

First, it's an investment; it's not taking away money; it's not robbery. It has a return, a benefit that generally exceeds the cost (I'm not sure how much I paid to fly Cassini to Saturn, but wow was it worth it). People make investments all the time and are happy to do it, in everything from houses to the local homeless shelter to a new computer.

Second, people normally and frequently participate in group decisions, even though they rarely get exactly what they want. To suggest that anything besides an individual choosing alone is extraordinary - that isn't how people really operate.

Recently I was watching on Netflix a show about 80s in US. It showed how funding for AIDS research was forced by activists. Though it might be a common incident, but it changed my perception how any type of funding seems forced either from outside by activists or by sympathizers who are in control of funding.

People clearly seem to justify funding to their favorite cause as progress to humanity. However a progressive or otherwise agenda is itself purely politics.

No, you missed my point. Not funding AIDS research is politics. Not researching a deadly disease is politics.

Answering a question is research, deliberately avoiding a question is politics.

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