Azhir Mahmood  🚀 🤖 🧬 🧠 🪐

that's exactly what I've been thinking in the past few days also (reg a decision whether to stop submitting to Elsevier journals as well besides Nature journals) not trying to put you on the spot, but I am curious to learn how you link the two and why you don't see alternatives?

How I link which two?

1) funding mechanisms in the NSF .. (without basically)... 2) abandoning my career

It's hard to see how I can run a lab and also rise to a director-level position in the NSF. Program manager rotation + lab, sure, but I don't think that allows one to make structural changes.

That's true, but you can still have an influence on people in those position, I would think. Some form of collective lobbying will be critical to help those in more political positions to see which way the wind is blowing -- but also powerful opinion pieces, open letters, etc.

Perhaps, but it would need to be a massive effort. Their jobs are so different from ours (i.e. worrying about keeping congress and executive branch happy) that our academic opinions are many degrees removed from usefully actionable on their end. We're privates to their generals

this is a common refrain we often hear.. "I will do it if everyone else does it" adds to so much collective friction things will remain exactly where there, or that weights pulls everyone deeper into the dump.. say it with me: every bit of action from each PI makes a difference!

Don't confuse inaction on this with an unwillingness to help improve science. I spent my free time on NMC and NMA this year, which is a different way of improving the community.