[-] AcidicBasicGlitch@lemm.ee 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I've heard he and his dad have a very complicated relationship. So, I'm not sure if this was a legitimate but misguided attempt to help his son, or a an excellent WASPy passive aggressive move to add fuel to the uncontrollable inferno that continues to burn away at whatever scraps of a positive public image Elon was hoping to maintain. Either way, bravo 👏

"there’s at least a little bit of room for understanding why, after being raised in that environment, Elon would be a little fucked up."

also why he brags "my tombstone will say never went to therapy," oblivious people will walk by that tombstone and think, "yeah, checks out."

[-] AcidicBasicGlitch@lemm.ee 1 points 1 week ago

Thank you for your reply!

Again, I am sorry if my understanding is way off base. So the house of Lords are all elected, and and peers are selected by elected members?

How much sway do individual peers currently have?

I'm not sure if a good U.S. comparison (if one exists) to peers needing to be vetted would be similar to U.S. lobbyists or if peers have more direct roles in law making, similar positions that individuals in the U.S. are nominated for (such as Kratsios' OSTP nomination), which then has to be approved by the Senate.

In the case of U.S. nominees for executive positions, they are supposed to be vetted by bipartisan committees of elected senators that will not pass them on to be nominated by the entire Senate if they are not fit to serve those positions. It's supposed to act like a safeguard, because once fitness is approved by those committees, it would basically take an act of God (for some reason) to keep the main Senate vote from approving the nomination. While I think it's a good thing those committees exist, they also fail horribly to do what they're actually supposed to do.

This U.S. election in particular has shown us what a joke that entire process is, and not only resulted in approval of Kratsios' nomination by a Senate committee which s supposed to make decisions for U.S. science (only 4 of 13 Democrats bothered to object to his fitness), it has also resulted in several other individuals being approved who are clearly unfit for their roles. Such as RFK Jr., who is famous for his anti-vax and anti-science rhetoric, being approved by another committee for our secretary of health and human services. In that case, the committee decision came down to the vote of one Republican senator who is also a physician, and has publicly stated he is very pro vaccination and hoped to never have to witness another parent lose a child to a preventable disease. Yet for some reason, he voted to approve his fitness to serve.

I have no idea why, but we now have measles outbreaks in parts of the country which have resulted the death of at least one child. Here is an article about that same Senators displeasure with new vaccination policy in his own state. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/16/louisiana-vaccines-rfk-jr

Either way, in those two cases, I can see how the positions are a great thing to have, but only when the people who are elected to the positions actually do their jobs. Instead what we have is basically theatre that, as you correctly put it, just further undermines credibility of the entire government.

[-] AcidicBasicGlitch@lemm.ee 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Hi all, Hope this is ok for me to post here, apologies if not. I'm in the U.S. and recently joined Lemmy looking for a place to have uncensored discussions about U.S. and global issues.

I am curious to hear how U.K.ers feel about this proposed law. It seems like an attempt to create some additional checks and balances and avoid unchecked power by the Prime Minister.

Watching executive power currently being used as a weapon to destroy any chance of public opinion pumping the breaks on insane policy makes this seem like a good idea, but I also know legal process and politics are very different in the U.K., so I would love to hear U.K. thoughts and opinions about this. If there is a better place for me to post this, I will delete it and move it there.

The reason this article caught my attention, is the mention of the former special adviser to David Davis, and his opposition to the bill.

I'll be honest, before last month, I didn't know who David Davis was, but have taken an interest in his connection to U.S. politics and the Trump administration.

Davis is the father-in-law of Michael Kratsios, Trump’s Science Advisor nominee and Director of Office of Science and Technology Policy. Kratsios is also a former employee of Peter Theil, and is focused on AI policy.

Given the UK-US refusal to join other countries signing an AI declaration, (which included agreeing to join other countries in defending against a cyber attack by another nation like oh idk…Russia), I find the connection between Davis and Kratsios very suspicious. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8edn0n58gwo

I also know that Musk is planning on opening an xAI branch in the UK, and I have been screaming into the void for months trying to warn people in the U.S. about his xAI data centers. I'm not sure how much news coverage this has received in the U.K., but there's been hardly any focused coverage of all of the shady things surrounding xAI in the U.S.

I hope voters in the U.K. are aware of all of these things, if only for the sake of staying informed. Let me know if you would like to discuss any of this stuff, or know of a community that would be better to start a discussion about this.

Thanks!

[-] AcidicBasicGlitch@lemm.ee 1 points 1 week ago

And then when the billionaires are supposed to fight they just don't because Elon musk loves to run his mouth but knows even mark Zuckerberg could kick his ass

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Of fucking course. Fuck Bill Gates

I've been trying to call attention to his stupid fucking data centers for months. Musk built a constantly expanding data center in Memphis last summer, and then quietly built another in Atlanta back in February. He's got another in the works in the UK.

He's hoarding our data and hiring thousands of data annotators to create a giant database that he can charge access to for training AI or any number of evil things.

[-] AcidicBasicGlitch@lemm.ee 3 points 1 week ago

😂 yeah I agree. I don't use bluesky very often so I wasn't sure what to call them. but I agree I really don't like the term skeet

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Like I’m sure we all know profits are usually the true motivation behind this stuff but this lays it out step by step with news headlines explaining the how for each step. Just trying to make this publicly available knowledge. Even if we can’t stop them we should at least try to stay a few steps ahead

Also didn't include this one in the skeets but it's included in my blog post write up: RFK and Pfizer CEO had dinner just prior to his nomination https://fortune.com/well/2025/02/04/pfizer-ceo-had-dinner-with-rfk-jr-cautiously-optimistic-despite-vaccine-controversy/

Even though RFK allegedly despises big pharma corruption so much right 🙄 https://cepr.net/publications/big-pharma-is-corrupt/

[-] AcidicBasicGlitch@lemm.ee 2 points 1 week ago

I don't really use blue sky but here is my attempt to make a series of skeets(?) explaining exactly how they could be making a lot of money off of this https://bsky.app/profile/pimentomori123.bsky.social/post/3lkoogcqvo22o

Just hoping somebody points this out before we're in the thick of a bird flu pandemic

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Does a community exist to help people learn to spot more sophisticated bot activity and algorithm control on social media platforms. I was thinking of something where people could share screen shots of weird activity to warn others, similar to teaching people how to spot disinformation propaganda? Or a place where information is available focused on discussing bot activity.

I feel like that will be a useful skill to have in the coming years.

[-] AcidicBasicGlitch@lemm.ee 3 points 1 week ago

You're absolutely right. Sorry about that. Just updated it.

[-] AcidicBasicGlitch@lemm.ee 2 points 1 week ago

Sorry about that not sure why it didn't attach. I just updated it

6
submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by AcidicBasicGlitch@lemm.ee to c/fediverse_vs_disinfo@lemmy.dbzer0.com

The NIH has been accused of funding dangerous gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Legislation is being proposed to ban federal funding for this research, which many powerful individuals have alleged is what led to the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, many scientists have pointed out that the vague language of the legislation would result in a blanket ban of federal funding for any virology or vaccine research in the U.S. This would mean that vaccine production and roll out would become completely privatized, even in the event of a pandemic.

This post examines the current policy behind federal funding for GOF research, which is based on framework created nearly a year into Donald Trump's first term.

The framework was created in response to policy recommendations provided by the Obama administration for oversight and care of pathogens with pandemic potential (P3CO). However, while P3CO provided recommendations for oversight and public transparency, these recommendations seem to have been omitted from the Trump framework for federal funding.

Justification for the removal of federal funding frequently sites a lack of oversight and transparency by the NIH. However, there is never any explanation given for why the Trump framework failed to include the recommendations to enable oversight and transparency for funding decisions.

Two days after taking office for his second term, Trump proposed an executive order banning GOF research, and received public praise from the Heritage Foundation.

This post which is focused on the policy background, will be followed by additional posts examining the proposed legislation and vaccine privatization.

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submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by AcidicBasicGlitch@lemm.ee to c/publichealth@mander.xyz

Hello,

I am a researcher in the U.S. who began writing about the NIH federal funding issues just to keep people informed about things that weren't reaching most major news outlets.

I began this piece several weeks ago, and finally finished it this past week. The focus is on the attacks against the NIH for their gain-of-function research funding policy. I ended up doing a deep dive into the history of the policy which began in 2014, and trying to condense everything into an article for a broad audience.

You may have seen all of the proposed legislation about gain-of-function (GOF) research, and more recently increasing attacks on mRNA vaccines. It is being presented by legislative members as a concern over safety issues, however, it turns out there are many reasons to question if that is the legitimate reason these bills are being introduced. It's important to note that the GOF legislation is not aimed at improving any safety requirements for the research. It is only aimed at funding policy.

The language of the bills is very vague, and many researchers worry that the legislation would make it illegal to federally fund any vaccine research in the U.S. This would mean a complete privatization of vaccine research. Pharmaceutical companies would still be free to carry out the allegedly dangerous research because it is (typically) privately funded.

Interestingly, if you do a deep dive into the policy history, and everything that has led to this moment, you will find that an updated set of policy guidelines has been in the works since last summer. The updated policy may even be extend to the creation of mandatory oversight laws for private research. Meaning that the updated policy guidelines which are due to be released by May of 2025, would not only address the safety concerns which are being used to justify the GOF legislation for federal funding, they may even result in safety improvements and oversight across the private sector.

So, why do so many law makers seem to be in such a rush to pass these bills that will only privatize the allegedly dangerous research?

The article is broken up into 5 sections including the introduction. The main focus of this article is GOF funding policy history, which is covered in sections 1-3. The last two sections briefly focus on the legislation attacking the research, and some potential motivations for vaccine research privatization.

I am planning two individual follow up articles that will cover these last two sections in greater depth. My goal is to spread public awareness of this information, to defend science and improve public health. Please help me do that by either sharing the article or just by spreading this information by word of mouth.

Thank you!

[-] AcidicBasicGlitch@lemm.ee 3 points 2 weeks ago

Oh it was in the ysk community on .world

[-] AcidicBasicGlitch@lemm.ee 3 points 2 weeks ago

I guess it would be community specific. Just looking around for places to share stuff, but it seems like it fits in many ways with the topic of the community but also includes aspects that might be in violation of the rules.

I will try just asking individual communities

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Ok, so I am a U.S. researcher who has ended up here bc of censorship issues on other platforms.

I understand why rules for no self promotion exist in general, but typically I would consider that to be things like promoting a business or anything with a paywall or with the goal to get more attention for self vs the goal to spread information that is being suppressed.

I started writing a blog on ghost and putting some information together to raise awareness about science and other policy disinformation. Would sharing the information or graphics from the blog still be self promotion since it's my own blog

If it is self promotion, are there any good communities where this kind of things is ok to share?

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Does anyone know of any communities that might be helpful for creating a shared place to track the "small government" DOGE taskforces that are popping up all over the country?

I've been piecing together what I can and my state has really gone off the rails with this. I'd really like to find a place to collaborate with others and collect evidence of how these supposedly small government actions are using the same playbook as the D.C. DOGE to aid some of the most powerful individuals and biggest corporations in the U.S.

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