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In the Trump Administration, Science Is Unwelcome. So Is Advice. (nytimes.com)
Anonymous readers share a report: As President Trump prepares to meet Kim Jong-un of North Korea to negotiate denuclearization, a challenge that has bedeviled the world for years, he is doing so without the help of a White House science adviser or senior counselor trained in nuclear physics. Mr. Trump is the first president since 1941 not to name a science adviser, a position created during World War II to guide the Oval Office on technical matters ranging from nuclear warfare to global pandemics. As a businessman and president, Mr. Trump has proudly been guided by his instincts. Nevertheless, people who have participated in past nuclear negotiations say the absence of such high-level expertise could put him at a tactical disadvantage in one of the weightiest diplomatic matters of his presidency.
"You need to have an empowered senior science adviser at the table," said R. Nicholas Burns, who led negotiations with India over a civilian nuclear deal during the George W. Bush administration. "You can be sure the other side will have that." The lack of traditional scientific advisory leadership in the White House is one example of a significant change in the Trump administration: the marginalization of science in shaping United States policy. There is no chief scientist at the State Department, where science is central to foreign policy matters such as cybersecurity and global warming. Nor is there a chief scientist at the Department of Agriculture: Mr. Trump last year nominated Sam Clovis, a former talk-show host with no scientific background, to the position, but he withdrew his name and no new nomination has been made.
"You need to have an empowered senior science adviser at the table," said R. Nicholas Burns, who led negotiations with India over a civilian nuclear deal during the George W. Bush administration. "You can be sure the other side will have that." The lack of traditional scientific advisory leadership in the White House is one example of a significant change in the Trump administration: the marginalization of science in shaping United States policy. There is no chief scientist at the State Department, where science is central to foreign policy matters such as cybersecurity and global warming. Nor is there a chief scientist at the Department of Agriculture: Mr. Trump last year nominated Sam Clovis, a former talk-show host with no scientific background, to the position, but he withdrew his name and no new nomination has been made.
That expire in 6 hours, time to use them!
The people giving advice on Korea have been fucking it up for 60-ish years, and REALLY fucking it up for 25 resulting in a viable nuclear program. So I wouldn't listen to them either.
This is exactly the discussion the leaders of the G7 are having today about Donald Trump.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Many people like to blame Trump, but he is a symptom of the US Environment. When Education is constantly cut for a period of 40 years and constant hate towards educated people, this is how things end up.
On TV you see nothing but Reality Shows and shows talking about Ancient Aliens and other such things. You end you with a population that believes Science is fake and thinks Angels and other such things will come and 'save us'.
More people seem to believe in pseudoscience (wikipedia) than anything else, thus you get a Trump and I do not see that changing
Seriously? I don't about you, but I would like a nuclear physicist to tell me if Un is bullshitting me.
You admire speaking plainly? OK. I find your ignorance baffling. I cannot believe people are still supporting Trump considering everything he's fucking up.
He's rolled back Obama's ban on coal miners dumping their waste into rivers and stream - which poisoning the water; DRINKING water for people. And god forbid if you like to fish or enjoy the water - it's fucked.
He's neutered the CFPB - the best thing our government has done for us little people in decades. Banks are now free to steal from us again.
He's totaling screwing up trade deals that took years to negotiate because of his childish and ignorant beliefs on trade.
His real estate and deal making acumen was all a creation of his publicist.
He's stirring up more trouble in the Middle East which damage this country for many many years to come.
Unless one is an Evangelical Christian Kook who thinks he's some of messenger from your skydaddy, this guy is just fucking all of us over.
(like a 270% tariff on dairy going into Canada, a very real and chilling fact about which I had no idea previously).
Then I suppose you also don't know that the US provides over $22 billion a year in direct subsidies to US dairy producers, accounting for over 40% of all dairy profits?
That's right -- American taxpayers are paying for >40% of all dairy production in the US. That has lead to a significant oversupply of milk and cheese products which the US can't sell domestically, so they want to be able to dump it on other countries well below market value (again -- it's government subsidized).
That is why Canada has a tariff on US dairy products. Canada doesn't subsidize its dairy industry at all. The tariffs came into effect because the US insists on subsidizing its dairy industry with more US tax dollars than the entire Canadian dairy industry is worth.
And you know what? Even with all that, Canada imports more dairy from the US than it exports (see above link).
Want to get rid of the tariffs? Get rid of your own market distorting subsidies first, then we can talk.
Yaz
Nonsense. Trump will probably nod his head and agree to something Kim says that sounds good (like he did in the DACA 'negotiations' at the White House), and then when he gets home and his advisers tell him he can't agree to that, he'll reverse himself, and launch a Twitter attack on Kim to shift the blame and insist he didn't say what he plainly said.
The reason to have scientists and Korea experts in the room is to make sure Trump doesn't go off half-cocked and make a fool of himself. Of course, he's incapable of either seeing or acknowledging when he has made a fool of himself, so the whole thing's probably just a photo-op for him at this point.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
Sort of sad that reckless braggadocio is what passes for "insightful" nowadays, and I really don't get why people are conned into thinking that large and intractable security problems with set and firm interests can be resolved with the swagger of a used car salesman who was born into a real estate empire.
If you focus on Kim Jong-Un, his interests are pretty straightforward even if his methods and rule are extreme. He wants to stay alive and stay in power, and balance the internal threats from a horribly subjugated population and potentially ambitions rivals in the military and his family with the external threats of the US, South Korea, Japan, and yes, even China. So what sort of uninformed bullshit will baffle Kim into losing grip on his primary interests and capitulating? And why in the world would he believe the promises of the highest profile pathological liar in the world, the one who just reneged on a similar sort of deal with Iranians, proving that the US very much is not a reliable dealmaker right now.
And you need the nuclear weapons experts to prove that any program to dismantle the weapons program works, as if you walk in blind on the basic scientific and engineering details of the nuclear programs then you will end up blind as to the effectiveness of any disarmament measures. Not really hard for the North Koreans to cheat (which they've done before) if you don't even have the basic competence and mechanisms to verify compliance with a potential disarmament pledge.
Perhaps you don't what to have everyone working on the nitty gritty details coming in and chatting it up with Kim in the summit, but that brings forth the lie to how this summit is supposed to be a magical way to solve the problem. Normally these high profile summits with leaders just confirm the lower level detailed negotiations and diplomacy that lead up to them and provide a bunch of nice photo ops, and last I checked the prep work to actually draft out then cement a deal has not been done yet, likely intentionally.
I could get more sardonic and sarcastic, but if you've glanced at least a bit at Trump's business history like I have then you should probably be even more pessimistic about relying on the mythological art of the deal. The multiple bankruptcies are just the tip of the iceberg.
What I find odd is that there's so many pro Trump folks on /. (which is ostensibly a site for pro-science nerds)
Many folks here on /. are indeed pro-science nerds. Many are also libertarian and don't like government regulation. Of the viable candidates, Trump was the most likely to reduce government regulation. Personally I am not a big fan of the president, but his election wasn't a surprise to me, nor is the support for him here on /.
until Saddam & Gaddafi. In both cases we secured promises, backed up by extensive international inspections, that they would not develop weapons of mass destruction. And in both cases we proved to be untrustworthy and brutal and arranged for both men to be murdered (Gaddafi died with a bayonet twisting in his gut).
Kim would be a real mad man if he stopped trying to get nukes after seeing what we do to people who relinquish them
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and there's plenty to support Trump being anti-science. To wit:
His EPA chief is ignoring air and water quality research and reducing controls on water and air quality
He called Global Warming a Chinese hoax, despite the overwhelming condenses of peer reviewed science recognizing it
He opposes Net Neutrality and ignores studies that show eliminating it would have negative effects on the free exchange of ideas.
He and his VP support Abstinence based education even though it's been shown to be completely ineffective (again, by science).
Two words: Clean Coal.
Two more words: Betsy Devos
I could go on and on. The scientific position to take is that Trump is, in fact, anti-science. He doesn't believe in evidence and facts, preferring the "I substitute your reality with my own" school of thought. To call him anything but anti-science is itself anti-science. It's an attempt to ignore or refute reality itself.
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correcting because your own farmers can't produce milk at the same price because they are more inefficient is very much protectionism
Canada has higher food quality regulations than the US does. We don't permit the use of recombinant bovine somatotropin (rBST) in milk producing cows for one. We also don't permit the high levels of antibiotic use the US dairies are allowed to use in the US. The maximum Somatic Cell Count permitted in Canadian milk is nearly half that allowed in US milk.
So yes, in some ways Canadian dairy production is slightly less efficient, but only because we don't feed our cows growth hormones which are detrimental to both bovine and human health, and don't allow all the blood and pus and other non-milk cellular material the US permits in their milk products.
But again -- if US dairies are willing to meet our dairy requirements and stop with the subsidies worth more than the entire Canadian dairy industry is worth -- you'll find Canada ready to talk. Again -- the tariffs were in response to continued US Government subsidies, and not the other way around.
Yaz
Actually, NAFTA does allow permit this for dairy products:
NAFTA, Annex 703.2, Section B, Part 7 states:
7. Notwithstanding paragraph 6 and Article 309:
a) the rights and obligations of the Parties under Article XI:2(c)(i) of the GATT and those rights as incorporated by Article 309 shall apply with respect to trade in agricultural goods only to the dairy, poultry and egg goods set out in Appendix 703.2.B.7; and
b) with respect to such dairy, poultry and egg goods that are qualifying goods, either Party may adopt or maintain a prohibition or restriction or a customs duty on the importation of such good consistent with its rights and obligations under the GATT.
Appendix 703.2.B.7 lists the specific items which qualify under this part.
Likewise, Article 712 states:
Right to Take Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures
1. Each Party may, in accordance with this Section, adopt, maintain or apply any sanitary or phytosanitary measure necessary for the protection of human, animal or plant life or health in its territory, including a measure more stringent than an international standard, guideline or recommendation.
Right to Establish Level of Protection
2. Notwithstanding any other provision of this Section, each Party may, in protecting human, animal or plant life or health, establish its appropriate levels of protection in accordance with Article 715.
Scientific Principles
3. Each Party shall ensure that any sanitary or phytosanitary measure that it adopts, maintains or applies is:
a) based on scientific principles, taking into account relevant factors including, where appropriate, different geographic conditions;
b) not maintained where there is no longer a scientific basis for it; and
c) based on a risk assessment, as appropriate to the circumstances.
Non-Discriminatory Treatment
4. Each Party shall ensure that a sanitary or phytosanitary measure that it adopts, maintains or applies does not arbitrarily or unjustifiably discriminate between its goods and like goods of another Party, or between goods of another Party and like goods of any other country, where identical or similar conditions prevail.
So in effect, dairy is exempt from most NAFTA rules, and setting human health standards for products is perfectly legal, so long as it is non-discriminatory.
Yaz
Where is the science that any of that is actually bad for either cows or humans? The FDA has some of the strictest regulations in the world, yet you say they're letting farmers poison the population with milk?
Fortunately, Health Canada puts their research online:
Executive summary: it's much worse for cows than for people, but there are still some concerns about immune responses in some people. So it's mostly about the health of the cows (and the milk produced by potentially unhealthy cows) rather than a direct effect of rbST in milk on humans.
Yaz
It's not the press man.
They are hoarse from pointing out his lack of clothing for the last 9-12 months.
The problem is Mr. Trump's authoritarian followers. Read up on the authoritarian mindset. It's present in about 25% of any population. It's capable of flipping on a dime repeatedly to conform to whatever the leader's new reality is.
It is probably a huge survival trait in authoritarian regimes.
If Mr. Trump says the sky is black, then to the authoritarian's, it's sincerely black.
If the next day he says it is yellow, then it's sincerely yellow to them.
They have little to no cognitive dissonance.
We did a lot of research into this after world war 2.
As long as democracy, honesty, and a free press are valued by the leadership- then the authoritarians value it. But they can flip on a dime to not valuing democracy, honesty, and a free press. Consider how many flipped from hating Russia to loving Russia in under 6 months. People who disliked Russia their entire lives suddenly were fine with Russia.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
If you are too lazy to click on the chart, it shows that the Federal guilty plea rate is 97%. Only 3% go to trial.
So your position is that all the drug dealers, bank robbers, con artists, kidnappers, tax cheats, money launderers, counterfeiters, smugglers, mad bombers, interstate sex traffickers, etc were railroaded because "Indictments don't mean shit if you don't get a jury trial".
It's great to know that you support a cause that has been taken up by liberal advocacy groups all over the county. I know how hard it is to stand up for liberal causes on Slashdot because of all the right wing trolls, and I salute your commitment to freedom.
Why is Snark Required?
Even if I grant your couple of [citation needed] deaths, I wasn't talking about typical low-level friction (and your definition of any death of any soldier anywhere as a "war" is just plain stupid). I specifically said "WWIII", which is well known by everyone, apparently except you, to mean a major, probably nuclear, war amongst superpowers.
We are not now, and have never been, fighting WWIII. Even the Cold War, which had plenty of dead soldiers on all sides, was not WWIII.
Both you and Yaz are falling for Trump's gimmick. If you think this is about DAIRY TARIFFS, you've already missed what happened.
Trump wants to destabilize the existing relationship so he can "renegotiate" a mafia strong-arm position that puts the US in an isolationist posture. He's going to do it on every front, Mexico, Canada, G7, everywhere. The exact tariffs themselves are just dog and pony shows. The fact that you guys are mired in discussions about dairy tariffs shows that you are missing the forest for the trees. Trump would do this NO MATTER WHICH TARIFFS are at issue.
And he insulted Trudeau as part of his bully strategy. Trudeau didn't say anything that he hadn't already said before. Trump would have taken any statement and pretended it was offensive. The goal of Trump is to bully and harass, laws and regulations be damned. He's the King of the US and he doesn't care what you, or any of the voting public think. He can break the law, shoot some guy on the street (his point, not mine), and pardon himself.
You're witnessing the birth of a Putin-esque oligarchic faux-capitalist government with a Supreme Leader. Stop arguing about milk and pay attention to the big picture.
Partial listing:
Racism, Tax, Coverage, Equality, Freedom, Rights, Prosperity, Science, Rape, Marriage, Man, Woman, Left, Right, Unemployment, Inflation, Fair, Corrupt
I'm sure I missed a few...