The Precariat: Difference between revisions

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G) Graduate students are workers disguised as students. Foreign students are a foreign workforce.  
G) Graduate students are workers disguised as students. Foreign students are a foreign workforce.  


H) Peer review is astonishingly recent and doesn’t work.  
H) [[Peer Review|Peer review]] is astonishingly recent and doesn’t work.  


I) There is a quasi military function to research universities. They are part of National Security. Patriotism matters.
I) There is a quasi military function to research universities. They are part of National Security. Patriotism matters.
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Machine learning leap to mind. This must be studied.  
Machine learning leap to mind. This must be studied.  


L) The AAU, NSF, NAS etc. have all conspired against the welfare of American scientists and their families. Scientists need to be in the rooms where their fates are determined.  
L) The AAU, [[National Science Foundation (NSF)|NSF]], [[National Academy of Sciences (NAS)|NAS]] etc. have all conspired against the welfare of American scientists and their families. Scientists need to be in the rooms where their fates are determined.  


M) The difference between a research university and a college takes place almost exclusively within three groups of people: Professors, Graduate Students, and PostDocs/Researchers/Visitors. It often takes place in the afternoons. In seminars. In Labs. Etc. If you aren’t part of that world you aren’t part of the University. You are working or studying in BigEd but not involved with the university itself.
M) The difference between a research university and a college takes place almost exclusively within three groups of people: Professors, Graduate Students, and PostDocs/Researchers/Visitors. It often takes place in the afternoons. In seminars. In Labs. Etc. If you aren’t part of that world you aren’t part of the University. You are working or studying in BigEd but not involved with the university itself.
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N) The great man/woman theory is basically correct in academics. Individual academicians change the world.  
N) The great man/woman theory is basically correct in academics. Individual academicians change the world.  


O) The Mansfield amendment, Dole-Bayh, Eilberg, IMMACT90 etc laws need to be undone. The damage has been incalculable.
O) The [[Mansfield Amendment (1969)|Mansfield amendment]], [[Bayh-Dole Act (1980)|Dole-Bayh]], [[Eilberg Amendment (1976)|Eilberg]], [[IMMACT90]] etc laws need to be undone. The damage has been incalculable.
|quote=
{{Tweet
|image=sfmcguire79-profile-FzUJV2Yy.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/sfmcguire79/status/1894469745946021940
|name=Steve McGuire
|usernameurl=https://x.com/sfmcguire79
|username=sfmcguire79
|content=Full page ad in today’s WSJ taken out by leaders at @VanderbiltU and @WashU:
 
Higher Education is at a Crossroads
 
To university leadership, Board members and alumni:
 
American higher education is at a crossroads. Ideological forces in and outside of campuses have pulled too many universities away from the core purpose, principles and values that made them America's great engines of learning, innovation and discovery, and the envy of the world.
 
It is imperative that universities reaffirm and protect these core principles, strengthen their compact with the American people, and build on their unmatched capacity for teaching and innovation. They must do so not only because universities provide education that is transformative and research that improves everyday life—but also because their work is vital to American prosperity, competitiveness and national security.
 
To this end, the leadership of Vanderbilt University and Washington University in St. Louis recently took action at the board level to affirm our commitment to three indispensable principles that have long guided us:
 
-Excellence in all aspects of our institutions' work, free of political litmus tests, grounded in a commitment to institutional neutrality in words and deeds;
 
-Academic freedom and freedom of expression, to ensure unfettered inquiry, perspectives drawn from a wide range of human experience, and dialogue and debate that are free from censorship and disruption; and
 
-An environment that fosters growth and development, including a commitment to minimizing financial and other barriers that impede students' access to our institutions or that hinder their academic success.
 
Learn about the Vanderbilt-WashU Statement of Principles and efforts to restore confidence in America's great universities at HigherEdStatementofPrinciples dot com
 
Bruce Evans</br>
Chairman, Board of Trust</br>
Vanderbilt University
 
Andrew Bursky</br>
Chair, Board of Trustees Washington University in St. Louis
 
Daniel Diermeier</br>
Chancellor</br>
Vanderbilt University
 
Andrew D. Martin</br>
Chancellor</br>
Washington University in St. Louis
|media1=sfmcguire79-X-post-1894469745946021940-GkqCMUbX0AAbPNZ.jpg
|timestamp=7:29 PM · Feb 25, 2025
}}
|timestamp=7:27 PM · Feb 26, 2025
|timestamp=7:27 PM · Feb 26, 2025
}}
}}
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* [[Science, The Endless Frontier (1945)]]
* [[Science, The Endless Frontier (1945)]]
* [[True Elite]]
* [[True Elite]]
* [[Welfare Queens in White Lab Coats]]




[[Category:Concepts]]
[[Category:Concepts]]

Latest revision as of 03:18, 30 November 2025

The-precariat.jpg

The term “Precariat” designates a social class characterized by economic insecurity, unstable employment, and a lack of predictable income, benefits, or occupational identity. It combines precarious and proletariat, reflecting both the instability of modern labor conditions and their connection to working-class exploitation.

Origins and Conceptual Development[edit]

The concept gained prominence through the work of Guy Standing, particularly in The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class (2011). Standing proposed that global labor markets have undergone structural changes producing a new class distinct from the traditional working class. He argued that neoliberal economic policies, labor market deregulation, and the dismantling of social protections have created widespread precarity in employment and life conditions.

In Standing’s framework, The Precariat comprises individuals lacking stable labor contracts, occupational identity, or social protections—features that once characterized the industrial working class. Members of this group experience unstable, low-wage, and often temporary or gig-based employment. They are marked by income volatility, weak social integration, and limited access to welfare or labor rights.

Standing situates the rise of The Precariat within late 20th- and early 21st-century transformations in global capitalism: labor market deregulation, privatization, technological disruption, and the erosion of collective bargaining. These processes, he argues, have produced a distinct class structure in which the precariat occupies a position of structural disadvantage, insecurity, and political disaffection.

Defining Features[edit]

The Precariat lacks the stable attributes associated with Fordist industrial employment: long-term contracts, social security, pensions, and collective bargaining rights. Members typically cycle through short-term jobs, part-time work, gig employment, or informal economic activities. This instability extends to their social identity and political voice, producing both economic and existential uncertainty.

Key characteristics include:

  • Employment insecurity: Temporary, zero-hours, or gig-based work arrangements.
  • Income volatility: Unpredictable earnings and limited access to benefits.
  • Occupational fragmentation: Weak attachment to a professional identity or career trajectory.
  • Social disembeddedness: Reduced integration into unions, communities, or welfare institutions.
  • Educational mismatch: Often well-educated individuals performing low-skill or underpaid work.

Scientists as The Precariat[edit]

Eric Weinstein has used The Precariat to refer to the class of scientists and intellects trapped in economic fragility. Once architects of prosperity, they no longer possess the security and Academic Freedom once associated with intellectual life, now living at the mercy of grants, bureaucracies, and "Peer Review" (Peer Injunction). Their work, a public good, creates wealth that never reaches them. Precarity silences dissent and breeds conformity; courage is unaffordable.

Weinstein points out that the postwar understanding between society and its scientists has disappeared. Stability and prestige have been replaced by grant cycles and bureaucratic oversight. What had been a revered calling has become a desperate contest for survival, an Academic Hunger Games. Weinstein argues that restoring security and prosperity to scientists would reignite innovation, rebuild national strength, and renew civilization’s creative core. Wealth, he insists, is the antidote to corruption, fear, and decay in science.

A Market Failure in Plain Sight[edit]

Weinstein argues that scientific labor is structurally undervalued. Researchers produce public goods — discoveries that benefit everyone and cannot be restricted — but receive compensation inconsistent with their societal value. This is a form of "market failure," since the system rewards administration and extraction rather than creation.

He wrote in 2023 that scientists generate wealth that flows away from them:

You see scientists create what economists call a MARKET FAILURE in the form of a PUBLIC GOOD. That is the VALUE our scientists create isn’t captured in the PRICE they can command even in a free market. Then we broke our contract to take care of them by sharing downstream wealth.

6:20 AM · Feb 17, 2023

This condition, he maintains, distorts priorities. It leads to a society that treats knowledge as an afterthought while consuming its results.

The Price of Fear[edit]

Financial dependence changes how people speak and act. When scientists' jobs and grants are insecure, dissent becomes dangerous. Many remain silent to avoid jeopardizing their positions.

Scientists made us wealthy.

It is time to return the favor.

Stop producing precarious scientists.

5:02 PM · Mar 1, 2023

A scientist needs to know she/he is not hanging by a thread. You need to be able to tell The Fauci/Collins/Daszaks of this world to Eff off. And survive. And Thrive.

We are paying for cheap science. It’s in your lungs now. Let’s start paying for real science. It’s much cheaper.

5:08 PM · Mar 1, 2023

Weinstein cites the pandemic years as evidence, reminding his audience that scientists repeated the views of administrative leaders such as Fauci and Collins instead of challenging them. The issue is structural: a precarious academic profession cannot remain intellectually open. There is no possibility of dissent without fear of losing everything.

Cheap Science, Costly Consequences[edit]

Weinstein contends that modern research culture favors compliance and volume over originality. Budgets are cut, expectations rise, and institutions reward caution. He describes this as "cheap science" — a system that appears efficient yet yields diminished outcomes.

I spent a lot of time in beautiful homes and second homes of older research scientists as a grad student.

We should be embarrassed how far into precariousness we pushed Generation X & Millennials. Our entire economy is now bet on bargain science provided way below market.#Enough

7:31 AM · Feb 8, 2022

The consequence is declining trust and stagnation. Bureaucracy replaces discovery, and administrative logic overtakes radical curiosity and risk taking.

The Expert Class in Decline[edit]

Weinstein's concern applies not only to scientists but also the larger "expert class." Journalists, academics, and professionals (e.g., doctors) face the same conditions of dependence and instability.

He wrote:

“You aren’t having an expertise crisis. You’re having an artificial precariousness crisis imposed on your expert class by broken tacit agreements turning the community into expert witnesses who no longer can afford to put that expertise in public service.” -Eric Weinstein on X

Weinstein characterizes this as a structural process that turns independent expertise into managed opinion. When professional survival depends on sponsorship or compliance, the public’s access to independent judgment erodes.

Restoring the Builders[edit]

Weinstein maintains that stability is essential for intellectual honesty. A scientist must be able to resist authority and still remain employed. Without that foundation, even the strongest institutions risk devolving into performance structures.

Eric refers to mid-20th-century science as an example of a time when careers were durable and inquiry was protected. Restoring the appropriate framework would include dramatically increasing Academic Freedom and compensation, removing the Extractive Elite from positions of power to replace them with the True Elite, and returning to an older model of "Peer Review", where fiercely independent editors run journals.

Editors who are distinguished fiercely independent researchers themselves, with huevos of steel, integrity, a cuture of collegiality, autonomy, money, and a variety of strong differing opinions.

6:15 PM · Sep 26, 2025

What sould replace peer review or would improve on the current system?

5:52 PM · Sep 26, 2025

The Stakes[edit]

Weinstein presents The Precariat as evidence of a deep imbalance between creators and institutions. A society that cannot secure its knowledge producers risks losing its ability to generate new ideas.

He calls for the renewal of the social contract with the scientific and expert classes — one that links stability, freedom, and responsibility. Without that foundation, the engines of discovery falter, and those capable of truth are compelled to choose survival over candor.

Quotes[edit]

We need to unleash American scientists, get them secure, happy, well-fed. Rich. If you make your scientists, relatively wealthy and prosperous—they don't have to be ridiculously wealthy and prosperous, but right now, they're precarious. They're part of The Precariat. If we did that, I think what we could do is we could usher in a renaissance that would filter down to technology startups and the whole tech ecosystem.

It would give us better national defense and would also, you know, I'll just focus on what Elon is also focused on. Becoming an interstellar species is the dream that we should be harboring. And the fact that that sounds like a fairy tale and that that sounds like a will-o-the-wisp is very dangerous.

That's the next level. That's where we're supposed to be. And it's time to clear String Theory out of the way and get back to doing the physics that rocks the world.

- Eric Weinstein, 16 Dec 2024, on Piers Morgan Uncensored

More On X[edit]

2022[edit]

Keep your mouth shut or lose job security.

Sometimes @skdh drives me nuts. Usually, it’s in a good way. Can no one with money or power fix this situation? No? Of course not. You want science slaves. How’s that working in virology?

Somebody get our scientists wealth & freedom.

7:25 AM · Feb 8, 2022

Of course the vast majority of people who work in the foundations of physics want me to stop pointing out they are working on pseudoscience. Of course I know that this means I will never get a permanent position.

7:07 AM · Feb 8, 2022

I spent a lot of time in beautiful homes and second homes of older research scientists as a grad student.

We should be embarrassed how far into precariousness we pushed Generation X & Millennials. Our entire economy is now bet on bargain science provided way below market.#Enough

7:31 AM · Feb 8, 2022


There are only so many times I can say it: you’ve asked science to make others wealthy, secure & free as you subjected scientists to a life of precariousness, peer review, groupthink, virtue signaling & bureaucracy.

The madness ends when you stop whining about PhDs w/ 2nd homes.

ERW-X-post-1495056251004370945-FL-BvG4XIAMBRIF.jpg
3:22 PM · Feb 19, 2022

2023[edit]

Because you stopped them from participating in the prosperity they created for everyone else downstream of science.

To put it bluntly they are echoing the words of those whose hands now encircle their throats. That’s why you got sick with Covid. Why you aren’t getting the truth.

6:16 AM · Feb 17, 2023

You see scientists create what economists call a MARKET FAILURE in the form of a PUBLIC GOOD. That is the VALUE our scientists create isn’t captured in the PRICE they can command even in a free market. Then we broke our contract to take care of them by sharing downstream wealth.

6:20 AM · Feb 17, 2023

If they were wealthy, as they would be in any sane society, they would tell you what they thought of Fauci and Collins and Daszak. But they are *precarious*. So they parroted those people instead.

Hence their new cranky positions on reproductive mutilation. WIV. Vaccines. Etc.

6:25 AM · Feb 17, 2023

Think of it this way. We told the world’s smartest people they were privileged welfare queens in lab coats & made them waste their time begging for grants, stabbing each other in the back. So they adapted. We can have reliable science back as soon as we open our eyes to this. 🙏

6:28 AM · Feb 17, 2023


Scientists made us wealthy.

It is time to return the favor.

Stop producing precarious scientists.

5:02 PM · Mar 1, 2023

A scientist needs to know she/he is not hanging by a thread. You need to be able to tell The Fauci/Collins/Daszaks of this world to Eff off. And survive. And Thrive.

We are paying for cheap science. It’s in your lungs now. Let’s start paying for real science. It’s much cheaper.

5:08 PM · Mar 1, 2023


2025[edit]

Many of you are asking me to comment on this video.

I was trying very hard not to do so.

@skdh has not been treated properly by the physics community in my opinion. We are generally in agreement and I recommend her.

She is now bigger by herself than all of @bgreene’s World Science Festival. And I believe that she has to think through these comments at her new scale.

Bottom Line: @skdh is far more in the right than her critics will acknowledge. But she is now at a new scale and these remarks are misleading in my opinion.

Fundamental Physics is, to me, what Mars and Rockets are to @elonmusk: man’s only hope for long term survival.

My belief is that @skdh is now so negative based on her egregious treatment at the hands of her community that her righteous position is actually endangering physics itself in the era of @DOGE.

I would consider debating her as a friend to give a more positive view.

Her and my tormentors in physics are our enemies basically because they are precarious. And precarious scientists are dangerous. Should we starve them or pay them?

@skdh and I agree that there are a lot of shitty physics folks behaving badly. Sabine is closer to saying cut off the bad scientists. I am closer to saying “We have a Fauci problem in physics. Get rid of the means by which our ‘Faucis’ control us by making their colleagues precarious. Wealth is the solution to the ethics crisis in physics. The physics community that brought you the wealth of the modern world cannot be controlled by our Fauci’s. Honor the community by freeing them from economic tyranny and the problem gets solved in a positive manner.”

I despise the cowardly enemies of science, and of Sabine. In my opinion they are bullies and cowards really only because they were wrongly made precarious.

We desperately need our physicists. Free them. Pay them. Free them from our Fauci’s.

I would be happy to debate Sabine (and @bgreene, @seanmcarroll, @michiokaku and others) on this. It’s literally life and death to me in the long term [See my pinned tweet.] and Sabine is wildly too negative here. Happy to defend this.

🙏

ERW-X-post-1891415123744489498-Gj-lqWTWgAAXFQs.jpg ERW-X-post-1891415123744489498-Gj-lqWVW0AAZbK5.jpg
9:11 AM · Feb 17, 2025

I want to read you an email that I was asked to keep confidential because I think it explains some of my worries about academia.

3:00 PM · Feb 15, 2025


How about reaffirming the unsayable:

A) Research Universities are supposed to be dedicated to scholarship and discovery above all else. Not teaching. Not politics. Not incubating business spinoffs.

B) They are suppose to be exclusive. Not inclusive.

C) The professors are supposed to lead the university. Not the staff. Not the administrators.

D) Academics are not to be made precarious.

E) Even private elite universities are not really private. They are government funded to do the work that the market cannot.

F) The USG is in breach of the historical commitment to support blue sky science in US Universities.

G) Graduate students are workers disguised as students. Foreign students are a foreign workforce.

H) Peer review is astonishingly recent and doesn’t work.

I) There is a quasi military function to research universities. They are part of National Security. Patriotism matters.

J) Some fields do not deserve to be together on a level field. Biology and gender studies for example.

K) Some fields *may* now be too dangerous to be studied openly. Parts of physics, number theory and Machine learning leap to mind. This must be studied.

L) The AAU, NSF, NAS etc. have all conspired against the welfare of American scientists and their families. Scientists need to be in the rooms where their fates are determined.

M) The difference between a research university and a college takes place almost exclusively within three groups of people: Professors, Graduate Students, and PostDocs/Researchers/Visitors. It often takes place in the afternoons. In seminars. In Labs. Etc. If you aren’t part of that world you aren’t part of the University. You are working or studying in BigEd but not involved with the university itself.

N) The great man/woman theory is basically correct in academics. Individual academicians change the world.

O) The Mansfield amendment, Dole-Bayh, Eilberg, IMMACT90 etc laws need to be undone. The damage has been incalculable.

7:27 PM · Feb 26, 2025

Full page ad in today’s WSJ taken out by leaders at @VanderbiltU and @WashU:

Higher Education is at a Crossroads

To university leadership, Board members and alumni:

American higher education is at a crossroads. Ideological forces in and outside of campuses have pulled too many universities away from the core purpose, principles and values that made them America's great engines of learning, innovation and discovery, and the envy of the world.

It is imperative that universities reaffirm and protect these core principles, strengthen their compact with the American people, and build on their unmatched capacity for teaching and innovation. They must do so not only because universities provide education that is transformative and research that improves everyday life—but also because their work is vital to American prosperity, competitiveness and national security.

To this end, the leadership of Vanderbilt University and Washington University in St. Louis recently took action at the board level to affirm our commitment to three indispensable principles that have long guided us:

-Excellence in all aspects of our institutions' work, free of political litmus tests, grounded in a commitment to institutional neutrality in words and deeds;

-Academic freedom and freedom of expression, to ensure unfettered inquiry, perspectives drawn from a wide range of human experience, and dialogue and debate that are free from censorship and disruption; and

-An environment that fosters growth and development, including a commitment to minimizing financial and other barriers that impede students' access to our institutions or that hinder their academic success.

Learn about the Vanderbilt-WashU Statement of Principles and efforts to restore confidence in America's great universities at HigherEdStatementofPrinciples dot com

Bruce Evans
Chairman, Board of Trust
Vanderbilt University

Andrew Bursky
Chair, Board of Trustees Washington University in St. Louis

Daniel Diermeier
Chancellor
Vanderbilt University

Andrew D. Martin
Chancellor
Washington University in St. Louis

Sfmcguire79-X-post-1894469745946021940-GkqCMUbX0AAbPNZ.jpg
7:29 PM · Feb 25, 2025


What has happened is that the expert class has been made precarious
by the power class.

The power class then buys or threatens the expert class.

“Join us Sarah in saying that a man identifying as a woman is as much a woman as a woman
as a professor of biology, or lose your job.”

“It would really be helpful Sunil to have a study that shows that our product is helpful and not harmful or at least that the any harms are negligibly small and are being greatly exaggerated.”

“Surely you are still a scientist Fred and haven’t become a racist conspiracy theorist claiming this virus could possibly have come out of a laboratory biowepons program.”

“But Gustavo, why would you suggest we waste what little discretionary funding we have on a conference where non-string theorists jealous of our funding success point to our lack of any definitive progress when we clearly have so many interesting leads to follow?”

BOTTOM LINE: you aren’t having an expertise crisis. Your having an artificial precariousness crisis imposed on your expert class by broken tacit agreements turning the community into expert witnesses who no longer can afford to put that expertise in public service.

If you actually believe that expertise has collapsed, then explain why the power class are right now buying, converting, and privatizing your experts, while all the while whispering in your ear that the public spirited experts still loyal to their craft are charlatans, madmen, “big mad”, grifters, pseudo scientists and anything else they think you might be dumb enough to believe?

Have you never heard of concierge medicine? Who flies and maintains the planes at the private airports? Who does the plastic surgery? What do former Delta force operators do for work when they need to make money? Who provides IT security in $50M mansions? Who builds those homes?

Don’t be an idiot. The more you are taught to hate and distrust your experts, the more they will turn to power to provide their expertise privately and bullshit to you publicly.

Sorry. But that is exactly what is happening.

Good luck. 🙏

1:28 PM · Apr 11, 2025


A very interesting question is why academics almost uniformly make fun of conspiracy theories
when presented by colleagues at least.

Los Alamos, Tuskegee, Human Terrain Systems, etc. all involved conspiracy BY ACADEMICS. Some were good. Some bad. Some ambiguous.

But isn’t it odd that conspiracies are a permanent part of human existence, yet trying to study them or theorize about them results in crippling professional penalties?

I am astonished that I have not heard one single physicist call @pmarca a liar for claiming the Biden Whitehouse revealed that entire public subfields of theoretical physics were taken off-line by the government for security reasons, and disappeared or went dark.

Nor have I heard “We have to look into this!”.
Nor have I heard “Wow! That is super interesting.” Just silence.

But what I have heard is academics finding it laughable that others find this is interesting.

The @pmarca claim about physics is thus one of the most anti-interesting claims I have ever heard. Everyone in physics just seems to intuitively know not to ask about it.

Has anyone seen @michiokaku, @neiltyson, @bgreene etc. commenting on this claim? I haven’t.

They all just know: Don’t go there girlfriend.

10:49 AM · May 13, 2025

Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz say that when they met White House officials to discuss AI, the officials said they could classify any area of math they think is leading in a bad direction to make it a state secret and "it will end"

Tsarnick-X-post-1813393267679240647.jpg
2:00 AM · Jul 16, 2024

Here is a challenge for any of my colleagues who think this is a nothingburger: given the craziness of the widely discussed and publicized claims in a field that has not seen a change in the Fundamental models of physics in 50 years (!), who are the 25 most prominent physicists and mathematicians who have discussed the @pmarca claims publicly? Nobel laureates? Fields medalists?
Chaired professors worried about the health of science? Top science communicators? PhD level debunkers demanding @pmarca to put up or shut up?

In a functional world where scientists are not precarious, it would be a *huge* topic of interest, discussion and Academic Freedom. Or it would be debunked. That’s it. There are no other options. Just those two.

Please leave your list below with links! 🙏

11:09 AM · May 13, 2025


Ex MIT PostDoc here.

Q: Why do we make academic STEM research careers **TERRIBLE** for our own technical people?

Is there anyone at all who can explain this? 60yrs ago our people had swagger, academic freedom, ideas & 2nd homes on the Vineyard.

We now demand STEM serfs.

Why??

To be the best science and technical school in the world, you have to accept the smartest people in the world. Not all of them are born in the United States.

4:11 PM · Oct 12, 2025
7:32 AM · Oct 12, 2025

I devoted years of my life to the study of this question. Anyone who asks why we want our own STEM people to have AMAZING CAREERS in research like the 40s, 50s and 60s is accused of being a whiner. WTF? It’s so regular you can set your clock to it.

Eff that. Someone is throwing this game. Why???? Why are we helping our rivals by destroying ourselves? Anyone?

I can never get an answer. Why do we expect US STEM people to sign up for shitty precarious careers? Why is it the job of PhDs to invent a glorious prosperous future for others they are not allowed to share?

We want to challenge and surpass our leaders like the old days, not peel them grapes, suck up to them and do their grunt work.

It’s time to face facts: we are throwing the US science game for no known reason.

I have addressed the National Academy 5 times on this and at the highest levels. I cannot get a straight answer.

We are deliberately seeking less good conventional scientists from abroad over our own house brand of “FU take no prisoners yee haw cowboy scientists.”

I never want to hear the “Best and Brightest” lie again in my life.

You just can’t offer these shitty careers and say that with a straight face.

Let’s go back to going after the top U.S. minds again and make MIT great again.

7:46 AM · Oct 12, 2025


Yes. No one else will tell you this truth.

Do you imagine I care about consensus positions or being misportrayed on this need to deal scientists into the prosperity that all comes from what THEY provided for others? Ha ha ha.

I’m all in on this.

Here goes: you were all locked down for two years being fed lies about the origins, risks, and mortality of COViD and its vaccines because your scientists are all economically precarious. Every professor is vulnerable because they are precarious. Is this that difficult to understand for you??

Your tech elite won’t tell you.

MAGA won’t tell you.

The woke won’t tell you.

The NeoCons won’t tell you.

Peer Review won’t save you.

The professors won’t tell you.

For some reason that I don’t grasp, there is exactly and only one person telling you this:

Your advanced society will collapse without scientific ground truth. And any scientist who says what I am saying is reputationally destroyed.

Taking the cowboy kings of American scientists and turning them into a servant class circa 1970 undermined the west. China will eventually overtake us as a result of this catastrophic decision. Science, freedom and truth were our edges because they became technology and tech became wealth and security and truth. The world appreciated and feared us.

And fixing this is as simple as dealing your top American scientists into personal security of about 8 figures of wealth. Enough to take a stand, hire lawyers/personal security, lose a job, have your reputation annihilated by “covert influence campaigns” from the intelligence services and insulate your family.

You want me to say it? Fauci and Collins and Baric and Daszak and Epstein and the CIA/DOE/NIH/NSF/NAS are no picnic. They are on the other side of this thing. They are terrifying. So yeah. I want our original deal back. Second homes is shorthand for “Fuck you money” or institutional protection. Clear? Can I possibly be clearer?

Let me repeat it: I want scientist secure enough to tell you the truth when our own U.S. government and military industrial complex goes totally rogue.

Cope with it.

But maybe you enjoy lockdowns. And having “drone” overflights we can’t identify. And having our AI intellectual property instantly move to China. And injecting your children with things you can’t understand. Maybe you want to tell your weapons grade virologists and physicists to fuck off and get a real job and stop whining. I wish you well.

If so, make fun of the one scientist who will tell you. Great move. Smart. Genius.

You need to deal in American scientists with Fuck You money. Because China is figuring this out right now


Do have fun. Enjoy.

P.S. And why do you hear this from one voice? Because standing alone is what American Scientists do at their core when they believe they are right. It is what gave us our advantage. And I will chose that hill every single time. I believe in us over anyone else on earth. And if that means one voice, outgunned, against everyone else, so be it. You’re wrong. And I know what I am talking about. You don’t. Simple as that.

But maybe you want to check the consensus and get this tweet peer reviewed by my colleagues who cower in their STEM departments.

Best of luck.

2nd homes on the vineyard đŸ„Ž

4:11 PM · Oct 12, 2025
4:55 PM · Oct 12, 2025


So look at this poll.

I am here to tell you we the United States, are drowning in top scientific talent and we are making their lives into a precarious hell conning them into make everyone else rich. Except them.

“Make value for us to capture.”

Around 1970, Scientific research was transformed into a TERIBLE and PRECARIOUS U.S. career.

Made much worse in 1990.

Why is no one ringing this alarm? I have no clue.

Look at the poll results.

I repeat:

Scientific research was transformed into a TERIBLE and PRECARIOUS U.S. career.

Why is no one else ringing this alarm?

I’m simply right on this. It does not matter what the consensus is. This is not a hill to die on. I will win every time.

I am telling you the truth. You are signed up for more pandemics, more drone incursion, more inflation, more Pharma recalls, and to lose to China.

Deal your scientists back in and away from the precariat. This is insane.

Look at this poll. There really is no question about this. It’s a catastrophe.

4:43 AM · Oct 15, 2025

U.S. National Interest Poll.

Which competitive occupation can America *least* afford to surrender as a highly attractive career path for Americans:

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5:58 AM · Oct 13, 2025

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