China is going to devour the scientific world if we keep it like this

The world just keeps getting more and more efficient at being dumb. Let's just count all the appallingly stupid things crammed into this small meme with 2 million views:

1. "Insurrection Barbie"
2. Celebrating the defunding of useful scientific research by a new government efficiency agency
3. This new agency is named after a cryptocurrency
4. The cryptocurrency in question was created as a joke to satirize cryptocurrencies, but became a top prominent cryptocurrency itself.
5. The "Department of Government Efficiency Agency" has 2 heads, both of whom have other primary jobs and were chosen in return for political support.
6. There is also already an existing government agency that does the exact same thing, called the "Government Accountability Office". But most people seem to be unaware of it, likely because it's not named after a cryptocurrency/dog meme.
7. This whole scheme was the idea of the richest person in the world.

Idiocracy didn't happen because of unnatural selection, it happened because social media unlocked a runaway chain reaction of stupidity.

Welcome to a new era of weaponized ignorance

Neolib idiots don't see the (immense) value of fundamental research because it doesn't directly generate profits, more at 11

Goddamn, it really is impossible!
How the fuck am I gonna filter US politics out of my feed when it creeps in through Science Memes?

"Haha, I'm insurrection barbie, get it? Because the libs think when Donald Trump lets a massive mob of his supporters to the Capitol to disrupt the election certification process the libs thought it was an insurrection!"

Say it with me:

No. Research. Is. Useless.

If we say that research is useless because it doesn't bring you mo ey we could stop teaching children math beyond the absolute basics because "it doesn't brinf them anything". This is stupid, because those are the fundamentals that tech children to thing logically and become useful member of society. Same with research. It teaches us the things necessary to maybe invent some of the most useful stuff ever seen

Like the dead don't realize they're dead, they don't realize they're stupid. They're just everyone else's problem.

the 2010s science bazinga man being the reason all the cool science gets cut is darkly funny.

Welcome to the new Dark Ages, brought to you by religious fascists.

Hell can we mention that the cold war era these fucks idolize was also the golden age of the government throwing money at side projects?

"preventing next corn plague" with resources used being a box of soil and bunch of underpaid grads seems pretty efficient to me, but i guess that since the common clay of the new west already voted they can be safely disposed of

at USDA, they're turning beetles kinky! 😡

• alex jones fuming aimlessly while being stored in some container

Sure, that's great but it's not even the point. Fundamental research and other type of "useless" scientific endeavors help humanity as a whole to better understand our universe but would never be privately funded because they don't have any concrete and immediate financial benefits. This is precisely what a government should finance, because no one else would do it and yet it's small stuff like that that make us collectively move forward as a species