#the science of getting rich

[mtsidqenu]

- "first, you believe that there is one Intelligent Substance, from which all things proceed; second, you believe that this Substance gives you everything you desire; and third, you relate yourself to it by a feeling of deep and profound gratitude."

[ranjith11]

A book that makes readers throw money at you |SummitPressPublishers

A book that makes readers throw money at you|SummitPressPublishers Enter a realm of unparalleled literary brilliance with "The Fortune's Embrace: Unveiling the Path to Limitless Prosperity." Brace yourself for a journey where the written word becomes an irresistible force, captivating readers and compelling them to throw money at you in a display of unbridled appreciation.

[damonp304]

A book that makes readers throw money at you |SummitPressPublishers|

Enter a realm of unparalleled literary brilliance with "The Fortune's Embrace: Unveiling the Path to Limitless Prosperity." Brace yourself for a journey where the written word becomes an irresistible force, captivating readers and compelling them to throw money at you in a display of unbridled appreciation.

[grison-in-space]

you know what else fucks me up about the US election? one of the things that has left me reeling in bewilderment and grief this month?

I'm a scientist, y'all.

That means that I am, like most American research scientists, a federal contractor. (Possibly employee. It's confusing, and it fucks with my taxes being a postdoctoral researcher.) I get paid because someone, in the long run ideally me, makes a really, really detailed pitch to one of several federal grant agencies that the nation would really be missing out if I couldn't follow up on these thoughts and find concrete evidence about whether or not I'm right.

Currently, my personal salary is dependent on a whole department of scientists convincing one of the largest and most powerful granting agencies that they have a program that is really good at training scientists that can think deeply about the priorities of the agency. Those priorities are defined by the guy who runs the agency, and he gets to hire whatever qualified people he wants. That guy? The Presidential Administration picks that one. That's how federal agencies get staffed: the President's administration nominates them.

All of the heads of these agencies are personally nominated by the president and their administration. They are people of enormous power whose job is to administer million-dollar grants to the scientists competing urgently for limited funds. A million dollars often doesn't go farther than a couple of years when it's intended to pay for absolutely everything to do with a particular pitch, including salaries of your trainees, all materials, travel expenses, promoting the work among other researchers, all of it—so most smart American researchers are working fervently on grants all the time.

The next director of the NIH will be a Trump appointee, if he notices and thinks to appoint one. NSF, too; that's the group that funds your ecology and your astroscience and your experimental mathematics and physics and chemistry, the stuff that doesn't have industry funding and industry priorities. USDA. DOE, that's who does a lot of the climate change mitigation and renewable energy source research, they'll just be lucky if they can do anything again because Trump nigh gutted them last time.

Right now, I am working on the very tail end of a grant's funding and I am scurrying to make sure I stay employed. So I'm thinking very closely about federal agency priorities, okay? And I'm thinking that the funding climate for science is going to get a lot fucking leaner. I'm seeing what the American people think of scientists, and about whether my job is worth doing. It's been a lean twelve years in this gig, okay? Every time the federal government gets fucked up, that impacts my job, it means that I have to hustle even harder to get grants in that let me support myself—and, if I have any trainees, their budding careers as well!—to patch over the lean times as much as we can.

So I've been reeling this week thinking about how funding agency priorities are going to change. I work on sex differences in motivation, so let me tell you, the politics reading this one for my next pitch are going to be fun. I'm working on a submission for an explicitly DEI-oriented five year grant with a cycle ending in February, so that's going to be an exercise in hoping that the agency employees at the middle levels (the ones that know how to get things done which can't be replaced immediately with yes men) can buffer the decisions of those big bosses long enough to let that program continue to exist a little while longer.

Ah, Christ, he promised Health & Human Services (which houses the NIH) to RFK, didn't he? We'll see how that pans out.

I keep seeing people calling for more governmental shutdowns on the left now, and it makes me want to scream. The government being gridlocked means the funding that researchers like me need doesn't come, okay? When the DOE can't say fucking "climate change," when the USDA hemorrhages its workers when the agency is dragged halfway across the country, when I watch a major Texan House rep stake his career on trying to destroy the NSF, I think: this is what you people think of us. I think: how little scientists are valued as public workers. Why am I working this hard again?

This is why I described voting as harm reduction. Even if two candidates are "the same" on one thing you care about, they probably aren't the same level of bad on everything. Your task is to figure out the best person to do the job. It's not about a fucking tribalist horse race. A vote is your opinion on a job interview, you fucks. We have to work with this person.

Anyway, I'm probably going to go back to shaking quietly in despair for a little longer and then pick myself up and hit the grind again. If I'm fast, I might still get the grant in this miserable climate if I run, and I might get to actually keep on what I'm trying to do, which is bring research on sex differences, neurodivergence and energy balance as informed by non-binary gender perspectives and disability theory to neuroscience.

Fuck.

[delusionalinsecurewreckpiningphd]

noticing that discussions about how to get rich is almost always about the individual. how do YOU invest? what job YOU have? how do YOU save and spend? but isn't that just inherently at odd with the egalitarian ideal we *gesture wildly at the US* know is not working out so well right now?

like shouldn't the discussion be about how WE can be all more well-off? because if anyone of us just focusing on making ourselves rich then soon enough it will run into neglecting what we are doing onto others in our pursuit of individual wealth.

yes, yes, this is just welfare state discourse in a way, but I'm more focusing on the people-to-people discussion. Instead of what stock you're investing in, how about we talk about raising minimum wage or free or low-cost public transport because those are the things that ensure we are ALL better off together.

because on the other extreme, there are studies (ref below) on the correlation between disenfrenchisement, when people are excluded from the social welfare and participation they are "promised" upon being born into this world, and radicalization and violence. the more we push for individual wealth, the more we risk this bitter end as well.

so let's talk about how do we ALL get rich together

academic ref/further reading:

1 2 3 4

[elizabethrobertajones]

jump scared by the 4th Doctor saying "well" with an uncanny intonation to how 10 says it, except I thought that was just a David Tennant-ism considering he does it in everything eventually, like, that CAN'T have started with him copying this cadence and absorbing it into his being? Right?

[dulcidyne]

Marginalia Ch. 4/5

Rook x Emmrich Volkarin // Rating: T // Spoilers: None

Emmrich found Rook, at last, in the music room, haloed in golden rhombi of Fadelight spilling through the tall, mullioned arches of the windows. She sat at the harpsichord, its varnished wood grain alight in rich, molten amber, rows of silver strings gleaming. Three wisps danced around her in a merry parade while a fourth perched on her shoulder, weaving knots into her loose hair.

With an artfully splayed hand, she tapped out a chord, and the notes rang out in one dissonant voice—woefully out of tune.

Making a face he only saw in profile, she reached up and twisted the brass tuning keys until a faint metallic sound groaned from the case. She tried the chord again and this time it plinked out a delicate, harmonic trill, like a trio of tiny bells with stopped clappers. 

“There you are,” she crooned at the instrument with the indulgent warmth of a fond parent to a child. 

She hadn’t noticed his presence yet, too absorbed in her project, and he was struck by the way the light etched her silhouette against the intricate filigree of gilt and shadow. For once, she was sitting straight-backed, without a leg tucked beneath her or into the circle of her arm—the picture of poise, her spine a graceful line. Reaching up, she swept the fall of knotted-up hair over one shoulder, offering Emmrich a glimpse of the supple slope of her neck and the curve of an earlobe. 

Another chord, and she cocked her head to the side in quiet concentration, humming a clear ‘C’. After twisting the key, she played again. But the chiming notes still jarred against one another. “Now you’re just being stubborn,” she chided gently down to the lower row.  

The wisps chirruped in excitement. “I promise, you’re all being very helpful,” she told them, sounding amused as she turned the tuning keys once more. 

Chittering even louder, her assistants cavorted through the air in their mirth like giant, excited fireflies at dusk. One danced over to him and did a wiggling arc over the plate in his hands. The rest followed, succeeding in finally drawing her attention away from her work and up to Emmrich.

“No, I’m afraid that’s not for you,” Emmrich informed the wisp, now prodding the browned, (thankfully) still warm surface of the rarebit with one curious, glowing tendril. To Rook, he said, “You missed supper.”

She blinked, confused. “That can’t be right, it’s only been…”

“Hours?” he asked with a smile, before taking a seat on the far edge of the wooden bench positioned in front of the instrument. “Three, by my count,” he added, offering out the plate. 

Read on Ao3!

[essektheylyss]

adding Oingo Boingo's Weird Science to my list of critical role animated amvs to make one day (the other of course being Wage Wars Get Rich Die Handsome)

[sacreblugh]

i hate it here why I gotta write a whole page on the discussion board about what the fuck media means in a free society

like i know for mf sure that one of my classmates is going to say some real dumb shit because that's what it's always like on mf blackboard discussions. they be asking the stupidest shit ever in response but word it so fucking pretentiously as if they didn't just misinterpret what I wrote like it's your bad babes! idc if youre responding for the participation grade but shut the fuck up i cooked and always cook IM A CRIMINAL JISTICE MAJOR TRUST ME I KNOW WHAT IM TALKING ABOUT IN THIS GOVERNMENT CLASS

[pawstriez]

jeff bezos’ wife is ugly as fuck and looks like an alien attempting to do human cosplay — and yes i can say this because eat the selfish, greedy, ugly & rich.

[freyjaofthenorth]

it's funny to see people who talk about "Ruffling Some Feathers Among Those Fancy Archaeologists" then promptly prove they have no idea how archaeology works

just saw some bowhunting page do that about some specific type of projectile point, showing up those stuck up archaeologists who think they were used for big game hunting by showing, through tests, what they could also be used for! haHA take THAT, archaeologists!

like, my good numbskull, you are literally doing experimental archaeology (but less rigorous)

[ranjith11]

A book that makes readers throw money at you |SummitPressPublishers

A book that makes readers throw money at you|SummitPressPublishers Enter a realm of unparalleled literary brilliance with "The Fortune's Embrace: Unveiling the Path to Limitless Prosperity." Brace yourself for a journey where the written word becomes an irresistible force, captivating readers and compelling them to throw money at you in a display of unbridled appreciation.

[bandiiey]

I feel very privileged that I get to go to college but being around people who get free college until they’re 25 and I won’t be able to come back here until I make enough money makes me a little crazy ngl

[jackawful]

hopping trains is so cool and good like...a little bit of patience and respect, a little willingness to break the rules & good sense enough to do so safely and be quiet when it counts, and you can just fuckin GO anywhere for free? it's like a really long mostly-flat rollercoaster. it's like being a flea on the back of a dragon. you ride a great loud mechanical beast that has been a tool of genocide and capitalist cruelty since its invention and you parasitize it for your own ends and in doing so you join a lineage of poor people taking agency over their lives dating back over a century. the brake dust I saw sparkling in the air has seeped into my pores and made me a new person.

[writebackatya]

We as a fandom do not acknowledge Gandra’s “Fuck the System” attitude as much as we should

And I am disappointed

For a group that loves “Eat the Rich Uncle” I expected better

[savage-rhi]

Magenta 🤬