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Ishaan comments on Should effective altruists care about the US gov't shutdown and can we do anything? - Less Wrong Discussion

-2 Post author: Ishaan 01 October 2013 08:24PM

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Comment author: Ishaan 01 October 2013 09:39:39PM 2 points [-]

Sure. Those who can pick up where they left off are not going to even notice that this happening.

But there are a lot of projects that are very time sensitive, which have already had a lot of money and labor invested into them. These which might be significantly delayed or even cancelled, resulting in a loss of invested resources.

Comment author: Douglas_Knight 01 October 2013 11:06:06PM 1 point [-]

Could you give an example of such a project? I doubt that any projects will be canceled because of the shutdown.

Comment author: Ishaan 01 October 2013 11:17:27PM *  6 points [-]

From the linked article:

if the NSF misses one or two weekly payments to the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Charlottesville, Virginia, the facility would be forced to close, disrupting long-term research, says facility director Tony Beasley.

also

At NASA, one casualty could be the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission, which until 1 October was being prepared at Cape Canaveral in Florida for an 18 November launch. MAVEN’s principal investigator, Bruce Jakosky of the University of Colorado Boulder, says that his team can accommodate a brief work stoppage. But if MAVEN, which will study the Martian atmosphere, misses its three-week launch window, it will be delayed until 2016,

(A 3 year wait for something that was going to launch next month probably means wasted resources. There's also a chance that it becomes a sunk cost as better tech. comes by.)

the FDA has put 45% of its staff on leave and will cut back on food-safety programmes

Given the number of programs being effected, I think it's really unlikely that no projects will be shut down anywhere because of this.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 02 October 2013 07:28:33AM 1 point [-]

I'm more worried about biology experiments-- some of them need constant maintenance. Do you know whether the folks who are feeding the animals and such are still doing so?

Comment author: [deleted] 02 October 2013 02:12:21PM 2 points [-]

I did hear about this. Yes, those people were generally considered essential, so they get to work. Article link that mentions this:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/10/01/228208246/the-shutdown-s-squeeze-on-science-and-health

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 04 October 2013 09:54:50PM 1 point [-]

I just heard a radio report which said that animals are being taken care of, but the results of experiments aren't being collected.

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