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PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

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Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure it was an attempt at satire or reductio ad absurdem.

I'm not sure it was

It was the exact same political absurdist talking point, just swapping "DEI" for "America First". Come on.

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#202
post #188
post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are for racism. Treat one group different from others based on race. "Racism" means the oppression of one group because of race. In an historically racist society (writing this in New Zealand) righting those historical wrongs involves some treating "...one group different from others based on race." It is bad enough here, and it continues here explicitly by the current government (indigenous people just lost a…

Are you talking about: "ACT New Zealand party, a junior partner in the governing centre-right coalition government, last week unveiled the bill, which it had promised during last year’s election, arguing that those rights should also apply to non-Indigenous citizens." How does grant others the same rights turn into racism. Shouldn't everyone have those rights including groups that are bigger minorites in New Zealand…

No

I am talking of the Foreshore and Seabed Act (under a different name) that overturned settled case law and disapropriated IWI claims for property rights.

Māori have their property rights confiscated regularly. About every twenty or thirty years there is another round

That said the racism here is mild compared to reports from the USA

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#203
post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can imagine that a very risk averse lawyer would have pointed out the costs and uncertainties of litigation in cases like this. But if I were in their shoes and I really cared about the money, I would have pressed that lawyer to show examples where the clawback clause had been invoked since Jan 20. I'm not sure it's happened, which seems relevant to estimating the actual risk. Interestingly, they may get more in do…

> But if I were in their shoes and I really cared about the money, I would have pressed that lawyer to show examples where the clawback clause had been invoked since Jan 20. And the lawyer would be able to present hundreds of cases covering billions of dollars of federal grants, cancelled since Trump issued EO 14151 setting in black and white the Administration's broad crusade against funding anything with contact wi…

Yeah it looks like about 1500 grants:

https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/nsf-has-canceled-more-1500-...

But if the concern is about the provision allowing NSF to claw back funds that have been spent by the organization then the question remains: has that happened? Right now if you search for terms related to NSF clawbacks, most of the top results refer to the PSF's statement or forum discussions about it (like this one). I can't find any instances of a federal clawback related to DEI. If that had happened I would assume that the response from the awardee would have been noisy.

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The people in the present administration have been blowing white supremacist and pro-violence dog whistles for over a decade now. I think this is in itself a huge problem. You've been told this, repeatedly, for 10 years, which explains why so much of the political violence (and celebration thereof) is on the left in the US. Why do you still believe dogwhistles to be a bigger problem than actual violence?

"so much of the political violence (and celebration thereof) is on the left in the US" Biiiiiiiig citation needed. By every available metric, right-wing terror attacks dominate the political violence numbers in the US. I don't know what fantasy world you've been living in, but frankly it sounds pretty sweet to me. And mass violence is a worse problem than targeted violence. Whether or not you think they deserved it,…

To paraphrase: ``` Biiiiiiiig citation needed. By every available metric, left-wing terror attacks dominate the political violence numbers in the US. I don't know what fantasy world you've been living in, but frankly it sounds pretty sweet to me.

And mass violence is a worse problem than targeted violence. Whether or not you think they deserved it, the notable cases of right-wing violence in the last year have been individual targets. When the left commits violence, they roll up to a synagogue and gun down everyone inside. Or a gay nightclub. Or they slam a couple planes into buildings (yeah, if you're going to lump the right together, then you can't complain when the left gets lumped together). ```

Both he and you are empty talkers who simply insult the other side without any basis.

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#205
post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am going to add my own stronger language than yours: if you don’t feel positively about diversity, equity, and inclusion, then you are sending a message that you instead support homogeneity, inequity, and exclusion. This "if you're not for us you're against us" is a very broken way of thinking. It excludes the many, many more people just don't care about diversity and want the best people in a role regardless of…

> It excludes the many, many more people Are these people actually attested? In my experience, virtually everyone I've ever seen make a strong argument against "DEI" ended up having some... unsavory attitudes more generally. Scratch hard in discussion or check post histories[1] and you end up at some variant of white nationalism or men's rights, almost every time. Basically no one goes to bat for "wanting the best pe…

men's right? I'm shuddering in my chair. Next you tell me they volunteer for a homeless shelter too.

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#206
post #310

[stub for offtopicness / flamewarness / guideline-breakingness] (this is a rough cut - I know there are other posts left in the thread that arguably belong here, but this time I'm in a bit of a rush) (please, everyone, you can make substantive points thoughtfully but do so within the guardrails at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html - avoid the generic-indignant-flamey-snarky-namecalley-hardcore-battley…

DEI programs are fundamentally racist. You don't fix racism with more racism.

[dead]

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#207
post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The direction of political winds shift over time. An organization like the PSF cannot assume an open-ended liability like that. DEI today, but what tomorrow? As we have seen, political leadership in the US has shown itself to be unreliable, pernicious, and vindictive. US leadership is undermined by the politicization of these grants. That is something that members of this community, largely a US-based, VC-oriented au…

I wonder, how likely do you think there would be a retaliatory threat of revoking PSF’s nonprofit status for a perceived snub in rejecting the offer?

The IRS has withheld 501(c) status from the president’s perceived adversaries before[0]. But I haven’t heard of 501(c) status being revoked.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRS_targeting_controversy

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, I don't get that an Organization such as the PSF operates at a $5 million dollar budget which quite arguably provides Billions or even Trillions in revenue across the Tech sector.

[flagged]

Pretty bold statement with no evidence.

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#209
post #176
post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> DEI is an immoral, hate based and anti-truth ideology. Much of the DEI work stems from people looking around a decade or so ago at tech conferences, and noticing that they were almost entirely comprised of men. There's way too much to address in a single comment, so I'll share one specific thing the Python community has done over the past ten+ years that's made a world of difference: The talk proposal process has b…

[flagged]

Do you have any suggestions for how the PSF could fulfill its mission of being more inclusive in a non-immoral way?

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#210
post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> DEI is an immoral, hate based and anti-truth ideology. Much of the DEI work stems from people looking around a decade or so ago at tech conferences, and noticing that they were almost entirely comprised of men. There's way too much to address in a single comment, so I'll share one specific thing the Python community has done over the past ten+ years that's made a world of difference: The talk proposal process has b…

if you were to poll this very forum, you would find out that it is too almost entirely comprised of (biological) men. shall we apply the DEI principles here and give female posters +100 free karma on every comment/submission?

This is called a strawman argument and is functionally worthless for this discusson
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