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PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program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Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#251

Post by dragonwriter »

elicash wrote: post #228

On the one hand, the plain text of the language is not against DEI practices in general -- only DEI practices that are "in violation of Federal anti-discrimination laws." On the other hand, the federal government has gone after law firms that are not actually in violation of law and forced settlements due to their DEI programs, so you can't actually trust that you won't be hassled. Additionally, that you won't at min…

> On the one hand, the plain text of the language is not against DEI practices in general -- only DEI practices that are "in violation of Federal anti-discrimination laws."

EO 14151—the policy of which the rewriting of the standard anti-discrimination clause in this way is a part of the implementation—characterizes DEI entirely as illegal discrimination (but the new backformation “discriminatory equity ideology” is not found in the EO, that’s apparently a newer invention to avoid the dissonance of using the actual expansion of the initialism while characterizing it as directly the opposite of what it is.

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#252

Post by godelski » 

  > The PSF is a relatively small organization, operating with an annual budget of around $5 million per year, with a staff of just 14.
This might be the bigger story.

How many trillions of dollars depend on Python?

Yes, I mean trillion. Those market caps didn't skyrocket on nothing. A lot of ML systems run on Python. A lot of ML systems are first implemented in Python. Even with more complicated backends a Python layer is usually available, and used. A whole lot of other stuff depends on Python too, but the AI part is obvious.

This is the weird part about our (global![0]) economics that I just don't get. We'll run billions of dollars in the red for a decade or more to get a startup going yet we can't give a million to these backbones? Just because they're open source? It's insane! If we looked at projects like this as a company we'd call their product extremely successful and they'd be able to charge out the wazoo for it. So the main difference is what? That it's open source? That by being open source it doesn't deserve money? I think this is a flaw we probably need to fix. In the very least I want those devs paid enough that they don't get enticed by some large government entity trying to sneak in backdoors or bugs.

[0] it's not just the US, nor is it just capitalist countries. You can point me at grants but let's get honest, $5m is crazy low for their importance. They're providing more than 1000x that value in return.

[side note] I do know big companies often contribute and will put a handful of people on payroll to develop, bug hunt, etc. But even if we include that I'm pretty sure the point still stands. I'm open to being wrong though, I don't know the actual numbers

[P.S.S] seems to parallel our willingness to fund science. Similarly people will cry "but what is the value" from a smartphone communicating over the Internet, with the monetary value practically hitting them in the face.

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

#253

Post by estimator7292 »

philipallstar wrote: post #76
dangus wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> 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's not an "us vs them" situation, that's just a strawman argument.

The real point is that you either believe that all humans are worthy of the same rights and respects by default then you're a bad person.

Such people aren't against "us" they're against everyone apart from their select group of the "right kind" of people.

This isn't a quid pro quo or zero sum bullshit. This is a matter of being a moral person or not. It's not even an opinion, it's the cold hard fact that if you think entire groups of people are subhuman, unworthy of basic rights, and fit to be abducted abused and deported, you are a bad person. It's that cut and dry.

You either think all people should be equal or you don't. You either want a civilized society for everyone or you only want it for the "right kind" of people. One of these stances is objectively moral and the other is objectively bad

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

#254

Post by AlSweigart »

elicash wrote: post #228

On the one hand, the plain text of the language is not against DEI practices in general -- only DEI practices that are "in violation of Federal anti-discrimination laws." On the other hand, the federal government has gone after law firms that are not actually in violation of law and forced settlements due to their DEI programs, so you can't actually trust that you won't be hassled. Additionally, that you won't at min…

Who, in 2025, is still giving the Trump administration the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the rule of law?

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

#256

Post by ihaveajob »

paulsutter wrote: post #231

If I'm reading that right, it looks like "do not and will not ... operate any programs... in violation of Federal anti-discrimination laws" Did your lawyer say otherwise? Interested to understand > We were forced to withdraw our application and turn down the funding, thanks to new language that was added to the agreement requiring us to affirm that we "do not, and will not during the term of this financial assistance…

The core sentence has an OR clause, which means if any of the 2 conditions happens (DEI promotion; violation of Federal anti-discrimination laws), then they're in violation. Their stated mission is directly in contradiction with the first part. Even if it wasn't, I'd probably vote in the same direction, given the (let's call it) volatility we are seeing with capricious interpretation of executive privilege.

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

#257

Post by [deleted] »

AlSweigart wrote: post #254
elicash wrote: post #228

On the one hand, the plain text of the language is not against DEI practices in general -- only DEI practices that are "in violation of Federal anti-discrimination laws." On the other hand, the federal government has gone after law firms that are not actually in violation of law and forced settlements due to their DEI programs, so you can't actually trust that you won't be hassled. Additionally, that you won't at min…

Who, in 2025, is still giving the Trump administration the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the rule of law?

[deleted]

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

#258

Post by henearkr »

charcircuit wrote: post #249
dang wrote: 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…

[flagged]

That is not the problematic part of the grant conditions.

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

#259

Post by JPKab »

latexr wrote: post #175
philipallstar wrote: post #76

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 just don't care about diversity and want the best people in a role regardless of ethnicity or sex or anything else. You often don’t know who the “best” person is for a role until they’re in it. Diversity is good because it allows for different perspectives and catching your own blind spots. Because we don’t understand different backgrounds as well as our own, we can fail to un…

It's funny how the quest for "unique strengths" entirely ignores people with pale skin who grew up in trailer parks in Appalachia or farms in the midwest, despite the fact that they are dramatically underrepresented in our industry and in elite universities.

The DEI policies favor people with dark skin (as long as they're not Asian) and 1250 SATs from wealthy suburbs over pale skin 1450 SATs from rural backwaters. It's discrimination, it's "diversity" only on the surface. Incredibly shallow, condescending, and dehumanizing. It's so shallow that in most of the places it's implemented, it doesn't differentiate between descendants of slaves and recent West African immigrants, some of whom are wealthy descendants of the elites who captured and sold slaves in ports like Lagos.

And before you call me a bigot: My kids are "bi-racial", so if you think i'm a nazi, ask yourself why I hate my wife and kids.

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

#260

Post by jrochkind1 »

rileymat2 wrote: post #229

> "do not, and will not during the term of this financial assistance award, operate any programs that advance or promote DEI, or discriminatory equity ideology in violation of Federal anti-discrimination laws." How does the legalese parse here? Does "violation of Federal anti-descrimination laws" apply to the whole thing or just the "discriminatory equity ideology" portion of the statement? I ask, because being in vi…

Honestly who knows, i wouldn't even trust a lawyer's advice, this administration has shown itself to not be a plain dealer or trustworthy, and willing to weaponize whatever they want to punish whoever they think needs punishing. Past experience of what should be legally enforceable or not does not seem very reliable at present.
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