PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program • Hacker News Board

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#711

Post by jimnotgym » Tue, Oct 28, 2025, 1:01 PM UTC

anon291 wrote: post #572

ModernMech wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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> the Curtis Yarvin / dark enlightenment nexus is big enough and really weird, but also not a topic for HN (not because it's political but because it's stupidly gross and dark). It has high overlap with the rad trad Catholic wing, believe me. I am a fairly traditional Catholic. I had heard of Yarvin via the Haskell world, and was floored when a parishioner at my parish brought him up. Such a strange crossing of world…

All you have to do to encourage nuerotypical white males from elite schools is to have high remuneration. They see highly paid jobs as the best jobs. This is not discrimination. If a job is too hard for the pay offered then this class will choose something else.

They are also not excluded from working in sewers, even though they are underrepresented!

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#712

Post by bitexploder » Tue, Oct 28, 2025, 1:04 PM UTC

ggm wrote: post #220

I would hope another funding source with no interest in this kind of legalistic politics emerges. Conditionality like this is going to be much more common for another 3 years at least. Turning down money is the easiest thing in the world, if you have the fortitude. I think a lot of organisations don't.

It truly is not easy IMO. I am just picking a nit here but "if you have the fortitude" is doing a lot of work. I ran a company for a while and you not only have to have the fortitude, but principles and an ability to weather the consequences of a choice like that. If you are in a tough position and you have employees who are counting on you and the business it is anything but easy. Even if you have fortitude. These decisions can be existential. Of course there are and should be red lines based on your ethics and morals, but none of that is easy. To me it is very hard.

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

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Post by potato3732842 » Tue, Oct 28, 2025, 1:04 PM UTC

mgraczyk wrote: post #222

elevation wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

"The FBI stated it found no evidence of "enemy hunting" of the kind that had been suspected, but that the investigation did reveal the IRS to be a mismanaged bureaucracy enforcing rules that IRS personnel did not fully understand. "

Even the people buried deep in the most podunk regulatory department you've never even heard of are smart enough to re-order the priority list on a change of administration. They don't need to be told and there is no paper trail. They just know what's good for their boss's boss's boss's boss^n is good for them and that kicking a potential hornet's nest is bad for them.

And even if you personally want to hassle someone with friends in the right places, what are the odds every other leaf of every other part of the organization(s) does? There will always be someone who has no morals and wants to climb the ladder who's happy to read between the lines and drop the ball.

It's just how it is. On some level, I'm not even sure this is a bad thing. If the executive can't change prioritization implicitly then the organization is either stupid or unaccountable.

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

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Post by tstack » Tue, Oct 28, 2025, 1:07 PM UTC

xdennis wrote: post #590

eirikbakke wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Waving a flag is protected speech under the 1st amendment.

Non sequitur and false. The US constitution only guarantees that the government won't ban your speech. Non-government entities are allowed to ban speech.

What are you talking about? The commenter above says "We won the last election" and goes on to say:

> Don't trouble yourselves with removing the flag. We will be removing it for you soon enough.

They are very much talking about the government doing this.

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

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Post by wertigont » Tue, Oct 28, 2025, 1:07 PM UTC

__loam wrote: post #399

endomorphosis wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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The ask for the former is to have competitive spaces that are designated specifically for female athletes. This of course implies that all male athletes must be excluded, regardless of their identity claims.

The rationale is the same for both: to provide opportunities for women and girls in an otherwise male-dominated space. Neither should be controversial.

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

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Post by dangus » Tue, Oct 28, 2025, 1:09 PM UTC

machomaster wrote: post #352

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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,…

You should check what constitutes the "right-wing terror attacks". You will be surprised to know that they include attacks made by Islamic radicals.

That doesn’t surprise me at all. Islamic radicals aren’t that different in belief system from a lot of Christian nationalists.

We have all seen family portraits where people pose with American flags, bibles, and guns.

American Christians talk about how the woman/wife is subservient to the husband, how women should stay at home and forego a career and perform traditional roles at home. Many denounce and try to restrict contraceptive access. Many insist that women should/should not dress a certain way.

American Christian talk about how being gay is a sin and how America is a Christian country, not a secular democracy, how we need to have the Ten Commandments in school and in government buildings.

American Christians even grow beards, wear tactical/military-style gear, and drive pickup trucks just like Islamic radicals! (Okay that last one is a a half-joke but it’s kind of funny how the similarities bleed into the aesthetic).

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck…

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

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Post by conartist6 » Tue, Oct 28, 2025, 1:12 PM UTC

anal_reactor wrote: post #416

th wrote: post #341

It seems like a number of the "DEI is anti-merit discrimination" messages in this thread are overlooking how DEI work usually works. A relevant tweet from 2016 ( https://x.com/jessicamckellar/status/737299461563502595 ): > Hello from your @PyCon Diversity Chair. % PyCon talks by women: (2011: 1%), (2012: 7%), (2013: 15%), (2014/15: 33%), (2016: 40%). #pycon2016 Increased diversity in communities usually comes from ac…

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If the status quo is discrimination, at some point the argument is "I deserve to continue to benefit from generations of discrimination."

We're talking about generations of people who faced this same treatment you have that "wasn't ok". They, as you, experienced what we call injustice.

The question is, does their injustice deserve justice? Or only yours?

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

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Post by wertigont » Tue, Oct 28, 2025, 1:14 PM UTC

hatf0 wrote: post #434

endomorphosis wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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You slipped in "based on sex" for an intentional reason that I'd like you to share with the class. Say, is your opinion of the "sex is an immutable characteristic and fixed at birth and therefore trans people are invalid and should..."? Or maybe I'm just reading into your wording a little too much.

In humans and other mammals the immutability of sex is a fact, not an opinion. We are not a species of sequential hermaphrodites.

The cultural artefact of people identifying themselvee as the opposite gender is a different type of concept to this. It's more of a sociological or psychological phenomenon.

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

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Post by tremon » Tue, Oct 28, 2025, 1:18 PM UTC

epistasis wrote: post #598

xdennis wrote: post #583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's an example: the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 allocated grants to help restaurant owners. It did so on a racist basis: if the restaurant is owned primarily by women, veterans, or the "socially and economically disadvantaged". There was a trial. The government lost. https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca6/21...

That is not an example of DEI advocates giving guidelines on how to break the law. That is Congress passing a law distributing grants in a way that was determined to be illegal, quite different! And in fact there are long standing government contracting preferences of that sort, from long before DEI was a term or something that corporate America sought.

I fail to see any difference between "congress passing a law that is in violation of another law" and "federal regulations mandating that laws be broken". Can you explain how these situations differ quitely, other than that "regulation" and "law" are different words?

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

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Post by asingo » Tue, Oct 28, 2025, 1:24 PM UTC

dangus wrote: post #710

nxor wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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How many conservatives celebrated Nancy Pelosi’s husband getting beaten? I remember Donald Trump Jr. said that a Halloween costume would be funny. Yes, that’s basically the one notable example. Now the challenge becomes whether you can name two more without looking anything up. Because I can name January 6 (capitol police officers lost their lives, Trump rioters intended to harm Nancy Pelosi specifically), Nancy Pelo…

Agreed it's not really to do with violence per se, even though that is a concerning behavior amongst a small number of activists.

People on both the right and the left, and in-between, are shying away from that movement more because of the demonstrably negative impact on women's rights.