121–130 of 203 posts
Because nobody (including the link from president.mit.edu) included the text of the Compact, I'm linking it here: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/1... After a quick skim, I don't see an issue. Is the opposition to this based upon any rational argument, or is it just "Resist Trump"?
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Is this like a humiliation fetish at this point? This is seriously unhealthy. We don't hate our friends that didn't a go to an eLiTe school because we're not sociopaths. Not sure why I'm even trying since you seem pretty dead set on this, but it's just a lot easier to go through life without made up enemies.
People that go to elite undergrads think the rest of us are a lower inferior caste. I don’t know how that’s even something you can deny. You’ve clearly expended a lot of effort to segregate yourself from the likes of people like me or people that go to SJSU because we don’t have “merit” or “potential”
I can't claim 100% aren't assholes, but the vast majority realize the luck and arbitrary nature of it. Are you going to be stuck in decision day sadness mode for the rest of your life? Life is too short
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> Yes, I'd rather live in a "Western" country than any of the "adversaries" It’s important to reflect on why you say this because when push comes to shove, the moral relativism rings a hollow tone. The preceding parts of your post are just part of the education instilled in you from having been exposed to enlightenment-influenced frameworks.
Not really, it mostly speaks to the fact that I've been indoctrinated through my upbringing, education and environment that this is the "true" enlightenment. Even for people on the "other" side, they ask the same questions and they see the hipocrisy (it's not hard to see how capital corrupts) and get stuck. This is why morality moves in cycles even in the Western world: morality is a human construct created through r…
On top of that, sociopolitical self-preserving interests can muddle the discourse on what is moral or not, which is what you’re saying, more or less. The point being that ultimately the truth of an immoral act is unchanged by whatever abstractions we layer upon it. So, we make exceptions to ethics for selfish reasons, not moral ones.
What matters then are the outcomes for all the reasons we make exceptions, just as you think there’s some justified reason for moral relativism. It’s okay, people can do what they want, they just have to be honest about the trades they make when they do this.
From a geopolitical perspective, moral relativism is a nice diplomatic tool, it just has the troubling effect of producing unnecessary contrarianism in populations that would benefit from understanding the implications of that moral relativism.
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For anyone confused like me, a definition of motley is “Having elements of great variety or incongruity; heterogeneous.” I think a lot of the neural connections to the word motley come from the expression “motley crew” which has fairly negative connotations. But the truth of the matter is, this is just a very varied group of schools; some great schools on the list. I won’t say any of the schools are not great, becaus…
I meant it in the sense of heterogeneous. The list includes public & private institutions across a variety of states and size ranges. It singles out particular institutions in state university systems (e.g. University of Texas at Austin but not Texas A&M or University of Texas at El Paso). Half the list is in the northeast, while the midwest and Pacific Northwest are not represented. It's 9 institutions, not 10. It's…
In a way, the overreach in the compact made this an obvious (though not easy) decision. Obviously, an independent university cannot agree to government-mandated pricing or censorship of faculty members. Similarly, government intrusion into grading practices and proactively threatening to use "lawful force" against minors are immediately off the table. That's all aside from the practicality of ongoing assessment, whic…
> an independent university MIT is taking (lots of) money from federal government. That makes them dependent on the government and government is within its right to attach strings to the money. MIT is free to not do what the government wants but then government is free to stop giving them (our) money. Furthermore, MIT, like any other organization, must obey state and federal laws. For example, there's a law that you…
The People of the United States are getting some of their research business done by MIT, yes. MIT competes for that business. It is not a gift, subsidy or favor to MIT.
Of course grants and contracts have terms. I hope the government can come to terms with MIT because I want the best researchers doing our work.
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Why specifically the undergrads?
They hate the rest of us that didn’t get into elite schools and are permanent members of the upper caste of this country. Graduate school admission is more purely meritocratic on if you can do research but even that isn’t great.
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The nine universities include: Vanderbilt University Dartmouth College the University of Pennsylvania the University of Southern California Massachusetts Institute of Technology the University of Texas at Austin the University of Arizona Brown University the University of Virginia
Interesting. I first heard about this from Newsom's statement that any university that signed it would lose California education funds instantly, but the only California university on it is the private USC. Thought for sure that at least UC Berkeley, UCLA, and Stanford would be on it, but I guess not. Maybe they chose USC because it seems to have a bit more of a conservative bent than most California schools.
UC and Stanford manage national laboratories for the US government. Someone might have realized the crisis that could come from that particular confrontation, and decided to steer clear for the moment.
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My main objections are to the following points: - Specifically calling out protecting "conservative ideas" in their section on creating an "intellectually open campus environment". This is a dog whistle that makes it patently clear which viewpoints will be protected, and which won't. See what happened to Mahmoud Khalil for a recent example of how this will work in practice. - Preventing admissions of foreign students…
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So how and where exactly is it established that a violation has occurred? If not Seal Team Six and DNA testing (the latter wouldn’t solve the problem conclusively in any case). How exactly are you, random bystander, supposed to know if an arbitrary stranger is male or female?
Real people get this judgment wrong about cisgendered strangers all the time, this isn’t a hypothetical. See sibling comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45543644 for a list of cited examples.
Do you intend for the accused to display their genitals as an affirmative defense? To whom? Is every random accusation going to cause an interaction with the police and a gross violation of privacy?
Because that’s what it sounds like you’re suggesting here.
Because nobody (including the link from president.mit.edu) included the text of the Compact, I'm linking it here: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/1... After a quick skim, I don't see an issue. Is the opposition to this based upon any rational argument, or is it just "Resist Trump"?
Is there any precedent in US history for what the administration is asking of the nations top universities? Incredible they have to deal with this.
Yes, the federal government of the United States has always attached conditions to federal funding.
Sure, but that's a very high level of abstraction.
At a lower level, it is far less common (if precedented at all) for the federal executive to attempt to unilaterally impose conditions that violate the Federal Constitution and would require those subject to the conditions to violate federal civil rights law.