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Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

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Re: Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

#151

Post by davrosthedalek »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #141
A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to prove a negative. Can you show us an example of anything like what's happening at UCLA (collective punishment of an entire institution) or an example of an individual professor being harshly penalized or sanctioned for expressing personal political opinions?

Don't spin this around, what I asked you is not a negative. People here argued that the US is fascist because in academia you can't get away with breaking governments rules getting you defunded and pointing at Germany for being superior in this regard. So then I asked for proof that in other countries you can get away in academia with breaking the government's rules and not get defunded. It really is that simple.

That's not what people have complained about. People complained about that in the US a government rule seems to be "don't criticize the government".

What about Christian Drosten who criticized a lot of the Corona decisions, Jan Boehmermann who is very critical but still employed by state-financed TV. Fridays for Future?

Re: Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

#152

Post by coderatlarge »

mikevm wrote: post #39

The only people to blame for this are the Universities who are blatantly violating civil rights law -- even after a Supreme Court ruling! Terence and other academics who have had nothing to do with promotion of this blatant discrimination should be angry at their University leadership and administrators for this outcome, not the Trump administration who is doing THE RIGHT THING. The faculty should take this opportuni…

i would personally like to see organizations of any scale self-publish metrics about their performance on their SLAs and at least trends on their unit efficiency (throughput latency and cost per main types of work items). for the state department time to issue a passport passports issued per unit time internal cost to issue a passport etc. for the irs corresponding metrics for processing a return or an audit. for id.me success in catching bad actors failures in incorrectly blocking legitimate users.

for university administrative departments , thoughtful corresponding things that capture what they do all day in understandable and defensible ways.

Re: Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

#153

Post by [deleted] »

ghosty141 wrote: post #142
tzs wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A majority of the voters voted for people other than Trump. Edit: come on people, read things in context. I was responding to someone who was implying that a majority of American voters support this. To support that assertion about any President's policies at a minimum you need that President to have received a majority of the popular vote. When third parties get enough votes that a President gets a plurality but not…

49,8% popular vote, 50,2 is a majority but at that point I would say it’s clearly half the American population that wanted him in power.

[deleted]

Re: Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

#154

Post by [deleted] »

roenxi wrote: post #130
disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally, firing statisticians because you don't like their numbers doesn't improve the accuracy of their estimates, but apparently people need to keep learning this lesson.

As far as I'm aware no statisticians have been fired and no suggestion has been made that they should be. McEntarfer is pretty high up in the food chain; she's there to be accountable for performance, not to crunch numbers.

[deleted]

Re: Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

#155

Post by kristopolous »

defrost wrote: post #78
diggan wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but not at all unexpected given who’s running it To be fair, this has felt like the natural consequence of the "maximize capitalism without regarding the downsides" maxim the US seems to have been operated under for a long time. Corporations have been (indirectly) running the country for some decades at this point, it's just way more obvious and in the face now when a "businessman" sits as president.

Maximize crony capitalism and oligarchy, perhaps. The US drifted far from any form of pure open market laissez-faire capitalism or balanced regulated capitalism some time past.

"open market laissez-faire capitalism" was the explicit policy goal for maybe 50 years.

The idea that if it was only somehow more pure in some ideological virtue, then it would have worked, you'll need really hard historical material empirical evidence to defend such a claim

Not that it wasn't white and pure enough but that if it was the shade whiter you advocate for, it would have somehow been a complete 180°, like some magical threshold

Re: Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

#157

Post by jkhdigital »

kergonath wrote: post #121
Havoc wrote: post #75

>on the grounds that UCLA was “failing to promote a research environment free of antisemitism and bias” This really has very Germany 1930s vibes even if the direction of the anti is flipped.

It is purely Orwellian. They gaslit everyone into thinking that opposing an intolerant theocracy in Israel, and by extension the burgeoning autocracy in the US, was antisemitism, while at the same time moaning about Jews controlling and ruining the US. This naked cynicism is disgusting.

Intolerant theocracy? And you’re using this phrase to refer to Israel?

Re: Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

#159

Post by oulipo »

bboygravity wrote: post #136
fxtentacle wrote: post #76

3 months ago, we were all wondering why the EU proudly launched their "Choose EU for Science" campaign, despite having much lower funding levels than in the US. If they predicted this, then their actions would make a lot of sense. It is notoriously difficult for scientists to change careers after years in research. For people cut off from US funding like this, a EU-guaranteed middle-class income will appear much more…

Scientists please come to the EU, we can't pay you much, you won't be able to find a place to live and we don't do air conditioning, but plz come. /s

This easily beats being persecuted because of your research. Humanity and researchers use to live on more modest means, and you don't need 100k's to do math research. So sure, come to France we would love to welcome all of you!

Re: Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

#160

Post by oefrha »

Being a PhD student at UCLA (or over public universities) was arguably risky in the best of times. When I applied to grad school a decade ago, I got an offer from UCLA Math and it was notable that funding was not guaranteed beyond the first year, meaning you may need to look for your own funding. Same thing with the offer from Berkeley Physics. In contrast, the private universities like Princeton guaranteed funding throughout the normal duration of the PhD program (you’re welcome to bring your own grants, but if you don’t and can’t find an advisor/lab to provide for you, the department with fix you up with TA jobs and stuff). Now it seems the public institutions got 100x shittier still (not saying private ones aren’t in a bind).
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