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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

#181

Post by roenxi »

tzs wrote: post #169
roenxi wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The BLS is run by the world's experts in how to measure what they are measuring. And the commissioner was just sacked and the reason given was because she was incompetent. Goes to show the risks of being in a high performing environment and not having a trivially demonstrable track record of high performance. If a dude with no particular track record can clearly articulate why the numbers are biased then your emplo…

> And the commissioner was just sacked and the reason given was because she was incompetent The reason given was she purposefully changed the numbers to make Trump look bad. There was of course no evidence given for that.

The reason given [0] is that "A lengthy history of inaccuracies and incompetence by Erika McEntarfer, the former Biden-appointed Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, has completely eroded public trust in the government agency charged with disseminating key data used by policymakers and businesses to make consequential decisions. Under McEntarfer, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) consistently published overly optimistic jobs numbers — only for those numbers to be quietly revised later."

Which is certainly a political reason and easy to disagree with. But it is reasonable and factually defensible. Her Bureau has been publishing optimistic estimates.

[0] https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/2025/08/bls-has-lengthy-...

Re: Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

#182

Post by sjsdaiuasgdia »

qcnguy wrote: post #174
sjsdaiuasgdia wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're technically correct (the best kind etc) because they said "voted for people other than Trump" not "voted for Harris". Voted for Trump: 77.3M Voted for Harris: 75M Voted for other candidates: 2.6M Harris + others = 77.6M, which is greater than Trump's 77.3M

That's not even technically correct unless you assume every non Trump candidate was left wing.

The statement made was "A majority of the voters voted for people other than Trump", not "A majority of voters voted for left wing candidates".

Re: Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

#183

Post by Applejinx »

numbers_guy wrote: post #43
francasso wrote: post #31

Maybe it's time to move to Europe or China

There is nowhere to run and hide. Europe is worse than the US on this front. China also demands party loyalty. In a sense this is just the human condition. The ruling faction demands loyalty. Only a very advanced human civilization could move past that and allow criticism of the ruling class. Maybe the US had achieved that for a brief movement in the past or maybe it was just an illusion. EDIT: For people wondering w…

Yeah, it was called the United States and if it was an illusion it would not have been the weakness exploited in this way. America was real and can well be again: turns out allowing such diversity and multiculturalism gave rise to things like New York City, California etc etc. known for being giant piles of messy commerce and influence from all over the place.

It's never been any different, all the way back to when Germans or Irish or whoever were the 'demonized immigrants'. This is what made America great. Anytime we want it, those conditions can return. It was no illusion.

Re: Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

#184

Post by wat10000 »

jkhdigital wrote: post #178
wat10000 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And remember that this actually stokes antisemitism. Israel is demonstrably out there committing atrocities. If officials are conflating anti-Israel with anti-Jew then it prompts people opposed to those atrocities to oppose Jews.

The current war was initiated via a sneak attack by Hamas militants from Gaza who committed rather unspeakable atrocities against Israeli civilians. Not justifying their actions but as an uninvolved third party I’m going to at least acknowledge the history of the situation before judging their actions.

If you’re not justifying their actions then what is the point of this reply?

Re: Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

#185

Post by wat10000 »

jjgreen wrote: post #100
wat10000 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And remember that this actually stokes antisemitism. Israel is demonstrably out there committing atrocities. If officials are conflating anti-Israel with anti-Jew then it prompts people opposed to those atrocities to oppose Jews.

The cynic in me thinks this is deliberate.

I don’t think this administration cares about Jews one way or the other. “Antisemitism” is a cudgel to use on their enemies. Any other effect is incidental.

Re: Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

#186

Post by A_D_E_P_T »

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.

It's hard to prove what you're asking because it's intrinsically not newsworthy -- whereas the reverse is. Surely if it's so bad in Germany, you should be able to dig up an example or two?

Re: Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

#187

Post by fundad »

m101 wrote: post #13

UCLA has an endowment of 3.8bn$. Whilst I'm sympathetic to their desire to be further government financed for the work they do, I feel like government financing should be made available to those that actually need the money. The attitude that you have access to government funds even if you have the ability to pay yourself needs to change.

Military contractors have even more money but the budget to pay them only grows larger every year.

Re: Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

#188

Post by Eisenstein »

qcnguy wrote: post #173
austhrow743 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Punishing urban intellectuals for being urban intellectuals appears to be a common theme in a lot of right wing American messaging and the Republican Party won the popular vote. You can’t put this on a few. It’s the genuine desire of the American voter.

The administration's stated reason is bias and anti-semitism, are you claiming that this is the definition of urban intellectual? If so how do you defend it? If not, how do you define it?

Why do we assume that the administration is acting in good faith when all evidence has shown otherwise?

Re: Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

#189

Post by omnee »

One of the worst excesses of this admin has been the attack on science and mathematics, stemming from their deliberate ignorance of evidence. A setback for the researchers and a tragedy for the people that might benefit from their work, the nation and the world as a whole.

Re: Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

#190

Post by Eisenstein »

wisty wrote: post #167
austhrow743 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Punishing urban intellectuals for being urban intellectuals appears to be a common theme in a lot of right wing American messaging and the Republican Party won the popular vote. You can’t put this on a few. It’s the genuine desire of the American voter.

They think urban intellectuals have a fair bit of power. They also think they are not always correct, not always unbiased, and possibly not always honest; and the bias tends to be towards either things that benefit the urban elite, or "luxury beliefs" that have disproportionate costs on other people.

No one is always correct or always unbiased or always honest, and everyone's bias benefits themselves, and every person in the United States lives in a way that has disproportionate costs to other people. None of those reasons explain any of the antipathy. What does?
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