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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

#201

Post by linguae »

francasso wrote: post #31

Maybe it's time to move to Europe or China

For someone at the level of Terence Tao, this may be a good idea if a university is willing to hire him, even if it were for a temporary position until 2029 when (hopefully) the regime changes and the destruction is over. I’m sure Terence Tao will have no problems finding such a university or institution.

It’s researchers who are not at the top of their fields who will have a much harder time leaving America to find research positions, since academic positions and funding haven’t been easy to obtain in places like Canada, Europe, Australia, and Japan for at least two decades.

What will most likely be the case is that scientific careers will be halted temporarily or permanently from these funding cuts. Graduate admissions are harder than ever now, it’s harder to find a research position, and I can’t imagine how much more difficult tenure will be to obtain if professors can’t fundraise and publish. Industry isn’t always an option, either. A lot of researcher’s careers will face major setbacks, some unrecoverable, all due to the capriciousness of our rulers.

Re: Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

#202

Post by aledue »

qcnguy wrote: post #179
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.

Flipping the direction isn't some minor detail. That "flip" was the reason for the Allies to fight the second world war! The universities implement Nazi-like policies in which they try to keep Jews out illegally, others fought against them. If you aren't sure which side are in the wrong here, you need to ask yourself if it's yours.

Would you have said the same about universities illegally keeping out Nazis, if the Allies had supported their genocide of the Jews?

Re: Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

#203

Post by kzrdude »

bsaul wrote: post #140
hcknwscommenter wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

False equivalence nonsense. If you can't see the difference between Trump's authoritarian actions and the Biden presidency, you are blinded by your own personal biases.

The style is very different, for sure. But testimonies of people feeling threatened over their academic career based on political statements on controversial topics isn't a new thing. Don't get me wrong : i'm not defending what's happening here. It's absurd and a very bad sign for US democracy. What i'm saying is that people only wake up when they're the ones in the crosshairs.

To some degree I agree with you. This didn't come out of the blue. I think we have to look at the whole picture, which contains multitudes of those bad signs for US democracy, including that the president doesn't want to follow the law and doesn't have a good faith or even functioning understanding of how the system of government works.

Taken together, it makes it clear that we need to formulate even more clearly than before, what kind of society and country we want to live in. Not just oneliners, of course, those are now hollowed-out (see "freedom").

Re: Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

#204

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

bsaul wrote: post #140
hcknwscommenter wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

False equivalence nonsense. If you can't see the difference between Trump's authoritarian actions and the Biden presidency, you are blinded by your own personal biases.

The style is very different, for sure. But testimonies of people feeling threatened over their academic career based on political statements on controversial topics isn't a new thing. Don't get me wrong : i'm not defending what's happening here. It's absurd and a very bad sign for US democracy. What i'm saying is that people only wake up when they're the ones in the crosshairs.

If academics want to make political statements on controversial topics, then that's an entirely different situation to academics having grants cancelled (not just not-renewed, but cancelling already allotted money) when they're not making political statements.

By the way, do you have an example of the academics feeling threatened by making political statements?

Re: Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

#205

Post by m101 »

noelwelsh wrote: post #47
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.

Governments typically fund research because 1) it's seen as beneficial for the country, and hence falls under the remit of governments in democratic countries and 2) the uncertainty, time frame, or lack of direct commercialization of research typically means the private sector will not invest in it. Your suggestion is saying that research should be privatised, and shows very little thought about how research works an…

You make this statement as if it's fact. The actual reality of the matter is that neither you nor I know how research would progress were the government not stepping in and spending on our behalf. Your kind of argument is what is used to justify increasing amounts of government taxation and spending, over trusting the private sector to figure out ways of doing so, and the suggestion that government is the only way of incentivising the research you speak of is entirely lacking in imagination and faith in basic human ingenuity to solve problems.

Yes, there are coordination problems for projects at some scale, for which government involvement makes it possible, however these are far fewer than we are made to believe.

Re: Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

#206

Post by vesinisa »

Eisenstein wrote: post #190
wisty wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Bigotry. They are completely open that LGBT and other minority rights offend them, and they want to punish those who support such rights. These people are far more concentrated in urban centers.

Spite politics is the ultimate form of post industrial vanity. People are so well off and have so little to worry about that their biggest ask from their leaders is to bully those who they don't like.

Though I don't agree with it, I think many conservatives feel the same way about e.g. trans rights - that it's a form of post industrial vanity.

Re: Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

#207

Post by m101 »

xdennis wrote: post #67
bigDinosaur wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Endowments are often earmarked for certain use cases. They aren't necessarily permitted to spend it as they like.

Maybe taxes should be the same. I don't mind being taxed as much as I hate my taxes going to the wrong thing.

This is unfairly downvoted but strikes at the core of the matter. Democracy is fundamentally oppressive of a minority (and often majority). A vote in favour of a government to fund "basic research" (as it is generously described) is fundamentally not a vote to fund basic research, but rather a vote to expropriate wealth from a group that doesn't want it to be financed in order to finance it.

Re: Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

#208

Post by eptcyka »

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.

Are you talking about math PhDs? What power do they have, politically?

Re: Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

#209

Post by VerminOctopus1 »

spwa4 wrote: post #37
HSO wrote: post #27

all the best people are going to move to china anyway stop rearranging chairs on the deck of a sinking ship and move on terence

Really? The situation in China (and Europe, for that matter) is far worse. Obviously Europe is much better than China for academics, but the US is still miles above that. So sorry, that won't happen. This will "just" disappear, with no replacement.

What are you even talking about? Pure American exceptionalism. Take a look at this and think about what it means: https://www.nature.com/nature-index/research-leaders/2025/in...

Re: Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

#210

Post by m101 »

davrosthedalek wrote: post #21
padjo wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UCLA gets about $800m a year in federal grants. $3.8bn wouldn’t last long if they were to self fund that.

Also: Even if they could, why would they? Grants are for research. Research only very indirectly affects their income. They could probably accept more students (so more tuition) if they would say to the faculty: no research, more teaching. An uber driver who gets rich by other means will stop driving for uber, not drive for uber for free.

If the faculty itself is not willing to ask to spend the endowment on the research (and they know it most intimately), then why should the faculty ask the rest of us to pay?
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