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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

#271

Post by exe34 »

roenxi wrote: post #226
tzs wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's the rationalizations some white house staffer wrote. The reasons Trump gave on Truth Social was that she purposefully changed the numbers to harm Trump.

Then the staffer has made a pretty good argument and has managed to justify firing her. Stroke of luck for Trump that he made a reasonable and easily defended decision by total accident.

Isn't it amazing, how Trump's staff manage to say words that make it sound like he was right all along! Even though those words rarely have any basis in facts.

Re: Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

#272

Post by exe34 »

roenxi wrote: post #93
delusional wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it were me I'd be sacking people Why sack them? It's not like they refused to mean adjust or failed to do so. The numbers came out, and before anybody has even had a chance to question them. Before any coherent criticism as had time to root, the person responsible is fired. Firing people is not how you get more accurate numbers. It's how you get yes-men.

> It's not like they refused to mean adjust or failed to do so. It is like they failed to do so - there is a timeseries of consistently negative adjustments. The BLS revising numbers down isn't an unexpected event, that is pretty standard for their jobs reports. It is better to resolve things with a conversation rather than formal action. But if a conversation doesn't get immediate results it is fastest just to move…

> there is a timeseries of consistently negative adjustments

That's an important point actually - so the hypothetical future correction (based on past corrections) to the "bad" figures would make Trump look even worse, right?

Re: Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

#273

Post by xoa »

qcnguy wrote: post #177
oulipo wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

The government not funding something isn't persecution. If it were the vast majority of people on this forum would be persecuted, which clearly wouldn't be a right use of the term.

>The government not funding something isn't persecution

So you're not just getting down votes, worth noting that you are incorrect to state this as an absolute, as a matter of both law and common sense. It is very well established (and again, makes sense) that there are many many areas of life where it's utterly uncontroversial that the government is in no way required to offer people services. However, IF the government chooses to offer people services, then it must do so in a fair way. For example, a local government need not offer any of its building space for public use. But if it lets one group make use of it, it can't then disallow other groups from doing so based on disliking their race/speech/etc. Any restrictions must be content-neutral (this has been litigated).

Or for a broader theoretical example, there's nothing in the US Constitution that requires government to fund any sort of medical care. While it might be political suicide, Congress could choose to just sweep away Medicaid and Medicare completely whenever it wished, and that wouldn't be unconstitutional. Now instead imagine that the government said "to save money we're going to deny Medicaid or Medicare to filthy negroes or dirty jews going forward!" I would hope that you'd recognize that the government "not funding something" there would absolutely be a form of persecution. Conditioning funding on something the government would not be able to make a direct law about is not a universal Get Out Of The Bill Of Rights Free card.

Re: Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

#274

Post by ModernMech »

luckylion wrote: post #115
kzrdude wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then it's maybe not a free country anymore if you have to think about how your actions are perceived by the president in power at every step.

You don't though, unless your funding depends on him. If you're a contractor for Oracle, you'll probably get in trouble if you loudly proclaim different values than them - but that doesn't make it a non-free country.

> You don't though, unless your funding depends on him.

Or your broadcasting license.

Or your public assistance.

Or your citizenship.

Re: Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

#275

Post by FirmwareBurner »

davrosthedalek wrote: post #151
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> Jan Boehmermann who is very critical but still employed by state-financed TV.

What did he criticize? Did he ever criticize all the crimes due to illegal migrants? Of course not because that's not allowed by the state.

He is just a government mouthpiece acting like a jester to give people the illusion that the government allows criticism, but he's not a proper critic of the government, as those are banned.

Re: Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

#276

Post by buyucu »

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #79
numbers_guy wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm in Europe. It's not even close to being worse than the US on that front. Places like the Fraunhofer Institute and the Max Planck Institute are perpetually well-funded, and are largely unaffected by politics. Good places to do research.

As a German government funded scientist, is it safe to criticise Israel or use the 'G' word for what Israel is doing? Or would they do the same thing they did to Helen Fares?

Re: Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

#279

Post by EasyMark »

mehulashah wrote: post #46

This is a tragedy. Our pre-eminence as a scientific and industrial powerhouse that really began post WWII is now disintegrating because of the actions of a few. The funding being pulled from Terence Tao and his institute without due process is not the start, it's merely one casualty among many that began at the start of this administration. This is like cutting one's nose to spite one's face.

The long term goal is to dumb down the populace, in anticipation that AI and machines can replace them. Billionaires have the money and resources to play the long game in order to set up an authoritarian society with only two levels. The peasants and the billionaires. Democracy is their enemy, although it served them for a time. It's not really about MAGAs vs Progressives in the USA if you pull back the Wizard's curtain. The MAGAs are being used because they don't question their leaders.

Re: Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

#280

Post by luckylion »

ModernMech wrote: post #274
luckylion wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't though, unless your funding depends on him. If you're a contractor for Oracle, you'll probably get in trouble if you loudly proclaim different values than them - but that doesn't make it a non-free country.

> You don't though, unless your funding depends on him. Or your broadcasting license. Or your public assistance. Or your citizenship.

There's a difference between rights and privileges.

If the government gifts you $1000 a month because they like you so much, that's a privilege. Privileges can be taken away.

If the government gives you $1000 a month because it's the law, then they can't take it away without breaking the law (or changing it first).

Public funding for specific universities is not the law, so the government can stop giving it to someone (yes, yes, there are contracts and laws involved and what not, but the general point stands).

The government cannot imprison you for saying you like pineapple on pizza, but they can stop funding your pizza experiments.

Usually it's brought up by people on the left and I think they're right: freedom of speech is not freedom of consequences. Freedom of speech protects you from the government as in the executive branch can't just imprison you, but it doesn't protect you from any and all consequences. It's just that they usually don't find themselves the targets suffering those consequences.

And opinions often depend on whether you're affected.

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