PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program • Hacker News Board

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#761

Post by ModernMech » Tue, Oct 28, 2025, 4:44 PM UTC

anon291 wrote: post #572

ModernMech wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> the Curtis Yarvin / dark enlightenment nexus is big enough and really weird, but also not a topic for HN (not because it's political but because it's stupidly gross and dark). It has high overlap with the rad trad Catholic wing, believe me. I am a fairly traditional Catholic. I had heard of Yarvin via the Haskell world, and was floored when a parishioner at my parish brought him up. Such a strange crossing of world…

> where are the diversity initiatives to get 'normal' people into this field?

I won't say they are particularly effective, but the group behind the LIVE workshop is at least self-aware enough to try and build things that neurotypical people might use. There binding force in that group is best expressed by Jonathan Edwards (author of subtext) when he said something along the lines of "most programming languages are built by high functioning autists for high functioning autists", the upshot being if we want more people to be able to use programming languages they will probably have to pay more attention to usability and alternative representations.

I think Bret Victor does a good job with this "seeing spaces" in the form of Dynamics Land: https://dynamicland.org

Also the Logo programming language was a good example of designing a language for where the users are, where in that case the users were gradeschool children. Obviously children can't build programming languages for themselves, so they used cognitive development principles to design a language which was approachable given their cognitive abilities as 7 year olds.

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#762

Post by epistasis » Tue, Oct 28, 2025, 4:45 PM UTC

tremon wrote: post #719

epistasis wrote: post #598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not an example of DEI advocates giving guidelines on how to break the law. That is Congress passing a law distributing grants in a way that was determined to be illegal, quite different! And in fact there are long standing government contracting preferences of that sort, from long before DEI was a term or something that corporate America sought.

I fail to see any difference between "congress passing a law that is in violation of another law" and "federal regulations mandating that laws be broken". Can you explain how these situations differ quitely, other than that "regulation" and "law" are different words?

The difference was an incentive grant program that was found to be discriminatory, versus regulations which dictate how private entities act. This a pretty big distinction.

It's an especially big distinction when the question was for sources of DEI advocates handing out instructions to corporate decision makers no how to break the law. It's not even remotely connected.

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#763

Post by jchw » Tue, Oct 28, 2025, 4:49 PM UTC

alistairSH wrote: post #673

jchw wrote: post #571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Linking the term DEI to illegal hiring practices is like linking having a male manager to sexual harassment. Obviously, it is not fair to discredit all DEI initiatives simply because some of them (possibly a small minority of them) have lead to illegal hiring practices, but it is nonetheless an issue that it happens. That's obviously still true even if it seems entirely antithetical to the point of said initiatives…

How much of an issue it really is we can only really postulate, though. Between the Labor Dept and various think-tanks/economic research groups, there should/could be data. I suspect there are a small number of very public MegaCorps doing illegal DEI and that’s enough to illicit the backlash we’re seeing. I know from my own employer, DEI is about outreach during recruiting and a combination of training for all employ…

My thought is, if this sort of problem was happening at a company as big and influential in the industry as Google, that's already pretty bad. The backlash may not be warranted either way but the other position (that everything is fine and nothing needs to be done) isn't necessarily correct either.

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#764

Post by epistasis » Tue, Oct 28, 2025, 4:50 PM UTC

FloorEgg wrote: post #558

judahmeek wrote: post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then it shouldn't be hard for you to say something other than 'do your own research'

I became aware of the legal contradictions last summer and spent a few hours doing searches and reading through the relevant regulatory language for a few industries. I don't have all the references handy. I don't work for you. It's not my job to do research for you. If you're genuinely curious and interested in the truth it won't be hard for you to find. Literally go search and read the regulatory language in a few…

That's fine, of course you don't work for anyone else! But you are also not going to convince anyone else by being vague and refusing to give any specifics.

Usually when somebody makes broad vague assertions of evidence but refuses to back it up, I find that they are either mistaken about their experiences and that their take aways do not really follow from their primary evidence. Though usually it's those on the more DEI side that say "I'm not responsible for educating you" that make these mistakes! In the past year I'm seeing it from people that think DEI is about discrimination, so it's an interesting evolution. The argument is still unconvincing, no matter who says it. And again, I'm not saying you must produce anything for anybody else, I'm just saying that you end up looking like you don't have anything to actually produce.

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#765

Post by MiguelX413 » Tue, Oct 28, 2025, 5:17 PM UTC

tokioyoyo wrote: post #414

ModernMech wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They’ve already chosen a side in this fight Yes they have, this is a time of choosing. So seeing which side tech companies have chosen, tech employees can now also choose accordingly. To everyone here who spent the last decade making $400k+options at these tech firms that are now funding this fascist administration, we see you. You are making a choice as to which side you are on. Remember doing and saying nothing i…

I’m not American, nor I’ve ever lived there. But I’m not sure what an average Google/Meta employee is supposed to do? Reality is, this is what an average US citizen wants. It’s not like the government was chosen without the support of majority or something.

They should organize.

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#766

Post by aswegs8 » Tue, Oct 28, 2025, 5:19 PM UTC

belorn wrote: post #397

jkelleyrtp wrote: post #320

In high school, I ran a robotics team that did lots of STEM outreach. We went to community centers, after school programs, and worked with other similar orgs like "girls who code." I think we played an important role in the community. In our mission we stated we wanted to help bring "equity to STEM education." In 2025, according to the current admin's stance on "DEI," my robotics team would not be able to receive gra…

Around 2019, Guido official stated that he would not longer mentor any white male, and that there was enough white males around that any white male who wanted to learn developing python would have to do it on their own. The community in general seemed to follow the same policy back then, but now seem to have relaxed a bit. Reducing complex individuals into two bits of information, skin and gender, will never be a sta…

>Around 2019, Guido official stated that he would not longer mentor any white male

Honestly such statements weird me out. How did we come to saying such things being considered normal??

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#767

Post by TimorousBestie » Tue, Oct 28, 2025, 5:23 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #754

TimorousBestie wrote: post #728

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it’s a bad metaphor. The correct analogy is, “Suppose you were abused by your parent; should you be allowed to establish a benefit specifically and only for the abused children of other parents?” You and 0xDEAFBEAD answer that question no, because that benefit discriminates in your mind against all non-abused children. And against all adults, probably. I don’t know how deep the grievance mobilization goes.

To make your analogy work, the benefit would be for people who weren’t personally abused, but whose parents or grandparents were abused. And yes, that would be quite odd. The rationale for racial preferences in 2025 is not that they are a benefit to individuals who were personally harmed by racial discrimination. The institutions engaging in these practices insist that they are otherwise engaged in race blind practic…

> To make your analogy work, the benefit would be for people who weren’t personally abused, but whose parents or grandparents were abused.

No, this is a consequence of your ideology, which assumes that racial discrimination ended with the Civil Rights Act and etc. (Hence “we could simply just enforce. . .”) Mine does not.

Note that the metaphor as stated by 0xDEAFBEAD, which you already said was good, did not include this additional generational gap.

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#768

Post by alistairSH » Tue, Oct 28, 2025, 5:31 PM UTC

jchw wrote: post #763

alistairSH wrote: post #673

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much of an issue it really is we can only really postulate, though. Between the Labor Dept and various think-tanks/economic research groups, there should/could be data. I suspect there are a small number of very public MegaCorps doing illegal DEI and that’s enough to illicit the backlash we’re seeing. I know from my own employer, DEI is about outreach during recruiting and a combination of training for all employ…

My thought is, if this sort of problem was happening at a company as big and influential in the industry as Google, that's already pretty bad. The backlash may not be warranted either way but the other position (that everything is fine and nothing needs to be done) isn't necessarily correct either.

Agreed, I think.

The solution to "DEI has run amok!" is not "Ban DEI!" but "better define what DEI means and what is within bounds/outside bounds". But, the latter doesn't fit on a campaign poster, so here we are...

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#769

Post by punchfunk4lyte » Tue, Oct 28, 2025, 5:54 PM UTC

klipt wrote: post #756

kelnos wrote: post #638

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, way to make up words that the person you're replying to never said, and then arguing with them. Bad-faith arguments seem to be your shtick, given your comment history on this post.

This is a bad faith argument: "What's the theory of harm here? If we continue educating women they may gain too much social mobility?"

If that's not your position, clarify what it is. You're complaining about efforts to encourage women to seek an education. What is the theory of harm, if not that women shouldn't be educated? Perhaps what I said was too snarky of inflammatory, but I genuinely don't understand what else it would be.

Re: PSF has withdrawn $1.5M proposal to US Government grant program

#770

Post by wrs » Tue, Oct 28, 2025, 6:06 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #89

wrs wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it was simply an agreement that the recipient won’t violate Federal law, it wouldn’t need to be stated (how could the intention be otherwise?). So I read it as an agreement to an interpretation that doing those things would violate the law.

> If it was simply an agreement that the recipient won’t violate Federal law, it wouldn’t need to be stated (how could the intention be otherwise?). Statements about not breaking specific existing laws are common in government contracts in the US (at all levels), functionally, they make violating the law a breach of contract. This enables the government to declare a breach and cancel the contract without the litigati…

Yes, that’s what I meant, stated more clearly. The contract is spelling out behavior that both sides agree up front that they consider a violation of the law, so you can’t claim that you didn’t think you were breaching the contract because you didn’t think you were violating the law.