Cédric Villani: mathematician challenging to be Paris mayor • Hacker News Board

Re: Cédric Villani: mathematician challenging to be Paris mayor

#81

Post by pascalmahe » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 10:00 AM UTC

generationP wrote: post #65

p4bl0 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First we do not agree on free education. I believe that's a good thing. Now, what Macron's government did wrong with research and higher education is: literally everything they did about it. The switch to high tuition as you said (especially given that it was only for foreigners , which I consider racist, and anyway the Conseil Constitutionnel recently found this measure unconstitutional). Parcoursup was a very bad d…

I'm curious, what's been going on with Parcoursup? (I don't read enough French to understand the discussions.) Also, I'm not surprised that tuition for foreigners is a lever they are pulling. A government is responsible, first and foremost, to its own citizens. Racism? Really? What about "localism" or "separation of duties"?

For the racism part: France, as an ex-empire, is very attractive to its former colonies' students. And we have agreements to make it easier for them to come. So we get many students from Africa or the Middle East, often on merits and/or scholarships. In my engineering school, there were students from Turkey, Sudan (might be South Sudan now)...

Raising the price of tuition will mostly impact people from these countries rather than people from other European or American countries.

Re: Cédric Villani: mathematician challenging to be Paris mayor

#82

Post by mytailorisrich » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 10:03 AM UTC

theobeers wrote: post #80

mytailorisrich wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trying to get foreign students (outside of EU) to pay tuition fees in university is not damaging to anything. On the contrary, it is flabbergasting that they get free tuition at the moment. Of course the issue is that free tuition has just been ruled to be a constitutional requirement and changing the constitution is a big hurdle.

We can think about this in a more nuanced way. The language of instruction, for example, is an important consideration. If foreign students are going to pursue degrees in France, in programs where the coursework is exclusively or primarily in French, then why not offer them the normal tuition-free deal? It would benefit French culture and France’s economy, while also respecting the fact that most of the students in q…

How much would these students be willing to pay? How much does it cost the university to provide the tuition?

I'm in the UK. Universities charge £10k+ a year to foreign students (US, Australia, etc do the same) and they have queues of them waiting to sign up. There are plenty of foreign students willing to pay thousands of euros a year and it is madness for France to subsidise them, then complain that universities lack resources.

Nothing prevents some of the money from being used to provide scholarships to bright foreign students who couldn't otherwise afford it.

This needs to be looked at with pragmatism. The position that tuition has to be free is ideological, not pragmatical.

Re: Cédric Villani: mathematician challenging to be Paris mayor

#83

Post by jjgreen » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 10:04 AM UTC

chapium wrote: post #38

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"dommageable" is "damaging", for anyone who couldn't guess. Can you go into detail about what his party has voted for that's so bad for higher education and research? I consider myself pretty academia-friendly, and there's a lot of things I'd vote for that most people would consider damaging to higher education and research. For example, I think free college for everyone is a terrible idea. Most people consider that…

I've learned that guessing french words from their english sounding roots is very precarious.

... so much so that they have their own name: Faux Amis

Re: Cédric Villani: mathematician challenging to be Paris mayor

#84

Post by p4bl0 » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 10:15 AM UTC

_fizz_buzz_ wrote: post #77

p4bl0 wrote: post #21

He is already an elected representative in the French parliament, being part of the current government's majority. His political party and the government have already passed several laws that are very damaging to research and higher education (among other things, but these two topics Villani actually knows something about, and he should care a bit given his background). He has never said anything publicly about it, o…

I don't like your comment for several reasons> 1.) You don't provide any example how he damaged academia. It lacks substance. 2.) "he doesn't care at all about being a mathematician (well, except when it gives him credit he doesn't deserve)" That bit of character assassination is unnecessary. He is obviously one of the most accomplished Mathematicians alive.

1) You're right, sorry. Substance in followup comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21404314 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21406475

2) The fact that he is one of the most accomplished mathematicians alive does not contradict the fact that it doesn't have anything to do with him doing politics, and that he doesn't do politics the way we could expect a member of academia would. That's what I meant: since he does not seem interested in research and higher education as a politician, it doesn't really count, on the politics side, that he is a member of academia.

Re: Cédric Villani: mathematician challenging to be Paris mayor

#85

Post by riffraff » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 10:17 AM UTC

qmmmur wrote: post #78

LeanderK wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it will be the death of society and culture if rank areas of study by ROI. Businesses need engineers and accountants, but society needs philosophers, artists, musicians and social scientists. It's about the balance between those two. Actually, I am not sure what its like in the United States. Are only the rich allowed to study art or theater?

Pretty much and it's why there is a huge cultural exodus to Europe from America

is there? I am not arguing there isn't but I would be interested in hearing more, or see data about this.

Re: Cédric Villani: mathematician challenging to be Paris mayor

#86

Post by mortrevere » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 10:19 AM UTC

tasogare wrote: post #62

flashyfaffe2 wrote: post #9

Being a former Parisian, I can object here you can be a medal fields winner and not having a clue about economic problem. Paris is facing quite sensible issues right now ( higher debt, untidy streets, insecurity,etc...) and for now all he's proposing here is very similar to what any others politician would offer to get elected. Parisians need some radical changements and for now I haven't heard anything from him tack…

> Paris is facing quite sensible issues right now ( higher debt, untidy streets, insecurity,etc...) Most of these problems stem from national-level irresponsible policies such as uncontrolled immigration. They won't be fixed by the mayor alone, and they plague most big and even medium cities in the country.

Marine Le Pen, sors de ce corps !

Re: Cédric Villani: mathematician challenging to be Paris mayor

#87

Post by goerz » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 10:35 AM UTC

oefrha wrote: post #66

thatfrenchguy wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the idea that someone can get straight C's in highschool and get $50k a year to study art in college is not a good use of my tax dollars. What if that person ends up being successful in that field ? Should we only have the kids of the rich do arts ? That seems to be what's going on in the US and you see the devastating cultural result. > Additionally, I think students should have SOME Skin in the Game You h…

> Trust me, if they're focused on reducing costs, they won't cost 2.5k a month. They don't cost 2.5k a month, and they aren't swanky broom closets. The average is ~1k, cheaper if you live with more people; this is below Palo Alto rent, mind you. I believe the Stanford dorm experience is way better than that of most American institutions. For starters, every undergrad is basically guaranteed housing for the entirety o…

I’ve stayed in Stanford dorms, and they were pretty swanky (but then, so was pretty much every other dorm in the US I’ve seen)

Re: Cédric Villani: mathematician challenging to be Paris mayor

#88

Post by goerz » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 10:38 AM UTC

hoseja wrote: post #73

p4bl0 wrote: post #21

He is already an elected representative in the French parliament, being part of the current government's majority. His political party and the government have already passed several laws that are very damaging to research and higher education (among other things, but these two topics Villani actually knows something about, and he should care a bit given his background). He has never said anything publicly about it, o…

Reminds me of Merkel, the nuclear physicist.

Quantum chemist. Quite different from nuclear physics.

Re: Cédric Villani: mathematician challenging to be Paris mayor

#89

Post by ttoinou » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 10:43 AM UTC

chapium wrote: post #38

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"dommageable" is "damaging", for anyone who couldn't guess. Can you go into detail about what his party has voted for that's so bad for higher education and research? I consider myself pretty academia-friendly, and there's a lot of things I'd vote for that most people would consider damaging to higher education and research. For example, I think free college for everyone is a terrible idea. Most people consider that…

I've learned that guessing french words from their english sounding roots is very precarious.

It's not précaire, it works most of the temps !

Re: Cédric Villani: mathematician challenging to be Paris mayor

#90

Post by Misteur-Z » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 11:14 AM UTC

jnaddef wrote: post #22

prideout wrote: post #3

Not just a mathematician but a Fields medal winner. The current mayor of Paris is also an interesting person, being a Spanish-born woman from a working class family. She has made huge strides in the greenification of Paris: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/05/world/europe/paris-anne-h...

Current mayor is hated by a lot of Parisians because of the "greenification of Paris" as you call it. She closed a few roads and made them pedestrian-only; that was not well received by a number of people.

She's applying short sighted solutions for the declining 2 million of "rich" Parisians (aka her electors) in an area of 12 million. She's basically flipping the bird to more 80% of the population.

Lived in Paris for 20 years, everything is getting worse:

- Public transportation => many subway lines are saturated

- Traffic jams => stupid road and signals reworks (for cycling lanes mostly), it's a disaster, I am starting to think that about 90% of the population lives more than 5km from work and will never use a bicycle

- Security => cops have been in overtime for 5 years with Vigipirate & gilet jaunes and have no time for anything else

- Pollution => not a single cop around to enforce vehicles pollution laws, better hand parking tickets

Overall feels like a third world country where the state is losing control over everything.

Anyone younger and applying (scientifically) proven solutions could do.

source: http://www.leparisien.fr/paris-75/paris-perd-encore-des-habi...