Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants • Hacker News Board

Re: Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

#91

Post by ViscountPenguin » Sat, Aug 02, 2025, 9:50 AM UTC

lordofgibbons wrote: post #56

raincole wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-07-29/ucla-set... > The lawsuit, filed more than a year ago, alleged that by not immediately ordering the encampment to be taken down, UCLA provided support to pro-Palestinian activists who “enforced” what it termed a “Jew Exclusion Zone,” prohibiting Jewish students and staff from passing through the camp’s makeshift barricades. Personally I think this is a textbook raci…

You can term anything whatever you want, doesn't make it true. The "Jew Exclusion Zone" term was coined by the plaintiff in this case. A lot of the college protesters are in fact Jewish. This is a fact the pro-Israel propaganda would rather you not know about. Otherwise, how could they claim "antisemitism" whenever you criticize the actions of the foreign country.

I don't particularly care what the cause is, physically barring students from entering an area of campus is bloody absurd.

And, for the record, I think it's willfully ignorant to pretend that Jews and non-jews are given equal amounts of leeway by all Palestine protesters. While the majority may be doing so in good faith, I've seen far too many people being viewed with suspicion for wearing Jewish traditional headware by supposedly unbiased activists to believe that anti-Semites aren't using the movement to get a free ride.

Re: Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

#92

Post by kergonath » Sat, Aug 02, 2025, 9:50 AM UTC

watwut wrote: post #81

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.

It is not actions of the few. This is action of many. There is whole party apparatus behind this, public support among conservative voters, support of tech leaders etc.

This. It’s easy to rationalise what can be seen as completely counter-productive and irrational actions as random acts of deranged minds. But Trump and proto-fascist republicans have genuine popular support. For terrible reasons, but still. And we can argue about how the US political system plays in their favour by giving them more power than their raw numbers would suggest, but even then they are a significant part of the population. Even more so since they managed to capture the broligarchs.

To my worried eyes this looks too much like Russia circa 2000 for comfort. Or Turkey early in Erdogan’s reign. Whatever happens, it will be painful and damaging.

Re: Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

#93

Post by roenxi » Sat, Aug 02, 2025, 9:51 AM UTC

delusional wrote: post #53

roenxi wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US BLS does seem to have a bit of a history [0] with their job reporting though. The process they've been using appears biased to over report initially and then get revised down over time. I'm sure there are a lot of political considerations, but from a raw statistical perspective there is a pretty easy path to getting better results. They could eliminate the optimistic bias and aim for accuracy. If it were me I'…

> 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 people on at that level of seniority. The competition is fierce and it is more about finding the right person for the job than trying to micromanage performance.

Re: Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

#94

Post by A_D_E_P_T » Sat, Aug 02, 2025, 9:52 AM UTC

breppp wrote: post #90

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Wouldn't get to this because in Germany such a demonstration would be dispersed far earlier, not to mention the nazi symbolism displayed in UCLA

In any case, penalties would apply to the perpetrators themselves, as individuals. I've never heard of a case where the institution itself would suffer from a significant funding cut, to say nothing of a very sudden funding collapse.

Re: Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

#95

Post by kergonath » Sat, Aug 02, 2025, 9:53 AM UTC

fxtentacle wrote: post #76

3 months ago, we were all wondering why the EU proudly launched their "Choose EU for Science" campaign, despite having much lower funding levels than in the US. If they predicted this, then their actions would make a lot of sense. It is notoriously difficult for scientists to change careers after years in research. For people cut off from US funding like this, a EU-guaranteed middle-class income will appear much more…

Both the EU and its large member-states need to significantly ramp up funding to exfiltrate scientists from the US. This could be a force multiplier as important as getting German scientists was after WWII, or Russian ones during the Cold War. It would also be a tremendous amount of progress for not that much money, all things considered.

And I say this with no joy whatsoever, because all these developments are damaging great collaborations and personal relationships with friends and colleagues in the US.

Re: Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

#96

Post by defrost » Sat, Aug 02, 2025, 9:53 AM UTC

davrosthedalek wrote: post #69

lordofgibbons wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can term anything whatever you want, doesn't make it true. The "Jew Exclusion Zone" term was coined by the plaintiff in this case. A lot of the college protesters are in fact Jewish. This is a fact the pro-Israel propaganda would rather you not know about. Otherwise, how could they claim "antisemitism" whenever you criticize the actions of the foreign country.

To add some more anec-data: I have a couple of Jewish colleagues. Several of them received death threats. This is not acceptable.

I agree that is unacceptable, however it's unclear whether your colleagues received death threats for supporting Palestine or supporting Israel.

Re: Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

#97

Post by andrepd » Sat, Aug 02, 2025, 9:53 AM UTC

defrost wrote: post #78

diggan wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but not at all unexpected given who’s running it To be fair, this has felt like the natural consequence of the "maximize capitalism without regarding the downsides" maxim the US seems to have been operated under for a long time. Corporations have been (indirectly) running the country for some decades at this point, it's just way more obvious and in the face now when a "businessman" sits as president.

Maximize crony capitalism and oligarchy, perhaps. The US drifted far from any form of pure open market laissez-faire capitalism or balanced regulated capitalism some time past.

Yes, your "pure" capitalism tends to do that.

Kinda similar to the people who say of the SU "but it was not true communism".

Re: Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

#98

Post by austhrow743 » Sat, Aug 02, 2025, 9:54 AM UTC

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.

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.

Re: Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

#99

Post by BDPW » Sat, Aug 02, 2025, 9:55 AM UTC

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…

Like the German diplomats recently speaking out against their governments policy on Gaza and Israel?

Or Dutch professors openly criticizing the plans by the right-wing government (which just fell) as being damaging, unproductive amd sometimes unconstitutional?

The only examples I see are the opposite of what you say. Can you name any examples in Germany, Sweden, Norway or Holland? (Those are the countries that I'm confident talking about at least)

Re: Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

#100

Post by jjgreen » Sat, Aug 02, 2025, 9:55 AM UTC

wat10000 wrote: post #85

pbiggar wrote: post #26

Remember that these claims of antisemitism are all false. What they actually mean is "they had a student encampment calling out Israel's genocide in Gaza and occupation of Palestine, that the US supports with weapons, troops, UN vetos, and bad faith negotiation"

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.