←back to thread

Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

(mathstodon.xyz)
280 points dargscisyhp | 1 comments | 02 Aug 25 06:28 UTC | HN request time: 0.202s | source
Show context
Almondsetat ◴[02 Aug 25 08:23 UTC] No.44765722[source]▶
It's really telling when an invaluable intellectual powerhouse specialized in a non politicized field gets its funds taken away because of politics

Edit:

This is a comment about the administration, not Tao.

replies(3): >>44765781 #>>44766016 #>>44766115 #
ekianjo ◴[02 Aug 25 08:35 UTC] No.44765781[source]▶
thats why they should refrain from engaging in politics in the first place. the day the wind changes you lose.
replies(5): >>44765901 #>>44765915 #>>44765937 #>>44766011 #>>44766303 #
kzrdude ◴[02 Aug 25 09:06 UTC] No.44765901[source]▶
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.
replies(3): >>44765936 #>>44766039 #>>44766233 #
bsaul ◴[02 Aug 25 09:32 UTC] No.44766039[source]▶
i agree with you, but i think it's been the case in the US for the past 15 years already. The only difference is trump pushing toward different issues than biden.
replies(2): >>44766204 #>>44766232 #
hcknwscommenter ◴[02 Aug 25 09:58 UTC] No.44766204[source]▶
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.
replies(1): >>44766352 #
bsaul ◴[02 Aug 25 10:24 UTC] No.44766352[source]▶
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.

replies(2): >>44766744 #>>44766746 #
1. kzrdude ◴[02 Aug 25 11:31 UTC] No.44766744[source]▶
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").