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Are you saying the government should punish one of the greatest mathematicians alive because he expressed his political opinions on things and the current leader doesn't like it?
Man I thought woke cancel culture was insane in their assault on academic freedom and free speech on campuses but this seems to be going up a whole nother level.
Absolutely, you step into the ring you should expect to get hit back. Stay the fuck out of politics if you're not a political figure.
But had he not signed the letter, would his funding not been cut? The stated justification by the trump administration has to do with UCLA failing to adequately police antisemitism on its campus, not wokeness.
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So you explicitly agree with the woke leftists that professors and researchers with "bad opinions" should be punished even if it's not irrelevant to their work?
Define "bad opinions."
I don't think Tao should be defunded for this alone, but neither should he be defended as a neutral apolitical little guy.
Every academic that has used the word "whiteness" should be treated the same way the universities would treat, say, David Duke.
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Yes, until the other side commits in a way that means their violation of trolerance will cost them in power then absolutely. If one side pays no price for punishing those with "bad opinions" they're going to do more of it when they return to power.
So how do you feel about a situation like this? https://x.com/pjaicomo/status/1958124476001861948
Do you believe the left would be justified with removing Tom Macdonald for his "the devil is a democrat" speech because the right wing started with saying legal residents don't have protections?
I think no, but "the other side started it" being a valid reason to betray what you previously said seems like it would apply here too then.
Of course. I believe we need another 30 years war like cycle to remind everyone why the tech of liberal tolerance was developed in the first place.
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Have you heard of this little thing called freedom of speech?
He still has tenure. the funding can be terminated at will
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He's not being silenced or arrested. What is the old XKCD line, that's not your free speech rights being violated, that's just someone showing you the door.
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He's not being thrown in prison. As fond as I am of defending free speech, free speech is not the right to receive a check from the government to subsidize your tongue.
right, he still has tenure
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No, but it is the right to keep your non-political job whatever political opinions you espouse outside of that job. If Tao stopped midway through math lectures to rant to his students about his personal opinions, that'd be one thing. But if his political advocacy on his own time does not interfere with doing his job as an academic, then it is a violation of free speech to jeopardize his career on the basis of his political speech, no different from when left-wings cancel-mobs do it.
I'm not sure what you're referring to here. Open letters signed as part of UCLA faculty are "part of the job," and complaining about his funding is... job-adjacent, surely?
If he was being attacked and defunded for attending a protest off campus and explicitly not as a university representative, you'd have a stronger point.
No. His job is doing high-level math + teaching it. That is what he's paid for, and his career should only depend on how well and how conscientiously he does that. What he chooses to do with his reputation and credentials is up to him; as long as he is fulfilling those obligations, nothing about his non-math-related behavior should be able to dislodge him.
When you're using your credentials and writing as a representative of the university, you are representing the university. He didn't sign it as "Terry Tao, regular schmo" or "Terry Tao, Fields Medal Winner," he signed as "Terence Tao, UCLA professor along with 300ish other UCLA professors."
The university didn't complain because they supported the cause, but a professor doing that for something a university doesn't like will often get at least a slap on the wrist for misusing their connection to the university.
I grant you that this is probably factually true, but I think they shouldn't. I disagree that highlighting one's credentials within an institution entails that you are speaking in that institution's name. Sometimes you might be trying to give that impression - but there is a difference between "speaking as a representative UCLA, it is our institutional belief…" and "here is my personal opinion; and by the way, you should listen to me because I teach at UCLA", and the latter should not be verboten, or otherwise under the university's control in any way.
"I'm a UCLA professor" is a factually true statement for Tao to make about himself. It's an outrageous free-speech violation to try and stop him from stating that fact wherever and whenever he believes it to be relevant. The university shouldn't have the right to (hypothetically) prevent him from pointing out that he has those credentials to help his case. This holds even if 299 other UCLA professors speak up as a group of private individuals, all of whom happen to be able to truthfully point to their UCLA credentials as a reason why the public ought to trust their wisdom.
Frankly, UCLA as an institution should not be in the business of having official political beliefs. The idea that any number of UCLA professors signing a politically-motivated letter could be interpreted as "representing the university" should be absurd, because the notion that "UCLA" could make a statement about Trump should be laughable - should be immediately recognizable as a category error.
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Snarkly: As I've heard it described, it doesn't include freedom from consequences.
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Oppressing right wingers is OK, but the leftists can't be touched because they're more valuable human capital? Anti-egalitarian. I like it.
In all honesty, what would a government do to him? Cut his government funding? If he's that good, he can probably find alternate sponsors.
Edit: Also, holy hell, you got a lot of downvotes for that. Undeserved IMO; your point seemed entirely reasonable to make.
They've gone so far towards being egalitarian they've become anti-egalitarian.
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In what way is it a higher level? The other camp has actually gotten people fired for expressing political opinions that seem pretty commensurate with the pro-progressive noises Terry has made. He is not even getting fired or having his career seriously threatened, but is just being subjected to some inconvenience (much greater for his students). Even the fallout to students is not without mirror precedent: at the US university where I did my PhD, a grad student I knew was prevented from graduating even with a different nominal advisor purely to put pressure on his advisor who got #MeTooed (in an incredibly fishy case) but was fighting back.
It is understandable that Terry is complaining (and, indeed, he owes it to his students to make this effort), but he has made his bed.
So you explicitly agree with the woke leftists that professors and researchers with "bad opinions" should be punished even if it's not irrelevant to their work?
I don't understand why you are just ignoring the question - it wasn't intended as rhetorical.
Anyhow, my answer to this question is no, but as with many other things (e.g. war crimes, military invasions...) I would rather live in a world where 2+ competing parties do it than in one where only 1 party does it, even if having 0 parties do it is best.
To make it very explicit for the situation at hand: not punishing any researchers for opinions unrelated to their work is best, but punishing researchers of all teams for opinions unrelated to their work is second best. (Not even a distant second best - as a working scientist I honestly think the science community would be much improved if all scientists trying to play at being politicians or "public intellectuals" were summarily kicked out)
it's because he is concern trolling the lot of you.
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So how do you feel about a situation like this? https://x.com/pjaicomo/status/1958124476001861948
Do you believe the left would be justified with removing Tom Macdonald for his "the devil is a democrat" speech because the right wing started with saying legal residents don't have protections?
It seems to me that this line of logic would be just as valid.
Personally I think no, but "the other side started it" being a valid reason to betray claimed principles would justify the next Dem admin removing Tom from the country.
Yeah, I think that looks like a pretty good mirror image, and the US Left would be quite justified in deporting him.
(Whether it would be a good tactical move is another question. The visibly pro-Right immigrants in the US can probably be counted on one hand, so chances are the Right would just see that, take the implied deal and later expel pro-Left immigrants with far less restraint even if it means all the other three pro-Right immigrants get expelled too)
(Why do you even think I would have personal preferences in favour of one of the tribes here? I'm a European who previously spent time in the US on a student visa, and if I went again and my motteposting somehow came to the attention of the DHS it would almost certainly be the Right kicking me out for the anti-Israel component of it if nothing else)
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It would be nice if you answered his question before asking a follow-up. Particularly when it has nothing to do with the case we're discussing.
There's no point in explaining why it's another level of wrong for government to target scientists and researchers funding over wrongthink if they're perfectly fine with that level of government suppression over academic freedom to begin with.
But there is a point when:
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Not should. Must.
No peaceful government is possible if the power of censorship and control over truth is only available to one side.
When the left picked that sword up, they were warned endlessly that this would have consequences once they would inevitably lose power. There you go.
So you explicitly agree with the woke leftists that professors and researchers with "bad opinions" should be punished even if it's not irrelevant to their work?
Will you be upset if the left comes back into power and explicitly targets all conservatives with funding cuts after you've said it's now ok to do?
Progressives already do that, and have loudly proclaimed for years it is OK to do. So I will not be upset because it is expected behavior from them.
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What conservatives are there? Certainly none in academia. The left already uses its power to purge conservatives as much as they possibly can.
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I believe in free speech and other such natural rights, so it should not happen. I also think that
This isn't about moral rectitude, it's about what's possible. You can't start shooting kulaks and demand they not shoot back because God commanded that thou shalt not kill.
I'm simply informing you of what's possible in the political climate created by such acts. Which is exactly what I was warning everyone would happen ten years ago.
The left wing has thoroughly destroyed the classical liberal fort on its advance, and now that the advance has stopped, it can't hide behind its walls whilst retreating. Actions have consequences.
Well you say that and yet nothing in the following sentences expresses any idea that it is wrong to target researchers and scientists for their personal political beliefs. In fact all the effort seems dedicated to defending the idea of targeted wrongthink suppression.
Do you really want me to tell you that universities should not exist as such because they are State funded propaganda machines and thus undermine the very foundations of truth seeking by connecting it to power, and thus by their very structure can only be tools of modernist totalitarianism?
We can get into it. But it's off topic. And you don't seem to understand the difference between description and prescription anyways so it's a non starter.
"You can't understand the nature of politics and hold Liberal ideals" is a nonsense argument. Bertrand de Jouvenel exists. My commitment to liberty does not require me to hold any delusions about the necessity for the leader of a coalition to punish his enemies and reward his friends.
Recognizing the nature of the world is only supporting its tragedy in the mind of a child.
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Yeah, I'm thinking he should be punished. It's not his place as a mathematician to tell me how orange man bad. I'm not even inclined to care about his supposed groundbreaking work if he has martyr his supposed scientific reason on the altar of woke.
You agree with the woke leftists that professors and researchers with "bad opinions" should be punished even if it's not irrelevant to their work?
He's not a neutral party. I actually would also like whole divisions of X studies wiped off the universities, so my views aren't neutral either.
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Nah, I just don't appreciate his rhetorical approach here. It comes across as disingenuous. He's trying to pull the "wise man above the fray descends from his ivory tower to bestow wisdom upon the masses" when in reality he has been down here flinging shit along with the rest of us.
In terms of the actual issue, his funding was not specifically cut, and Tao making this all about him comes across as somewhat egotistical. UCLA's funding was cut for what appear to be fairly legitimate reasons. For example, they are still racially discriminating in college admissions, in flagrant violation of the recent SCOTUS decision. This comment goes into more detail: https://www.themotte.org/post/2732/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/357296?context=8#context
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Even if your portrayal of what he said was accurate, that is not "a whole nother level", it's "more of the same", and perhaps even "way more mild". But it's not accurate. He wasn't punished for his political views, his university was for their discriminatory practices. Tao was portraying himselfnas politically neutral, and the above comment was pointing out he's lying.
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