311–320 of 374 posts
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> students are paid a salary at these universities and hold dual status as employees and students OT: How much? Undergraduates too?
In Swiss federal institutes grad students are paid but it's free for undergrads.
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Look, I get it. Cancel culture isn’t healthy for our society, but can we be realistic about our examples? JKR is doing just fine after posting her transphobic screed last year. The various lawmakers across the US that sponsored anti-trans legislation this year haven’t been forcibly removed from office. Leading up to the presidential debates last year, speakers at the RNC made explicitly transphobic comments. Trump hi…
I think cancel culture is much worse for people who are close to the community tgat cancels them than people far removed. This is sorta obvious if you consider how much effect a community can have on someone by cancelling them. Sometimes cancel culture affects people outside the community. And then everyone is on the barricades. But I think the real damage is being done inside these communities. Essentially the commu…
Trans people often need to grapple with “internalized transphobia”. I experienced this firsthand when I realized I was trans and then felt a wave of disgust and horror. I felt it the first time I went to a trans group meetup and felt embarrassed to be seen with trans people. I felt it every time I was terrified of anyone knowing I was trans. I’m not alone in having these experiences, but my experiences were probably more on the extreme side. Almost no trans person has the luxury of being entirely free of internalized transphobia, and internalized transphobia can manifest in one’s political beliefs. If we shunned every single person who ever disagreed with the “groupthink” then there wouldn’t be anyone left. By necessity, we need to welcome and encourage the process of people learning and growing.
That’s a far cry from the idea that the trans community expels anyone who is critical of them.
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In Swiss federal institutes grad students are paid but it's free for undergrads.
Free for undergrads here meaning that they attend school for free (no tuition), or that they are not paid? Or both?
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from the context of the article it seems like he's getting his PhD in Chinese studies, and obviously that likely means you will have relations to China, which is what the professor in question was worried about. It's a little bit like majoring in Iranian studies, insulting the Ayatollah and prophet on Twitter and then being upset when you get barred from the country and people start professionally ditching you. Like,…
The ccp is not china.
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Also the following account of his experience in China, which certainly served as a greater pretext than the tweets of an account with 10 followers: > A Chinese professor there told him that his Ph.D. topic was «boring» – a euphemism for being too critical of the government. As a part of his fellowship, he also had to attend classes, and says today he couldn’t believe how much censorship took place in the course of ev…
I wouldn't want to be his sponsor either. It just shows either a complete misunderstanding of the power dynamics of an outsider doing research in China, or poor judgement.
Their dedication to academic integrity is suspect.
Well, buried in the middle of this article is an important point: > In fact, as of the fall 2019 semester, Gerber had been officially enrolled only at the university in China, not at St. Gallen. So he was a Swiss person doing a PhD at a Chinese university. His relationship with the professor at the Swiss university was an unofficial one, so the word 'dismissal' here is pretty misleading. No information about what hap…
But unofficial relationships matter in science. For example, I am currently doing an unpaid internship in the hopes of getting a paper out of it. If the professor cancelled it, I might be left with nothing to show for months of hard work, similar to the guy in the story. That kind of thing is not uncommon at all at the PhD level.
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Thank you! I am glad to see people are actually reading the articles. Last time this was published no one even bothered to note that there was no intervention from China whatsoever. Following the same logic a hotel worker losing their job because an American tourist complained can say that the United States got them fired.. The comments critical of the CCP in this thread prove that confirmation bias is alive and well…
Anecdotes are front page news at HN
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So should he just shut up, then? It's scary if most people feel that way. There was also no risk to his GF. At worst, the relationship ends - it's not like the CCP is going to go after her (she did ask him to stop).
I'm not one for turning up my nose to criticising government's like China's but the reality is that freedom of speech is not an important aspect to Chinese society (including many others) and if one wants to work there, travel there, and not endanger people there as he has done with his girlfriend's family, then one needs to at least consider the consequences for critical speech and whether they're worth bearing. > T…
Including Switzerland, it seems.
As a faculty member and PhD advisor, let me offer my reading between the lines. The student and advisor did not get along already. The student went to China and found a girlfriend. The lockdown separated them. Hormones flared, exacerbating what was probably already a tense situation. The student was increasingly a problem (note the screaming at the advisor mentioned in TFA). The advisor decided that it was no longer…
> let me offer my reading between the lines But the rest is entirely fabricated and ignores the clear statements of the advisor themself, which is that they didn't want to offend China and would for that reason terminate the relationship. > the advisor had a convenient out and took it How is it a convenient out? 'CCP pressure' doesn't sound like a convenient reason. The advisor could have pulled the 'you're no long e…
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Freedom of speech is protected only so much as the protection is enforced. It is not some sort of fundamental law. With weak-kneed politicians and indifferent population it inevitably erodes.
It actually is. It's a fundamental human right under the European Convention on Human Rights (to which Switzerland is a party) , Art. 10: "ARTICLE 10 Freedom of expression 1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This Article shall not preve…
"Article 36. Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of religious belief..."
"Article 37. The freedom of person of citizens of the People's Republic of China is inviolable..."
"Article 49. Marriage, the family, and mother and child are protected by the state..."
Just meaningless words on a page. To be completely fair, the text does imply that the above isn't worth a wooden nickel in practice:
"Article 51. The exercise by citizens of the People's Republic of China of their freedoms and rights may not infringe upon the interests of the state, of society and of the collective, or upon the lawful freedoms and rights of other citizens."
The European Convention on Human Rights has a similar clause (which you quoted) that allows the state to eliminate one's rights "for the protection of health or morals". It seems that "human rights" are mainly there to make the state seem legitimate. They "protect" humans against the state for exactly as long as the state allows.