The latest campus cancellation is different • Hacker News Board

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#231

Post by iammisc » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 2:55 PM UTC

aisengard wrote: post #163

iammisc wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's okay to cancel the cancellers. In fact, the expected outcome of this effort is to 'cancel' the cancellers, by not allowing their complaints to translate into institutional action. They are free to argue others should be canceled, but no one should listen to them. Given that they are currently listened to, preventing that is indeed a form of cancellation, and it's a good one. You cannot and should not expect to b…

"It's okay to cancel" You can just stop right there! Either it's okay to cancel, or it isn't. "It's okay to cancel those that I don't like, but not cancel those I do like" is infantile reasoning and not to be taken seriously.

It has nothing to with what I don't like. I don't believe you should extend to people those rights they argue against.

For example, if someone wrote a comme t on hacker news saying "not all people should be able to comment on hacker news", one wonders why it is that they ought to enjoy the very right which they seek to deny.

I have said quite clearly in my comment that those wishing to cancel ought to be heard... They just ought no to be listened to. Perhaps if you read my comment (it's only a few sentences long... There's no need to be thick headed), you would have read that part.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#232

Post by metagame » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 2:56 PM UTC

nverno wrote: post #221

metagame wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody who's in the demographic of people who could be attending university in the next ten years is going to see some professor getting knocked from a position as anything noteworthy; there's no viral potential in somebody not doing a speech. But the speech, if it goes well, could have and has historically had great potential to inspire people to going into the field of climate science. Making the best impression is…

I disagree his ideas of merit-based entry would alienate a sizeable portion of perspective MIT students (the article also shows supporting polls). MIT, not merit-based, are you kidding?

Offering a social, outreach-based task to a man whose views are cause for alienation against prospective students not just prospective MIT students, but the field at large, which is substantially larger than the four-thousand undergrads MIT has, would indeed not be meritocratic.

I'm not going to debate what his views actually are, and I personally agree very heavily with merit-based admission. Like I've said elsewhere in the thread, it's likely I'm not far from the professor's views. However his views have been interpreted in a way significantly different from how you frame them by enough people that MIT saw it fit to not go forward with his speech. It's a PR and outreach game, not an inside baseball conference.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#233

Post by iammisc » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 2:56 PM UTC

LeoNatan25 wrote: post #182

iammisc wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also a conscious belief on behalf of immigrant families like my own that the reason we came to this country is for the free speech, so when we see American institutions that do not seem to care, we wonder if America actually lives up to its promises.

Spoiler: it doesn’t, and it hasn’t for a very long time.

Okay that's great, but it doesntm mean we ought to abandom those values out of some made up historical notion that only white people want such things.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#234

Post by gambiting » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 2:56 PM UTC

ramraj07 wrote: post #175

gambiting wrote: post #44

Ultimately I blame Twitter and Twitter mobs for all insanity like this. World would be a much better place without Twitter.

What exactly did Twitter itself do other than create a unique platform that is arguably valuable in its own right? Are they secretly making it more evil to make more ad money?

Just to be clear - I blame "Twitter" the platform not "Twitter" the corporation. The platform gave voice to people who want to cause outrage, whether the corporation wanted or intended that is only secondary. Maybe it's a distinction without a meaning, but it makes sense in my head.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#235

Post by metagame » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 2:57 PM UTC

civilized wrote: post #223

metagame wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

As Mounk's essay notes, the vast majority of the public agrees with the professor on affirmative action. MIT just told that public what it thinks of their views.

As I've said multiple times in the thread, my own viewpoints are very close to the professor's! Public opinion of people who are not already in the system, however, is a different game, and you should always go with the safest bet if doing propaganda. It's critical.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#236

Post by phtrivier » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 2:58 PM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #6

umvi wrote: post #3

How do we neuter the power of Twitter mobs? Seems like they can bully and intimidate any organization from universities to corporations to GitHub projects to kowtow to their demands. Their demands are usually to fire, boycott, or boot people with opinions that run afoul of the mob. Not a healthy precedent to set. We will regret this later if we continue down this path.

> How do we neuter the power of Twitter mobs? Stop listening to them? EDIT: That's especially effective since the Twitter mobs keep moving targets every couple of weeks anyway. They don't have any patience.

It's possible to assume that most twitter mobs are harmless and insignificant.

The problem is that once in a while, the twitter mobs becomes the yellow jackets.

So you need a way to jauge how likely it is that the keyword-activists will get up over a particular topic.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#237

Post by whitexn--g28h » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 3:00 PM UTC

q1w2 wrote: post #222

nimbius wrote: post #128

just for clarification, the speaker has a newsweek peace that rails against diversity, equality, and inclusion as a sinister regime that actually works against diversity and actually hurts the public trust. he then goes on to insist universities are 'diverse' enough, so dont worry about them. his citations are...tentative at best. https://www.newsweek.com/diversity-problem-campus-opinion-16... The guy also made a god…

Argue the argument, not the argumentator.

OP is literally criticizing the citations. Reading and comprehension are important.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#238

Post by ardfard » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 3:01 PM UTC

yummypaint wrote: post #165

brigandish wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't this exactly the world that free speech / pro-liberty advocates want? No. The main consequence of speech that is being opposed should be… speech, not action to get that speaker's speech curtailed, whether by speech or other means. > I can also decide whether to patronize their business or not These people didn't have to turn up to the talk. That's not the same as cancelling a talk because someone said they do…

This post, like many in this thread, misrepresents what free speech is. Free speech protects us from government retribution, nothing more. I agree that it's bad form to lobby the university directly, but it's their right to do so, and the university has a right to change which speakers it invites. Having it any other way would be an attack on free speech. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of reli…

There's free speech in legal term as coded in US constitution which have nothing to do with Non-US citizen like me. Then there's free speech as in universal value that every member of civilized modern society should uphold. I think GP is talking about the later.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#239

Post by jordanpg » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 3:03 PM UTC

So much hand-wringing as the nature of power mutates and changes hands.

I generally agree that the outcomes of "cancel culture" are undesirable, but I am glad to see that in our little democratic experiment, a new form of power has found a voice and is causing those previously in power to quake in their boots.

I am confident that a new equilibrium will eventually be reached that won't have such occasional appalling outcomes. In the meantime, I wish those who are constantly apoplectic about "cancel culture" would be a little more self-aware and perhaps even happy to see some minority voices getting some undeserved wins here and there.

After all, the suffering that some of these minority voices have historically experienced is unthinkably bad. Remember that: unthinkably bad. Worst imaginable. And it is absurd to argue that the lingering effects of that are not still with us in uncountable ways, big and small.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#240

Post by civilized » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 3:04 PM UTC

metagame wrote: post #235

civilized wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As Mounk's essay notes, the vast majority of the public agrees with the professor on affirmative action. MIT just told that public what it thinks of their views.

As I've said multiple times in the thread, my own viewpoints are very close to the professor's! Public opinion of people who are not already in the system , however, is a different game, and you should always go with the safest bet if doing propaganda. It's critical.

I get what you're saying and it's reasonable. I think you greatly overestimate the objective rigor and correctness of your analysis, but I get it.

Sanctioning widely-held views as not meritorious alienates a lot of people too. They don't seem to figure into your calculations.

Based on your other posts, you seem to think that the most important audience for the talk is prospective climate change researchers, who you believe would be alienated by opposition to race-based admission preferences.

Again, you seem to be ignoring that this could go in the other direction, and in fact we'd expect it to, based on the overwhelming and diverse opposition to race-based preferences that we see in public polling.

A possible way forward is to thoroughly vet any potential public speaker to verify they have never said anything controversial. It's sad that we could be reduced to this, but it's understandable.