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Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta

#101
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> From regulatory capture through revolving doors and lobbying, to media capture through purchase, and now academic capture through donation, it seems no activity is safe from large concentrations of wealth. > And it never will be. This is a human problem. No amount of laws and regulations will ever solve it. Come on. Wealth is literally a creature of "law and regulations," and changes to them can definitely "solve…

We shouldn't sit on our hands or whatever but wealth isn't a creation of laws, it's a bit of the inverse. Some laws can remove wealth and some laws are gonna take a lotta of guns and manpower (resources ==wealth) to implement.

> We shouldn't sit on our hands or whatever but wealth isn't a creation of laws, it's a bit of the inverse.

Huh? Maybe in the deep, deep past; but definitely not now. Even back then, where there were no states and little social organization, there was still custom within groups that worked like law.

> Some laws can remove wealth and some laws are gonna take a lotta of guns and manpower (resources ==wealth) to implement.

Zuckerberg and Facebook have no army and no means to raise one, despite the wealth they have. They are totally, utterly at the mercy of laws and regulations.

Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta

#102
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it never will be. This is a human problem. No amount of laws and regulations will ever solve it.

>> From regulatory capture through revolving doors and lobbying, to media capture through purchase, and now academic capture through donation, it seems no activity is safe from large concentrations of wealth. > And it never will be. This is a human problem. No amount of laws and regulations will ever solve it. Come on. Wealth is literally a creature of "law and regulations," and changes to them can definitely "solve…

I interpret GP's comment to mean "No amount of reasonable/effective laws and regulations will ever solve it".

Clearly there are plenty of extreme "solutions".

I interpret GP's point being an attempt to provide their insight into human condition, which is an interesting one.

Is graft a necessary condition of human civilization?

Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta

#105

I just read that this morning. I'm interested enough in the outcome that I put a calendar reminder 6 months out to check what happened. Doing so made me wonder if there's a service that would email me updates about legal cases like this that I would like to follow.

> if there's a service

There are plenty of mailing list services that associates of large law firms sign up for. I haven't been around people in that world for a while so I don't know the names, but I'm sure you can find them if you spend time looking.

Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta

#107
post #80

Colleges and universities are like little countries, rarely answer to anyone and focused on their own insular practices.

A lot of people are looking for an all controlling force in the country or world instead, I see a lot of demigods that rule their domain, curating complete autonomy as long as they stay within the confines they finessed

Anybody working in University IT can attest to this :-)

Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta

#108
post #9

From regulatory capture through revolving doors and lobbying, to media capture through purchase, and now academic capture through donation, it seems no activity is safe from large concentrations of wealth.

Politics (as in the game of power) and corruption are human nature. Pushing back against these are equally human nature. The worse it gets the more intense the push back. The push back seems to be at moment taking the shape of voting in far right or trump like politicians accross the world. They won't solve the issue. Therefore the next level of intensity may very well be revolution.

Clarify what do you mean by "revolution", because to me that words means either a coup, civil war, acts of terrorism, or, worse than that, a massacre like China's "cultural revolution".

Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta

#109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about better redistributing wealth -- you know like corn subsidies

[flagged]

> We've tried it multiple times and it's had disastrous consequences every time. But let's do it again!

We also tried not doing it and it had even worse consequences so I don't see what you are trying to say.

Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta

#110
post #88
post #80

Colleges and universities are like little countries, rarely answer to anyone and focused on their own insular practices.

It was only in the last few years did I realize the massive endowments many universities have make them ripe targets for bad actors to make their way into administration.

The few very large unis i looked into all made massively more money off investment returns than any operational income. the year i reviewed for the university of texas system showed they could have charged zero tuition that year and still make a profit

there are absolutely kickbacks for people in control of those endowments choosing specific investment options with their many billions of dollars

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