Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta • Hacker News Board

Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta

#431

Post by freejazz » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 9:39 PM UTC

gessha wrote: post #190

sertbdfgbnfgsd wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who would pay for this? Random people like you and me wouldn't pay for something they're gonna use twice in their lifetime, and lawyers surely have something like this, possibly integrate with all the other tools they use.

> lawyers surely have something like this Not a lawyer and not familiar with their systems but based on my knowledge of other industries I’d say it’s not guaranteed they have a solution. Could be good ol sticky notes and manual calendar events.

Yeah, check out docketbird. Also, noticed attorneys already automatically get all ECF filings.

Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta

#432

Post by r3trohack3r » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 9:39 PM UTC

I'm hesitant to share this because it's completely unverifiable in any way I'd be comfortable documenting. Not my life, not my secrets to tell.

I had a close friend who did undergraduate research in a fisheries department.

They had been researching plant selection for aquaponics to increase the yield of tilapia. They had a filtration system that pushed tank water through a bed of plant roots. The plants would be harvested, processed into fish food, and fed back to the fish. On top of this platform, they'd experiment with different plant combinations to measure the impact on water quality and protein conversion.

They were seeing very high protein conversion with their plant choices (numbers high enough they gave me pause at what it would mean for society, but if I tried to throw out a number now I'd certainly get it wrong).

Recycling energy like this reduced the amount of food you'd have to put into the system, and the plants handled a good portion of the filtration for the system.

At some point, a large agriculture business with strong ties to the department offered a large grant that was understood to be contingent on this project being discontinued.

The project was abandoned and my buddy dropped out of his degree program.

Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta

#433

Post by TeeMassive » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 9:44 PM UTC

tuwtuwtuwtuw wrote: post #360

graphe wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes information disinformation or fake news? Who decided it?

I don't understand how that is relevant to the question I asked. Are you suggesting that no one can be experts on disinformation because different people have different view on what is true? Sounds a bit silly to me. Is the earth flat or more shaped like a globe?

Because it implies of knowing the truth as a matter of expertise, which is just arrogance even for experts. Expertise is about knowledge, not truth.

There was also experts on lobotomy who won Nobel Prices. All of whom were assumed to be truthful and knowledgeable and yet was disinformation in its own right.

Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta

#434

Post by ImPostingOnHN » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 9:46 PM UTC

tensor wrote: post #404

macksd wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think sidelining the lead researcher and giving the project to another group is accurately described at "gutting a team". No, they didn't end the project, but the series of events described seems to be insinuating that she could have led the project if she was willing to have her work funded by Facebook, listen to one of their former people, etc. So if that was their goal, and they just got someone else to do the w…

That's not quite what I imagine when I hear the term "gutting a team." Gutting a team is when then very significantly reduce its size and priority. Simply switching leadership of a project isn't gutting a team, it's normal university politics and infighting. If they are forcing funding by Facebook/Meta, then that does seem like a conflict of interest, but is a quite a different headline.

From what I gathered, they didn't simply switch leadership, they removed it entirely, along with the person doing the most work, replacing them with nothing, which effectively shut down the project.

Is there someone continuing it that I missed?

Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta

#435

Post by LightHugger » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 9:53 PM UTC

blindriver wrote: post #301

Is this a surprise? All of these universities are known to bow down to the biggest wallets, so why on earth would anyone expect that they wouldn't can any investigations to someone who donated $500 million? I'm shocked that anyone else is shocked.

I suppose each one of these posts is a lesson to at least somebody about how widespread institutional corruption is.

Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta

#436

Post by ben0x539 » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 9:56 PM UTC

blindriver wrote: post #301

Is this a surprise? All of these universities are known to bow down to the biggest wallets, so why on earth would anyone expect that they wouldn't can any investigations to someone who donated $500 million? I'm shocked that anyone else is shocked.

I assume people are less shocked and more upset in, you know, that weary and disappointed way. Sometimes it's good to loudly complain about bad things happening even if you're not surprised about them happening!

Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta

#437

Post by micromacrofoot » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 9:58 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #183

stronglikedan wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what "old money" means. They weren't old money.

Old money means inherited, generational wealth. New money means wealth that was mostly based on efforts (not due to passive investments) by the current holder. micromacrofoot1 was trying to distinguish “a lot of money” from “a little bit of money”, but old money is not the correct term for that. From Wikipedia, the varsity blues scandal was about 33 sets of parents paying ~$25M total. That is chump change compared to…

fair, though I was thinking the context that "old money" is usually old because there's a lot of it... but new/old signaling quantity is probably less true now than ever

there's also some behavior involved, traditionally it would be a major social faux pas to ask for special treatment in a traceable way

Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta

#438

Post by ben0x539 » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 9:58 PM UTC

cced wrote: post #376

was the title changed to say that the person is a propagandist? seems like this is trying to discredit them

Uh, I'm reading it to mean a scholar researching propaganda committed by other people, not a scholar engaging in propaganda or developing new propaganda tech.

Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta

#439

Post by akaij » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 10:02 PM UTC

say_it_as_it_is wrote: post #278

akaij wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting to see lines drawn around academic value.

For an academic institution?

Yeah, the academia. You know, where one tries to explore all possible avenues to research everything to find value.

Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta

#440

Post by avgcorrection » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 10:06 PM UTC

godelski wrote: post #327

pastacacioepepe wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes I basically took verbatim what George Carlin said because it's one of the best points of view on "conspiracies" I've ever heard. I don't understand how did you get the impression that I was trying to be funny? It's a fairly serious description of the reality we live in.

> it's one of the best points of view on "conspiracies" I've ever heard. It's actually how I often think of conspiracy. Not a bunch of men sitting in a room plotting together but a bunch of independent actors with convergent incentives. Also my litmus test for real bona fide conspiracy (Watergate or Contra Affair) vs crackpottery is if it can be boiled down to "wizards did it." It's always interesting that conspiraci…

> It's always interesting that conspiracies work out to essentially making one feel safe in a world of all powerful but evil men rather than the discomfort of a chaotic world.

Hmm. Rather the comforting thought is in the mind of the so-called conspirators. Systemic theories about things like the Media (see mentioned Manufacturing Consent) get rejected as “conspiracies” because people (like in the Media) interpret it as saying that they, with full knowledge and intentionality are doing these things. Rather than that they are pawns in a larger system.

They are flattering themselves.