Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

441–450 of 551 posts

Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta

#441

Post by zbyte64 »

boringg wrote: post #417
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…

FWIW that's definitely not gutting a team. Swapping out leaders makes a big impact but it isn't gutting a team. It could lead to the same outcome.

Imagine swapping out leaders and expecting the same outcomes. Why even bother?

Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta

#442

Post by shuntress »

Arson9416 wrote: post #303
fmbb wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current economic system where (in the US) bribes are “speech” and corporations are people unavoidably leads to things like this project getting neutered. “The invisible hand” Adam Smith refers to are the unintended consequences from merchants’ want to keep their capital: increasing the domestic capital stock and enhancing military power for the state, i.e. protectionism etc. More broadly and lately it refers to a…

Bribery exists in every economic system, even before economic systems existed, and is not uniquely connected to the free market. Nor are they connected to "unintended societal consequences", since bribes very clearly have a specific goal. So it doesn't make any sense.

The point is that this type of corruption is inevitable when the "invisible hand" is completely unrestrained.

Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta

#443

Post by shuntress »

1970-01-01 wrote: post #170

Laws capping these massive donations need to pass or nothing will change. $500M is more than enough money to operate any school, and Harvard simply does not need more money in its pockets. https://www.statista.com/statistics/221147/the-20-richest-co...

> $500M is more than enough money to operate any school

I'm not saying I disagree with regulation related to massive donations but you need to check your numbers.

https://finance.harvard.edu/financial-overview

"Total operating expenses increased by $482 million or 9% to $5.9 billion."

Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta

#444

Post by [deleted] »

dang wrote: post #420
legutierr wrote: post #270

Somehow the human brain by default conflates the concepts of "being prestigious" and "having integrity". It's difficult to fight this cognitive bias that, I think, we all carry—but we must.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38519267 .

[deleted]

Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta

#445

Post by juujian »

jcheng wrote: post #185
yellow_lead wrote: post #32

Her actual whistleblower declaration contains a lot of the evidence some may be looking for: https://live-whistleblower-aid.pantheonsite.io/wp-content/up... To sum up the first few pages after skimming it, Facebook tried to bribe her (well "fund" her research), she refused. Later she had a meeting with the former head of comms at Facebook, who was now on the Dean's council, where he became incredibly angry with her r…

Not sure why I decided to spend so much time on this on a Monday morning but I've read to page 35, and the picture is much more muddled. It looks like the FB Archive project gains momentum and launches but Dr. Donovan and the TASC get sidelined along the way (which understandably is very upsetting, you can feel the pain on every page). It does seem clear that the Dean doesn't approve of Dr. Donovan/TASC and he eventu…

The picture becomes much more clear later on. The Dean sidelined and reallocated the very generous funding which donors provided specifically for her, while also lying to the donors about this. And then winds down her research even though there is obviously demand for and interest in it. All while stringing her along. She should have been able to take her funding elsewhere if the dean didn't want her around, there is ample precedent for that. The degree of manipulation is unprecedented and amounts to the dean stealing her funding from her/her donors.

Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta

#446

Post by capableweb »

scottyah wrote: post #263
abeppu wrote: post #243

Setting aside the institutional failures within Harvard, shouldn't this also pose legal problems for the Chan Zuckerberg Foundation? I am certainly not a lawyer, but I thought the tax-benefits of a non-profit were supposed to be tied to some governance requirements and operating in pursuit of some mission other than profit. If when the Chan Zuckerberg foundation gives a donation to a school, an exec from Meta is then…

They purposely did not make the Chan Zuckerberg Foundation a non-profit so as to not be encumbered by all the laws that affect those organizations.

Isn't "Foundation" a word that is usually for non-profits? I understood the different between "Charity" and "Foundation" just to be about "Public" vs "Private" organization, but both of them being non-profits. Am I misunderstanding what "Foundation" means here?

Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta

#447

Post by jurynulifcation »

r3trohack3r wrote: post #432

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 harv…

Can you give any further details? This might be worth experimenting with, and I do already have an aquaculture setup.

Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta

#448

Post by Der_Einzige »

karaterobot wrote: post #355
Arson9416 wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bribery exists in every economic system, even before economic systems existed, and is not uniquely connected to the free market. Nor are they connected to "unintended societal consequences", since bribes very clearly have a specific goal. So it doesn't make any sense.

Just wanted to say that you're completely correct and making a very reasonable statement which is not controversial. I would love to hear about an economic system in which bribery did not exist or have influence, but I have not seen any examples of that yet, in the present day or in history. I don't agree that bribes can't have unintended social consequences. They do have specific goals, yes. But some unintended cons…

Uhh, Singapore? Not everywhere is corrupt you know!

Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta

#449

Post by Der_Einzige »

1970-01-01 wrote: post #170

Laws capping these massive donations need to pass or nothing will change. $500M is more than enough money to operate any school, and Harvard simply does not need more money in its pockets. https://www.statista.com/statistics/221147/the-20-richest-co...

I’d support the full destruction of Harvard and MIT taking all of its assists and land. I want our universities to accept based on merit, not fat donations. The traditional ivys are simply bad for society and our elite schools should be elite because the majority of students their are truly gifted (i.e Stanford, caltech, MIT) not because their from the ultra rich

Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta

#450

Post by 1970-01-01 »

shuntress wrote: post #443
1970-01-01 wrote: post #170

Laws capping these massive donations need to pass or nothing will change. $500M is more than enough money to operate any school, and Harvard simply does not need more money in its pockets. https://www.statista.com/statistics/221147/the-20-richest-co...

> $500M is more than enough money to operate any school I'm not saying I disagree with regulation related to massive donations but you need to check your numbers. https://finance.harvard.edu/financial-overview "Total operating expenses increased by $482 million or 9% to $5.9 billion."

Same PDF states "The University generated an operating surplus of $186 million"
Post reply on HN