A university president makes a case against cowardice • Hacker News Board

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#141

Post by mantas » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 7:35 PM UTC

mind-blight wrote: post #63

mantas wrote: post #4

Some of that so-called activism seems to be closer to suppressing any thoughts someone dislikes. Removing that from university life is not cool, that „activism“ itself went off the rails too.

I know someone who works for a university in event planning. They were putting together an event for a civil rights icon. Because of the new policies, they were forced to go through all of the brochures and pamphlets and censor any use of words such as "racism" and "black" (when referring to the man's skin color). They literally couldn't say "black man fighting against racism" about a civil rights icon without losing…

It is not acceptable. But at the same time the US „antiracist“ campaign itself looks just like (reverse) racism in many case. Two unacceptables don’t cancel each other out. But you reap what you saw.

Just my 2 euro cents.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#142

Post by techpineapple » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 7:43 PM UTC

dingaling wrote: post #109

techpineapple wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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Kidnapped off the streets? I think for “bodies burned in pits” I might prefer “slaughtered” or “butchered”. Disappeared sounds rather light for what we’re currently discussing to my ear.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#143

Post by throw4847285 » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 8:02 PM UTC

mantas wrote: post #140

throw4847285 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freedom of speech necessarily implies that a group of people might team up and loudly announce that the people they don't agree with are incorrect and immoral and should be ignored or even ostracized. That's the price of freedom of speech, and it's a fair price. Being annoyed, inconvenienced, or even negatively impacted by the speech acts of others is by design. To throw that out is to make a calculation that without…

I’ll defend other people rights to offend me. But nowadays some people think others, even just between themselves, can’t say what would offend them.

A lot of people are fair-weather friends of freedom of speech. It's all well and good if everybody is allowed to express themselves as long as everybody, if they don't like me, at least respects me.

I guess some people were never in favor of freedom of speech, they just wanted a world where they faced minimal interpersonal conflict, and the current order for a while was serving that purpose.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#144

Post by russdill » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 8:02 PM UTC

CaptWillard wrote: post #134

n4r9 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From further down the page: > A COVID-19 death is defined for surveillance purposes as a death resulting from a clinically compatible illness in a probable or confirmed COVID-19 case unless there is a clear alternative cause of death that cannot be related to COVID-19 disease (e.g. trauma). There should be no period of complete recovery between illness and death It does not include cases like someone dying in a car c…

> It does not include cases like someone dying in a car crash who happened to be COVID-positive. Maybe not, but it definitely includes millions of elderly or otherwise comorbid subjects who developed pneumonia and never recovered. Sad is it is, that happens year-in and year-out when the initial virus doesn't have a household name. It also happens with the influenza virus ... except 2020 and 2021, where we had a mirac…

Methods used to combat COVID-19 (social distancing, masking, moving indoor events outdoors) really are quite effective at reducing the transmission of respiratory viruses. Big changes can come about from small changes in r.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#145

Post by techright75 » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 8:05 PM UTC

kamarg wrote: post #73

techright75 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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Those giant university endowments are partially used to allow those who couldn't afford it but otherwise have shown they have what the university is looking for in students to attend for significantly/entirely reduced costs. Meanwhile, the most visible billionaires are using their money to try to buy elections so they can dismantle the government for personal gain while oftentimes employing people with such low wages…

Everyone can afford it if given a loan. If the job you get after can't afford to pay back the loan, it's time to look for another career, and for the schools to be on the hook for the miss, not the taxpayer.

And yes you are right acceptability, because polls show that the government bailing out students making poor career choices and schools paying for bloated staff is definitely not acceptable to the majority of Americans.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#146

Post by harimau777 » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 8:13 PM UTC

disambiguation wrote: post #97

sequoia wrote: post #49

A lot of Americans support these attacks on universities. Why do people harbour this much animosity towards these institutions? Is there anything they could have done differently in the past decade or two to have broader sympathy now, or is people's ambivalence towards elite universities 100% irrational?

The political and ideological divide speaks for itself, but on behalf of the common folk universities have been failing their core mission - to provide the people with a quality education. The inversion and disconnect between the cost of tuition and economic outcomes is stunning. Too many kids who don't know better are pressured into pursuing higher education and taking on massive debt, only to graduate without any j…

It feels to me like part of the disconnect is that education and job training isn't necessarily the same thing. For many majors improving economic outcomes is not the core mission.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#147

Post by Gothmog69 » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 8:13 PM UTC

sequoia wrote: post #49

A lot of Americans support these attacks on universities. Why do people harbour this much animosity towards these institutions? Is there anything they could have done differently in the past decade or two to have broader sympathy now, or is people's ambivalence towards elite universities 100% irrational?

They could have not been so partisan (https://readlion.com/93-of-college-profs-political-donations... ), supported rational discourse ( https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/2025-college-free-spe... ) , not used race to discriminate on certain out groups ( https://asianamericanforeducation.org/en/issue/discriminatio... ). Just for starters

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#148

Post by breppp » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 8:16 PM UTC

SauciestGNU wrote: post #121

dingaling wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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First we're not allowed to call the detention camps "concentration camps" because there aren't ovens, now we can't call them "disappearances" because they're not getting thrown out of helicopters. Forget that people are getting shipped to a foreign torture slave camp from which nobody has been released with, and with no due process. I think this language policing may be because people don't want to allow opposition t…

because invalid comparisons weaken your argument and make you seem like you are oblivious of truth

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#149

Post by recursive » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 8:19 PM UTC

sequoia wrote: post #49

A lot of Americans support these attacks on universities. Why do people harbour this much animosity towards these institutions? Is there anything they could have done differently in the past decade or two to have broader sympathy now, or is people's ambivalence towards elite universities 100% irrational?

Provide a way to get a lower-cost credential without using the tuition to subsidize research/athletics/arts/social programs.

But that might be counter to their whole nature. Doesn't mean anyone's being irrational though. They're now de-facto gatekeepers on entering the professional class. I don't think it's unreasonable for the gate-kept to have opinions about the -keepers.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#150

Post by jwjohnson314 » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 8:23 PM UTC

disambiguation wrote: post #97

sequoia wrote: post #49

A lot of Americans support these attacks on universities. Why do people harbour this much animosity towards these institutions? Is there anything they could have done differently in the past decade or two to have broader sympathy now, or is people's ambivalence towards elite universities 100% irrational?

The political and ideological divide speaks for itself, but on behalf of the common folk universities have been failing their core mission - to provide the people with a quality education. The inversion and disconnect between the cost of tuition and economic outcomes is stunning. Too many kids who don't know better are pressured into pursuing higher education and taking on massive debt, only to graduate without any j…

> The salt in the wounds is that universities are flush with cash, yet its spent on anything and everything except for the welfare of the students.

Maybe the elites. State schools and small colleges are not flush with cash and many have been shuttered or severely downsized recently. Though they could still spend their limited funds better.