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I speak at Harvard as it faces its biggest crisis since 1636

scottaaronson.blog

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Re: I speak at Harvard as it faces its biggest crisis since 1636

#91

Post by [deleted] »

user982 wrote: post #79
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Attributing this to people you disagree with on the issue is a telltale sign of bad faith I've been in rooms in New York with very smart people who argued exactly this. That the founding of Israel was a mistake and that we should poof it away. (Something about decolonization usually meanders its way in there.) They're a minority. Like the people who want to relocate Palestinians from Gaza are, to my knowledge, a mi…

> They're a minority. Like the people who want to relocate Palestinians from Gaza are, to my knowledge, a minority. "Approx. 80% of Israelis support Trump's plan to relocate Gazans - survey "Less than 15% of Israelis believe Trump's plan is "immoral," including 54% of Arab respondents and only 3% of Jewish israelis." - https://www.jpost.com/international/article-840500

[deleted]

Re: I speak at Harvard as it faces its biggest crisis since 1636

#92

Post by JumpCrisscross »

user982 wrote: post #79
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Attributing this to people you disagree with on the issue is a telltale sign of bad faith I've been in rooms in New York with very smart people who argued exactly this. That the founding of Israel was a mistake and that we should poof it away. (Something about decolonization usually meanders its way in there.) They're a minority. Like the people who want to relocate Palestinians from Gaza are, to my knowledge, a mi…

> They're a minority. Like the people who want to relocate Palestinians from Gaza are, to my knowledge, a minority. "Approx. 80% of Israelis support Trump's plan to relocate Gazans - survey "Less than 15% of Israelis believe Trump's plan is "immoral," including 54% of Arab respondents and only 3% of Jewish israelis." - https://www.jpost.com/international/article-840500

Sorry, I was (unclearly, admittedly) referring to Americans in the pro- and anti- camps. I’m not sure how eradicating Israel would poll in Gaza, but I’d wager it’s north of 50% there, too.

Re: I speak at Harvard as it faces its biggest crisis since 1636

#93

Post by s1artibartfast »

archagon wrote: post #89
s1artibartfast wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[edit] Don't kill the messenger... I think the clearest and most cogent articulation I have seen was given by Marc Andreesen back in January, in a 4 hour podcast on Trump policy with Lex Friedman, starting at 58 min. His position was that University reform is not possible. Instead, the institutions themselves need to be destroyed so that new institutions can replace them with more agreeable values [1]. Relevant highl…

End result: substantially reduced student immigration along with native brain drain out of the US. Other countries reap the benefits of our best and brightest. New institutions fail to attract cutting-edge researchers and become ideology-driven vocational schools in the Soviet tradition. Also, Marc Andreesen is a repugnant neoreactionary toady.

I personally dont think his extreme position is realistic. It would take too long. Foundations are too big, public schools pose a major challenge, and the public is mixed on the topic

I think a much more interesting idea is breaking the Council for Higher Education Accreditation monopoly on accreditation, and replacing it with some standard metrics.

Letting incumbent universities decide if new universities can exist causes the same problems as giving hospitals a veto over new competition, and education is ripe for disruption.

I would love to see accreditation to any program that produces students that could pass some standard tests or metrics.

Re: I speak at Harvard as it faces its biggest crisis since 1636

#94

Post by mcculley »

amazingamazing wrote: post #84
mcculley wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems a dumb way to allocate Federal research funds. We, the taxpayers, should not choose the best university for these projects, but limit ourselves to only private universities? Is this what people mean by DEI? That we use some criteria other than merit when allocating resources?

You’re misunderstanding - I’m saying it should be only going to public universities, not private.

I understood that but had the sense backwards. If the best research institution for given grant is a private university, you are saying that it should be precluded from consideration.

Re: I speak at Harvard as it faces its biggest crisis since 1636

#95

Post by JumpCrisscross »

user982 wrote: post #68
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have an example of student being called an antisemite by Aaronson?

Sure, here's his characterization of the protesting students as of two weeks ago ( https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=8754 ): "Leftist Students and Faculty: We’d sooner burn universities to the ground than allow them to remain safe for the hated Zionist Jews, the baby-killing demons of the earth. We’ll disrupt their classes, bar them from student activities, smash their Hillel centers, take over campus buildings and quads…

I’m not arguing that anti-Semiticism hasn’t been diluted to an over inclusive definition. I was just challenging the claim that students have been called out. This looks like the protests being called out, not the students. That’s an important difference because it, in my opinion, divides civil disagreement from something nastier.

Re: I speak at Harvard as it faces its biggest crisis since 1636

#96

Post by jkmcf »

rofo1 wrote: post #53
mgkimsal wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.harvard.edu/research-funding/wp-content/uploads/... Did you read the demands? "By August 2025, the University must adopt and implement merit-based hiring policies, and cease all preferences based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin throughout its hiring, promotion, compensation, and related practices among faculty, staff, and leadership. Such adoption and implementation must be durable and d…

You say that they are "demands". As if the taxpayers should automatically give billions to Harvard, no matter what Harvard does. That's insanity (to me at least). "Harvard has in recent years failed to live up to both the intellectual and civil rights conditions that justify federal investment." "The United States has invested in Harvard University’s operations because of the value to the country of scholarly discove…

  As if the taxpayers should automatically give billions to Harvard, no matter what Harvard does. That's insanity (to me at least).
AFAIK, Harvard doesn't get money for nothing -- it's primarily for research. The demands are orthogonal to what Harvard provides: top tier talent for whatever the government sees fit to fund.

  It's amazing how communist problems always end with: "you eventually run out of other people's money"
It's always someone else's money. Roads suck? You probably have too many roads for other people's money to fix. The list goes on. Libertarian dreams of self-sufficiently die when their money has to pay for things. Unless you meant feudalism or plutocracy, where wealth primarily flows away from the working class.

Humans are creatures of community. There will always be taxes for any sufficiently developed people, the only hope is they serve the public good and aren't funneled into the oligarchs' pockets.

Re: I speak at Harvard as it faces its biggest crisis since 1636

#97

Post by JumpCrisscross »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #61
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hopefully this ends with colleges having their tax exempt status revoked Harvard was founded to educate America's clergy. If there is a category of non-profits that could hop, skip and jump to religious exemption, it's the Ivy League.

Harvard today is a long way away from a religious college.

Sure. But so would, I’d argue, many Evangelical churches. The precedent makes it difficult to deny Harvard without creating precedent that could hit church schools.

Re: I speak at Harvard as it faces its biggest crisis since 1636

#98

Post by JumpCrisscross »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #83
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #17

"...once the government did take away funding and present its ultimatum—completely outside the process specified in Title VI law—Columbia’s administration quickly agreed to everything asked, to howls of outrage from the left-leaning faculty. Yet despite its total capitulation, the government has continued to hold Columbia’s medical research and other science funding hostage, while inventing a never-ending list of add…

[edit] Don't kill the messenger... I think the clearest and most cogent articulation I have seen was given by Marc Andreesen back in January, in a 4 hour podcast on Trump policy with Lex Friedman, starting at 58 min. His position was that University reform is not possible. Instead, the institutions themselves need to be destroyed so that new institutions can replace them with more agreeable values [1]. Relevant highl…

For what it’s worth, thank you for posting this. I disagree with it. But at least it’s a coherent argument.

(Well, it’s wrong in assuming these institutions would go bankrupt without federal funding. They wouldn’t. The Tier II schools would. But Harvard is absolutely fine running as a private corporation.)

Re: I speak at Harvard as it faces its biggest crisis since 1636

#99

Post by edanm »

guelo wrote: post #33

It is the bipartisan innovation in pro-Zionist legal tools, from the "war on terror" to last year's attacks on student protesters, that has eroded our constitutional safeguards to the point that a legitimate autocratic coup is being attempted.

Am I misunderstanding, or are you blaming Zionism for the erosion of all constitutional safeguards? Including specifically the "war on terror"?

That is dangerously close to blaming Jews for secretly controlling the world.

Re: I speak at Harvard as it faces its biggest crisis since 1636

#100

Post by jampekka »

EA-3167 wrote: post #66
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #17

"...once the government did take away funding and present its ultimatum—completely outside the process specified in Title VI law—Columbia’s administration quickly agreed to everything asked, to howls of outrage from the left-leaning faculty. Yet despite its total capitulation, the government has continued to hold Columbia’s medical research and other science funding hostage, while inventing a never-ending list of add…

The shame IMO is that this is going to further polarize people along the lines of "Yay, stick it to those rich schools" and "Omg, this is literally the second coming of Hitler." It would be lovely to have a broad conversation about why it makes no sense for the government to play HR manager for universities, and ALSO ask why billions in tax money is perennially given to ultra-wealthy, exclusive universities who are o…

The paper you linked is topically - and perhaps a bit ironically - co-authored with an Israel funded thinktank.

I'd think it's safe to say there's a lot more pro-zionist than anti-zionist funding in US academia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_the_Study_of_Glo...

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