Live data from Hacker News

Scientists ejected from diabetes conference for distributing journal reprints

arstechnica.com

81–90 of 245 posts

Re: Scientists ejected from diabetes conference for distributing journal reprints

#81
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm no doctor, but I suspect the conference organisers wanted the conference to focus on diabetes. Rather than exploring whether the USA is a "free" country where anyone can say anything about the government, without consequences.

> suspect the conference organisers wanted the conference to focus on diabetes The article they were distributing is pretty clearly about diabetes. If the actions it describes continues, significant efforts towards treating and even curing diabetes will be lost.

> Just a year ago, in these very pages, we highlighted the many threats the current U.S. administration posed to the health of our nation (1). Since then, there have been actions by the administration that have caused grave health consequences, and their current approach will continue to do so.

It sounds to me like criticism of the government.

Re: Scientists ejected from diabetes conference for distributing journal reprints

#82

A reminder to anyone who finds themselves in this kind of situation, do not engage with the rhetoric of the enemy. You cannot win an argument where they set the rules. So here, where they question whether or not they were "protesting" distracts from the reality of a censorious organization that will weaponize regulations it controls without good faith. Instead you need a simple, memorable statement of condemnation wh…

> do not engage with the rhetoric of the enemy. You cannot win an argument where they set the rules

Strongly disagree. If they went straight up partisan at the conference, I’d be sympathetic to the notion of throwing them out. Not every space needs to be a protest venue.

They didn’t do that. They distributed an article published in the organization’s own journal. They argue why what they did cannot reasonably be considered “protest” under the organisation’s rules, given it’s literally what the conference is for. Challenging the notion that their ejection was the ADA following its own rules is the difference between them breaking the rules and the ADA breaking its own rules to censor their speech. (To cut off an aside, no the ADA isn’t bound by the First Amendment. Yes, the government is, and if they’re corruptly influencing to yank these researchers from the conference, that’s a legal issue. But more broadly, the concept of free speech is broader than the First Amendment.)

Re: Scientists ejected from diabetes conference for distributing journal reprints

#83
post #73

This is unacceptable, and it’s fascist behaviour. These kind of behaviour should trigger the dismantling of the whole ADA organisation, then to be rebuilt on proper grounds. As usual i’m not surprised these fascist behaviours (“you’d better align with us and publicly pledge allegiance to us or else”) comes from the left. They’re the real fascist.

[deleted]

Re: Scientists ejected from diabetes conference for distributing journal reprints

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> suspect the conference organisers wanted the conference to focus on diabetes The article they were distributing is pretty clearly about diabetes. If the actions it describes continues, significant efforts towards treating and even curing diabetes will be lost.

> Just a year ago, in these very pages, we highlighted the many threats the current U.S. administration posed to the health of our nation (1). Since then, there have been actions by the administration that have caused grave health consequences, and their current approach will continue to do so. It sounds to me like criticism of the government.

> sounds to me like criticism of the government

The article is not a long read [1]. It describes how current policy is dismantling and destroying the research infrastructure for diabetes, infrastructure which has started or has already borne significant fruit. It encapsulates a criticism of the administration, and it’s definitely scathing, but it’s far from a partisan rant.

For example: “This CD3-directed monoclonal antibody has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to prevent type 1 diabetes in people aged 8 years and older with stage 2 type 1 diabetes. As a result, we are a major step closer to a cure for type 1 diabetes. With the potential to prevent the disease, screening programs for type 1 diabetes are being initiated worldwide.

Two examples are the Human Islet Research Network (HIRN) and the Integrated Islet Distribution Program (IIDP). HIRN aims to advance our understanding of how β-cells are lost in human type 1 diabetes and to find inventive strategies to protect or replace β-cells in people with the disease.”

The funding for that research is being cut. If you have a loved one with or at risk of getting diabetes, this could be the difference between vastly different levels of quality of life and years of life versus death.

[1] https://diabetesjournals.org/care/article/49/6/901/164764/Mi...

Re: Scientists ejected from diabetes conference for distributing journal reprints

#85
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Americans today are afraid of talking clearly about general strikes, protesting, rape, sexual violence, censorship Americans are talking about protesting, rape, sexual violence, censorship all the time ... and I mean literally all sides - liberals, conservatives, leftists, feminists, MAGA ...

Using what words specifically? Besides HN, even people commenting on reddit tends to self-censor words like "r@pe" just because they've realized they get penalized if they talk about things too clearly, on other platforms. Same with general strikes, censorship and more, even on platforms where you don't get downranked automatically just because you used specific terms, people have now started self-censor in those way…

>people commenting on reddit tends to self-censor words like "r@pe"

That's just because reddit is almost entirely children and bots/shills. Yes, a platform full of children is going to be childish.

Re: Scientists ejected from diabetes conference for distributing journal reprints

#86
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using what words specifically? Besides HN, even people commenting on reddit tends to self-censor words like "r@pe" just because they've realized they get penalized if they talk about things too clearly, on other platforms. Same with general strikes, censorship and more, even on platforms where you don't get downranked automatically just because you used specific terms, people have now started self-censor in those way…

>people commenting on reddit tends to self-censor words like "r@pe" That's just because reddit is almost entirely children and bots/shills. Yes, a platform full of children is going to be childish.

I'm not talking specifically about reddit...

Re: Scientists ejected from diabetes conference for distributing journal reprints

#87
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Nah. Science was not in such crises. It is literally people who want to deny uncomfortable realities that are attacking and destroying it now. The ideological anti reality issue is in the side of Trump voters. Also, funny enough, people who were correctly predicting what conservatives will do were called out of touch by people like you. Quite a few of them were actually social scientists and yes they have seen it.

Then why now did they get the momentum? Why not the last 75 years? What has changed.. where is the falsifyability and prediction power in that story? There has to be better social science out there beyond "The inevitable victorymarch to a startrek future progressed nicely when suddenly facism returned".. that just sounds like someone who lost the plot completely and is in open denial about a species maybe to disabled to wield any future advances safely, without a period of realistic reflection first.

Re: Scientists ejected from diabetes conference for distributing journal reprints

#88

".Some questioned how handing out reprints of an editorial published in the ADA’s own journal, at the ADA’s own annual conference, could be construed as a violation of that code.." The God Emperor is not to be questioned.

Burn the Heretic. Kill the Mutant. Purge the Liberals?

Re: Scientists ejected from diabetes conference for distributing journal reprints

#89
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Americans today are afraid of talking clearly about general strikes, protesting, rape, sexual violence, censorship Americans are talking about protesting, rape, sexual violence, censorship all the time ... and I mean literally all sides - liberals, conservatives, leftists, feminists, MAGA ...

Using what words specifically? Besides HN, even people commenting on reddit tends to self-censor words like "r@pe" just because they've realized they get penalized if they talk about things too clearly, on other platforms. Same with general strikes, censorship and more, even on platforms where you don't get downranked automatically just because you used specific terms, people have now started self-censor in those way…

> "r@pe"

Whenever you see something like this, it's because the platform has some kind of automoderation policy that is liable to delete/shadowban content containing the word. Typing that, then, is not self-censorship; it's the exact opposite, the defiance of external censorshop.

Re: Scientists ejected from diabetes conference for distributing journal reprints

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By actually striking, or by waving a sign outside? Don't get me wrong, anything is better than nothing, and many small streams may form into one big river, eventually. But short of a general strike across impactful industries, I think the current wave of protests won't actually achieve anything. There is a reason "general strikes" are so feared by the political and wealthy class, and it's because there is no way for…

When was the last general strike? And what would it ask for if it happened? I understand you’re a fan of the method and it can be impactful but that’s not a reason to state that protesting does not accomplish anything.

It's not that I'm a fan of the method, it is that it id historically the only non-violent way for a population at large to enact change, once the government stops listening to the people.

Protesting is very effective when you have a government that listens, which clearly isn't the case here, then besides a bunch of violent options, you're basically left with general strikes.

Post reply on HN