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

Scientists ejected from diabetes conference for distributing journal reprints

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 245 posts

Re: Scientists ejected from diabetes conference for distributing journal reprints

#131

Post by roenxi »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #122
roenxi wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. So just to jump back to the "The article they were distributing is pretty clearly about diabetes" thing mere comments ago - this seems to be about budgets and administrative matters. Those are generi…

> It can reasonably be said to be out of scope for a diabetes conference if the organisers don't want to include it I’d agree with you if this happened at the journal level. It didn’t. The journal published it. Like, an astronomical conference paper describing why a new telescope design is a waste of money isn’t basic research, but it’s absolutely topical. (It could also reasonably be branded as political.) The artic…

I mean, so the concern here is what - HN disagrees with a decision made by an ADA organiser at a conference related to whether budgets and administration is appropriate in conference scope?

They got to have their say. Editorial published, made international news. I imagine all the conference attendees read it if they cared. Seems like a non-issue. Can we find a real problem for me to read up on instead? I'm having fun I suppose but I'm not seeing why we need to be all up in their business.

I bet less than 10% of the HN people who read the article even get to the "Misguided Brushes of a Pen..." editorial to find out what their complaint is.

Re: Scientists ejected from diabetes conference for distributing journal reprints

#132

Post by danaris »

embedding-shape wrote: post #60
quietsegfault wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of us are protesting every day.

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…

One of the major union leaders in the US—I forget exactly who; it might've been the head of the Teamsters, but this was a while back, so I don't have the details—has, in fact, called for a general strike, as soon as it can be effectively organized.

That's 2028.

General strikes are not something you can just Make Happen. They're certainly not something you can reasonably scoff at an individual (one who's not the head of a major union) for not having Made Happen. They require significant amounts of coordination between unions if you want them to have a prayer of success, and that takes a lot of time.

Don't denigrate protests of the sign-waving type. They are a very important rallying activity for the resistance. Among other things, they help ensure that people who want to fight back know they're not alone, and ensure people who want the fascists to win know their feelings are not universal.

Re: Scientists ejected from diabetes conference for distributing journal reprints

#133

Post by iandanforth »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #124
iandanforth wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point being that we're beyond where that's a responsible choice. Empathy for an organization enforcing its rules above the actions of those protesting them means either an ideological alignment with the censorship or an ignorance/disbelief of the severity of the harm the organization is causing. The former audience will never be persuaded. The latter require education and persuasion, and while its useful to creat…

> means either an ideological alignment with the censorship Yes. I’m saying I would be ideologically aligned with censoring disruptive protest at a conference. The fact that they didn’t do that is why this is getting attention and sympathy. > The former audience will never be persuaded Literally me. I’m being persuaded. > while its useful to create a sense of martyrdom Usually only within the group. Exhibit A is all…

Ah, ok. There's a whole body of literature here that I think divides our opinions. I would recommend "Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict (Columbia Studies in Terrorism and Irregular Warfare)" to start. The history of effective change in the face of organizations acting in bad faith may not be what you think it is.

Re: Scientists ejected from diabetes conference for distributing journal reprints

#135

Post by astura »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #6
jfengel wrote: post #2

Headline is weird. It's not a copyright thing, as I had assumed. It was because it was an editorial criticizing how the administration is running the NIH.

An editorial published in the (reputable) journal Diabetes Care , which they handed out at a diabetes conference. I imagine if it wasn’t critical of the administration they would not have been told to stop, but this is Louisiana so

Diabetes Care isn't just a reputable journal, it is the flagship publication of the American Diabetes Association, the organizers of the conference!

Re: Scientists ejected from diabetes conference for distributing journal reprints

#136

Post by tremon »

roenxi wrote: post #110
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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. So just to jump back to the "The article they were distributing is pretty clearly about diabetes" thing mere comments ago - this seems to be about budgets and administrative matters. Those are generi…

It can reasonably be said to be out of scope for a diabetes conference if the organisers don't want to include it

So the organisers of a conference can control the topics that its attendees want to talk about in the hallways of the venue? They don't have to extend any agency to the attendees, they're just dumb consumers here?

Re: Scientists ejected from diabetes conference for distributing journal reprints

#137

Post by ordu »

shevy-java wrote: post #40
mcswell wrote: post #37

I'm hoping the Streisand Effect will take hold, and this editorial becomes the most read article ever of that journal. I've posted this news on my FB (yes...) page. And I downloaded a PDF, in case the journal takes the editorial down.

Well, there is one problem here: not everyone is interested in diabetes/nutrition. So the Streisand effect may kick in with regards to the ousted individuals, but I am not sure it will generate more interest in the topic/paper at hand. For instance, I am not particularly interested in diabetes per se; I'd be more interested in molecular medicine and what not. Either way the current administration is very hostile to s…

> It is kind of a sign of a dictatorship model.

I believe that the time for counting signs of dictatorship had gone already. The signs were counted all before Trump was elected. For example: https://acoup.blog/2024/10/25/new-acquisitions-1933-and-the-...

Now it is funny to look for signs enabling us to decide whether Trump presidency is a personal enrichment or a vanity project. It seems that it is both, but I can't decide what is more important to him.

Re: Scientists ejected from diabetes conference for distributing journal reprints

#138

Post by JumpCrisscross »

roenxi wrote: post #131
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It can reasonably be said to be out of scope for a diabetes conference if the organisers don't want to include it I’d agree with you if this happened at the journal level. It didn’t. The journal published it. Like, an astronomical conference paper describing why a new telescope design is a waste of money isn’t basic research, but it’s absolutely topical. (It could also reasonably be branded as political.) The artic…

I mean, so the concern here is what - HN disagrees with a decision made by an ADA organiser at a conference related to whether budgets and administration is appropriate in conference scope? They got to have their say. Editorial published, made international news. I imagine all the conference attendees read it if they cared. Seems like a non-issue. Can we find a real problem for me to read up on instead? I'm having fu…

> the concern here is what

ADA is violating its own code of conduct to suppress an article that calls out potentially-illegal misappropriation of diabetes-research funding by OMB and HHS, funding which falls in a results-oriented tradition and/or cuts off strong candidates for future therapies.

> Seems like a non-issue

Half of the front page usually is. You’re engaging with this content, so there is clearly something going on.

Personally, I flagged excerpts of the article to one of my Senator’s staffers. They weren’t aware of it, and will be surfacing the article to their boss, a doctor, tomorrow. If HHS is fucking around with Congressional appropriations on a healthcare issue germane to our state, they probably shouldn’t have gone out of their way to draw attention to it during an appropriation cycle.

Re: Scientists ejected from diabetes conference for distributing journal reprints

#139

Post by danaris »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #82
iandanforth wrote: post #64

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 cons…

Everything is a partisan space now.

Because the fascists made it so.

Anywhere you try to declare an apolitical space is just a place where silence is serving the oppressor.

Re: Scientists ejected from diabetes conference for distributing journal reprints

#140

Post by JumpCrisscross »

iandanforth wrote: post #133
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> means either an ideological alignment with the censorship Yes. I’m saying I would be ideologically aligned with censoring disruptive protest at a conference. The fact that they didn’t do that is why this is getting attention and sympathy. > The former audience will never be persuaded Literally me. I’m being persuaded. > while its useful to create a sense of martyrdom Usually only within the group. Exhibit A is all…

Ah, ok. There's a whole body of literature here that I think divides our opinions. I would recommend "Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict (Columbia Studies in Terrorism and Irregular Warfare)" to start. The history of effective change in the face of organizations acting in bad faith may not be what you think it is.

Hasn’t the author of that study called out falling success rates for those tactics in recent years? (The N% rule researcher.)
Post reply on HN