I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my perceived political views • Hacker News Board

Re: I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my perceived political views

#11

Post by function_seven » Wed, Dec 16, 2015, 10:10 PM UTC

FussyZeus wrote: post #5

As someone who grew up in a strongly red area and with beliefs in that vein, I know EXACTLY the kind of exclusion that the author is talking about to a painful degree. For anyone who wants to experience it, walk into any Reddit discussion and tell everyone you're a devout Christian and watch the pseudo intellectuals exercise their "openness." And yes it's true I'm far from the most religious person there is, and I st…

"fancy coastal intelligence"

I'm going to use this phrase. Thanks.

Re: I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my perceived political views

#12

Post by isolate » Wed, Dec 16, 2015, 10:11 PM UTC

Zikes wrote: post #4

If everyone in a research group thinks the same way and agrees on everything, why do you need a whole group?

If everyone in government is a Democrat, why do you need elections?

Re: I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my perceived political views

#13

Post by rayiner » Wed, Dec 16, 2015, 10:11 PM UTC

fweespeech wrote: post #9

FussyZeus wrote: post #5

As someone who grew up in a strongly red area and with beliefs in that vein, I know EXACTLY the kind of exclusion that the author is talking about to a painful degree. For anyone who wants to experience it, walk into any Reddit discussion and tell everyone you're a devout Christian and watch the pseudo intellectuals exercise their "openness." And yes it's true I'm far from the most religious person there is, and I st…

No offense but if you are judging any large group by what a bunch of people say on an anonymous internet forum the problem is likely the fact you are taking the trolls to seriously.

I grew up in the D.C. suburbs, probably the single place in the country that most highly values traditional academic intellectualism. His characterization is entirely consistent with my observations growing up. In my high school, peoples' disdain for the rest of the country was open.

Even the snobs in NYC or SF are more tolerable (NYC having a pragmatic undercurrent, and SF at least having a "builder" mentality).

Re: I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my perceived political views

#14

Post by FussyZeus » Wed, Dec 16, 2015, 10:12 PM UTC

fweespeech wrote: post #9

FussyZeus wrote: post #5

As someone who grew up in a strongly red area and with beliefs in that vein, I know EXACTLY the kind of exclusion that the author is talking about to a painful degree. For anyone who wants to experience it, walk into any Reddit discussion and tell everyone you're a devout Christian and watch the pseudo intellectuals exercise their "openness." And yes it's true I'm far from the most religious person there is, and I st…

No offense but if you are judging any large group by what a bunch of people say on an anonymous internet forum the problem is likely the fact you are taking the trolls to seriously.

I'm basing it on working with many communities over the years (I actually avoid Reddit entirely for a number of reasons I won't go into here) as well as deal with people from all over the country in person, believe me it's a mainstream phenomenon isolated to no given website.

Re: I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my perceived political views

#15

Post by FussyZeus » Wed, Dec 16, 2015, 10:13 PM UTC

FussyZeus wrote: post #5

As someone who grew up in a strongly red area and with beliefs in that vein, I know EXACTLY the kind of exclusion that the author is talking about to a painful degree. For anyone who wants to experience it, walk into any Reddit discussion and tell everyone you're a devout Christian and watch the pseudo intellectuals exercise their "openness." And yes it's true I'm far from the most religious person there is, and I st…

Additionally, for the record, I was a strong minded conservative for the vast majority of my life who slowly converted to economic libertarian and social liberal, and absolutely NONE of what I would say are my gains in those areas in terms of intelligence were brought to bear by haughty pseudo intellectual assholes.

Re: I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my perceived political views

#16

Post by briandear » Wed, Dec 16, 2015, 10:14 PM UTC

merpnderp wrote: post #2

I once sat in on an academic research meeting where the PI of the group stated "If there are any Republicans in the room, leave, you are fired." They felt comfortable enough saying this even though there were obviously people there from outside the group and nothing like that could be kept secret.

So much for tolerance. How about transgendered Republicans? Would they have been welcomed?

Re: I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my perceived political views

#17

Post by waterlesscloud » Wed, Dec 16, 2015, 10:15 PM UTC

ecopoesis wrote: post #3

What school denied him? Because if was a public institution, bad on them. But if it was a private university, then that's their right. Feel free to disagree with them, but a private university is allowed to have political views and admit folks to their programs based political views [1]. [1] http://education-law.lawyers.com/school-law/can-private-scho...

Reading your link, it's not so much a matter of public vs private schools as it is whether or not they receive public funding. And the vast majority of private universities do.

Re: I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my perceived political views

#18

Post by OJFord » Wed, Dec 16, 2015, 10:16 PM UTC

Does 'rationalisation' have some strange meaning in this context that I'm unfamiliar with?

As far as I'm concerned any view justifying the matter is a rationalisation, left or right wing politically; agree or disagree it's certainly nothing to be upset about being called a rationalisation.

Re: I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my perceived political views

#19

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Dec 16, 2015, 10:17 PM UTC

FussyZeus wrote: post #5

As someone who grew up in a strongly red area and with beliefs in that vein, I know EXACTLY the kind of exclusion that the author is talking about to a painful degree. For anyone who wants to experience it, walk into any Reddit discussion and tell everyone you're a devout Christian and watch the pseudo intellectuals exercise their "openness." And yes it's true I'm far from the most religious person there is, and I st…

[deleted]

Re: I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my perceived political views

#20

Post by fweespeech » Wed, Dec 16, 2015, 10:18 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #13

fweespeech wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No offense but if you are judging any large group by what a bunch of people say on an anonymous internet forum the problem is likely the fact you are taking the trolls to seriously.

I grew up in the D.C. suburbs, probably the single place in the country that most highly values traditional academic intellectualism. His characterization is entirely consistent with my observations growing up. In my high school, peoples' disdain for the rest of the country was open. Even the snobs in NYC or SF are more tolerable (NYC having a pragmatic undercurrent, and SF at least having a "builder" mentality).

Yes but both you and the person I'm responding to casually ignore the fact you are basically engaging in broad generalizations while complaining about the fact other groups make broad generalizations and his primary justification was the fact it happens on Reddit.

The sheer irony involved in that original comment and his choice of example should have been immediately obvious. The fact it wasn't makes me think, frankly, its OP who is the issue.

The fact I have to put up with bullshit from people who live in the [insert location here] on a regular basis and make condescending comments doesn't mean I assume the entire [insert location here] behaves that way in general. Rather, I recognize that its the specific individuals I deal with in that instance that are the problem and not the general population.

The fact both of you immediately jumped in to defend the generalization and expand on it, frankly, makes it even more ironic to the point of hypocrisy.