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The latest campus cancellation is different

theatlantic.com

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Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#141

Post by q1w2 »

Causality1 wrote: post #121

Totally unacceptable and sends a message to any student that isn’t a white man that they don’t matter Fascinating. I would call this another indicator of qualitative change in the cancel phenomenon. "Classic" cancel culture was driven by highly informed activists, who in this case would've known race-agnostic acceptance benefits Asian people and is at best neutral toward white people if not harmful. Today's mobs are…

No, this is an intentional misdirection by them. The important motivation is to undermine the influence of the majority white population. In that regard, it is always important to make every other ethnic group a victim and never paint anyone but white people as benefactors of systemic racism.

Inconvenient data points, such as the one you describe, are intentionally omitted.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#144

Post by dfdz »

> John Carlson Lecture

As a disclaimer I am against any censorship of academia and think that even Charles Murray should be allowed to speak at a university (assuming he is invited by an academic department or student group) and that the university should never have veto power.

However, I think the example in the Atlantic is actually more mild than past cases: the John Carlson Lecture is a general audience talk that the university holds to boost its public image.

It’s not an academic talk discussing new research or a political perspective, but rather summarizes ideas for the public. If MIT wants to decide who should give such talks I don’t care.

In contrast, if a department or student group wants to invite a specific speaker for a specialized talk about politics, science, math, then the university censoring such discourse is what is truly dangerous.

In this light, the cancellation of Milo Yiannopoulos who was invited by the College Republican club is much worse. Even though personally I do not think Yiannopoulos is anything but a provocateur, if someone (group/department) wants to invite him the university should not block him from speaking.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#145

Post by api »

wepple wrote: post #15
ekianjo wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do we neuter the power of Twitter mobs? Stop listening to them? EDIT: That's especially effective since the Twitter mobs keep moving targets every couple of weeks anyway. They don't have any patience.

The power they have isn’t over us, it’s over institutions and businesses who seem to bend to the will of the mob. I’d like to see some data on whether a Twitter storm in a teacup has any measurable negative consequences for a typical large organization, and whether they need to listen as often as they do.

Institutions and especially businesses have always bent to the will of the mob when it is cheap or even profitable to do so.

The only time they don’t is when it costs something.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#146

Post by bryanrasmussen »

FridayoLeary wrote: post #101
brongondwana wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to think as you outlined here, and then I realised that I would only care if they made a Third Reich comparison that I disagreed with. If they said Milo is literally Hitler, I'd... well, I would have been very confused because Milo is a tasty chocolate drink. But I wouldn't have considered it an offense... so the offense wasn't actually the use of unspeakable comparisons, it was the sin of doing so while disag…

The only things that should be compared to Nazis and Hitler should be the Nazis and Hitler themselves. I don't think that's unreasonable. [Edit: some people think it is reasonable, but they don't want to explain themselves]

I guess I'll disagree with that, Nazis and Hitler are not some holy or taboo things that must never be compared to anything else, the problem is that comparison between things becomes difficult the more emotionally charged the things being compared are, so if you are going to compare Nazis and Hitler with something else you better be really clever at making comparisons and able to fight when folks come unglued.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#147

Post by NovemberWhiskey »

einpoklum wrote: post #95

Prima facie, this is a troubling story. But after reading it I noticed the author info at the bottom, and this made me somewhat suspicious. The Council for Foreign Relations, of which Mounk is a member, is a highly-problematic US foreign policy think tank: https://monthlyreview.org/product/wall-streets-think-tank/ Then another comment here on HN got me looking at Persuasion: Apparently, Mounk runs a group/community d…

It's really OK for you to agree with someone who doesn't share your entire set of political beliefs. There is no need to be suspicious. It's probably a bad thing for the world to be divided into "us and them", don't you think?

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#148

Post by api »

umvi wrote: post #3

How do we neuter the power of Twitter mobs? Seems like they can bully and intimidate any organization from universities to corporations to GitHub projects to kowtow to their demands. Their demands are usually to fire, boycott, or boot people with opinions that run afoul of the mob. Not a healthy precedent to set. We will regret this later if we continue down this path.

People need to learn that the nuts (of any belief system) are always the loudest, and therefore give a distorted impression of actual consensus.

Who are the loudest people on the left? Mobs and trolls who imagine grievances everywhere, which is sort of the leftist equivalent of conspiracy theory.

Who are the loudest on the right? Qanon, Nazis, and theocrats / dominionists who think we should return to Old Testament law.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#149

Post by echopurity »

umvi wrote: post #3

How do we neuter the power of Twitter mobs? Seems like they can bully and intimidate any organization from universities to corporations to GitHub projects to kowtow to their demands. Their demands are usually to fire, boycott, or boot people with opinions that run afoul of the mob. Not a healthy precedent to set. We will regret this later if we continue down this path.

Top comment is about "neutering"? LMAO. The white boy insecurity is overwhelming in here.

I should make another account, fuck up the echo chamber, and get banned again.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#150

Post by paulpauper »

It's out of control. Free speech will soon only be allowed for maybe elon musk and a few other billionaire who are literally big and rich enough to own the platform and be financially insulated from the potential backlash. Everyone else will be subjected to arbitrary rules and have their past dredged up against them.
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