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Thousands register for geophysicist’s lecture after MIT caved to ‘Twitter mob’

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Re: Thousands register for geophysicist’s lecture after MIT caved to ‘Twitter mob’

#21

Post by thinkingemote »

Fezzik wrote: post #11
armagon wrote: post #4

It is amazing to me that a handful of people on twitter can get people cancelled, while thousands of people can march in the streets (such as in many parts of Europe, or in New York City) and be completely ignored.

People marching down a street make for boring news until the crowd is truly massive and/or violent… baseless and/or partisan quips that can be cut and pasted are easier to broadcast and amplify, for whatever reason. And apparently there’s is a never ending supply of the latter.

I agree but would extend it by saying boring news is not news. It's doesn't get covered because it's boring. There isn't a boring news section on papers, or blogs. Except for the mining and civil engineering broadsheets!

News is new. Interesting.

Re: Thousands register for geophysicist’s lecture after MIT caved to ‘Twitter mob’

#22

Post by dragonwriter »

LocalH wrote: post #19
codeecan wrote: post #7

> MIT told him it was canceling the lecture to “avoid controversy” after students and recent alumni demanded he be uninvited because he’d recently argued academic evaluations should be based on merit. Damn, I assumed he said something racist maybe, but this is what the issue was about, I just lost all respect for MIT.

There is this weird notion floating around the "identity politics" crowd that says that relying on merit is racist and prejudicial.

> There is this weird notion floating around the "identity politics" crowd that says that relying on merit is racist and prejudicial.

No, that's not the idea.

The idea is that things some people characterize as “focussing on merit” actually focus on the outputs of processes influenced substantially by (direct and structural) racism and other non-merit biases as well as merit.

Re: Thousands register for geophysicist’s lecture after MIT caved to ‘Twitter mob’

#23

Post by EricE »

>“We felt that with the current distractions we would not be in a position to hold an effective outreach event,” Professor Robert van der Hilst, head of the MIT department, said in a statement.

Wow - there was a time when one went to college for debate and dissent. It's the best way to hone one's intellectual sword.

No wonder universities churn out so many people unprepared to cope in the real world :p

Re: Thousands register for geophysicist’s lecture after MIT caved to ‘Twitter mob’

#24

Post by EricE »

nickthemagicman wrote: post #16

Twitter represents the views of a tiny portion of people and the platform by nature optimizes for outrage in that nuance is hard to capture in the small word count. This Twitter mob has also affected stand up comedy. In Dave Chapelles new special he talks about it a fair amount.

I also find it delicious that despite the Twitter mob's continued outrage his special is kicking ass.

If more people would just ignore the Twitterati we'd all be a lot better off.

Re: Thousands register for geophysicist’s lecture after MIT caved to ‘Twitter mob’

#25

Post by EricE »

OldHand2018 wrote: post #8

99.9% of the people registering aren't actually going to attend and don't care at all about the content of the lecture. Princeton has exceeded their "Zoom quota" once and had to increase it to accommodate additional registrations. Is there some limit that they absolutely cannot exceed? Will they have to close registration at some point? If so, then many people that were interested in the content of the lecture will b…

I haven't yet seen an upper limit with a Zoom seminar (you just have to coordinate with them in advance for large events) but there may indeed be one.

It would be interesting to see the actual numbers that end up attending it live.

And you can always record the zoom and put it up on something like YouTube, Rumble, Bitchute, etc. afterwards. Pretty hard to cancel ALL of those services.

Re: Thousands register for geophysicist’s lecture after MIT caved to ‘Twitter mob’

#26

Post by cowvin »

codeecan wrote: post #7

> MIT told him it was canceling the lecture to “avoid controversy” after students and recent alumni demanded he be uninvited because he’d recently argued academic evaluations should be based on merit. Damn, I assumed he said something racist maybe, but this is what the issue was about, I just lost all respect for MIT.

This is race related in the same way that saying "All Lives Matter" is racist. It's not about the words that are stated, it's about the context as well.

When people are protesting about racial injustice toward some minorities, saying "All Lives Matter" is dismissing their concerns. It's like when someone goes to the police department saying "You need to protect me from a murderer" and an officer goes "Yeah, we need to protect everyone from murderers." Yes, that's true, but that's not a very helpful response to someone asking for help.

Likewise, the whole academic evaluation based on merit dismisses the idea that our current "objective" means of academic evaluation may not be as objective as they should be when considering race. Yes, we should evaluate students based on "merit" but we need to reconsider whether our current methods measure "merit" accurately.

Re: Thousands register for geophysicist’s lecture after MIT caved to ‘Twitter mob’

#27

Post by l4yao »

cowvin wrote: post #26
codeecan wrote: post #7

> MIT told him it was canceling the lecture to “avoid controversy” after students and recent alumni demanded he be uninvited because he’d recently argued academic evaluations should be based on merit. Damn, I assumed he said something racist maybe, but this is what the issue was about, I just lost all respect for MIT.

This is race related in the same way that saying "All Lives Matter" is racist. It's not about the words that are stated, it's about the context as well. When people are protesting about racial injustice toward some minorities, saying "All Lives Matter" is dismissing their concerns. It's like when someone goes to the police department saying "You need to protect me from a murderer" and an officer goes "Yeah, we need t…

So I'm trying to navigate the personal cognitive dissonance I'm facing after reading your comment.

Would you agree that "All Lives Matter" is racist because it's derisive of "Black Lives Matter" the proper noun? The sentiment that all lives are important is not racist, and it's also not mutually exclusive from BLM's message. If anything, they align right?

BLM is saying Black lives matter just as much as any other life. Black people should not be treated as second class citizens. They're not claiming Black lives matter _more_ than others.. that _would_ be racist.

A true merit based evaluation would be.. just that - based on merit and not racial background, sexuality, age, political affiliation, the clothes you wear, the food you eat, or even the schooling you've received. To give any group preferential treatment would be not based on merit.

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