The latest campus cancellation is different • Hacker News Board

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#271

Post by PicassoCTs » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 3:34 PM UTC

The problem with affirmative action is - its transitive.

If not the most capable applicant is choosen, instead by another criteria (e.g. race) then all who search the most capable outcome of research or education (for example a capable doctor) are forced to engage in what can only be described a racist filter to find the capable applicant.

Affirmative action ever treated the symptom. What i would recommend, is a proportional study place system. Every "group" gets places, proportional to its representation in the public population. If this group has not enough capable applicants, due to societal wrongs (bad schools in the inner citys), all other groups are shrunk down by the same percentage, to encourage investment into the source of the problem.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#272

Post by jordanpg » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 3:37 PM UTC

mgraczyk wrote: post #248

jordanpg wrote: post #239

So much hand-wringing as the nature of power mutates and changes hands. I generally agree that the outcomes of "cancel culture" are undesirable, but I am glad to see that in our little democratic experiment, a new form of power has found a voice and is causing those previously in power to quake in their boots. I am confident that a new equilibrium will eventually be reached that won't have such occasional appalling o…

There are lots of problems with this perspective. * The loudest voices are typically not minorities * Those with the loudest voices aren't experiencing suffering * The power they wield isn't being used to reduce suffering * The suffering actually being experienced can be reduced better without chilling free speech I think you're right that we're seeing an upset in power dynamics, but you're wrong about who is becomin…

While some of these observations are literally true to the first approximation, I'll just respond by pointing out that we wouldn't be talking about this were it not for the unthinkable suffering that really did take place (and arguably continues in some ways).

There are definitely some interesting sociological questions about how the power is manifesting, but I emphatically disagree with the proposition that the overreaction of "cancel culture" does not have as its root cause the systematic, historical oppression of minorities. To just make the (perhaps correct) observation that a significant fraction of the loudest voices are not suffering is to ignore how we got here.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#273

Post by prepend » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 3:37 PM UTC

mawise wrote: post #118

Seems like there were two things Abbot did "wrong", one was to argue against affirmative action, and the other was to use a nazi reference to make his point. Does anyone have first-hand knowledge of what the mob said on Twitter? I'm curious if they differentiated between the two. For anyone who hasn't seen it, Netflix's fiction THE CHAIR satires cancel culture in liberal institutions and their story includes someone…

It seemed like the nazi reference was appropriate though. In this case, the university system in Germany was ruined by a move away from merit toward an incorrect and abhorrent philosophy.

I think that doesn’t mean that affirmative action = nazism. It means that focusing on things other than merit has negative consequences and should be avoided.

A recent comedy, Death of Stalin, points this out on the micro level when there are no competent doctors to treat Stalin because all doctors who didn’t pledge political fealty were purged.

Having an academic system based on political or philosophical fealty will result in poorer academics.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#274

Post by ghaff » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 3:41 PM UTC

ta988 wrote: post #268

ghaff wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general, in the US, there doesn't need to be a "just cause." Someone has become a headache or embarrassment for us--for whatever unprotected reason--is sufficient.

It is much more complicated when someone is tenured, and there was a reason academics were protected by that (but it is thinning now).

Right. Hence, "in general." Getting rid of a tenured faculty member is much trickier than getting rid of some junior corporate employee.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#275

Post by newbamboo » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 3:42 PM UTC

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.

Embrace the deplorables and cancel those who join in the mob. Just like Jesus showed us so many years ago.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#276

Post by prepend » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 3:42 PM UTC

wayneftw wrote: post #211

Where is the mob though? The 2 tweets referenced by the article had a total of 138 likes between them. Searching twitter for Dorian Abbot, I couldn't find much else.

I find that to be the funniest part. MIT is so spineless they are capitulating to “mobs” of dozens or even hundreds of people.

I think this is old people not understanding Twitter and thinking that a single alumni email will lead to thousands of people calling for their jobs.

I’m waiting for “cancel as a service” operators who will seo cancellations for $50 to help winnow down job applicant fields.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#277

Post by ta988 » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 3:45 PM UTC

fighterpilot wrote: post #198

meheleventyone wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think it’s been confirmed that these people are left wing authoritarians. It also seems like a dangerous way to think about this as a problem rationally. You’re basically deciding the facts of the matter outside of any actual evidence or argument. Further writing people off sounds pretty authoritarian.

I regret making such a sweeping statement. I do think there are many decent people that get caught up in the cancel mob who are primarily motivated by genuine egalitarianism, and these people can surely be reasoned with. However, at the same time I do believe that some (perhaps a small minority) of the agitators are cynically motivated by narcissism and sadism, and there's quite a bit of research which points in this…

That's the problem people on all colors of the political spectrum, followers are influenced by minorities with too much rage and anger. Sometimes this rage and anger comes from an important societal issue, but that's not an excuse for shitty behavior you wouldn't like the another political opinonated mob to use.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#278

Post by crocodiletears » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 3:47 PM UTC

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #257

crocodiletears wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Group affiliation is a decent heuristic. It helps you to know what to look for when identifying whether there are concessions made to forward a larger agenda concealed within the text. I wouldn't dismiss the document out of hand by virtue of its author's social circles, but I also wouldn't say that suspicion is entirely unwarranted. Though the CFR is such a large organization, I would also be less immediately suspici…

> Group affiliation is a decent heuristic. It helps you to know what to look for when identifying whether there are concessions made to forward a larger agenda concealed within the text. That's exactly where the wheels come off. The implication is that individual ideas or policies should be valued based on whether they're part of a platform at the level of party politics or similar. So what if the idea is part of som…

>So what if the idea is part of someone else's larger agenda? What exactly are we threatened by?

If you disagree with the broader agenda or find that it is in conflict with your beliefs/interests you may be better served by pursuing alternative framings which don't depend on the priors of the the group with-which you find yourself in opposition.

Just because you agree with the author's conclusion doesn't mean that their line of reasoning is parallel with yours, or that the assumptions and value judgements that they used to reach that conclusion don't logically unfold in an undesirable direction.

Group affiliation can be a trigger and a compass to help you in that process.

This doesn't mean that you have to disagree with them. It just means that you should take some extra time to understand both how and why.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#279

Post by hanklazard » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 3:48 PM UTC

hallway_monitor wrote: post #126

version_five wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The more decoupled an organization's or its leaders' incentives are from the "market" - the more risk averse they become. Everything is about keeping your head down and avoiding controversy. The goal for many orgs now is not to make customers happy anymore, it's to avoid the ire of a small group, and keep rent seeking. As we move towards post-capitalism this will only get worse.

Nobody ever got fired for canceling a controversial speaker

This is basically the problem, as I see it.

On one hand, keep the speaker. The potential downside: social media outrage that may escalate and get covered on MSM if it gets big enough. You and your dept / uni get a lot of bad press or if things go really sideways, your job could be on the line.

The potential upside of this decision? People go to a talk and consider some issues, but it’s not like you (the committee / administrator / dean etc) get any real tangible incentive from this outcome. You basically just did your job, if you’re lucky, everyone just moves on.

On the other hand, cancel the speaker. The upside: MSM will congratulate you or ignore it, but regardless, you’ll be seen as making the “right” decision by most people you interact with. Some free speech types (a dying breed it seems) might get upset but they don’t seem to have much power over the general public’s perception or decisions about firing made by the university.

So the decision is obvious and it’s the one that gets made time and time again. And it’s the way the Twitter mobs continue to hold sway, especially because so much of the MSM lives on Twitter.

A similar rubric occurs in a large corporation by the C suite. Once the mob forms, there is everything to lose and almost nothing to lose by taking a stand on an issue seen as unwoke. If this is to change, incentives need to change, mainly creating disincentives for cowardly execs / deans and incentives for those who make principled and/or courageous stands.

(None of this is a carte blanche endorsement against activism, it’s just to say that there are reasons that no one stands up against Twitter mobs and we may want to explore ways to change this dynamic unless we desire a future ruled by mobs)

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#280

Post by tptacek » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 3:49 PM UTC

dfdz wrote: post #144

> 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…

Thanks, this is a good detail to add to Mounk's summary, which does not cast the Lecture in those terms.