Of course this is flagged.
The mob has arrived.
MIT Abandons Its Mission. and Me
31–40 of 71 posts
Re: MIT Abandons Its Mission. and Me
#32This is a sad state of affairs where one can't even have a meta discussion about a topic without having to tip toe around ill-defined lines. In the long run, this has the potential to turn people how want to stay out of politics and draw them in out of necessity, or they may also be cowed into something they disagree with to protect their livelihood. In either case, it's not a good thing that one may not seek science…
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> it’s dishonest and disrespectful the Jewish people
Is it? Bari Weiss, who I think is Jewish, seems not to think so. I happen to be Jewish, and I don't think so. An inopportune comparison, yes, but not malicious. A lot of otherwise highly educated people in STEM lack a broad knowledge of politics and history. The Nazi comparison is quite often literally the only one they have available! Certainly Abbot and his co-author would have been better served by an example that didn't directly precede a genocide – in my opinion, the most apt is what went on in the Soviet Union.
Re: MIT Abandons Its Mission. and Me
#33What people haven’t grasped yet is you can’t fight the mob. There’s no recourse, no appeal, no tribunal, no council of wise learned people you can go to when the mob sets out to destroy you. You’re just simply fucked and have to accept you’ve been cancelled, your reputation is ruined and you’re “out”. That’s all there is to it and no-one has come up with a solution.
I think the first step is recognizing that there is a mob and mob behavior. Then, act to disband the mob by not engaging in mob behavior, and convincing others not to engage in mob behavior.
It is probably impossible to disband the mob, but it does not have to be given power. It is up to the leaders of universities and corporations to have the moral courage to stand up to the mob and ignore its outrageous demands.
Re: MIT Abandons Its Mission. and Me
#34This has been (rightfully, IMO) flagged, so I'm screaming into the void a bit here, but:
- Claiming that you can build a system that is entirely based on merit is equivalent to claiming that you are able to determine merit in a way that is completely objective and free of implicit or systematic bias. This is a BIG claim.
- There is no such revolutionary method of determining merit being proposed - in this case, "merit" seems to be shorthand for "going back to the way things were before all this DEI stuff came along."
Re: MIT Abandons Its Mission. and Me
#35> You may agree with some of my positions and disagree with others, but in a free society they cannot be considered beyond the pale. I think this is a bad take. In a free society people can consider whatever they want in order to judge a person. I do see the irony in watching those who traditionally used the mob to force conformity of minorities now experiencing it themselves. Saying things like "the threat woke ideo…
Do you see the irony in thinking this is any kind of improvement?
It was wrong then and is still wrong. Which is precisely why unpopular voices need to be heard.
Re: MIT Abandons Its Mission. and Me
#36I'm starting to think that all of this is a weaponization of culture by elites to undermine political movements and stifle opposition to certain business interests.
no, its just an outcome of the age of information (i.e. post internet) where people who want to be activists around a particular subject have it very easy to create both international and inter-generational communities where everything they need is at their fingertips.
Re: MIT Abandons Its Mission. and Me
#37Based on what little I’ve read about his situation, and general academic conventions, I don’t think MIT should’ve cut the author’s speaking invitation. But him getting dragged on Twitter? Yeah, that’s going to happen when you write an op-Ed in Newsweek that oafishly compares DEI efforts to the Nazi purge of Jewish students and scholars: https://www.newsweek.com/diversity-problem-campus-opinion-16... > Ninety years ag…
do you really think this guy invoking Godwin's law is heinous enough to cancel this guys speech about extra solar planets?
At best, its a petty retort isn't it?
Re: MIT Abandons Its Mission. and Me
#38What people haven’t grasped yet is you can’t fight the mob. There’s no recourse, no appeal, no tribunal, no council of wise learned people you can go to when the mob sets out to destroy you. You’re just simply fucked and have to accept you’ve been cancelled, your reputation is ruined and you’re “out”. That’s all there is to it and no-one has come up with a solution.
There's no recourse against the mob because the mob doesn't have real power. A mob can't cancel your speaking engagement at MIT. Only MIT can do that.
Also, it's hard to assert that you're ruined. I get that this is an emotional response, just like an angry mob's, but rest assured that time has shown that's it's not really the case. Getting fired from one speaking engagement does not ruin a person. It's more like temporary embarrassment, which happens to everyone. Kevin Spacey, Jeffrey Toobin, Bill O'Rielly, etc. have all been "cancelled", but are back working today.
One solution, at least in America, would be a better social safety net, so that most of your benefits aren't tied to having a job. Losing your job shouldn't be so scary, no matter what the reason (although that wouldn't matter in this specific case, since this person didn't lose their job).
Re: MIT Abandons Its Mission. and Me
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
> He directly equates DEI efforts to Nazi Germany He doesn't, he compared it to the state of German universities shortly before the Nazis came to power and there are certain parallels. I think it is worth listening to him.
He didn't get to give a talk. Can you summarize in your own words what happened to the German academics he drew a direct comparison to?
People were issued gag orders, which were diametrically contrary to the constitution of Weimar which ultimately undermined it.
Re: MIT Abandons Its Mission. and Me
#40This is a sad state of affairs where one can't even have a meta discussion about a topic without having to tip toe around ill-defined lines. In the long run, this has the potential to turn people how want to stay out of politics and draw them in out of necessity, or they may also be cowed into something they disagree with to protect their livelihood. In either case, it's not a good thing that one may not seek science…
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since when is invoking Godwin's law so bad as to prevent a talk about extra solar planets?
Godwin's law remains a jest about ridiculous roads online discussions can go down, its not a means of identifying those that should be silenced on other subjects.