The latest campus cancellation is different • Hacker News Board

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#471

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

WalterBright wrote: post #469

gruez wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'd politely ask the person holding me prisoner for his name "no" >and if he doesn't step aside I'll inform him that I'll be charging him with kidnapping You, as an individual can't charge people criminally. Civil suit is an option, but I suspect you won't get much in the way of financial compensation from a broke college student. >After all, what do you think will happen to you if you hold someone prisoner? Inflict…

> You, as an individual can't charge people criminally. I can press charges. Violently holding people prisoner is a felony. It's not a joke. > I suspect you won't get much in the way of financial compensation from a broke college student. It'll be enough to matter to him. Future wages can be garnished. > you'll lose your job I don't want a job where I'm required to be a milquetoast.

Individuals cannot press charges, only a prosecutor vested with the authority of the state may file charges. This is an extremely common misconception largely generated from popular media. Individuals can report a crime to the police, cooperate with prosecutors, and sue privately.

https://www.thsh.com/criminal-justice-insider/as-seen-on-tv-...

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#472

Post by angelzen » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 10:56 PM UTC

sour-taste wrote: post #172

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.

The twitter mob in this case could have a legitimate impact on MIT donations. Quoting a tweet included in the article: As an alum, I’m asking you to fix this—now. Totally unacceptable and sends a message to any student that isn’t a white man that they don’t matter and that EAPS isn’t serious about (and is actively hostile towards) DEI Presumably MIT cares what it's alums care about since they are a major source of do…

1 dude making wild claims on Twitter != MIT alums.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#473

Post by kelseyfrog » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 10:58 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #468

akomtu wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may call them kidnappers for blocking a door in a public space, they'll accuse you of assault and file a lawsuit too (and unlike you, they'll have many buddies witnesses). The judge will dismiss both suits and tell you to not waste the court's time.

They'll be on video because I'll have my phone out and recording.

Lack of evidence is not the issue. A more fruitful line of questioning is starting with "What function do courts server and for whom?"

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#474

Post by Nasrudith » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 11:04 PM UTC

There is a strange paradox I noticed with activists and incentives. Basically they manage to incentivise being "unethical" and punish being "good" unless they are perfect. By being just the stick the relationship becomes adversarial and discourages any actual fixes.

If you concede then that begets more demands as they feel empowered. More radical demands follow and it is never enough.

If they basically tell them to get bent they either get discouraged or wind up background radiation and ignored anyway as they expect that sort of thing. How many scandals have hit say Nestle and Johnson and Johnson? Yet you never see calls to nationalize or break them up.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#475

Post by musicale » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 11:07 PM UTC

> In effect, this would create a prohibition on controversial political speech for all academics—and eventually, perhaps, professionals in other highly visible domains.

Traditionally tenured faculty enjoy(ed?) some degree of freedom of thought and expression, in order to prevent the stifling of scholarship, to promote the development and free interchange of ideas, and to enable the discussion of controversial issues.

It makes sense to me for universities to extend that courtesy to faculty of other institutions as well as their own.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#476

Post by gruez » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 11:26 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #469

gruez wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'd politely ask the person holding me prisoner for his name "no" >and if he doesn't step aside I'll inform him that I'll be charging him with kidnapping You, as an individual can't charge people criminally. Civil suit is an option, but I suspect you won't get much in the way of financial compensation from a broke college student. >After all, what do you think will happen to you if you hold someone prisoner? Inflict…

> You, as an individual can't charge people criminally. I can press charges. Violently holding people prisoner is a felony. It's not a joke. > I suspect you won't get much in the way of financial compensation from a broke college student. It'll be enough to matter to him. Future wages can be garnished. > you'll lose your job I don't want a job where I'm required to be a milquetoast.

>It'll be enough to matter to him. Future wages can be garnished.

civil judgements can be discharged via bankruptcy.

>I don't want a job where I'm required to be a milquetoast.

Isn't that the problem? There will always be someone who is willing to be a milquetoast, hence why institutions are caving to the slightest pressure from twitter mobs.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#477

Post by worrycue » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 11:33 PM UTC

motohagiography wrote: post #180

ren_engineer wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the problem is that prestigious institutions are run by bureaucrats wearing its skin. For example this article says "MIT buckled", when in reality some campus admin buckled because to them it's not worth risking their comfy job over a speaker. The bureaucrats have no skin in the game, they don't benefit from thinking about long term damage to MIT or society in general. From their perspective it's logical to bow to Tw…

A pervasive lack of backbone among individuals in institutions is key to this. The shunning and shaming tactics used by online mobs are a very particular form of human aggression. Speculating on a correlating factor among the people in these institutions who seem so consistently vulnerable to it may be itself, problematic, but it's as though the organizations are missing anyone with the instinct to challenge or defle…

> The shunning and shaming tactics used by online mobs are a very particular form of human aggression.

I just realise how similar the Twitter mob and 4chan harassment mobs are. They are basically 2 sides of the same coin. Even using the similar tactics like digging up dirt and more or less organise the same way, as impromptu mobs that just organically form.

Basically modern lynch mobs who never have to face the consequences of their actions protect by semi-anonymity, their numbers, and often their distance from their victims.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#478

Post by jasonladuke0311 » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 11:55 PM UTC

tsss wrote: post #301

refurb wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Precisely. Just because you have a Twitter account doesn’t mean your ideas or opinions are well thought out, rationale or even coherent.

I would argue the opposite is the case. What political opinion expressible in less than 500 characters can be worth listening to?

To people with a facile, grade-school understanding of the world, 500 characters is plenty.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#479

Post by jefftk » Mon, Oct 11, 2021, 12:24 AM UTC

mactavish88 wrote: post #446

jefftk wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The decision was made by the chair of the department that was organizing the talk

Why does the chair of the department get more of a say in who gets to speak than those who were going to come listen?

Because it is there department that is organizing the talk?

I'm happy to argue about whether they should have decided to cancel the talk, how in general you should decide what speakers to have, and how you should respond to public pushback to your selections. But the general idea that a department gets to decide who they have come and speak seems like it should be uncontroversial?

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#480

Post by makeitdouble » Mon, Oct 11, 2021, 12:32 AM UTC

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #247

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…

I broadly think you're wrong on this. On the one hand, we have Abbot, who is an academic, being uninvited from a public lecture organized by the department that covers his field based on apparently little more than Twitter outrage. On the other hand, we have Yiannopoulos, who is an activist, whose event was canceled by the College Republicans due to public safety concerns after 150 protesters blocked access to the ve…

There is a lot of focus on the Twitter aspect, but from the article that outrage comes from an article he published in a magazine explaining his views on affirmative action.

It’s not some random comment that got blown out of proportion, nor some accidental miscommunication, and the subject is also not unrelated to universities.

Why is it out of proportion to have a mob wanting this guy out of the university system for controversial views on students hiring he himself widely published ?