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A university president makes a case against cowardice

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Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#891

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good grief man, deplatforming, chilling speech and all that is how we got into this mess to begin with. Have you learned nothing from the past 10 years? edit: Holy mackarel, I am this close to accepting the argument that the people on 'the left' need to be treated that exact way you described just so that they can understand why 'the right' feel aggrevied. I simply cannot accept Soviet Union style 'do not employ this…

> am this close to accepting the argument that the people on 'the left' need to be treated that exact way you described Yup, I’ve lost patience with the far left as well. This is in practice happening with e.g. nutters who openly supported Hamas, though as these things always go, the only people actually willing to do this to people go too far both in their metric and treatment. (The left, to its credit, was never de…

It is possible we are just at different stages of a similar journey. I will take this Sunday to reflect on this.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#892
post #876

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Universities typically only spend about 5% of their endowments per year, since it has to last forever. And much of it comes with restrictions on what it can be spent on, those come from the donors wishes. So money in the endowment that's for the theater department or to support an econ professorship can't be repurposed to support federal funds that supported cancer research.

Yeah they try to make them perpetual by only spending less than their growth each year but with 52 billion you could afford to draw down a billion or two (2.6 billion would be 5%) and that would fund research for years.

Harvard's endowment could fund all research at the university for many decades.

Harvard chose to roll over for Trump, and I think the main reason is that the board of the Harvard Corporation largely agrees with him.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#893
post #602
post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do they want meritocracy? The companies I've seen up close want "certified Smart Kid", in which case nearly any degree will do; "pre-trained worker", in which case they require a degree in a particular field; or "someone well-connected", in which case they want someone from a limited set of schools. (Companies do subsidize that limited set of schools, and pretty heavily, but it probably has more to do with social…

oh, yeah, the "indebted worker" concept there sounds scary and bad and not what I'm looking for. I think a lot of companies like to appeal to the idea of a meritocracy. I'm just saying this could make it a convincing appeal.

I think "appeal to" is the operative term, without necessarily much substance behind it.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#894
post #775
post #458

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"White collar" labor, in a service / knowledge economy doesn't mean "not making real things". Most (?) people on this board do something software or science or product related. Software is real, even if it's intangible. Research is real, even if it's inscrutable. Heck, Design is real, even if it's ineffable. (Yes, yes, there's vapor-ware, and useless products, and certainly "fake jobs". Those existed in the '40s, too…

A lot of white collar work is just larping as the 1%. It's due to the over-manufacturing of elites. Roles that exist to keep people busy while confering illusory social status aren't very useful to society. Freedom and usefulness comes from humility and devotion to others. For example, you don't need to be in the 1% to have financial independence. You just have to not spend money on things that cargo cult the 1% like…

I agree with everything you say about elite over-production, chasing social status, and cargo-culting material goods. It is indeed, bullshit, that makes many exploitable - which, of course, is the whole point, from the "system's" point of view. On an individual level, for those of us in sufficiently privileged positions, breaking that dynamic is as you say.

However, I don't think you can ignore politics! "Changing what's in your heart", does diddly if you're, say, working in the Triangle Shirtwaist factory. It took a +century of dedicated labor activism and political effort to get to a point where any workers at all could dream of breaking free, and in the US we've arguably backslid in recent decades. Continued political action and worker solidarity are desperately needed.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#895
post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Charitably, they may mean "the proceeds from their endowments" (or maybe "engorging their endowments", if that's even a proper use of the word), but I think that's a weak point. Proportionally very, very few institutions have significant endowments.

You're both wrong. I'm saying they're engorged AND well endowed. Many consider this a strong point.

Oh, yeah. Some certainly are. I think they're the subset towards whom Summers is addressing his argument, in the article under discussion.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#896
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Either compare ideal tax structures with “no loopholes” (none of these exist in the real world) or compare actually-existing tax structures. Comparing your ideal flat income tax with the current system is apples to oranges.

>>Why don't they just make the special interests pay their own multi-trillion dollar war bills instead of sabotaging US universities with surprise taxes? >Either compare ideal tax structures with “no loopholes” (none of these exist in the real world) or compare actually-existing tax structures. Hence I cannot compare your suggestion with the current system as it is apple to oranges because loopholes would exist. My t…

When you say "tax loopholes" I think "corporate welfare," which is sometimes rational but typically exploited.

A tax code with fewer loopholes would be more flat (or progressive).

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#897

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to work for a business created by, uh, upper class folks that wouldn't have done it if not for temporary tax breaks by a pandering grifter executive. I believe in a strong middle class and upward mobility for all. I don't think we want businesses that are dependent on war, hate, fear, and division for continued profitability. I don't know whether a flat or a regressive or a progressive tax system is more…

Yeah, I mean, I think we agree on most points. I think there’s too many confounding economic factors to look at GINI alone and conclude the 1980 turning point was caused by nerfing the top income tax bracket. But a compelling argument could probably be made with more supporting data, which of course this margin is too narrow to contain and etc.

Which factors confound? Oil price shock hostage situation and recession and then wars by oil people who did not pay their bill by cutting taxes and increasing expenses to meddle without just returns.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#898

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I for one would much rather it go to subsidize university research than subsidize the defense industry

You need both if you want it to remain a free and sovereign country.

How much? 1 trillion a year?

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#899
post #870

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not 'protesting' to blackball someone from a job. It's that you defined speech in your own way, and are resisting taking a step back and thinking about freedom of speech as an abstract principle or tenet.

>It's not 'protesting' to blackball someone from a job. Can you be specific here? What part isn't protesting? Should it be illegal to stand outside a business with a protest sign? What about organizing a boycott? Or even a decentralized and completely grassroots boycott? Should it be illegal to make the personal decision to not buy a company's product due to something said by one of their employees? Or would it be th…

You're playing with words, using a sort of ordinary-language-philosophical re-invention of the idea of free speech, and saying, why doesn't it apply to the blackballing someone from a job. In paragraph 1, you suggest that it's legitimate protest. In paragraph 2, I'm actually relabeling it (not sure what that means, but yes - it's a real world example).

Your paragraph 1, though, has the thoughtful query of exploring what is and isn't freedom of speech, and throwing out some scenarios to mull over. I agree that This principle you have of consequence free speech can only exist as a principle. Once it interacts with the complexities of the real world it becomes impossible to actually define, legislate, and enforce fairly.. How about, the spirit of the principle of freedom of speech could be that we don't strike fear in people who express opposing views.

Should it be illegal to make a personal decision not to buy a company's product? Reductio ad absurdum fail. No, because aside from being stupidly unenforceable, it has nothing to do with shutting down opposing views. Company listening to protesters and firing a company? Should it be illegal? It should be illegal on the basis of workers' rights, but I don't consider it freedom of speech to fire anyone or to keep them. It's another category of problem. Basically: it sounds like you're trying to defend shutting down speech by looking for ways to say that it's freedom of speech to do so.

Since you are fishing for 'first principles' (as a tech-centric board I can see how sexy it is to try to re-invent the concepts and throw them out as unworkable, as if law were mathematical), how about we think about the abstract 'spirit of the law' so-to-speak, and break out of the idea that since the idea of freedom of speech is imperfect, it should be thrown out. Because if you consider SUPPRESSING speech to be an 'expression' of speech, then it sounds like you're attacking the entire foundation of it, and we just don't align on values. We're in the realm of the social, the legal, cultural, not in the realm of absolute principles or foundational mathematical notions. I am not suggesting that, again, it should be ILLEGAL or LEGAL to do very specific things (we can spend forever mulling through scenarios), I'm suggesting - a few messages up in the thread - that if we don't CARE about freedom of expression, things like blackballing people from a job or deporting someone on a green card are perfectly OK. And I 'both sides-istically' purposely showed examples of the Right doing it, and the Left doing it, in order to provoke people to go back to thinking about the abstract principle of it.

The LEGAL matter is a different category, and super interesting to talk about. It's philosophy, it's Supreme Court precedent in the U.S., there are some fascinating speeches by ACLU figures like Ira Glasser, their arguments in the old 1st Amendment cases of the 20th century.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#900

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lower economic strata doesn't take on debt, they get aid and free rides, cherry work study jobs to put some money in the pocket too. It is the middle class or upper middle class that insists in eschewing their state school benefit for a more or less comparable school in another state (or without favorable scholarship and aid package) that take the brunt of the loans.

I sure had to. Work study sure was nicer than the crap jobs I'd had but no cake walk: I graded a lot of homework and exams as well as helping a lot of rich kids ace their class. [edit: I should admit that it's been 20 years, things may have shifted a lot]

Work study jobs vary a lot. Some of them are just wiping whiteboards after the lecture ends in the 300 person classrooms or walking around the library taking headcount every 30 mins. Front desk shifts at the dorm were also another easy one; hand over a package every now and then just do homework or slack off otherwise. Other ones probably work you like a dog and it isn't clear to be fair what the best ones might be as far as working in homework at the same time unless you get an upperclassman to tell you.
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