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Harvard's response to federal government letter demanding changes

harvard.edu

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Re: Harvard's response to federal government letter demanding changes

#931

Post by NoImmatureAdHom »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #846
A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 wrote: post #820

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I was one of the people who briefly tried to take right wing “free speech” arguments at face value, eg when Elon Musk bought Twitter. Almost instantly he began allowing white supremacists and actual declared neo-Nazis back onto the platform, while kicking people off for any speech he didn’t like. I don’t think the claim “the recent right wing enthusiasm for ‘free speech’” does, in fact, selectively benefit Nazis and…

Would you argue that the "kicking off" is more or less intense under Elon vs. the other guy?

My impression that the rate of censorship overall has plummeted. Pre-Elon, it was easy to get banned for wrongthing. People would gang up on wrongthinkers, mass-report them, etc.

I wonder what the rates of actual bans have been.

Re: Harvard's response to federal government letter demanding changes

#933

Post by Supermancho »

aitchnyu wrote: post #756
zanellato19 wrote: post #591

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consistency is undesirable, because if everyone is breaking a law, you apply the hammer of justice only if they aren't a friend. It's one of the best ways to look good to certain people as well,because you can claim to be just following the law.

Is there any political tool to prevent rampant rule breaking and making the disliked rulebreaker specially vulnerable? Rule breaking is common and apocrypal form of strike involve following the rules to the letter and paralyzing the business. The prevailing principle is "you cant defend yourself by pointing to other rulebreakers" while reality is "its legal if a hundred businessmen do it".

> Is there any political tool

It's a social problem. Smaller democratic political arenas work closer to the ideal. Larger political arenas have more noise and less concise agendas, because of the disparate groups being appealed to. The US is too big. Large societies, across time trend toward authoritarianism (sometimes leading to full-fledged) until revolution and dissolution. Then the remaining states fight amongst themselves within a region, assembling into a singular organization due to practical and political factors, until it starts over again. Eventually you get something like europe and most of southeast asia. States tend to be more stable if they roughly match their regional terrain boundaries and aren't too large.

Re: Harvard's response to federal government letter demanding changes

#934

Post by dragonwriter »

Herring wrote: post #629
elliotec wrote: post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment and the parent’s are the best retorts I’ve seen yet to the “these people are just stupid” idea we hear all the time. These “rules” are not calculated and brilliant, and that’s the point. They’re controlling at any angle they want.

No, it's still stupid. High corruption leads to weaker economic performance (eg compare red vs blue states). Nepotism looks like winning right until it sinks your company.

> No, it's still stupid.

It doesn't serve the goals you think it should, that's not necessarily stupid.

> High corruption leads to weaker economic performance (eg compare red vs blue states).

Yes, but the people who are pursuing corruption don't care about maximizing aggregate economic performance, they care about maximizing their power over others, which is isn't the same as "economic performance" and, to the extent that it related to economic performance, doesn't have any necessary relation to a broad aggregate, its more concerned with very specific aspects of relative distribution.

Re: Harvard's response to federal government letter demanding changes

#936

Post by anonfordays »

viraptor wrote: post #631
anonfordays wrote: post #592

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Diversity is bad when it involves Whites, men, straight people or research involving these groups. If you think that's what the "other side" is saying, then you've completely misunderstood what the diversity idea is about. You can't compare one idea with the misrepresentation of the opposing idea. That's just making things up.

[flagged]

Re: Harvard's response to federal government letter demanding changes

#937

Post by impossiblefork »

kenjackson wrote: post #647
impossiblefork wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Standardized test reliably predict academic success. IQ tests similarly. Here in Sweden, if you do well enough on the entrance exam, we simply let you in, even to the best universities. This means that people other than hoop-jumpers have a chance.

Academic success isn’t what Harvard cares about. They want leaders, not kids who are great at “school”. Put it this way they’d much rather have Roberts or Obama as alumni than your typical 1600 SAT quant. Whats the best metric to find the people they are looking to educate?

In reality though, Harvard actually educates perfectly ordinary physicians, engineers, etc., and I assume that the vast majority of their output consists of relatively ordinary people.

What people need isn't leaders, but the capacity for decentralised self-organisation.

Their decision to make education into finding or creating leaders is, I think, a terrible mistake and socially dangerous, and in a way exclusionary. If they are truly successful and are able to notice natural leaders and bring them into their institutions that might well channel the capacity of ordinary people away from decentralised self-organisation and into a pure elite society.

You can try, but I think it'll be hellish.

Re: Harvard's response to federal government letter demanding changes

#939

Post by raxxorraxor »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #846
A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 wrote: post #820

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I was one of the people who briefly tried to take right wing “free speech” arguments at face value, eg when Elon Musk bought Twitter. Almost instantly he began allowing white supremacists and actual declared neo-Nazis back onto the platform, while kicking people off for any speech he didn’t like. I don’t think the claim “the recent right wing enthusiasm for ‘free speech’” does, in fact, selectively benefit Nazis and…

This is a general argument and has nothing to do with Elon Musk. He capitalizes on a weak position some of his political opponents bring forward. Not giving him the opportunity for that would have cost nothing... on the contrary.

Re: Harvard's response to federal government letter demanding changes

#940

Post by kenjackson »

impossiblefork wrote: post #937
kenjackson wrote: post #647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Academic success isn’t what Harvard cares about. They want leaders, not kids who are great at “school”. Put it this way they’d much rather have Roberts or Obama as alumni than your typical 1600 SAT quant. Whats the best metric to find the people they are looking to educate?

In reality though, Harvard actually educates perfectly ordinary physicians, engineers, etc., and I assume that the vast majority of their output consists of relatively ordinary people. What people need isn't leaders, but the capacity for decentralised self-organisation. Their decision to make education into finding or creating leaders is, I think, a terrible mistake and socially dangerous, and in a way exclusionary.…

Then they'll fail. They have that right.

As so many people who hate the Ivies tell me, you can get just a good of an education at your local CC and state college. That option is available and they don't have the emphasis on leaders and they also tend to accept most people who are qualified.

The reasons people want to go to Harvard aren't simply because of the academics to be ordinary engineers.

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