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Amid cuts to basic research, New Zealand scraps all support for social sciences:
Frankly, they're going in the wrong direction. A great deal of technology developed over the last 30 years (social media, generative AI, frankly the internet itself) is either neutral/mixed at best or actively harmful at worst. If anything we need to be putting the brakes on "high-tech, high-productivity" jobs. Diverting funds to university social science departments would be a good way of slowing things down, at least. Despite my substantial disagreements with the wokeists, I'm willing to fund them if they can act as a counterbalance to a complete takeover by utilitarian techbroism.
I don't trust big tech to honestly evaluate the impacts and effects of their own products. We need a neutral, or even outright adversarial, independent body to investigate issues like say, the effects of social media on teenage mental health, and the university seems as good a place to do it as any (it might be objected that such research falls under the heading of "psychology" or maybe even "economics" rather than "social sciences" - but I doubt that the people in favor of these cuts would be particularly friendly to psychology or economics departments).
There are certain legitimate and even pressing research topics (e.g. psychological differences between racial groups, impact of racial diversity on workplaces, etc) that fall under the heading of "social sciences", but which are unfortunately impossible to investigate honestly in today's climate of ideological capture. The ideal solution to this would be to simply reform social sciences departments and make them open to honest inquiry again, rather than destroying them altogether.
The Science post screwed up the link to the announcement, here's one that works. Despite Science's spin, the overall reporting is accurate. Let me de-spin it a bit, with quotes from the original announcement:
An elected government chooses a popular priority--economic growth--and a ministry aligns with that priority.
So the applications to this fund should either make a reasonable case that they will benefit NZ economically, or that they have some potential to lead to that. That's in line with the priority the elected government has established for itself (economic growth).
I can see why humanities and social scientists would be upset: nobody likes to have their source of funding taken away. I have but two questions: (1) do they disagree with the current elected government prioritizing economic growth, or (2) do they argue that the humanities and social science projects funded by this fund lead to economic growth as well as the core science projects?
If the disagreement is with the first question, then the response is: elections have consequences. New Zealand economy is doing poorly, people are worried, they elect a government with a mandate to grow the economy. While other goals have value, they have lost priority.
Is there any argument on the second front? The Science article hints at the possibility:
... but there is absolutely no follow-up or development of this argument. In fact, it's clear that "fundamental science" of the kind that an Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology is likely to do indeed will continue to be funded, and likely at a higher rate than before now that the funds are not going towards social science / humanities. Unless, despite the name, that institute is pursuing non-core, non-fundamental-science projects (e..g, "How would an advance in nanotech affect [$historically-disadvantaged-minority]?" or "Indigenous knowledge of microchips").
That brief hint of a beginning of an argument is followed by a conflation of economics and social cohesion, and then by how this will impact Maori-led research. So bupkis.
Your argument is at least more developed: you think that growing the economy through pursuing advances in science and tech leads to decrease in well-being of the population. I wonder, though: New Zealanders adopt science and tech products made elsewhere, and (let's take your claim at face value for the moment) suffer the social consequences anyway. Isn't that strictly worse than having NZ companies develop the product domestically, and at least capturing the economic benefits of the product?
My more direct fear is that critical reflection on questions such as: what is "well-being"? to what extent is "well-being" worth pursuing? does it make sense to have a single unified metric of "well-being"? - will cease. Such reflection is naturally at home in humanities departments.
You can argue that we don't need state funding to think about such questions. But a culture that sees no value in the humanities in general is unlikely to find value in these questions in particular.
No it won't. We reflect on that question right here on the Motte. And, of course, these conversations happen every day within families, friend groups, and churches. We don't need credentialed elites to tell us the answers to these questions.
But even so, these credential elites are doing an awful job measuring and promoting human well-being. The current dominant ideology inside academia promotes a nihilistic view of the world and stokes social division. Even worse, it often places objective truth-seeking below appeals to authority. That's how you get stuff like "indigenous ways of knowing" being taught in NZ schools as an alternative to science.
The sooner we free ourselves from this corrupt priestly class, the better.
On the Motte, and many similar sites, materialistic view of life are starting to dominate. I've been told many times now on similar websites that well-being is improving "because the GDP is increasing". They believe that an increase in wealth is a direct increase in well-being, and that the two are basically the same thing. They then use this as an argument for "progress" and to dismiss any values, customs and ideals of the past.
I think this is a direct consequence of being an intellectual and liking nerdy things like mathematics. You start thinking "logically" and "scientifically", and eventually you become materialistic as you confuse the map and territory (theory and reality). For instance by thinking that the truth values of logic ('true' and 'false') has anything to do with truth (meaning as 'existing in reality').
I agree with this, but it's difficult to be an intelligent person interested in things like well-being, without encountering material which has been poisoned by the priestly class or somebody who is influenced by them, and if one practices actual psychology, they will find not only the truth but they will also understand why some people avoid the truth. If you have recommendations of works written by highly intelligent people who dare to think for themselves (they can be arrogant, a little bit of mania usually only makes for better writing), I'm all ears!
Hmm. I don't have numbers... I feel like materialism peaked a few years ago in the internet atheism era... has it still been growing since then? If so then its probably just my filter bubbles that have changed. Something to do with my own fall into nihilism and subsequent spiritual journey.
Oh, and my favorite psychology authors are the ones writing Magick Tomes. Much more aesthetic than the other therapy paradigms let me tell you.
I'm going by feeling myself. I feel like the way people think is changing to be more materialistic, so that people say "good" and "bad" without considering these as value judgements or opinions, but instead experience them as answers which are found and that one can learn if they have enough information. People also increasingly assume that if something doesn't make sense to them, then it's wrong, and like one should have to prove something in order for it to be valid. And yet reality is simply how it is, and if doesn't make sense then the sense-making is wrong, not reality. I often interact with Asians, since I like doing so. I always notice the change when I go back to interacting in English, it's like we value models of reality more than reality, and believe in them too much. There's a similar tendency towards optimization and efficiency as "best", even though there's a clear tradeoff in both aesthetics and morals. I hear things like "Of course X group will lie to you, they want to make money" said in a way which seem to support lying, rather than calling out liars or explaining why they exist. As if throwing away a personal advantage because of personal values is something strange. I hope I'm just over-sensitive to things that I dislike, and that they're actually rare, though.
Got any recommendations? It just seems like normal psychology to me (where the magic is speaking to your subconsciousness directly), but if it works, I will give it a try, even if it's strange.
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