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Today, Jesse Singal wrote an opinion for the New York Times where he argued that Trump defunding youth gender research was a bad thing, despite the terrible research coming out of that part of science. He thinks that reform is in order, not slash-and-burn practices. In my opinion, there is definitely enough research out there by now that you can confidently release something like a Cass Report without anything new. Certainly, funding bad actors makes no sense, but to me, reform is little gain, and even a good new study must follow around minors that have gone through the unethical transgender science grinder.
It reminds me of an (unpopular) opinion Trace shared the other day on Twitter regarding the axing of funds for museums and libraries. Even if anthropology is 99% leftist, well, the institutions belong to those who show up, so right wingers just need to get in there and fix it themselves. While I appreciated that stance as it related to conservative law organizations, and as it related to Twitter when left-wingers were leaving the site en masse, I find it pretty distasteful to give up anthropology to positive feedback loops, and let our history become a mockery when it is within one's power to just raze it.
Deus Ex took a look at this perspective. Spoilers for Deus Ex:General Carter, after the UNATCO plot is exposed, decides to stay within the organization, because institutions are only as good as the people that comprise them. Later in the game, you see him in the Vandenburg compound. He has given up on his idea of reform and joined the resistance.
I'm going to guess most of this forum disagrees with Trace and Jesse on this matter in pretty much the same way that I do. Can you name any areas in government or other organizations where you do agree with them?
A darkly amusing choice of subject considering the destruction of all (?) known ancient hominid fossils in Australia over the past couple weeks. His point isn't wrong, exactly, but I continue to think he underestimates the "long march" aspect and just how long showing up will take. Spending 30 years to get back into the institutions is not a plan for saving fossils that will be gone in a few months or a year at most.
As the saying goes, the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, and the second best is now. We should be planting trees now, but (to extend the metaphor) stopping people from salting the ground is also useful.
What, what? Was this discussed here?
I assumed it was discussed here but maybe not! @Alabasata
Mungo Maniac on twitter has written a lot about it, and here's a brief Spectator article on the topic. His namesake, Mungo Man, seems to have been reburied back in 2022, but last week another 100+ fossils many of which were around 40K years old were reburied at an undisclosed location in the outback, in deference to Aboriginal control of the fossils and so that they couldn't be studied.
My tinfoil hat is tingling. I wonder if modern examination techniques would have shown something the powers that be didn’t want them to.
Specifically, they were likely to show that the current iteration of aboriginals weren’t the first people in Australia.
Is that at all likely though? I think it's pretty clear (if not talked about much) that this is the case in North America -- but I thought the original migration path for Abos was pretty well established? (and very old)
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Why is that "likely"?
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