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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   9077 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 18, 2025

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Science's first loyalty is to academia, not the country. And academia is dominated by a culture of rootless cosmopolitanism, which doesn't see any special value in any particular country (least of all America). I have extreme doubt as to The Science's commitment to America being a world leader in anything when they only ever kowtow to their humanities overlords in lieu of fact-finding - overlords who typically hold America in absolute contempt.

Do you expect demands of political loyalty to result in better science when they are coming from the nationalist right rather than the woke left? What would it even mean for academia to place America first? Only working on research projects that increase national power in some tangible way? Refusing to use foreign inventions or admit international students? Making every PhD go through the security clearance vetting process?

Do you expect demands of political loyalty to result in better science when they are coming from the nationalist right rather than the woke left? What would it even mean for academia to place America first?

Both would result (has resulted) in worse science than no political tests, but almost certainly some sort of jingoistic nationalist right America-first political test would result in better science than the woke left. The woke left has, as its basis, a rejection of concepts like "objectivity" and "logic," which are pretty fundamental to doing science. I expect that testing for nationalist right would filter out more intelligent people, but filtering for the woke left filters for more people who are willing and able to reject the fundamental basis of science. Filtering for scientists based on their commitment to the woke left is like a straight guy going to a lesbian bar to hit on women. You've pre-filtered specifically for people who have made visible commitments to behavior that is specifically antithetical to the role they're supposed to fill.

Do you expect demands of political loyalty to result in better science when they are coming from the nationalist right rather than the woke left?

Quite probably yes, except some strains of conservationism.

Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?

That wouldn't rule out me or any of my research advisors. I don't think it would get Terence Tao, either. It's a cute motte for what is obviously a much more expansive bailey.

I don't mean it literally. I mean that same level of scrutiny for the new dissident ideology that ostensibly attempts to subvert the order of the United States. Senate commissions hunting down people who ever took part in a DEI program and retiring them early so they never participate in high level anything again, that sort of thing.

You know, denazification.

Shit test the students on their opinion of the US as a force for good and weather they hate "straight white men" [tm].

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