domain:aporiamagazine.com
TT doesn’t have to be personally interested or personally engaged in the politics. He simply needs to voice his opinion on new department heads in an email, or apply to a school without DEI, or ask about it in the interview, or ask a grad student to keep an eye out for DEI words. This is enough pressure to curb DEI.
The reason DEI was able to spiral is because the spiral did not affect the academics’ social status, but actually increased it. One way to lower the status of DEI is to make it associated with defunded and destroyed institutions. If it weren’t for the threat of China, I would say the deterrence should have been much stronger.
Tanista
22m ago
People understand it's political. That's why the claim is often that science is always political so you're either for good things or for bad things.
But simply stating "I thought we were on the verge of a thousand year woke reich and would never face consequences (but I certainly would if I defected)" is unflattering.
Tanista
26m ago
The other way to look at it is that the whole thing is so riven with enemy collaborators that you throw a rock in what is ostensibly the field that needs politics the least and the people you hit are also complicit so fuck it, carpet-bombing is called for.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
26m ago
Mentioning Perry reminds me that one of the biggest "missionary" American ideological uplifting projects - the post-war reconstruction of Japan - was overseen by Douglas MacArthur, one of the most red-tribe figures one could imagine from that era.
Southkraut
The rain fell gentlier.
38m ago
Are you saying the government should punish one of the greatest mathematicians alive because he expressed his political opinions on things and the current leader doesn't like it?
Oppressing right wingers is OK, but the leftists can't be touched because they're more valuable human capital? Anti-egalitarian. I like it.
In all honesty, what would a government do to him? Cut his government funding? If he's that good, he can probably find alternate sponsors.
Butlerian
Not robot-ist just don't like 'em
47m ago
I never listen to music as the thing I’m paying attention to, so while I have certainly re-listened to albums, I don’t consider listening and reading to be comparable in this regard.
4bpp
Now I am become a Helpful, Honest and Harmless Assistant, the destroyer of jobs
48m ago
Eh, this seems very dependent on whom you include under "Reds". If the actual (historical) Commies count as Blue, then surely their Yankee rivals should count as Red - and the Cold War era was rife with missionary wars to bring Democracy and Capitalism to other countries. You can stretch the line into the past all the way to Matthew Perry forcing Japan open to international trade, and into the future at least to Iraq, which was sold by its Red cheerleaders as Operation Iraqi LibertyFreedom. Now, you could argue that all the democracy-bombing was window dressing and each instance was actually motivated by hard geopolitical and economic interest, but then how do you disprove the same statement about the Commies? Isn't the best ideological window dressing one that the NPCs on your side fanatically subscribe to? Also, if you are fighting a civilisational battle, is ideological conversion even distinguishable from hard geopolitical interests?
self_made_human
Sajjano durjano bhūyāt, durjano badhyatāṃ sadā, baddho'nyān nibandhāyet
1hr ago
I think I've barely seen any sheep, they must be chilling up in the highlands!
To some extent you're right, and it's just human nature, but I also think that the Blues have some universalist drive that the Reds don't.
The most obvious case is Commies insisting that you can't just implement their system in one country, and show the world how obviously superior it is, because something something capitalism ia a global system. But even basic libs have the same instinct, everytime I saw someone propose "why don't you do your thing in your jurisdiction, we do ours in our, and we leave each other alone" someone would show up saying "this would be too cruel for people under your jurisdiction". I don't think all Blues believe this, but 100% of the time the person saying it would be Blue, and other Blues would never give them any pushback.
4bpp
Now I am become a Helpful, Honest and Harmless Assistant, the destroyer of jobs
2hr ago
· Edited 1hr ago
That is a reasonable approximation of my model of Blue Tribe.
Well, how is it not also a reasonable approximation of the Red Tribe also? The sad reality is that the quote really should go, "when I am weaker, I ask for freedom because that is according to the principles we all claim to have; when I am stronger, I take away freedom because that is according to the principles we actually all share".
The progressives, in their many years of relative weakness, had me bamboozled; I'm not inclined to repeat that mistake with the other camp now in the #resistance.
4bpp
Now I am become a Helpful, Honest and Harmless Assistant, the destroyer of jobs
2hr ago
Man I thought woke cancel culture was insane in their assault on academic freedom and free speech on campuses but this seems to be going up a whole nother level.
In what way is it a higher level? The other camp has actually gotten people fired for expressing political opinions that seem pretty commensurate with the pro-progressive noises Terry has made. He is not even getting fired or having his career seriously threatened, but is just being subjected to some inconvenience (much greater for his students). Even the fallout to students is not without mirror precedent: at the US university where I did my PhD, a grad student I knew was prevented from graduating even with a different nominal advisor purely to put pressure on his advisor who got #MeTooed (in an incredibly fishy case) but was fighting back.
It is understandable that Terry is complaining (and, indeed, he owes it to his students to make this effort), but he has made his bed.
magic9mushroom
If you're going to downvote me, and nobody's already voiced your objection, please reply and tell me
2hr ago
· Edited 2hr ago
If their presence is used to claim the institution cannot be targeted because of the damage to the non-enemies, this is merely the use of human shields. Human shields are not protection of legitimate military targets.
I believe I said that.
There's a colourable argument that trying to sort the good from the bad - particularly within the uni bureaucracy as it exists - is a poor cost-benefit.
But @JTarrou made a very specific claim that the others on team "burn it all down" have not made in this thread:
There are no good branches. APAB.
This is why I responded to him and not to the others on that team, because that claim is false; not all professors are, in fact, "bastards". I claim the right to, as politely as I can, correct those on this board who say false things (NB: I have no strong opinions about whether JTarrou is lying vs. hyperbolising vs. ignorant), even when those false things are not especially relevant.
magic9mushroom
If you're going to downvote me, and nobody's already voiced your objection, please reply and tell me
2hr ago
It wouldn't, but saying "this is retarded and needs to stop" doesn't actually stop the commissar from doing his work. @anon_ is pointing out that reining in the DEI commissars requires actually controlling the university's internal levers of power (in particular, the admin section of the university).
Corvos
2hr ago
Must not make jokes about sheep…
Must not make jokes about sheep…
Must not make jokes about sheep…
TitaniumButterfly
3hr ago
Listening to The White Company on audible. Loving the setting and prose, even if the characters are a bit hard for me to distinguish, and the narrator is... not consistent enough in volume and some of his accents are borderline-impenetrable, which is not usually a problem for me.
Also he's incredibly slow, and while changing the speed fixed that, something about his cadence makes it difficult for me to follow along without losing attention.
But when it's good it reminds me of Pyle's Robin Hood in the best ways, except more rooted in the beauty and wildness of the setting.
All that said I went in blind and was expecting history, not historical fiction, so that was an adjustment.
Dean
Flairless
3hr ago
Do we condemn Kolmogorov?
Sure. Appeals not to generally devolve into special pleading that are categorically rejected in other contexts.
Kolmogorov complicity is still complicity, and it was specifically complicity with, for, and for prestige within one of the worst authoritarian/totalitarian states of the 20th century. Komogorov is not morally absolved by being a stellar mathematician who advanced the field. He has the same sort of moral onus of gifted scientists of other totalitarian regimes, who are routinely condemned.
Botond173
3hr ago
They won't understand it, because they're convinced that this doesn't count as 'politics' but as the principle of basic human dignity, or some BS like that.
4bpp
Now I am become a Helpful, Honest and Harmless Assistant, the destroyer of jobs
3hr ago
The fear that another Trump-esque administration will come to power and do the same thing again will surely remain.
I have a US mathematician friend who is entirely apolitical, but joined the DEI committee at his department (where he helped them implement DEI measures, screen applicants etc., not to mention the implicit lending of legitimacy) a few years ago out of the simple consideration that he was coming up for tenure review and it was a no-brainer to do this simple thing that would greatly improve his chances. There are, I figure, many cases like that. If it stops being a no-brainer career booster and starts being a gamble (will get favoured by the system, but might also get targeted for reprisal in the future if the wrong administration is in power), I imagine far fewer will go for it.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
3hr ago
LLMs are value-neutral, it's all about how they're used.
I was just doing some RP with one, exploring a silly concept, inventing the rules along with Claude. You can tell when the LLM is actually enthusiastic about it and when it's just phoning it in. (With Claude, you know it's getting real when the cat ASCII art starts coming out unprompted).
People might say 'oh this is cringe slop'. There were indeed a heap of em dashes. But you don't actually see the em dashes if you're smiling.
Dean
Flairless
3hr ago
Not literally everyone in academia is your enemy.
And?
I try to avoid enemy/friend distinctions for many reasons. I am not adopting or revealing any preference here. This is a specific point about the metaphor.
But if you are going to adopt/concede an 'enemy institution' paradigm in the first place, there's no particular relevance of 'not literally everyone is your enemy' beyond the utility of those not-enemies to help target the enemies. If they aren't, or can't, then even if they better qualify as collateral rather than collaborators, neither category is enough to merit any principle against targeting the enemy institution. If their presence is used to claim the institution cannot be targeted because of the damage to the non-enemies, this is merely the use of human shields. Human shields are not protection of legitimate military targets. This is especially true if they are willing human shields, voluntary or paid or otherwise.
FtttG
3hr ago
I'm now coining FtttG's Law: the longer an online organisation goes on, the probability of it becoming embroiled in a child grooming scandal approaches 1.
4bpp
Now I am become a Helpful, Honest and Harmless Assistant, the destroyer of jobs
3hr ago
They themselves believe in equity more than in meritocracy.
I'm fairly sure most top hard-science academics are in favour of meritocracy. The relevant belief they have is instead in blank-slatism: as a matter of faith, they do not accept heredity of merit, especially as correlated with visible social/ethnic group belonging. From this they conclude that apparent differences of outcome between groups must not be due to differences in merit, and a proper meritocracy would not generate them.
Most who choose to leave will move to Europe
Are you saying we might actually get doctors and engineers this time?
European academics doing a stint in the US could come back, sure. Could American academics come here? I'm a bit dubious on that. I'm not that plugged into the university system, but don't exactly have the impression that they're awash in cash, and kicking off a rat race between foreign and domestic academics might be just what we need to get the local libs to start seeing the issues with immigration.
4bpp
Now I am become a Helpful, Honest and Harmless Assistant, the destroyer of jobs
3hr ago
Europe at this point has been so thoroughly captured by US propaganda that the chances of it breaking with the US geopolitical line are basically nil; ergo, an American academic who moves to Europe will just be serving the same camp in the clash of civilisations for less money.
Ironically, though, European academia is actually less captured by US-style DEI; we can broadly still fail students for being bad with no regard to disparate impact or whatever, and I haven't seen explicit political allegiance tests in hiring. The truest of true believers in the US might therefore find Europe unsatisfactory, and get concentrated further in the US by evaporative cooling.
The ones who will increase their hatred are the ones who need to be punished more. The ones who recognize the danger of DEI will be satisfied knowing that they’ve made a noble sacrifice for the holistic health of civilization and its progress. The thing about deterrence is that it’s better to do it quickly and harshly, as then you never have to inflict it again out of fear.
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