domain:experimental-history.com
magicalkittycat
18hr ago
If the main observable action when in power is to further the downward trend against academic freedom, why should anyone trust the claims being made? Actions speak louder than words after all.
If we want academic freedom we should make moves towards academic freedom, not be indistinguishable from the censors.
TK-421
18hr ago
Because the metaphorical imagery employed by science is fundamentally arbitrary, Irigaray's contention is that the fundamental choice of which parts of physics to label as "solid" mechanics and "fluid" mechanics in the first place reveals something sociologically and psychologically about the people doing the labeling (obviously, she would say that it reveals a fundamental aversion to or discomfort with fluid imagery and feminine imagery in general).
Whether it's true that the scientific metaphorical imagery is fundamentally arbitrary and/or the degree to which it is/isn't is an interesting question. It's somewhat analogous to phonemes / morphemes. In most (maybe all?) structuralist linguistic models, phonemes are defined as lacking information individually. They're the sub-components of higher level objects that do convey information but they're interchangeable building blocks. Studying natural languages as used, though, seems to show that phonemes can have information: round sounds are associated with words involving the concept of roundness or fullness, sharp sounds are associated with spiky objects or violent concepts.
The associations seem somewhat universal and somewhat arbitrary and are not absolutes, every language has counter-examples. They also aren't necessary for a language's expressiveness so they are optional and to some degree interchangeable.
If the metaphors that tend to be used in scientific imagery are / are not potentially tied to some lower level structure in how humans form concepts, we could maybe learn more about the process of cognition. The degree to which they're socially mediated would still be interesting.
magic9mushroom
If you're going to downvote me, and nobody's already voiced your objection, please reply and tell me
18hr ago
People understand it's political.
I mean, not all of them. There are definitely SJWs who believe that SJ doesn't count as politics but indeed "just common fucking decency"*, although there are certainly others who'll yell at anyone who thinks it's possible to be apolitical.
And, of course, it's practically a defining attribute of the social justice movement that it considers basically all its positions not just mere political issues.
*You've got to remember - until Musk broke the dam by buying Twitter, SJ's massive gaslighting operation to manufacture apparent consensus by banning everyone who disagreed from the virtual public square was actually working pretty well on a lot of people. Something that "everyone" agrees on doesn't look very political.
ThenElection
18hr ago
or do you want more academic freedom
You left out a third option: I want a magical pink unicorn who shits gold and whose farts cure cancer. I genuinely see that as more plausible than getting our current university system to support academic freedom.
It's all quite unfortunate, and I suspect there is some genius way to get from where we are to a healthy higher education system without use of a flamethrower. But, no one, and certainly not Trump, knows that genius way, so this is maybe the best of a bunch of bad options.
magicalkittycat
18hr ago
What are you positing as the mechanism to get from here to there?
The mechanism is that instead of limiting free speech and punishing academics for wrongthink, we win at free speech by fighting for the principle. This is what principled libertarian first amendment groups like FIRE are doing.
Allowing shitflinging competitions and "you started it" accusations to consume our freedoms will not restore our freedoms, it just creates a downward spiral. As we can see right now, we're even creating new theories of legal harassment.
There’s nothing new about the idea that we need to ban the expression of certain opinions in order to fight discrimination — that’s the reasoning behind a vast number of speech codes that FIRE has fought since 1999. The new, destructive twist on this is what we at FIRE call the cumulative theory of harassment. That’s the notion that while myriad individual instances of expression by unrelated individuals may be fully protected under the First Amendment, they can together create a cumulative harm, even to those not present and not targeted by the speech, that justifies overriding the Constitution.
We're downward spiraling already when principles are abandoned for revenge grievances. Defending freedom is not and never will be easy.
Thoroughlygruntled
18hr ago
The point is to rescue the students, and therefore the next generation of professors. To the extent it's convenient to save the careers of the good ones, we should try to do so, but I'm not overly concerned about mathematicians who just kept their heads down catching strays. We need to take academia back down to the foundations before rebuilding. That's inevitably going to result in some collateral damage. The non-crazy professors had literally decades to set their house in order. If they wanted moderation they should have advocated for moderation sometime before social justice started lapping McCarthyism in terms of body count.
I care more about the educations of my future children than I do the careers of some scientists too timid to stand up against the last decade-plus of woke star chambers. I'm perfectly happy to sacrifice an entire generation of academics to this project.
professorgerm
You shall love your crooked neighbor, with your crooked heart
18hr ago
Vance has referenced Scott Alexander's essays indirectly and is familiar with other ratsphere memes and terminology, not sure if there's anything more specific than that.
magicalkittycat
18hr ago
So how do you feel about a situation like this? https://x.com/pjaicomo/status/1958124476001861948
Do you believe the left would be justified with removing Tom Macdonald for his "the devil is a democrat" speech because the right wing started with saying legal residents don't have protections?
It seems to me that this line of logic would be just as valid.
not punishing any legal residents for political opinions is best, but punishing legal residents of all teams for political opinions is second best.
Personally I think no, but "the other side started it" being a valid reason to betray claimed principles would justify the next Dem admin removing Tom from the country.
professorgerm
You shall love your crooked neighbor, with your crooked heart
18hr ago
do you want more academic freedom?
What are you positing as the mechanism to get from here to there?
It doesn't seem to have been an option of the last several decades. Supreme Court cases do nothing, black-letter civil rights law does nothing, hitting them in the wallet might have an effect.
There were probably better ways to do it than this, I would agree. But if the alternative is doing nothing and letting progressives keep degrading the institutions, so be it
Feel free to reread my prior posts, and the other ones people are posting in response to you.
professorgerm
You shall love your crooked neighbor, with your crooked heart
18hr ago
Possibly true for someone like Tao, not for someone that does practical work.
magicalkittycat
18hr ago
So how do you feel about a situation like this? https://x.com/pjaicomo/status/1958124476001861948
Do you believe the left would be justified with removing Tom Macdonald for his "the devil is a democrat" speech because the right wing started with saying legal residents don't have protections?
I don't think so because I have principles about free speech that apply regardless of who started it, but if I understand you correctly revenge is a perfectly suitable argument for going against one's words.
4bpp
Now I am become a Helpful, Honest and Harmless Assistant, the destroyer of jobs
18hr ago
I don't understand why you are just ignoring the question - it wasn't intended as rhetorical.
Anyhow, my answer to this question is no, but as with many other things (e.g. war crimes, military invasions...) I would rather live in a world where 2+ competing parties do it than in one where only 1 party does it, even if having 0 parties do it is best.
To make it very explicit for the situation at hand: not punishing any researchers for opinions unrelated to their work is best, but punishing researchers of all teams for opinions unrelated to their work is second best. (Not even a distant second best - as a working scientist I honestly think the science community would be much improved if all scientists trying to play at being politicians or "public intellectuals" were summarily kicked out)
magicalkittycat
18hr ago
They're all making the same general point so how is it obnoxious? I'm wishing to clarify with different people their views on censorship.
professorgerm
You shall love your crooked neighbor, with your crooked heart
18hr ago
If one is saying "just add this line of text to your grants"
Don't forget things like we'll cut your database access if we think you'll find something you shouldn't.
It is easy to make the argument if you completely understate how one side behaved.
So how do you feel about a situation like this? https://x.com/pjaicomo/status/1958124476001861948
Do you believe the left would be justified with removing Tom Macdonald for his "the devil is a democrat" speech because the right wing started with saying legal residents don't have protections?
I think no, but "the other side started it" being a valid reason to betray what you previously said seems like it would apply here too then.
Eupraxia
Of all words spoken, all things read / most true was that which went unsaid
18hr ago
· Edited 12hr ago
Has the Trump administration/MAGA at large explicitly denied the possibility of further punishment? Restrictions on left-wing speech are completely aligned with the illiberal right-wing vector, they'd be stupid not to. The question is whether the right's ascendance is complete enough to allow it; the general opinion ITT seems to be that it is not, but we shall see.
Edit: This post quite nicely sums up the actual opinion/driving animus of the new right. Prediction: the final vote count will end up around +20/-10.
atelier
Jimmys: unrustled
18hr ago
Yes, until the other side commits in a way that means their violation of trolerance will cost them in power then absolutely. If one side pays no price for punishing those with "bad opinions" they're going to do more of it when they return to power.
Yes, I think this feels odd to people who actually believe that balance and harmony can be brought back to academia by playing within rules and norms that have been finely tuned in these places to achieve plausible deniability and leftist creep simultaneously.
"Why don't we just separate the real world truths these people discover from the political ideology they have a religious-like attachment to?"
The ideology and the institution are now inseparable by design. That's why.
atelier
Jimmys: unrustled
18hr ago
He's not being silenced or arrested. What is the old XKCD line, that's not your free speech rights being violated, that's just someone showing you the door.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
18hr ago
It's an old joke from a while back; people started speculating that Vance was secretly commenting on the Motte.
the_others
18hr ago
That makes sense. I think I lost track of the thread's context at some point.
I don't know much about changes to the NSF and NIH so I won't comment there.
I don't think most of the people making this argument believe Trump is doing it because he specifically wanted to penalise Tao. They're just making the point that Tao did insert himself into the culture war and can't claim he was Just A Normal Guy Doing Research Things until politics found him, that in the "tranquil past" he did not solely "focus on technical or personal aspects" of his own research, teaching, and mentoring, nor did he "leave the broader political debate and activism to others".
I mean the context here is Tao expressing disgust at the Trump administration's supposed imposition of politics upon academia and thus crippling it, something which is difficult to see as anything other than exceptionally hypocritical when Tao himself actively participated in the politicisation of academia (the open letter). The point of bringing it up is not to justify Tao's defunding but to respond to what he wrote about it.
Trump can't do any of the things that require influence inside an institution. All Trump can do is hit with stick. The stick is dumb, the stick is indiscriminate, but it's the stick in his hand. Dr. Tao is justified in complaining about the stick and I applaud him for it. Complaining about the stick is normal. If we don't already consider it a human right to complain about the stick, then we should consider it.
There is a cost to the stick and it is painful. This is unfortunate-- disastrous for some people I know. Of the anecdotes I've heard, such as jdizzler's below, everyone thus far has earned my sympathies. I hope we can look forward to a future without punitive actions against universities or research funding.
I've written before:
The institutions should function in a way that they can manage their own reputation and credibility.
In the end, all the stick can do is make it easier for any individual to assert pursuit of truthisms in the face of others who aim to paint big red targets on their back. Become a wee bit wiser to act a little more like good stewards. The only lesson worth learning is that conservatives will throw the entire package of higher learning into the boiling cauldron if they perceive it as an intolerable, hostile institution. Yes, that includes the Good Parts, because, unfortunately, much is packaged together under a generalized monoculture.
One can argue against the stick, one can hate conservatives or Trump, and they can continue to look down upon one or both. Surrender is not required to respect the stick. There is certainly no risk of counter-revolution in research labs or in the student body.
My main criticism is once the stick is proven real it must be shown to be avoidable. To critics that believe the academy is only good for culture war and who are committed to its destruction, I must insist we complete thorough, competent audit of research funding to save the Good Parts.
They've gone so far towards being egalitarian they've become anti-egalitarian.
More options
Context Copy link