Open Thread and Link Farm: Divine Knew Edition
- Graysexuality | Thing of Things
“Graysexuality is fascinating because we get to watch the process of a new orientation being constructed in real time.”
- The Optimizer’s Curse & Wrong-Way Reductions | Confusopoly
An interesting discussion of the limits of how Effective Altruists choose between charities. (Via.)
- Schools Are Full of Hungry Kids Who Aren’t Learning Anything. Why Don’t We Feed Them? | Center For Global Development
Free lunches for schoolkids in the developing world could be an effective way of improving educational outcomes. (For one thing, feeding kids is an effective way of increasing school attendance.) (Via).
- On #MeToo’s Anniversary, ‘Mattress Girl’ Doesn’t Need You to Believe Her
Emma Sulkowicz seems to have moved to a “restorative justice” position, although they don’t use that phrase in this article.
- This fifteen second video of someone drawing eleven lines (not counting some little hash marks) is extremely satisfying to watch.
Also enjoyable, in a different way, are the many responses in which people posted their (usually) failed attempts at drawing the same eleven lines.
- When a Town Takes Uber Instead of Public Transit – CityLab
An article about a Canadian town that found that adding a bus system would be too expensive, so they decided to subsidize Uber trips instead. But the program was so popular that they’re having to limit it to cut costs. (I think that, whether it’s Uber or traditional, most cities should be spending a lot more subsidizing public transit.)
- Kilogram, redefined: Why the world’s new definition of mass is such a big achievement – Vox
- No, I Will Not Debate You – Laurie Penny
“To refuse to debate someone is an act of discourtesy. It is rude. It implies that you do not consider that person’s ideas or behavior worthy of basic respect.”
- julia serano – a transgender glossary of sorts
The glossary is very useful (well, not for everyone, obviously). But I’m also linking it for the introduction, where Serano argues against word-elimination strategies: “This approach ignores the fact that most words are highly contextual, exhibiting multiple meanings or differing connotations depending upon the context. Many words and phrases can be used in both positive and negative ways, or in productive and disparaging ways. Yet, word elimination strategies insist that any negative usage (whether present or past, commonplace or occasional, real or perceived) automatically trumps all potentially neutral, positive, or productive uses of the term.”
- What It’s Like To Drive The Worst Car Ever Built
Which is the 1951 Hoffman. “It’s not a piece of shit, build-quality-wise. It’s just that every possible design decision made on this car is somehow the absolute worst decision you could make.”
- Notre Dame fire: a historian on rebuilding the cathedral – Vox
One interesting question (asked but not answered in this article): The spire that burned down was not the original spire. When they rebuild, do they rebuild the spire we’re used to, try and approximate what the original spire looked like, or create a new spire?
- The Centr of Controversy – Kivan Bay – Medium
Kivan very much opposes the use of the fat suit in Endgame.
- Dain Yoon’s Twitter feed.
Korean body paint artist Dain Yoon paints amazing and beautiful optical illusions on her face.
- No more ‘shortcuts’ in prescribing opioids for chronic pain – STAT
The CDC is, depending on your view, either walking back or clarifying its previous instructions on prescribing opioids. They’re saying they’ve been misinterpreted and that they don’t want chronic pain patients to be involuntarily forced to cut down or cease opioid use.
- The problems with one-size-fits-all laws on opioid prescriptions – The Washington Post
Presidential candidate Kristin Gillibrand has been forced to walk her position back after proposing a terrible opioid control bill.
- AMERICAN THEATRE | All Sizes Fit All: The Case for Normalizing Fatness Onstage
- A History Of Violence – Pop culture news, movie, TV, music and gaming reviews. | The A.V. Club
If you’re a fan of action movies, Tom Breihan’s series of article, with his choice for the most important action films year by year, is very entertaining reading. (Or I found it so.) And will almost certainly add some new titles to your “I wanna watch this” list.
- Back in 1896 men didn’t call women sluts. They called them “bicycle face”.
“Why? Because bicycles helped women make their own dating choices. IOW bikes were the first dating app. That scared men.” Interesting thread on Twitter.
- Licensing Reform Opponents Say Unlicensed Barbers Would Be as Dangerous as Unlicensed Chefs. Chefs Aren’t Licensed.
- (140) GOPRO Goes on Japanese Sushi Conveyor Belt (Beautiful Slice of Japanese Life) – YouTube
Gets a lot less interesting after the plot twist at 3:40. I really enjoyed this on first viewiing – all those little slices of life contained in restaurant booths – but also had some doubts about the ethics of making such a film, especially after reading this article.
- “The Prostitution Problem”: Claims, Evidence, and Policy Outcomes” (pdf link)
A readable journal paper, giving an overview of the debate and evidence about sex work.
- Velocity is strangling baseball — and its grip keeps tightening – The Washington Post
More pitchers are throwing faster balls – and the result is a(n even) duller game.
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LoL:
Harvard is under no obligation to use only “objective” standards, and many of its standards are subjective. I have not seen you complain about Harvard’s other standards, including a student’s perceived ““effervescence, charity, maturity and strength of character,” which are less objective than determining whether a student has used racial slurs against a classmate or is in the KKK; nor have I seen you object to standards that are technically objective, but more elitist and unfair, such as legacy admissions.
You only seem to complain about Harvard standards being unfair when they negatively affect racists.
That’s really weird.
A “gazillion,” huh? Well, I can’t argue with that statistic.
Please cite the “public rule” that forbids public universities from denying admission based on past use of racial slurs or membership in the KKK. I’m dreadfully curious.
As an educator at a public school, if I was found to have used such terms within the last year in a private forum, or was found to be a member of the KKK, I would lose my job. The same is true of most government employees. I do not know of any rule saying that admissions processes to publicly-funded universities must be less selective than government hiring policies, but perhaps you can enlighten me.
It’s not “my” outgroup. It’s pretty much everyone’s outgroup. Again, “Don’t use the n word against black people” and “Don’t be in the KKK” are about the closest things we have to universally agreed upon principles in this country. You are arguing for the elimination of all objective standards of racism in order to widen the Overton Window. I can’t help but question your motives for doing so.
I really shouldn’t have to.
It certainly could, and I would not pretend that Harvard did not have that right.
Sure. Why not?
Again, not joining the KKK or calling classmates racial slurs are not “norms of a subculture,” they are norms of the dominant culture in the US. They are also easily defended norms, and the case can be made that eliminating those norms will lead to further subjugation of a minority group–as that is exactly what the KKK was formed to do and why the n word is used in that context in the first place.
And that’s fine. Most civil rights laws are coercive, and were passed by coercive means. Those laws and those means were also necessary and just. And of course, “Do this or don’t get into our school” is always going to be a little bit coercive, regardless of what the standard is.
Aw man, if only we let more KKK members into Harvard they would definitely not vote for Trump. Do you hear yourself?
@Chris#101- “I do not know of any rule saying that admissions processes to publicly-funded universities must be less selective than government hiring policies, but perhaps you can enlighten me.”
Regarding public universities, the Supreme Court has ruled that the First Amendment does apply. Fire has a summary of the relevant rulings here:
https://www.thefire.org/legal/state-of-the-law-speech-codes/
Yes, Michael, I’m aware that the first amendment applies to public universities. It also applies to public employees. And yet, I could still be fired for the activities and statements I mentioned above. And a student could still be denied admission on those same premises.
@Chris#103, IANAL, but as I understand it, the First Amendment’s application to public employees is limited by the Pickering test. The Pickering test doesn’t apply to students. Can a lawyer chime in?
Says the person who wants Harvard coerced into following his own preferred norms.
Regarding Lestmann, you either didn’t understand, or forgot to mention, that the root conflict leading to his firing was over creationism. The administration wanted to require all faculty to sign an anti-evolution statement (that’s what “asserting the historicity of Adam and Eve” means). That was the detail that caused faculty, including Lestmann, to object. Lestmann said that signing onto an anti-evolution statement was too small a scientific (and theological) box.
You might disagree, but if a professor is fired because he refuses to endorse creationism, it’s reasonable to describe that as a right-wing firing. That the professor has some right-wing views (and is doubtless far to my right) doesn’t change the fact that he was fired by creationists for refusing to sign a pledge in favor of creationism.
Your defense of Ciccariello-Maher’s firing aside, it’s clearly a case of a left-wing professor being punished because he said left-wing things (albeit tasteless and stupid left-wing things), and so clearly belongs on this list. He’s not the only professor (right or left) to be punished for gross and disturbing political speech, either, but just because I don’t like what they said doesn’t mean they don’t belong on this list.
In 2017 (the most recent year covered in this paper’s graph), there were 19 academics fired or punished for relatively liberal speech, and six for relatively conservative speech. No matter how much you tap-dance, it’s not even close; claiming that this is nearly entirely a problem with the left is ridiculous.
A few more examples:
A professor fired for criticizing a Republican governor’s Medicaid plan.
A professor refused a promotion (despite the unanimous recommendation of the faculty senate) because she’s pro-lgbt rights. The college denies it, but she’s one of a few professors with similar complaints, and the college asked the government to be allowed to discriminate against lgbt in hiring.
Professor fired after she refused to take down a post on her private Facebook page. The post said that she didn’t think homosexuality or transsexuality is a sin.
Professor fired for defending a blacks-only Black Lives Matter meeting, and denouncing white privilege.
And this isn’t even going into the cases of legislators interfering with academic freedom – an attack on academic freedom that comes almost exclusively from the right. (Let me know if you need examples).
Again, I’m not denying there’s a problem from the left, too. But claiming that the right doesn’t also have its hands very dirty here is just going against reality. You can be pro-free-speech, or you can object only to censorship when it comes from your outgroup, but I don’t think you can do both.
@Ampersand#105- I think Cicciarello-Maher is a bad case for freedom of expression. Everyone agrees that academic freedom applies to criticism but not to threats- the question is where to draw the line. For example, if Cicciarello- Maher had tweeted, “I hear that Fields likes to hang out at the Bada Bing strip club. Let’s go there Tuesday at 9 PM and shoot him.” , everyone agrees that firing him would be acceptable.
And this wasn’t the only time he seemed to be encouraging harassment- on 6/11/15 he tweeted for Karen Fitzgibbons to be fired after she made racist remarks and listed her employers’ phone number. (The tweet has since been removed.)
Your argument relies heavily on moral luck- neither Fields nor Fitzgibbons was harmed so he shouldn’t be punished.
(OTOH, some of the people trying to get him fired were concerned about comments that didn’t threaten a specific target- like “Off the Pigs!”. Those comments definitely fall under the First Amendment.)
Michael, all of his comments fall under the first amendment. The comment about Fields wasn’t a specific, actionable threat, and trying to get people fired for political reasons – something I disapprove of, as you know, from the left or the right – is certainly protected speech. (Assholish speech can be protected speech.)
ETA: That said, my point is not – and has never been – about Cicciarello-Maher. I honestly don’t care about his case; he sounds like an asshole.
And although I see Cicciarello-Maher as a borderline case, there are definitely a couple of fired left-wing professors who I think deserved to be fired, or to face some form of discipline. But my point isn’t about any individual case.
My point is that when you look at what’s been happening overall, it’s just not true that attacks on academic freedom are coming exclusively or even primarily from the left. The attacks of academic freedom are coming from both sides, and a pro-free-speech perspective shouldn’t let either side off the hook by framing this as a partisan issue.
@Ampersand#106- I agree that calling for someone to be fired is protected speech. If he had just asked people to sign his petition calling for Fitzgibbons to be fired, that would have been OK. But listing the employers’ phone number and asking people to call in can easily turn into harassment. See also the John McAdams mess. But OTOH, there are First Amendment issues at stake- we can’t issue a blanket ban on reporting people’s contact info. But I agree- Cicciarello-Maher was a borderline case.
Ampersand,
Enlightenment values.
That’s Bryan College’s claim, while the organizers of the petition that got Lestmann fired disagree:
But organizers of the petition disagree and said the petition is not about the 2014 creation clarification, but is intended to publicly draw attention to the need for change in the college’s leadership.
My own research into the matter found that this narrative of yours was spread mostly by people far removed from the situation and in many cases, with a seemingly strong anti-creationist motive. When reading the words of the actual dissenters, I found remarkably little opposition to the actual contents of the new statement, but more concern over the dictatorial way in which the statement was changed, especially in the context of other allegedly authoritarian and immoral behavior by president Livesay.
The pledge was changed in 2014. Lestmann was fired in 2017. I have seen no evidence that he refused to sign that pledge in 2014 or that he was fired for not signing the pledge. The administration of Bryan College doesn’t claim that he was fired for not signing the pledge. The statements by Lestmann that you quote don’t even oppose the new pledge for being wrong, but merely for not being inclusive enough.
If you look at what actually happened, you can see that Lestmann was fired immediately after being asked whether he wrote this mail. That mail and the link it contains are about financial malpractice going back to 2009, 5 years before the change to the pledge.
This ‘fact’ that you talk about is neither accepted by the fired professor, the college that fired him; nor does it fit the timeline.
I’m not saying that he doesn’t belong on the list. I’m pointing out that that the article you quote seems to be minimizing differences between the firings of liberal and conservative academics by using similar categorizations for dissimilar things. If you call explicit hateful statements of white people “anti-white” and call criticisms of diversity training “anti-minority,” then this is a false claim that they are far more similar than they are, IMO.
I recognize that you may disagree because you believe that those diversity efforts are effective, not hateful themselves, based on good science, etc; so any opposition is in effect racist, as it will harm minorities in your view. However, I hope that you can recognize that there are people who see this differently and who believe that the training is harmful in some way. That those criticisms get banned from college for being racist, like happened to Griffiths, bans an entire political narrative. This is not at all comparible to what happened to Ciccariello-Maher. He was not fired for a political perspective that blames white people for all that is wrong in the world, but for calling for violence.
Your article is crap and I reject it as being biased. I also never said it is nearly entirely a problem with the left. Putting words in my mouth is not appreciated.
I never said that the right is blameless. I literally said that “It is a both-sides problem, but the problem is worse on one side.”
If you prefer to debate with a strawman of me, you can do so…
Chris,
I have implicitly complained about that, by arguing for picking those who are “most capable at handling advanced education.” I believe that colleges funded with public money should only have standards that pertain to the ability to learn the material.
I already write very long comments. Why whould I make them even longer by addressing everything remotely relevant?
If you want to know something, you can just ask. If the idea is merely to attack me for not saying something that I was never asked about, this seems incredibly petty.
I’ve previously complained about affirmative action, which I see as a racist policy favored by racists, so…no.
I was intentionally outrageous to make clear that it is an opinion, rather than a hard claim.
You misunderstand my comment. My argument is that taking public money means that you have to accept limitations imposed by the government.
I was talking about student admissions, not hiring/firing decisions of academics. The two are quite different.
It’s almost impossible to communicate with you, if you misinterpret my every other statement.
My point is that banning someone you hate is not (good) evidence of objective standards or principles. Tolerating someone you hate or banning someone you favor, is where you tend to see actual principles, rather than mere tribalism.
If your ban of KKK supporters is due to an objective principle, you should be able to explain that principle and how you objectively determine that KKK supporters violate that principle. Believing that you shouldn’t have because “it’s pretty much everyone’s outgroup” suggests that you base your antipathy on cultural norms, which are inherently subjective.
What stops you from going after other people or groups that your (sub)culture decides are horrible people for bad or greatly exaggerated reasons? History is full of cultural antipathies that we know think are horrible…
LimitsOfLanguage:
Absolutely no college, public or private, elite or not, operates this way.
It’s amazing that you think the entire university admissions system needs to be overhauled because someone who called classmates “niggerjocks” didn’t get into the most selective university in the world.
It wasn’t clear whether you were saying such limitations already exist, or were advocating for more limitations to be imposed on universities by the government. Now I see it is the latter. But the limitations you propose are ridiculous. How a student has treated classmates in the past is of course relevant to college admissions, as it’s a predictor of how they may treat their classmates in the future. Racially biased comments are also a good predictor. Membership in an active hate group would be a good predictor as well.
Membership in a group that preaches the genetic inferiority of another race should be a disqualifier. Past use of racial slurs should be examined on a case-by-case basis. This isn’t hard.
As far as I know, universities have always had the option to not let KKK members in, and there has never been any rule imposed by the government saying otherwise. This has not led to the slippery slope you are describing.
It stuns me how fast conservatives go full on moral-relativist in situations like these. Like … it’s okay to say that the Klan is bad and we don’t want Klansmen at our colleges. It’s okay to make moral judgments.
Chris,
The world is bigger than just the Anglo-Saxon part. There are plenty of nations where academic achievement is the only consideration.
That’s not the reason. The reason is that an ideology that wants to ‘cancel’ people is gaining ever more power and seeks to make everything political. Schelling fences can reduce the ability for ‘you’ to wreak havoc.
Being an unpleasant person is not a predictor of academic ability nor does it automatically mean that other people will be hindered (unreasonably) in their studies. In general, we have freedom of speech which allows people to be unpleasant in fairly extreme ways.
Of course the student shouldn’t be disturbing in class, but your assertion that “racially biased comments” are a good indication of this makes me believe that you simply favor ideological purity tests and are rationalizing that.
Why? It’s an ideology like there are many ideologies that I reject. Where do you draw the line and will you be consistent even when that means that your ideological allies get banned?
Do we then reject all ideologies that portray an entire racial group in society as oppressors of another race? Like Jews oppressing goys? Or white people oppressing PoC?
Again, ultimately I just don’t trust you to do anything other but go after your outgroup, while protecting the noxious elements in your ingroup. Such behavior is logically going to be seen as discriminatory and unfair by that outgroup, so then they will either fight you or ‘exit.’
LoL:
OK. Can you show that universities in those nations have better outcomes than *checks notes* Harvard? You’ve offered basically no reasons why Harvard should be less selective other than because you want them to. “Other nations have colleges that are less selective” is not a very compelling argument.
I am certain that we as a country can find some middle ground between “cancelling” everyone who has done something problematic, and letting every racist asshole into Harvard without question.
Because it’s wrong, and because its wrongness is a settled question in my country. Again, I find something very sinister in your attempts to reopen this question.
Ah yes, McCarthyism infamously began because KKK members weren’t allowed into Harvard.
Do you really believe this?
Harvard is not “the commons.” Harvard is about the furthest thing from the commons possible. I don’t know how many times I have to point out to you that Harvard is the most selective university in the world before you stop pretending that Harvard has anything to do with the commons.
Chris,
I can’t even.
There is no point in arguing with you if make a negative attempt* to try to understand me.
* worse than zero
Me:
Limits of Language:
Why don’t you tell me what you think this means, LoL, if it doesn’t mean that you think colleges being able to refuse admission to KKK members led to McCarthyism. Because that’s what you said, but apparently that’s not what you meant.
Chris,
You said that the slippery slope does not exist or in other words, that colleges have not abused their ability to deem certain beliefs to be horrid. I gave an example of them doing so in the past.
The point of the McCarthy example was to point out how attempts to kick out dangerous people can results in witch hunts that violate civil rights and that hurt people who are not very dangerous at all. The McCarthy witch hunt was of communists and people who looked like them from a certain perspective, not KKKers or those who are deemed similar, but that is because the obsessions of those in power who were prone to witch hunts was the ‘red scare.’
Currently, there seems to be a rapid radicalization of white liberals starting around 2012. My worry is that this increasingly leads to radical behavior.
However, there is a good chance that you believe that everyone else is radicalizing. In that case, it makes sense for you to not be able to understand my view, since you would then think that conservatives and moderates are radicalizing. So you’d only expect to see escalating behavior on their side and be blind to radicalization on your side, because you radicalize along with your compatriots, so they remain at the same distance to you.
LoL:
Ok, I see the problem: you don’t understand what a slippery slope is. If Harvard has always had the ability to deny admission to KKK members—and it has—and something as damaging to academic freedom as McCarthyism has only happened once in its history, then that is not a slippery slope, and the problem that caused McCarthyism is not that Harvard had the ability to deny admission to KKK members.
You know who’s really radicalized? The KKK. You know what we shouldn’t do with people that radicalized? Give them the legitimization and pathway to power that comes with acceptance into the most elite university in the world.
Chris,
No, you don’t understand it. A slippery slope consists of the abolishing of one or more Schelling points, making it much harder to defend against excesses, by making it very hard to coordinate opposition. It doesn’t mean that a slide down the slope is guaranteed (you can even climb a slippery slope).
The issue with the slippery slope is that it is easier to slide down than to stay put or climb up. So a minority can force their will on a majority.
Scott Alexander has written about ‘superweapons.’ A group can be vilified by pointing to the worst excesses, but that vilification of the group then becomes something autonomous. So it can then be used as a weapon against far more moderate people, who don’t actually have the attributes that the group was vilified for in the first place.
For example, anti-semites blaming Jews by pointing at supposed harms caused by the Rothschilds and then using that vilification to attack bourgeois and working class Jews that have nowhere near the power or influence as the Rothschilds. The Nazis only got to implement their policies once they took power and forced out the opposition.
Guess what, the data shows that universities are increasingly becoming liberal, with some fields being nearly exclusively liberal. A pretty common belief among liberals is that not believing in the liberal narrative makes you a racist, sexist, etc. This often works like a superweapon. The stereotypical ‘racist’ is a person doing great harm to black people, but that stereotype is then applied to far less radical people, who are treated as if they are far worse.
Furthermore, research shows that the more radical people are, the more they are willing to discriminate against people with different beliefs. So my worry is that what is presented as denying access to (semi-)public services to racists like KKK members, in actuality will target non-progressives in general, including the moderate.
The increasing liberalization of colleges make them more susceptible to liberal excesses, while the existence of the slippery slope makes it harder to prevent a virtue spiral, like we saw in the McCarthy period, when the conditions were amenable to conservative excesses.
My point is that a commitment to not judging prospective students by their views makes it much more difficult for these kind of excesses to happen.
They are also practically non-existent, with way more articles being written about them than they have actual members.
You are funny (in a sad clown kind of way).
Do you really think that the thing that stands in the way of KKK world domination is the banning of far right students from Harvard?
“Oh, look. This KKK member studied at Harvard. Let’s vote for her to be President.”
Harvard is not a public service, semi- or otherwise, by any reasonable definition of the term. No, the fact that it gets some government funding doesn’t change that.
Then it can’t hurt much to ban them from Harvard, then.
No, but that is nothing like what I said.