5 ms·

Here's what seems to be a follow-up on an MIT webpage: https://orgchart.mit.edu/node/6/letters_to_community/important-update-re-eaps https://orgchart.mit.edu/n

by creata 5y ago

Here's what seems to be a follow-up on an MIT webpage: https://orgchart.mit.edu/node/6/letters_to_community/important-update-re-eaps https://orgchart.mit.edu/node/6/letters_to_community/importa... Edit: and for what it's worth, I think many people here are too easily stirred into a frenzy based on astonishingly little information about this incident.

civilized 5y ago
The letter you link is quite clear: MIT doesn't want to hold a scientist up as a role model if progressive activists dislike him. This wouldn't have happened at University of Chicago.
- leephillips 5y ago
  Your comment is a partial answer to a question I have: are there any universities with any prestige who still, today, uphold the principles of free expression and academic freedom? I thought MIT might still have some institutional self-respect, and am saddened to find out that it does not. Who’s left (in addition to U. of Chicago)?
  - civilized 5y ago
    Here are some schools that endorse the Chicago Statement on Freedom of Expression: https://www.thefire.org/chicago-statement-university-and-faculty-body-support/ https://www.thefire.org/chicago-statement-university-and-fac... Not all of these schools have a perfect history of supporting free expression, but this is a big positive indicator.
  - geeB 5y ago
    This fits MIT's historical pattern of buckling under external pressure, like what happened to Aaron Swartz or Star Simpson. Different this time because of the cancel mob aspect, but not too surprising.
- metagame 5y ago
  Here, I'll give a rebuttal, even though I don't think every internet comment deserves a reply, your comment included. It is an outreach event. The majority of people in developed nations live in progressive cities, and hold center-liberal to outright progressive views. Now, if you're trying to spread propaganda, good or bad, you want to do it in the most efficient way possible. Just as you wouldn't put a radical Satanist in a government role of promoting birth control, you shouldn't have your PR representative be a man who's against the very role he's supposed to be playing. Both the first instance and the last are counterproductive. An advocate for Satan would be just the ammunition someone against birth control could use perfectly, and a PR representative who's against the inclusion of the people he's supposed to play PR for will naturally alienate. The John Carlson lecture isn't an opportunity to offer the field cutting edge science, it's an opportunity to present to the rest of the world new findings in climate science, and to inspire others to take up the banner. It is science propaganda, in the best way possible. Just as you wouldn't invite OJ Simpson to give a lecture on sentencing reform despite his innocence because it would alienate the very people you're trying to convince to rally for sentencing reform, you should aim to have the least-offensive and most-captivating candidate give the annual PR speech. This is meritocracy, which is something that many universities aren't big on (being filled with legacy admissions). My own views are probably not far from the person who was denied the speech, here, but I understand the value in propaganda, and having someone who would set PR back when most of the point is to captivate the public would be a net-negative, and anti-meritocratic. Despite their viewpoint being probably comparable to my own, I'm aware that PR is delicate, and public advocacy plays a large role in changing public opinion, so they should indeed step aside to let someone more publicly-accepted give the speech. In short: Don't alienate your audience if your goal is to persuade. Go with a safer bet, always. It's not a great idea to fire controversial people, but if the goal is a good speech for PR, go with someone else. They'll probably appreciate the time to do more research.
  - civilized 5y ago
    The activists who demanded this aren't the ones who need to be persuaded on climate change. MIT just handed the center and right-of-center, full of actual climate skeptics who need to be persuaded, another cancel culture event. Your whole post hinges on the assumption that the prospects of fighting climate change hinge on the approval of college town progressives. In reality, their approval is the least important thing. Of course, if the lecture is really just pandering to that audience without any interest in the larger public, then what you say makes perfect sense. It's also in 100% agreement with original comment. You're actually just agreeing with me and don't realize it because you're lost in your own sea of words.
- dang 5y ago
  Please don't break the site guidelines by going on about downvotes. Besides doing no good and making boring reading, it ends up being uncollected garbage when the original comment gets corrective upvotes, as yours has. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=corrective%20upvote https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
  - civilized 5y ago
    Understood. Deleted the offending text.
- dqpb 5y ago
  It sounds to me like they didn’t want the climate lecture to be hijacked by people angry about something unrelated to climate.
temp8964 5y ago
What? How is this webpage making any difference? They cancelled the event bc of Professor Abbot's past speech on DEI issues.
q1w2 5y ago
This letter reinforces the Atlantic article's claim that progressive Twitter mobs are cancelling anyone who disagrees with them.
- makeitdouble 5y ago
  The other angle: University changed plan for a PR event when they were confronted to the fact that the speaker’s public views on diversity were wildly against the people the Uni was trying to reach in the first place.
vmception 5y ago
The additional context is providing us pretty useless information that nobody except him would care about "Its not a campus cancellation, this was off campus aaaand this Professor is actually still invited and now to an on campus event!" uhhh ok. My takeaway is that there is some silver lining here that communication was done between parties instead of a unilateral kneejerk cancellation. But they should have still ignored detractors and held that "off campus" outreach event. Let the detractors embarrass themselves when trying to interrupt the Professor's speech or ask irrelevant questions at the end.
foogazi 5y ago
> Professor van der Hilst, after broadly consulting his community How often is the community broadly consulted on MIT climate science lecturers ?

by creata 5y ago

civilized 5y ago

The letter you link is quite clear: MIT doesn't want to hold a scientist up as a role model if progressive activists dislike him. This wouldn't have happened at University of Chicago.

leephillips 5y ago
Your comment is a partial answer to a question I have: are there any universities with any prestige who still, today, uphold the principles of free expression and academic freedom? I thought MIT might still have some institutional self-respect, and am saddened to find out that it does not. Who’s left (in addition to U. of Chicago)?
- civilized 5y ago
  Here are some schools that endorse the Chicago Statement on Freedom of Expression: https://www.thefire.org/chicago-statement-university-and-faculty-body-support/ https://www.thefire.org/chicago-statement-university-and-fac... Not all of these schools have a perfect history of supporting free expression, but this is a big positive indicator.
- geeB 5y ago
  This fits MIT's historical pattern of buckling under external pressure, like what happened to Aaron Swartz or Star Simpson. Different this time because of the cancel mob aspect, but not too surprising.
metagame 5y ago
Here, I'll give a rebuttal, even though I don't think every internet comment deserves a reply, your comment included. It is an outreach event. The majority of people in developed nations live in progressive cities, and hold center-liberal to outright progressive views. Now, if you're trying to spread propaganda, good or bad, you want to do it in the most efficient way possible. Just as you wouldn't put a radical Satanist in a government role of promoting birth control, you shouldn't have your PR representative be a man who's against the very role he's supposed to be playing. Both the first instance and the last are counterproductive. An advocate for Satan would be just the ammunition someone against birth control could use perfectly, and a PR representative who's against the inclusion of the people he's supposed to play PR for will naturally alienate. The John Carlson lecture isn't an opportunity to offer the field cutting edge science, it's an opportunity to present to the rest of the world new findings in climate science, and to inspire others to take up the banner. It is science propaganda, in the best way possible. Just as you wouldn't invite OJ Simpson to give a lecture on sentencing reform despite his innocence because it would alienate the very people you're trying to convince to rally for sentencing reform, you should aim to have the least-offensive and most-captivating candidate give the annual PR speech. This is meritocracy, which is something that many universities aren't big on (being filled with legacy admissions). My own views are probably not far from the person who was denied the speech, here, but I understand the value in propaganda, and having someone who would set PR back when most of the point is to captivate the public would be a net-negative, and anti-meritocratic. Despite their viewpoint being probably comparable to my own, I'm aware that PR is delicate, and public advocacy plays a large role in changing public opinion, so they should indeed step aside to let someone more publicly-accepted give the speech. In short: Don't alienate your audience if your goal is to persuade. Go with a safer bet, always. It's not a great idea to fire controversial people, but if the goal is a good speech for PR, go with someone else. They'll probably appreciate the time to do more research.
- civilized 5y ago
  The activists who demanded this aren't the ones who need to be persuaded on climate change. MIT just handed the center and right-of-center, full of actual climate skeptics who need to be persuaded, another cancel culture event. Your whole post hinges on the assumption that the prospects of fighting climate change hinge on the approval of college town progressives. In reality, their approval is the least important thing. Of course, if the lecture is really just pandering to that audience without any interest in the larger public, then what you say makes perfect sense. It's also in 100% agreement with original comment. You're actually just agreeing with me and don't realize it because you're lost in your own sea of words.
dang 5y ago
Please don't break the site guidelines by going on about downvotes. Besides doing no good and making boring reading, it ends up being uncollected garbage when the original comment gets corrective upvotes, as yours has. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=corrective%20upvote https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
- civilized 5y ago
  Understood. Deleted the offending text.
dqpb 5y ago
It sounds to me like they didn’t want the climate lecture to be hijacked by people angry about something unrelated to climate.

temp8964 5y ago

What? How is this webpage making any difference? They cancelled the event bc of Professor Abbot's past speech on DEI issues.

q1w2 5y ago

This letter reinforces the Atlantic article's claim that progressive Twitter mobs are cancelling anyone who disagrees with them.

makeitdouble 5y ago
The other angle: University changed plan for a PR event when they were confronted to the fact that the speaker’s public views on diversity were wildly against the people the Uni was trying to reach in the first place.

vmception 5y ago

The additional context is providing us pretty useless information that nobody except him would care about "Its not a campus cancellation, this was off campus aaaand this Professor is actually still invited and now to an on campus event!" uhhh ok. My takeaway is that there is some silver lining here that communication was done between parties instead of a unilateral kneejerk cancellation. But they should have still ignored detractors and held that "off campus" outreach event. Let the detractors embarrass themselves when trying to interrupt the Professor's speech or ask irrelevant questions at the end.

foogazi 5y ago

> Professor van der Hilst, after broadly consulting his community How often is the community broadly consulted on MIT climate science lecturers ?