5 ms·

Thousands register for geophysicist’s lecture after MIT caved to ‘Twitter mob’

82 points by andyxor 5y ago

EricE 5y ago
>“We felt that with the current distractions we would not be in a position to hold an effective outreach event,” Professor Robert van der Hilst, head of the MIT department, said in a statement. Wow - there was a time when one went to college for debate and dissent. It's the best way to hone one's intellectual sword. No wonder universities churn out so many people unprepared to cope in the real world :p
finite_jest 5y ago
Registration link (the topic is "Climate and the Potential for Life on Other Planets"): https://princeton.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_aBSONFUDTJGsxHf1NEmSig?t=1633925076390 https://princeton.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_aBSONFUDTJGsxH...
porknubbins 5y ago
I'm glad Princeton has decided to host this. It seems somehow worse that MIT cancelled a science talk since if one of the most respected engineering schools cannot resist calls for censorship by a twitter mob then who can? Thinking about why academia is especially susceptible to this, it seems like most faculty and staff there are in a position not unlike a high priest or clergy member in that they wield a lot of power as long as they are in the organization but have little or none in their own right and if they lost their position the likelihood of regaining it is very small. So what they all want to minimize is the risk of gaining the attention of a vengeful twitter mob. Its not like there is really a corresponding gain to the individual for standing up for academic freedom to balance the equation.
- HWR_14 5y ago
  I mean, MIT also has him speaking. It's just not a talk to the public but is limited to graduate students and professors.
- GoblinSlayer 5y ago
  Implying MIT administration isn't part of that very mob.
armagon 5y ago
It is amazing to me that a handful of people on twitter can get people cancelled, while thousands of people can march in the streets (such as in many parts of Europe, or in New York City) and be completely ignored.
- Fezzik 5y ago
  People marching down a street make for boring news until the crowd is truly massive and/or violent… baseless and/or partisan quips that can be cut and pasted are easier to broadcast and amplify, for whatever reason. And apparently there’s is a never ending supply of the latter.
  - thinkingemote 5y ago
    I agree but would extend it by saying boring news is not news. It's doesn't get covered because it's boring. There isn't a boring news section on papers, or blogs. Except for the mining and civil engineering broadsheets! News is new. Interesting.
- throwawaysea 5y ago
  It’s because it is less about the size of the mob and more about the institutions where they have infiltrated or have sympathizers. MIT could have just ignored the loud minority of voices here but they didn’t because some decision maker happens to be on their political side. It’s the “long march through the institutions”, where professional positions of power are subverted slowly to support an ideological cause (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_march_through_the_institutions https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_march_through_the_insti...).
908B64B197 5y ago
Sample size of 1, but the cancellation had an alum tell me his "brass rat felt heavier", and that he relegated it to his desk drawer, at least for now.
8bitsrule 5y ago
"he’d recently argued academic evaluations should be based on merit." Oh no. But, but, what will all of our corporate sponsors say? Save the grants! Number of papers published? Our image? Our endowments! However will we afford to have more bureaucrats than teachers? /s That rot was already afoot in the 60s. Twitter's just another excuse for the sycophants behind that curtain, now whispering 'Epstein!''
codeecan 5y ago
> MIT told him it was canceling the lecture to “avoid controversy” after students and recent alumni demanded he be uninvited because he’d recently argued academic evaluations should be based on merit. Damn, I assumed he said something racist maybe, but this is what the issue was about, I just lost all respect for MIT.
- LocalH 5y ago
  There is this weird notion floating around the "identity politics" crowd that says that relying on merit is racist and prejudicial.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > There is this weird notion floating around the "identity politics" crowd that says that relying on merit is racist and prejudicial. No, that's not the idea. The idea is that things some people characterize as “focussing on merit” actually focus on the outputs of processes influenced substantially by (direct and structural) racism and other non-merit biases as well as merit.
  - thinkingemote 5y ago
    And yet it was over eight years ago that GitHub removed their meritocracy rug. It's not weird, or new, nor limited to a fringe crowd, but embedded for years within Silicon Valley tech companies and YC startups.
- cowvin 5y ago
  This is race related in the same way that saying "All Lives Matter" is racist. It's not about the words that are stated, it's about the context as well. When people are protesting about racial injustice toward some minorities, saying "All Lives Matter" is dismissing their concerns. It's like when someone goes to the police department saying "You need to protect me from a murderer" and an officer goes "Yeah, we need to protect everyone from murderers." Yes, that's true, but that's not a very helpful response to someone asking for help. Likewise, the whole academic evaluation based on merit dismisses the idea that our current "objective" means of academic evaluation may not be as objective as they should be when considering race. Yes, we should evaluate students based on "merit" but we need to reconsider whether our current methods measure "merit" accurately.
OldHand2018 5y ago
99.9% of the people registering aren't actually going to attend and don't care at all about the content of the lecture. Princeton has exceeded their "Zoom quota" once and had to increase it to accommodate additional registrations. Is there some limit that they absolutely cannot exceed? Will they have to close registration at some point? If so, then many people that were interested in the content of the lecture will be unable to view it. So... he is effectively going to be cancelled by the anti-cancellers.
- EricE 5y ago
  I haven't yet seen an upper limit with a Zoom seminar (you just have to coordinate with them in advance for large events) but there may indeed be one. It would be interesting to see the actual numbers that end up attending it live. And you can always record the zoom and put it up on something like YouTube, Rumble, Bitchute, etc. afterwards. Pretty hard to cancel ALL of those services.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
ramblerman 5y ago
> mounted a Twitter campaign to cancel a distinguished science lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology because they disagreed with some of the political positions the speaker had taken So we're past the point of looking for racism. Even political opposition, or a viewpoint you don't agree with merits cancellation?
- Clampower 5y ago
  Of course! Even saying nothing is now grounds for canceling. Don’t you remember “silence is violence”?
nickthemagicman 5y ago
Twitter represents the views of a tiny portion of people and the platform by nature optimizes for outrage in that nuance is hard to capture in the small word count. This Twitter mob has also affected stand up comedy. In Dave Chapelles new special he talks about it a fair amount.
- EricE 5y ago
  I also find it delicious that despite the Twitter mob's continued outrage his special is kicking ass. If more people would just ignore the Twitterati we'd all be a lot better off.

82 points by andyxor 5y ago

>“We felt that with the current distractions we would not be in a position to hold an effective outreach event,” Professor Robert van der Hilst, head of the MIT department, said in a statement. Wow - there was a time when one went to college for debate and dissent. It's the best way to hone one's intellectual sword. No wonder universities churn out so many people unprepared to cope in the real world :p

finite_jest 5y ago

Registration link (the topic is "Climate and the Potential for Life on Other Planets"): https://princeton.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_aBSONFUDTJGsxHf1NEmSig?t=1633925076390 https://princeton.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_aBSONFUDTJGsxH...

porknubbins 5y ago

I'm glad Princeton has decided to host this. It seems somehow worse that MIT cancelled a science talk since if one of the most respected engineering schools cannot resist calls for censorship by a twitter mob then who can? Thinking about why academia is especially susceptible to this, it seems like most faculty and staff there are in a position not unlike a high priest or clergy member in that they wield a lot of power as long as they are in the organization but have little or none in their own right and if they lost their position the likelihood of regaining it is very small. So what they all want to minimize is the risk of gaining the attention of a vengeful twitter mob. Its not like there is really a corresponding gain to the individual for standing up for academic freedom to balance the equation.

HWR_14 5y ago
I mean, MIT also has him speaking. It's just not a talk to the public but is limited to graduate students and professors.
GoblinSlayer 5y ago
Implying MIT administration isn't part of that very mob.

armagon 5y ago

It is amazing to me that a handful of people on twitter can get people cancelled, while thousands of people can march in the streets (such as in many parts of Europe, or in New York City) and be completely ignored.

Fezzik 5y ago
People marching down a street make for boring news until the crowd is truly massive and/or violent… baseless and/or partisan quips that can be cut and pasted are easier to broadcast and amplify, for whatever reason. And apparently there’s is a never ending supply of the latter.
- thinkingemote 5y ago
  I agree but would extend it by saying boring news is not news. It's doesn't get covered because it's boring. There isn't a boring news section on papers, or blogs. Except for the mining and civil engineering broadsheets! News is new. Interesting.
throwawaysea 5y ago
It’s because it is less about the size of the mob and more about the institutions where they have infiltrated or have sympathizers. MIT could have just ignored the loud minority of voices here but they didn’t because some decision maker happens to be on their political side. It’s the “long march through the institutions”, where professional positions of power are subverted slowly to support an ideological cause (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_march_through_the_institutions https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_march_through_the_insti...).

908B64B197 5y ago

Sample size of 1, but the cancellation had an alum tell me his "brass rat felt heavier", and that he relegated it to his desk drawer, at least for now.

8bitsrule 5y ago

"he’d recently argued academic evaluations should be based on merit." Oh no. But, but, what will all of our corporate sponsors say? Save the grants! Number of papers published? Our image? Our endowments! However will we afford to have more bureaucrats than teachers? /s That rot was already afoot in the 60s. Twitter's just another excuse for the sycophants behind that curtain, now whispering 'Epstein!''

codeecan 5y ago

> MIT told him it was canceling the lecture to “avoid controversy” after students and recent alumni demanded he be uninvited because he’d recently argued academic evaluations should be based on merit. Damn, I assumed he said something racist maybe, but this is what the issue was about, I just lost all respect for MIT.

LocalH 5y ago
There is this weird notion floating around the "identity politics" crowd that says that relying on merit is racist and prejudicial.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > There is this weird notion floating around the "identity politics" crowd that says that relying on merit is racist and prejudicial. No, that's not the idea. The idea is that things some people characterize as “focussing on merit” actually focus on the outputs of processes influenced substantially by (direct and structural) racism and other non-merit biases as well as merit.
- thinkingemote 5y ago
  And yet it was over eight years ago that GitHub removed their meritocracy rug. It's not weird, or new, nor limited to a fringe crowd, but embedded for years within Silicon Valley tech companies and YC startups.
cowvin 5y ago
This is race related in the same way that saying "All Lives Matter" is racist. It's not about the words that are stated, it's about the context as well. When people are protesting about racial injustice toward some minorities, saying "All Lives Matter" is dismissing their concerns. It's like when someone goes to the police department saying "You need to protect me from a murderer" and an officer goes "Yeah, we need to protect everyone from murderers." Yes, that's true, but that's not a very helpful response to someone asking for help. Likewise, the whole academic evaluation based on merit dismisses the idea that our current "objective" means of academic evaluation may not be as objective as they should be when considering race. Yes, we should evaluate students based on "merit" but we need to reconsider whether our current methods measure "merit" accurately.

OldHand2018 5y ago

99.9% of the people registering aren't actually going to attend and don't care at all about the content of the lecture. Princeton has exceeded their "Zoom quota" once and had to increase it to accommodate additional registrations. Is there some limit that they absolutely cannot exceed? Will they have to close registration at some point? If so, then many people that were interested in the content of the lecture will be unable to view it. So... he is effectively going to be cancelled by the anti-cancellers.

EricE 5y ago
I haven't yet seen an upper limit with a Zoom seminar (you just have to coordinate with them in advance for large events) but there may indeed be one. It would be interesting to see the actual numbers that end up attending it live. And you can always record the zoom and put it up on something like YouTube, Rumble, Bitchute, etc. afterwards. Pretty hard to cancel ALL of those services.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

ramblerman 5y ago

> mounted a Twitter campaign to cancel a distinguished science lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology because they disagreed with some of the political positions the speaker had taken So we're past the point of looking for racism. Even political opposition, or a viewpoint you don't agree with merits cancellation?

Clampower 5y ago
Of course! Even saying nothing is now grounds for canceling. Don’t you remember “silence is violence”?

nickthemagicman 5y ago

Twitter represents the views of a tiny portion of people and the platform by nature optimizes for outrage in that nuance is hard to capture in the small word count. This Twitter mob has also affected stand up comedy. In Dave Chapelles new special he talks about it a fair amount.

EricE 5y ago
I also find it delicious that despite the Twitter mob's continued outrage his special is kicking ass. If more people would just ignore the Twitterati we'd all be a lot better off.