5 ms·

I fear articles like this rarely serve their purpose and sadly not due to any inherent weaknesses in the presentation or arguments. Rather, they rarely land in

I fear articles like this rarely serve their purpose and sadly not due to any inherent weaknesses in the presentation or arguments. Rather, they rarely land in front of the people who disagree with the contention held within. Instead, they tend to be nearly exclusively read by those who agree. When said pieces do land in front of those holding alternate views, invariably it is by the propagandists and those whose views are forged in iron. The individuals who might be convinced inevitably avoid such articles thanks to the filtering power of today's social media platforms and the dogged pursuit and (not always successful, I'll admit) elimination of such essays from news feeds and sometimes even search engines and their hosting platforms themselves. I have been very lucky that the majority of my friends and acquaintances hold diametrically opposed political views from me, as this has allowed me to watch this very phenomenon unfold on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, etc. The most incredible platform to watch this on is TikTok - if one doesn't purposely engage with opposing viewpoints, one's "For You Page" will be nearly entirely filled with shorts confirming your existing ideological biases. The only remaining few percentage points of content will be extremely popular Toks, which are almost always non-political trending memes, such as dances.

josh2600 5y ago
For what it's worth, my Tiktok feed has 0 political content. It's all dancing, contortionists, singers, and magicians. I think the algorithms serve their masters.
- atdrummond 5y ago
  I have very little political content on my main FYP these days, instead purposely confining it to the puppet accounts I set up just for that purpose. That said, it is very easy to fall into one of the political TikTok streams with just a few inadvertent likes or shares.
hilbert42 5y ago
"Rather, they rarely land in front of the people who disagree with the contention held within." You are likely right as those involved will probably dismiss any criticism. However, I believe the authors of this open letter probably want their position put on the record for posteriorly. However, such is the outrage against Scientific American and Associate Professor McLemore that this open letter may have a life of its own. The outrage was palpable 14 days ago with the HN story The Demise of Scientific American and many of those who posted shared the same discust. The public release of this open letter signed by many prominent people will probably reinforce this view and give the matter a continued existence in the public domain. I've posted a link to the earlier HN story below.
- tasha0663 5y ago
  There's something terribly jarring about the phrase: > Associate Professor McLemore It's embarrassing that someone with the special kind of bold stupidity that Monica McLemore displays is credentialed in anything. It certainly does no favors to the credibility of Nursing as a field.
  - hilbert42 5y ago
    Precisely. My thoughts exactly.
aprinsen 5y ago
Is it better to say nothing, or to meet each other -- those with differing views -- at the margins? Certainly some of the staff at SA seem to have read it.
sol_invictus 5y ago
I increasingly worry this division will end in widespread violence in some form of civil war(s). Please change my opinion about this.
- inglor_cz 5y ago
  Division is with us since forever, but societies in the developed world are aging and thus lack the necessary "cannon fodder" of enough fit young men for a civil war. Civil wars are very often associated with youth bulges [0] and our days of having a youth bulge are over in the West. (There is a possibility of massive influx of young men from Africa and Asia into Europe, which would replenish the potential, but that does not concern the USA.) [0] https://blogs.worldbank.org/developmenttalk/youth-bulge-a-demographic-dividend-or-a-demographic-bomb-in-developing-countries https://blogs.worldbank.org/developmenttalk/youth-bulge-a-de... 40-y.o. somethings are less militarily capable and, these days, usually fat. They will stick to their keyboards. But yeah, all that hate worries me as well.
  - sol_invictus 5y ago
    Great answer, especially [0] > (There is a possibility of massive influx of young men from Africa and Asia into Europe, which would replenish the potential, but that does not concern the USA.) Didnt this basically happen in 2015
- pjc50 5y ago
  Having just seen MLK day go by, I think the situation in the US is considerably better than it was back then, when despite campus cultural policing being enforced by actual shootings and both dissidents and presidents were being murdered, the country did not have a full civil war. You can't really have a civil war without an economic crisis, and the one thing all the helicopter COVID money guaranteed was not having a massive economic crisis. See Kazakhstan; it's been somewhat unfree for years, but the thing that triggered fighting in the streets was a spike in energy prices. However I do think there's a risk of more political violence around elections. Eventually some group is going to bring guns to a government building and refuse to leave.
ralfd 5y ago
> Rather, they rarely land in front of the people who disagree with the contention held within. The open letter wasn't penned to end up on a blog post. The goal was to be printed in Scientific American: But the editor-in-chief was a coward: > Today, after sitting on our rebuttal to Scientific American’s prominent reappraisal of Wilson for eight days (curious given that the original article was rushed out within three days of his death) editor-in-chief Laura Helmuth wrote to officially reject it.
evrydayhustling 5y ago
As someone who believes structural racism and sexism in science are real problems, but also highly values EO Wilson's work and intellectual freedom in general, this rebuttal did me a great service by bringing some history of the controversy into one place. It may not shape discourse today, but statements like this serve a purpose in maintaining a record that people can be thoughtful about on their own pace. EO Wilson's own 1981 defense, cited in the article, serves the same purpose: we don't have to wonder how he interpreted his own findings. https://www.nature.com/articles/289627b0.pdf https://www.nature.com/articles/289627b0.pdf
Mezzie 5y ago
> The most incredible platform to watch this on is TikTok - if one doesn't purposely engage with opposing viewpoints, one's "For You Page" will be nearly entirely filled with shorts confirming your existing ideological biases. The only remaining few percentage points of content will be extremely popular Toks, which are almost always non-political trending memes, such as dances. I'll also add that it tries very hard to pin you to a 'side'. I work in politics and am thoroughly disgusted by every major political faction right now, so the only political TikToks I like watching are shitposts or political humor. TikTok doesn't understand this, and I've noticed that whenever I dislike something political and serious, TT very quickly tries to serve me up political and serious videos from the opposite side of the aisle.
- ImaCake 5y ago
  I’ve recently taken up twitter for my birdwatching hobby and professional science interests. It constantly tries to show me political commentary. I ruthlessly block any account posting political stuff even if I emotionally agree with it. The point is that twitter is just not verbose enough to have a considered political argument so the whole thing is a shitstorm. What I’ve notice is that twitter definitely seems to think I support a particular side of Australian politics. But it has it slightly wrong (I dislike both major parties and their policies) and so it’s attempts are all the more grating.

josh2600 5y ago

For what it's worth, my Tiktok feed has 0 political content. It's all dancing, contortionists, singers, and magicians. I think the algorithms serve their masters.

atdrummond 5y ago
I have very little political content on my main FYP these days, instead purposely confining it to the puppet accounts I set up just for that purpose. That said, it is very easy to fall into one of the political TikTok streams with just a few inadvertent likes or shares.

hilbert42 5y ago

"Rather, they rarely land in front of the people who disagree with the contention held within." You are likely right as those involved will probably dismiss any criticism. However, I believe the authors of this open letter probably want their position put on the record for posteriorly. However, such is the outrage against Scientific American and Associate Professor McLemore that this open letter may have a life of its own. The outrage was palpable 14 days ago with the HN story The Demise of Scientific American and many of those who posted shared the same discust. The public release of this open letter signed by many prominent people will probably reinforce this view and give the matter a continued existence in the public domain. I've posted a link to the earlier HN story below.

tasha0663 5y ago
There's something terribly jarring about the phrase: > Associate Professor McLemore It's embarrassing that someone with the special kind of bold stupidity that Monica McLemore displays is credentialed in anything. It certainly does no favors to the credibility of Nursing as a field.
- hilbert42 5y ago
  Precisely. My thoughts exactly.

aprinsen 5y ago

Is it better to say nothing, or to meet each other -- those with differing views -- at the margins? Certainly some of the staff at SA seem to have read it.

sol_invictus 5y ago

I increasingly worry this division will end in widespread violence in some form of civil war(s). Please change my opinion about this.

inglor_cz 5y ago
Division is with us since forever, but societies in the developed world are aging and thus lack the necessary "cannon fodder" of enough fit young men for a civil war. Civil wars are very often associated with youth bulges [0] and our days of having a youth bulge are over in the West. (There is a possibility of massive influx of young men from Africa and Asia into Europe, which would replenish the potential, but that does not concern the USA.) [0] https://blogs.worldbank.org/developmenttalk/youth-bulge-a-demographic-dividend-or-a-demographic-bomb-in-developing-countries https://blogs.worldbank.org/developmenttalk/youth-bulge-a-de... 40-y.o. somethings are less militarily capable and, these days, usually fat. They will stick to their keyboards. But yeah, all that hate worries me as well.
- sol_invictus 5y ago
  Great answer, especially [0] > (There is a possibility of massive influx of young men from Africa and Asia into Europe, which would replenish the potential, but that does not concern the USA.) Didnt this basically happen in 2015
pjc50 5y ago
Having just seen MLK day go by, I think the situation in the US is considerably better than it was back then, when despite campus cultural policing being enforced by actual shootings and both dissidents and presidents were being murdered, the country did not have a full civil war. You can't really have a civil war without an economic crisis, and the one thing all the helicopter COVID money guaranteed was not having a massive economic crisis. See Kazakhstan; it's been somewhat unfree for years, but the thing that triggered fighting in the streets was a spike in energy prices. However I do think there's a risk of more political violence around elections. Eventually some group is going to bring guns to a government building and refuse to leave.

ralfd 5y ago

> Rather, they rarely land in front of the people who disagree with the contention held within. The open letter wasn't penned to end up on a blog post. The goal was to be printed in Scientific American: But the editor-in-chief was a coward: > Today, after sitting on our rebuttal to Scientific American’s prominent reappraisal of Wilson for eight days (curious given that the original article was rushed out within three days of his death) editor-in-chief Laura Helmuth wrote to officially reject it.

evrydayhustling 5y ago

As someone who believes structural racism and sexism in science are real problems, but also highly values EO Wilson's work and intellectual freedom in general, this rebuttal did me a great service by bringing some history of the controversy into one place. It may not shape discourse today, but statements like this serve a purpose in maintaining a record that people can be thoughtful about on their own pace. EO Wilson's own 1981 defense, cited in the article, serves the same purpose: we don't have to wonder how he interpreted his own findings. https://www.nature.com/articles/289627b0.pdf https://www.nature.com/articles/289627b0.pdf

Mezzie 5y ago

> The most incredible platform to watch this on is TikTok - if one doesn't purposely engage with opposing viewpoints, one's "For You Page" will be nearly entirely filled with shorts confirming your existing ideological biases. The only remaining few percentage points of content will be extremely popular Toks, which are almost always non-political trending memes, such as dances. I'll also add that it tries very hard to pin you to a 'side'. I work in politics and am thoroughly disgusted by every major political faction right now, so the only political TikToks I like watching are shitposts or political humor. TikTok doesn't understand this, and I've noticed that whenever I dislike something political and serious, TT very quickly tries to serve me up political and serious videos from the opposite side of the aisle.

ImaCake 5y ago
I’ve recently taken up twitter for my birdwatching hobby and professional science interests. It constantly tries to show me political commentary. I ruthlessly block any account posting political stuff even if I emotionally agree with it. The point is that twitter is just not verbose enough to have a considered political argument so the whole thing is a shitstorm. What I’ve notice is that twitter definitely seems to think I support a particular side of Australian politics. But it has it slightly wrong (I dislike both major parties and their policies) and so it’s attempts are all the more grating.