5 ms·

He seems to be complaining that you can't say controversial things anymore, then promptly turns around and complains about people saying controversial things ab

He seems to be complaining that you can't say controversial things anymore, then promptly turns around and complains about people saying controversial things about Israel. "don't cancel me, cancel him!"

deleted 4y ago
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drcongo 4y ago
Every single one of these oh-woe-is-me public resignations does the same.
bjourne 4y ago
Exactly. His gripe about anti-Zionist political activity undermines the point of his message. He complains about some faculty who was been hounded by student's associations, but the hounding of Abdulhadi goes unmentioned because she is an "antisemite". Are you "woke" for pointing out that while universities are now severing ties with Russian universities, the Israeli ties are still going strong? Noam Chomsky and other academics a few years ago published a declaration denouncing threats against academic freedom. Unlike this guy, they didn't make it into a "woke-left" vs "woke-right" issue and thus got signatories from "both" (all) sides.
rayiner 4y ago
What do you mean by “controversial?” His first example relates to research into the sociology of crime. The second example is about getting rid of standardized testing, and his second is about the label “LatinX.” None of this is “controversial.”
- zozbot234 4y ago
  Sociology of crime is one thing that has been quite controversial for some time. In fact, it's where the whole CRT thing first got its start, to try and explain severely dysfunctional patterns in the policing of minority communities.
  - the_biot 4y ago
    "Jeff had developed simulation models of the geographic and temporal patterning of urban crime, and had created predictive software that he marketed to law enforcement agencies." It's that second part, predicting where crime will occur and selling that to the police, that's controversial. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to see where this is going. I'm not a woke type, but that is some horrible stuff, and I'm not surprised he got pushback for this.
    - lvass 4y ago
      You think we're in Minority Report already, mate? Not all police technology is a Precrime department. This software is likely meant to help allocating resources efficiently.
    - scoutt 4y ago
      > some horrible stuff Note that I don't agree with many points of the article or the many bad uses of that technology, but for a second, let's imagine you are in charge of organizing and scheduling police patrol routes. Remember you are trying your optimistically best, because you want to truly prevent crime, and the simulation is good and provides meaninful information. Wouldn't that information be useful to you? Would you at least consider it? Otherwise, what other information would you use to plan police patrols? Statistics probably, but how reliable or updated could they be? Would statistics give the information you are looking for?
      - the_biot 4y ago
        Right, and the secondary effects? If you live near where some people got robbed, you now have cops stopping you for no reason, just because you look like everybody else in that (now marked as high crime) neighborhood. I have no idea what the optimal way to plan police patrols is, but algorithms predicting crime used to guide patrol planning? That's just dystopian.
        lvass 4y ago
        The software doesn't have to be stupid, even if stupid was the best you came up with now.

deleted 4y ago

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drcongo 4y ago

Every single one of these oh-woe-is-me public resignations does the same.

bjourne 4y ago

Exactly. His gripe about anti-Zionist political activity undermines the point of his message. He complains about some faculty who was been hounded by student's associations, but the hounding of Abdulhadi goes unmentioned because she is an "antisemite". Are you "woke" for pointing out that while universities are now severing ties with Russian universities, the Israeli ties are still going strong? Noam Chomsky and other academics a few years ago published a declaration denouncing threats against academic freedom. Unlike this guy, they didn't make it into a "woke-left" vs "woke-right" issue and thus got signatories from "both" (all) sides.

rayiner 4y ago

What do you mean by “controversial?” His first example relates to research into the sociology of crime. The second example is about getting rid of standardized testing, and his second is about the label “LatinX.” None of this is “controversial.”

zozbot234 4y ago
Sociology of crime is one thing that has been quite controversial for some time. In fact, it's where the whole CRT thing first got its start, to try and explain severely dysfunctional patterns in the policing of minority communities.
- the_biot 4y ago
  "Jeff had developed simulation models of the geographic and temporal patterning of urban crime, and had created predictive software that he marketed to law enforcement agencies." It's that second part, predicting where crime will occur and selling that to the police, that's controversial. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to see where this is going. I'm not a woke type, but that is some horrible stuff, and I'm not surprised he got pushback for this.
  - lvass 4y ago
    You think we're in Minority Report already, mate? Not all police technology is a Precrime department. This software is likely meant to help allocating resources efficiently.
  - scoutt 4y ago
    > some horrible stuff Note that I don't agree with many points of the article or the many bad uses of that technology, but for a second, let's imagine you are in charge of organizing and scheduling police patrol routes. Remember you are trying your optimistically best, because you want to truly prevent crime, and the simulation is good and provides meaninful information. Wouldn't that information be useful to you? Would you at least consider it? Otherwise, what other information would you use to plan police patrols? Statistics probably, but how reliable or updated could they be? Would statistics give the information you are looking for?
    - the_biot 4y ago
      Right, and the secondary effects? If you live near where some people got robbed, you now have cops stopping you for no reason, just because you look like everybody else in that (now marked as high crime) neighborhood. I have no idea what the optimal way to plan police patrols is, but algorithms predicting crime used to guide patrol planning? That's just dystopian.
      - lvass 4y ago
        The software doesn't have to be stupid, even if stupid was the best you came up with now.