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>This is worse than religion because it’s pretending to be rational. And many many people will be fooled. I hate to make the comparison because it's such a tro
by Enginerrrd 4y ago
>This is worse than religion because it’s pretending to be rational. And many many people will be fooled.
I hate to make the comparison because it's such a trope, but, IMO this is one of the most insidious things the Nazis did to indoctrinate the population:
They did things like send people into schools and they would cherry-pick the weakest, least intelligent, least-liked Jewish kid they could find and set him alongside the most athletic, attractive, smart, well-liked Aryan looking kid.
They'd bring them both up in front of the class and from that point on, they'd use "scientific" discussion and observation of their qualities to convince the kids that the Aryan kids were superior in every way. I'll tell you what, I was a pretty savy independent thinker and empathetic kid, but I really think I might have fallen for that type of technique, masquerading as science.
- SubiculumCode 4y agoand this is, if you read the actual guidelines proposed, exactly what they are guarding against: inappropriate overgeneralization.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- timr 4y agoGuarding against overgeneralization is not something we need new scientific heresy rules to prevent. It's already part of being a good scientist. It's also a subjective bar, and adding "inappropriate" to that makes it entirely fungible. Moreover, I've spent the last 2+ years horrified by how willing "scientists" have been to generalize to wild real-world conclusions from miniscule data based on Twitter outrage, so I have zero faith that a board of clerics is going to use these rules with magnanimity. Whichever political faction that controls the board will be tempted to define "inappropriate" to mean "whatever conclusion we don't like". Just to make it concrete: run an RCT that shows that masks don't have any effect on Covid transmission? Good luck getting that published in a top journal, even today. With these new rules, literally anyone who doesn't like the conclusions will claim that the result is an "overgeneralization". There will be no study large enough to satisfy the clerisy...unless The Science says something approved, of course. --- Edit: and lest you think I am exaggerating with my example, consider the following, directly quoted from the new guidelines: > Harms can also arise indirectly, as a result of the publication of a research project or a piece of scholarly communication – for instance, stigmatization of a vulnerable human group or potential use of the results of research for unintended purposes (e.g., public policies that undermine human rights or misuse of information to threaten public health). They're literally saying that they're open to censoring research that might be "misused" to "threaten public health". And they've defined it broadly enough that pretty much anything that displeases "a vulnerable human group" can be covered. Convenient.
- tarakat 4y agoGood thing this practice has since ceased, and is entirely absent from movies and news reporting, where care is taken that even the most maligned groups are represented by, well, representative individuals, instead of cherry-picking the most unlikable members.
- jtbayly 4y agoI assume you're being facetious?
- wizofaus 4y agoHey at least Stranger Things had one semi-likable Russian.
- 8note 4y agoStranger things has had many likeable Russians though?
- HideousKojima 4y agoOk 2 now
- wizofaus 4y agoFor sufficiently small values of "many" and broad definitions of "likeable", perhaps...
- thisiscorrect 4y agohttps://mobile.twitter.com/StupidWhiteAds https://mobile.twitter.com/StupidWhiteAds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvNNtBmA3SQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvNNtBmA3SQ