12 ms·

Some personal highlights: "They’re excellent schools, and they have excellent scientists, and if one of Vice-President Vance’s kids is sick, he’s going to want

Some personal highlights: "They’re excellent schools, and they have excellent scientists, and if one of Vice-President Vance’s kids is sick, he’s going to want the doctor to have gone to one of these schools; he’s not going to want them to have gone to Viktor Orbán’s university." "People have said to me, “Well, you take all that money from the government, why don’t you listen to them?” The answer is, because the money doesn’t come with a loyalty oath." "I don’t have to agree with the mayor to get the fire department to come put out a fire. And that’s what they’re saying to these international students: “Well, you came to this country. What makes you think you can write an op-ed in the newspaper?” Well, what makes you think that is, this is a free country. "

jgalt212 2y ago
> The answer is, because the money doesn’t come with a loyalty oath But it does come with some reasonable level of consideration and appreciation.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- turtlesdown11 2y ago
  "you didn't say thank you!!!"
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- sigmar 2y ago
  You don't know how they feel, so what you're saying is "they have to show/express appreciation," which is synonymous with a loyalty oath.
  - jgalt212 2y ago
    [flagged]
- dfxm12 2y ago
  Why do you think this?
  - jgalt212 2y ago
    Because it's a transcation and there are two parties to the transaction. And for these transaction to occur in a repeated fashion neither side should feel they are being taken advantage of.
    - standardUser 2y ago
      I don't think anyone feels taken advantage of. I think most people involved in academia value the complexities and jagged edges that come with an international student body. And the outcome - the preeminent education system in the world that keeps the US at the cutting edge of science and technology and has for nearly a hundred years - is indisputable.
    - tashi 2y ago
      One of the problems with trying to apply the Objectivist view to a situation like this is that often experts need to tell their patrons true things they don't want to hear. I'll leave any sociological or economic examples aside and say, to pick a couple that Ayn Rand herself didn't believe, that smoking causes cancer and air pollution is bad for the human body. If the patron doesn't want to believe this new fact they have been told, they might feel taken advantage of. They might feel that if a science department got public funding only to come to those conclusions, that the scientists should be fired.
    - low_tech_love 2y ago
      A government is not a person who “feels” anything. Anyone who is in the USA for work/study has agreed to a contract, and there is nothing in that contract that requires intelectual subservience. If the USA government finds that the person is not doing their part according to the contract, which would mean being taken advantage of, they are more than welcome to act on that. This has nothing to do with what’s happening. You’re applying social norms that exist between humans, based on feelings, to a completely different relationship that includes no feelings at all. Would you like another government, with another political direction opposed to yours, to start asking you for appreciation?
- croes 2y ago
  The government pays to get good universities which attract smart foreign who come to the US to study on these universities. Maybe the government should appreciate them not the other way around.
  - jgalt212 2y ago
    Yeah, I agree. The government appreciates, or should appreciate, the good uses its taxpayers' money is put towards. As to the other intractables above, appreciation and loyalty are very far from the same thing.
    - mlinhares 2y ago
      I don't think it ever crosses these people's minds that some other country PAID FOR these people's education and they are now USING that education elsewhere for the profit of a foreign nation. All my high school and college education was at free schools/colleges in my home country, paid for by taxpayer money. All incredibly competitive places, with very high maintenance costs compared to the other colleges around, not a single US dollar was invested in me and here I am paying taxes and improving this place. The bargain the US gets from this is one of the biggest reasons it can do what it does, the investments it makes are compounded by the work of the people that it never put a dime for.
- skeaker 2y ago
  Being paid what you're owed doesn't necessitate gratitude.
  - jgalt212 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - margalabargala 2y ago
    For those who disagree with this, when was the last time you thanked your boss for your paycheck?
    - jgalt212 2y ago
      But, I bet many have thanked their boss for the opportunity given to them. This statement of gratitude is a tacit acknowledgement of salary.
      - ath3nd 2y ago
        > But, I bet many have thanked their boss for the opportunity given to them. I literally don't know anybody who has any desire of expressing gratitude to their boss for the "opportunity" given to them. What kind of servile lapdogs do consider their work an "opportunity"? How about the bosses realize that without workers, their businesses will implode, and thank their workers for the "opportunity" to have a working business instead? Jobs are an exchange of a worker's time and skills for a wage. If you expect workers with a touch servility on top, I suggest you go back to the medieval times of lords and servants.
        47282847 2y ago
        I agree in general with your points, except that I believe both parties “should“ (can) be grateful for each other and in that acknowledge they both need each other. It’s nice for wellbeing to be grateful for everything good that happens, it doesn’t necessarily imply servitude.
- humanpotato 2y ago
  Consider that any competent manager will value polite debate and constructive criticism far more than the empty words of "yes" men. Guess which category "reasonable ... consideration and appreciation" falls into. Put another way, if you read North Korean state media, you will find that they always have a reasonable level of consideration and appreciation for their government.
- hekette 2y ago
  It is their right to be there. They do not have to show appreciation and the current government should never be one deciding these what is appreciation. Bowing to authority is exactly the opposite of what education is about.
- kristjansson 2y ago
  What about e.g. writing an op-ed expressing one's views conveys a lack of consideration and appreciation?
rendall 2y ago
[flagged]
- KittenInABox 2y ago
  There are US citizens who want to shoot gays, kill people different in creed or heritage, and bomb people for religious reasons. We had the gay panic defense (the legal defense to kill gay people just because you found out they were gay, and the shock justified you killing them). We had people shooting sikhs assuming they're muslim. We had folks bombing abortion clinics. There are US citizens who have done far more, and far worse, than writing an op-ed or taking over a building. So, frankly, why not treat these people the same we treated like these other folk-- a trial and then appropriate punishment proven in the court of law. If an immigrant is violating the terms of their visa, the US gov't can prove it in their own courts and then deport them appropriately.
  - rendall 2y ago
    What about is always a bad answer. It comes of a defensive. Indeed, I agree with you. There are US citizens who want to do reprehensible things, and I still say: maybe the US is not their jam. No, I'm not advocating exile or illegal detention. Just stating a fact.
    - wizzwizz4 2y ago
      When you're talking about due process, "what about these other people who got due process?" is a reasonable response. Whataboutism would be something like, "what about Nazi Germany, where even more people got sent to foreign prison camps without due process: look, the US isn't so bad!".
    - reverendsteveii 2y ago
      the whole "not your jam" thing seems to be you retreating to meaninglessness. this isn't a debate about how a person should feel, it's a debate about how a government should act.
  - nradov 2y ago
Telemakhos 2y ago
> "They’re excellent schools, and they have excellent scientists, and if one of Vice-President Vance’s kids is sick, he’s going to want the doctor to have gone to one of these schools; he’s not going to want them to have gone to Viktor Orbán’s university." I'm not sure I understand. If I want a medical doctor, I'm not looking for someone based on his political views or spirited independence from the Hungarian government, but for someone with training in a very narrow discipline, namely medicine. I really don't want someone who is more interested in "the modern and the postmodern" prescribing me meds, but I do want someone who conforms to the current pharmacological standards. The University President in question does not even run a medical school; Wesleyan does not, to my knowledge, teach anyone the art of medicine, however highly it might rank as a liberal arts institution. Semmelweis University in Budapest, however, is older than the United States, is the largest healthcare provider in Hungary, and is ranked among the top 300 universities in the world. Therefore, if I had to chose between someone who went to Wesleyan and someone who went to Semmelweis, which I'll take as "Viktor Orbán's university," I should much rather have the Hungarian who actually knows medicine rather than the liberal arts PhD who might be able to lecture me on what postmodernism should mean to me.
- abbadadda 2y ago
  What are you purporting not to understand? It seems you’re fighting your own straw man.
  - timewizard 2y ago
    The author of the article seems to accept "appeal to authority" he just wishes it was more critically refined to a point that it might somehow be justifiable. The OP is expressing dismay at this obviously compromised position. There is no purportment or strawmen that I can detect.
- rayiner 2y ago
  [flagged]
- low_tech_love 2y ago
  In that specific quote he’s talking about Ivy League universities, not Wesleyan, but the quote would be too long. I thought it was clear, sorry for the misunderstanding. Regardless, I absolutely agree with you, except for one thing: I would have no problem being under care of a Hungarian, but I doubt you’d ever see a MAGA enthusiast saying he prefers that than an American doctor.
knowitnone 2y ago
The money comes from the public, not the government
- Ray20 2y ago
  Can I have statistics for this? Because I always thought it was mostly from the government, not from the public.
  - gigatree 2y ago
    Where do you think the government gets its money from?
    - synecdoche 2y ago
      Printing? btw, you got my upvote
  - bigtunacan 2y ago
    Do you not understand that money coming from the government has been acquired from taxes, ergo the money comes from the people.
- insane_dreamer 2y ago
  And I for one would much rather it go to subsidize university research than subsidize the defense industry
  - martin82 2y ago
    You need both if you want it to remain a free and sovereign country.
    - insane_dreamer 2y ago
      But not anywhere near what we have in terms of military power and spending. Also, economic decline is a much greater threat to the US than military decline. China is eager to dethrone us economically; an invasion of the US would be extremely costly and highly unlikely even if the US' military were significantly smaller.
ninalanyon 2y ago
Surely he could have expressed himself better than that. Insulting some other country's universities seems a very odd thing to do when trying to make a point about your own universities. This is especially odd as the choice of country to insult has several universities that are well inside the top 10% worldwide and rank higher than Wesleyan. We should expect better rhetoric from the rector of a liberal arts university. Unfortunately I can't read the actual article to see what the rest of his argument was like. I wish that HN would automatically provide links to bypass paywalls.
- low_tech_love 1y ago
  There was no insult. The point is very clear if you are not trying to intentionally make him look bad. He said that Vance would never send his kids to a hospital in Hungary; he never said hospitals in Hungary are bad, or that Hungarians are peasants, for example. What he’s trying to show you is that you’re being manipulated, that what they say is not what they do, so you shouldn’t believe them. But I guess most people prefer to trust the snake oil sellers than open their eyes. Edit: and by the way Orbán is not Hungary, in the same way that Trump is not America, although they would very much like you to think so. I wonder why?

jgalt212 2y ago

> The answer is, because the money doesn’t come with a loyalty oath But it does come with some reasonable level of consideration and appreciation.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
turtlesdown11 2y ago
"you didn't say thank you!!!"
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
sigmar 2y ago
You don't know how they feel, so what you're saying is "they have to show/express appreciation," which is synonymous with a loyalty oath.
- jgalt212 2y ago
  [flagged]
dfxm12 2y ago
Why do you think this?
- jgalt212 2y ago
  Because it's a transcation and there are two parties to the transaction. And for these transaction to occur in a repeated fashion neither side should feel they are being taken advantage of.
  - standardUser 2y ago
    I don't think anyone feels taken advantage of. I think most people involved in academia value the complexities and jagged edges that come with an international student body. And the outcome - the preeminent education system in the world that keeps the US at the cutting edge of science and technology and has for nearly a hundred years - is indisputable.
  - tashi 2y ago
    One of the problems with trying to apply the Objectivist view to a situation like this is that often experts need to tell their patrons true things they don't want to hear. I'll leave any sociological or economic examples aside and say, to pick a couple that Ayn Rand herself didn't believe, that smoking causes cancer and air pollution is bad for the human body. If the patron doesn't want to believe this new fact they have been told, they might feel taken advantage of. They might feel that if a science department got public funding only to come to those conclusions, that the scientists should be fired.
  - low_tech_love 2y ago
    A government is not a person who “feels” anything. Anyone who is in the USA for work/study has agreed to a contract, and there is nothing in that contract that requires intelectual subservience. If the USA government finds that the person is not doing their part according to the contract, which would mean being taken advantage of, they are more than welcome to act on that. This has nothing to do with what’s happening. You’re applying social norms that exist between humans, based on feelings, to a completely different relationship that includes no feelings at all. Would you like another government, with another political direction opposed to yours, to start asking you for appreciation?
croes 2y ago
The government pays to get good universities which attract smart foreign who come to the US to study on these universities. Maybe the government should appreciate them not the other way around.
- jgalt212 2y ago
  Yeah, I agree. The government appreciates, or should appreciate, the good uses its taxpayers' money is put towards. As to the other intractables above, appreciation and loyalty are very far from the same thing.
  - mlinhares 2y ago
    I don't think it ever crosses these people's minds that some other country PAID FOR these people's education and they are now USING that education elsewhere for the profit of a foreign nation. All my high school and college education was at free schools/colleges in my home country, paid for by taxpayer money. All incredibly competitive places, with very high maintenance costs compared to the other colleges around, not a single US dollar was invested in me and here I am paying taxes and improving this place. The bargain the US gets from this is one of the biggest reasons it can do what it does, the investments it makes are compounded by the work of the people that it never put a dime for.
skeaker 2y ago
Being paid what you're owed doesn't necessitate gratitude.
- jgalt212 2y ago
  [flagged]
- margalabargala 2y ago
  For those who disagree with this, when was the last time you thanked your boss for your paycheck?
  - jgalt212 2y ago
    But, I bet many have thanked their boss for the opportunity given to them. This statement of gratitude is a tacit acknowledgement of salary.
    - ath3nd 2y ago
      > But, I bet many have thanked their boss for the opportunity given to them. I literally don't know anybody who has any desire of expressing gratitude to their boss for the "opportunity" given to them. What kind of servile lapdogs do consider their work an "opportunity"? How about the bosses realize that without workers, their businesses will implode, and thank their workers for the "opportunity" to have a working business instead? Jobs are an exchange of a worker's time and skills for a wage. If you expect workers with a touch servility on top, I suggest you go back to the medieval times of lords and servants.
      - 47282847 2y ago
        I agree in general with your points, except that I believe both parties “should“ (can) be grateful for each other and in that acknowledge they both need each other. It’s nice for wellbeing to be grateful for everything good that happens, it doesn’t necessarily imply servitude.
humanpotato 2y ago
Consider that any competent manager will value polite debate and constructive criticism far more than the empty words of "yes" men. Guess which category "reasonable ... consideration and appreciation" falls into. Put another way, if you read North Korean state media, you will find that they always have a reasonable level of consideration and appreciation for their government.
hekette 2y ago
It is their right to be there. They do not have to show appreciation and the current government should never be one deciding these what is appreciation. Bowing to authority is exactly the opposite of what education is about.
kristjansson 2y ago
What about e.g. writing an op-ed expressing one's views conveys a lack of consideration and appreciation?

rendall 2y ago

[flagged]

KittenInABox 2y ago
There are US citizens who want to shoot gays, kill people different in creed or heritage, and bomb people for religious reasons. We had the gay panic defense (the legal defense to kill gay people just because you found out they were gay, and the shock justified you killing them). We had people shooting sikhs assuming they're muslim. We had folks bombing abortion clinics. There are US citizens who have done far more, and far worse, than writing an op-ed or taking over a building. So, frankly, why not treat these people the same we treated like these other folk-- a trial and then appropriate punishment proven in the court of law. If an immigrant is violating the terms of their visa, the US gov't can prove it in their own courts and then deport them appropriately.
- rendall 2y ago
  What about is always a bad answer. It comes of a defensive. Indeed, I agree with you. There are US citizens who want to do reprehensible things, and I still say: maybe the US is not their jam. No, I'm not advocating exile or illegal detention. Just stating a fact.
  - wizzwizz4 2y ago
    When you're talking about due process, "what about these other people who got due process?" is a reasonable response. Whataboutism would be something like, "what about Nazi Germany, where even more people got sent to foreign prison camps without due process: look, the US isn't so bad!".
  - reverendsteveii 2y ago
    the whole "not your jam" thing seems to be you retreating to meaninglessness. this isn't a debate about how a person should feel, it's a debate about how a government should act.
- nradov 2y ago

Telemakhos 2y ago

> "They’re excellent schools, and they have excellent scientists, and if one of Vice-President Vance’s kids is sick, he’s going to want the doctor to have gone to one of these schools; he’s not going to want them to have gone to Viktor Orbán’s university." I'm not sure I understand. If I want a medical doctor, I'm not looking for someone based on his political views or spirited independence from the Hungarian government, but for someone with training in a very narrow discipline, namely medicine. I really don't want someone who is more interested in "the modern and the postmodern" prescribing me meds, but I do want someone who conforms to the current pharmacological standards. The University President in question does not even run a medical school; Wesleyan does not, to my knowledge, teach anyone the art of medicine, however highly it might rank as a liberal arts institution. Semmelweis University in Budapest, however, is older than the United States, is the largest healthcare provider in Hungary, and is ranked among the top 300 universities in the world. Therefore, if I had to chose between someone who went to Wesleyan and someone who went to Semmelweis, which I'll take as "Viktor Orbán's university," I should much rather have the Hungarian who actually knows medicine rather than the liberal arts PhD who might be able to lecture me on what postmodernism should mean to me.

abbadadda 2y ago
What are you purporting not to understand? It seems you’re fighting your own straw man.
- timewizard 2y ago
  The author of the article seems to accept "appeal to authority" he just wishes it was more critically refined to a point that it might somehow be justifiable. The OP is expressing dismay at this obviously compromised position. There is no purportment or strawmen that I can detect.
rayiner 2y ago
[flagged]
low_tech_love 2y ago
In that specific quote he’s talking about Ivy League universities, not Wesleyan, but the quote would be too long. I thought it was clear, sorry for the misunderstanding. Regardless, I absolutely agree with you, except for one thing: I would have no problem being under care of a Hungarian, but I doubt you’d ever see a MAGA enthusiast saying he prefers that than an American doctor.

knowitnone 2y ago

The money comes from the public, not the government

Ray20 2y ago
Can I have statistics for this? Because I always thought it was mostly from the government, not from the public.
- gigatree 2y ago
  Where do you think the government gets its money from?
  - synecdoche 2y ago
    Printing? btw, you got my upvote
- bigtunacan 2y ago
  Do you not understand that money coming from the government has been acquired from taxes, ergo the money comes from the people.
insane_dreamer 2y ago
And I for one would much rather it go to subsidize university research than subsidize the defense industry
- martin82 2y ago
  You need both if you want it to remain a free and sovereign country.
  - insane_dreamer 2y ago
    But not anywhere near what we have in terms of military power and spending. Also, economic decline is a much greater threat to the US than military decline. China is eager to dethrone us economically; an invasion of the US would be extremely costly and highly unlikely even if the US' military were significantly smaller.

ninalanyon 2y ago

Surely he could have expressed himself better than that. Insulting some other country's universities seems a very odd thing to do when trying to make a point about your own universities. This is especially odd as the choice of country to insult has several universities that are well inside the top 10% worldwide and rank higher than Wesleyan. We should expect better rhetoric from the rector of a liberal arts university. Unfortunately I can't read the actual article to see what the rest of his argument was like. I wish that HN would automatically provide links to bypass paywalls.

low_tech_love 1y ago
There was no insult. The point is very clear if you are not trying to intentionally make him look bad. He said that Vance would never send his kids to a hospital in Hungary; he never said hospitals in Hungary are bad, or that Hungarians are peasants, for example. What he’s trying to show you is that you’re being manipulated, that what they say is not what they do, so you shouldn’t believe them. But I guess most people prefer to trust the snake oil sellers than open their eyes. Edit: and by the way Orbán is not Hungary, in the same way that Trump is not America, although they would very much like you to think so. I wonder why?