A growing sense of fear pervades modern academia, enabling individuals and groups, who, when they don't get their way, are hell bent on destroying everything in their path.
Of course you know, they dont teach Lord of the flies anymore eh - so you are showing your age there :)
My first introduction to your chum Chomsky was by way of an avowed Marxist Leninist professor who challenged every aspect of my thinking. He knew how to press buttons, but in a good way and because of that he drove me to read more and think more critically. He did his job, and I am the richer for it.
This is an unfortunate story to read, and perhaps most sad for those students who ignorantly seek to silence contrasting thoughts and opinions. I can only wonder how they will cope in the real world.
Academia appears to have gone crazy and become disconnected from reality. Half a century ago when I was in the academic game in STEM, I noticed how much of what emerged from the social sciences seemed wacky and full of claims of knowing things about complex problems which fundamentally they couldn't know. Usually this phenomenon involved an N variable problem in which only 1 or 2 variables were examined, and no acknowledgment (let alone correction) for the N-1 variables that often contained "known unknowns" and "unknown unknowns".
At the time, those nuts in the social sciences could be dismissed as irrelevant: now they run the academic table.
When the budget of the department headed by the new DEI Vice Chancellor at UC Berkeley made the newspaper, it included her close to half a million/yr salary. Curious, I looked up the budget of the Civil Engineering Department at UC Berkeley. This outstanding department ranks in the top 3 in most categories of civil engineering world wide. The amount of money budgeted for the DEI Department, with no teaching responsibilities, was larger than the entire Civil/Structural engineering department. I also learned that the Department of Engineering required DEI statements for hiring, and that seemed to be a major barrier.
The big problem for the university in STEM is that you actually need to teach real subjects, such as computer security or machine design, where DEI skills are irrelevant and subject matter knowledge is very relevant. I noticed that Berkeley was hiring real "experts" part-time to teach 400 student classes in these mission critical classes (both upper and lower division computer science). They were making their apparent DEI quotas for tenure track positions, but these politically very correct appointments did not seem capable of maintaining education quality. Hence the hiring of lecturers and adjuncts who worked in the subject areas outside the university and presumably had avoided being culled by the lack of mandated DEI halos shining over their heads.
Academia has a monopoly position in official education, and the system is evolving without constraints. The products of the system can get government jobs (correct qualifications) whether or not they know the technical details of the subjects. The system can go on unimpeded, until we discover our competitive disadvantages with universities in China and India, which seem to still believe in STEM and its value in improving the lives of humanity. China and India are already beginning to take control of the science and technology of the world, judged by the percentage of scientific papers issued by those countries. Our "western academic" system is failing when meritocracy is scorned as White Privilege and Racist, while it simultaneously actively discriminates in favor of "underrepresented" groups.
In my narrow field, I have noted that the majority of the relevant papers in my recent searches are now from China and India and at least half the papers I have formally reviewed came from Asia. A decade ago as a reviewer they were poor quality but now some of the best papers are from Asia.
Aug 19, 2022·edited Aug 19, 2022Liked by Lawrence M. Krauss
I'd hate to be a University student now, and I am glad I had my time when I had it, which I find gut wrenchingly sad for the current and future generations of students, who simply won't have that mind liberating experience of University. University was a place for the opening the minds, for challenging conversations, debate, and certainly not a place of restrictions and mandatory conformity...
This paints a horrendous image of Orwellian Newspeak..... a language that restricted vocabulary in order to limit your ability to think "non-conforming" thoughts, and also to remove words deemed subversive in order to quelle self expression, free-will and personal identity.
I'm not saying this is the same.... but there's also the essence of stalinist public denouncements here.
Not only would I not want to be a student in this day and age, I'd be terrified to be an academic - knowing that potentially there are people in the audience, seething with grievance, waiting for you to "trip up" or goading you in to tripping up, armed and at the ready with the most uncharitable interpretation of any thing you say, and a public ready to "lap it up".
All of which is definitely double-plus-ungood, as Winston Smith would say.
This is an excellent piece that documents the problem -- a power grab by a small group of bullies abetted by the inaction of our leadership. While it is ok for extremists to exist and to voice their opinions, the institutions should not bow down to them. In other words, the problem is not the spoiled children but the failure of the adults to behave responsibly. Our leaders are failing their job and our institutions are undermining themselves: https://www.persuasion.community/p/our-institutions-keep-undermining
The Lord of the Flies plus A Few Good Men, some of these people are deluded that doing the wrong thing is right because of ideology; the kids at least had the innocence of childish immorality.
S.E.T.I. could use shamans, I'm pretty sure shamanism isn't science, but they do make claims of contact with discarnate alien agency such as specific "plant intellectuals," in the form of various mushrooms and vines. So, maybe Scotty should hold off on the beaming up while we talk to trees and make sure we're not marginalizing them in some fashion.
It is a shame the society has come down to this. On one end we have the right wing nutcases who are destroying our society, albeit taking the social values head on. On the other hand, we have left wing nutcases, under an egalitarian cover, force the society to adhere to values as defined by an entitled group (mostly from a single race which owns the responsibility for a big chunk of bigotry in the country). This group on the left neither understand nor want to understand that people have cultural, linguistic and other differences outside of race and sex. This lack of understanding by an expanding group has lead to left wing fascism just like the bigotry of the other group lead to right wing fascism. As long as these extreme elements on the left don't try to understand that the world is grey and not black and white and the only way to reduce the bigotry in the world is through education (takes time), we are in for much bigger social upheavals which could make Trumpism saner (just like how Trumpism made Bushism saner) #SadStateOfAffairs
For what it's worth, here's my complaint about academia. The number of intelligent, highly educated, intellectual elites who show any interest in nuclear weapons is unacceptably small, to put it politely. If the "experts" are largely incapable of critical thinking, reason, and common sense, why do they expect their students to have mastered these skills?
I'm at a loss for finding the right words to express this constructively, so maybe I should just blurt it out and take the consequences? I'm pretty much fed up with the intellectual elites that this society depends on for leadership obsessing over ivory tower inside baseball while our civilization marches relentlessly towards some kind of Biblical scale calamity. Fiddling while Rome burns, me thinks.
“It was decided to forbid using the word “intelligence” (as in “the search for intelligent life”), as it is a white construct.” REALLY?!!! 😳🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️
And regarding the first example given in the article, wouldn’t it be better to put such efforts for achieving “safety” into challenging things like the weapon law in the US?
Of course you know, they dont teach Lord of the flies anymore eh - so you are showing your age there :)
My first introduction to your chum Chomsky was by way of an avowed Marxist Leninist professor who challenged every aspect of my thinking. He knew how to press buttons, but in a good way and because of that he drove me to read more and think more critically. He did his job, and I am the richer for it.
This is an unfortunate story to read, and perhaps most sad for those students who ignorantly seek to silence contrasting thoughts and opinions. I can only wonder how they will cope in the real world.
Academia appears to have gone crazy and become disconnected from reality. Half a century ago when I was in the academic game in STEM, I noticed how much of what emerged from the social sciences seemed wacky and full of claims of knowing things about complex problems which fundamentally they couldn't know. Usually this phenomenon involved an N variable problem in which only 1 or 2 variables were examined, and no acknowledgment (let alone correction) for the N-1 variables that often contained "known unknowns" and "unknown unknowns".
At the time, those nuts in the social sciences could be dismissed as irrelevant: now they run the academic table.
When the budget of the department headed by the new DEI Vice Chancellor at UC Berkeley made the newspaper, it included her close to half a million/yr salary. Curious, I looked up the budget of the Civil Engineering Department at UC Berkeley. This outstanding department ranks in the top 3 in most categories of civil engineering world wide. The amount of money budgeted for the DEI Department, with no teaching responsibilities, was larger than the entire Civil/Structural engineering department. I also learned that the Department of Engineering required DEI statements for hiring, and that seemed to be a major barrier.
The big problem for the university in STEM is that you actually need to teach real subjects, such as computer security or machine design, where DEI skills are irrelevant and subject matter knowledge is very relevant. I noticed that Berkeley was hiring real "experts" part-time to teach 400 student classes in these mission critical classes (both upper and lower division computer science). They were making their apparent DEI quotas for tenure track positions, but these politically very correct appointments did not seem capable of maintaining education quality. Hence the hiring of lecturers and adjuncts who worked in the subject areas outside the university and presumably had avoided being culled by the lack of mandated DEI halos shining over their heads.
Academia has a monopoly position in official education, and the system is evolving without constraints. The products of the system can get government jobs (correct qualifications) whether or not they know the technical details of the subjects. The system can go on unimpeded, until we discover our competitive disadvantages with universities in China and India, which seem to still believe in STEM and its value in improving the lives of humanity. China and India are already beginning to take control of the science and technology of the world, judged by the percentage of scientific papers issued by those countries. Our "western academic" system is failing when meritocracy is scorned as White Privilege and Racist, while it simultaneously actively discriminates in favor of "underrepresented" groups.
In my narrow field, I have noted that the majority of the relevant papers in my recent searches are now from China and India and at least half the papers I have formally reviewed came from Asia. A decade ago as a reviewer they were poor quality but now some of the best papers are from Asia.
I'd hate to be a University student now, and I am glad I had my time when I had it, which I find gut wrenchingly sad for the current and future generations of students, who simply won't have that mind liberating experience of University. University was a place for the opening the minds, for challenging conversations, debate, and certainly not a place of restrictions and mandatory conformity...
This paints a horrendous image of Orwellian Newspeak..... a language that restricted vocabulary in order to limit your ability to think "non-conforming" thoughts, and also to remove words deemed subversive in order to quelle self expression, free-will and personal identity.
I'm not saying this is the same.... but there's also the essence of stalinist public denouncements here.
Not only would I not want to be a student in this day and age, I'd be terrified to be an academic - knowing that potentially there are people in the audience, seething with grievance, waiting for you to "trip up" or goading you in to tripping up, armed and at the ready with the most uncharitable interpretation of any thing you say, and a public ready to "lap it up".
All of which is definitely double-plus-ungood, as Winston Smith would say.
This is an excellent piece that documents the problem -- a power grab by a small group of bullies abetted by the inaction of our leadership. While it is ok for extremists to exist and to voice their opinions, the institutions should not bow down to them. In other words, the problem is not the spoiled children but the failure of the adults to behave responsibly. Our leaders are failing their job and our institutions are undermining themselves: https://www.persuasion.community/p/our-institutions-keep-undermining
How far will they let this destructive trend go?
The Lord of the Flies plus A Few Good Men, some of these people are deluded that doing the wrong thing is right because of ideology; the kids at least had the innocence of childish immorality.
S.E.T.I. could use shamans, I'm pretty sure shamanism isn't science, but they do make claims of contact with discarnate alien agency such as specific "plant intellectuals," in the form of various mushrooms and vines. So, maybe Scotty should hold off on the beaming up while we talk to trees and make sure we're not marginalizing them in some fashion.
Unfortunately, we are surrounded by fascism, left, right and middle.
It is a shame the society has come down to this. On one end we have the right wing nutcases who are destroying our society, albeit taking the social values head on. On the other hand, we have left wing nutcases, under an egalitarian cover, force the society to adhere to values as defined by an entitled group (mostly from a single race which owns the responsibility for a big chunk of bigotry in the country). This group on the left neither understand nor want to understand that people have cultural, linguistic and other differences outside of race and sex. This lack of understanding by an expanding group has lead to left wing fascism just like the bigotry of the other group lead to right wing fascism. As long as these extreme elements on the left don't try to understand that the world is grey and not black and white and the only way to reduce the bigotry in the world is through education (takes time), we are in for much bigger social upheavals which could make Trumpism saner (just like how Trumpism made Bushism saner) #SadStateOfAffairs
For what it's worth, here's my complaint about academia. The number of intelligent, highly educated, intellectual elites who show any interest in nuclear weapons is unacceptably small, to put it politely. If the "experts" are largely incapable of critical thinking, reason, and common sense, why do they expect their students to have mastered these skills?
I'm at a loss for finding the right words to express this constructively, so maybe I should just blurt it out and take the consequences? I'm pretty much fed up with the intellectual elites that this society depends on for leadership obsessing over ivory tower inside baseball while our civilization marches relentlessly towards some kind of Biblical scale calamity. Fiddling while Rome burns, me thinks.
This is all very alarming!
“It was decided to forbid using the word “intelligence” (as in “the search for intelligent life”), as it is a white construct.” REALLY?!!! 😳🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️
And regarding the first example given in the article, wouldn’t it be better to put such efforts for achieving “safety” into challenging things like the weapon law in the US?