r/SneerClub archives
newest
bestest
longest
Partisan purges of academies are good, because something something conservatives are oppressed. (https://www.blockedandreported.org/p/in-defense-of-the-new-college-takeover)
58

Jesus Christ the comments

I am less certain that we need conservative faculty–although sure, I’d be fine with that–than that we need openness to controversial ideas. These would include, for example (among many controversial ideas that might be true): for race, considering causes of racial disparities other than discrimination; for gender, the possibility of innate differences that affect life goals; for sexuality, the possibility that child-adult sexual interaction isn’t always a “destroyer of souls.” It is discussion of these uncomfortable ideas that we need, not necessarily more Republicans. (Though, again, I’d be happy to have. them.)

This comment was faved by the author btw

It's highly problematic that social science research be focused on anything outside of justifying racism, sexism, and the sexual abuse of children. This is *the* struggle.
It's pretty bewildering every time someone feels the need to defend CSA. Like, what happened in their life? Should we feel bad about it? Also, nobody says it's a "destroyer of souls". Just that, y'know, we shouldn't traumatize kids for kicks. Incredible that it's .
and... there are numerous other "conservative sexual mores" -- such as they are -- this commenter could have used as an example ("the importance of self-discipline in sexuality", etc., I guess). but nope! straight to the "ackshyually it's called ephebophilia" shtick.
All I'm saying is that not *every* person subject to solitary confinement has come out the other side observably mentally disturbed... Let's stop treating the whole practice as inhumane because some people can't handle it.
Important to note that isn't some random anonymous comment or, it's this guy: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Michael_Bailey. He's already notorious for pushing anti-trans views using pseudoscience, and is responible for "The Fucksaw Incident". Good to know he's also pro-pedophile. EDIT: Also be might have had connections to the Human Biodiversity Institute? That explains why he thinks that ~~black people are stupid~~ academia needs to be more open to controversial ideas on race and intelligence.
damn. i hate when im reading through old stuff on reddit and in the middle of a sparkling, scintillating discussion i find someone has written over all her old comments with nonsense, fragmenting the discussion permanently. what hilarious, moving, romantic, haunting things could she have said? just to wash it all away, in this digital era of permanency? wow. that takes courage. i bet she was really cute, too
I am not going to research what the fuck that incident is ... But more broadly, I think a fucksaw is a SawzAll or similar reciprocating power saw modified to hold a dildo? But I'm not going to go and double check that.
You know, I really try to take the time to consider whether I'm wrong, or whether I'm unfairly strawmanning my enemies. And then shit like this comes along. Like...do they *have* to be such fucking caricatures?
Is there a single major anti-trans figure who isn't an extremely repugnant individual?
No.
Oh my god its so much worse
You know, I really try to take the time to consider whether I'm wrong, or whether I'm unfairly strawmanning my enemies. And then shit like this comes along. Like...do they *have* to be such fucking caricatures?
When will the tapes of this guy in drag be released, because this level of hate is often self hate.
He apparently was hooking up with trans women while writing his book about trans women so maybe it's that he's a chaser.
His cohort Ray Blanchard is 100% a chaser.
wait, he's the fucksaw guy?! I'd never put it together that they were the same dude
Holy fuck

“fuck your diversity initiatives, let’s talk about the real oppression happening here – how else am I supposed to find the academic freedom to have my batshit loco viewpoints validated in an insular echo chamber of other nutjobs?”

Is this blog in any way involved with EA/Rat subculture? It seems like a blog hand-wringing about censorious left-illiberalism in academia. Tangentially related and sneerworthy, but not really material for the sub

He describes Scott Alexander as "the writer who inspired much of my own intellectual growth."
based on his writing style, his irrelevant stats dump, and his maximal charity towards right wingers while presuming guilt of anyone to the left, it makes total sense. He even imitates slatescott's deferential commenting style. I suppose my first comment could come off as confrontational, but I did find the post interesting and pathetic. this guy is so mush-brained that he wants to trade the clearly imperfect state of academic freedom for an ideology that lacks even the pretense of being interested in truth seeking or education.
Lord, grant me the confidence of a man who admires Scott Alexander....
damned by faint praise
I think he definitely counts. He's one of the more prominent posters on the Motte.
Good to know. I'm not very in tune with the microcelebs in Siskind's orbit these days, I generally put firsthand exposure to that shit behind me.
Effective altruism/ rationalist subculture? Those people are so weird. It's like a cult for 2012 reddit militant atheist types who grew to worship techno-futurists like musk and jack Dorsey.
lol, welcome to this sub
lol I thought I was on stupidpol.

Conservatives clearly aren’t oppressed *enough* if they are continuing to make blogs like this.

Of course the Orson Scott Card fan would be a fascist.

I enjoyed the ender’s game trilogy in the 90s but I can’t reread it after what Orson Card has become since then.

“Conservative views are almost unheard of among particularly administrators and humanities departments”

Why would they be? It’s mostly crap that’s been totally debunked. This is like complaining there aren’t any physics professors who believe the earth is flat, or biology professors who believe in creationism.

Why aren't there any phlogiston experts in higher education? There is a dangerous monoculture surrounding the oxygen theory of combustion.
>This is like complaining there aren’t any physics professors who believe the earth is flat, or biology professors who believe in creationism. as much as their public focus is on social topics like race and gender, in fact this is a huge part of what they are after--especially scientists who teach that climate change and evolution are real. it can be very hard to remember that when DeSantis and Rufo & others say "woke," that's a big part of what they mean--and arguably, at the end of the day, possibly even more important to the Christian nationalists who want to burn everything down (using fossil fuels) than are "culture war" issues.

Considering that, at least in America, educated and liberal/progressive are increasingly becoming synonymous due to political realignment and social trends, and because in academic contexts “woke” simply means “educated on particular topics”, we see that the more general concern is the bias universities have toward education. The only way to rectify it is, indeed, by reducing the relative number of educated professors. If we can replace them with professors who would instill a downright resentment of scholarship and indoctrinate reliance on gut feeling, instinct, and received wisdom – all the better. In fact, why not go all the way and abolish all courses except those on rhetoric and debate.

[deleted]

I went to New College…damn this is depressing. I think enrollment is gonna crater next year, a b5ug part of the appeal was the liberal community.

I love the graphs they pull

https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe53ec7f4-8716-4911-b835-ea3994385988_758x499.png

This one is pure nonsense. How are Far Left people bunched together with “liberals”, and who are the “moderates” between them and the far right”? Where are the conservatives on this graph? The neocons? Where is Jordan Peterson? Where is Jonathan Haidt? John Yoo who advised the US to waterboard people and is prof at University of Cali ?

This one

https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fdb7ce263-aae6-4613-ba64-b01d4d05874d_295x234.png

What is “extremely liberal”? Being in favor of gay marriage and abortion rights? This could apply to neoliberal right wingers.

“While I have emphatic quibbles with the standard presentation of the 2006 Politics of the American Professoriate survey, which unreasonably classifies a number of self-identified liberal professors who have unambiguously liberal politics as moderates”

Almost as if that would be accurate, my dude.

PS: Way more people need to realize Jesse Signal is an Eliezer Yudkowski fanboy.
https://web.archive.org/web/20190411060128/https://irrationallyspeaking.home.blog/2019/04/09/a-guide-for-the-perplexed-philosophers-jesse-singal-and-the-rationalist-subculture/

Who is this Chief of Staff person?

I actually like the author but holy shit, DO NOT APPLY THE PRINCIPLE OF CHARITY TO FASCIST DEMAGOGUES

I do think social sciences and general academic culture are progressively biased, and I want that to change. But this doesn’t make me support the takeover of NC, because I don’t think politicians should have the power to correct whatever biases they perceive in academia. It’s better to have a norm where academics and their departments try to convince each other that certain ideas aren’t receiving fair consideration than a norm where ideas that are politically but not academically popular (which are sometimes true but often bullshit) can be forcibly injected into the academic marketplace of ideas. This marketplace is certainly flawed in any case, but it has a better chance of getting close to the truth when not subject to the whims of shifting political majorities of laypeople. About 80% of the memes on r/enlightenedcentrist apply to me, but much of Trace’s argument here really does seem like naive centrism: the fact that academia is far to the left of the general population doesn’t actually mean they’re further from the truth (or from the “best” values). I do think they happen to be on many issues, but the political center shouldn’t be treated as a default goal for the academic center. This is essentially the same reason why I oppose pretty much any kind of anti-misinformation measures driven by the government or large corporations: the popular marketplace of ideas is inefficient (far more so than the academic marketplace on most issues) but still more likely to get to the truth than one where ideas that powerful actors/factions don’t like are not even discussed.

When your first sentence is a veiled "i think we should be more bigoted" and then you expect people to read another blog post sized comment afterwards
That is indeed the least charitable possible summary of the comment.
In any case, I can understand your not liking Siskind if that’s your idea of a reasonable length for a blog post!