I find that this guide unhelpfully conflates probability and inference in a few places. Probability theory on its own is interesting but not terribly useful without the infrastructure of estimation.
This is an interesting argument but I think it fails to coherently restate what it means for race to be socially constructed. Nobody is denying that genetic differences between people exist and are important for health. They’re saying that reusing racial categorization schemes in genetics is scientifically ungrounded because these racial categories have no inherent biological content— they’re more like receptacles for political and social debate.
It’s not clear what value it adds to use (e.g.) US Census racial categories in genetics research. The salience of racial identification changes over time and is deeply politicized (as the author notes). More sophisticated and granular categories that are actually based on genetics would be much more appropriate than trying to recuperate categories that weren’t developed for science.
Cool tutorial, but I'm not entirely sure what makes this ML -- aside from neural nets, this is more or less the material you'd encounter in a basic applied statistics or regression analysis course, minus material on estimating uncertainty, modeling survival or time-series data, and causal inference. I suspect you'd benefit more from a 50 minute tutorial on those than neural nets.
Experimental design and observational causal inference would be excellent skills to have. Especially if you’re working with people who are asking you “why” questions, ML is helpful but isn’t going to cut it alone.
Great guide! Another reason to be familiar with this stuff is for data science: splines in particular are really useful for fitting a linear predictor where you suspect some of the marginal relationships are nonlinear, but you don’t have a strong prior on what the nonlinearity looks like.
This is right -- plus lm() is faster! Although, from a statistical perspective, if you can't invert X'X, that should first make you think "I have data quality issues" (i.e. multicollinearity) rather than "I need a different algorithm to compute the inverse".
From my perspective, I don't want to work in an environment where people are voicing their opinion that (e.g.) gay marriage is illegitimate or wrong. How am I supposed to work with someone who thinks a huge part of my life is immoral? I would have an incredibly hard time believing that that person was taking me seriously, really wanted to work with me, wasn't going to undercut me, or trusted me.
It's not that you can't have these opinions or voice them -- but it's also not the case that the people who are most affected by those opinions are going to feel OK about it.
I totally empathize with this perspective. It would never be appropriate for coworkers to criticize (directly or indirectly) your lifestyle, identity, or personal decisions.
With regards to your statement "I would have an incredibly hard time believing that that person was taking me seriously, really wanted to work with me, wasn't going to undercut me, or trusted me.", in many ways I totally respect that concern.
But I also think it may be symptomatic of how our approach to these topics has become non-constructive. We've too closely tied support for a person with support for everything they do/believe. To my thinking, whether I take you seriously or want to work with you has nothing to do with the aforementioned topics, and entirely with how you behave/execute at work. And if I'm going to undercut you at work because I disagree with your beliefs, the issue isn't that I disagree with you, it's that I'd be willing to undercut anyone I work with.
That's totally fair -- and I appreciate that you're willing to engage seriously about these things!
Your last point is well-taken. It may even be the case these days that the majority of people who hold views similar to yours think the way you do. But I think we need to take into account the uncertainty that people in these situations face. It's hard to know what the other person is thinking -- and if all you know is that person's opinion, it's hard to know what's going on when you're not looking. Bigotry is often dressed up in talk and behavior that seems polite, even respectful at first glance, but that is ultimately materially harmful.
For example, I think a lot of LGBTQ people from religious backgrounds have had an experience of being told that their family or community will "love the sinner, but hate the sin" -- and then subsequently being subjected to unfair and harmful treatment (bullying, psychological abuse, ostracism, being disowned).
This is a really good reminder that there is indeed a tragic past of marginalized groups being treated poorly and receiving harm/violence. And there still is in certain areas, meaning that even though my standpoint may be that "of course I value them as a person", from the recipient's standpoint that cannot be assumed, and indeed it may be safer not to. This is super important to keep in mind, and at times may be worth stating explicitly (if the topic comes up/is appropriate) when talking about this with folks. I can't assume they know I believe this.
> How am I supposed to work with someone who thinks a huge part of my life is immoral?
Isn't that a restriction you are putting on yourself? As I see it, it is your requirement that someone has to share your point of view, and to get it to be so has to be your cost, not theirs.
Everyone things something someone else is doing or thinking is immoral all the time. It even has the composition problem: I think its immoral to sabotage people because you think its immoral! Thus who is the immoral!
> It's not that you can't have these opinions or voice them -- but it's also not the case that the people who are most affected by those opinions are going to feel OK about it.
I agree. There is a price you pay when you have a contrarian view point. You must. However today that is not vocal disagreement, its firing people and exile. Some twitter mob victims have become unemployable. Thats not reasonable to me.
I guess this is a cultural thing. As an irreligious person in a mostly religious country (Turkey), I don't really feel anxious sharing the same workspace or classroom with religious people, unless they are murderous/violent fundamentalists. Apart from that, about every person I encounter have ideas different to mine, also WRT what's moral or not. A vegan might think it's immoral to consume meat, a pious person might think it's immoral to not believe in the one true God, a conservative person might think that fiddling with marriage undermines family values, et cetera, ad infinitum. I eat meat, am irreligious, and support marriage to be something the individuals define for themselves[1]. Should I avoid all the vegans, all the religious, and all the conservative people? Is it practical at all to only coexist with people similar to us? Should we part ways with anybody that disagrees us? Most of my family is somewhat religious Muslims, and some practising Christians, should I just dump them because they think my irreligiousness is immoral and I'm sinning?
Well my answer is no. See, I'm secure of my ideas, and respect people's ideas, and am not reluctant to hear criticism about the way I live my life or what ethical values or philosophical stances I have. And I prefer living among everyone no matter what they think of the way I live. Otherwise it's living in herds. But I should respect that the US society is transforming and maybe it's expectable that these particularly fragile topics like gender issues or racial issues are very hard to discuss. But if people like you are going to avoid anti-marriage-equality people, what you'll end up is going to be segregation and polarisation, which will only alienate you among them and them among you, undermining society and progress. The fact is no matter how logical or correct your opinion is, one has to convince others if the question regards them. Otherwise all the glory, should you win at your cause, is going to be temporary---until the opposers are going to be strong enough to undo what you did. And you end up with a bipartisan vicious cycle.
[1] Actually I beleive that all the marraiges should count as civil unions for the state, and that the persons themselves should define what it means and how it is lived.
I work with vegans who think the fact that I use and consume animal products is immoral. They regularly make smug or passive-aggressive comments. And frankly I don't give a shit, and it doesn't stop us from working together.
But isn’t it simplistic to equate all transphobic people with murderers who commit violence against trans people?
Would you also be scared of working with men because they typically commit homicides more than women?
I think being afraid of your life simply because someone is a bigot who hasn’t exhibited any violent behavior is on you, not the bigot. A small number of bigots are violent and dangerous, that doesn’t mean all are.
But isn’t it simplistic to equate all transphobic people with murderers who commit violence against trans people?
When your life is on the line, it is generally wise to err on the side of caution. If you assume someone openly transphobic is a threat to your life and you are wrong, you are at worst being rude to them. If you assume they aren't a threat to you and are wrong, you may end up dead (or maimed or otherwise egregiously harmed).
With those stakes on the table, the only logical thing to do is to vet people you can trust, not give assholes the benefit of the doubt that maybe they are merely assholes and won't violently assault and/or murder you.
By that reasoning you should avoid everyone right? Because all people have a potential for violence.
The odds of a trans person being murdered by a transphobic person are phenomenally low. I think you need to balance risk vs return. Just like driving a car has costs and risks it may be worth it to get to the grocery store.
No, not really. Most people are not violent without good reason. But if you are gay, trans or in any group that gets targeted for violence by irrational people without any provocation beyond being a member of that group, you need to consider that open verbal hostility is a potential indicator of willingness to harm you in some way.
How grounded is this in data? I think there are two questions that need to be answered. First, it is not a given that everyone is capable of violence. There are some people who will not carry out violence, this is pretty much the vast majority. But it’s hard to predict who can commit violence and who will not. Given this small amount of people who commit violence, what is the probability of people with open verbal hostility who commit violence?
Without answering these two questions it is rather illogical to have your behavior change at all to someone who engages in open verbal hostility.
But you also need to distinguish between verbal hostility that is threatening vs non-threatening (ie, “I really don’t like people of class X.” Vs “I am going to punch people of class X in the face.”)
This also doesn’t account for the people are aren’t gay or trans yet are also targeted by irrational people (eg, Las Vegas victims).
I have had college classes on Intro to Psychology, Social Psychology and Negotiation and Conflict Management. I spent a lot of time in therapy and have done a lot of reading on social subjects and so forth. I was a military wife and history major and I have an AA in Humanities. The one urban planning conference I managed to attend, I went to all the social lectures rather than, say, design stuff.
I probably can't readily produce the kind of data you would like to see and I am sure I don't want to bother. Your remarks make it pretty clear to me that it would be a waste of my time. There would be no convincing you of anything.
I am leaving this remark here primarily for the benefit of other people, plus to give notice that if I don't reply further, it isn't some tacit acknowledgement that you are right. I just don't really want to play this game. That's all.
I will add for clarity's sake that the phrase willing to harm you in some way was carefully chosen. It doesn't assert violent intent. People can do you enormous harm without being violent and it is shockingly common for people to be willing to do some kind of material harm, even if they are disinclined to be violent. Marginalized peoples very much need to be leery of that fact.
While you certainly have a lot of experience and impressive education, I’m not sure how this shows how willing people are to commit violence. Or whether this is a significant probability. Or even an attention worthy probability.
Through your studies have you been able to identify evidence for a range or risk / odds ratio difference of haters to commit violence vs the standard population?
This is certainly hard to quantify, but seems important if it’s going to impact how you interact with people and how you recommend others interact with people.
I’m a bit disturbed that you seem unwilling (or unable) to discuss this and end the thread with “just trust me.” I certainly would like to trust you, but I try to shape my worldview through evidence and defendable evidence.
No, I am not unwilling to discuss this. I just sometimes hit my limit for putting up with being dismissed and treated with contempt on HN for being the wrong kind of nerd.
As I already stated as clearly as I know how, violence is not required to do serious harm to a person. To try to elucidate:
I have a life threatening medical condition and was also homeless for nearly six years. I was quite open about that on HN and other forums. My only goal was to find a means to earn money online as a solution to my situation.
I got a lot of flak from people in forums who wanted me to shut up about my problems because they liked wearing their goodness on their sleeve, we're unwilling to help me in any way and my presence made them uncomfortable. I often could not even get answers to my questions. I was accused of panhandling the internet and my goal of learning to make money online was completely dismissed by many people, making it that much harder to accomplish.
Treating a seriously ill homeless person like their desire to earn a living is not valid is not far from allowing someone to die by standing by and doing for them. You could compare it to denying blacks treatment at a white hospital, which is exactly how the black inventor of blood transfusions died following an accident where he couldn't get the blood he needed because he was the wrong color.
People who are in certain categories can be at significant risk if being egregiously harmed by the actions or inactions of other people, without violence being any part of it. People are shockingly comfortable with such things, which is an underlying principle that keeps things like racism alive.
We can, for example, measure harm to African Americans in terms of both trillions of dollars and in terms of disease and death. Most people don't really want to hear it. Recent articles calling for reparations to Blacks get routinely dismissed as "meh, everyone has been taken advantage of at some point." The idea of reparations has no traction, though the ongoing death toll for African Americans is routinely in the news.
The more eye catching incidents where Blacks get shot and killed by cops is really a very minor portion of the death toll. A much larger portion comes from historical redlining and White NIMBYism, which has forced people of color into neighborhoods with terrible air quality and substandard housing. Respiratory problems have gone up dramatically and the effect of living in neighborhoods with terrible air quality can be measured in dollars, incidence of disease and mortality.
A study in India found that male children receive slightly better care than female children. For example, a sick boy was more likely to be taken to a doctor the same day. A sick girl was more likely to be sent to bed with plans to see a doctor in the morning if she did not improve.
Girls in this study were absolutely not being abused. In most cases, they weren't even really neglected. They just weren't doted on like boys.
The consequences of these small differences in treatment could be measured in terms of mortality. Girls had a measurably higher death rate.
Marginalized people with any kind of survival instinct are wise to give a wide berth to anyone giving voice to open hostility to their kind. Such people can have a great deal of power to help them into the grave without ever lifting a finger to commit violence, sometimes simply by not lifting a finger to help when they need it. Often, the rest of the world will look on and see no wrong doing.
Having been subjected to such treatment as a homeless person, it us both horrifying and deeply psychologically scarring. My fundamental trust in humans has been irreparably harmed. And homelessness is curable. You get off the street, you aren't homeless anymore. But you don't stop being gay, trans, Black etc.
The most charitable interpretation I can find for how others behaved towards me is that they are incredibly ignorant of some things and blind to the serious consequences of their actions and inaction. That was not much comfort at the time it was happening and has done little to help me make my peace with it.
> Marginalized people with any kind of survival instinct are wise to give a wide berth to anyone giving voice to open hostility to their kind. Such people can have a great deal of power to help them into the grave without ever lifting a finger to commit violence, sometimes simply by not lifting a finger to help when they need it.
This makes no sense. Avoiding people whom you perceive as having hostility in their words is not a good strategy for finding a support network. A good strategy to is find people who have demonstrated that they are willing to 'raise a finger' and including them in your life. While there is a negative correlation between those two groups, excluding the former group from your search for the latter will limit your ability to build a strong support network.
That does not fit with my experience. Giving openly hostile people the benefit of the doubt never resulted in me finding hidden allies. It merely wasted a lot of my time and got me actively crapped on.
So let me ask: are you a member of a marginalized group? Because I can't help but wonder at the reasons behind our very different point of views.
A bigot, by what I think is a reasonable definition, is someone whose prejudices are resistant to contrary evidence. If someone is irrational in that way, then it is rational for me not to trust them, especially if their prejudices concern me directly. The fact that everyone, including me, has their own prejudices is not germane.
If someone is angry about something all the time that really (from my POV) shouldn't concern them, it doesn't make them a murderer that should be locked up right now, no, but it could nevertheless reasonably make me wonder if they are dangerous or will "go postal" at some point.
That’s an interesting perspective. Do you feel the same about other groups than bigots? What about people with mental illness? Would you not want to work with a schizophrenic in case they forget to take their meds?
Do you think religious people are irrational? Are you one those people who freak out when a Muslim steps onto the subway? It seems like your line of reasoning would mean you don’t want any Muslims working at your company. That’s pretty messed up.
Comically, thinking that bigots or Muslims might go postal at some point is highly irrational. It’s like worrying about meteor strikes. So since you’re irrational, you might snap. Therefore people with your mindset should avoid working with you?
I'd encourage you to think of this from the perspective of the person who's fearing for their life. It's rational to assume that the likelihood of someone potentially harming you is much higher if they're vocally expressing hatred about your identity.
It the fear is irrational, then it’s really not that wise to try to think from their persective. Since that irrationally might make someone flip. Like those people who self radicalize.
Now, this is quite different if someone is expressing or advocating violence. But some old catholic lady being against gay marriage represents zero threat of violence. Especially if she isn’t vocally expressing the hatred at work, but does something outside of work.
The issue I have is that simply expressing disagreement “I hate class X” is not a threat compared to “I want to cause grevious harm to class X.”
Plus, saying "I believe it is wrong for people to do X" is not the same as saying "I hate people who do X". So a lot of the use of the word "hate" in this discussion is unjustified.
Conservatives who are against say gay marriage aren't necessarily saying they hate gays. There are lots of completely benign reasons why people might believe that gay marriage shouldn't be a thing.
Little late to the discussion so I am not sure this will be seen...
I think I can change two works of your statement and make it a criticism of the Bay Area.
From my perspective, I don't want to work in an environment where people are voicing their opinion that (e.g.) supporting Trump is illegitimate or wrong. How am I supposed to work with someone who thinks a huge part of my life is immoral? I would have an incredibly hard time believing that that person was taking me seriously, really wanted to work with me, wasn't going to undercut me, or trusted me.
It's not that you can't have these opinions or voice them -- but it's also not the case that the people who are most affected by those opinions are going to feel OK about it.
The issue I have with this perspective is that it is not applied equally. I do think you should get protection but I think that same protection should be applied to all groups. Next week I could say in front of my team "All Trump supporters are deranged psychopaths." I would get a few odd looks, my manager might tell my privately to tone it down. If I said the same thing about LQBT folk I would guess I have a 50% chance of being fired.
This feels like a double standard to me and makes me question if the people who support diversity and inclusion really mean it or if they only want what they approve.
It's interesting that you'd compare supporting Trump with being LGBTQ, part of a minority or a woman. One is a conscious decision, the other one is part of who one is. You might be a Trump supporter today and a Trump detractor tomorrow, but minorities don't get to change their gender identification, skin color or the reproductive organs they were born with. Trying to compare the two is ludicrous.
The victimization complex Trump supporters seem to have internalized is such a bizarre thing.
>How am I supposed to work with someone who thinks a huge part of my life is immoral?
So everyone needs to ensure they hold no oppinions you might find offensive or be homeless? It goes both ways: how am I supposed to work with someone who thinks it's ok to ostracize people for personal beliefs?
I agree, we're making the same general point -- it does seem crazy to ask someone to "ensure they hold no offensive opinions". So why, for example, should the opinions of the person who wants to speak their mind about the immorality of gay marriage get precedence over the opinions of the person who thinks they should be allowed to get married?
I agree with that. "Don't go around pissing off co-workers" is a sensible rule. But it's also our responsibility to not look for reasons to be offended. If you ask me about something I'm not going to lie. But I'm not going to shove it in your face either, if I think it might offend.
And it is your right not to work with that person, whether that means you choosing to leave or take internal action depending on circumstances (e.g. threats). However, who is entirely exempt from ostracizing others for their beliefs? For every person there is some universe of beliefs that are seen as such a threat to their reality, principles, or well-being that they will fight those beliefs and their representatives. That universe of beliefs may differ in size or relative merit on the basis of evidence for each person, but it exists.
I work with people like that all the time. I don't give a shit. As long as they aren't doing anything to directly harm me, then let them have their stupid opinion. It's better than the alternative of social oppression, because I'm sure I have some stupid opinions as well.
And to yours, I'd add "for values of 'anymore' smaller than last 30 years", and kindly remind everyone that US military used to spray pathogens on its own, unsuspecting populace, in order to experimentally explore the areas of bioweapons defense and offense.
yeah honestly puzzled why that's so downed since there are still living person whom did that shit, it is not even one generation past and this place is like "we're the supreme moral force of the world! hurr durr"!
I thought yours a very interesting, worthwhile and thought-provoking comment. I'm puzzled why it's voted down. Maybe too succinct. 3^4 words good, 3^2 words baad?
I completely agree. The exchange seems to go like this:
A: "I think black people are genetically inferior."
B: "I think that's a bigoted thing to say that has historically caused a lot of harm to a lot of people."
A: "Why can't we have a free exchange of ideas?"
Person B is engaging with that idea, it's just that they think it's completely indefensible. I have a hard time understanding how Person A thinks this conversation is supposed to go -- like are we supposed to entertain everything as if it were serious? If I go up to a physics professor and say "I think physics is completely inferior and wrong" what is she supposed to say?
You might agree, but you're both completely wrong. As James Damore proved, the exchange goes like this:
A: Statistically speaking, there are some genetic explanations for trends we see between men and women.
B: That is a sexist thing to say that women can't do tech, so you are harming women in tech. You need to be fired.
A: But... that's not what I said...
(A is fired)
B: SO COURAGEOUS of the company to fire that employee for those bigoted ideas
C: Why can't we have a free exchange of ideas?
D: Every time someone says something bigoted, they're like "muh free speech!" Stop saying bigoted things!
Note: D never read the original post and has no first-hand knowledge of what A may or may not be guilty of.
There are obviously genetic differences between races. That's how AncestryDNA can tell where you came from. So if there are obviously genetic differences, why can't I talk about the pros/cons of being black without being hateful? Some differences are going to be objectively better or worse, why I can't we talk about them without going into full blown racism? If we acknowledge the fact that there are physical differences due to genetics, maybe there are mental differences too (that's a real touchy one)?
Pro: some localized African phenotypes make for world-class athletes in certain sports- a single tribe in Kenya is vastly over-represented in marathon running.
Con: Africans are worse at living in the Arctic Circle compared to Nordic people. Their dark skin isn't suited to producing enough vitamin D with limited skin exposure.
Con: Black people with high blood pressure don't respond well to beta blockers and ACE inhibitors. Instead they need to be prescribed diuretics and calcium blockers, but these have worse side effects.
It seems like today if we mention that there are actually genetic differences between races it automatically gets shut down because they assume we're going to start making the conversation about hate instead of what we can do to fix some of the cons.
I think it's completely fair to think that a lot of these thoughts are coming from a good place. But the people who are espousing these perspectives need to understand that there's a lot of really intense history behind ideas like this. When these ideas have surfaced in the past, it usually hasn't really been about "fixing the cons" -- and even when it has, it often has major unanticipated and unintended consequences that cause serious harms.
I guess what I mean is that even when folks are talking about these things in good-intentioned ways, they're not appreciating the weightiness of the ideas they're throwing around -- and depending on your priors, it's reasonable to worry about that.
Ah, we come to the heart of it. If Sam had said, "Twitter is a problem because it enables dangerous groupthink, promotes overreaction, and stifles meaningful discourse" then (a) his argument would have been a lot more clear and (b) I would have been 100% onboard
Why is Twitter the problem if a company fires an employee.
If I can just ignore Twitter (and I do) then Twitter mobs don't directly affect me. But if my management does things because of Twitter mobs (or anything else like that) we have a big problem.
Well, is twitter actually the problem, though? Twitter's biases are a problem, but that's a separate issue. Twitter can't be expected to prevent all forms of propaganda from its users, and even if they could the problem is not just twitter specifically, it's all social media. While the parent made a pithy comment using Twitter as an example, in reality instigators rely on an array of platforms to spread the message and whip up the proverbial mob.
And more importantly, people with decision-making power have shown a remarkable tendency to submit to the will of these capricious and volatile online mobs.
I'm not sure twitter is the cause, more the primary avenue. People can be dangerously groupthink-y and overreacting in person or on social media, and our culture certainly seems to be moving more in the direction of instant reactions and emotional self-satisfaction over engaging in nuanced debates.
> You're leaving out the part where A whips up a real mob and lynches somebody.
Yeah because that hasn't happened, and if it did would be met with universal condemnation and be up against full weight of law enforcement and the legal system.
> And what do you think has a stronger chilling effect: the possibility of being fired or the possibility of being murdered?
If the possibility of being fired for ideas is highly likely while the possibility of being murdered for ideas is essentially zero, then the possibility of being fired has a stronger chilling effect.
The broad history of violent bigotry in the United States does not get magically forgotten by people just because they write code for a living. And that history and that present reality means that many things are not just abstract propositions but are direct threats.
> And that history and that present reality means that many things are not just abstract propositions but are direct threats.
Historical context alone does not make a direct threat. A direct threat is a direct threat, and right now being accused of racism (no matter the truth of it) is far more scary than racism itself.
In what world are these opinions not voiced? I don't think this argument stands up to empirical scrutiny -- there's an incredibly robust network of vocally conservative student organizations.
When the list started it was fairly evenly distributed between right and left leaning speakers being disinvited. Now it's much more commonly right leaning speakers.
That's about speakers being disinvited from campus, not views not being represented. There are a number of problems with that analysis:
1. Several speakers are overrepresented (I see a bunch of Milo invitations), which could well just reflect their aggressiveness at getting themselves invited / the strength of their own PR team. If one political side wants to make persecution their thing, they'll show up more commonly in that database.
2. In recent years, we've had a bunch of new forums for dissemination of ideas, which is a good thing. Twitter didn't exist in 2002. YouTube didn't exist in 2002. Podcasts didn't exist in 2002. Smartphones in people's pockets didn't exist in 2002. Today, anyone who wants to know what any of these speakers' opinions are can find out, easily, what they are, without needing them invited to campus. (And anyone who doesn't will just skip the talk anyway.)
3. In Milo's case specifically, he wanted to out a bunch of undocumented students on-stage. That I think doesn't fit the profile of political views being censored. (I agree that preventing him from speaking technically counts as censorship, but it's a very different discussion.)
4. Fundamentally, this list and the original article here both suffer from a blind belief in the "Great Man" theory. If person X doesn't express an opinion, or publicize their idea, or something, chances are absurdly high that someone else will have the same opinion or idea, too. If Newton were imprisoned for his alchemy, however unjust that might have been for Newton as a person, Leibniz would still have invented calculus. What I'd like to see is if certain types of ideas are being censored, not whether certain individuals who happen to hold those ideas are being censored.
It's true that some speakers are over-represented, but I don't think that changes the trend substantially. I also don't see how you can draw a distinction between disinviting speakers and censoring the ideas they came to talk about.
And yes, there are new forums for dissemination of ideas, but that doesn't mean they are equally open to all ideas. Some things you can't write without being shouted down. This is distinct from criticism of the idea. These are personal attacks on the person who voiced the idea in the first place.
I don't understand your last point. There are absolutely things you can't talk about freely at universities, for example: immigration, gender differences in personality, variations in IQ across races, etc. I don't see how you can take an objective look at university culture and say anything otherwise.
> I also don't see how you can draw a distinction between disinviting speakers and censoring the ideas they came to talk about.
Milo is perhaps the best example here: Milo comes to campuses to cause a spectacle, not to spread new ideas. Sure, he's talking about some ideas. But that's not his primary motivation.
Milo is not an academic. Would he be happy with letting some academic go in his stead and present his same ideas in the form of an academic lecture?
> There are absolutely things you can't talk about freely at universities, for example: immigration, gender differences in personality, variations in IQ across races, etc.
Do you have any evidence for this?
(Note that you can't talk about things like variations in IQ across races as if they existed more strongly than they actually do or mean something they don't, and expect to be taken seriously. But that's not universities censoring dissident politics, that's universities expecting basic scientific literacy instead of people pushing a political agenda in the guise of science. The concept of IQ is an idea that came from the academy and has been refined by the academy; using an old understanding of IQ and what it means is essentially an abandonment of science.)
Interesting, attempts to disinvite more left leaning speakers in 2017: 4
Attempts to disinvite more right leaning speakers in 2017: 24
At least on YouTube it does seems like there are more attempts to prevent conservative ideas from being voiced on campuses by rowdy demonstrations that interrupt speakers.
I believe this evidence is consistent with my point that a robust (and perhaps growing!) network of campus conservatism exists.
Specifically, this evidence could be explained by an increasing rate of conservatism on campuses. The rate of disinvitation could be the same, it's just that there's a greater number of conservative speaker invitations going out from a greater number of conservative students. And right leaning speakers are disproportionately invited by right-leaning student organizations.
If the US Academic reaction to such a straight forward request was so hostile, then I can imagine many people feeling unable to voice actually difficult opinions
This was in no way a hostile response. The operative sentence from the complaint is "I find the use of the term as the catchy title of an academic conference with no bearing on their situation unfortunate and write to encourage the conference’s organizers to change its name."
"Unfortunate." "Encourage the conference's organizers to change its name."
I'm a researcher. I'm also unusually thin-skinned. Compared to the naked brutality that is the peer review process, that's nothing.
Is your concern that people shouldn't be wasting their time arguing about trivia? I'm afraid academia's definitely guilty of that. Or that you disagree with the complaint? Perfectly fair, but then so did lots of the other people on the list. Or is it something else? I'm finding it hard to parse.
