“The less they know, the less they know it”
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Editors (!) of higher education journal publish editorial about academic freedom…
…with multiple fake references! I trust these editors will soon be ex-editors. (Thanks to Moti Gorin for the pointer.)
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AI takes down “effective [sic] altruism” (and longtermism)
Produced, according to the author, with the help of advancedd LLMs, “Sol” and “Astra”: be mediscover effective altruismapparently normal charity is inefficientwhy donate to random sad thing when spreadsheet can tell you optimal sad thingfair enoughbuy mosquito netssave livesnumbers look goodfeel powerful couple years latersomeone asks an innocent questionwhy only count people alive todayhuhfuture people…
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The President of the United States is (in the words of his first Secretary of State) a “fucking moron”
He’s now threatening to cut off trade with any country that maintains a trade imbalance, unless he gets his way on interest rates. He doesn’t understand the causes of trade imbalances. Trump’s extraordinary ignorance, his extraordinary narcissism, and his Mafia mentality explain almost everything he does. Even the NYT, which acknowledges that Trump is a…
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Umberto Eco on the Internet
Yes indeed: “The tragedy of the Internet is that it has elevated the village idiot to the status of a bearer of truth.” “Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak—people who once only talked at the bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community. They were quickly silenced. Now they…
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Amended complaint in philosopher Stephen Kershnar’s lawsuit against SUNY Fredonia for violating his First Amendment rights
His former colleague Neil Feit kindly shared it with me: You can start reading from paragraph 52 onwards for a case study in how not to handle a public relations crisis because of a faculty member’s lawful, but controversial, speech. Every SUNY official mentioned behaved terribly, and there is no question they violated Professor Kershnar’s…
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Trump may kill us all even without nuclear war
Ships stuck because of the Strait of Hormuz blockage are breeding grounds for biological disaster.
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If Trump weren’t such a short-sighted malevolent buffoon…
…it might have occurred to him that murdering another country’s head of state (who was also a major religious figure) would result in threats like this to him and his family (see also). Of course, one suspects that the Iranians won’t dare act on this, since it would compel our humane leaders to murder millions…
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Not only a malevolent buffoon, and an incompetent ignoramus…
…but also increasingly disabled, mentally and physically. This would make for an amusing read, except for the the terrible reality that he has real power and can continue to do real damage.
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Speaking of the intellectual decline of the humanities
The arrival of the “Boghossian Report” reminds me of this post from several years back, in which English faculty are, alas, over-represented.
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This is why Republican officials are such craven cowards…
…because Trump has a grip on the votes of tens of millions of diehard Republican voters. And it’s that devoted minority of the electorate that is leading the country to ruin. (As a reminder, Thomas Massie, who occasionally bucked the Republican herd, is also a nut.)
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Habermas and the Israeli mass killings in Gaza
As is well-known, Habermas and others issued a statement of “solidarity” with Israel about a month after the October 7 atrocities by Hamas. This was, no doubt, borne of his long efforts to resist any attempts to whitewash the Nazi atrocities, which brought the state of Israel into being. And a month after the October…
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The imbecile strikes again! RFK Jr’s Health Department suppresses research…
…finding that the Covid and shingles vaccines are safe.
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Maybe Borat was right after all about that part of the world?
Unbelievable. (Borat reference.)
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What an embarrassment: Harvard raising money to hire faculty who contribute to “viewpoint diversity” which is not an academic value
Pathetic. Public universities can’t do anything when their legislatures create institutes and schools for the purpose of hiring right-wing faculty. But Harvard departments will need to stand firm in what looks to be massive push for affirmative action for faculty with the right “politics” but not the right scholarly bona fides to be appointed on…
It’s worth noting that NYU, MIT, Rutgers, UT and Harvard (prior to pausing admissions) all list the GRE as required…