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Comment by duncan_bayne | Hacker News Reader

Since when were government departments and think tanks legitimate means of truth seeking? Some, sure, and at some times.

But on the whole you can practically guarantee both of those methods will be primarily PR mechanisms, and / or used for the advancement of those who control them.

Universities used to be, but they are becoming increasingly politicized again.

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Universities were never non political. What you more likely mean is they used to agree with you more. None of these social institutions were ever non political, the political context has changed, the national politics have changed, and you've changed and I've changed. I just want to push back against anyone thinking anything going on is new, all of these social and political institutions have always been sites of political struggle.

Perhaps they used to be better at producing an aura of speaking and deciding from up above or from a mythical social consensus that "everyone" (suitably filtered) agrees on.

No there really was a time a few decades ago when republican professors and democrat professors weren't under or overrepresented by more than a factor of 2. Now it's something like 30 IIRC. And really a lot of the "conservatives" turn out to be libertarians, centrists, or even moderate liberals that are turned off by the more extreme people around them. That's at least in the social sciences, it's slightly better in less politically relevant fields.

Oh the other hand, mainstream politics everywhere seems to edge towards social conservatism and mixed economic stances.

Some countries are more "pure" on one side or other.

From my point of view most western nations are extremely liberal politically. Compared to how they were historically and compared to other countries.

That's true; but I worry about the overall trend. Perhaps it's unfounded but my fear is that we are trending towards less liberality, rather than more, except in a few areas.

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