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Comment by amelius | Hacker News Reader

I think we should get a bigger role for academia in society. Now its role is diminishing.

If you only look at the crap that is sold in supermarkets, then it's no wonder people lose faith in government and science.

But science needs to step up its game as well. Verification/falsification should be a more respected part of science. This means more work and thus more investments in science.

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Academia unfortunately did this to itself. Look at all the published scientific papers that don't replicate, the political nature of modern work in the humanities, and the highly political funding and publishing models in science. The "recent" (1970s to today) attacks on the credibility of academia are mostly people saying that the emperor has no clothes.

Academia need to raise the signal-to-noise ratio, drop the open disdain for certain types of people, and spend time both cleaning house (removing contributions and contributors of no value) and adjusting their promises to align with what they can actually deliver.

Which is to say, academia needs to purge the influence of money from its ranks and offer research jobs funded by the state that just pay salaries to people who teach or do research. No "metrics", no grants from private funding sources, absolutely no patents, etc.

Because short of doing all of that the influence of money remains and so its corrupting influence will remain.

Also, and probably more important in the current context, no politically motivated 'studies' shall be promoted or financed. This includes just about all the *-studies fields.

That is a byproduct of the money.

I’d argue we have too much of a role for academia in society. Take a look at the discourse on race lately. Historically, the racial justice movement was rooted in Christianity. (MLK was a preacher after all.) Today religion has been stripped from it completely, and it’s rooted in post-modern academic theories.

One would think that the standard Republican talking points and deflections about the deaths of George floyd, Ahmed Arbery etc. towards "post modern academic theories" being the root of the problem would have run its course by now. But, apparently, it is still alive and well.

Thankfully we have video recordings of both incidents, otherwise there would be no justice like in many other crimes. Meanwhile, Republicans can keep themselves busy sharing videos of a Walmart that got looted during the riots that followed.

These post modern academic theories are really ruining the country.

> standard Republican talking points and deflections ...

> Thankfully we have video recordings of both incidents ...

Thankfully we have outside observers, not enmeshed in the ridiculous "Democrat" vs "Republican" scheme who, based on available evidence - which is really hard to get at, having to dig through all the politically motivated story making out there - can form their own conclusions.

In this case those conclusions happen to coincide with what you label standard Republican talking points: the narrative around race in the divided states of America is driven by a mishmash of Critical Theory [1] related narratives which got their start in academia and moved out into society at large when graduates from those institutions got into positions which enabled them to a) start acting upon their ideas and b) make hiring decisions based on them.

Crony progressivism is just as bad as crony capitalism, both lead to the same outcome.

[1] https://newdiscourses.com/tftw-critical-theory/

Yes of course, the root cause of the death of George floyd and ahmed Arbery is progressive academic critical race theory. I completely get that.

This does not add anything to the discussion which was about the academic origins of the narrative around race (and other aspects of identity) in the US.

You might also want to check on how many black policemen have been killed recently without a single outcry from those who set your country on fire in 2019 and wonder whether those riots were really in support of "black lives". Did their lives not matter? Here's one of them: Kareem Atkins [1], killed in an ambush in Houston with two other police offers (who also happened to be black) injured. They tried to intervene in an alleged robbery when they were ambushed.

Why is there no outrage from "the black community" in this case? The answer, of course, is as clear as daylight and shows that the outrage has nothing to do with "black lives": when black police officers are killed by "bipoc" men there is no political leverage to be had since it does not support the desired narrative.

Take those ideological blinders off and see clearly, for your own sake and for that of the people around you.

[1] https://edition.cnn.com/2021/10/17/us/houston-deputies-shot-...

I like that you compared the actions of black criminals to that of white police officers in response to my comment. Your equation is striking and lays bare your ideology.

Another logic fallacy, I compare the loss of life of one black man to that of another black man and notice it is those who look at this through an ideological lens who make difference between the two, not those who look at the value of a life without checking skin colour.

Again, take of those ideological blinders, your life will be better. You will learn to see, for real.

I don't think you understand what logical fallacy means if you are going to set the same standard for tax payer funded white law enforcement officers and black criminals.

The excesses of humanities academia are kind of why we are in this national pickle. A generation or two has slowly been indoctrinated by the ideas of corrupt French intellectuals from the 50's onward. We're just seeing now it all finally catch on.

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