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Comment by tomp | Hacker News Reader

They're not self-immolating.

They're being torched down.

It's a solution. No other solution has worked, or been proposed.

Remember Brendan Eich? He was excommunicated because of a personal political view, allegedly because "he lost trust of the community". So yeah, being right-wing is faux-pass in tech and academia, therefore the left has no argument against people being defunded / fired because of personal political opinions. But we're talking here (see my other post) is institutional far-left policy (DEI meaning explicit racism and sexism against white men). No wonder they have totally lost trust of the community (like half the US), to be seemingly beyond reform, up for restarting from scratch.

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> They're not self-immolating.

> They're being torched down.

I think this is the crux of your misunderstanding. I did not say the scientific institutions were self-immolating - I said you were self-immolating. You're not torching some independent other. You're burning the foundations on which the strength of our country lays.

It's also frightening how often I hear this same refrain of griping about instances of "the left" transgressing upon a certain value, as justification for discarding the entire value - did those values ever matter to you, or do they not? Because the way I see it, the entire point of values is something you stick to even when others trample on them, giving society at least a chance of converging around stability.

For example: I'm a libertarian. I did not like what happened to Eich and I certainly understand the oppressiveness of DEI run amok. I have spoken out about those, dissecting the nuances in those issues modulo my own values. But now that those issues are being used as anti-intellectual rallying cries to tear down our institutions rather than reform them? I'm done. I'll choose the tribe that believes we should at least try to have a society.

I agree with your reasoning, I guess we just have different values.

I value science, defined as unbiased pursuit of truth.

I personally don’t see politically biased institutions that care more about far-left propaganda than truth, as foundation of anything good or wholesome.

But science has always had to fight against the prevailing political winds. Galileo. So has engineering, for that matter. Traditionally one had to hold their tongue and keep their eyes from rolling when some non-productive bureaucrat would wax poetically about the virtues of mega golf or owning a boat. Then for a while these topics included prescriptive diversity and performative inclusion. Now I guess we're back to mega golf and boats.

Do you foresee what remains of our scientific institutions after Trumpism actually being unbiased? Or biased but of the type you are willing to overlook? Or do you merely see the Trumpist bonfire as a stepping stone to having ~zero large scientific institutions which will technically satisfy your criteria?

Brendan Eich did not simply give a commentary on his economic policy. Brendan Eich went so far as donating not insignificant amounts of money to make sure a significant portion of the population - of which many of his users and employees are a part of - do not have equal rights.

I am so beyond tired of this trope.

What, nobody ever faces consequences for hurting other people? We just have to tolerate intolerance forever with a smile?

You’re opposed to bigotry against gays but fine with bigotry against men and/or white people?

What the actual fuck are you talking about? Please, quote the exact part of my comment that insinuates that.

I wait with bated breath.

Why would you otherwise oppose Eich’s private bigotry against gays but ignore educational institutions’ institutional bigotry against white men? Both were the topics of my post you first replied to and the rest of this thread

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