They could have offered money instead of vouchers too.
700 karma · joined January 8, 2022
I also believe journalists, like a lot of middle class folks squeezed by changes in the economy, should be paid and funded better, and I try to spend or send some money towards that, even though I'm between jobs.
If that's not something whoever reads this does, $60 bucks is 5 dollars a month, and if you have a job or enough saved, you might invest in investigative reporting.
Here's a list of some non-profits that produce real journalism. Can't vouch for them all, but ProPublica, The Marshall Project, and Reveal are great.
https://mediablog.prnewswire.com/2018/01/17/non-profit-inves...
Journalists should be doing investigations and creating reports that put social and political issues in context. Yet so often these issues, real issues that affect lives, are treated as political theater or a public sport.
I can't blame journalists for the politicians lying or misleading, but I can blame them for so often going for the easy stories that they are fed, instead of the hard ones they have to look for or put together.
As a result, when I read the news I pay special attention to stories that are based on original investigations, public records requests, whistleblowers, or stories in which actual context is provided from multiple viewpoints that are informed by the facts, rather than merely by self interest.
From the little I understand, it's complex and dynamic and opaque to the point that current scholars and US government entities studying China have difficulty explaining it; I'm not even going to try.
There are only specific cultural understandings, each of which almost always map poorly when applied cross culturally.
But if an individual just wear one themselves by choice, it's silly to judge them for that choice. Interviewing is hard, maybe they feel more confident in a suit.
I feel company culture should be less about someone's personal style/clothing/hobbies than if someone, for example, berates and yells at fellow employees who make a mistake or talks calmly through issues without treating others like they are the problem.
Even if you don't have the skills, it generally shouldn't matter what clothes you wear.
Like don't strap knives to your arms, and do wear a good mask, but generally we spend a lot of time policing other folk's bodies and attire, and for what?
Which ignores a huge amount of differences. To pick one eusocial insects of the same species are closely related to the ones they serve, and how slavery is not universal. Family and kinship groups are probably a way better metaphor than slavery. Occasionally some insects use other insects of a different species like aphid farming ants, but that's more like having livestock.
Ultimately by suggesting that genetics causes behavior but also being inconsistent about how that works, Wilson at times reinforced the status quo in problematic and mistaken ways, without looking at cross cultural studies, anthropology, or other fields that might have given him a broader view.
Anyway the idea that criticizing Wilson is somehow immoral because he is dead seems silly. It's not like many of the same criticisms weren't offered when he was alive, for example this 1975 review of his book. https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1975/11/13/against-sociobio...
Many people who did great things also said some shitty ones, And some shitty people like Nixon did some good ones. Quite a few people are dead and canonizing them after death as somehow saintly for their good deads and ignoring anything problematic they did rather than challenging their mistaken beliefs where they contradict facts is against the spirit of scientific inquiry.
As an aside, my understanding is that while conservatives continue to try to make "woke" into a state of being or a quality of character, as if folks can achieve it, the original usage was stay woke, IE to remain vigilant and observant of what's going on so you can adapt and learn. As far as I'm concerned we all should be doing that, changing our beliefs as we learn, rather than wrapping ourselves too much up in what we currently think to be true. If Wilson's ideas are worthy they will be born out by current and future inquiry into our nature as human beings.
Though challenging the status quo might require you to go against your sociobiology.