The Tim Hunt Affair | Identity Politics

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Typhoon
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The Tim Hunt Affair | Identity Politics

Post by Typhoon »

A Nobel Laureate in Medicine has been left with his career in ruins after an unsubstantiated accusation by a previously unknown academic.

http://observer.com/2015/07/lab-rats-how-the-misogyny-police-and-sloppy-journalists-smeared-a-top-scientist/
When “fauxminist” outrage over a minor faux pas can ruin a Nobel winner's career, this is not good for women, for science, or for the culture.
So some stupid bint, too dumb to understand self-deprecating humour, has the power to ruin an outstanding career and she cannot be questioned because of her gender and colour.

Sir Tim Hunt and the "Woman Problem" in science

The twittering twits on Twitter make the former Maoist Red Guards seems calm, reasonable, and rational by comparison.
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Zack Morris
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Re: The Tim Hunt Affair | Identity Politics

Post by Zack Morris »

I was tired of outrage mongering the minute I noticed it becoming a "thing" again. I'm too young to have experienced the early 90's wave of political correctness on campuses but back then, the Internet had not gained the critical mass required to amplify this nonsense. I would also concede that with few big battles left to fight, extremists have turned on themselves in a cannibalistic spectacle of one-upsmanship (or one-upswomanship :roll:).

That said, it's hard to deny that this is essentially a free society at work. The outrage, the denunciations, the boycotts, and the terminations are all within the boundaries of voluntary associations. In the old days, there were also unwritten codes about what personal opinions could or could not be voiced. Eventually, people will get tired of this, become burdened by real problems, the outrage will become a sort of white noise we all tune out, or all of the above.

The fact that this phenomenon is already ticking off the likes of Jonathan Chait is probably a sign that its natural expiration date is not too far off.
noddy
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Re: The Tim Hunt Affair | Identity Politics

Post by noddy »

its a pleasant thought that they might go away but i believe thats just wishful thinking.

its a personality type and it will express itself without whatever cultural tools it has available, in the old days they were bible bashing puritans.

if the social justice warrior goes out of fashion they will just revert to environmentalism or some other thing
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Re: The Tim Hunt Affair | Identity Politics

Post by YMix »

noddy wrote:its a personality type and it will express itself without whatever cultural tools it has available, in the old days they were bible bashing puritans.
That's exactly how I see the problem. 200 years ago, they would've been rabid Christians. 400 years ago, they would've argued like mad for the divine right of kings. It never ends with these people. Mencken's quip about every column being taken over sooner or later by cranks and bores applies to major political/economic/social issues as well.
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Re: The Tim Hunt Affair | Identity Politics

Post by noddy »

YMix wrote:
noddy wrote:its a personality type and it will express itself without whatever cultural tools it has available, in the old days they were bible bashing puritans.
That's exactly how I see the problem. 200 years ago, they would've been rabid Christians. 400 years ago, they would've argued like mad for the divine right of kings. It never ends with these people. Mencken's quip about every column being taken over sooner or later by cranks and bores applies to major political/economic/social issues as well.
aye - this is my number one gripe about separation of church and state in regards atheists, the small fragile barrier we eventually put in place against that personality type has become meaningless.

i dont quite agree with marcus on atheism being a religion, the issue is murkier than that.
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Re: The Tim Hunt Affair | Identity Politics

Post by Typhoon »

Zack Morris wrote:I was tired of outrage mongering the minute I noticed it becoming a "thing" again. I'm too young to have experienced the early 90's wave of political correctness on campuses
It was already there back in the mid to late 1980's when I lived in the USA. Talk about culture shock. :shock:
Zack Morris wrote:but back then, the Internet had not gained the critical mass required to amplify this nonsense.
Indeed. The internet is a global meme resonator across the entire spectrum of crazy.
Zack Morris wrote:I would also concede that with few big battles left to fight, extremists have turned on themselves in a cannibalistic spectacle of one-upsmanship (or one-upswomanship :roll:).
Just as the members of Red Army [Japan] and the Red Guards [PRC] ended up persecuting, and sometimes killing, each other.
Zack Morris wrote:That said, it's hard to deny that this is essentially a free society at work. The outrage, the denunciations, the boycotts, and the terminations are all within the boundaries of voluntary associations. In the old days, there were also unwritten codes about what personal opinions could or could not be voiced. Eventually, people will get tired of this, become burdened by real problems, the outrage will become a sort of white noise we all tune out, or all of the above.
As with la Terreur and the Red Guard persecutions, too many innocent individuals are losing their livelihoods and reputations over innocuous offhand remarks and/or false accusations.

If every utterance has to be considered for it's possibility of self-incrimination, then that is little different than living in a repressive dictatorship.
Zack Morris wrote: The fact that this phenomenon is already ticking off the likes of Jonathan Chait is probably a sign that its natural expiration date is not too far off.
I recall reading some of MacKinnon's and Dworkin's writing. My impressions was that these two individuals had taken their own personal issues/failings and rather then dealing with them had assumed/projected that it was instead society that was somehow at fault. Both struck me as batsh*t crazy.
As I recall one of them was on the verge of having pr0n declared harmful [in Canada?] and just as success seemed in sight, the internet showed up and swept away their efforts like a tsunami.

It is interesting that what used to once be the counterculture has now become "The Man" or should that be "The SLGBTQQIP2SAA ".
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noddy
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Re: The Tim Hunt Affair | Identity Politics

Post by noddy »

if a workplace is full of frothing at the mouth loons and has a management which enables them it is probably a good thing you lose your job.

which is also my view about workplaces that operate on the opposite side of the spectrum.
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Re: The Tim Hunt Affair | Identity Politics

Post by Simple Minded »

Excellent thread so far gents. I agree with much of the above. Other than what is obviously trash, offends my sensitivities, and does not appeal to my sensibilities as a superior being..... or in any way, generally hurts my feelings! ;)

It is a bizarre aspect of the current zeitgeist. The modern day equivalent of stoning heretics, or burning witches at the stake. Shirley, we are more enlightened today than those primitives were then….. am I right?

Anger, vitriol, the desire to attain and flaunt “victim status,” the psychological need to inflict one’s opinion on the world, the need for celebrity, the jealously of those who have attained notoriety, the desire be a SJW and fight for cosmic justice, …. It all seems like a social psychosis empowered & fertilized by information age technology. The internet as a sword of infinite length......

The Elliott Wavers have written volumes on how “social mood” determines what is acceptable (offensive!) or not, and who is determined as one of “us” or one of “them.” They have a good read on it, in terms of it being a cyclical phenomena. They go off the deep end by assigning mathematical precision. Kinda like how some weather numbskulls do similar stuff.

Whoopi Goldberg has taken a ton of flack for correctly pointing out that Bill Cosby has been neither charged nor convicted with a crime. Too bad Bill is not a normal Joe. Celebrities are tried in the fickle court of public opinion every day. Fair warning to all who seek fame.

Offense, opportunity, oppression……. All determined by the perceiver……. It’s a cruel world that does not respect my feelings and both cherish and parrot my opinions. Bastards!
Last edited by Simple Minded on Mon Jul 13, 2015 12:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Tim Hunt Affair | Identity Politics

Post by Simple Minded »

duplicate link, but relevant here. Hopefully, the New Totalitarians will have a better sense of humor than the Old Totalitarians.....

http://thefederalist.com/2015/07/06/the ... -are-here/
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Re: The Tim Hunt Affair | Identity Politics

Post by Mr. Perfect »

Am I allowed to offer an opinion on this.
Censorship isn't necessary
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Re: The Tim Hunt Affair | Identity Politics

Post by Simple Minded »

Mr. Perfect wrote:Am I allowed to offer an opinion on this.
Mr. P,

Speaking on the behalf of the people of planet Earth, we would love to hear your opinion on this....... ;)
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Re: The Tim Hunt Affair | Identity Politics

Post by Typhoon »

Mr. Perfect wrote:Am I allowed to offer an opinion on this.
Well, we already all know that "it's all the fault of the Demopublicans",
so if you have anything novel to add we would all be interested in reading your opinion.
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Re: The Tim Hunt Affair | Identity Politics

Post by NapLajoieonSteroids »

Things are always getting and worse. A century ago, we'd be dealing with people who thought of everyone else as history fodder. Now we are all special special special individuals (who are special by the way,) and not to thrown in front of a cannons or starved to death; but everyone must account for the specialness of everyone else at all times of the day for their whole life. Or else!
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Re: The Tim Hunt Affair | Identity Politics

Post by Simple Minded »

NapLajoieonSteroids wrote:Things are always getting and worse. A century ago, we'd be dealing with people who thought of everyone else as history fodder. Now we are all special special special individuals (who are special by the way,) and not to thrown in front of a cannons or starved to death; but everyone must account for the specialness of everyone else at all times of the day for their whole life. Or else!
Some animals are more special than other animals!

And as long as you tell them such on a frequent basis, they're happy! :)

checkout this website: wwvv.myspecialfacebook.com/immorespecialthanyouare/toodamnbadyoucantdealwithit/
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Re: The Tim Hunt Affair | Identity Politics

Post by NapLajoieonSteroids »

Simple Minded wrote:
NapLajoieonSteroids wrote:Things are always getting and worse. A century ago, we'd be dealing with people who thought of everyone else as history fodder. Now we are all special special special individuals (who are special by the way,) and not to thrown in front of a cannons or starved to death; but everyone must account for the specialness of everyone else at all times of the day for their whole life. Or else!
Some animals are more special than other animals!

http://www.facebook.com/immorespecialth ... 34782.html

And as long as you tell them such on a frequent basis, they're happy! :)
I'm not knocking being special or even a greater sensitivity to excluding people-

What is worrisome is a lack of conversational awareness. Everything that comes out of someone's mouth is not categorical speech, it's not even necessarily normative or political. A lot of subtlety in speech and contextualization seem to being falling to the wayside in these dust ups. Maybe it's also an erasure of formal and informal speech.
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Re: The Tim Hunt Affair | Identity Politics

Post by Simple Minded »

NapLajoieonSteroids wrote:
I'm not knocking being special or even a greater sensitivity to excluding people-

What is worrisome is a lack of conversational awareness. Everything that comes out of someone's mouth is not categorical speech, it's not even necessarily normative or political. A lot of subtlety in speech and contextualization seem to being falling to the wayside in these dust ups. Maybe it's also an erasure of formal and informal speech.
To my simple mind, it is interesting on several levels:
- due to current tech, everyone can broadcast worldwide at little cost & effort. Many times it seems at a similar level of thought.
- the idea that "my perspective on the world is correct, and those who do not agree are wrong/naïve/insulated."
- the idea of imagination vs. reality. With so little feedback (and by ignoring the feedback I do not like), I can easily imagine just how impressed so many, many people are at my ________.
- the mass grouping of those whom we do not know personally, real or imagined.
- the reluctance to actually talk, ie: interact in real time, when one can choose to transmit without receiving. some truly do seem to enjoy a world with no feedback.
- without body language signals, subtle context is difficult if not impossible to convey.
- with 1,000's of friends/like/followers, who has time or need for "deep." Quantity not quality, speed not accuracy, are the benchmarks.
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Re: The Tim Hunt Affair | Identity Politics

Post by Doc »

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/11 ... tment.html
Author drops UCL from £1m will over Sir Tim Hunt's treatment

Former student union president Jeremy Hornsby says University College London’s treatment of Sir Tim Hunt, the Nobel-prize winning scientist was the 'last straw’

Robert Mendick
By Robert Mendick, Chief Reporter

8:54PM BST 18 Jul 2015

A former president of University College London’s student union has written the institution out of his will in protest at its treatment of Sir Tim Hunt.

Sir Tim, a Nobel prize-winning scientist, was forced to resign as an honorary professor at UCL in a row over sexist comments he made in a speech.

Jeremy Hornsby, 79, an author and journalist, has now cut his alma mater out of his £1 million legacy. Mr Hornsby had planned to leave each of the two establishments that educated him – Winchester College and UCL – a tenth of his estate as a sign of his gratitude. He will now write UCL out of his will leaving it about £100,000 worse off.

Mr Hornsby wrote to Prof Michael Arthur, UCL’s provost, warning him of his intention to cut off UCL. His threat became a reality after the provost failed to even acknowledge his letter.

In his letter, Mr Hornsby explained that his exasperation with UCL over its seemingly soft stance on Islamist extremists, including the allegation that the so-called “underwear bomber” Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had become radicalised there during his studies, had been compounded by the Tim Hunt debacle.

Mr Hornsby wrote: “I have always been a loyal apologist and enthusiast for UCL, where I was president of the students’ union 1958-59, the year we moved to the old Seaman’s Hospital on Gordon Street. I have managed to ignore the various decisions over the years which appear to have enabled the radicalisation of Muslim students at UCL, but the case of Sir Tim Hunt is the last straw.

“Suffice to say that if I do not read that Prof Hunt has been reinstated within the next week, or, should he decline to return, that an apology has been issued to him, I shall sadly feel I must alter my will to remove the benefaction to UCL.”

Sir Tim, a biochemist who was awarded the Nobel prize in 2001, caused a storm of protest after reports of his speech in South Korea were tweeted. Sir Tim reportedly said: “Let me tell you about my trouble with girls. Three things happen when they are in the lab: you fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticise them they cry.”

Sir Tim said the comments were a joke. A recording released yesterday shows his audience laughing after he calls himself a “monster”.

Mr Hornsby, who graduated from UCL in 1959 after studying philosophy, said: “I wrote my will many many years ago and there was no question UCL would get ten per cent. But I just feel very strongly about the treatment of Sir Tim and have decided to change it.

“When I wrote to the provost I was astonished not even to receive an acknowledgement.”

UCL issued a statement last week saying it was right not to reinstate Sir Tim as honorary professor of the faculty of life sciences.
"I fancied myself as some kind of god....It is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out.” -- George Soros
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