ML2 @mathlover@qoto.org

Academia Selects for Careerist Cowardice

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/homo-consumericus/202006/academia-selects-careerist-cowardice

……Now let’s examine academia. What are some essential traits that an academic must possess? Of course, to be an academic, one must be intelligent although as I explain in The Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense, many of the dumbest ideas originate from academics. Beyond intelligence, one must be highly educated in their areas of expertise typically having obtained a PhD. Intellectual fierceness is likely to be missing from a description of what an ideal academic should possess. Incidentally, I am referring here to a polymath intellectual and not merely a hyperspecialized academic who solely weighs in on matters within their very narrow areas of expertise. Many professors are not in the least bit intellectual. They have chosen a career rather than pursued a calling for truth. Someone with little formal education might in reality be more of an intellectual than a professional academic. In any case, a public intellectual must exhibit intellectual brawn, and the reality is that most academics do not have such temperaments. Yesterday I posted the following comments on my social media, which I reproduce here:

"Academics should be intellectual @USNavy SEALs, exhibiting intellectual fierceness, cerebral tenacity, neuronal courage, & cognitive freedom. Instead, most are afraid of their shadows, tepid to utter a single interesting or controversial syllable. Academia selects for cowardice. Most academics know this to be true but they are unwilling to look deep within and truly pursue an intellectually pure and honest life. Careerism forces them into shackles of self-censorship. It’s tragic."

As someone who has been in academia my whole life, I am always astonished by how tepid most academics are, pathologically afraid to utter the most banal of positions, lest they might be ushered out of town by the Cancel Culture mob. A true public academic should be an intellectual brawler capable of using all of their cognitive training and intellectual acuity to head off to every intellectual battle ready to defend their positions. It does not matter whether you are a historian, a physicist, a psychologist, or a neuroscientist, you should be able to step into the ring of ideas and debate people respectfully albeit forcefully.

An academic who is too insecure to step into the public arena, and who hides from difficult conversations is not worthy of being labelled an intellectual. Moving forward, it is imperative that we attract people into academia who not only possess the necessary cognitive abilities to succeed but also the obligatory temperaments to be Navy SEALs of ideas. The battle of ideas is won by those who are intellectually courageous, who are cerebrally bold, and who are unencumbered by the orthodoxy. Let us foster an ethos that promotes intellectual honey badgers and not one that rewards cowardly mice and conforming sheep.

#IT #surveillance #biometrics #iBorderCtrl #Horizon #science #funding #global #eu #ethics

Sci-fi surveillance: Europe's secretive push into biometric technology

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/10/sci-fi-surveillance-europes-secretive-push-into-biometric-technology

In the rush to close & lock the door on asylum seekers before vacating office, the Trump administration is inflicting real harm on refugees. https://trib.al/nxA3RjA
https://twitter.com/hrw/status/1337507308763570182 #India #Trump

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Full-List of bots: https://joejoe.github.io/mastodon

@SuperDicq @koyu

they don’t agree with my “no full instance blocking, only specific user blocking” policy.

I am perfectly fine with that policy. It is really a sensible one.

Some people are lazy and would rather take a canned ‘block recommendation’ from the wannabes hanging around in the fediblock hash, a lot running instances whose full user list is way shorter in length than their own block list.

Posturing is common there. I don’t care about them, and can use instances that I like and adjust as needed.

FAB, for example is a delightful instance, I love puniko’s work and the whole environment there. Have an account and hang out there, sometimes. Have recommended her instance heartily - deservedly so.

But the small minded jerks sometimes block places for being pleroma instances, so FAB suffers as a publishing place alternative.

I made a blog post with a list of places I frequented back then, in January; and it seems an updated version with new ones, and the stories of what happened in some of the ones in the previous blog post are due.

This is a nice place. Thank you for offering the service!

"That's disgusting.." (Cit.)

Neofeud is a game about my experiences growing up in Hawaii's ghetto, being a social worker & STEM teacher for poor, homeless, refugees, mostly non-white kids in slums of Hawaii the tour buses avoid, while living out of a van. 100% of sales go to putting a roof over my kids' head.

https://silverspook.itch.io/neofeud

why does this exist

tbh parler is basically "gab but run by people who aren't fucking psychos"

If Gab wasn't so incompetent they could be getting millions of new users now. Instead... lol