Notices by Tim Verstynen (tdverstynen@neuromatch.social)

Thinking a lot of the Ken doll culture taking over our government & culture. We don’t raise men in this country, we raise boys. Boys without any sense of maturity, reason, responsibility, or compassion.

From Rogan to Trump, the whole lot are just toddlers who know how to wipe their own butts.

Watching a documentary on the Arctic.

7yo: Why is all the ice melting?

Me: Because we’re causing the planet to warm by burning so much fuel.

7yo: Could we stop it?

Me: We could. But we aren’t.

7yo: WHY???

Me: Because it seems that we decided that it was more important to have a few people make a lot of money than protect our planet for everyone.

Doing my best to raise a young radical!

It is frustrating to see academic scientists arguing over issues like preprints vs. journals at the same time that a tsunami of anti-science misinformation is sweeping the country.

Shouldn’t we be talking about robust & effective means of disseminating our work out to the general public?

The anti-science movement is going to be put in charge of the #NIH. The goal is simply to make the corruption endemic and hurt the American people. Don't let the liars attacking our intellectual institutions tell you otherwise.

(gift link)

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/01/health/nih-trump-kennedy-bhattacharya.html?unlocked_article_code=1.eE4.U-1I.GLGq1hb1OpFA&smid=url-share

This is simultaneously messed up and a pretty decent reflection on the state of our current society.

(gift link)

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/27/nyregion/banana-auction-sothebys.html?unlocked_article_code=1.dU4.SjXo.v7GQ6YfXfi90&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb

A self declared devout Christian proudly attending a UFC fight with a coke addict, a serial liar, & multiple people who steal from the poor.

Most conservative Christians aren’t sincere in their beliefs.

Stolen with impunity from Instagram.

This is statistically true.

No one:
Absolutely no one:
John McWhorter: Joy is really just coded racism

(How this clown is considered an expert on anything is just beyond me at this point)

@sewblue

Yeah, this pattern of many academics in this heterodox space. Steve Pinker, Jonathan Haidt, and Nicholas Christakis are people who had great insights in a narrow domain who then embraced the image of a generalized genius as a brand. Incidentally they all share one thing in common. They all have the same literary agent named John Brockman. So, not to sound too like a conspiracy theorist, but my guess is that this type of pivot sells a lot of books because it fits with a cultural frame/stereotype that "elite" academics are general geniuses (instead of specialists).

I love how conservatives always argue that privatizing governmental tasks would increase efficiency and lower costs. Instead we get astronauts stuck on the International Space Station by a private company that charges more than it would cost NASA for the same task.

Thanks free market zealots.

https://www.wfla.com/glance-at-the-galaxy/astronauts-remain-in-space-as-boeings-starliner-mission-exceeds-45-day-window-at-iss/

@jonny Seriously? They've already brought out the Pinkertons?

Between Columbia’s decision to have law enforcement quell what was otherwise a fairly typical, peaceful college protest because it was pro-Palestinian and USC’s decision to cancel the speech of a valedictorian simply because she is Muslim, I think we can safely dispel the notion that universities are unapologetic bastions of liberal progressivism.

Example #3412 of why the US healthcare system is toxic and harmful:

The last time I got COVID it chewed up 11% of my small vessel lung capacity, giving me permanent asthma. My doctor agreed that I absolutely need to take Paxlovid whenever I get COVID to avoid further lung damage.

So, this week I got COVID.

When my partner went to our pharmacy to pick it up, we were told that our insurance would only cover $300 of the $1600 charge. So basically CVS Caremark (and Pfizer) is extorting me $1300 on a literal life saving medication because they can.

Meanwhile, their CEO alone got compensated $21.3M last year. Corporate greed is literally killing people.

I’ve always felt that the campaign against social justice initiatives in higher education was disingenuous. This expose justifies that belief. The emails here show that the movement against diversity on colleges arises from genuinely bigoted views on race, gender, and sexuality that are laundered under psuedointellectual language and amplified through well funded conservative networks.

Every academic in the US needs to read this article and study their methods to know what we are up against.

(Gift link)

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/01/20/us/dei-woke-claremont-institute.html?unlocked_article_code=1.PU0.LvJt.63BHmd0U5sUx&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

#academicchatter #diversity #universities

Academia is no longer about producing knowledge. We produce content for publishers. But unlike other industries, we pay both to produce and consume said content.

It’s all a farce, that we all know is a farce, but we play it anyway because the entire system is structured to incentivize the farce itself.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03974-8

Are we getting closer to decoding whale "language"?

https://osf.io/preprints/osf/285cs

I am sick of this genre of “we must correct the liberal bias in academia” opinion pieces.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/04/opinion/liberal-universities-republicans.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

So I’m supposed to teach that climate change isn’t happening or isn’t being caused by human activity despite the overwhelming evidence that it is happening and we are responsible?

I’m supposed to teach that homosexual behavior is abnormal and unnatural, despite it being observed across many species (including other primates) and having a well documented prevalence in human history?

I’m supposed to teach that Reaganomics allows for uplifting everyone despite the overwhelming evidence that it only increases income inequality?

I’m supposed to teach that our history of systemic racism either did not exist or does not persist in causing social harm to this day, despite the overwhelming evidence for the generational impacts of practices like redlining and race biases in healthcare and the criminal justice system?

I’m supposed to teach that Trump won the 2020 election and was disenfranchised because of some deep state plot, despite the complete lack of evidence (and the counter evidence that he and his supporters knew they lost the election)?

Maybe the reason that conservative positions do not get traction in academia (and gets consistently flagged by fact-checking services) isn’t some nefarious conspiracy to suppress conservative voices. Maybe it’s just because most of what counts as conservative ideologies today are premised on non-empirical assumptions or flat out lies.