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Post by Don on Aug 26, 2017 8:39:07 GMT -5
Governments create corporations and define their permissible activities in their charter, which can be revoked.
Governments could,therefore, require all corporations to provide First Amendment-level protections for speech, at the risk of their charter.
You may, from that, surmise specifically how interested governments are in protecting free speech.
Or citizens from corporations,for that matter.
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Post by Amadan on Aug 26, 2017 10:09:01 GMT -5
Governments create corporations and define their permissible activities in their charter, which can be revoked. Governments could,therefore, require all corporations to provide First Amendment-level protections for speech, at the risk of their charter. You may, from that, surmise specifically how interested governments are in protecting free speech. Or citizens from corporations,for that matter. You really haven't thought this one through, Don. Consider: the government requires all corporations to provide First Amendment-level protections for speech. Okay. So Facebook can no longer prohibit NAMBLA or the KKK from creating public groups. Twitter cannot ban ISIS supporters tweeting "Death to Jews." Web hosting companies cannot deny service to Stormfront. What does that do to the "freedom of association" that libertarians also value so highly?
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Post by Don on Aug 26, 2017 15:53:29 GMT -5
Rules for artificially-created entities puts no restriction on anyone's freedom to act as an individual. They would, however, be prevented from using the power of any government-created entity under their control to restrict free speech.
Why keep blaming the monster for exercising the powers Dr. Frankenstein gave him? Perhaps we should consider the Dr.'s motivation.
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Post by Christine on Aug 26, 2017 18:14:50 GMT -5
Rules for artificially-created entities puts no restriction on anyone's freedom to act as an individual. They would, however, be prevented from using the power of any government-created entity under their control to restrict free speech. Why keep blaming the monster for exercising the powers Dr. Frankenstein gave him? Perhaps we should consider the Dr.'s motivation. This whole notion that large, wealthy, powerful corporations exist due to the power the government has given them is absurd, imo. Large, wealthy, powerful WHATEVER has always existed, and will continue to exist, absent intervention. The rich get richer. It's simple math. Takes money to make money. Wealth has a snowball effect. Money is power. And now it's on a global level. Corporations today, unchecked and unregulated, are history's wealthy landowners. No government "granted" wealthy landowners their status; they inherited it. They owned it. Ownership is everything. You keep what you earn from that ownership. Assuming you don't want to get rid of the concept of ownership... The idea that absent government we wouldn't have domination, that, rather, we'd all be peacefully shopping at local markets and running local shops and trading amongst our neighbors, because there would be no such thing as "corporations," is ridiculous. Yes, corporations are a government-granted legal status, but legal status is irrelevant to the point you keep trying to make, that government is the reason they have the power they do; that it's simply government's fault for inventing the corporation. It's not the government's fault. It's the free-market's fault. It's Free Market Gone Wild. Do you honestly believe that, absent government-granted legal status, W@l Mart would not exist? Google would not exist? Facebook/Twitter would not be the most popular social media sites? Home Depot would not be competing with Lowe's and no one else? And on and on, when it comes to mega-corporations? If so, I don't think you understand humans, or greed, or scale, or the nature of money and its power at all.
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Post by Christine on Aug 26, 2017 19:03:58 GMT -5
Of course, this problem may be conservatives who self-select out of these areas before they become professors. And here in this line of thinking, we are getting close to our poor Google-fired Damore who tried to speculate on the possible deeper root of the gender difference in tech jobs -- the root of the problem here could go back further than when one applies to a professorial position. However, if it's discrimination further back - like in undergraduate studies where students don't feel comfortable expressing conservative views or see themselves as discriminated against because of their views, then they might be less likely to pursue that line of academia. Or there could be discrimination at the stage of graduate school application. This is speculation, of course, but not out of the realm of real possibility. Indeed, the arguments are very similar. Are there fewer women in STEM because STEM is full of raging misogynists trying to keep women out? Or because STEM is inherently unfriendly to women? Or because fewer women actually seek careers in STEM? It's likely a combination of those factors, but your insistence that universities have been taken over by leftists and they keep all the non-leftists out is identical to the argument by some feminists that any gender disparity in STEM can only be because of institutional sexism, without which we'd see 50% of all computer programmers and engineers and nuclear physicists being women. Maybe that is true, but I am skeptical. Do conservatives tend to find academia an unfriendly environment? Probably, but I think conservatives tend to be less interested in going into academia in the first place. Why on earth would conservatives tend to be less interested in going into academia? Honest question. There are Christian and other private universities which are overwhelmingly staffed by conservative-minded educators, for example. I think celawson is correct: most universities are dominated by liberal-minded people, and it can be an unwelcome place for conservatives. Side note, though it's slightly similar to the argument re: STEM, where I believe women also feel unwelcome, it's not really the same, because a person's genitals (eta: sorry, their "female brains") are not the same as their ideological positions. Unless the argument is that the conservative brain is not adept at academia, which seems rather ridiculous.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 26, 2017 19:38:13 GMT -5
Sigh.
Conservatives feeling in a minority or feeling "unwelcome" is not the same thing as them being systemically discriminated against in hiring. Not. The. Same. True for any group (including women). Or course, it is quite possible to be in a minority, feel "unwelcome" AND be discriminated against, of course. Certainly that happens. But the former is not, in itself, proof of the latter.
I'd actually be surprised if the professors in the STEM fields and such were overwhelmingly liberals. Same for business schools. My law school predominantly had liberal to moderate professors, but there were a number of conservative professors and I assure you they were well-respected. I know the same is true at Harvard, and if I'm not much mistaken (or it's changed since my day), University of Chicago's law school is predominantly conservative -- that at least was its reputation when I was applying.
Where you're likely to see liberal dominance is in the humanities. But anyone have evidence that's anything but choice? Anyone? Bueller?
I'll also note -- we had some very conservative students at my liberal-leaning law school (e.g., Kris Kobach), and they did just fine socially and academically. They were in a minority, but then, so were black students. So were latino students. So were students from working class backgrounds. We had a couple of Mennonite students all in their own little minority. A lot of us, one way or another, felt like part of a smaller group. We all had friends, got educations and jobs. I don't think Kris Kobach and co. suffered any from their experience being in a conservative minority. Certainly, it didn't stop them from pursuing an education in a primarily liberal institution.
Kris Kobach could easily have gone into academia, as could many of my conservative classmates. Most didn't choose it. (Primarily, they seemed to choose law firms, and a few went into politics.) But it wasn't lack of opportunity. Had more of them chosen it, there'd be less of a liberal lean.
Sorry, I'm not doing any crying for conservative students or professors unless they experience actual persecution or discrimination rather than a "boo hoo, I feel like conservatives are in a minority here.")
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Post by Christine on Aug 26, 2017 19:50:24 GMT -5
Feeling unwelcome is not the same as being discriminated against, that is true. I don't personally feel any angst, as I'd prefer my kids get a liberal education.
It's the idea that conservatives are "less interested" in academia in general that I questioned.
That said, feeling unwelcome is a powerful de-motivator. If someone's opinion is really just sigh, too bad, suck it up buttercup, you're not being discriminated against, I'm not partial to that.
And if it's in response to initiatives that, e.g., Google apparently had in place to try to be more welcoming? Yeah, no.
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Post by Don on Aug 26, 2017 22:33:25 GMT -5
Rules for artificially-created entities puts no restriction on anyone's freedom to act as an individual. They would, however, be prevented from using the power of any government-created entity under their control to restrict free speech. Why keep blaming the monster for exercising the powers Dr. Frankenstein gave him? Perhaps we should consider the Dr.'s motivation. This whole notion that large, wealthy, powerful corporations exist due to the power the government has given them is absurd, imo. Large, wealthy, powerful WHATEVER has always existed, and will continue to exist, absent intervention. The rich get richer. It's simple math. Takes money to make money. Wealth has a snowball effect. Money is power. And now it's on a global level. Corporations today, unchecked and unregulated, are history's wealthy landowners. No government "granted" wealthy landowners their status; they inherited it. They owned it. Ownership is everything. You keep what you earn from that ownership. Assuming you don't want to get rid of the concept of ownership... The idea that absent government we wouldn't have domination, that, rather, we'd all be peacefully shopping at local markets and running local shops and trading amongst our neighbors, because there would be no such thing as "corporations," is ridiculous. Yes, corporations are a government-granted legal status, but legal status is irrelevant to the point you keep trying to make, that government is the reason they have the power they do; that it's simply government's fault for inventing the corporation. It's not the government's fault. It's the free-market's fault. It's Free Market Gone Wild. Do you honestly believe that, absent government-granted legal status, W@l Mart would not exist? Google would not exist? Facebook/Twitter would not be the most popular social media sites? Home Depot would not be competing with Lowe's and no one else? And on and on, when it comes to mega-corporations? If so, I don't think you understand humans, or greed, or scale, or the nature of money and its power at all. Nice strawman. It's perhaps worth noting that what I actually argued was that governments make the rules under which corporations operate. They can throttle free speech because the laws that created them allow them to do so. An immediate legislative solution is possible... if the political class perceived it to be to their advantage. It's no accident that corporations have the powers they have. Every single power has been granted by lawmakers. There's something out of whack about expecting Dr. Frankenstein to protect you from his greatest creations.
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Post by Christine on Aug 27, 2017 7:39:29 GMT -5
This whole notion that large, wealthy, powerful corporations exist due to the power the government has given them is absurd, imo. Large, wealthy, powerful WHATEVER has always existed, and will continue to exist, absent intervention. The rich get richer. It's simple math. Takes money to make money. Wealth has a snowball effect. Money is power. And now it's on a global level. Corporations today, unchecked and unregulated, are history's wealthy landowners. No government "granted" wealthy landowners their status; they inherited it. They owned it. Ownership is everything. You keep what you earn from that ownership. Assuming you don't want to get rid of the concept of ownership... The idea that absent government we wouldn't have domination, that, rather, we'd all be peacefully shopping at local markets and running local shops and trading amongst our neighbors, because there would be no such thing as "corporations," is ridiculous. Yes, corporations are a government-granted legal status, but legal status is irrelevant to the point you keep trying to make, that government is the reason they have the power they do; that it's simply government's fault for inventing the corporation. It's not the government's fault. It's the free-market's fault. It's Free Market Gone Wild. Do you honestly believe that, absent government-granted legal status, W@l Mart would not exist? Google would not exist? Facebook/Twitter would not be the most popular social media sites? Home Depot would not be competing with Lowe's and no one else? And on and on, when it comes to mega-corporations? If so, I don't think you understand humans, or greed, or scale, or the nature of money and its power at all. Nice strawman. It's perhaps worth noting that what I actually argued was that governments make the rules under which corporations operate. They can throttle free speech because the laws that created them allow them to do so. An immediate legislative solution is possible... if the political class perceived it to be to their advantage. It's no accident that corporations have the powers they have. Every single power has been granted by lawmakers. There's something out of whack about expecting Dr. Frankenstein to protect you from his greatest creations. How is it a strawman when you keep repeating that corporations were created by government? Like I said, outside of the legal-status aspect, corporations are the result of the free market. They operate according to the rules of the free market; i.e., owners of these businesses can do whatever they want to do, hire or fire whoever they want to, provide or deny services to whomever they want to. That's freedom. But okay, if you're arguing that government should intervene more in the free market, regulate more to prevent free-market excesses, I'm cool with that.
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Post by Amadan on Aug 27, 2017 9:13:04 GMT -5
Why on earth would conservatives tend to be less interested in going into academia? Honest question. Money and status. Young conservatives are more likely to be interested high-status/income careers, or politics, than going into a field that is historically low income, low status, low influence. The reasons are mostly social happenstance and it is self-reinforcing: I already pointed out that it has made most universities trend left, which means they become increasingly unfriendly to non-leftists. My point of disagreement with celaw was not that there is a liberal bias in academia, which is obvious, but that proving conservatives are actively excluded on a professional and institutional level requires more substantiation than just pointing out the obvious liberality of most faculties. Just like you can point out that STEM is male-dominated, but that fact alone does not prove sexism.
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Post by Amadan on Aug 27, 2017 9:16:30 GMT -5
Rules for artificially-created entities puts no restriction on anyone's freedom to act as an individual. They would, however, be prevented from using the power of any government-created entity under their control to restrict free speech. Why keep blaming the monster for exercising the powers Dr. Frankenstein gave him? Perhaps we should consider the Dr.'s motivation. So, that's a lot of words and boilerplate aphorisms to mean "I cannot actually address your counterargument." Okay.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 27, 2017 11:21:55 GMT -5
Why on earth would conservatives tend to be less interested in going into academia? Honest question. Money and status. Young conservatives are more likely to be interested high-status/income careers, or politics, than going into a field that is historically low income, low status, low influence. The reasons are mostly social happenstance and it is self-reinforcing: I already pointed out that it has made most universities trend left, which means they become increasingly unfriendly to non-leftists. My point of disagreement with celaw was not that there is a liberal bias in academia, which is obvious, but that proving conservatives are actively excluded on a professional and institutional level requires more substantiation than just pointing out the obvious liberality of most faculties. Just like you can point out that STEM is male-dominated, but that fact alone does not prove sexism. Since I believe it is largely in the humanities you'll see the biggest liberal lean, I shall note this: I've heard and read tons of conservatives scoffing at or at least discouraging kids from majoring in the humanities because it isn't "practical." That includes not just women's studies and such, but also literature and history. I have yet to read a liberal discouraging studying such subjects. It is likely not a coincidence, therefore, that the majority of students studying such subjects even at an undergraduate level are likely to be liberal. Those going on to study them at a graduate level (rather than switching gears as I did and going for a graduate degree in law or business instead of pursuing that PhD in English Lit) are likely to be overwhelmingly so. And guess what? To be a professor in a subject, you need to study it, right up through a graduate level. Since good professorships in the humanities are scarce on the ground and not nearly as well-paying as jobs in the corporate world, you're going to do it for pure love of the subject and a conscious decision to pass by more lucrative, practical paths. If conservatives really want to see a more conservative lean in university humanities departments, as a starter, possibly it might be a good idea to stop telling kids it isn't practical to major in such subjects. ETA: For that matter, the money/status/practicality thing may hold up even in the sciences. I have a very conservative friend with a PhD in biology. Academic and research positions pay a pittance. She got a law degree at night and now is a patent attorney, which pays waaaay better. A couple of other science PhD friends got jobs in the business sector. They simply pay better than doing research or teaching -- much better. Not to stereotype -- OK, I am -- but I think those with a conservative lean are more likely to embrace practicality and security career-wise. If you are intelligent enough to become an academic, you have choices. Academia is rarely going to be your most practical, lucrative choice. ETA: Professor positions not only require a huge amount of study (not cheap) and are less well paid than a business position, but are also harder to get. In other words, you might well invest all that time and money getting your PhD only to find yourself without a job as a professor, doing some kind of scut work to make ends meet in the meanwhile, or having to move across the country to get a pretty mediocre job. Again -- this is a career path you pursue out of love. This is most true in the humanities because there's only so much else you can do with a PhD in English besides teach (or go for another degree). At least with a degree in law, business or science, you have options besides teaching (likely better-paying options). As for the overwhelming liberal dominance in Women's Studies and similar fields, pfft. When was the last time you met a conservative who wanted to study it, much less teach it? Mostly, I hear conservatives saying such programs should be eliminated. It is not so much the department biased against hiring conservatives as a pretty much complete absence of conservatives applying.
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Post by Optimus on Aug 27, 2017 23:53:00 GMT -5
Sigh. Conservatives feeling in a minority or feeling "unwelcome" is not the same thing as them being systemically discriminated against in hiring. Not. The. Same. True for any group (including women). Or course, it is quite possible to be in a minority, feel "unwelcome" AND be discriminated against, of course. Certainly that happens. But the former is not, in itself, proof of the latter. You're right. It's not proof. Actual proof is proof:There's also this:That last paragraph is particularly important because it's a numbers game. In other words, although it's true that progressives and conservatives admit that they discriminate against each other, the percentages of progressives in some academic fields absolutely dwarf conservatives, which ensures that they are able to keep conservatives viewpoints out. Where you're likely to see male dominance is in STEM. But anyone have evidence that's anything but choice? Anyone? Bueller?My point here is to highlight that your quoted argument above has been used to defend the gender gap in STEM, and it's an argument that is often summarily dismissed and pooh-poohed away by some ardent progressives because, to many of them, "correlation = causation" and don't want to accept that the issue is nuanced and complex. The difference, though, is that there actually is a lot of evidence that the gender gap in STEM is heavily influenced by choice (that's certainly not the only reason), just like there's quite a bit of evidence that conservatives are being actively squeezed out of academia. I'm kind of on the fence about it. I'm not losing too much sleep over a lack of conservatives in academia, but at the same time it is a bit worrying to me because I value viewpoint diversity on campus. From what I can tell, conservative professors tend to be more represented in business, economics, and some STEM fields. These are all areas where their political views likely wouldn't come up much anyway. But, it might be a good thing to see more of them teaching in departments that are more traditionally liberal. Some of my most memorable classes were those taught by professors who said things that I vehemently disagreed with. I don't want universities to start becoming political echo chambers. There are good points to be made by both conservatives and liberals on many issues. It's a shame when people are only exposed to one perspective, especially when those people are younger and more impressionable.
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Post by Optimus on Aug 28, 2017 0:41:10 GMT -5
Since I believe it is largely in the humanities you'll see the biggest liberal lean, I shall note this: I've heard and read tons of conservatives scoffing at or at least discouraging kids from majoring in the humanities because it isn't "practical." That includes not just women's studies and such, but also literature and history. I have yet to read a liberal discouraging studying such subjects. For good and/or ill, conservatives tend to be much more strongly capitalistic and economically pragmatic than liberals, so a major reason for some of them possibly discouraging those types of degrees is noted later in your own post: From what I can tell, conservatives tend to focus on degrees that will lead to good-paying jobs rather than degrees they think are likely to lead to low employment and underemployment. This seems to align with their political values, which include economic self-sufficiency and an aversion to social/economic welfare programs. In their eyes, I'm sure many of them - rightly or wrongly - view humanities degrees as contributing to unemployment and increases in costs associated with welfare/SNAP. I always counsel students about their future job prospects in as realistic a way as possible. If they choose to pursue a certain degree because they absolutely love it, I always make sure that they know the reality of whether or not they'll actually be able to get a job in that field with that degree, and also whether they will be able to get a job that pays enough to keep food on the table. The choice is always theirs, of course. But, they do need to understand that a large proportion of students who get degrees in humanities don't actually get careers in those fields. They instead wind up doing data entry at insurance companies, going into real estate, or food service, etc. From a societal perspective, I think humanities and arts education are very important fields. From a job-market and earnings perspective, they're pretty weak. Money's definitely not everything, but students need to be realistically informed about what kind of quality of life they'll be able to attain with the degrees they choose to pursue. Often, this doesn't happen, because people are often told to "pursue what you love." What you love often can't pay your rent. Compared to the other sciences, graduate degrees in biology are kind of worthless, to be honest. About the only thing one can do with them is go into academia. At least with a PhD in chemistry, a person can make big bucks at a pharmaceutical company. There aren't many non-academic jobs out there for PhD or masters-level biologists. Agreed. That's probably what I'm going to wind up doing. I agree and it's a good point. It's also why a lot of conservatives are likely to scoff at humanities degrees. Doesn't really make a lot of sense for members of a group to complain that they aren't well-represented in a field that most of them choose not to go into (this also has parallels to the STEM gender gap debate). Personally, I think that the current state of Gender and Diversity Studies is a steaming pile of hot garbage. It's not because the subjects aren't important and worthy of study; they certainly are. But the field, as a whole, has been malignantly infected with the post-modernist, Neo-Marxist bullshit of so-called "Critical Theories" which has created a mostly politically-driven train wreck of unscientific, anti-scientific, denialist bullshit. Many G&DS professors seem more interested in navel-gazing and political posturing than they are in seeking truth. They need to clean house, get rid of the activists-cum-professors, and start focusing on legitimate scholarship instead of the academically inauthentic sort of shit show that it's currently in danger of becoming/remaining.
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Post by Don on Aug 28, 2017 7:33:21 GMT -5
I miss my laptop. I need the pic with the enraged female student holding up her sign:
"I spent $100K on my degree in female, lesbian, and transgender studies, and I can't find a job."
Poor snowflake.
This is a spinoff of the "everybody needs a degree" bullshit. People who should be in trade school studying culinary delivery are instead off to a four-year vacation at daddy's expense. They need fields of study that are totally subjective and based on parroting the currently-accepted memes. Anything that required objective analysis and critical thought, and they'd be out on their asses halfway through their first.semester.
Economic illiteracy and moral relativism both play a big part too. Both thing drummed into them five days a week for the preceding twelve years.
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