from Hacker News

Thousands register for geophysicist’s lecture after MIT caved to ‘Twitter mob’

by andyxor on 10/12/21, 12:18 AM with 24 comments

• by porknubbins on 10/12/21, 3:31 AM

  I'm glad Princeton has decided to host this. It seems somehow worse that MIT cancelled a science talk since if one of the most respected engineering schools cannot resist calls for censorship by a twitter mob then who can?

  Thinking about why academia is especially susceptible to this, it seems like most faculty and staff there are in a position not unlike a high priest or clergy member in that they wield a lot of power as long as they are in the organization but have little or none in their own right and if they lost their position the likelihood of regaining it is very small. So what they all want to minimize is the risk of gaining the attention of a vengeful twitter mob. Its not like there is really a corresponding gain to the individual for standing up for academic freedom to balance the equation.

• by codeecan on 10/12/21, 4:19 AM

  > MIT told him it was canceling the lecture to “avoid controversy” after students and recent alumni demanded he be uninvited because he’d recently argued academic evaluations should be based on merit.

  Damn, I assumed he said something racist maybe, but this is what the issue was about, I just lost all respect for MIT.

• by armagon on 10/12/21, 3:47 AM

  It is amazing to me that a handful of people on twitter can get people cancelled, while thousands of people can march in the streets (such as in many parts of Europe, or in New York City) and be completely ignored.

• by ramblerman on 10/12/21, 6:34 AM

  > mounted a Twitter campaign to cancel a distinguished science lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology because they disagreed with some of the political positions the speaker had taken

  So we're past the point of looking for racism. Even political opposition, or a viewpoint you don't agree with merits cancellation?

• by finite_jest on 10/12/21, 12:29 AM

  Registration link (the topic is "Climate and the Potential for Life on Other Planets"): https://princeton.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_aBSONFUDTJGsxH...

• by EricE on 10/12/21, 3:39 PM

  >“We felt that with the current distractions we would not be in a position to hold an effective outreach event,” Professor Robert van der Hilst, head of the MIT department, said in a statement.

  Wow - there was a time when one went to college for debate and dissent. It's the best way to hone one's intellectual sword.

  No wonder universities churn out so many people unprepared to cope in the real world :p

• by nickthemagicman on 10/12/21, 8:56 AM

  Twitter represents the views of a tiny portion of people and the platform by nature optimizes for outrage in that nuance is hard to capture in the small word count.

  This Twitter mob has also affected stand up comedy. In Dave Chapelles new special he talks about it a fair amount.

• by OldHand2018 on 10/12/21, 4:49 AM

  99.9% of the people registering aren't actually going to attend and don't care at all about the content of the lecture.

  Princeton has exceeded their "Zoom quota" once and had to increase it to accommodate additional registrations. Is there some limit that they absolutely cannot exceed? Will they have to close registration at some point?

  If so, then many people that were interested in the content of the lecture will be unable to view it. So... he is effectively going to be cancelled by the anti-cancellers.

• by 908B64B197 on 10/12/21, 3:47 AM

  Sample size of 1, but the cancellation had an alum tell me his "brass rat felt heavier", and that he relegated it to his desk drawer, at least for now.