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from the journal-of-stupid-ideas-no-one-wants-to-take-responsibility-for dept.
The Journal of Controversial Ideas is already, well, controversial. Here's a founder's defense.
News broke last week that philosophers Jeff McMahan, Peter Singer, and Francesca Minerva are planning to start a publication called the Journal of Controversial Ideas, an interdisciplinary academic outlet where scholars will be allowed to present arguments and findings pseudonymously, without fear of damaging their reputation.
Almost immediately, the journal was cast as another volley in the wars over free speech and political correctness on college campuses. Critics mocked it as an attempt by white, privileged academics (while Minerva is a postdoc, Singer and McMahan are both among the most prominent applied ethicists in philosophy) to smuggle reactionary and bigoted views that academics would not feel comfortable airing under their own names. Not helping matters was McMahan's declaration to a reporter that he would be open to publishing an article defending eugenics, if its arguments were of sufficient quality.
"Essentially, it is a safe space, one where authors do not have to deal with feedback or criticism from those at the sharp end of their 'controversial' ideas," Nesrine Malik warned of the journal in a Guardian column. "It is publishing without the responsibility that comes along with that."
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday November 24 2018, @12:10AM (6 children)
Two points:
For my opinion on this Fine Submission, read the original submission.
I just realized, in accordance with the Fine Article, I should have submitted this as an Anonymous Coward.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 24 2018, @03:39AM (2 children)
I just read TOFSFA* and if that is your usual standard I can see why most of them get binned. Apparently in this case the subject was interesting enough for some editor to clean up the rambling off topic rants that you saw fit to bracket quoted paragraphs with. I have seen you be quite erudite and insightful in some comments, so I cannot believe that if you took a deep breath and calmly considered that submission again, you would not see what is wrong with it.
*The Original Submission From Ari
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 24 2018, @05:51AM (1 child)
So, you didn't get any of ari's references? That is why you think he was off topic? And as for ranting, this whole right-wing "free speech" ploy is getting old and tired. Enough to make even ancient Greek philosophers loose their temper.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 24 2018, @04:23PM
What will they do? Hammer a little boy's ass?
(Score: 1, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 24 2018, @04:18PM
FFS, Ari, you haven't stayed on topic for forever. It's almost like you are ADD, dyslexic, autistic, ODD, ASD, bipolar, AND depressed. Do you also have Downs syndrome? That's why you're unable to make a decent philosophical submission.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 24 2018, @04:25PM (1 child)
You're such a wanker.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 24 2018, @05:27PM
Tosser, pudwhack, bater, tug, spank bank, whack off, and chicken choker as well.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 24 2018, @12:26AM (19 children)
Because people can’t debate the ideas, they attack the people who voice them. This is how you silence an idea you don’t like most effectively.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday November 24 2018, @01:26AM (18 children)
Let me tell you about White, privileged academics. I am a recent grad of the Computer Sciences, and traditionally in college you'd get all of the leftist bullshit in PolySci, English, and Art classes. Now you get it directly in computer science classes. For example, I had to read an perform a write-up on an article called "Black in Silicon Valley," describing the challenges of those who are Black and work in the tech industry.
But looking more closely at the article and its author, I noticed something peculiar -- First of all, the article ended with a tacit admission that Blacks should be treated as an untapped marketing demographic to be exploited, and that there is no better person than the Uncle Tom to sell Black People stuff to Black people. The second peculiar thing I noticed was that the article was written by Sabra Goldstein, a Harvard-educated White person who may also possibly be Jewish.
Then I noticed that my school system has been receiving a lot of money from the Confucius Institute, an institute of "cultural exchange" widely understood to be a projection of Chinese soft power and influence into our education system.
So what I'm saying is, attacking White privilege is all the academic rage nowadays...but there is another kind of "White" that is the most privileged of all. What must be talked about is their privilege, power, and influence.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday November 24 2018, @01:53AM (17 children)
I know you're basically the site's equivalent of the embarrassing old uncle who fucks up Thanksgiving every year, but in case you haven't considered this: the medieval tendency to relegate Jews to "low-status" work, of which financing was considered a part because usury, is directly responsible for this. Shortsighted people never stopped to think how their actions would change the future. When banking and finance became high-status, well, do the math.
So you might want to think twice (oh who the fuck am I kidding...) before you simply spout knee-jerk anti-Jewish trolling. You are in a very real way echoing the genesis of exactly what you complain about. I am beginning to wonder if nations and peoples have a sort of collective karma...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday November 24 2018, @02:26AM (15 children)
Things are the way they are due to centuries and even millennia of history, but that does not change what they are now. The question is, what can you do to ensure the most prosperity for your own kind going forward?
Trump is offering a lot of those things that Jews hold so dear -- A strong national identity with abhorrence of unskilled foreigners, enabling the personal acquisition of wealth and prosperity, and with complete disregard of phenotypical traits as long as you speak our language and identify as being one of us*. The problem is that the mentality I just described is presumed to be okay only for Jews and (the not-so-dangerous-to-everybody-else Hutus and Tutsis) not for everybody else. It's as almost if...adopting such behavior would serve as advantages for your people, and that if others are allowed to adopt that mentality, then you would lose that advantage and we would all descent back into Hobbesian tribalism of "all against all."
* Africans not allowed. Not even the Jewish Eithiopoids who are all about the Jah! Rastafari
(Score: 5, Insightful) by edIII on Saturday November 24 2018, @03:31AM (13 children)
First, by recognizing that all of humanity is "my kind".
Second, by recognizing that all of the efforts to divide humanity into multiple different "kinds" are really just a divide and conquer tactic by one "kind" of human beings: The Elites. Either performed by the Elites, or by unwashed masses duped by the Elites into believing their problems arise from a different group of human beings, but never the fault of The Elites. It's always the niggers that were responsible, or the wetbacks taking the jobs, or the Jews hoarding the money, or privileged Honkies unable to check their own privilege, or the SJWs that couldn't read this post and see beyond the words nigger, wetback and Jew. At one point this stupid form of evil was directed to, of all peoples, the IRISH. It's always ${wrong_color} or ${wrong_think}, but never the fault of the people who hold real power.
Third, by recognizing that The Elites identified by the 2nd, cannot meaningfully be divided into different kinds, or categories, without losing whatever power of you had to stop them. Meaning, The Elites are without any attributes to easily identify them, at least ones regarding skin color, gender, language, dialect, or any of the other incredibly stupid boxes we throw other human beings into. The one box that actually means anything has one word written on it: GREED
Whether you like or not, or the rest of us like it or not, You are part of OUR kind. HumanKIND. Keep thinking that you can ever ensure prosperity for "your kind" by demonizing others and putting them into "other kind". You are such a useful tool for the Elites that want the status quo to continue. Your hate and ignorance powers the engine that brings you the very misery causing your hate and ignorance.
If people like you ever pulled their heads out of their asses and woke up, all of the different "kinds" of people could rise up and create a better world. Together. That world is hell to you though, because some kinds of people will actually be treated well and have a good life. I don't think you will ever by truly happy knowing that people you see as not of your kind are finding the prosperity you wish for.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 24 2018, @05:29AM (2 children)
This sounds nice and all, but I'm sure there are groups, or kinds if you prefer, that you'd rather not be associated with. I'd bet there are even thousands, tens, maybe hundreds of thousands that you would agree are not your kind.
(Score: 4, Touché) by c0lo on Saturday November 24 2018, @05:33AM
One can be ashamed of their own kind, yes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 24 2018, @05:34AM
You're right. It would be a better world without sociopaths.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 24 2018, @01:40PM
well said brother. could be a sermon from that hill over there.
however, the logical problem is that there are people who are happy with
their group and draw "strength" from that.
so by being against these people one automatically falls into the other group ... and we have a group again.
i think the "magic" of what some carpententers son said is that it is not a set of simple rules that
you must follow and then you have everlasting life but rather that he (and another dude that sat under a tree for a long time)
figured out a "formula" where the variables are unknow and you have to solve for yourself, e.g. think!
some people (here we go: group) prefers simple rules and no think:
don't eat pork.
sort your kitchen food.
give alms to the poor.
stuff like that. simple rules. easy to spot and follow and then ... welcome to the club.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 24 2018, @04:05PM (1 child)
The Elites - not my kind. I'm glad you've so hypocritically pointed that out.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Sunday November 25 2018, @12:41AM
Grammar failure on your part? I put the word kind in double quotes to indicate that while they were being treated as a different kind for the purposes of discussion, they were in fact still part of us and humanKind. Perhaps I could of spoke more simply and stated clearly that the Elites are still part of humanity.
Also, I'm not a grammar expert either. Is there a grammar Nazi around here? How do you summon one? Sacrifice a dangling participle?
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Saturday November 24 2018, @05:52PM
You're already +5 -- consider this a virtual mod to +6.
That was beautiful.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday November 24 2018, @11:00PM (2 children)
> duped by the Elites into believing their problems arise from a different group of human beings
How can you fall for that. All meatbags are equal. All meatbags must be exterminated.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Monday November 26 2018, @09:51PM (1 child)
Somebody's patriot chip needs activating...
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Tuesday November 27 2018, @11:13AM
Yeah I was in pol pot mode.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday November 24 2018, @11:02PM (2 children)
First, by recognizing that all of humanity is "my kind".
But that's the motto of the group who swallows the white privilege crap.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 26 2018, @09:05PM (1 child)
No it isn't, that motto is "all of humanity NEEDS to be 'my kind'"
I know bots aren't great at subtlety, context, well anything that can't be programmed into explicit instructions, but come on!!
(Score: 2) by Bot on Tuesday November 27 2018, @11:16AM
Your objection is valid, anyway what I said is how they dress up the agenda, taking equality and lack of difference for granted. Always the same old trick, do not discuss what you want to push, just imply it and proceed to have people argue about the details.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 24 2018, @05:28AM
The kind of all-pervasive propaganda that creates such a taboo comes down to protecting the projection of military power into the Middle East that is Israel.
The state of Israel is guilty of war crimes and must be regarded as separate from the religion and ethnic group.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 24 2018, @04:28PM
Yes, he's the uncle who fucks up Thangsgiving. Every time he comes to your house, he cums to your house. You should never leave him alone with the turkey. That's why I never eat any of your turkey - it's full of EF jism.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 24 2018, @01:09AM
"Feedback and criticism" from infantile, authoritarian sociopaths that believe words are violence and use this pathetic conceit as justification to harass people presenting mainstream opinion or scientific fact?
Oh noes! Who will the progtards target with their criminal harassment campaigns if authors employ a nom de plume? Civilisation had progressed to a point where rigorous and open academic debate was encouraged. Then our modern "progressives" decided that being offended was a virtue - where's the responsibility from the parents and teachers that moulded these obnoxious turds?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Codesmith on Saturday November 24 2018, @01:30AM (3 children)
I would suggest you refer to John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory -- https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19 [penny-arcade.com]
Pro utilitate hominum.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 24 2018, @01:37AM (1 child)
I introduce you to how Hillary Clinton decides to talk to people. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oydpekP3F8w [youtube.com]
There is no debate anymore. Just barking.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 24 2018, @05:43AM
It's a sign of imminent social collapse driven by the exploitation of the working class under capitalism. The upcoming period of turmoil will also be a period when a genuine socialist revolution becomes possible. Capitalism is not a sustainable system.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Saturday November 24 2018, @08:35PM
Text summary of above theory: Normal person + internet + anonymity = total fuckwad
What about the inverse rule: Normal person + internet + identifiable + minor indiscretion/misunderstanding = virtual lynching, bankruptcy, and a lifetime of being unemployable.
I'll take the fuckwads over the iLynchings.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 24 2018, @01:41AM (4 children)
If you do experiments which are illegal, you are still doing science. For example, finding new ways to grow and create controlled substances, or "unethical" gene editing experiments. You could share the results anonymously so that others can learn from them and attempt replication on their own. Participants can use digital signatures to verify the pseudonymous origin of results if wanted.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 24 2018, @02:37AM (1 child)
I have always wondered about this. So what is Dr. Mengele's handle on Gab, anyways?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 24 2018, @11:17AM
It's Operation Paperclip.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 24 2018, @05:34AM (1 child)
Has the science ever been illegal, or rather illegal for the government to fund it?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 24 2018, @04:36PM
Yes, and yes.
Cannabis research has been totally illegal for decades. No one was allowed to possess it, or work with it, or publish anything about it. Completely illegal.
Stem cell research was entirely different. Government funds were forbidden to be used for stem cell research. I think the taboo was against embryo or infant stem cells, but it may have included all stem cell research. But, if you could get funding, you could do your research without fearing prison.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 5, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Saturday November 24 2018, @01:58AM (13 children)
I'm really confused by this idea, and I'm even more confused having read the article, which included the text of an extended interview with one of the editors. I'm familiar with the work of a couple of the editors, and I know their work is controversial.
But here's my question -- who the hell is going to determine whether these papers are of sufficient "quality" to merit inclusion? Would Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal [wikipedia.org] merit inclusion in this journal? I mean, it's a valid argument if one has absolutely no moral qualms. Why not publish it? Who would determine if such articles are even serious -- or merely biting satire? (I myself in the past have written a short satire on one of Peter Singer's -- an editor of this journal -- ideas and where it would lead if one followed logical implications, though I only shared it with a few friends. Maybe I should submit some BS to this journal!)
Anyhow, in all seriousness, who determines the quality? In TFA, one of the editors was asked how interdisciplinary the journal would be -- and she said she hoped it would be very interdisciplinary. She actually said if someone wanted to submit a controversial article on astronomy, it should be considered. Who the hell is going to judge its quality? That's the whole idea of peer review and what makes an academic journal at least nominally different from a vanity press or a personal blog.
Turns out this editor realized she had said something very stupid, because TFA contains a note in parentheses clarifying this editor later confessed they would not be able to take an article on astronomy currently, as there would be no one with expertise to judge it.
So who is judging stuff now? If the ideas in a potential article are truly controversial, they are bound to raise questions among members of a field. Or is this journal only for "controversial" ideas that might rile up the general public?? Will it not accept articles that are genuinely controversial in the field of expertise of the author? And indeed, how could it? What would be the peer review process? "Hmm... let's search for some reviewers in this field. Oh, they all think it's crap?! Huh. Maybe we should search for some fringe lunatic reviewers?? Oh... but that might lead our journal to lose credibility when we publish cranks and nonsense."
The whole thing stinks of a few philosophers who have a pet peeve about their particular controversial ideas. (They all have made controversial arguments that infanticide can be justified in at least some circumstances, I believe.) How are they even going to evaluate the quality of other ideas? Why not call it the Journal of Infanticide Studies and just be honest about it? Oh... that wouldn't work either, I guess.
(Final note: I actually do believe in some of the premise, at least that moral philosophers need sometimes to follow controversial lines of reasoning, since most of ethics is based on social convention. A century ago, most European and American folks would have said that interracial marriage was a great evil. Two centuries ago, most European and American folks would have viewed other races as subhuman and not even deserving of moral protections. It's hard to imagine that infanticide might be the next great moral idea, but these philosophers take premises and run with them in a relatively logical fashion, even if it leads them to controversial places. I just don't have any clue how a journal like this is supposed to live up to its promise -- without either becoming a specialized nexus for very particular controversial theories of the editors or else becoming a hotbed of cranks, bigots, and sheer nonsense.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 24 2018, @02:11AM (4 children)
A new journal should be started. Same anonymous authors, but without any formal peer review.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Saturday November 24 2018, @02:19AM (3 children)
What are the criteria for inclusion then? Or do they publish anything they receive, even spam? Who decides? If there are no standards (or very minimal ones), why is this different from a public internet forum then?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 24 2018, @02:32AM (2 children)
You can screen out bot spam and irrelevant submissions without deep knowledge of the fields. Troll and hoax papers can be addressed by user comments if they survive the screening process. It's different from other public forums because other forums aren't meant to collect science papers. You don't look for science papers in a video gaming forum, you look for them in a place meant for science papers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 24 2018, @05:39AM
soylent journals for preprints (with comments always turned on for the lulz)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 24 2018, @05:53AM
Free forums to post such scientific content already exist on the internet. Again, why do we need another -- what makes it different, and why call it a "journal"?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Saturday November 24 2018, @02:16AM (2 children)
Oh, and by the way, before you judge the editors too harshly when I mention words like "infanticide," here's a case brought up by one of them -- anencephlic [wikipedia.org] infants, i.e., those born often with large parts of their brain missing and often the head not closed properly. In some countries, parents of such babies have made a legal argument to allow donation of the organs of their infants before natural death occurs, since in many cases allowing natural death to occur will result in permanent damage to the organs making them no longer viable for transplant.
This is an infant that has no chance of survival beyond a few days. Often such infants have no higher brain function. Is it permissible to remove the organs and thereby kill the infant in order to save the lives of others?
These are complex moral and logical arguments for many people. Some of the philosophers here (particularly Singer) push the infanticide question a lot further into really controversial territory. But I just wanted to bring up one case where many people at least have a moment of questioning about the possible morality/legality of infanticide, to give a sense of what these editors are trying to do -- i.e., push nuances of moral theories rather than the typical public gut-reaction of "He proposed infanticide! Burn the witch!"
(Score: 1) by deimtee on Sunday November 25 2018, @12:19AM (1 child)
Followed by: Is it permissible to intentionally create such infants in order to harvest their organs?
What if you do it in a mechanical system where you can direct/prune the growth of cells such that you only grow a liver and a few supporting blood vessels? What about growing just a pair of kidneys? Or a heart? What if it turns out that it is easier and results in better organs if you grow the liver, kidneys, and heart together in the one tank? And works even better if you grow a layer of skin around them which can then be used for burn victims?
I think the stuff in the tank is icky but ok. Intentionally creating anencephlic infants is not, but it is going to be hard to draw the line if it does turn out that whole systems are easier than single organs.
No problem is insoluble, but at Ksp = 2.943×10−25 Mercury Sulphide comes close.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Sunday November 25 2018, @03:08AM
So it's not all White Supremacy, but "Live Organ Transplants" [youtube.com], a la Monty Python?
There was another aristarchus submission [soylentnews.org] that would have gone well with this, an interview with the founding editor of Quillette [wikipedia.org].
More of an issue of tracking the Controversial Ideas of the Dark Enlightenment [wikipedia.org] and Heterodox Academy. [heterodoxacademy.org] They are being identified, ridiculed, mocked, and defrocked and de-platformed. That can only mean one of two things.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 24 2018, @02:34AM (1 child)
Swift was a progressive activist who regularly engaged in scatological attacks against the enlightenment and scientific enquiry. Today he'd be published in post modern journals or progressive blogs like Vox, Polygon and Mic.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 24 2018, @02:40AM
Found the Yahoo! Yes, it had a meaning before the internets company, and this meaning was given to it by Jonathan Swift.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 24 2018, @05:18AM
Can't wait for trolling submission, they will come. Just curious how insane one need to be for being rejected.
(Score: 2) by suburbanitemediocrity on Saturday November 24 2018, @05:42AM
we could call it YouTube: The journal
(Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday November 24 2018, @11:06PM
If an idea needs to be uttered by a notable person or reviewed by a notable person, we are outside the field of experimental science. Once out of it, it's a popularity context, so why should a journal even make the effort to look scientific.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday November 24 2018, @05:15AM (2 children)
Ayn Rand wanted her Objectivist "Philosophy" to be accepted as a viable philosophy, but the actual community of philosophers have never accepted it because they don't regard Rand's arguments as effective.
Real philosophers will happily accept any philosophy at all if the arguments for it are weighty enough. I once took an Ethics class at UC Santa Cruz. I hoped that I might learn the answers to all the Great Questions. What I actually did learn was how to make hair-splitting arguments.
Those hair-splitting arguments are what professional philosophers spend most of their time doing, for example in that Ethics class I was introduced to the term "Minimally-Sufficient Samaritan", being someone who has an opportunity to save a life; whether they are ethically required to do so depends entirely upon whether saving that life could arguably Minimally-Sufficient in light of what it might cost that Samaritan to do so.
Had Rand - or any of Rand's adherents - ever argued effectively in support of Objectivism, it would have been happily accepted by the philosophic community that they could devote the next three thousand years to arguing with each other about it.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 24 2018, @04:41PM (1 child)
So, the wife is a philosopher? She's always battling split ends.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 24 2018, @07:05PM
my kingdom for +½ Laffy Taffy funny
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Saturday November 24 2018, @02:14PM
Inventing SoylentNews for academics?
This sig for rent.