While the Trump regime eviscerates science, Sabine Hossenfelder, a German physicist by training turned science YouTuber, published a video whose thumbnail states in large red letters, “Academia is Communism.” And an upcoming book called The War on Science, written by a coalition of grievance-mongers including Lawrence Krauss, Peter Boghossian, and Gad Saad, received a glowing, official endorsement from Hossenfelder: “Higher education isn’t what it used to be,” she wrote. “Cancel Culture and DEI have caused many to keep their mouths shut. Not so the authors of this book.”
In her February video thumbnailed “Academia is Communism,” Hossenfelder argues that the defunding of academic research will probably happen, whether we want it or not, and she cites Elon Musk’s, Marc Andreessen’s, and Peter Thiel’s vilification of universities: that they’re bastions of communism and the enemies of progress, with their researchers essentially on government welfare. She expands on the arguments in favour of moving basic research to the private sector: that government grants tend to be short-lived while entrepreneurs plan for the long term; that serendipitous discoveries could still happen within companies; that silly research ideas would no longer be financed; and that private investors are better at taking risks than national funding bodies.
Yeah, she sounds like an absolute fuckwit to me.
You’ve got the throwing up communism as an evil canard and labeling Academia as communist, which if anything, Academia is corporatist and being twisted by corporations funneling money into flawed science. Yet, that’s literally what she supports, is the privatization of science.
You’ve got the “cancel culture” and “DEI” canards that she claims is resulting in some form of self-censorship.
This is exactly the kind of shit that leads idiot MAGA fucktards to distrust science entirely.
This bitch ain’t helping, sorry, not sorry.
Please, OP, I implore you to re-assess your view of this situation. Academia is far from perfect, but it is not communist by any stretch, nor is privatization of science in any way a fucking solution. That’s just handing the billionaires of the world the cyberpunk dystopia they so desperately want on a silver platter. If anything, science needs to be more open, not less.
Anyone pushed by youtube algorithm has to be suspect.
I hate universities as much as anyone, but she’s obviously pushing some agenda.
There should be publicly funded teaching ( polytechnic not elitist).
And publicly funded research (to generate FOSS IP). I actually think research should be anonymised too, just like peer review…
It’s the failures of democracy (or whatever political system) to turn education and research systems into something that serves the people - whilst giving them power and resources that that is the big issue to me. Of course western prestigious Universities predate most modern forms of government - and their feudalistic roots show in how they carry on.
I mean, it sounds like she’s got some valid critiques in respect to her own field of study, but her offered solutions of privatization are pretty off the mark. She also really can’t speak for other fields of study but apparently feels comfortable doing so.
She’s bringing real “You’re not wrong, Walter. You’re just an asshole.” energy.
Her endorsement of the stupid Krauss book is the most damning thing she did objectively, but she went off the rails earlier than that with her transphobic videos. She presents “science without the gobbledygook” except when it’s trans people, then she pulls out random junk studies that make her feel justified in her disgust reaction, apparently. Now of course she openly aligns with Physics cranks like Eric Weinstein and the Trump administration so there’s absolutely no doubt left about what she’s doing even if you ignore her non-Physics videos.
The Krauss book is funny in a morbid way too, it keeps talking about how Biden will do this or that while releasing while Trump was (is?) doing unprecedented budget cuts for everything even vaguely resembling a scientific institution. Oh and most of the other guest writers for the book are former Professors who were fired for sexually harrassing their students, that must be this “Cancel Culture” thing Hossenfelder is talking about.
I wonder how much corporations are paying her to push this swill against open research that’s publicly owned.
Probably nothing. I’ve been following her for a while and it seems to me she’s just been betrayed and disappointed by academia to an extreme that made her turn a 180 and defend private funding, when that’s clearly doomed from the start.
I wouldn’t take these bits too seriously, but she does make good arguments overall and exposes some real problems and concerns that I’ve also seen as a grad student in a different field. I can’t agree that privatization is the way forward, but there’s more to her channel than that.
https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/critical-thinking-general-science/sabine-hossenfelder-asks-if-science-dying-its-not
Yeah, she sounds like an absolute fuckwit to me.
You’ve got the throwing up communism as an evil canard and labeling Academia as communist, which if anything, Academia is corporatist and being twisted by corporations funneling money into flawed science. Yet, that’s literally what she supports, is the privatization of science.
You’ve got the “cancel culture” and “DEI” canards that she claims is resulting in some form of self-censorship.
This is exactly the kind of shit that leads idiot MAGA fucktards to distrust science entirely.
This bitch ain’t helping, sorry, not sorry.
Please, OP, I implore you to re-assess your view of this situation. Academia is far from perfect, but it is not communist by any stretch, nor is privatization of science in any way a fucking solution. That’s just handing the billionaires of the world the cyberpunk dystopia they so desperately want on a silver platter. If anything, science needs to be more open, not less.
Wow, I enjoyed her videos now and then; sounds like she’s a fucking asshole actually. Not going to interact with her shit anymore.
Anyone pushed by youtube algorithm has to be suspect.
I hate universities as much as anyone, but she’s obviously pushing some agenda. There should be publicly funded teaching ( polytechnic not elitist). And publicly funded research (to generate FOSS IP). I actually think research should be anonymised too, just like peer review…
It’s the failures of democracy (or whatever political system) to turn education and research systems into something that serves the people - whilst giving them power and resources that that is the big issue to me. Of course western prestigious Universities predate most modern forms of government - and their feudalistic roots show in how they carry on.
I mean, it sounds like she’s got some valid critiques in respect to her own field of study, but her offered solutions of privatization are pretty off the mark. She also really can’t speak for other fields of study but apparently feels comfortable doing so.
She’s bringing real “You’re not wrong, Walter. You’re just an asshole.” energy.
Her endorsement of the stupid Krauss book is the most damning thing she did objectively, but she went off the rails earlier than that with her transphobic videos. She presents “science without the gobbledygook” except when it’s trans people, then she pulls out random junk studies that make her feel justified in her disgust reaction, apparently. Now of course she openly aligns with Physics cranks like Eric Weinstein and the Trump administration so there’s absolutely no doubt left about what she’s doing even if you ignore her non-Physics videos.
The Krauss book is funny in a morbid way too, it keeps talking about how Biden will do this or that while releasing while Trump was (is?) doing unprecedented budget cuts for everything even vaguely resembling a scientific institution. Oh and most of the other guest writers for the book are former Professors who were fired for sexually harrassing their students, that must be this “Cancel Culture” thing Hossenfelder is talking about.
Oh so she’s a TERF, too? That tracks…
Probably nothing. I’ve been following her for a while and it seems to me she’s just been betrayed and disappointed by academia to an extreme that made her turn a 180 and defend private funding, when that’s clearly doomed from the start.
I wouldn’t take these bits too seriously, but she does make good arguments overall and exposes some real problems and concerns that I’ve also seen as a grad student in a different field. I can’t agree that privatization is the way forward, but there’s more to her channel than that.
Right, academia has a whole boatload of problems, but her proposed solutions are a non-starter for for anyone with a brain