Interesting that it starts with Bret Weinstein who just yesterday was banned from Facebook without reason, his account restored after uproar that included Tulsi Gabbard, and then given an official reason that it was a "mistake" from the company.

Similarly interesting is that despite being only an hour old, having 43 points and being on the front page at my time of writing this post, this post was explicitly removed.

Do you think that when one conjures the phrase "dark times ahead", those who experience those dark times understand that they live in the dark times, or are they repeating the phrase to others in the belief that despite their misery, things could be worse?

Hmm yeah look at that... I wonder what happened.

This is a good piece with examples of attacks by the ideologically militant multitude against what is unfortunately these days the free thinking minority.

If these attacks succeed, education is on its way to moral bankruptcy.

Nowadays (if there's ever been a time in history) it's not easy to voice opinions that diverge from the crowd.

With stuff like Instagram it's the norm that people mime meaningless things, just mindlessly repeating unexamined ideas (blackout is a great example).

It's gobsmacking to me when I see how many educated (liberal arts educated friends, no less) people passing around these conversation guide infographics...as though they can't express original ideas, hold a conversation, etc.

It's critical that people are brave enough to recognize the obvious illiberal attitudes circulating and criticize them for the nonsense they are.

"Free thinking minority" is so often meaningless that it's hard to find the actual message behind it. 99% of the time it basically means "we share an ideology and are surely very intelligent."

Free thinking means to create your own fact based opinion without ideological bias. Now, we should be afraid to think freely on thorny topics lest we end up offending someone's feelings. It could also come at the cost of careers and livelihoods.

Not sure about you, but universities as institutions that historically had only places for upper class men with no room or tolerance for anyone who didn't look like them isn't exactly the pinnacle of morality. One might even consider that a morally bankrupt starting point...

Universities weren't historically jobs training programs, as they've now been reduced to, and so weren't even a consideration for the vast majority of people for whom even basic literacy wasn't requisite for their day-to-day job.

Not founding all things for everyone does not imply moral bankruptcy.

It may have started that way, but then progress was made based on the principle of meritocracy. Now it is regressing due to vague "social justice" principles.

So when was this pinnacle of education, out of curiosity? It's interesting you mention meritocracy, considering how classist education has always been

I graduated from a meritocratic institution 20 years ago. Got there on a scholarship, studied unhindered by the politics of the day for 5 years, and it made me who I am today.

Unfortunately the same institution is today spending too much time and energy on various socio-political abstractions, hence it is not being able to offer the same opportunities for scientific exploration I enjoyed during my time there to the new generation.

From my experience, the pinnacle of education was around the end of the cold war here in the West, then it started going downhill once we lacked a properly defined adversary and started to look for enemies and oppressors in our own midst.

I like the penultimate paragraph:

> The SAT is often criticized, but the Advanced Placement system is psychologically more insidious: distorting learning incentives in high school, and training keener students to think of college in terms of “completing requirements.” Students who are good at something shouldn’t be treated as exempt from learning, but encouraged to venture farther.

Click bait - thought the post was about the ripple effect of the ever inflating cost of undergrad and grad degrees through society. Instead it's a reactionary piece to the current push for more political correctness in academia.

Yeah the title could be updated to more accurately reflect the content but I still enjoyed the discussion and (for me at least) a new online debate format

Institutions of learning becoming subordinate to a faith-based ideology might be worth reacting to. Lysenkoism probably shouldn’t be repeated.

That's just the first page. The others were less politically charged and match the title appropriately.

Interestingly the article actually has 4 pages replying to earlier ones.

Yes I liked this format a lot, reminds me of the psuedo sets concept trending on the front page. It kept me going through the 4 pages to see the back and forth

Love the format -- not sure about the image at the top though. It sort of gets in the way, I think. What do you think?

I really like this format and found both sides very interesting. Thanks for sharing.