Ways to Say No – With Grace and Style

Re:Ways to Say No – With Grace and Style by YetAnotherNick on Sunday June 25, 2023 @11:11AM (#36469031)

I had a short stint in academia, and it is much easier to say no even in worst company compared to average professor. The problem is not even that the people are bad but in the setting itself, it is that there is no clear data to see the direction in which to put effort in acedemia and in IT jobs at least you could argue with clearer points for why something can't be done in some way, or why developing something would interfere with some other thing.

When two people are arguing with just opinions, the senior person assumes their choice is valid. At least for me, this was frustrating as I felt my opinions are not given any respect.

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Re:Ways to Say No – With Grace and Style by EGreg on Sunday June 25, 2023 @11:37AM (#36469334)

“It’s as if the goal is not to do science, but to publish and tell an interesting story in your papers.”

Yup, it is the result of the profit motive. I think thanks to the Internet there has become a lot LESS respect for all kinds of views. Every blogger who has comments below can receive pushback. It wasn’t the case when people were simply publishing books with references.

I have taken advantage of this to some extent by interviewing some of the top people in what I am interested in. “Freedom of association”. I didnt even bother posting the videos as public, they are often unlisted.

Tim Berners-Lee

Noam Chomsky

Inventor of Freenet

Grandson of Milton Friedman

The author of Regulation S

Richard Heart from Hex

And so forth. A random assortment of people. Also people building new movements:

Andrew Yang

Tulsi Gabbard

Brock Pierce

Ben Swann

In general, I think people trust institutions less now, including scientists. Look at RFK Jr on Joe Rogan challenging the prevailin establishment on the coronavirus, etc.

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