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Why Our Longing to Matter Drives and Divides Us | Amanpour and Company youtu.be/LTkNwAFtb9w?si… via @YouTube
Steven Pinker
16.5K posts
Steven Pinker
@sapinker
Cognitive scientist at Harvard.
- “I have nothing against diversity, equity, and inclusion. But as Voltaire said about the Holy Roman Empire: it was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.”
00:00 - I collect ambiguous headlines. This one, on our President's health, is among the best.
- Evidence that woke isn't dead, peer review is problematic, and science needs to address deep problems in its culture: A grad student at Harvard conducted the first systematic, data-based study to document & explain the rise in gender dysphoria. His paper was rejected from a
- The French Revolution was a disaster: killed 2 million people, led to the rise of Napoleon--perhaps the world's first totalitarian fascist dictator, who began wars of conquest that killed an additional 4 million people, led to the restoration of slavery, to the restoration of the
00:00 - After a 2-day conference at Stanford's Hoover Institution honoring my friend, the economist Thomas Sowell, I was fortunate to have lunch with Tom, going strong at 95! 🧵 hoover.org/events/sowell-…
- Speech is not violence. Violence is not speech.We must repudiate the idea that "speech can be violence" once and for all. @glukianoff and I wrote about the dangers of promoting this idea on college campuses back in 2017, in @TheAtlantic: theatlantic.com/education/arch…
- The wrong way for the elite universities to dig themselves out their reputational hole: restrict speech even more. Instead: 1. Clear & coherent free speech policy. 2. Institutional neutrality: Universities are forums, not protagonists. 3. Force prohibited: No more heckler'sTonight, @Penn President Liz Magill signaled that one of our nation's most prestigious institutions is willing to abandon its commitment to freedom of expression. “For decades, under multiple Penn presidents and consistent with most universities, Penn’s policies have been guided
- Agree with @NickKristof, and am ashamed to be at the same university as the endorsers of this fatuous and morally monstrous statement. Deliberately murdering civilians, and abducting women, children, and the elderly, are heinous war crimes. And this regime is avowedly racist,...This statement by a bunch of Harvard student groups saying that Israel is "entirely responsible" and "the only one to blame" leaves me shaking my head. Sure, criticize Israeli policies, but excusing Hamas is so absurd it veers into self-caricature.
- Reports today of Noam Chomsky's death (in Jacobin and New Statesman, since taken down) were greatly exaggerated. I have confirmation from Valeria, his wife, that he is alive and well.
- From my appearance on 60 Minutes: Me: Research works. If you want to freeze society where it is, then cripple the research enterprise. Bill Whitaker of 60 Minutes: Is that whole idea being lost in the harsh rhetoric by the administration? Me: The attack on universities is a
00:00 - It's Insane We're Having A 'Debate' Over Whether It's Acceptable To Assault A Journalist
- A final comment: I feel sorry for the signatories. Moralistic dudgeon is a shallow and corrosive indulgence, & policing the norms of your peer group a stunting of the intellect. Learning new ideas & rethinking conventional wisdom are deeper pleasures …
- Letter to the @AmericanHumanist Association from myself (AHA Humanist of the Year 2006) and Rebecca Goldstein (AHA Humanist of the Year 2011) @platobooktour protesting its withdrawal of Humanist of the Year award to @RichardDawkins #richarddawkins
