778
MIT Shut Down Internal Grant Database After It Was Used to Research School’s Israel Ties
(theintercept.com)
Only $4 million? That's not a lot in research money
this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2025
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Cutting your face to spite the mirror.
“Come study with us! As a pillar of academia, we'll hide knowledge from you whenever it suits our political and financial interests. Higher education is all about close-mindedness and conservatism after all. We promise none of our students will be taught anything that makes them feel uncomfortable about reality. Welcome to college!”
Higher education is all about close-mindedness and conservatism after all.
In a capitalist economy, higher education is about maximizing profit.
Could academia today be seen in the future in a similar light as we look at the medieval church? It was the gatekeeper of philosophical education (largely on classist principles), to things like literacy, and used humanity’s curiosity and hunger for knowledge as a carrot on a stick to buy into an oppressive status quo.
Other than the medieval church, global academia has the fundamentals right, imho. The methods are flawed but the general goal is the right one.
The problem in the US is not a fundamental flaw in academia, but lack of political understanding that a state benefits from educated citizens and fundamental research that isn't immediately monetisable. That resulted in this weird situation, where the most prestigious facilities are just sport centers with a side hustle in education.
In the future the methods of today's global research will more likely be seen as something like greek philosophers. The goal of generating knowledge was right. The method of just writing down what your two remaining neurons, that haven't drowned in wine yet, produced and never verifying it, was... let's call it flawed from a modern perspective.
That resulted in this weird situation, where the most prestigious facilities are just sport centers with a side hustle in education.
When the football coach is paid literally actually 100 times or more what the average professor is paid, we've royally fucked up our priorities. Coaches are making millions per year while adjunct professors are struggling to make ends meet. It's disgusting.
Edited to add: the head football coach at my undergrad university makes 9 MILLION, PER YEAR. And his current contract runs through 2029. Let's also not discuss how most of these contracts require they keep getting paid even if they're fired for poor performance. Meanwhile, annual mean wage for a professor is like 80-90k.
Oof
Yes this is actually exactly how they want to present themselves. More donor money from guess who?
*US Academia
Are you fucking kidding me mate? It’s bloody one of the top 3 universities in the world. It’s a pillar of global academia no matter which way you split it.
Like the baseball world series...
No ya muppet, higher education is not like a sport chiefly played in the US.
MIT in my heart is Nr.1!
... In making students commit suicide for frivolous IP lawsuits...
Otherwise is like baseball world series. "American exceptionalism"
What a moronic take, honestly mate.
You can generally rank things, this is a fact. It just so happens that when you rank some of the best universities globally, and many times from many groups in many countries, and you keep seeing MIT get into the top list it’s safe to say it’s factually good and not some out of place nonsense related to the Americans and their psyche.
So by hiding their ties...they've exposed their ties.
One would have thought the administrators at MIT would also be smart...guess not.
They're administrators, not academics.
Administrators at prestigious schools are just low grade politicians.
They tasted the tiniest bit of power, and now it's all they crave.
I'm sure they were told by their supervisors to do this. These people don't fart without permission from above them. Take it from someone holding his farts.
By hiding their ties, they can deny, delay, and depose anyone who prints statements to the contrary.
One would have thought the administrators at MIT would also be smart
Shutting the door on public inquiry is a long term play that involves a little short term pain. But nobody is going to remember this headline in another news cycle or three.
Admins are banking on BDS falling down the memory hole like so many other failed civil rights initiatives.
This is the same MIT that caused Aaron Schwartz to commit suicide... they are tax exempt organization that received substantial federal funds on top of it.
Never forget!
MIT administrator dusts off their hands...
"Problem solved!"
archive.org link to the "the tech" opinion piece that was redacted.
This is worth reading all the way through. MIT takes money from Israel's defense ministry to research better ways to genocide Palestinians, and subjects any student who points it out to violence and legal attacks.
Turds.
I wonder who's going to get an FBI raid and the threat of life imprisonment for this?
I guess they're really proud of their support for Israel.
Sounds like mossad blackmailed someone kek. Hai unit 8200 or whatever you're called! Dumbfuckzzz
Not sure why you down voted. If you research any person of like a few minutes you get the "visited Israel" or "was associated with X" and you look up "x" and it says he was a "spy"
It is insane how they control Congress and the White House, and people don't think they can't blackmail a university through grants or blackmail!
You check who downvotes you? That's cringe dude
I'm sure buying them is generally easier, this being the United States Of America.
Ya that's fair,.crazy low sums people will do corrupt stuff for. If you're going to be corrupt... At least get paid substantially for it. All this nonsense for stuff below like 200k is astonishing. I do hope Trump prosecutes the Democrats for that. At least some US federal politicians will see jail time 🤣 if the Trump admin doesn't actually go after some of them well..
They are just supposed to be controlled opposition, sending the higher ups to prison might lead to an actual workers party. Which as we know based off the decades of stories of "trump stiffs contractors because he can" is questionable as an outcome Trump particularly cares for, his donors definitely wouldn't be fans.
They can go that route. I don't think the business leaders and federal politicians of the world realize how fragile their lives are. How easy it is to 3d print guns and have your tracks covered with enough planning. Personally, I highly doubt Luigi was the one that killed that CEO considering his ties to Pelosi. That is a very, very repeatable event. At scale. Especially if co-ordinated to split glowy resources.
Get some mental help. You're seriously delusional and seem unstable.
You sound butt hurt
Lulz
No, not like that!