And for non-subscribers, this may help: open up a new Google search and type the title of the article. Then, click on the search result title that comes up and hopefully, you should be able to access it.
Is this suggesting "plutocrat" donors are secretly fueling the pseudo-science social science programs and all the identity politics nonsense that comes from them? And for what purpose?
If this is a concern, the best solution to me is to limit the influence of elite institutions. If billionaires want to throw money to build monuments to themselves, why stop them?
The plutocrats I have met tend to be alarmed about the decline of classical liberalism in universities; they don't sound like they think they could easily purchase agenda-setting power through simple donations.
Crocodile tears and false modesty? You don't keep your plutocratic station long if you run around telling everyone you hate cheap education because it gives the proles dreadful ideas like "fair wages" and "rights". Nor that you plan to spend a bunch of money to fix the problem of these educated uppity proles.
I've been in the rationalist community for quite a while, this is the first time I've noticed you here on HN. It is really funny to observe how much people want to argue against you when you condense your point down into a terse statement. Looking through your past comments, it is a very common pattern of behavior.
syn0byte- the man you are replying to is fairly well-connected. I would take the words he said as a credible anecdote- he hangs out with plutocrats enough to know what he said.
Very, very particular plutocrats. I'm reasonably sure they're not representative... but still, they have money, and didn't seem to think it could be used to purchase university-agenda.
Often the academics and students themselves are quite left but the administrators are pro-capitalist. See for example the University of Chicago’s union-busting of the grad student union (which is widely supported by faculty and students).
> In 2007, when the Charles Koch Foundation considered giving millions of dollars to Florida State University’s economics department, the offer came with strings attached.
> First, the curriculum it funded must align with the libertarian, deregulatory economic philosophy of Charles Koch, the billionaire industrialist and Republican political bankroller.
> Second, the Charles Koch Foundation would at least partially control which faculty members Florida State University hired.
> And third, Bruce Benson, a prominent libertarian economic theorist and Florida State University economics department chairman, must stay on another three years as department chairman — even though he told his wife he’d step down in 2009 after one three-year term.
Isn't more libertarian influence on universities a positive thing? They are currently deeply, deeply influenced by the far left. Getting more diversity of thought seems like a win for everyone.
Shouldn't elite universities already be independent? The Ivy Leagues for instance have stupidly large endowment funds for one for that exact purpose! They don't seem to be using them in "burn happy" ways either like free tuition to all or funding large ammounts into their own research funding.
It could be pathological greed of getting more than they have ability or desire to spend - particularly if it is their job to gain more.
It would make sense for connections to be worth more than mere money per say and the donations are proxies/symbolic.
That is putting aside suspicion agendas against universities that have existed since students protested the war.
Tech entrepreneur Martha Lane Fox objected to the Oxford gift on Twitter this week, saying that the money should be used for climate crisis work. “Something is broken with these models of philanthropy,” she told me. “The greatest challenge of our time is whether we will have a planet in a decade. That’s where we have got to be focusing our attention.”
First of all, does anyone actually believe that we won't have a planet in a decade? That type of hyperbole doesn't seem at place in an FT article.
Secondly, who's to say that the £150m donated to Oxford university won't help climate change? We need scientists, administrators and many other roles to accomplish anything. Oxford seems like a pretty decent place for such people to get their education.
This gift is earmarked for the humanities, so it certainly won't train scientists. And quite a chunk of it is going on a new building, which will pay off in decades to come, if at all.
I work at Oxford, but I'm really quite unsure that this is the most effective use of £150m. Suffice to day that my own charitable contributions aren't to my employer...
There is an old joke about on what shade of pink the FT is printed, where officially it is called "salmon," but more privately readers call it, "parlour."
As a former subscriber, this article is about the quality you can expect since the death or retirement of a number of their great writers. Gillian Tett keeps the whole thing afloat as the rest of their staff writers haven't written anything brave or challenging in almost a decade.
I don't mind that donors are putting riders on their "gifts," because funding a chair in something niche is how the system always worked. It is also a bulwark against populism from both sides and against political expediency and revolutionary zeal. The university system used to be for an elite so tiny it didn't matter, where now it's the gatekeeper institution to the middle class, almost like the way mandatory military service for citizenship was, but for a managerial society. Imposing fashionable ideas on the whole system as a means to undermine any foundation for opposition to them is cynical and dishonest.
39 comments
[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 83.0 ms ] threadAnd for non-subscribers, this may help: open up a new Google search and type the title of the article. Then, click on the search result title that comes up and hopefully, you should be able to access it.
I've been in the rationalist community for quite a while, this is the first time I've noticed you here on HN. It is really funny to observe how much people want to argue against you when you condense your point down into a terse statement. Looking through your past comments, it is a very common pattern of behavior.
syn0byte- the man you are replying to is fairly well-connected. I would take the words he said as a credible anecdote- he hangs out with plutocrats enough to know what he said.
Wall Street is full of these people.
https://publicintegrity.org/federal-politics/koch-foundation...
> In 2007, when the Charles Koch Foundation considered giving millions of dollars to Florida State University’s economics department, the offer came with strings attached.
> First, the curriculum it funded must align with the libertarian, deregulatory economic philosophy of Charles Koch, the billionaire industrialist and Republican political bankroller.
> Second, the Charles Koch Foundation would at least partially control which faculty members Florida State University hired.
> And third, Bruce Benson, a prominent libertarian economic theorist and Florida State University economics department chairman, must stay on another three years as department chairman — even though he told his wife he’d step down in 2009 after one three-year term.
It could be pathological greed of getting more than they have ability or desire to spend - particularly if it is their job to gain more.
It would make sense for connections to be worth more than mere money per say and the donations are proxies/symbolic.
That is putting aside suspicion agendas against universities that have existed since students protested the war.
Sorry.
First of all, does anyone actually believe that we won't have a planet in a decade? That type of hyperbole doesn't seem at place in an FT article.
Secondly, who's to say that the £150m donated to Oxford university won't help climate change? We need scientists, administrators and many other roles to accomplish anything. Oxford seems like a pretty decent place for such people to get their education.
I work at Oxford, but I'm really quite unsure that this is the most effective use of £150m. Suffice to day that my own charitable contributions aren't to my employer...
This is "Community Shopper" level journalism (except for the opening line, "When I was at Harvard...")
As a former subscriber, this article is about the quality you can expect since the death or retirement of a number of their great writers. Gillian Tett keeps the whole thing afloat as the rest of their staff writers haven't written anything brave or challenging in almost a decade.
I don't mind that donors are putting riders on their "gifts," because funding a chair in something niche is how the system always worked. It is also a bulwark against populism from both sides and against political expediency and revolutionary zeal. The university system used to be for an elite so tiny it didn't matter, where now it's the gatekeeper institution to the middle class, almost like the way mandatory military service for citizenship was, but for a managerial society. Imposing fashionable ideas on the whole system as a means to undermine any foundation for opposition to them is cynical and dishonest.