• freagle@lemmygrad.ml
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    1 year ago

    You’re ignoring the history of academic science.

    https://legacyofslavery.harvard.edu/report

    https://slaveryandjustice.brown.edu/

    https://slavery.virginia.edu/

    https://georgetown.app.box.com/s/nzo1tx4elaerg13akjwxuve3pv9sb03a

    https://news.emory.edu/features/2021/09/emory-unpacks-history-of-slavery-and-dispossession/index.html

    And on and on.

    And that’s just the university system. Then you have actual laboratories. Los Alamos is notorious for being a massive “consumer” of indigenous women and girls of the slave trade. Current astronomy observatories on Mauna Kea are there against the will of the colonized Hawaiians and for years have destroyed their environment, their sovereignty, their health, and have contributed massively to the sex trade in Hawaii. The indigenous are a barrier to the planned 30m telescope there. Are you arguing that this barrier should be removed? Are you saying astronomy cannot possibly intersect with the structures of racism, settler colonialism, and genocide?

    We do not need to be anti-intellectual to erect barriers to settler violence that impinge on science. Those barriers are important, and we need more of them. If we are to undo the harm of centuries of European imperialism, it will be a massive project that will hinder scientific inquiry in many ways. Establishing a “no barriers to science stance” creates an ideological commitment to the already existing conflict between justice and science that has been raging for centuries upon centuries.

    • Chetzemoka@startrek.website
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      1 year ago

      I am very aware of all of this and it does not have anything to do with the output of most scientific endeavors. The colonialist history of the building of those telescopes doesn’t make the astronomical data collected with them somehow racist, and putting up barriers to sharing that data isn’t going to fix the racism involved in the administration of those institutions.

      We need to change the way we practice academic science just like we need to change the way we practice at every other institution that was built by colonialist “enlightenment.” But saying somehow that SciHub is wrong and wet shouldn’t promote open sharing of scientific output isn’t going to change those institutions.

      Also the entire history of academic science is one of evolving standards of practice based on updated ethical standards. In the beginning, experiments were performed without regard for the harm done to human, animal, or environment, and these days we have many ethical standards against those harms. In fact, I will point out that you’re sharing data from academic sources who are criticizing academic history which is how it always has been done.

      • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        it does not have anything to do with the output of most scientific endeavor

        It does when you keep proclaiming the distribution of “all” science, false/shitty and whatnot, if you’re arbitrarily in favor of it under some pious ideal of “set it all free.”

      • freagle@lemmygrad.ml
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        1 year ago

        it does not have anything to do with the output of most scientific endeavors

        Don’t try to equivocate your way out of this. The practice of science does harm. Setting “remove all barriers to science” as your slogan is problematic. If you want to equivocate, advocate for a slogan change to “Remove all barriers to distributing the outputs of scientific research to any and all people free of charge”.

        The colonialist history of the building of those telescopes doesn’t make the astronomical data collected with them somehow racist

        Don’t strawman. No one claimed the data was racist. The 30M is not history, it’s the future. The US occupation of Hawaii is still illegal under US and UN law. It’s not historical colonialism, it’s present day colonialism. The indigenous people who were disenfranchised are still there, still occupied, still dying from water pollution, land pollution, and destruction of their food sources and ways of living. And the way we conduct science is actively playing a part in that occupation.

        But saying somehow that SciHub is wrong and wet shouldn’t promote open sharing of scientific output isn’t going to change those institutions.

        I have been very clear that the slogan is problematic. Scihub’s missing of free information flow is not.

        In fact, I will point out that you’re sharing data from academic sources who are criticizing academic history which is how it always has been done.

        Brown University was the first, and it happened because the president they chose was both the first black person and the first woman to ever be president at any Ivy League institution. Harvard University didn’t do - its undergrads did all the work and went public with it. The process of dismantling is ongoing, it’s very slow, and all the while the white supremacist structure that undergirds the academy remains and continues to dominate decision making.

        In one big voice all of the university trustees have linked arms and established that any students and professors speaking and acting tor Palestinian liberation are to be condemned. The academy may do incremental reforms, but their power is not subject to incremental reforms because it is structural. As a communist, you should understand this. If you don’t understand, I’m happy to help you work through it. But don’t give me this incremental ethical reform bullshit. It comes nowhere near addressing the white supremacist structure that the academy participates in.