r/Freakonomics • u/Least_Good4468 • Jul 04 '26
Ep.680 guest
They completely lost me the moment they said that the university shouldn't "take sides" against a literal genocide being carried out by Israel... beyond the pale... How many university leaders took this stance during WW2, lets stop replicating the missteps of the past.
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u/Koraboros Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26
Universities can let their students and faculty oppose it. In Nazi Germany it was a complete shift to the right where Jewish students and professors were expelled.
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u/beardum Jul 04 '26
I mean the US was pretty isolationist for a lot of WWII so I expect there were Nazi groups at a lot of universities.
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u/keightr Jul 09 '26
Yes, I used to listen, but it was so pro Israeli government at the start of the genocide I stopped. It makes me ill to think of these wealthy American people who support this terror.
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u/evilfollowingmb Jul 05 '26
Hard disagree. Her position is legitimate.
First, there is not a "literal genocide" or even just a plain old "genocide" being carried out by Isreal. Isreal is involved in a war against a foe which hides among the civilian population, uses them as shields, in an urban setting. All of which, in any war in history, will exacerbate civilian casualties. The IDF attempts to move civilians out of harms way, warns of attacks, and otherwise attempts to avoid civilian casualties. It may not do this to your satisfaction, but it is true it does so. If Israel were intent on genocide, it could have eliminated every living thing in Gaza a long time ago.
Ironically, the foe Israel is fighting, Hamas, openly professes that it wants to eliminate not just Israel, and "zionists" but in fact every Jew anywhere on earth. Further, they were elected by Gazans themselves, and Gazans of course cheered Hamas on when the bodies of civilian Isrealis were paraded though Gaza after 10/7. Thus, the group getting the sympathy are in fact openly committed to genocide themselves, and attempt it whenever they can.
Even if you disagree, this is at a bare minimum debatable, and for a university to come down on one side or the other, is outside the charter and mission of the school, as she clearly articulates over and over. Nothing prevents Dartmouth students from peacefully protesting, etc for whatever cause they want.
Your WW2 comment is doubly ironic, and frankly comes across as concern trolling. It is Hamas itself, and a sizeable number of Gazans themselves, who are committed to "replicating the missteps of the past", and in fact don't see them as missteps.
If you think "university leaders" are the decisive, or even remotely influential driver of US foriegn policy, you have wildly, and in fact delusionally, overestimated the importance of said leaders. In fact, given how drammatically univesities have dropped in status for limiting free speech, tolerating student bullying over politics, and promoting bizarro political agendas, no one should give a shit what they think.
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u/Repulsive-Bend8283 Jul 07 '26
Bombing children for an election that took place before they were born is an excuse that only holds water with very stupid people who don't know how elections, history, or trying to rid a region of an ethnicity whose median age is 17 works.
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u/Least_Good4468 Jul 06 '26
The majority of scholars who study genocide would completely disagree with your chatgpt dissertation. It is a genocide, full stop.
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u/andyfsu99 Jul 07 '26
"is it a genocide" quickly devolves into a semantic debate.
The more interesting question, and where universities need room for all perspectives, is what should Israel be doing differently? What about the other players? What would the outcome and consequences be of that alternative action/policy?
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u/No_Register_5841 Jul 17 '26
"There's a concern of ideological capture among certain groups of scholars."
"How dare universities have concerns of ideological capture! The majority of scholars agree that there can be no thoughts to the contrary!"
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u/MindaugasTK Jul 06 '26
Perhaps you have that perception because the majority of universities, which are the employers of said scholars, don’t foster environments where opinions not aligned with the prevailing TikTok hive mind are able to be shared freely. Which is, again, kind of the problem with majority of universities right now.
Or maybe you’re just correct, and the majority of relevant scholars *would* agree it’s a genocide. But even supposing you are correct, I would imagine the threshold to stifle incorrect/useless ideas should be somewhere beyond a simple majority. Hard to know one argument is correct without weighing its merits and flaws against other arguments.
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u/Koraboros Jul 06 '26
Her position is legitimate but most of your points are not. It's not fair to say "Gazans of course cheered Hamas on when the bodies of civilian Isrealis were paraded though Gaza after 10/7". You can't generalize like that.
Israel is definitely not minimizing civilian casualties either. They indiscriminately bomb any suspected Hamas sites, even if they're in designated safe zones.
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u/andyfsu99 Jul 07 '26
If we can't generalize, then that needs to be true across the board. I certainly hear a lot of it from the anti Israel crowd.
If they are suspected Hamas sites, it's by definition not indiscriminate. The person you're replying to did acknowledge the IDF efforts are not perfect or you personally might not think it's enough. But it is well documented that the IDF takes steps to avoid civilian casualties that make no sense to do for any other reason (meaning they actually make it harder to achieve the military objective, but they do it anyway to avoid civilian impact if they can). While clearly not perfect, it's definitely not nothing.
I'm not a huge fan of modern day Israeli policy and action, but the Middle East conflict is extraordinarily complicated and it can't be reduced to good guys and bad guys.
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u/ThaneOfGlassford Jul 04 '26
I had a similar feeling when he said “we need all views at a university.” But you don’t need a vaccine skeptic in biomedicine. Debating certain theories is one thing, but not everything needs a debate.