Sep 25, 2023·edited Sep 25, 2023Liked by Rudolph Rigger
A convocation is a gathering we hold in the beginning of the academic year. Luckily, the Provost's speech is only a small part of it. There is a guest speaker and all the tenured and promoted professors are honored. The Chancellor also speaks. For some reason I don't completely dislike our Chancellor, but it could be his wonderful Argentinian accent that makes me biased.
In previous years there was also food but alas, no more.
When my university went full woke in 2020-2021, the guest speakers wokefied accordingly.
This year's speaker, by the way, is Massachusetts' new Secretary of Education. Before that he was the Superintendent of the Lynn, Massachusetts public school district, which boasts a whooping 14% math proficiency and 25% reading/language/art proficiency (state averages: 37% and 49%, resp.).
To be fair, it wasn't entirely his doing - he inherited a highly failing district with a majority Latino students, many of whom are not native English speakers, but he managed to bring it down even further.
But hey, he believes in educational equity. Maybe he will manage to bring everyone to Lynn's levels of proficiency.
It's quite something to try to parse some kind of meaning from these kinds of speeches and statements. Everything is stated with so much certainty as if it's self-evident fact and not just some unsupported and fanciful hyperbole.
I kind of liken woke to the covid response. There **are** some problems with things like prejudice and perhaps even "systems" that unwittingly disadvantage some more than others (but I'd be willing to bet this splits more on socioeconomic lines than racial), but neither the US, nor here in the UK where I am, can legitimately be described as the kind of racist hell holes the woke seem to be describing in every speech, in every paragraph, and every sentence.
We're definitely more at the "flu" end of the prejudice scale than the "ebola" scale.
But, just like with covid, some people act and talk as if we're facing ebola.
I sympathise with those Latino students. Having tried to teach maths and physics, in English, to non-native speakers I can appreciate the difficulties. Not only are they having to deal with another language (and English is barking mad at times) but they're having to deal with *technical* language. I always tried to make great efforts to give my students the benefit of the doubt on language issues. It meant that I was by far the slowest grader on the faculty as I struggled to figure out the meaning behind the words and give credit, but it was only fair to the students.
My all-time favourite was when I asked a a question about parametric equations. If they'd done the calculations right they should have ended up with a kind of helix/spiral that opened out as it travelled. The final part of the question asked for them to describe it in words (only 1 mark - just to see if they could "visualize" what the maths meant). I got the following, rather wonderful, answer :
The last bunch who used that kind of language and terminology, as well as methodology, talked about nherent jewishness.
Not trying to do a Godwin or anything, just noting the intersecting vectors.
As for their so-called arguments:
Compare any european nation of today, with the same nation in 1975. That's all you need to do, to see that the race*-argument has merit, but not in the way the woke thinks - sorry, I mean feels it does.
*Using american lingo here, instead of the real terms kultur and ethnicity.
The tide is turning: Nowadays, at least in the US, Jewishness and Whiteness are sort of overlapping. In woke circles Jewishness is hyper-super whiteness.
We elaborate about it here (sorry about the self promotion :) ) :
"We need to tear down the system, all systems, and replace them with some other systems that are not as systemically bad as the old systems. Because, reasons." This has been their plan for the past century. Luckily is has only temporarily and sporadically succeeded.
What you have to remember with nauseating people like this is that it's all about something else really.....it's like T S Eliot said "Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important". And specifically, more important, more virtuous than YOU. (MORE than half actually I would say T. S.)
ChatGPT generated. A collection of words that parses as English and sounds meaningful at a superficial level, but that’s all there is to it -- it defies deeper analysis because it is fundamentally empty of substance. ChatGPT is style over substance, uhh, writ large.
I highly doubt it - ChatGPT is way too sophisticated.
BTW - another self-promotion, I analyzed his 2022 and 2023 convocation speeches in a recent piece (that I wrote after I had written the Heterodox STEM longer piece).
I actually had a hypothesis that he was a very primitive version of ChatGPT because the two were nearly identical to one another. Not to the 2021 speech, thank God.
Out of my 9 grandkids, one is currently involved in a college search. You can bet your sweet ass that I will be (somewhat) involved in that task. This grandma gave a sizable contribution to his fund, and with his blessing, I’ll be using that lame excuse to keep my nose in his business. Luckily, this fine lad is sensitive to “wokeness”, and we aim to keep it that way.
Well, let’s give credit where credit is due. It is so brave, so courageous, so revolutionary, that in a place like Boston 2021– where you had to show a vaccine card to get a cup of coffee (ok this was in Cambridge but close enough)- for someone to state that Covid was really bad, and so are white people. I mean, he didn’t go into the really radical theories that one seldom sees in a place like eastern Massachusetts— climate change is real, trans rights are human rights, abortion is health care, Trump is definitely worse than Hitler and possibly even worse than the founding fathers, no human being is illegal, and water is life. (Sorry, I plagiarized my neighbor’s yard sign for this comment.)
By the by, and apro(vost)pos of nothing in particular,I must needs note that being a “product of one’s time” doesn’t always age well…
I sometimes think there's some kind of central programmer who comes out with "inane slogan of the week" which gets fed into the woke brainlet. These bots then just respond to their programming and spew out whatever specious BS they have been fed this week.
It'd be nice if their programmer made a mistake or two : Transwomen are human rights. Nobody is safe until Donald Trump is a fascist.
Ha! I try to channel Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey among the musical bolsheviks in Strong Poison: “I would dispense with all definite notes. After all, the cat does not need them for his midnight melodies, powerful and expressive as they are. The love-hunger of the stallion takes no account of octave or interval in giving forth the cry of passion. It is only man, trammeled by a stultifying convention—“ and there, sadly, he was interrupted. But by gosh, isn’t it a relief that these bots aren’t trammeled by the stultifying convention of applying thought to one’s thoughts?
A convocation is a gathering we hold in the beginning of the academic year. Luckily, the Provost's speech is only a small part of it. There is a guest speaker and all the tenured and promoted professors are honored. The Chancellor also speaks. For some reason I don't completely dislike our Chancellor, but it could be his wonderful Argentinian accent that makes me biased.
In previous years there was also food but alas, no more.
When my university went full woke in 2020-2021, the guest speakers wokefied accordingly.
This year's speaker, by the way, is Massachusetts' new Secretary of Education. Before that he was the Superintendent of the Lynn, Massachusetts public school district, which boasts a whooping 14% math proficiency and 25% reading/language/art proficiency (state averages: 37% and 49%, resp.).
To be fair, it wasn't entirely his doing - he inherited a highly failing district with a majority Latino students, many of whom are not native English speakers, but he managed to bring it down even further.
But hey, he believes in educational equity. Maybe he will manage to bring everyone to Lynn's levels of proficiency.
Thanks F&L,
It's quite something to try to parse some kind of meaning from these kinds of speeches and statements. Everything is stated with so much certainty as if it's self-evident fact and not just some unsupported and fanciful hyperbole.
I kind of liken woke to the covid response. There **are** some problems with things like prejudice and perhaps even "systems" that unwittingly disadvantage some more than others (but I'd be willing to bet this splits more on socioeconomic lines than racial), but neither the US, nor here in the UK where I am, can legitimately be described as the kind of racist hell holes the woke seem to be describing in every speech, in every paragraph, and every sentence.
We're definitely more at the "flu" end of the prejudice scale than the "ebola" scale.
But, just like with covid, some people act and talk as if we're facing ebola.
I sympathise with those Latino students. Having tried to teach maths and physics, in English, to non-native speakers I can appreciate the difficulties. Not only are they having to deal with another language (and English is barking mad at times) but they're having to deal with *technical* language. I always tried to make great efforts to give my students the benefit of the doubt on language issues. It meant that I was by far the slowest grader on the faculty as I struggled to figure out the meaning behind the words and give credit, but it was only fair to the students.
My all-time favourite was when I asked a a question about parametric equations. If they'd done the calculations right they should have ended up with a kind of helix/spiral that opened out as it travelled. The final part of the question asked for them to describe it in words (only 1 mark - just to see if they could "visualize" what the maths meant). I got the following, rather wonderful, answer :
It is a whirlwind growing along the x-axis
A bonus mark for you, good sir!
As a former MassHole, I couldn't agree more. UMASS, or ZooMass as we used to refer to it is where our only daughter graduated from. (1999) 😎😎
MassHole - I love it 🤣
ZooMass is UMass Amherst, not Boston - a much better place, presumably.
Actually you're right Amherst was the original Animal House. My daughter went to UMass Dartmouth . The indoctrination was quite heavy, however. 😎😎
The last bunch who used that kind of language and terminology, as well as methodology, talked about nherent jewishness.
Not trying to do a Godwin or anything, just noting the intersecting vectors.
As for their so-called arguments:
Compare any european nation of today, with the same nation in 1975. That's all you need to do, to see that the race*-argument has merit, but not in the way the woke thinks - sorry, I mean feels it does.
*Using american lingo here, instead of the real terms kultur and ethnicity.
I think in the latest woke dictionary the phrase "self-aware" has been deleted
The tide is turning: Nowadays, at least in the US, Jewishness and Whiteness are sort of overlapping. In woke circles Jewishness is hyper-super whiteness.
We elaborate about it here (sorry about the self promotion :) ) :
https://theflickeringbeacon.substack.com/p/quantum-aspects-of-the-woke-standard
Self promotion is welcome and encouraged here 👍
Good points all Rikard. 😎
"We need to tear down the system, all systems, and replace them with some other systems that are not as systemically bad as the old systems. Because, reasons." This has been their plan for the past century. Luckily is has only temporarily and sporadically succeeded.
The appeasement of these "nutters" must stop.
What you have to remember with nauseating people like this is that it's all about something else really.....it's like T S Eliot said "Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important". And specifically, more important, more virtuous than YOU. (MORE than half actually I would say T. S.)
ChatGPT generated. A collection of words that parses as English and sounds meaningful at a superficial level, but that’s all there is to it -- it defies deeper analysis because it is fundamentally empty of substance. ChatGPT is style over substance, uhh, writ large.
It was in 2021. The guy preceded ChatGPT!
Perhaps they modelled it on him 😆
I highly doubt it - ChatGPT is way too sophisticated.
BTW - another self-promotion, I analyzed his 2022 and 2023 convocation speeches in a recent piece (that I wrote after I had written the Heterodox STEM longer piece).
I actually had a hypothesis that he was a very primitive version of ChatGPT because the two were nearly identical to one another. Not to the 2021 speech, thank God.
See here:
https://theflickeringbeacon.substack.com/p/for-the-times-time-stood-still
Out of my 9 grandkids, one is currently involved in a college search. You can bet your sweet ass that I will be (somewhat) involved in that task. This grandma gave a sizable contribution to his fund, and with his blessing, I’ll be using that lame excuse to keep my nose in his business. Luckily, this fine lad is sensitive to “wokeness”, and we aim to keep it that way.
Well, let’s give credit where credit is due. It is so brave, so courageous, so revolutionary, that in a place like Boston 2021– where you had to show a vaccine card to get a cup of coffee (ok this was in Cambridge but close enough)- for someone to state that Covid was really bad, and so are white people. I mean, he didn’t go into the really radical theories that one seldom sees in a place like eastern Massachusetts— climate change is real, trans rights are human rights, abortion is health care, Trump is definitely worse than Hitler and possibly even worse than the founding fathers, no human being is illegal, and water is life. (Sorry, I plagiarized my neighbor’s yard sign for this comment.)
By the by, and apro(vost)pos of nothing in particular,I must needs note that being a “product of one’s time” doesn’t always age well…
I sometimes think there's some kind of central programmer who comes out with "inane slogan of the week" which gets fed into the woke brainlet. These bots then just respond to their programming and spew out whatever specious BS they have been fed this week.
It'd be nice if their programmer made a mistake or two : Transwomen are human rights. Nobody is safe until Donald Trump is a fascist.
Ha! I try to channel Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey among the musical bolsheviks in Strong Poison: “I would dispense with all definite notes. After all, the cat does not need them for his midnight melodies, powerful and expressive as they are. The love-hunger of the stallion takes no account of octave or interval in giving forth the cry of passion. It is only man, trammeled by a stultifying convention—“ and there, sadly, he was interrupted. But by gosh, isn’t it a relief that these bots aren’t trammeled by the stultifying convention of applying thought to one’s thoughts?
As we used to say back in comprehensive school, what a wanker.
Increasingly forward looking to your adventures in quantum mechanics.
Thanks Drew
It might take a while before I get on to the QM stuff - but I do want to get there because QM is endlessly fascinating (to me at least)
Thanks Rudolph. I have to get me one of those coffee cups.
I thought the same thing when I saw them