How does science support colonial ideas?

Thanks for your comment Jen! I appreciate your attention and thoughts on this matter.

Sorry if I haven't communicated the codes of of conduct correctly. I guess I thought that they were redundant to post in the thread given that they are on the group settings. I am posting them here and on the previous comment they might be important context for. I want to enforce them but I don't want to do so at the expense of the Mission Vision and Values but please be assured that I have them in mind when reading posts and I heavily weight the opinions of members who align with our Mission Vision and Values. I am not an experienced moderator but I am trying my best in this space. Please let me know if there is anything I could do better.

I am most upset about this inbox bitterness (because it has been previously communicated in not as eloquent a way to me). I am not ready to give up on this thread just yet (aka I am not ready to deem it hijacked and close it) but I would advise you or anyone else who is experiencing these feelings to email me or add me to an invite-only thread with this grievance and if required unsubscribe from the thread. I will make sure to let you know when I think the space is better.

Good job on shutting down a conversation by pulling “right-wing” out. Not even close. And I’m going to have to borrow that one. Since when did “right wing” become an impairment? What brand of right wing rubs your world view the wrong way, Bushite, Trumpian? Any other?

I do agree with you on this topic, and that it shouldn’t be here, but not for the censorship though. Just so that its here to distract from the actual problem. We were even given Codes of Conduct. I finally saw it.

by the way @Danny To comment on how questionable a code of conducts that we have finally received is.
On “Ask Questions First/When in doubt ask”

1. Who do I ask if the respondent I have chosen is not replying? What and where is the chain of respondents’ contacts? When is a good time to ask? (more to come)

I don’t see how experiencing cultures, or even taking on contrarian stance is right wing, if following common sense makes me that, great to have more parties to associate with.

What time is name dropping academic institutions (of which I have yet to hear) supposed to kick in or carve out my respect? Brick in the wall,. You mean you are probably getting paid herding the next generation to questionable ideas. Yes, spinning narratives and sloganeering, while getting paid earns my respect. I have yet to see value in its message though. Thank you for admitting you have a bias to contribute. At least it was honest of you.

Too bad time travel is not a thing. Would be interesting to test out just how much glory through victimhood, and demands tax on later generations should be tolerated in conversations such as this. Tweak history, it would also be interesting to see who does the actual revisionism. Fortune favors the bold, I guess.

Bitterness: yes, I have something I have yet to discuss with the management.

I interpret the code of “Ask Questions First/When in doubt ask” as as speaking towards they way in which we assume something of the ideas of others but may forget to ask for clarification before responding to the idea.

• If the respondent you have chosen is not responding, then unfortunately that conversation may be over. A big part of the Codes of Conduct is to eliminate harassment but still allow for disagreement and the voicing of disagreement. Might be better to phrase your comment as "I disagree with ... because I believe ..." and leave it there. I would suggest not replying directly anymore and, if you are still interested in contributing to the thread, thinking about the context of the thread and how a new comment may continue or promote a different discussion. It's possible a thread might have mutually incompatible ideas, even ideas that are not aligned with the Mission Vision Values, but until a poll gains alignment on some issue (and even then it's only as strong as its quorum) then I am of the current opinion we can tolerate the disagreement.

• I don't understand what you mean by the "chain of respondents' contacts". Please clarify.

• I think the best time to ask is before you compose your reply to the comment/reply

what does equity look like? it doesn’t matter what it looks like. the superficial is precisely the problem with how we demonstrate value. equity feels/smells/tastes/sounds like an enterprise centered on supporting resiliency of thought and stability of purpose across all communities. beyond that general idea there is the hope we can eliminate pursuits which serve individual ascent (objectivism) at the expense of social cohesion and bonding. I love biology but life science has existed for millennia before printing press and english. this western MBA methodology market ends up as “eating its own”. I am even willing to say ecology is trumping colonialism out west where people are in the renaissance of returning to the wild and land. English is a language of discussion and debate. Truth is not a debate. Happy independence day. Equity Forever.

Equity takes from those who can, warns those that could that the deck was stacked against them, thus they can’t (without external redistribution), and creates auxotrophs out of those that haven’t tried because they were given the end goal. Their subsequent generations will not thank you for it. Take it from what was an auxotroph and had to quit the field in which I was given a head start.
By generations I am not suggesting dynastic as much as turnover of long term users in BWOB.
Places like BwoB are multi-generational organizations because people will be replaced by newer people within the same decade.

To get back to my point, one cannot force cohesion in that format, even if you put an academic face (farce) and your organization’s documents in impartial intent.

My feeling about this is it's important to emphasize how individual initiative and innovative ideas can be lost in traditional lab settings (where the 'star' at the top gets the credit, even though they acted more as producers or figureheads and securers of funding), and indeed funding committees usually will select the more incremental and clearly achievable projects. Of course, many forms of discrimination play into this, and it's fine to mention that community labs can help find and recover this lost talent. But as a strategic point, please stay a million miles away from the jargon of sociology or political philosophy. Almost all scientists and possible supporters will be put off by this jargon since it is often clumsy when used to make sweeping statements, and it's often associated with ideologues. This language has also been demonized by its opponents. For example, there is clearly sexism in science, but I am 100% sure that talking about the patriarchy is not the most effective way to combat it. And not that I'd explicitly mention it, but I think that most scientists would recognize that, e.g, Chinese grad students and postdocs are used in a certain way that isn't fair (although to a lesser extent this also holds for grad students and postdocs in general), but if you emphasize colonialism or white privilege up front I think you will lose A LOT of people who are fundamentally on your side. We definitely want to sound as though we care much more about science than political philosophy or sociology and that we have a concrete and positive approach to a better or complementary way of pursuing science. Most people will have had experience with some kind of malfunctioning hierarchy and will sympathize with the 'little guy' trying to develop their ideas, especially if they face (even unintentional) discrimination.

well put.