January 20, 2009

"We have never been at war with Larry Summersasia!"

Natalie Angier of the New York Times writes, "In 'Geek Chic' and Obama, New Hope for Lifting Women in Science," which is the usual, but with one difference. Over the last four years, in practically all of these articles demanding more women get hired as professors of physics, former Harvard president Larry Summers would come in for some ritual denunciating.

But, now, there's no mention of Larry. Why not?

Because The One has chosen him. So, Larry's 2005 heresy has disappeared down the Memory Hole. Obama addicts can't handle cognitive dissonance, so Larry's cognitive dissidence shall never be spoken of again.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

28 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great example of exactly why the Left is kicking the crap out of the Right. The Right, as exemplified by by all the Palin-snarking among your own readers, quibbles, while the Left perfectly understands how you win the game: get your people in Power.

Anonymous said...

Who are Larry Summers' patrons? His backers must be extremely powerful to place him into such a high position.

Unknown said...

Good catch.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...
Great example of exactly why the Left is kicking the crap out of the Right. The Right, as exemplified by by all the Palin-snarking among your own readers, quibbles, while the Left perfectly understands how you win the game: get your people in Power.

Is this a point of pride for you, or are you criticizing fellow conservatives?

Frankly, I think your over-estimating the amount of criticism Palin got from fellow conservatives. Most of the criticism I heard came from Heather MacDonald and Half-Sigma, but everyone else fell over themselves to defend a woman that was clearly out of place and over her head. Even many paleo-cons were eager to defend Palin.

B.B.

Anonymous said...

"We have never been at war with Larry Summersasia!"

:-)) :-)) :-))

Great post title. :-P

And, like Michael said, good catch.

Anonymous said...

Who are Larry Summers' patrons?

I think even asking such a question is anti-semitic.

Anonymous said...

"more women get hired as professors of physics"

The great thing about this stupid feminist demand is going to be how many of these AA hires make grand fools of themselves. Stuff like physics, math and engineering is so interesting for men because you have objective criteria with which to blast someone. Women are really being stupid wanting to expose themselves in this environment. The only subset of the physical sciences where you can afford to speculate somewhat is astronomy (because its difficult to measure), a la Hawking, and even he is being ripped. Heck, even climatologists (which is not a hard science) are increasingly having a tough time. This is not a theatre you wanna dance in without the requisite brains.

Anonymous said...

Larry's been rehabilitated!

Anonymous said...

The left understands one thing well - "No enemies to the left".

Particularly the mainstream, politically successful left understands that.

In the UK there is/was an alphabet soup of fringe leftist groups (WRP, SWP etc). They hate each other with a vengeance but outsiders barely know they even exist at all and certainly cant tell who is who. I can't most of the time and I like to think Ive got a handle on some of this stuff.

The key though is the mainstream left/liberal parties. Their stance on these groups is to ignore them or regard them as an amused, indulgent, patrician uncle might, they certainly dont condemn them or try and make it clear that they dont share policies.

One can see the problem on the right in the US and UK. Mainstream right parties are always attacking and trying to distance themselves from anyone to the right of themselves. The result being they drift constantly to the left.

So, if the left can get immigration control deemed racist, then conservative parties jump to it to prove their anti-racist credentials...you get the picture. Next liberal/left goal, to make the discussion of immigration racist? We are well on the way to that I think.

Anonymous said...

not all of them have received the message:

Can't decide if I'm more annoyed by Rick Warren and his one-time appearance at the inauguration or Lawrence Summers's ongoing role in the Obama administration. You know, what with his "wimminz is all stoopid with teh maths" attitude and all.

---

especially love the use of the word "attitude" to describe a the fact that there are fewer women than men in the highest tier of mathematical ability

m said...

Yeah, I don't get the asia part.

Unknown said...

That's what I call progress!

Anonymous said...

I can't remember Obama's exact words in his inagural address but he eluded that he wanted science to be the guiding force and presumably not faith, a la Geo Bush. It will be fascinating to watch as the liberals try to reconcile things such as immigration and the environment, schools and IQ, CRA and default rates. Steve, you are right that the memory hole will need to be pretty big to hide all of this.

Anonymous said...

The NYTimes article cites long hours for many years with little compensation as one of the factors keeping women out of science. They don't mention (surprise) that one of the reasons professors can get away with working their grad students and postdocs so long and hard is the vast number of immigrant grad students. For many of them, their only hope of staying in the U.S. is to accept whatever conditions are offered in the lab.

So the idea of attaching working conditions to grants is somewhat laughable. The working conditions is driven by supply and demand, and the position of the U.S. as both a research powerhouse and a high standard of living country, combined with high numbers of student visas means that students are cheap and plentiful, whether they're male or female.

Anonymous said...

Larry Summers has patrons? Does everyone in high positions have shadowy patrons who put them there, or only "certain" people in high positions?

Anonymous said...

"Danindc said...
Yeah, I don't get the asia part."

Maybe Steve was checking out asian babes and the text in his copy/paste storage got into the headline.

That would by a beginner's example of "Occam's Razor", right?

Steve Sailer said...

"Summersasia"???

Guys, I'm on a "1984" kick at the moment, so the reference is to Orwell's line "We have always been at war with Eastasia," which Winston Smith must repeat, and believe, even though he remembers the exact moment at the Hate Week rally when Oceania switched from being at war with Eurasia and attacked its erstwhile ally Eastasia.

Anonymous said...

One can see the problem on the right in the US and UK. Mainstream right parties are always attacking and trying to distance themselves from anyone to the right of themselves. The result being they drift constantly to the left.

The psychological act of puttng people on the defensive moves them closer to your logic, even when they think they're staying put. That's I no longer feel the need to defend myself. Ultimately it got people to prove to you that they weren't racist by supporting policies and voting for policies which even a moment's reflection would tell them is bad for them.

Anonymous said...

Larry Summers played a large role in the looting of Russia in the 1990s.

So he's the perfect man for the same job in the USA now.

m said...

I only remember 1984 as a Van Halen album.

Anonymous said...

"Steve Sailer said...

"Summersasia"???

Guys, I'm on a "1984" kick at the moment,...."

Hoist a glass of Victory Gin, and toast the ascendency of Amsoc. If you want a vision of the future, imagine a birkenstock sandal stomping on a human face,......forever.

Anonymous said...

I've got one more thing to add here. Moon landing. 40 years ago, not repeated since. All men - coincidence? A few more coincidences:

1971 - 1974:
- off gold standard: check
- majority of women in workforce for first time: check
- mandatory busing begins in major cities: check

Anonymous said...

Chief Seattle said...

"I've got one more thing to add here. Moon landing. 40 years ago, not repeated since. "



Chief Seattle, the dirty little secret about the Apollo program is that the Germans from Peenemünde, who could be considered über-elitists, were the brains behind the moon landing. Von Braun engineered the enormous Saturn rocket with his old buddy Rudolph (both SS) that had 15 flawless starts. That in itself is a feat of engineering by any standard. The Russians basically deported 2100 German technicians to Chimki and made them design their rockets. But they built them with only initial German manufacturing assistance. And they did not capture the brainiest ones. The result was they lost the space race. Basically it was a race between the 2 German teams and their ideas, one which was hauled off to Chimki involuntarily and the other which was invited to join NASA. The US treated their Gerries well and placed them in crucial positions, all 190 of them, especially after the Navy could not get a satellite up in space, which von Braun then promptly did. And the US had an advanced manufacturing base so it could produce whatever they required. In Russia the Germans often had to redesign components to suit whatever was available. In France Bringer and friends (German) worked on various rockets leading to Ariane. From these 3 countries rocketry permeated to other countries.

We learnt all this in uni in detail, with engine and valve designs in order to prove the genesis without a doubt. Fascinating and very non-PC stuff. Most of the technological concepts of space rocketry were developed in eastern Germany (Dresden, Berlin, Peenemünde, Kummersdorf) between 1925-1940 by a handful of people and implemented by a few hundred technicians. Actually Prof. Oberth from the German-speaking Siebenburgen (nowadays Romania), built a working combustion chamber and conceptualised most of the core technologies such as electronic control, gyroscopes, cooling system, liquid-propelled rockets etc. by 1929. And he was von Braun’s mentor.

One of the tenets from Steve's site is that mental quality goes above quantity. The Apollo programme proves this beyond a doubt.

Anonymous said...

Larry Summers has patrons? Does everyone in high positions have shadowy patrons who put them there, or only "certain" people in high positions?

Nah, anyone can get these jobs.

Anonymous said...

Thanks, nit. Very interesting.

Anonymous said...

Headache said...

The US treated their Gerries well and placed them in crucial positions, all 190 of them, especially after the Navy could not get a satellite up in space, which von Braun then promptly did.

The US had the chance to put a orbit a satellite a year or two earlier but chose not to do that because it would have been considered provocative to the Russians. The technicians on that earlier aborted attempt may have been German, but they were restrained for political reasons. We could have had our Germans orbit a satellite before Sputnik, but chose not to.

Anonymous said...

No enemies to the right...

Ken Clarke, a minister under Thatcher has rejoined the Conservative first team.

In the link:

The article reports Mr Clarke saying: "A lot will depend on relations with Europe, because Obama doesn't want his strongest European ally led by a rightwing nationalist.

This sell-out is supposedly a conservative...

Anonymous said...

"because Obama doesn't want his strongest European ally led by a rightwing nationalist."

Mmm, why would Clarke say that?? The Tories are limp-wristed pseudo-liberals. Labour is obviously not rightwing. So something else must be in the bush...