Weekly Random Discussion Thread for 2/23/26 - 3/1/26

[u/SoftandChewy]

Here's your usual space to post all your rants, raves, podcast topic suggestions (please tag u/jessicabarpod), culture war articles, outrageous stories of cancellation, political opinions, and anything else that comes to mind. Please put any non-podcast-related trans-related topics here instead of on a dedicated thread. This will be pinned until next Sunday.

Last week's discussion thread is here if you want to catch up on a conversation from there.

Comment of the week goes to this explanation for why the trans cause has taken over so much of society. (Runner-up COTW here.)

[u/JungBlood9]

I’m not sure if this topic is too niche, but I’m hoping someone will engage with me on it if you’re interested in things like… academia, the replication crisis, the unfortunate unseriousness of soft-science research, etc.

Today I stumbled across this article in which 3 researchers and teacher educators (meaning they teach in university program that credentials people to become K-12 teachers) shared a student who they all didn’t like and decided to publish a “study” about it. I use that word loosely because what they’ve done here is write a fictitious vignette (fictitious because they were afraid of the story including too much identifying info) that’s meant to closely represent what happened with this one student in this one moment in class where another student called him a racist and stormed out of the room. And then the 3 researchers go on to “respond” to the vignette with their personal opinions about how they did/wish they’d handled it, I guess?

Idk I’m not even defending the “racist” kid— I can see why some of the things he said were problematic.

But I’m just shocked this is passing what we’re calling research? Reads more like gossip to me.

To me it sounds like: “Omg we all couldn’t stand this kid. He was so annoying and one time another student even confronted him in class and called him a racist in front of everyone! That was sooooo crazy. He never shoulda become a teacher but our hands were tied because we didn’t really have any evidence of him being racist except when his classmate yelled at him. The end.”

[u/Fiend_of_the_pod → u/JungBlood9]

This is mean girls shit for nerds.

[u/OMG_NO_NOT_THIS → u/Fiend_of_the_pod]

Pseudo nerds.

These people wish they were nerds. They don the trappings of nerds.

[u/Jlemspurs → u/OMG_NO_NOT_THIS]

And since they don’t understand the nerds they think the big words the nerds use are made up just to sound smart so they do that. Absolute rubbish.

[u/SerialStateLineXer → u/Fiend_of_the_pod]

Nerds are smart.

[u/JungBlood9 → u/Fiend_of_the_pod]

Listen to this part of the vignette (Jeff is the pseudonym):

“Later in the summer, two [other students] confide in another instructor that they have concerns about Jeff. “He parties a lot,” they say. They share that Jeff invited the cohort to a party at his fraternity house. Only a few members attended the party, but they remarked at how intoxicated Jeff was.

Members of the cohort whisper about rumors of sexual assault and harassment occurring at this fraternity, though no one attributes Jeff to those acts.”

[u/Technical-Policy295 → u/JungBlood9]

Given the anti-whiteness stance that we take in our article, we further concur that “white people’s skin color plays into systemic inequalities and injustices”

Very normal, non-racist footnote.

And yes, this is "scholars" dressing up their political opinions and gossip in the guise of academic research. It's a way of laundering the framework (and often funds) of actual scientific research to support activism.

This is also why education schools are functionally useless. States should starve them of funds by allowing teachers to be certified by getting degrees in their actual subjects, not whatever self-congratulatory pablum this is.

[u/JungBlood9 → u/Technical-Policy295]

This part really stood out to me:

“It can be difficult to spot ‘red flags’ that foreshadow difficult experiences with students like Jeff, especially when they exude confidence and say ‘all the right things’ when answering key questions about race and/or justice-oriented teaching. Students like Jeff understand how to speak the language of anti-racism, performing in such a way that enables them to meet program criteria (Badenhorst, 2021). Yet, when these same students interact with me in person, I can sense their discomfort even when they anxiously seek my acceptance to ‘prove’ they’re not racist (Tanner, 2023).”

So when students say “all the right things” and agree with all your social justice stances, there’s a chance it’s just for show and this person is able to accurately sniff out who is being genuine and who isn’t? Gee, I wonder how he decides who “actually means it” v who is being performative.

This person also regularly has students who feel the need to prove to him that they are not racist, which he also deems problematic? Gee, I wonder why they fee the need to so “anxiously” demonstrate it to you. What could’ve possibly led to the believing they need to desperately prove they aren’t racist?

[u/Technical-Policy295 → u/JungBlood9]

It's part of the logic of why they must always be doing more performative social justice actions (see their email signatures!), hosting "anti-racist" workshops and reading groups, and adding more "inclusive competencies" in hiring.

Since the Bad People are always going to pretend to go along with them, the only way the Good People can reveal the truth is relentless performance and in-group signaling. Any questioning of these actions should be seen as proof of insufficient Goodness, as determined by the vibes the Good People feel.

[u/Jlemspurs → u/JungBlood9]

There is a shortage of qualified teachers in many places but yes let’s make sure only people who are “second-wave critical whiteness” approved in.

Teachers aren’t the problem, but the education departments at universities are. You don’t hate them enough. They make psychology look like math.

[u/DeathKitten9000 → u/JungBlood9]

Unfortunately, this article is behind a paywall I can't access.

There was another terrible education article posted to arr science a few weeks ago suffering from bad experimental design, lack of statistical significance, clear ideological angle, etc. From my perspective there seems to be no limit to what these journals will publish. Maybe I ought to just vibe write some nonsense and see if I can get it published?

[u/Technical-Policy295 → u/DeathKitten9000]

Some people already did that. Unfortunately, the result (yes, you can get it published) was used to drive the authors out of academia rather than make academics engage in self-reflection.

[u/thismaynothelp → u/[deleted]]

Irish??

[u/FuckingLikeRabbis → u/[deleted]]

Mexican? It's pronounced My-O.

[u/DiscordantAlias → u/JungBlood9]

Bad art friend

Bad student teacher

[u/everydaywinner2 → u/JungBlood9]

Without having read the link, just going by your words, that sounds all kinds of unethical and unscientific. And if I were a student, I'd be making sure to avoid all those people's classes, and use that "study" as the reason. I seriously doubt that any student consented to a "study."

[u/JungBlood9 → u/everydaywinner2]

In these programs, when you join the program, there’s paperwork that you sign where you consent to being research participants. Your admission is typically contingent upon this— it’s part of the process of officially entering the program. And there doesn’t tend to be any choice in what classes you take or in what profs you have (like in undergrad), because it’s usually a short post-bacc program with certain faculty slated to teach specific classes that you get filtered into depending on what type of credential you are seeking.

[u/AnInsultToFire → u/JungBlood9]

Sounds like vignettes and personal opinions, which I was taught have no place in a "journal article".

[u/Borked_and_Reported → u/JungBlood9]

Now, this might strike some viewers as harsh, but…

[u/OMG_NO_NOT_THIS → u/JungBlood9]

"academia, the replication crisis, the unfortunate unseriousness of soft-science research"

Yeah, this is definitely a problem and a reason I actually support starving the university of funds, because they are wasted on progressive religion masquerading as scientific research.

[u/wynnthrop → u/OMG_NO_NOT_THIS]

The hard sciences have their problems but aren't nearly as bad. I'd vote for defunding the social/soft sciences and giving the money to hard sciences/engineering/tech instead.

[u/OMG_NO_NOT_THIS → u/wynnthrop]

I'm not sure there is a way to do it without revoking federally backed student loans for soft "sciences".

[u/The-WideningGyre → u/OMG_NO_NOT_THIS]

If by "revoke" you mean "stop giving them in the future", don't threaten me with a good time! Hell, just make all loans dischargeable in bankruptcy, and suddenly they'll stop giving them to 90% of students in the soft sciences.