Hugo Newman

PhD in Political Theory; Occasional writer; Founder of The Critical Thinking Project

[Hugo Newman @Hugo_Newman]

@ChrisWillx Most people in the comments seem to be reading this as an actual argument in favour of defunding golf courses, as opposed to a reductio ad absurdum of the rationale commonly cited in support of defunding data centres. I strongly suspect Chris intended the latter.

[Hugo Newman @Hugo_Newman]

@Casey5122dark I recognise the practical difficulties of designing such tests - so as to avoid the pitfalls of ideological rigging, and pre-empt the objections of various political factions. But in principle I never understood the knee-jerk aversion to such an arrangement.

[Hugo Newman @Hugo_Newman]

@Casey5122dark 100%. Requiring people to demonstrate their competency before voting strikes me as about as “elitist” as requiring a person to demonstrate their competency before being allowed to drive. The social costs of incompetent voting are at least as high as those of incompetent driving!

[Hugo Newman @Hugo_Newman]

@Casey5122dark No doubt about it. Would be subjected to the same (irrational!) charges of elitism that are thrown at advocates of epistocracy.

[Hugo Newman @Hugo_Newman]

@Casey5122dark Agreed. The intuitive appeal of jury trials stems from the notion that a random selection of fellow citizens will tend towards balance and impartiality in deliberation. If the last 6 years have taught us anything, it’s that your random citizen is woefully deficient in rationality

[Hugo Newman @Hugo_Newman]

@drianpace Well that’s a terrible message for a university to send. You’re there to learn. Full stop. Kindness has nothing to do with it.

And in any case, Cambridge’s “kindness” to Arday ended up doing him and his students a great disservice.

Shameful episode.

[Hugo Newman @Hugo_Newman]

@Frances_Coppola @Garethhello @carney He’s being used as a deflection tactic Frances. Not a scapegoat.

[Hugo Newman @Hugo_Newman]

@phuqker @rejserin @RichardDawkins Bingo. I’ve been making this point to people like Rachel for the last few weeks. They *never* respond, because this identifies their exact, transparent ploy: Conflating legitimate outrage at his being hired *because* of his race, with alleged outrage simply because of his race.

[Hugo Newman @Hugo_Newman]

@toby00green It’s not because he was black. It’s because the institutions that raised him up with zero due diligence, did so precisely because he was black. It’s a cynical conflation to portray the outrage as racist, when in reality it’s outrage at the bigotry of low expectations.

[Hugo Newman @Hugo_Newman]

@owenjonesjourno We can lament his death, but let’s not pretend this guy is some progressive martyr or innocent victim. He and the institutions that enabled him, are what ultimately led to his downfall. To dismiss the campaign that exposed his fraud as a “right-wing witch hunt” is disingenuous.

[Hugo Newman @Hugo_Newman]

@owenjonesjourno It pains me to see someone whose views on one topic (Israel-Palestine) I respect, submit so easily to motivated reasoning on another. Owen, Arday was a proven academic fraud and serial fabulist who leveraged his deceptions to cynically exploit a pseudo-progressive hiring culture.

[Hugo Newman @Hugo_Newman]

@KayBurley Kay, he was subjected to “relentless attacks” because the “extraordinary journey” he so gladly told you and others about was shown to have been almost entirely fabricated. Not only that, but he plagiarised large swaths of his scholarly output. Stop being intentionally obtuse.

[Hugo Newman @Hugo_Newman]

@AyoCaesar I’ve seen this cheap rhetorical tactic over and over. People with common sense object to identity (e.g. race) being used as a priority consideration in employment decisions. Then progressives conflate this with objecting to people of such identities being employed at all.

[Hugo Newman @Hugo_Newman]

@AyoCaesar The irony of this statement. The whole problem is that people like Arday *are* habitually reduced to stand-ins for their entire race by progressives in the first place! Who then use such people as politicised props to achieve pseudo-progressive optics, regardless of consequences

[Hugo Newman @Hugo_Newman]

@Casey5122dark “… an interest in the question of academic authorship (and authority)” 🤣🤦🏼‍♂️ What kind of interest I wonder? 🤔

Absolute drivel.

[Matt Taibbi @mtaibbi]

Someday historians are going to look back and be astonished at the amount of absurd bullshit Americans took pride in believing during this era

[Hugo Newman @Hugo_Newman]

@Jacobtheclipper @DiLyrikalKilla Responding to a moronic statement isn’t “policing” you fool. You can say what you like. And I can say how idiotic what you say is. It’s a wonderful world!

[Hugo Newman @Hugo_Newman]

@Jacobtheclipper @DiLyrikalKilla That’s how X works, you moron

[Hugo Newman @Hugo_Newman]

@MadridPreeti Draw the line, moron