The funny thing is, if the guy wasn't quite so greedy with this racket, probably no one would notice. Surely if the number of your publications and citations shoots up exponentially and surpasses those of much more well-known scientists, folks are bound to ask questions. I wonder if this got out of control or whether he really did think it's a good idea to collude his way to such prominence.
I must however, take the time to be the ever-sensitive snowflake and highlight a troubling trend in this person's other posts. He seems to have some anti-trans leanings[1], refusing to gender people correctly and all that (and certainly not pushing back against comments which declare "M to Fs are psychotic bullies who would kill all of us to maintain their sacred illusion". Not to imply that one must rebuke every unkind thing in their comment section, but I hope you can understand that it is illustrative of his audience.). Now I'm no proponent of death threats or double standards, it's just a convenient way to highlight a lack of respect. He will misgender you if he does not like you, and he does not like any delusional transwomen[2].
He's also quite concerned about Canada's population. The capital-W White population specifically [3]. Note that this is presented separate from later graphs about TFWs, so I don't even think he has the right to hide behind that paper-tissue-thin shield. He is quite sad to see the Great White North get a little less white. I am not saying that Canada has managed its immigration well, but I do not believe that he is overly concerned with those matters.
I'm not here to litigate his arguments, I have other things to do with my life. He has his principles, and I have mine. I'm certain he'd be happy to talk for hours about the transwomen and the Indians and all the topics polite society cowers from. His anti-Zionism and dislike of the Rothchilds, I am certain, comes from a strongly-voiced anti-Imperalist lense.
I'm torn about your comment. On the one hand, the context is interesting. On the other hand, it's almost unrelated to the substance of this post of his. I suppose there's a general anti-mainstream-science bias propagating through national-conservative/far-right/alt-right circles, specifically about how the world of academia functions. However, the facts of this post about how a corner of academia functions ought to stand up or fall down independently of all that. 95-100% of this is facts (falsifiable, and maybe wrong, but stated as such), and a tiny percentage is opinion.
Oh yeah, it's a fine post! Interesting read. But I don't think it's that silly to say that success for a person who espouses these views is success for the views themselves, and that a tone-shift might arise if gradually, more and more posts about inoffensive topics written by "Mr. Don't Worry About It ;)" make their way onto the front page.
Information for non-commercial purposes should be free for general social enrichment. Information for commercial purposes should have some path towards monetization but the one we've got right now is clearly a terrible fit.
For the future, though, usually if you just email one of the paper author's with even a hint of interest you'll get the full paper and often a neat discussion about how your specific interest relates to the paper. I think people assume researchers get hounded by fans like celebrities but they're usually folks that love to talk about their topics of interest.
This blog contains some extremely troubling language, identity targeting, and direct slurs. The credibility of the author is very low, at a first pass.
The alleged Elsevier behavior may have occurred, of course, independent of the integrity of the source.
What troubling language and slurs are you referring to exactly?
I didn't see anything "troubling" (let alone "extremely troubling") or anything that would indicate that anyone other than the implicated authors have an integrity issue.
I didn't immediately see a red flag that would make me discount all of their work. It's clear what the author's general opinions are. They're entitled to them of course.
I don't any signs that it's a bot, or that the comment was LLM generated. It's pretty safe to assume they made an alt to make that comment, as they didn't want to take a negative opinion towards a conservative author on their main. i.e. trying to avoid controversy.
This website is slightly to the right of reddit these days; what exactly would expressing a negative opinion about a conservative blogger do to their main account?
My suspicion was some affiliation with a current or future implicated individual.
I am not arguing against the facts expressed in the piece. This is not an area in which I have any expertise.
However, I am a bit uncomfortable with the pithy language used. It's possible (likely, even), that the fired editors deserve the pithiness, but it's still a bit weird to read that kind of prose, in a scientific context.
This is an investigative substack, not a piece of academic literature. God forbid the author home some (admittedly, strong) opinions and speaks negatively about fraudsters.
There are few things I’m afraid of more than a man that thinks himself righteous, because there is very little that such a man would be unwilling to do.
So it makes sense to be cautious when I find myself feeling like one, or being pulled along by the emotions of another who does.
You're not wrong about the danger posed, but take a step back and consider who this attitude helps. The greatest beneficiaries of a culture in which good faith and civility are unconditionally granted for fear of misguided righteous anger is a paradise for fraudsters and bad faith actors. I think we're seeing that world now.
Spot on. Leaders in my company love to tout the line "assume good faith". If you say anything that indicates someone else is not operating in good faith, you are deemed the bad actor. This allows bad actors to run absolutely rampant.
I've decided that it's a weird reversed counterpart to "impostor syndrome" (when you secretly think you're not that good while trying your best to maintain a professional standard.)
I think there's this sort of "moral impostor syndrome" where people who carefully work to present an image of themselves as good people are totally willing to participate in fraud or theft at any level - the only consideration is whether they will be caught, because they value the appearance of being good people (and of course, that appearance gives them more opportunities to commit fraud and theft safely.) If they want to do something and there's no way they'll be caught, they'll do it 100% of the time.
This is the only way I can understand people who refer to fraud as a "mistake." They see other people caught in a fraud that they can imagine that they themselves might have done, because they also wouldn't have thought that they would have ever been caught. The "mistake" was evaluating the chances of the success of a fraud badly.
The fact that they relate to these people also makes them want to give them a second chance, just as they would want to be able to recover their careers if any of their past (or future) frauds had become "mistakes."
"There but for the grace of God go I."
It's terrible. It incentivizes evil. The desperation to give people a second chance to expiate one's own secret sins by proxy creates a system where people only initially draw attention through frauds, then get caught, then get second chances. Meanwhile, people who didn't participate in fraud never get noticed. It's a perverse incentive that filters for trash. Do anything to get your name out there, then the fact that your name is out there gets you into the conversation.
Meanwhile, somebody is scolding you for being upset about it: "You're just perfect I guess. Never made a mistake." Fraud is not a mistake. You do it on purpose.
I certainly apologize for hurting feelings. That was not my intent.
I've just learned (the hard way, of course, because how else do we learn?), that using this kind of terminology, even though we may be feeling quite pithy, gives ammo to those that wish to discount us.
This goes double, in my experience, for any context that prizes objectivity and articulate discussion.
Maybe I'm just naive or dense, but I'm not seeing language I'd be concerned about in the article? Help me get calibrated, is there something in particular that bothers you? or just a general vibe?
I must however, take the time to be the ever-sensitive snowflake and highlight a troubling trend in this person's other posts. He seems to have some anti-trans leanings[1], refusing to gender people correctly and all that (and certainly not pushing back against comments which declare "M to Fs are psychotic bullies who would kill all of us to maintain their sacred illusion". Not to imply that one must rebuke every unkind thing in their comment section, but I hope you can understand that it is illustrative of his audience.). Now I'm no proponent of death threats or double standards, it's just a convenient way to highlight a lack of respect. He will misgender you if he does not like you, and he does not like any delusional transwomen[2].
He's also quite concerned about Canada's population. The capital-W White population specifically [3]. Note that this is presented separate from later graphs about TFWs, so I don't even think he has the right to hide behind that paper-tissue-thin shield. He is quite sad to see the Great White North get a little less white. I am not saying that Canada has managed its immigration well, but I do not believe that he is overly concerned with those matters.
I'm not here to litigate his arguments, I have other things to do with my life. He has his principles, and I have mine. I'm certain he'd be happy to talk for hours about the transwomen and the Indians and all the topics polite society cowers from. His anti-Zionism and dislike of the Rothchilds, I am certain, comes from a strongly-voiced anti-Imperalist lense.
[1] https://www.chrisbrunet.com/p/this-phd-student-at-brown-univ...
[2] https://substack.com/@chrisbrunet/note/c-244102564
[3] https://www.chrisbrunet.com/i/175390557/6-white-population
This will continue until Elsevier and their 3 or 4 peers are removed from the academic publishing process entirely.
For the future, though, usually if you just email one of the paper author's with even a hint of interest you'll get the full paper and often a neat discussion about how your specific interest relates to the paper. I think people assume researchers get hounded by fans like celebrities but they're usually folks that love to talk about their topics of interest.
The alleged Elsevier behavior may have occurred, of course, independent of the integrity of the source.
I didn't see anything "troubling" (let alone "extremely troubling") or anything that would indicate that anyone other than the implicated authors have an integrity issue.
I didn't immediately see a red flag that would make me discount all of their work. It's clear what the author's general opinions are. They're entitled to them of course.
A lot of these new accounts seem to be AI.
My suspicion was some affiliation with a current or future implicated individual.
However, I am a bit uncomfortable with the pithy language used. It's possible (likely, even), that the fired editors deserve the pithiness, but it's still a bit weird to read that kind of prose, in a scientific context.
Makes me wonder if these people are just evil themselves.
So it makes sense to be cautious when I find myself feeling like one, or being pulled along by the emotions of another who does.
It seems like your company leadership missed that part of the lesson.
I think there's this sort of "moral impostor syndrome" where people who carefully work to present an image of themselves as good people are totally willing to participate in fraud or theft at any level - the only consideration is whether they will be caught, because they value the appearance of being good people (and of course, that appearance gives them more opportunities to commit fraud and theft safely.) If they want to do something and there's no way they'll be caught, they'll do it 100% of the time.
This is the only way I can understand people who refer to fraud as a "mistake." They see other people caught in a fraud that they can imagine that they themselves might have done, because they also wouldn't have thought that they would have ever been caught. The "mistake" was evaluating the chances of the success of a fraud badly.
The fact that they relate to these people also makes them want to give them a second chance, just as they would want to be able to recover their careers if any of their past (or future) frauds had become "mistakes."
"There but for the grace of God go I."
It's terrible. It incentivizes evil. The desperation to give people a second chance to expiate one's own secret sins by proxy creates a system where people only initially draw attention through frauds, then get caught, then get second chances. Meanwhile, people who didn't participate in fraud never get noticed. It's a perverse incentive that filters for trash. Do anything to get your name out there, then the fact that your name is out there gets you into the conversation.
Meanwhile, somebody is scolding you for being upset about it: "You're just perfect I guess. Never made a mistake." Fraud is not a mistake. You do it on purpose.
I certainly apologize for hurting feelings. That was not my intent.
I've just learned (the hard way, of course, because how else do we learn?), that using this kind of terminology, even though we may be feeling quite pithy, gives ammo to those that wish to discount us.
This goes double, in my experience, for any context that prizes objectivity and articulate discussion.