Serious question: who cares? Do we need to have an opinion about this? This is Bill Ackman spending a pittance on a disgraced researcher. Maybe it'll pan out, and we can have a searching discussion about the implications of funded discoveries being made by problematic professionals. But until the lab actually does something meaningful, why bother picking it apart? Bill Ackman doubtless spends much more money than this on much more distasteful things than this; he's a billionaire, so his loafers are almost certainly former gophers.
It feels like one of those "announcement of an announcement" or "bill introduced in Parliament" stories that we usually deem off-topic for HN. Not that it couldn't possibly matter, simply that it doesn't matter enough for us to intelligently discuss yet.
Mobs derive power from their ability to lynch people they don't like.
If a billionaire follows along behind the mob, cutting people down from trees and resuscitating them, it severely diminishes the power of the mob.
Whether you think this is a good thing or not probably depends on whether you're part of the lynch mob, but it's hard to imagine being neutral about this.
What are you talking about? Nobody is being lynched.
This is the kind of weird discussion we don't have to have if we just wait to see if any of this matters before trying to parse it as an important story.
> “Just think of all the good that could have been done with that money. There are so many excellent young scientists who could replace and outperform Sabatini. Instead, it’s been put into the hands of a failed leader,” says cognitive neuroscientist Jessica Cantlon, who is now at Carnegie Mellon University but was involved in another sexual harassment furor at Rochester University.
I’m not well versed with this case but this sounds arrogant af. These are just two private donors that have decided to fund someone’s research. No one but the donors alone decide how to use their money.
It’s not like Ackman is hurting for $2.5 million yearly or will necessarily use it for something better.
She's just saying Ackman is throwing good money after bad. Don't see how that's arrogant, it's just a good analysis.
Based on his history, Sabatini will most likely end up costing Ackman time/money/trouble. There are other people that wouldn't come with that risk whose likely research output would be the same or better.
I mean, he's welcome to make the investments he wants, but it's a bad look.
Or maybe people can have a second chance, or maybe there are more details that they know about and we don’t. Maybe a talented scientist shouldn’t have the rest of their life thrown away even if they did make a mistake.
This view honestly lacks perspective. Based on his history of scientific achievement Sabatini is likely to make further meaningful breakthroughs that will benefit us all. The difference is that those people with the same or better research output are already employed somewhere outputting research. Of the unemployed pool of labor this guy is likely the cream of the crop and getting him setup and doing research again will likely have a much higher return than incrementing the research budget of any of those already working Biologists.
Further, what the hell happened to America? America used to understand how high the benefit of scientific advancement was. Hell, America naturalized actual nazis and shielded them from prosecution in the name of pushing scientific progress not that many decades ago. Now everyone is on board with permanently and utterly derailing a productive academic over some he said she said BS that has not resulted in any actual charges, only civil suits and counter-suits??? Must be nice being so privileged that one can afford to spit in scientific advancement's face.
Yeah, it’s spending a lot of money to start a lab that:
- will probably be stonewalled out of any collaboration with reputable universities (because his reputation is so toxic),
- will have trouble attracting talent (because his reputation is so toxic),
- people will be ready to believe any sort of accusation of impropriety coming out of that lab from sexual harassment to more general academic fraud (because his reputation is so toxic).
> These are just two private donors that have decided to fund someone’s research.
It's a free country - they are free to fund a harasser, we are free to judge them and their judgement for it.
If someone gets fired from Wal-Mart for stealing from the till (no criminal charges necessary), and is running a Chick-Fil-A franchise next week, there'd be a fair bit of judgement of that, too. Even if the only people he's going to hurt are his employers, and employees.
In criminal law we have the concept of restitution, of paying your debt to society. There are no second chances in the court of public opinion, no punishment severe enough, no act of restitution sincere enough.
Should we have locked Kevin Mitnick out of society forever? Danny Trejo? Some people can turn it around and do good things in the world.
There are no second chances in the court of public opinion, no punishment severe enough, no act of restitution sincere enough.
This just isn't true. Look into how Dan Harmon gave a genuine apology and accounting for his wrongdoing and was forgiven. Can you point to Sabatini doing anything that even arguably rises to that level of contrition?
Should a lack of contrition prevent Sabatini from ever working again? He should be indefinitely held in contempt of the court of public opinion?
I fully understand criticism of his personal manner but I have not seen much criticism of his actual work. Why not allow a position where he is not managing career paths?
Edit: He lost his positions, he suffered consequences. When are the consequences enough, is there ever a point?
Readit News
It feels like one of those "announcement of an announcement" or "bill introduced in Parliament" stories that we usually deem off-topic for HN. Not that it couldn't possibly matter, simply that it doesn't matter enough for us to intelligently discuss yet.
If a billionaire follows along behind the mob, cutting people down from trees and resuscitating them, it severely diminishes the power of the mob.
Whether you think this is a good thing or not probably depends on whether you're part of the lynch mob, but it's hard to imagine being neutral about this.
This is the kind of weird discussion we don't have to have if we just wait to see if any of this matters before trying to parse it as an important story.
Dead Comment
https://apps.bostonglobe.com/metro/investigations/spotlight/...
I’m not well versed with this case but this sounds arrogant af. These are just two private donors that have decided to fund someone’s research. No one but the donors alone decide how to use their money.
It’s not like Ackman is hurting for $2.5 million yearly or will necessarily use it for something better.
Based on his history, Sabatini will most likely end up costing Ackman time/money/trouble. There are other people that wouldn't come with that risk whose likely research output would be the same or better.
I mean, he's welcome to make the investments he wants, but it's a bad look.
Further, what the hell happened to America? America used to understand how high the benefit of scientific advancement was. Hell, America naturalized actual nazis and shielded them from prosecution in the name of pushing scientific progress not that many decades ago. Now everyone is on board with permanently and utterly derailing a productive academic over some he said she said BS that has not resulted in any actual charges, only civil suits and counter-suits??? Must be nice being so privileged that one can afford to spit in scientific advancement's face.
- will probably be stonewalled out of any collaboration with reputable universities (because his reputation is so toxic),
- will have trouble attracting talent (because his reputation is so toxic),
- people will be ready to believe any sort of accusation of impropriety coming out of that lab from sexual harassment to more general academic fraud (because his reputation is so toxic).
It's a free country - they are free to fund a harasser, we are free to judge them and their judgement for it.
If someone gets fired from Wal-Mart for stealing from the till (no criminal charges necessary), and is running a Chick-Fil-A franchise next week, there'd be a fair bit of judgement of that, too. Even if the only people he's going to hurt are his employers, and employees.
Dead Comment
In criminal law we have the concept of restitution, of paying your debt to society. There are no second chances in the court of public opinion, no punishment severe enough, no act of restitution sincere enough.
Should we have locked Kevin Mitnick out of society forever? Danny Trejo? Some people can turn it around and do good things in the world.
This just isn't true. Look into how Dan Harmon gave a genuine apology and accounting for his wrongdoing and was forgiven. Can you point to Sabatini doing anything that even arguably rises to that level of contrition?
I fully understand criticism of his personal manner but I have not seen much criticism of his actual work. Why not allow a position where he is not managing career paths?
Edit: He lost his positions, he suffered consequences. When are the consequences enough, is there ever a point?
Dead Comment
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