Somewhat to my surprise, only a few of the paid subscribers so far have applied to participate in the seminar on Institutional Irrationality. I’m surprised that more folks prefer just to watch.
Anyway, if you have not applied because you don’t think your chances of acceptance are good, think again. Please apply by 6 PM New York time on October 25 if you wish to be one of the six attendees who will be unmuted during the seminar.
The essay includes procedures for applying.
Are recordings of the zoome sessions going to be made available to subscribers?
Unfortunately no, unless all of the participants somehow magically agree to it. That’s the stance from ASK as posted earlier and I don’t disagree with it.
This is very tempting, but challenging for me schedule-wise. I will try to see if I can move enough things around to commit before the deadline. One of the pitfalls of modern life is how difficult it is to herd cats on short notice with all of the competing demands on their time. My life is like a restaurant with no reservations available for months out, unless one is willing to dine at midnight. It’s too bad there isn’t some asynchronous way to do it, maybe with essay submissions curated for public consideration.
Talking on Zoom about things the woke mob considers a capital offense these days is a good way to lose your job, your friends, and your livelihood.
Given that your audience probably skews heavily high SES, academic, business execs, etc, but are not generally public figures used to having public video of them speaking it’s not surprising to me that few are willing to participate.
For many, it is literally not worth the risk.
Which is it’s own meta statement on our current society.
You nailed it.
I went to our city councilman’s district advisory board meeting a few weeks ago. Our city is considering the addition of “gender identity” as a protected class under our non-discrimination ordinance. I showed up at the meeting with about 20 other citizens to voice some concerns about the ordinance.
When it came time for citizens to speak, they made quite the spectacle of setting up a dedicated microphone and camera linked to the Facebook live feed. The implications were clear: anything you say will be used against you by the woke mob.
I’m convinced we’ll still be sorting out the ill effects of this pandemic on liberty in this country decades from now. As recently as December 2020 they’d just post a word document on the website with meeting minutes and called it a day. Not anymore. They’re using CARES act funds to pay an IT guy to run the show now.
Only myself and four others out of the 20 had the courage to get up there and speak our piece. Like you said, for most folks it’s just not worth it. Which is really unfortunate, because if people won’t speak up at an obscure city council meeting at the local fire station, the courage simply does not exist to stop things at higher levels of society.
I send my regrets based on opportunity cost, scheduling, and misgivings that I would fail to participate on time.
The asynchronous nature of your blog works for me.
Thanks for all that you do, professor!