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From other liberals:“Hillary Clinton won the popular vote”: Since when did the popular vote matter? As you can see, she did not win the election so it clearly didn’t make any kind of a meaningful difference. Bringing this point up doesn’t help anyone and it makes us look like really sore losers.“If you’re pro-life then you shouldn’t be in favor of the death penalty”: This argument is a strawman. People who are pro-life believe that the unborn fetus is an innocent life that hasn’t committed any crimes. The death penalty is a punishment for people who have committed heinous crimes. You can be in favor of punishing crimes while seeking to protect innocent life. Bytheway, this isn’t me stating my positions on either abortion or the death penalty. This is about trying to properly represent two positions that can be consistent with each other.“Cultural appropriation”: Ernest Adams said it better than I could:Most complaints about cultural appropriation are bullshit. You can’t ring-fence your culture and keep it for yourself.Ernest W. Adams's answer to With political correctness now extending to high school prom dresses, has it gone too far?From Conservatives:“Conservatives use facts, liberals use their feelings”: This is a load of crap. Which side of the aisle denies the existence global warming / climate change? Generally speaking, it’s the conservative side.What about transgender people? There is scientific proof that transgenderism is a real thing. Which side of the aisle is more likely to believe that transgenderism is real? Hint: It’s generally not the conservative side.Transgender: Evidence on the biological nature of gender identityAndrogen Receptor Repeat Length Polymorphism Associated with Male-to-Female TranssexualismPacific Center for Sex and SocietyHabib Fanny also managed to calmly prove that the gender wage gap exists: Habib's answer to What are some regular forms of political deceit that you wish more Americans would see through?How about the idea that our justice system doesn’t play fair with Black people?“Black male offenders continued to receive longer sentences than similarly situated White male offenders. Black male offenders received sentences on average 19.1 percent longer than similarly situated White male offenders during the Post-Report period (fiscal years 2012-2016), as they had for the prior four periods studied. The differences in sentence length remained relatively unchanged compared to the Post-Gall period.”Demographic Differences in SentencingResults. Death certificates identified 2285 legal intervention deaths (1.5 per million population per year) from 2010 to 2014. Among males aged 10 years or older, who represented 96% of these deaths, the mortality rate among non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic individuals was 2.8 and 1.7 times higher, respectively, than that among White individuals.Conclusions. Substantial racial/ethnic disparities in legal intervention deaths remain an ongoing problem in the United States.https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2016.303575I hope I’ve made my point. There are plenty of left wing stances that have facts and statistics to back them up. Heck, one major reason why I switched from being a conservative to a liberal was BECAUSE I found that many left-wing stances had solid evidence to support their claims.“Free Speech”:When Laura Ingraham lost advertisers after she bullied David Hogg her freedom of speech was not violated. If anything that was capitalism and the free market working its magic on her. But some conservatives thought it was “setting a dangerous precedent”. It’s not. The fact that conservatives turned it into a “free speech” issue shows what happens when capitalism dishes out consequences that they don’t like.When Roseanne Barr got fired because she said something incredibly racist, that was capitalism at work. A company decided to fire her because they knew that their brand would be hurt by associating with her. That’s also not a free speech issue.Here’s an actual free speech issue:It blows my mind that people got offended over something as trivial as taking a knee during the Anthem. Donald Trump’s involvement with the NFL’s ban on kneeling is an actual free speech issue. Protests are protected speech by law. And yet all I hear are liberals speaking up for Kaepernick, not conservatives.This reminds me of a brilliant answer by Johan Torres back when he answered a question about Laura Ingraham and David Hogg.And you wind up discovering that conservatives attachment to capitalism is not actually all that strong, they only support capitalism because they believe it keeps them on top, not out of any belief in the principles or theories of the system.So what we have here is a clear case of capitalist markets working exactly how they should. So what is the dangerous precedent? What is this article about? The dangerous precedent is that capitalism is not supporting conservatives. Capitalism can be used against conservatives. It turns out that the allegiance to capitalism that conservatives have is merely a molecule deep.(Source: Johan Torres's answer to Why is David Hogg vs Laura Ingraham a “dangerous precedent”? What does this mean exactly?)The Socialism Boogeyman: Socialism seems to be the de facto boogeyman conservatives throw out whenever someone talks about things like universal healthcare. And yet, most conservatives don’t even understand what “socialism” is. Here’s a working definition of socialism:Socialism is a range of economic and social systems characterized by social ownership and democratic control of the means of production[10]as well as the political theories and movements associated with them.[11]Social ownership may refer to forms of public, collective or cooperative ownership, or to citizen ownership of equity.[12]That is a definition I found on Wikipedia. The USSR was a totalitarian regime that was socialist in name only. A lot of left wing individuals (not all mind you) such as myself do not want to turn the USA into the USSR. It’s the Nordic model that we’re fans of. By the wayit’s still a capitalist system.From libertarians:“If I don’t like a service that my taxes pay for then I shouldn’t have to pay for it”: Someone else did a better job at explaining the problem with this line of logic:Given your argument, someone who doesn’t drive shouldn’t have to pay for roads, people that don’t eat meat shouldn’t have to pay for meat health inspections, and people that are not criminals should not have to pay for prisons. People that are not old shouldn’t have to pay for Medicare or Social Security.Then you no longer have a society that cares about others or about the common good.(Source: https://www.quora.com/Why-is-school-choice-generally-opposed-by-liberals/answer/Chris-Joosse/comment/60298882)Pretty soon nobody will pay for anything and society will cease to function.“Taxation is theft!”: Alright, let’s play a game shall we? Let’s pretend that taxes get abolished tomorrow and no human is required to pay taxes ever again. Who would provide the services that government currently provides now? How would they get paid for? What would keep these people from charging ridiculous rates for their services?If you’re going to convince me that this system would work better than what we currently have now then I’d like to see peer reviewed research, articles from reliable sources and empirical data proving that your system is superior. One last question: Do you consider rent extortion? If you don’t, then why not?If a government program isn’t 100 % efficient then all government programs suck and they need to be privatized: This is like blowing up your house because your kitchen sink doesn’t work. Wouldn’t it be better if the kitchen sink were fixed instead? Also, what proof do you have that a privatized alternative is always superior in every single instance or situation?

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I am a Chinese University student, majoring in Computer Science.I think the gender study major in the west should never exist as an academic department, and that it is toxic to the entire intellectual atmosphere in the University. Note that I have a strong support for women rights movement in the past centuries.In Mainland Chinese Universities, we have a department called "School of Marxism studies". They apply modern social science theory to research on "Marxism with Chinese characteristics." Their publication is also good-looking, takes a serious tone, with all the modern social science theories, but their entire goal is to prove:1. **“Marxism is right.”**2. **“Marxism with Chinese characteristics is still Marxism.”**3. **“China is still a socialist country, on the road to communism.”**There are tons of Ph.D. students and professors in the School of Marxism studies. However, I think that they are so ashamed of their pseudo-scientific research that few of them would dare say: “Look, I am a scientist as well!” Why, because if they want to do real research on Marxism, they should do it properly in the philosophy, politics or economics department, so that their research can be challenged, disputed, proved or disproved by peers of differing opinions. In the School of Marxism studies, your conclusion is already there, what you do is to prove it with an eloquent essay. People in this study are all centered around one established ideology and trying very hard to prove it.In scientific research, we need to report our funders so that other scientists can know that if there exists a channel of interest to cause potential bias. Confirmation bias and vested interest are fairly common issues in STEM researchers. However, in each STEM field, different sides can argue and dispute over the publications so that any hypothesis is attacked, examined, and finally prove or disproved over time. To summarize: every researcher has his own belief and his own bias; **To arrive at the truth in STEM subjects, we ask the opposition forces to attack each other vigorously, so in the end, we find the truth that withstands the challenge.**As a rule of thumb, an academic subject should not be established when its research (or pseudo-research) revolves around an orthodoxical ideology. Whether such political ideology is just or unjust is another matter, science and research are entirely about Truth, not ideology. In physics, you can prove that Newton's Classical physics is wrong (or flawed). You will have a huge outcry in the circles, you will have both allies and enemy, but your career and physics research goes on. The simple matter is: the entire field of physics (or any STEM subject) do not depend on the orthodoxy of one particular set of theory or ideal. The subject that is founded on one particular set theory or ideal, however, is religion.In women’s studies (or any other identity-politics related pseudo-research), the entire research establishment is currently allying itself with a particular left-wing moral agenda and benefits as feminism becomes more trendy. I am not arguing about whether today's women’s studies is good or bad, rational or irrational. I think any Ph.D. who has majored in STEM will realize the fact that the system-design of current women studies as an academic research system will cause a massive confirmation bias due to moral censorship.Do you believe some Ph.D. in women’s studies would publish a research hypothesis stating that white males are disadvantaged?Do you believe some Ph.D. in women’s studies can publish a research hypothesis that males are inherently more intelligent (by whatever particular measure) than the female so that men are better at some jobs?The above hypothesis is false IMO, but it is important to think about it. It proves that there is a "right answer" and "wrong answer" of morality in the research, so some hypotheses will never be raised, and some conclusions will never be drawn.Looking back in history, we know that moral censorship is a bad idea in reaching science theory. Darwin's theory, which portrays a cold-hearted evolution by natural selection, is not a welcome thought for many religious people and defies the sanctity of Man. Many radical political thoughts (which cause mass murders) in modern time are inspired by Darwin's theory. However, academia isn't the Church; we should seek truth (however uncomfortable).There is also a strong economic and career incentive in women study to support the “left” side of argument. Many graduates from women’s studies virtually becoming a teacher of women study or activists. If research finds that women are under institutional discrimination, the entire field benefits from it by collecting more funds and securing more teaching positions or jobs like "Chief Diversity Officer” in Google (As a CS student I burst into tears when I first heard of that title :P ).I am not arguing whether "women are under institutional discrimination" is true or false (I believe the claim is justified in some remote places in China), **I merely point out that there exists a chain of vested interest here.** Most importantly, if someday, someone proves "women are under institutional discrimination" is untrue, it would dis-establish the entire field. Can you imagine the severity of it? The entire field of study will be demolished, that will be equivalent to proving Allah does not exist to a Muslim clergy. That is to say, hypotheses or research with the intent of disproving a certain argument in “women's studies” will be an existential threat to all the Ph.Ds in the subject and will end up with everyone so mad at you because their whole life, all their research, and future career prospects will be nullified. Thus researchers are rewarded both materially and spiritually by supporting one side of the argument and are excommunicated for opposing it as the enemy of the entire field. All these mechanisms creates a closed self-reinforcement loop and a chain of vested interest to produce more like-minded researchers, undermining the academic quality of the field. With such a closed loop of positive feedback without negative review, it is therefore never a wonder for me that women's studies has become an echo chamber and radicalized.Women’s studies, by making such a particular micro-subject, circled in a crowd of like-minded people with a vested interest. If you have a stick in one hand and a carrot in another hand, even a horse know where he wants to go. So does a scientist. He will fear the loss of funding, being hated by students and being isolated by colleagues, when his research invalidates the necessity of this department.The political opinions of this micro-field are so extremely one-sided that few researchers with a conservative view or opposing agenda can survive in the subject. When you define yourself into a very niche micro-subject, people in other fields like bio-science, political science, and economics will not read the micro-field’s publications and will rarely criticize it. In contrast, it would be far easier to find some person within a large field, who is detached from this closed-circle-positive-feedback loop, with different beliefs and incentives to make a criticism as comparing to within a small circle.(I daresay economists tend to be more “right-wing”, so they will have a lot to disagree on many current arguments in the gender studies. Researchers on genetic studies also tend to have disagreement with sociology. For example, people in sociology and gender study avoid “inherited traits” like the plague, while bio-science researchers always discuss gene and traits. They study the genetic differences in different groups to cure an illness that is particularly susceptible to a certain population.) Research about gender can benefit a lot by the criticism of other people when the established theory is challenged by a larger academic audience. Universities should never support a small circle to form a close-looped positive feedback research system. If your circle is a crowd of clergymen, let them review each other’s paper, you can prove “God/Gods exist”!I think every true scholar who is interested in study of gender, with the dream of obtaining the truth, should go back to common political/social science or bio-science department where there is not a uniformed agenda or central ideology. Women’s studies theory may be completely right, but it needs to walk outside the echo chamber and face strict scrutiny as befitting the academic standard. Having a feminist reviewing the paper of another feminist will not produce any real science.Finally, as scientists we should be aware of the inherent conflict between reason and humanity, emotion and objectivity. Darwin can be a good Christian in his personal life, but as a scientist, he must distance himself from what he believes or what he would like the world to be. It is not that scientists are robots without emotion, it is their obligation of seeking the truth that compels them to look at the world from a higher angle. In research, the scientist ceases to be a man; he becomes the embodiment of reason itself. After the research, he recovers his morality and ideals. A scientist may as well decide to hide the uncomfortable discovery or burn it because it will bring injustice when misused. I think many people outside of STEM emphasize too much on humanity, personality, and identity, too little on reason. They do not realize the importance of this duality of personalities, since discovering the truth requires cold-hearted rationalism, and hiding the harmful truth from public requires warm-hearted humanity.BTW:I also oppose university setting up “global warming/climate change studies” as separate field, because I think it has the same “closed-loop-positive feedback problem”. If some researcher argues against the idea that “global warming is coming” or “global warming is mainly man-made”, they would be automatic out of this circle. Moreover, if there is evidence against the “global warming” side of the argument, the entire study will lose the necessity of existence and funding; professors and students in the field will lose their positions. So there is also an overwhelmingly incentive of the self-reinforcement-loop there. I am not arguing against “global warming” or for “global warming”; I merely point out in founding such micro-field, the research argument would be overwhelming one-side in the circle. This kind of research topic should best be kept in the larger field so both sides can argue in the same conference and journal.I should thank Nischay Hegde (Nischay Hegde) for editing the grammar for me, as English is not my first language.Personal comment and Q/A:Once upon a time, we had The Cultural Revolution back in China. Modern genetics theory and quantum mechanics were deemed forbidden topics back then, as they have some conflicts with ultra-left philosophy. Therefore, mainland Chinese sees the current PC censorship in US campus as another sort “culture revolution” revisited, where grass root mass politics ideology start to creep into academia. The Soviet Union once saw the similar problem, but it was a “top-down” command under Stalin, contrasting with the grass roots culture revolution in China.Lysenkoism - Wikipedia (Lysenkoism - Wikipedia)The fact is virtually no Leftist likes genetic research. China and The Soviet Union wanted to build an egalitarian society, so at that time couldn’t accept the idea that humans are not “created” equal and are inherently oppressive and greedy in many aspects. Therefore in both China and Soviet union we invented many strange theories as to how certain inherent traits can be acquired through labor and environment. We were also told how certain vices are have only social and economic causes, so that all the selfishness and violence of humanity can be neutralized once we turn into a socialist society. We believed humans can be molded into “saints” by through social and economic reformations (read : Communist Revolution).That is, “God is dead.” After Darwinism and other modern scientific discovery, people no longer put their faith in Church. People are lost when the old value of Christianity collapses and the new value “equality and liberty” seems to be a sand castle. Truly, this value comes neither from “reason” nor is it “universal,” although these words are often used together by some Enlightenment-era thinkers. However, people living in pre-history tribes, ancient Egypt, dynastic China or even middle age France will find the these new value quite alien. A truly universal value should be like “maternal love” (which is so inherent that we can see it in every culture, every era in history, every form of society and even from animals). Even worse, if the human is just pile of cells and chemical reactions, we certainly cannot find the sanctification of freedom and equality by reason alone. So, If liberty and equality are just contracts of convenience that make our capitalist society run smoother at this age, what will happen in next era? If our society function very differently in the age of AI, would liberty and equality still apply? Surely, if in some era men can accept slavery and caste as common sense, then we cannot rule out the possibility that in someday equality and liberty will also be thrown into the trashcan when the social productivity and the mode of production changed fundamentally. People are afraid of a fleeting value; they always want to have an immortalized and sanctified value in order to feel safe (as changing of value can make the life-long struggle and sacrifice of men appear meaningless overtime). Before Darwin men have God and Bible, after Darwin, men try to use science to prove that their value is “a natural order of things". Therefore, the ultra-right want to use science to prove men are inherently unequal, while the ultra-left want to use science to prove men are equal (or can be made equal after social environment conditioning). But science can prove nothing of this sort, since science is neither left or right, "reason" is neither good or evil. In the end, the moral judgment still belongs to man himself. The relentless effort to prove moral value through science only produce a pile of pseudosciences like Lysenkoism and Nazi eugenics. I think maybe some part of the current women studies is also in the same trap.IMO, whether different people have different inherent traits is not important, what’s important is that we treat them as equals under the law, and examine each people for their own merit as an individuals, as it often finds that variance within groups is much larger than variance between groups. The argument that “men and women as groups might have inherent difference of interests/attentions due to genetic reason and thus they would favor different kinds of job (e.g. bio/medical science are dominated by women, while Math and CS are mainly men) should not be simply dismiss before it is disproved (or proved) by research. It make no sense to say: because there is difference in distribution of gender in certain industry as an outcome, so that there must exist a institutionalized discrimination as a cause.There is so much thing that we still don’t know about the brain, genes, and gender that no scientist is rushing to reach for a conclusion. A political activist needs a strong and coherent theory to advance his agenda, so he would claim he know all the answers; in contrast, a scientist is often very cautious and arguing with conservation because there could be many different explanations. Albert Einstein did not receive a Nobel Prize for his theory of relativity, for at his time we did not have space telescope and atomic clock to measure evidences with enough precision.Personally speaking, I would kill if we could bring more women in my field and some kind of affirmative action is needed. Many males are very depressed because there are only handful females in the entire research building. In my youth, I once worked in a bio-medical lab where there was a full room of women. I felt so wonderful at that time that I nearly wanted to quit CS and go to the bio-med area. Anyway, It is not about men vs women. I would have similar concerns towards “climate change study” as well if it became an independent field.Some people are also interested in "School of Marxism studies” in China. IMO, it is just like theology and actually has its social contributions. I am a conservative right-winger in China, so I am totally happy that China is on the road of “Socialism with Chinese characteristics” (read State Capitalism). But there is also a significant minority of Chinese are still buying the idea of communism, loving Mao and his egalitarian legacy. So the contribution of "School of Marxism studies” is telling them that “China is still a socialist country,” “don’t lose heart, we are still on the road to utopia,” “the west only gets the upper hand temporarily.” Their studies focus on proving why the current policy of CCP is necessary for China, Chinese PPL and are consistent with Socialist ideology; this is effectively producing a soothing therapy for those leftist in case they get too shocked during Deng’s reformation. When a communist country turns a 180-degree turn to market economy, many people would simply get mad. Luckily, we have our dear “political commissar” (read worker union leaders) from "School of Marxism studies” to produce an emergency anti-shock therapy that heals the social schism. Otherwise, we could have an “anti-Deng’s-reformation war” (like the thirty years war in HRE) back in the 1990s. They are doing the same thing like some modern theology where you shoe-horn the newest science and discovery and economical theory into an out-dated framework of beliefs, to make the “religion and value system” remain relevant in modern times. “Free market is also communism” is just like the sort of study to prove that “Bible also agrees with Darwinism and Big-Bang theory,” the point is not about whether the argument is true of false, its purpose is to prevent the faith of society from collapsing. I mean, come on, "School of Marxism studies” feeds positive energy to people ;-) From this point of view, I would prefer the PRC type of political commissar (read “socialist XYZ league leaders”) from the "School of Marxism studies” than the US type of political commissar (read “Chief Diversity Officer”).