"How can I propose the worst possible idea, but also still keep getting funding for my institution from both American and Russian Oligarchs?" https://t.co/Z3tVuZvm2z
— onomatopoeia (@cotedesure) July 25, 2022
It’s all very well having ‘Time’s “The 100 Most Influential People in the World Today”, 2004’ and multiple ‘Foreign Policy’s list of “Top 100 Global Thinkers”‘ hits on one’s LinkedIn profile — one does not stay in demand as an Aspen-level Thought Leader(tm) without an ongoing supply of press notices, preferably laudatory. How to market a well-honed talent for expressing that All Is for the Best in This Best of All Possible Worlds in this new age of virality?
Bad choice, Professor Pinker!
If nukes are a militarily useless, ineffective deterrent, how about instead of demilitarizing *the entire continent of Europe to appease a mad dictator*, NATO just fucking invades Russia, burns Moscow to the ground, and forces a surrender? https://t.co/fjAMQxokM8
— Copesint Central (@copesint) July 25, 2022
One would like to believe that Pinker is aware that both France and the UK are nuclear powers and that both are members of NATO, and one would like to believe that he meant "US" as was noted in the linked article.
But I'm not sure I'd bet on that.
— Robert Farley (@drfarls) July 25, 2022
Also, it's not up to NATO to make deals on Ukraine's behalf. The issue is RUSSIA'S WAR OF AGGRESSION, not NATO's nukes. Why help the Russians change the subject and make it about NATO?! That's just flat out diplomatic idiocy. /3
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) July 25, 2022
But, if you must, seriously (from an actual foreign relations expert)…
Pinker's proposal is based on three assumptions:
1) Putin's invasion was about NATO nukes.
2) Nukes haven't deterred.
3) Giving Putin a "win" is costless
All three are flawed. A short š§µ. https://t.co/Bv84sBRaHk
— Paul Poast (@ProfPaulPoast) July 26, 2022
SpaceUnit
The HillĀ has long been one of the more disreputable brothels on the Beltway media strip. Ā This is the same bastion of journalistic principles that presented the hackery of John Fucking Solomon as independent political analysis only to claim that they were shocked, so very shocked, when it was revealed that he was coordinating his talking points directly with the Trump White House.
Consider the source and move on.
ETA: Ā To paraphrase from Forrest Gump: Ā stupid is as stupid publishes.
guachi
Totally off topic but I just want to say how awesome the Women’s Tour de France has been.
Today’s Stage 3 was incredible and the winner gives a great interview. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bzEAYsSDtk
Here’s a tweet from the winner with some great images. https://twitter.com/CUttrupLudwig/status/1552052218685259779
If you have Peacock streaming do yourself a favor and watch Stage 2 and Stage 3. Be amazed what women cyclists can do.
Gin & Tonic
Yeah, I roasted this moron here yesterday.
Anne Laurie
@SpaceUnit: Just fitting this in before Adam’s nightly Ukraine post!
Cameron
I fully appreciate the logic: “if you stop beating your wife, we won’t shoot this dog.”Ā Impeccable.
Jay
I can also be a hot take moron,
Can I has tenure position at Harrrvard?
WaterGirl
FYI, I think that Balloon Juice is more stable again after going up and down a few times tonight, starting about 9:45 Eastern.
Heading for bed, fingers crossed.
Alison Rose šš»š
@Gin & Tonic: Somehow it sounds even more moronic to me now than last night, and last night I already thought it was the dumbest fucking thing I’ve heard all year.
schrodingers_cat
@Anne Laurie: He even restricted the comments to his stupid tweet. That was brave of him.
Splitting Image
It’s possible we don’t know the entire story behind Pinker’s suggestion. Perhaps Putin has given him a private assurance that Ukraine will be the last territorial acquisition he will make in Europe.
Gin & Tonic
@schrodingers_cat: He restricts all his Tweets.
Anne Laurie
Fixed that for you…
SpaceUnit
@Anne Laurie:
It’s great. Ā Always cathartic to point and laugh at The Dumb.
bbleh
So now even Balloon Juice is PILING ON with the VICIOUS CANCELLING of Steven Pinker, merely for making a FIRST-AMENDMENT PROTECTED suggestion in the cause of PEACE šš¶š¼.
Won’t you please give TODAY to help him against this TERRIBLE and deeply UNFAIR attack?
NutmegAgain
… pretty sure Farley is also an expert … (maybe I read that crooked) anyway, Pinker is and always has been a jackass, and I’m no foreign policy expert!
Fake Irishman
I had the privilege of being a PhD student alongside Paul Poast. Heās the real deal. His Twitter threads are exactly how heād break apart complicated ideas in a lecture or seminar: statistics, game theory, International relations theory, you name it. He would Ā explicitly translate math into plain English statements and back again for undergraduates to show how mathematics was simply an efficient and rigorous way to express ideas.
Hell of a teacher and a good colleague for giving constructive feedback on projects. Not surprised heās emerged as a good public communicator on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Keep on elevating him Anne Laurie!
kalakal
Pinker is the poster child for being educated way beyond your capacity for rational thought.
Even Baldrick would reject this cunning plan.
kalakal
@Jay: First you have to be discovarrd
Redshift
The saddest thing is that Pinker didn’t write the article or even misrepresent its arguments. It was written by:
I don’t know anything about Granoff (though claiming a meaningless “Nobel Peace Prize nominee” is not a good sign) but I would hope Arias would know better than to echo talking points implying NATO defenses had anything to do with starting or ending this war.
Splitting Image
@kalakal:
The thing about Baldrick, though, is that his plans are generally sensible and are likely to work – if only someone were able to do the impossible.
Pinker’s plan is actually possible to put into action, but it will achieve the opposite of what he says it will. It’s the foreign policy equivalent of cutting taxes to increase revenue. (And probably makes perfect sense to the sort of people who have been absorbing that sort of thing for the last four decades.)
Ruckus
@guachi:
When I had my bike shop, which was a combo bike and triathlon shop I did a lot of bike fitting. I worked a lot with one coach who had a woman in training who was about 6’3″, smooth as silk in every move, no matter how hard she was working. I only had one other person I fit who was that smooth and effortless and he was a cat 2 racer. I fit a lot of people of all shapes, sizes, fitness and skill levels, but there are a few who stick out because they were physically better built for their competition that they could just do the work easier, better, faster, with less effort. I’ve been around champions in 3 sports and they all have that grace, specific ability needs of their sport, and physics that takes them to any level they want to work at. Oh and a drive that most of us can only glimpse if we are lucky.
World champions get there through hard work, focus, effort and a single minded desire to win. And BTW I looked at the pictures on twitter and the last one, of said winner laying on the ground with a can of refreshment. I’ve seen that same look before. It’s the look of a person who knows that all that work and sacrifice was very much worth it.
Barry
@kalakal: “Pinker is the poster child for being educated way beyond your capacity for rational thought.”
Highly *degreed*, yes. Ā Educated? Ā No.
Emmyelle
Wait, why ar we listening to Pinker at all even? Did he get a cabinet appointment that I donāt know about?
J R in WV
The Truffle
Who decided these goofs were influential anyway? Is it just that they are white and male?
jonas
Pinker, like a lot of other armchair, soi-disant foreign policy thinkers these days, seems to view the Ukraine war as some kind of tiff where “both sides have a point” and “if they just came together” and resolved their differences like adults, we could put an end to this silly “war” stuff. Right. Same with the Tutsis in 90s Rwanda. If they had just sat down and hashed out their differences with the Hutu militias with words, so much bloodshed could have been avoided!
jonas
Well put. See too Cruz, Ted; Hawley, Josh, and so on. Lots of Ivy League degrees. So much foolishness and ignorance.