
Announcing the Winners of the 2018 MIT Media Lab Disobedience Award - laurex
https://medium.com/mit-media-lab/announcing-the-winners-of-the-2018-mit-media-lab-disobedience-award-921d58548dcb
======
khawkins
It is a colossal misstep for the MIT Media Lab to move into social activism,
and that is what this award is doing. If you'd like to be perceived as
scientists, you lose your credibility to do impartial investigation of social
trends. It's hard to trust a paper you've published on the impact of #MeToo
when your department is literally rewarding the founders.

If you'd like to be perceived as engineers, you demonstrate a serious lack of
focus. The Media Lab has historically been focused on innovative human-
computer interfaces. When most people have spent significant time and several
years interacting with social media, the Media Lab is no more qualified to
speak on social media movements enabled by technology than the average person.
They're borrowing the reputation of the lab to promote a political position,
but its reputation is harmed by doing so.

~~~
pfd1986
Disagree. I think this is like saying Einstein shouldn't have been vocal about
the Bomb. I think scientists (and scientific institutions) _should_ use their
visibility to make a social point, and that shouldn't at all undermine their
scientific credibility.

~~~
khawkins
The integrity of a hard science like physics is rarely compromised by
political persuasions. I have little idea how his positions on the bomb would
have affected his ability to produce unbiased scientific results. The
conclusions of those papers have little ramification on the ethics of nuclear
weapons.

But if you're trying to do research which investigates the social
ramifications of a movement like #MeToo, then a biased researcher will seek
out methods which highlight how positive and powerful the movement is, while
ignoring metrics which make it look weak, unpopular, or causing negative
impacts. Getting the title "Doctor" doesn't magically remove one's bias,
especially when there is a systemic bias promoted by the institution at large.

~~~
DonHopkins
Medical Doctors are biased against diseases like cancer that kill people, and
hospitals have systematic institutional biases against cancer, too -- is that
so wrong?

Sexually assaulting people and institutionally supporting the perpetrators and
covering up their crimes is simply wrong. There isn't another valid side to
that argument. The #MeToo movement is on the right side of that argument, and
anyone who opposes it or denies it's a problem, like Trump or the Catholic
Church, is simply wrong, and likely motivated by their desire to cover up and
excuse their own crimes.

You can't fault medical doctors for being biased against cancer, or
researchers for being biased against rape and sexual assault.

------
jacquesm
I don't think MIT should be anywhere near these kinds of things after the
whitewash re. Aaron Swartz.

They stopped being 'cool' and they won't get that image back by pretend stuff
like this.

[http://swartz-report.mit.edu/](http://swartz-report.mit.edu/)

Having Aaron win the Disobedience Award would have been a fitting punishment,
instead they took it to the max.

~~~
ancorevard
They lost me at "social justice experts" and "toxic masculinity".

~~~
Pfhreak
Why?

Both of those terms have definitions based in rational discourse, but they are
often misunderstood. E.g. "toxic masculinity" does not mean that masculinity
is toxic, it means there's a subset of masculine behaviors that can be toxic
when over-represented.

If reading the term 'toxic masculinity' is enough to cause you to disengage,
I'd encourage you to take a moment and understand why that just happened.

~~~
belorn
Toxic masculinity get judged based on the meaning it express as words.
Languages in the end is all about expressing meaning.

If we talk about toxic Muslims as the subset of terrorist behavior, then most
people would still see it as an generalization that invoke a expression of
racisms and hate. Lumping together all Muslims, only to then say "Its a
misunderstanding, I only meant this small subset that is toxic among Muslims"
don't work. Does not work for racism, and it does not work for sexism either.
The term toxic masculinity will always seem like veiled hatred against men,
and no amount of "that is only a misinterpretation ..." will change that.

~~~
DonHopkins
So whenever anybody mentions "toxic food", you jump to the conclusion that
they're saying all food is toxic? When somebody warns you about eating toxic
food like Romaine lettuce, do you assume they hate all food? Or do you go out
of your way to eat Romaine lettuce just to spite them, like so many people who
disengage from rational discourse, thump their chests, and grandstand to
defend all men from the perceived slight of being called toxic?

~~~
belorn
That is silly. Toxicity as a word originated from venom and is decades older
than when the feminist movement started to use it to describe other human
people in order to dehumanize and spread hate.

But lets go to a political term that currently is seen in the news with wild
disagreeing views: the _illegal immigrant_. The US administration defines this
as only being about the subgroup of immigrant that has committed a crime. They
see no problem talking about deport all those _illegal immigrants_ , how the
_illegal immigrants_ are a drain on the country, and how many of the _illegal
immigrants_ are rapists and gang members. And yet when the opposition object
they are all talking about _immigrants_ and how _immigrants_ are important for
the country and economy. How among _immigrants_ there are very few rapists and
gang members, and how the administration are racist when they make general
statements about _immigrants_. And in return the administration accuse the
opposition for disengaging from rational discourse, thumping their chests, and
grandstanding to defend all immigrants from the perceived slight of being
called rapists and gang members.

If you want rational discourse then start by using language that do not
dehumanize people. Second step is to avoid large generalization that is only
veiled hatred. Only then is there even a possibility for rational discourse.

------
primroot
So this is how cool and forward-thinking MBS is. Now the prince of KSA
supports organizations handing out disobedience awards. Who would have
thought?

[0]
[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/30/elite-...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/30/elite-
universities-selling-themselves-mit-harvard-saudi-arabia-mohammed-bin-salman)

------
nickysielicki
If I was giving out a disobedience award for 2018, it would go to Cody Wilson
and Defense Distributed.

(This is not to imply that I think anyone in this article is undeserving of an
award for things they've done.)

~~~
SlowRobotAhead
Agreed. I’m not sure how #metoo is “disobedient” in any way. It’s the popular
position of almost the entire media, Hollywood, and liberal leaning people in
the USA.

It’s the safest stand you can possibly take in 2018.

However, Defense Distributed should get the disobedience award, not Cody
Wilson.

------
nafizh
I am surprised Alexandra Elbakyan did not win this because of her work with
sci-hub. What could be the biggest disobedience of all other than freeing
science from the grasp of Corporate profithood by sacrificing your own freedom
of movement?

Specially when the award is given by a science lab.

~~~
nkurz
Yes, I think she'd be an obvious candidate. I'd be interested to know if she
was nominated, and if so, what the discussion was.

My guess (as an outsider but with some small insight into the group making
these awards) is that Elbakyan would have generally strong support for her
direct work on Scihub, but would be unsupportable to some because of her
political beliefs. That is, I think her anti-capitalist ideology and less-
than-full-fledged support for modern liberal beliefs may more of a problem for
the committee than her anti-copyright stance.

Here's a presentation where Elbakyan talks more about her political beliefs:
[https://openaccess.unt.edu/symposium/2016/info/transcript-
an...](https://openaccess.unt.edu/symposium/2016/info/transcript-and-
translation-sci-hub-presentation)

------
patrickg_zill
Stunning and brave... To support as "disobedience" something that every large
corporation, every media organization, and a large swath of government
supports.

~~~
PavlovsCat
MeToo was started in 2006. If "everybody" supports that anyway, why was there
even anything to start?

[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/20/us/me-too-movement-
tarana...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/20/us/me-too-movement-tarana-
burke.html)

> _In 1997, Tarana Burke sat across from a 13-year-old girl who had been
> sexually abused. The young girl was explaining her experience, and it left
> Ms. Burke speechless._

Have female friends ever confided stories in you that left you speechless,
helpless, and angry? And even that would normally just be the tip of an
iceberg, not a full, detailed report of all the stuff that is going on... not
even in their life, not to mention the world. The abuse that is going on is
greater than our capacity to even face it.

And it _is_ hard for people to speak about this stuff, and while I agree that
it might not be "as brave" to encourage others to speak out, I think it's
absolutely fine to award her. She's not the kind of person who gives a shit
about awards. She wants actual abuse to actually end, she wants actual wounds
to actually heal -- nothing more, nothing less, fair enough, godspeed, you go
girl, all the good things... not just for her, but for the people she
represents, and who are acknowledged by this award as well.

> _Tarana Burke said she will not let her movement that she founded in 2006
> and that has resulted in her getting death threats and having to challenge
> black leaders to support it, be co-opted by pretty girls and Hollywood._

So everybody agrees -- except the abusers, the people who don't want to hear
about abuse, and the people sending death threats of course :P

[https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/metoo-founder-tarana-
burke...](https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/metoo-founder-tarana-burke-blasts-
the-movement-for-ignoring-poor-women/)

> _“We heard every manner of excuse ‘It’s really about white supremacy because
> our folks don’t have a history of that kind of thing back in Africa’ or ‘the
> real issue isn’t sexual violence, it’s false accusations against black men’
> or my personal favorite ‘This is not a social justice issue; this is a
> social work issue.’ ”_

> _She cited statistic after statistic about women who aren’t famous but
> attacked because of their gender identity or economic powerlessness. But the
> worst, she said, was the fate of indigenous and Native American women “the
> group we talk about the least,” she said._

> _She cited a Justice Department study that found that an estimated one in
> three Native American women will be assaulted in their lifetimes, that 92
> percent of Native American girls reported having been forced to have sex
> against their will — and that nine of 10 Native American women and girls who
> survived rape or sexual assault were attacked by assailants of a different
> color, most of them white._

> _“That’s definitely a racial justice issue,” she said. “And, at the end of
> the day, it’s a human rights issue.”_

She seems to have the heart in the right spot, I'll say that much. Every
"movement" can always attract anyone to do anything in its name, but I am
absolutely down with what I read of that woman so far.

~~~
patrickg_zill
If the Media Lab had awarded their award in say 2007, would you agree that
would be different than awarding it today?

~~~
PavlovsCat
Do you agree that there was courage involved? You're not even acknowledging
the death threats, nothing, you're shifting the goal posts as if I had written
nothing at all.

And you shift them into a complete own goal, too. From what I could find, that
award only exists since 2017:

[https://www.media.mit.edu/galleries/2017-disobedience-
award/](https://www.media.mit.edu/galleries/2017-disobedience-award/)

It comes with a cash prize of $250k, and that would probably have been great
to get earlier on. On the other hand, maybe they now had over 11 years of
experience, and know a much better use for the money than they might have 11
years ago. I have no clue, but I don't see how this is anything but trying to
see a problem where there is none.

------
adbge
_So, in a nutshell, the System 's neatest trick is this:

\- For the sake of its own efficiency and security, the System needs to bring
about deep and radical social changes to match the changed conditions
resulting from technological progress.

\- The frustration of life under the circumstances imposed by the System leads
to rebellious impulses.

\- Rebellious impulses are co-opted by the System in the service of the social
changes it requires; activists "rebel" against the old and outmoded values
that are no longer of use to the System and in favor of the new values that
the System needs us to accept.

\- In this way rebellious impulses, which otherwise might have been dangerous
to the System, are given an outlet that is not only harmless to the System,
but useful to it.

\- Much of the public resentment resulting from the imposition of social
changes is drawn away from the System and its institutions and is directed
instead at the radicals who spearhead the social changes._

[https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/ted-kaczynski-the-
sy...](https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/ted-kaczynski-the-system-s-
neatest-trick)

------
Zigurd
Somewhere, a woman undergrad read this thread and said to herself "screw this"
and transferred out of computer science.

~~~
swiley
I understand the sentiment here but can we shut up about it for five seconds?
As a guy I feel like I'm walking on eggshells every time I'm around women
after reading enough of these.

I feel like I'm going insane.

~~~
rangersanger
As a dude I'm exhausted too. As a boyfriend and a son of a mother, I'm
accepting that I'll continue to be exhausted by it until it changes.

But, I'm not walking on eggshells. I'm having, and will continue to have
debates with women, and more often than not, have my view expanded by the
conversation.

Things are changing, pretty rapidly. I hope the continue to change. Current
situation is untenable for men and women, which is probably a societal
improvement over situation way untenable for women.

I'm also accepting that this is going to continue until men do a better job of
policing men.

~~~
SlowRobotAhead
I think it’s optimistic of you to think it’ll ever be “enough”. It’s a
pendulum, not a scale, it never stops because things are even.

