Editing The Precariat (section)

=== 2025 ===
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1891415123744489498
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Many of you are asking me to comment on this video.

I was trying very hard not to do so.

@skdh has not been treated properly by the physics community in my opinion. We are generally in agreement and I recommend her.

She is now bigger by herself than all of @bgreene’s World Science Festival. And I believe that she has to think through  these comments at her new scale.

Bottom Line: @skdh is far more in the right than her critics will acknowledge. But she is now at a new scale and these remarks are misleading in my opinion.

Fundamental Physics is, to me, what Mars and Rockets are to @elonmusk: man’s only hope for long term survival. 

My belief is that @skdh is now so negative based on her egregious treatment at the hands of her community that her righteous position is  actually endangering physics itself in the era of @DOGE.

I would consider debating her as a friend to give a more positive view. 

Her and my tormentors in physics are our enemies basically because they are '''precarious'''. And '''precarious scientists are dangerous'''. Should we starve them or pay them?

@skdh and I agree that there are a lot of shitty physics folks behaving badly. Sabine is closer to saying cut off the bad scientists. I am closer to saying “We have a Fauci problem in physics. Get rid of the means by which our ‘Faucis’ control us by making their colleagues '''precarious'''. Wealth is the solution to the ethics crisis in physics. The physics community that brought you the wealth of the modern world cannot be controlled by our Fauci’s. Honor the community by freeing them from economic tyranny and the problem gets solved in a positive manner.”

I despise the cowardly enemies of science, and of Sabine. In my opinion they are bullies and cowards really only because they were wrongly made '''precarious'''. 

We desperately need our physicists. Free them. Pay them. Free them from our Fauci’s.

I would be happy to debate Sabine (and @bgreene, @seanmcarroll, @michiokaku and others) on this. It’s literally life and death to me in the long term [See my pinned tweet.] and Sabine is wildly too negative here. Happy to defend this.

🙏
|quote=
{{Tweet
|image=skdh-profile.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/skdh/status/1890793193400340527
|name=Sabine Hossenfelder
|usernameurl=https://x.com/skdh
|username=skdh
|content=I want to read you an email that I was asked to keep confidential because I think it explains some of my worries about academia.
{{#widget:YouTube|id=shFUDPqVmTg}}
|timestamp=3:00 PM · Feb 15, 2025
}}
|timestamp=9:11 AM · Feb 17, 2025
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{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1894831756966261000
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=How about reaffirming the unsayable:

A) Research Universities are supposed to be dedicated to scholarship and discovery above all else. Not teaching. Not politics. Not incubating business spinoffs.

B) They are suppose to be exclusive. Not inclusive.

C) The professors are supposed to lead the university. Not the staff. Not the administrators. 

D) '''Academics are not to be made precarious'''. 

E) Even private elite universities are not really private. They are government funded to do the work that the market cannot.

F) The USG is in breach of the historical commitment to support blue sky science in US Universities.

G) Graduate students are workers disguised as students. Foreign students are a foreign workforce. 

H) [[Peer Review|Peer review]] is astonishingly recent and doesn’t work. 

I) There is a quasi military function to research universities. They are part of National Security. Patriotism matters.

J) Some fields do not deserve to be together on a level field. Biology and gender studies for example. 

K) Some fields *may* now be too dangerous to be studied openly.  Parts of physics, number theory and 
Machine learning leap to mind. This must be studied. 

L) The AAU, [[National Science Foundation (NSF)|NSF]], [[National Academy of Sciences (NAS)|NAS]] etc. have all conspired against the welfare of American scientists and their families. Scientists need to be in the rooms where their fates are determined. 

M) The difference between a research university and a college takes place almost exclusively within three groups of people: Professors, Graduate Students, and PostDocs/Researchers/Visitors. It often takes place in the afternoons. In seminars. In Labs. Etc. If you aren’t part of that world you aren’t part of the University. You are working or studying in BigEd but not involved with the university itself.

N) The great man/woman theory is basically correct in academics. Individual academicians change the world. 

O) The [[Mansfield Amendment (1969)|Mansfield amendment]], [[Bayh-Dole Act (1980)|Dole-Bayh]], [[Eilberg Amendment (1976)|Eilberg]], [[IMMACT90]] etc laws need to be undone. The damage has been incalculable.
|quote=
{{Tweet
|image=sfmcguire79-profile-FzUJV2Yy.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/sfmcguire79/status/1894469745946021940
|name=Steve McGuire
|usernameurl=https://x.com/sfmcguire79
|username=sfmcguire79
|content=Full page ad in today’s WSJ taken out by leaders at @VanderbiltU and @WashU:

Higher Education is at a Crossroads

To university leadership, Board members and alumni:

American higher education is at a crossroads. Ideological forces in and outside of campuses have pulled too many universities away from the core purpose, principles and values that made them America's great engines of learning, innovation and discovery, and the envy of the world.

It is imperative that universities reaffirm and protect these core principles, strengthen their compact with the American people, and build on their unmatched capacity for teaching and innovation. They must do so not only because universities provide education that is transformative and research that improves everyday life—but also because their work is vital to American prosperity, competitiveness and national security.

To this end, the leadership of Vanderbilt University and Washington University in St. Louis recently took action at the board level to affirm our commitment to three indispensable principles that have long guided us:

-Excellence in all aspects of our institutions' work, free of political litmus tests, grounded in a commitment to institutional neutrality in words and deeds;

-Academic freedom and freedom of expression, to ensure unfettered inquiry, perspectives drawn from a wide range of human experience, and dialogue and debate that are free from censorship and disruption; and

-An environment that fosters growth and development, including a commitment to minimizing financial and other barriers that impede students' access to our institutions or that hinder their academic success.

Learn about the Vanderbilt-WashU Statement of Principles and efforts to restore confidence in America's great universities at HigherEdStatementofPrinciples dot com

Bruce Evans</br>
Chairman, Board of Trust</br>
Vanderbilt University

Andrew Bursky</br>
Chair, Board of Trustees Washington University in St. Louis

Daniel Diermeier</br>
Chancellor</br>
Vanderbilt University

Andrew D. Martin</br>
Chancellor</br>
Washington University in St. Louis
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|timestamp=7:29 PM · Feb 25, 2025
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|timestamp=7:27 PM · Feb 26, 2025
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{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1910686332512592304
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=What has happened is that the expert class has been made '''precarious'''…by the power class.

The power class then buys or threatens the expert class.

“Join us Sarah in saying that a man identifying as a woman is as much a woman as a woman…as a professor of biology, or lose your job.”

“It would really be helpful Sunil to have a study that shows that our product is helpful and not harmful or at least that the any harms are negligibly small and are being greatly exaggerated.”

“Surely you are still a scientist Fred and haven’t become a racist conspiracy theorist claiming this virus could possibly have come out of a laboratory biowepons program.”

“But Gustavo, why would you suggest we waste what little discretionary funding we have on a conference where non-string theorists jealous of our funding success point to our lack of any definitive progress when we clearly have so many interesting leads to follow?”

BOTTOM LINE: you aren’t having an expertise crisis. Your having an artificial precariousness crisis imposed on your expert class by broken tacit agreements turning the community into expert witnesses who no longer can afford to put that expertise in public service.

If you actually believe that expertise has collapsed, then explain why the power class are right now buying,  converting, and privatizing your experts, while all the while whispering in your ear that the public spirited experts still loyal to their craft are charlatans, madmen, “big mad”, grifters, pseudo scientists and anything else they think you might be dumb enough to believe?

Have you never heard of concierge medicine? Who flies and maintains the planes at the private airports? Who does the plastic surgery? What do former Delta force operators do for work when they need to make money? Who provides IT security in $50M mansions? Who builds those homes?

Don’t be an idiot. The more you are taught to hate and distrust your experts, the more they will turn to power to provide their expertise privately and bullshit to you publicly. 

Sorry. But that is exactly what is happening.

Good luck. 🙏
|timestamp=1:28 PM · Apr 11, 2025
}}



{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1922247866300707234
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Here is a challenge for any of my colleagues who think this is a [[Nothing Burger|nothingburger]]: given the craziness of the widely discussed and publicized claims in a field that has not seen a change in the Fundamental models of physics in 50 years (!), who are the 25 most prominent physicists and mathematicians who have discussed the @pmarca claims publicly? Nobel laureates? Fields medalists?</br>
Chaired professors worried about the health of science? Top science communicators? PhD level debunkers demanding @pmarca to put up or shut up?

In a functional world where scientists are not '''precarious''', it would be a *huge* topic of interest, discussion and [[Academic Freedom]]. Or it would be debunked. That’s it. There are no other options. Just those two.

Please leave your list below with links! 🙏
|thread=
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1922242777422954949
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=A very interesting question is why academics almost uniformly make fun of conspiracy theories…when presented by colleagues at least. 

Los Alamos, Tuskegee, Human Terrain Systems, etc. all involved conspiracy BY ACADEMICS. Some were good. Some bad. Some ambiguous.

But isn’t it odd that conspiracies are a permanent part of human existence, yet trying to study them or theorize about them results in crippling professional penalties?

I am astonished that I have not heard one single physicist call @pmarca a liar for claiming the Biden Whitehouse revealed that entire public subfields of theoretical physics were taken off-line by the government for security reasons, and disappeared or went dark.

Nor have I heard “We have to look into this!”.</br>
Nor have I heard “Wow! That is super interesting.” Just silence.

But what I have heard is academics finding it laughable that others find this is interesting.

The @pmarca claim about physics is thus one of the most anti-interesting claims I have ever heard. Everyone in physics just seems to intuitively know not to ask about it.

Has anyone seen @michiokaku, @neiltyson, @bgreene etc. commenting on this claim? I haven’t. 

They all just know: Don’t go there girlfriend.
|quote=
{{Tweet
|image=tsarnick-profile-PRpYEDXP.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/tsarnick/status/1813393267679240647
|name=Tsarathustra
|usernameurl=https://x.com/tsarnick
|username=tsarnick
|content=Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz say that when they met White House officials to discuss AI, the officials said they could classify any area of math they think is leading in a bad direction to make it a state secret and "it will end"
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|timestamp=2:00 AM · Jul 16, 2024
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|timestamp=10:49 AM · May 13, 2025
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|timestamp=11:09 AM · May 13, 2025
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{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1977279785547317570
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=I devoted years of my life to the study of this question. Anyone who asks why we want our own STEM people to have AMAZING CAREERS in research like the 40s, 50s and 60s is accused of being a whiner. WTF? It’s so regular you can set your clock to it.

Eff that. Someone is throwing this game. Why???? Why are we helping our rivals by destroying ourselves? Anyone?

I can never get an answer. Why do we expect US STEM people to sign up for '''shitty precarious careers'''? Why is it the job of PhDs to invent a glorious prosperous future for others they are not allowed to share?

We want to challenge and surpass our leaders like the old days, not peel them grapes, suck up to them and do their grunt work. 

It’s time to face facts: we are throwing the US science game for no known reason.

I have addressed the National Academy 5 times on this and at the highest levels. I cannot get a straight answer.

We are deliberately seeking less good conventional scientists from abroad over our own house brand of “FU take no prisoners yee haw cowboy scientists.” 

I never want to hear the “Best and Brightest” lie again in my life. 

You just can’t offer these shitty careers and say that with a straight face. 

Let’s go back to going after the top U.S. minds again and make MIT great again.
|thread=
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1977406779769450867
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Ex MIT PostDoc here.

Q: Why do we make academic STEM research careers **TERRIBLE** for our own technical people?

Is there anyone at all who can explain this? 60yrs ago our people had swagger, academic freedom, ideas & 2nd homes on the Vineyard.

We now demand STEM serfs.

Why??
{{Tweet
|image=RepThomasMassie-profile-SmC-Bb8i.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/RepThomasMassie/status/1976940424389615923
|name=Thomas Massie
|usernameurl=https://x.com/RepThomasMassie
|username=RepThomasMassie
|content=To be the best science and technical school in the world, you have to accept the smartest people in the world. Not all of them are born in the United States.
|timestamp=4:11 PM · Oct 12, 2025
}}
|timestamp=7:32 AM · Oct 12, 2025
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|timestamp=7:46 AM · Oct 12, 2025
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{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1977417861439406308
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Yes. No one else will tell you this truth.

Do you imagine I care about consensus  positions or being misportrayed on this need to deal scientists into the prosperity that all comes from what THEY provided for others? Ha ha ha. 

I’m all in on this. 

Here goes: you were all locked down for two years being fed lies about the origins, risks, and mortality of COViD and its vaccines because your scientists are all economically precarious. Every professor is vulnerable because they are precarious. Is this that difficult to understand for you??

Your tech elite won’t tell you.

MAGA won’t tell you.

The woke won’t tell you.

The NeoCons won’t tell you.

Peer Review won’t save you.

The professors won’t tell you. 

For some reason that I don’t grasp, there is exactly and only one person telling you this:

Your advanced society will collapse without scientific ground truth. And any scientist who says what I am saying is reputationally destroyed.

Taking the cowboy kings of American scientists and turning them into a servant class circa 1970 undermined the west. China will eventually overtake us as a result of this catastrophic decision. Science, freedom and truth were our edges because they became technology and tech became wealth and security and truth. The world appreciated and feared us.

And fixing this is as simple as dealing your top American scientists into personal security of about 8 figures of wealth. Enough to take a stand, hire lawyers/personal security, lose a job, have your reputation annihilated by “covert influence campaigns” from the intelligence services and insulate your family. 

You want me to say it? Fauci and Collins and Baric and Daszak and Epstein and the CIA/DOE/NIH/NSF/NAS are no picnic. They are on the other side of this thing. They are terrifying. So yeah. I want our original deal back. Second homes is shorthand for “Fuck you money” or institutional protection. Clear? Can I possibly be clearer? 

Let me repeat it: I want scientist secure  enough to tell you the truth when our own U.S. government and military industrial complex goes totally rogue. 

Cope with it. 

But maybe you enjoy lockdowns. And having “drone” overflights we can’t identify. And having our AI intellectual property instantly move to China. And injecting your children with things you can’t understand. Maybe you want to tell your weapons grade virologists and physicists to fuck off and get a real job and stop whining. I wish you well. 

If so, make fun of the one scientist who will tell you. Great move. Smart. Genius. 

You need to deal in American scientists with [[FU Money|Fuck You money]]. Because China is figuring this out right now…

Do have fun. Enjoy. 

P.S. And why do you hear this from one voice? Because standing alone is what American Scientists do at their core when they believe they are right. It is what gave us our advantage. And I will chose that hill every single time. I believe in us over anyone else on earth. And if that means one voice, outgunned, against everyone else, so be it. You’re wrong. And I know what I am talking about. You don’t. Simple as that. 

But maybe you want to check the consensus and get this tweet peer reviewed by my colleagues who cower in their STEM departments. 

Best of luck.
{{Tweet
|image=pcater64-profile-_1AmI4UD.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/pcater64/status/1977406779769450867
|name=p
|usernameurl=https://x.com/pcater64
|username=pcater64
|content=2nd homes on the vineyard 🥴
|timestamp=4:11 PM · Oct 12, 2025
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|timestamp=4:55 PM · Oct 12, 2025
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{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/ericrweinstein/status/1978320840111567135
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=So look at this poll. 

I am here to tell you we the United States, are drowning in top scientific talent and we are making their lives into a '''precarious''' hell conning them into make everyone else rich. Except them.

“Make value for us to capture.”

Around 1970, Scientific research was transformed into a TERIBLE and '''PRECARIOUS''' U.S. career.

Made much worse in 1990.

Why is no one ringing this alarm? I have no clue.

Look at the poll results. 

I repeat: 

Scientific research was transformed into a TERIBLE and '''PRECARIOUS''' U.S. career. 

Why is no one else ringing this alarm?

I’m simply right on this. It does not matter what the consensus is. This is not a hill to die on. I will win every time.

I am telling you the truth. You are signed up for more pandemics, more drone incursion, more inflation, more Pharma recalls, and to lose to China. 

Deal your scientists back in and away from the precariat. This is insane. 

Look at this poll. There really is no question about this. It’s a catastrophe.
|quote=
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1977614904174809588
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=U.S. National Interest Poll.

Which competitive occupation can America *least* afford to surrender as a highly attractive career path for Americans:
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|timestamp=5:58 AM · Oct 13, 2025
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|timestamp=4:43 AM · Oct 15, 2025
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