AIBU to think we should be funding this BS?

Should NOT be funding?

A lot of academia is pointless long-winded shoe gazing, especially the soft subjects. I’m surprised you didn’t already know this. And yes it’s frustrating we’re paying for it.
Not a criticism of you, but are you particularly offended by this one due to the TRA author ?

I don't understand your premise - could you say a bit more about the funding aspect?

I do have an issue with the way in which academic language is often used to make interesting concepts difficult to understand. I think it's exclusionary, perhaps deliberately so. Underneath it all though, the abstract points to some interesting questions. You don't have to agree with what the author is saying for it to be food for thought!

It's infectious isn't it, by the end of that you'd invented the word 'unentangle' when the perfectly good word 'untangle' already exists.

I dunno everyone's got to do something. It's terrible meaningless shit but perhaps it'll evolve to the point where a whole bunch of other people are paid good money to mock it. Maybe they already exist, too? I'm just pissed off that I missed the gravy chain. Everyone should have a gravy chain!

You're right of course. But it's the world. I listened to More or Less on R4 dissecting how much of the world's money Elon Musk has and it's complicated (of course) but by the first metric they examined he has 1% of the world's wealth. 1%! And he's gender critical. So we're all fucked, whichever way you look at it, up, down, sideways.
I have a headache. I don't think I have a point. I wanted to respond but I genuinely have a headache and cannot sort out a coherent thought now, sorry. 😬

Much academic research is utter tripe, frankly. Zero impact on the majority of the population yet attracts serious funding for said navel-gazing.

To what end? A super fancy hat and gown at a graduation ceremony? An extra line on an email auto-signature? Whilst the fellows swan around campus barely acknowledging the plebby undergrads who are mostly funding their existence.

I had to put that through chat gtp to understand it; my response is that trans is over represented in pride news etc on the bbc and the media do not have a correct social representation at all, and he ahoo be careful what he wishes for.

As, for example, well over half of trans people in prison are convicted of sexual abuse/ assault crimes. That definitely doesn’t come through on algorithms. If anything it’s the opposite.

By creating that research article and forming the false conclusion it has, it’s contributing to the algorithm that says trans people are poorly rep represented in the media.

chat gtp response below:

In layman’s terms, it’s basically saying:
Algorithms aren’t as neutral or objective as we often assume. They can inherit and reproduce society’s old ways of categorising people—especially the idea that everyone must fit neatly into “male” or “female.” For trans people, this can lead to being misclassified, monitored, excluded, or treated as a problem by digital systems.
A few of the more academic phrases mean:

• “Critical genealogy” → Looking back at the history of an idea to understand where it came from and how it developed.
• “Colonial classificatory violence of binarity” → The historical practice, particularly through colonialism, of forcing people into rigid categories, such as male/female, and treating people who don’t fit those categories as abnormal or inferior.
• “Bureaucratic administrative violence” → Governments and institutions turning those categories into official systems: passports, IDs, forms, databases, healthcare records, etc.
• “Automation in contemporary algorithmic violence” → Computers and algorithms now automatically making decisions based on those same categories.
• “Technooptimist ‘objectivity’” → The belief that technology and algorithms are naturally neutral, fair, and objective simply because they’re mathematical/computerised.
• “Necropolitical” → A complicated term referring to systems of power that determine whose lives are protected, valued, or allowed to flourish and whose lives are exposed to harm, neglect, or even death.
• “Cisnormative” → Assuming that being cisgender (identifying with the sex/gender assigned at birth) is the normal or default state.
• “Trans body is classified and translated as information” → A person’s identity gets reduced to data fields and categories in a computer system.
• “Marked-as-different” → The system identifies someone as outside the assumed norm.
• “Binary valorisation of life itself” → Society treats the male/female binary as the legitimate or preferred way of organising and understanding human life.

So no there shouldn’t be funding for this tripe unless there is also as much funding for research into crimes committed, motivation for transitioning and AGP.

I don't mean to be an annoying pedant, but it's gravy train, not gravy chain.

😂 I love annoying pedants! I actually thought I'd typed 'train' but I typed 'chain' - twice! Can I blame my headache? 🤕

What on earth makes you think you're funding Cambridge (or any) University? Unless your child wrote that thesis and you paid their fees?

Cambridge contributes far far more to the economy than it costs so I'm struggling to understand your point, which I think actually boils down to "I don't like and/or understand this so I don't want other people to think about it"

BBC News - Cambridge University is UK £30bn 'economic powerhouse' says report - BBC News
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-64992999?app-referrer=deep-link

Yes, I'm dubious about all these "identity degrees" where you basically get a masters or PhD in your own lived experience and are taught/supervised/examined by those with the same or similar lived experience because they are necessarily the only ones with the relevant qualifications to become lecturers in these areas.

Even something as un-niche as Women's Studies - do (m)any men take these courses?

It's interesting how the author links modern day classifications to binary distinctions imposed by colonialist/colonialism. That's another way of looking at how western - what we might now call global North - ideals and norms were imposed on other cultures and societies, something which resonates to this day. Do you think AI poses a risk to academic exclusivity?

Well we'd be great friends then!

If you'd typed it once I would have assumed typo, but yes of course a headache counts as mitigating circumstances. 😀

I once read that a PhD thesis should aim to be so mind-numbingly boring and incomprehensible, that the assessor(s) will soon give up and award a pass, since they just can’t face ploughing on to the end.

(Obviously this will not apply to two family members who worked hard for their PhDs 🙂)

There is crap work in sociology and good work in sociology. Same as most other fields - good movies get made and crappy movies. It is hard for outsiders to judge what is good, so generally academia makes judgments about itself. And you can be sure sociologists will be looking hard at this and working to improve.

I don't think you understand university funding, at all.

The academic who you chose to link to is obviously an international student, therefore is likely paying eyewatering fees to study in the UK (maybe 30k a year), plus paying rent in the UK, VAT, tax on any earnings.

So if you're worried you're personally funding this research let me reassure you that you are a beneficiary of, not a contributor to, Cambridge's huge wealth.

I think I'm missing the link here between publicly and individually funded research. Universities receive public funding (although as a pp said, they contribute significantly to local and national economics) but that funding isn't conditional on research being approved on a case by case basis by funders. And do we know how this paper/its author have been funded?

I get the annoyance when reading something opaque. I've questioned many times why people can't just say what they mean without using 100 words where one would do! On the other hand, I think we owe it to ourselves as a species not to allow ourselves to stop thinking and trying to work things out. After all there are billions spent by tech companies trying to get us to do just the opposite, to have our attention span wrecked by 2 minute videos and doom scrolling. Isn't it important to make a stand, to keep producing, reading and thinking about complex ideas and concepts? In that light, funding is relatively unimportant because it becomes about more than money. It's a battle between the powerful and the rest of us.

I don’t think ‘we’ are funding ‘this bs’ so yabu for making a nonsensical argument
But I also don’t think there is anything wrong at all with sociological research or in general with the furtherance of knowledge and understanding.

What kind of agenda is it to go actively looking for ‘bs’ in ‘non scientific academia’ sociology and education?

Since when is thinking in the humanities ‘BS’? The sector is in enough trouble and human thought is under enough threat without people stoking culture wars because they’ve got a bit of time on their hands.

Yes it does raise some interesting questions about what counts as "BS" and whether there can be an objective definition of that!

‘soft subjects’ is again a real culture war term. Goes to show how much linguistic study is needed for a start.

But essentially op, you might like to look at the arts and humanities as areas that are both threatened by and a threat to the dominant socio-economic classes and systems. Because, strip away the subject matter of the paper you cited and it's about who holds power historically and currently and who is disadvantaged by that power. No wonder the proponents of "austerity" sought to minimise or eliminate the so-called soft subjects within early education! They don't want us realising what they're up to! Anything could happen if we understood the game...

Looking at it like that, investment in humanities is an excellent use of money. Ironically enough, it might even lead us to question why we see everything in terms of cost effectiveness!

Ha yes, and the sociology of people feeling aggrieved about it and then telling themselves (and others) that they are personally paying for it

Definitely research to be done there!