This is Professor David Dixon and his entire "thing" is harrassing those who think outside the box: people like Mario and Tony who took their lives because of his kind of harrasssment. Video here:
https://youtu.be/HXSgp755DSA
The video is of Dixon publicly harrasssing people from outside his Institute who have approached him and his Institute with questions / ideas. This is not science. It's more akin to a modern religion where Dixon is doing is a dominance displace from insiders against outsiders. Dixon represents a particular kind of sickness that is affecting academia.
People like Dixon are particularly troubling when one realizes that that the people who reached out to him probably had nowhere else to go with their curiosity. For many people, approaching the sciences in their culture is a death sentence, particular Muslim and fundamentalists communities for example, so imagine that someone finally works up the courage to approach a "scientist" with an idea they could never discuss with their imam or pastor, and the "Scientist" puts their name on blast to the world while calling them a schizo. This is what happened to Mario and Tony.
I fully believe that if Mario and Tony had a community where they could discuss their quirky ideas without harrasssment they would still be alive. Imagine if there had been a community where Tony could have shown off his cool OS rather than be bullied by the Dixons of the world, or where Mario could have discussed his ideas rather than be bullied by the Dixons of the world.
Something needs to change. The world needs MORE understanding. Not less.
https://youtu.be/HXSgp755DSA
The video is of Dixon publicly harrasssing people from outside his Institute who have approached him and his Institute with questions / ideas. This is not science. It's more akin to a modern religion where Dixon is doing is a dominance displace from insiders against outsiders. Dixon represents a particular kind of sickness that is affecting academia.
People like Dixon are particularly troubling when one realizes that that the people who reached out to him probably had nowhere else to go with their curiosity. For many people, approaching the sciences in their culture is a death sentence, particular Muslim and fundamentalists communities for example, so imagine that someone finally works up the courage to approach a "scientist" with an idea they could never discuss with their imam or pastor, and the "Scientist" puts their name on blast to the world while calling them a schizo. This is what happened to Mario and Tony.
I fully believe that if Mario and Tony had a community where they could discuss their quirky ideas without harrasssment they would still be alive. Imagine if there had been a community where Tony could have shown off his cool OS rather than be bullied by the Dixons of the world, or where Mario could have discussed his ideas rather than be bullied by the Dixons of the world.
Something needs to change. The world needs MORE understanding. Not less.
