Hello everybody

This came up as a topic of discussion at my work this week, so I figured I'd post about it.

https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/sabatini-biotech-founder-and-mtor-pioneer-ousted-after-sexual-harassment-investigation

A prominent biologist, Dr. David Sabitini, was fired from MIT this week following an independent investigation that revealed 38 cases of confirmed sexual harassment. Dr. Sabitini's fame in biology comes from his characterization of mTOR, a master regulator of basically everything in the cell. If you are anywhere close to cell biology, you know about mTOR and have to consider its effects.

This scientist was truly an asset to the field, but of course, was a garbage human with a pattern of abuse.

I doubt this does much to fix the issue. He will likely be hired immediately by a biotech company and end up making several times his current salary.



What are your thoughts on sexual harassment when it's perpetrated by people who have accomplished great works? IMO this kind of behavior does more to set any field back, as it discourages talent from entering and contributing.

This post was edited by NetflixAdaptationWidow on Aug 24 2021 09:55am

the more brilliant you are the higher chance you're garbage. musician, scientist, artist, etc. the top tier is always shit.

I think that's true only because we let the "great men" get away with it. I know plenty of great people who could easily replace the top biologists who aren't shit.

Money can make a lot of problems go away, and the "top tier" tend to be those who can get the most money.

This post was edited by NetflixAdaptationWidow on Aug 24 2021 11:24am

i think there's a very real connection between genius and bad person. not a 100% connection of course, but a lot of them are shitty people.

Michael Jordan, total ass hole. Michael Jackson, kiddie diddler. Michael Tyson, psycho. Tiger Woods, banged more porn stars than Ron Jeremy. Elon Musk, bad dude to work for unless you're 20s and single. Kanye West, boy where to start.

the explanation is fairly simple, a drive to succeed like they have where competitive juices flow hard 24-7, mixed with the way people treat someone on that level like a god, leads them to be a shitbag.

you're constantly demanding perfection from everyone in your immediate area while also being treated like you can do no wrong. hard psychological hurdle for many people to remain humble.

I think the "being treated like you can do no wrong" is the biggest part of that. If you're constantly allowed to get away with it why would you stop?

sure, but how do we fix that? tell society to treat people who are great like normal people and people who suck like normal people?

sounds like failed "all bodies are beautiful" to me. and will fail. we admire elite specimens, as we should. what we need to get better at is setting them aside if/when they fuck up. which thankful cancel culture is doing an ok job at starting.

I mean, that's exactly how you fix it. You stop treating them like gods, and instead treat them what they are. Exceptional in their field, but not infallible gods that can get away with anything the rest of us can't.

Most of the time these "great men" aren't even the most exceptional in their field, as much as they are the most exceptional at writing grants or got lucky to be in the right lab at the right time. This guy basically co-discovered mTOR, but it was in graduate school being led by his PI and with a team of other graduate students working on equally promising projects. He got lucky to be put on the one that turned out to be the most notable.

and we can fix gun violence by removing all guns.

the fix has to be pragmatic to be workable. expecting humans to stop hyping up other humans that are top tier is never going to happen. you're better off focused on trimming the bad apples off the tree once you see wasps made a nest inside.

I think that's silly. We've changed attitudes about those at the top before and we can do it again. We don't have presidents murdering people without reprecussions anymore the way we might have had kings in the past. We can change attitudes if we hold them to account. You can separate our hype about their work from letting them get away with things. We don't need to stop all celebration of exceptional individuals.

This post was edited by NetflixAdaptationWidow on Aug 24 2021 12:26pm

Neat theory and all but there are literally 50+ million people that treat Trump like a god.

if theres a pocket of society that wants to treat you like a god you'll find it. and if you're good enough at something that pocket is going to exist.

that's setting aside of course that i dont think the celebrity fandom is a decent thing. its the free market of social interaction, and just as any big company can face lawsuits or boycotts celebs can as well.