When systems biology fails to predict the biology of people
Ayyadurai’s understanding of biological health does not translate to an understanding of healthcare policy, which is geared towards ensuring widespread accessibility to medical services, and necessitates the tackling of essentially social topics such as insurance risk discrimination and whether health care itself is a universal right.
The need for a more nuanced understanding of technology
At a school like MIT, a global leader in technological innovation, students and faculty should work not only to promote technology’s advancement, but also to understand and craft comprehensive solutions to the issues it creates. One such problem is automation’s ability to displace many middle-class laborers by mechanizing their work.
Why the Aziz Ansari story and discussions of grey areas are central to the #MeToo movement
People’s negative responses to Grace's story demonstrate that our society faces a deeper issue, where people understand sexual assault in solely the most extreme terms and fail to recognize more quotidian forms of gendered violence.
Everyday lies incentivized by funding sources
Research money impacts what any university works on, and MIT is no exception. Sometimes MIT spends a lot of money focusing on low-impact problems because of who holds the purse strings.
Do postdocs at MIT face sexual harassment?
To ensure MIT's efforts are effective at preventing gender-based violence on postdocs, we need to both regularly assess the experiences of postdocs through surveys and publicly disclose the prevalence of reported incidents and the outcomes of investigations, both of which MIT already does for students.
Unrest in East Turkestan
The world is moving towards drastic revolution on multiple fronts, and numerous shifting paradigms of the world hinge on China’s encroachment on global territories. The Uyghur people may be suffering far away from us, but what happens in China very blatantly does not stay in China.
Issues with MIT’s sexual harassment initiative
Without transparent and open applications for joining the working groups, and without the full release of working group recommendations, each of us is less able to evaluate and define the best actions we should take to improve the MIT community.
Who deserves to be a philanthropist?
A more effective donor would be willing to change their job, investments, and lifestyle to better align with the initiatives that they support.
What’s wrong with accepting dirty money?
If MIT props up groups that actively work against us, our own donors will continue to thwart our dream of a better world. It’s not accepting dirty money that’s bad; it’s that we change our behavior when we cash the check.
The case for pedestrianization in Boston
Resilient ivies, broad-leafed bushes, and coniferous trees can flourish even in Boston’s roller-coaster climate, and serve as simple, low-budget urban beautification.
Abate emissions with greens in quarantine
Plant-based lifestyles also hold incredible implications for social equity, health benefits, and ethical treatment of animals: three hot topics amid coronavirus’s global spread.
Regaining a culture of sustainability amid a pandemic
On college campuses, operational dining facilities now encase everything from hot meals to unpeeled bananas in disposable plastic, transferred in plastic bags to students, who eat with plastic cutlery: all as safeguards against the virus’s spread.
MIT must bear the same burdens it is placing on its students
What are undergraduates, who normally rely on MIT’s summer housing to stay here and e.g. engage in UROPs, supposed to do in one of the most expensive cities in the world, a month and a half before the start of the summer?