Elon Musk vs The Royal Society

[Tristan]

I have sympathy for the Royal Society on this I think, though I’ve changed my view on it recently. Ultimately what harm does having a fellowship actually do, compared to the real harm he could do to the RS should he choose to? The benefit would be a purely moral/principled one. He’s not capitalising on his status to do what he’s doing, and taking it away won’t prevent him doing anything.
Similarly my Alma mater (Surrey) gave him an honorary doctorate 20ish years ago. I actually met him at an event related to that. I’ve was thinking of writing to them asking them to withdraw it, but as a university with strong space sector links I’m not sure that’s a good idea. He’s petty and vengeful and could do them real harm. Would it be worth it?

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... -elon-musk

[Grumble]

The harm to the Royal Society lies in it being discredited by the association with Musk.

[Tristan]

How does that balance with the harm he could do to the RS if he chose to? Remember, he's rich, petty, vindictive and frankly unhinged.

[FlammableFlower]

There's a difference in honorary doctorates, which are given for a wide variety of reasons (scientific/engineering, financial, societal), vs membership of a society which usually have very specific entrance criteria in order to actually make it worth something. As various people have pointed out, what Musk has done is be able to fund things to be developed (and all those things already were in the process of being developed) - he hasn't done any of the science or engineering himself. He's been an enabler at best; and given the stories of them trying to actively distract him at SpaceX from actually taking decisions, that's being kind.

The harm, as Grumble says, is in the reputation to a supposedly elite scientific society if anyone can just buy their way in by splashing lots of cash on the sciences. In that way it's not just moral if it then has implications if your reputation is damaged and people start to think you're irrelevant. The RS funds a lot of research (and researchers directly, e.g. Royal Society Fellowships) - I don't know off the top of my head where they get that funding from to dole out, but there's a potential for that to be harmed.

The difficulty is that (IMO) he should never have been admitted in the first place, but since he was any decision to revoke that is going to have other ramifications - as you say Tristan, he could be a total petulant arse. With his forays into supporting various right-wing political groups and having social media sway and a foot in US government, he could cause trouble.

The question becomes, do you take a stand, in the face of hypothetical hardship or not? In the US a number of law firms and universities have taken differing approaches to threats and coercion from the Trump administration as to whether to bend the knee or to resist. If they were to expel Musk would the hypothetical threat turn out to be real or not?

[Tessa K]

So the bully wins? That's awful but understandable in the circumstances.

[nekomatic]

Extraordinary statements above. What specific actions are people suggesting Elon Musk would take that would harm the Royal Society, a charitable foundation in the United Kingdom? Ban US publicly funded institutions from subscribing to or publishing in its journals maybe? It looks like they’re trying to gut US science to such a point that that’ll be happening anyway.

Btw (my italics, their grammar):

The Royal Society's motto 'Nullius in verba' was adopted in its First Charter in 1662. is taken to mean 'take nobody's word for it'. It is an expression of the determination of Fellows to withstand the domination of authority and to verify all statements by an appeal to facts determined by experiment.

But then I see they only started admitting women as Fellows in 1945, so maybe keeping up with the times is not a strong point.

[Tristan]

Extraordinary statements above. What specific actions are people suggesting Elon Musk would take that would harm the Royal Society, a charitable foundation in the United Kingdom?

Off the top of my head could attempt to sue them (wouldn't necessarily win, but could still be costly and waste time), he could at attempt to discredit key members, he could challenge funding they receive (particularly from US partners), he could ask his mate Donald to attempt to shut down their US 501(c) that they fundraise through or to pressure UK government to cut funding.

[nekomatic]

Off the top of my head could attempt to sue them (wouldn't necessarily win, but could still be costly and waste time), he could at attempt to discredit key members, he could challenge funding they receive (particularly from US partners), he could ask his mate Donald to attempt to shut down their US 501(c) that they fundraise through or to pressure UK government to cut funding.

It's up to the RS of course, which I have no stake in, but if I were anything to do with a scientific society that wasn't prepared to face those low to moderate risks rather than stand up for its founding principles then I would say that society wasn't worth having. I might think that if I currently funded them as well.