They Generally Don't Like Scholars, as They're Less Compelled or Pressured to Repeat What Corporations and Oligarchs Say
"Scholar" is something I regarded myself to be as a postdoc (short for postdoctoral workers or various roles). I did in fact exercise some freedom as a postdoc, the salary was relatively low (i.e. the usual for postdocs), and nobody made threats to me. Corporations like to issue "PIPs" or "disciplinary proceedings" (similar things, different labels) against workers; they view workers as mere "cogs" and any signs of dissent or disagreement aren't tolerated; they're seen as acts of "disloyalty".
A short time ago somebody uploaded this new photo (I'm assuming taken last night in Italy) of Richard Stallman (RMS). He was well received by students and very high-level scholars in Rome, where his slot was labeled "Distinguished Lecture" and attracted a lot of people (on both "decks") despite him hardly mentioning the talk (he posted a short blurb about 20 hours before the talk, which had already been confirmed for a long time).
This morning we saw Finns writing about last Thursday's RMS talk, which they attended. A day later he spoke to nearly 700 people in Sweden, we don't know how many people came to his talk in Helsinki. Maybe that doesn't matter either. The important thing is that he got invited and talked.
Based on written accounts (no videos available, unlike in Munich next week [1, 2]; maybe some EPO staff should consider attending), in Helsinki he stressed the importance of privacy.
Sadly, Europe and the EU cultivate privacy violations (like Brett Wilson LLP sending people on motorcycles to my house to take photos and then pass around those photos in PDFs; talk about creepy*... this did this to me this week!). We can do better than this. We should do a lot better. We should openly discuss such matters. Scholars do. They serve an essential role in society because they're less afraid of their bosses, they should just not upset those who decide on grants and tenures (usually other scholars who think alike).
With Trumpism creeping into the United Kingdom we can expect more attacks on science, scholars, and anybody who thinks "differently". We can and should expect this. And we must fight back.
People who loathe scholars have an agenda in mind that, unlike that of reasonable people, revolves around controlling people [1, 2]. This includes remotely controlling people's computing devices. █
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* They refuse to say who's funding these abuses against us, aside from the Serial Strangler from Microsoft and his litigation buddy Garrett [1, 2]. It should be noted that a few weeks ago they got sued by their own clients [1, 2, 3] and it looks serious.