Open Access Archivangelism

It’s ironic that billionaire George Soros (who is less wealthy than billionaire Bill Gates but has done a lot more philanthropy, both absolutely and proportionately) is today being notably vilified in a hate campaign by Hungary’s incipient dictator, Viktor Orban, who is expelling the Central European University (founded by Soros, and the best university in Hungary) while blaming its founder for Hungary’s ills. (Meanwhile Orban is busy becoming a billionaire -- in Hungarian Forints stolen from EU funds and Hungarian tax-payers)

Soros’s Open Society Institute was also the one that founded and funded the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) that launched OA 15 years ago. (But I suspect that yet another US billionaire will find a way to trump Orban’s odia with his own...)

From: Lovász László
Subject: Letter from President Lovasz
Date: October 24, 2016 at 3:38:45 AM GMT-4

Dear Colleagues:

I address this letter to Honorary and External members of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Several of you have resigned from ourAcademy, protesting the policies of the Hungarian government and assuming that the Academy did not work to mitigate these. This is a very serious loss for us. I understand their concerns, and respect their decision, but I would like to make some comments about the Academy's position.

Democracy in Hungarian society is still evolving and sadly it has been and still is deeply divided between - roughly speaking - a liberal and conservative side. Throughout society, including intellectuals, this leads to opposing camps, and the tribal mentality often dampens the critical balanced approach that could be expected from such people.

The Academy is one of the very few places where such divisions nevertheless enable creative activities, and where people voting for either side are willing and able to cooperate for the benefit of science and education. I was nominated and elected by all members on both sides of the line, and I promised to maintain this fruitful cooperation. From this it follows that I should not make any political statements in the name of the Academy, since I was not elected on any political platform. Any political statement would be opposed by a considerable fraction of the members.

Of course, it is not always easy to draw the line between political and moral concerns. On issues when politicians from both sides advocate one-bit answers, we try to express a scientifically supported, balanced opinion. This requires rigorous work and advice from experts. For example, our Academy did carry out a thorough and (I hope) unbiased study of the composition of migrants, and with some recommendations, released it to the government; this is now publicly available. On the also hotly debated issue of public education, we did not take sides on whether it should be run by the national or local governments, but started more than a dozen research groups to design education methodology based on real experiments performed in real schools. An extensive volume about the status of the Hungarian legal system has just been published by our research institute (this is also freely available from our web site). We publish well-researched (and often critical) studies about many other legal, sociological, educational, economic issues of our society.

We must cooperate with the government (which was reelected with more than 50% of the votes cast) on a number of issues like research funding (we maintain a research network of institutes employing about 3000 researchers), education, water management and other problems raised by climate change, just to mention a few.

I regret the resignation of several of our external and honorary members. I hope very much that those who have resigned will maintain their close relation with the Academy, their collaboration with Hungarian scientists. I also hope that your expert and wise advice will help the Academy to work for progress and ensure that decisions are made on scientific basis. I want to thank those external and honorary members who expressed their support for a policy as outlined above.

I am at your disposal should you have any questions, and so are your collaborators in research, as well as the leaders of the section of your research area.

Laszlo Lovasz
President, Hungarian Academy of Sciences

From: Stevan Harnad
Subject: Reply to Letter from President Lovasz
Date: October 24, 2016 at 9:05:09 AM GMT-4
To: Lovász László

Dear Professor Lovasz,

Thank you for your message to External and Honorary Members.

I regret that I cannot agree that the underlying issues are merely a matter of political differences of opinion between between liberals and conservatives in an evolving democracy. 

Nor can I agree that — in the name of keeping science separate from politics — there is nothing more the Academy can do. I think the Open Letter of the Internal Members and Doctors indicates what the Academy can do.

But I fully understand the difficult position you are in, in view of the fact that the Internal Members’ salaries and pensions as well as their research grants are under the control of the Orban regime.

Please believe that our resignations and critique are not intended to harm the Academy but to help it.

This is a reflection of my view only. I do not speak for the other resignees.

Yours sincerely,
Stevan Harnad

From: Stevan Harnad
Subject: Fwd: Letter from President Lovasz
Date: October 24, 2016 at 8:34:23 AM GMT-4
To: Thomas Jovin, Israel Pecht, Torsten Wiesel, Daniel C.Dennett

Dear colleagues,

The... letter, sent today by the President of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences to all the External and Honorary Members, is unfortunately a confirmation of the degree to which the Academy is now under the thumb of the Orban regime. It recites the all-too-familiar — and highly misleading — talking points of the Orban regime, marshalled for every occasion: 

(1) Hungary and the Academy have democracy and pluralism 

(2) the issues cited by the resignees are merely political differences between liberals and conservatives

(3) the current government is a reflection of the free will of the majority of the populace

(4) an Academy of Science must be independent of politics

(There is also some muted indication that the President’s and the Academy’s hands are tied because they are dependent on the government for support and subsidies. This is certainly true. But the rest is quite the opposite of the truth.)

1. Democracy in Hungary is not evolving, it is devolving, being systematically dismantled by the Orban regime.

2. The differences among the members of the Academy, and in the general population, are not differences between liberals and conservatives, but between proponents of democracy and proponents (or fellow-travellers) of autocracy.

Opposing the Orban regime are not just liberals but centrists and conservatives, although they are all collectively labelled as liberals (and communists and traitors) by the Orban regime. Even the neo-nazi Jobbik party, which is as far right as one can be, is opposed to Orban’s kleptocracy.

3. The current government is not a reflection of the free will of the populace: It is the reflection of a population under duress from an ever more autocratic and corrupt machine that is controlling their media, their education, their livelihoods, their health, their laws, their tax money and their elections. None of this is a liberal/conservative matter.

4. In a democracy, an Academy of Sciences should be independent from politics. In an increasingly flagrant autocracy, an Academy of Sciences, like every individual and institution, should be opposing the autocracy in any way it can.

The many international, nonpartisan reports in the database linked to our call for resignations contain some of the abundant and definitive evidence of the ever-growing anti-demcratic actions of the Orban regime.

The signatories of the Internal Members' and Doctors’ call for the Academy to investigate and openly debate these actions. This is the way the Academy can do its part in trying to restore freedom and democracy in Hungary. Not in trying to reassure External Members that these are all just partisan political differences on which science is best served by remaining mute.

I close with an illustration of how the familiar tactics of the Orban regime are again palpable in Professor Lovasz’s letter (without a doubt vetted and partly also redacted, by the Orban regime’s minders):  

One of the signatories of the 2011 Open Letter about the "philosopher affair” (which had been a microcosm and harbinger of what was to ensue in the country as a whole in the next 5 years) had been successfully persuaded to withdraw his signature — by receiving a barrage of the apparently polarized views on the issue (government press and police harassment campaigns against Academy members critical of the Orban regime)—  that this was just a partisan political matter on which he could not make a judgment one way or the other. The ensuing five years have since demonstrated to the world that the polarization is not between liberals and conservatives in a democracy, but between opponents and collaborators of a malign and sinking autocracy. This time this prominent academician resigned. I doubt that Professor Lovasz’s letter will persuade him to withdraw his resignation, or to rue it.

Yours sincerely,
Stevan Harnad

From: Lovász László
Subject: Letter from President Lovasz
Date: October 24, 2016 at 3:38:45 AM GMT-4

Dear Colleagues:

I address this letter to Honorary and External members of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Several of you have resigned from ourAcademy, protesting the policies of the Hungarian government and assuming that the Academy did not work to mitigate these. This is a very serious loss for us. I understand their concerns, and respect their decision, but I would like to make some comments about the Academy's position.

Democracy in Hungarian society is still evolving and sadly it has been and still is deeply divided between - roughly speaking - a liberal and conservative side. Throughout society, including intellectuals, this leads to opposing camps, and the tribal mentality often dampens the critical balanced approach that could be expected from such people.

The Academy is one of the very few places where such divisions nevertheless enable creative activities, and where people voting for either side are willing and able to cooperate for the benefit of science and education. I was nominated and elected by all members on both sides of the line, and I promised to maintain this fruitful cooperation. From this it follows that I should not make any political statements in the name of the Academy, since I was not elected on any political platform. Any political statement would be opposed by a considerable fraction of the members.

Of course, it is not always easy to draw the line between political and moral concerns. On issues when politicians from both sides advocate one-bit answers, we try to express a scientifically supported, balanced opinion. This requires rigorous work and advice from experts. For example, our Academy did carry out a thorough and (I hope) unbiased study of the composition of migrants, and with some recommendations, released it to the government; this is now publicly available. On the also hotly debated issue of public education, we did not take sides on whether it should be run by the national or local governments, but started more than a dozen research groups to design education methodology based on real experiments performed in real schools. An extensive volume about the status of the Hungarian legal system has just been published by our research institute (this is also freely available from our web site). We publish well-researched (and often critical) studies about many other legal, sociological, educational, economic issues of our society.

We must cooperate with the government (which was reelected with more than 50% of the votes cast) on a number of issues like research funding (we maintain a research network of institutes employing about 3000 researchers), education, water management and other problems raised by climate change, just to mention a few.

I regret the resignation of several of our external and honorary members. I hope very much that those who have resigned will maintain their close relation with the Academy, their collaboration with Hungarian scientists. I also hope that your expert and wise advice will help the Academy to work for progress and ensure that decisions are made on scientific basis. I want to thank those external and honorary members who expressed their support for a policy as outlined above.

I am at your disposal should you have any questions, and so are your collaborators in research, as well as the leaders of the section of your research area.

Laszlo Lovasz
President, Hungarian Academy of Sciences

From: Stevan Harnad
Subject: Reply to Letter from President Lovasz
Date: October 24, 2016 at 9:05:09 AM GMT-4
To: Lovász László

Dear Professor Lovasz,

Thank you for your message to External and Honorary Members.

I regret that I cannot agree that the underlying issues are merely a matter of political differences of opinion between between liberals and conservatives in an evolving democracy. 

Nor can I agree that — in the name of keeping science separate from politics — there is nothing more the Academy can do. I think the Open Letter of the Internal Members and Doctors indicates what the Academy can do.

But I fully understand the difficult position you are in, in view of the fact that the Internal Members’ salaries and pensions as well as their research grants are under the control of the Orban regime.

Please believe that our resignations and critique are not intended to harm the Academy but to help it.

This is a reflection of my view only. I do not speak for the other resignees.

Yours sincerely,
Stevan Harnad

From: Stevan Harnad
Subject: Fwd: Letter from President Lovasz
Date: October 24, 2016 at 8:34:23 AM GMT-4
To: Thomas Jovin, Israel Pecht, Torsten Wiesel, Daniel C.Dennett

Dear colleagues,

The... letter, sent today by the President of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences to all the External and Honorary Members, is unfortunately a confirmation of the degree to which the Academy is now under the thumb of the Orban regime. It recites the all-too-familiar — and highly misleading — talking points of the Orban regime, marshalled for every occasion: 

(1) Hungary and the Academy have democracy and pluralism 

(2) the issues cited by the resignees are merely political differences between liberals and conservatives

(3) the current government is a reflection of the free will of the majority of the populace

(4) an Academy of Science must be independent of politics

(There is also some muted indication that the President’s and the Academy’s hands are tied because they are dependent on the government for support and subsidies. This is certainly true. But the rest is quite the opposite of the truth.)

1. Democracy in Hungary is not evolving, it is devolving, being systematically dismantled by the Orban regime.

2. The differences among the members of the Academy, and in the general population, are not differences between liberals and conservatives, but between proponents of democracy and proponents (or fellow-travellers) of autocracy.

Opposing the Orban regime are not just liberals but centrists and conservatives, although they are all collectively labelled as liberals (and communists and traitors) by the Orban regime. Even the neo-nazi Jobbik party, which is as far right as one can be, is opposed to Orban’s kleptocracy.

3. The current government is not a reflection of the free will of the populace: It is the reflection of a population under duress from an ever more autocratic and corrupt machine that is controlling their media, their education, their livelihoods, their health, their laws, their tax money and their elections. None of this is a liberal/conservative matter.

4. In a democracy, an Academy of Sciences should be independent from politics. In an increasingly flagrant autocracy, an Academy of Sciences, like every individual and institution, should be opposing the autocracy in any way it can.

The many international, nonpartisan reports in the database linked to our call for resignations contain some of the abundant and definitive evidence of the ever-growing anti-demcratic actions of the Orban regime.

The signatories of the Internal Members' and Doctors’ call for the Academy to investigate and openly debate these actions. This is the way the Academy can do its part in trying to restore freedom and democracy in Hungary. Not in trying to reassure External Members that these are all just partisan political differences on which science is best served by remaining mute.

I close with an illustration of how the familiar tactics of the Orban regime are again palpable in Professor Lovasz’s letter (without a doubt vetted and partly also redacted, by the Orban regime’s minders):  

One of the signatories of the 2011 Open Letter about the "philosopher affair” (which had been a microcosm and harbinger of what was to ensue in the country as a whole in the next 5 years) had been successfully persuaded to withdraw his signature — by receiving a barrage of the apparently polarized views on the issue (government press and police harassment campaigns against Academy members critical of the Orban regime)—  that this was just a partisan political matter on which he could not make a judgment one way or the other. The ensuing five years have since demonstrated to the world that the polarization is not between liberals and conservatives in a democracy, but between opponents and collaborators of a malign and sinking autocracy. This time this prominent academician resigned. I doubt that Professor Lovasz’s letter will persuade him to withdraw his resignation, or to rue it.

Yours sincerely,
Stevan Harnad

Call for External Members of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences
To Resign in Protest Against Assaults on Democracy by the Hungarian Government
In Hungary today democracy is under a dark cloud that is seriously threatening freedom of expression, human rights and even the rule of law. As External Members of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (HAS), we are witnessing with alarm and dismay the relentless and unchecked deterioration of social freedom and justice under Hungary’s current government. We feel that the Academy has the responsibility and the historical duty to raise its voice in defense of freedom and justice in Hungary. Failure to do so would be to miss its higher calling.

The undersigned External Members have accordingly chosen to resign from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences to protest the Hungarian government’s assault on democracy but also to support and underscore the fundamental mission of the Academy and its members, as expressed unambiguously in the Open Letter from 28* Internal Members and Doctors to the President of the Academy on October 14th 2016 requesting:
[*number has since been growing.]

"that the Academy [should] initiate substantive discussion as soon as possible about the anti-democratic developments in Hungary, especially freedom of the press, and that the Academy should take part in the exploration of issues important for the whole of society”

We extend here a general call for External Members of the Academy to join us in resigning in protest against the Orban regime and its repressive policies. This call is addressed only to External Members, not to Internal Members, who might otherwise risk a fate comparable to that of the staff of Hungary’s largest independent newspaper, Népszabadság, often critical of the government, whose operation was abruptly terminated without warning or justification on October 8th 2016.

This open manifesto and all updates will appear online at the Hungarian Free Press website. External Members of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences are invited to resign by sending an explicit letter of resignation by email to the President of the Academy:

Professor Lászlo Lovász
lovasz.laszlo@titkarsag.mta.hu
Important: So that your name can be added to the list, please also send a CC to notify that you have resigned to:

editor@hungarianfreepress.com
Once your identity and intention to resign have been confirmed, your name will be added to the list below.

(For those who would like to consult a comprehensive, detailed legal analysis of the Orban regime’s depredations from 2010 until May 2016, many expert reports are available at http://bit.ly/HungaryReports.)

External Members of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences who have resigned to protest the Hungarian Government's Assaults on Democracy in Hungary:

Jovin, Thomas, Director Emeritus, Laboratory of Cellular Dynamics, Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry (resigned HAS 8 October 2016)
Harnad, Stevan, Professor of Psychology, Université du Québec à Montréal, Professor of Cognitive Science, University of Southampton, UK (resigned HAS 8 October 2016)
Pecht, Israel, Dr. Morton and Anne Kleiman Professor of Chemical Immunology, Weizmann Institute of Science (resigned HAS 11 October 2016)
Wiesel, Torsten, Nobel Laureate, Physiology or Medicine, 1981, President Emeritus, Rockefeller University (resigned HAS, 17 October 2016)
Dennett, Daniel, Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy & Co-Director Center for Cognitive Studies, Tufts University (resigned HAS 17 October 2016)

Open Letter to Professor László Lovász, President of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences

[hyperlinks added, not in original letter]

14 October, 2016

Dear Professor Lovász,

We, the undersigned members and doctors of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences [HAS], representing a variety of world-views and academic interests, hereby wish to express our concern about the antidemocratic processes that have been taking place in Hungary in the last few years, especially the threat to freedom of the press. We consider it highly damaging to amend Hungary’s constitution to diminish the role of checks and balances that is normal in democratic states and to exploit the refugee crisis to arouse xenophobia.

In addition to the deep crisis in education, research and the health system, we are particularly troubled about the nationalization of the public media and their use as government mouthpieces, along with the liquidation of the existing independent press, as in the restructuring of Origo, and, in the last few days, the closure of Népszabadság.

We consider it important that, as a prominent embodiment and forum of our nation’s intellectual sphere, the Hungarian Academy of Sciences should be playing an investigative role as well as implementing substantive debate about these matters of concern for the whole of society. Our concerns are particularly reinforced by the letters that have been sent to the President of the Academy by external and honorary members in the last few days. The significance of the issues raised is underscored by the fact that these respected scholars, concerned for Hungary’s future, have elected to resign as members to protest the inaction on the part of our Academy.

We hence respectfully request that the President see to it as soon as possible that the leadership of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences initiates discussion toward committing itself to launching scholarly investigations as well as conducting debates concerning these urgent issues facing Hungarian society.

As our letter concerns important matters of public interest, we are simultaneously making it public.

Yours sincerely

(signatories in alphabetical order)

Ács Pál, literary historian, HAS Doctor
Bazsa György, physical chemist, HAS Doctor
Csányi Vilmos, ethologist, HAS Member
Erdélyi Ágnes, philosopher, HAS Doctor
Erős Ferenc, psychologist, HAS Doctor
Falus András, biologist, HAS Member
Ferge Zsuzsa, sociologist, HAS Member
Györfi László, mathematician, HAS Member
Jánossy András, physicist, HAS Member
Juhász István, mathematician, HAS Member
Kardos Julianna, chemist, HAS Doctor
Katona Gyula, mathematician, HAS Member
Kertesi Gábor, economist, HAS Doctor
Kertész János, physicist, HAS Member
Kornai András, mathematician, linguist, HAS Doctor
Krausz Tamás, historian, HAS Doctor
Laki Mihály, economist, HAS Doctor
Mellár Tamás, economist, HAS Doctor
Nagy László, biologist, HAS Member
Radnóti Sándor, philosopher of art, HAS Doctor
Sali Attila, mathematician, HAS Doctor
Sarkadi Balázs, biologist, HAS Member
Solymosi Frigyes, chemist, HAS Member
Somlai Péter, sociologist, HAS Doctor
Szalai Erzsébet, sociologist, HAS Doctor
Tóth Bálint, mathematician, HAS Doctor
Váradi András, biochemist, HAS Doctor
Vicsek Tamás, physicist, HAS Member

[Translated by David R. Evans]

Follow-up to:
Harnad, S (2016) Open Access Archivangelist: The Last Interview?
CEON Otwarta Nauka (Open Science)

Richard Poynder: It’s an interesting interview. I have a following-on question for you, Stevan, if you feel like answering it: Much has been made of the likely impact that Brexit will have on science/the UK and European research communities, but what if any impact do you think it could have on the crisis facing liberal democracy?

Hi Richard. This is going to sound apocalyptic (and I certainly hope I’m wrong):
 
I think the British exit from the EU, including all the circumstances and factors that led to it, is one of the most tragic symptoms of the crisis in liberal democracy. As such, it is both cause and effect.
 
The three worst features of the 20th century were war, racism and poverty. The remedy for poverty was meant to be socialism (communism in Russia and China and social democracy in the West). The remedy for racism was meant to be multiculturalism (immigration, integration, tolerance). And the remedy for war was meant to be increasing world federalism (the UN and the EU).
 
But the cold war and the nuclear threat kept nations in a state of tension and consumed vast resources. The eventual economic (and moral) collapse of the Soviet Union seems to have had an effect rather like removing a diseased prostate but thereby disrupting a pro-tem equilibrium and precipitating kidney failure.
 
I think the wrong “objective” conclusion was drawn from the collapse of the Soviet Union (“the socialist experiment has proved to be a failure”). As a result “trickle-down” capitalism has been triumphantly lionized while liberalism and striving for social equity have been equally triumphantly stigmatized.
 
Meanwhile, two kinds of technology have developed at a stunning rate: destructive weapons and online media. One could not expect much good to come from the former, but great expectations were pinned on the latter (including open access). Yet one of the effects of both new technologies has been to “empower” (literally) the worst sides of human nature: the divisive and destructive tendencies toward intolerance, bigotry, fanaticism, paranoia and aggression.
 
And these unleashed human tendencies have quickly found their way to the fatal weakness of democracy itself: The people decide what they want, but their wants are shaped by populism, and unreflective appeals to their basest inclinations. In this it is not surprising that the unreconstructed self-aggrandizing bigotry and xenophobia of petty, primitive countries (like my birthplace, Hungary) have “flowered” with the introduction of democracy in eastern Europe and the middle east. It had been festering there, lying in wait, all along.
 
But one would have thought that the mature democracies would serve as a civilizing bulwark against that. Yet no, Brexit has shown that the same primitive, sinister, shameful inclinations are alive and well in the United Kingdom (and Trump is rallying them in the US too). 
 
No, freedom-of-information and open access did not serve as an antidote, as hoped. Disinformation profited more from the power of open media than the truth did. And the proliferation of destructive weapons is only beginning to be exploited by the genetic and cultural heirs of our most barbaric roots.
 
Perhaps both democracy and liberalism were always doomed; perhaps it was just a matter of time before the law of large numbers, the regression on the mean, would bring out the meanest in us.
 
All one can do is hope that there is an epidemiological ebb and flow also underlying all this, and that illiberalism will run its course, and kindness, decency, humaneness will again become “popular.”
 
I (as you know) remain an unreconstructed social democrat. Ironically echoing the NRA motto in the US, I don’t believe that socialism failed; I think we failed — to implement it properly. No one can hope for justice in an unjust society, where a few have vastly more than they need at the expense of the many who just scrape by. 
 
I don’t know how to fix that, but I suspect that the solution, if there is one, is still an informational one. (It used to be called “education.”) Alongside the basest tendencies of the human genome there are, I believe, humane ones too, at least in the majority if not all people. The hope had been that liberal democracy would ensure that a decent majority prevails, one that enacts laws that protect everyone from the worse sides of our nature (greed, intolerance, aggression).
 
And (as you also know), I plan to focus my remaining years on what I hesitate to call a “microcosm” of it all — because in fact there is nothing “micro" about it: If the Holocaust was humanity’s greatest crime against humanity, the Eternal Treblinka we inflict on victims unfortunate enough not to be our conspecifics is humanity’s greatest crime tout court.
 
So I am trying to mobilize the second technology — open media — to open people’s hearts. We have outlawed slavery, rape, violence and murder against human beings, but we all collaborate in them when practiced against species other than our own. Until the humane majority outlaws it all, our basest inclinations will keep being expressed and exercised against our own kind too.
 
You will of course see this as an obsessive focus on my own “narrow” issue, far removed from Brexit and the crisis of liberal democracy. If so, I’d rather go down trying to liberate the most savagely exploited and long-suffering of our victims than reserve liberalism for the victors.

Richard Poynder: Thanks for your response Stevan.
I don’t disagree with your gloomy conclusions. Personally, I think the core problem is that our political leaders (those who should have been sufficiently educated to know better) gave in to market fundamentalism, and behaved as if everything is a potential market, and that even when this means impoverishing and disenfranchising large sections of the population (thus opening the door to populism, racism and barbarism) it is a price that has to be paid. But perhaps that is what you are saying.

Yes, that’s the trickle-down capitalism that has been (provisionally) dubbed the winner.

As to social media, I don’t really think they have made the problem that much worse. One only has to visit pubs and clubs in certain parts of any city to realise that for many people the worst things one can read on the web are just part of their daily discourse.

I don’t doubt that is and always was the pub discourse. But the social media put it on a global megaphone, incomparably magnifying and accelerating its reach. — And the populist, “wealth-creation” politicos played to it, played it up, and helped it prevail.

The tragedy I see here is that the EU has itself increasingly given in to market fundamentalism, as the Greeks discovered.

I don’t know or understand the details, but some have portrayed some of it as Skinnerian feedback against disproportionate corruption and abuse. Who knows? And surely there was some way of targeting the politicos and the oligarchs rather than the poor.

Let’s hope the future proves less gloomy than we fear! -- Richard

Acting on the hypothesis that there’s still a way to help is the only hope for the victims. Acting on the hypothesis of hopelessness is to betray them: a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Stevan Harnad

On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 1:08 AM, Michael Eisen posted to the Global Open Access List (GOAL):

Stevan. I hate to say I told you so, but .... at the Budapest meeting years ago it was pointed out repeatedly that once green OA actually became a threat to publishers, they would no longer look so kindly on it. It took a while, but the inevitable has now happened. Green OA that relied on publishers to peer review papers + subscriptions to pay for them, but somehow also allowed them to be made freely available, was never sustainable. If you want OA you have to either fund publishers by some other means (subsidies, APCs) or wean yourself from that which they provide (journal branding). Parasitism only works so long as it is not too painful to the host. It's a testament to a lot of hard work from green OA advocates that it has become a threat to Elsevier. But the way forward is not to get them to reverse course, but to look past them to a future that is free of subscription journals.

Also, I don't view CC-BY-NC-ND as a victory as the NC part is there to make sure that no commercial entity - including, somewhat ironically, PLOS - can use the articles to actually do anything. So this license makes these articles definitively non open access. -Mike

Mike, I will respond more fully on your blog:

To reply briefly here:

1. The publisher back-pedalling and OA embargoes were anticipated. That’s why the copy-request Button was created to provide access during any embargo already nearly 10 years ago, long before Elsevier and Springer began back-pedalling; and why I kept posting an ongoing tally across the years of publishers that were still on the "side of the angels" or had back-pedalled.

2. Immediate-deposit mandates plus the Button, once adopted universally, will lead unstoppably to 100% OA, and almost as quickly as if there were no publisher OA embargoes. (It is also not that easy to back-pedal to embargoes after a publisher has agreed to immediate Green OA for over 10 years.)

3. For a “way forward,” it is not enough to “look past the present to the future”: one must provide a demonstrably viable transition scenario to get us there from here.

4. Green OA, mandated by institutions and funders, is a demonstrably viable transition scenario, and underway worldwide.

5. Offering paid-Gold OA journals as an alternative and then waiting for all authors to switch is not a viable transition sceario, for the reasons I described again in response to Éric Archambault: multiple journals, multiple subscribing institutions, ongoing institutional access needs, no coherent global “flip” strategy, hence local double-payment (i.e., subscription fees for incoming institutional access to other institutions' output plus Gold publication fees for providing OA to outgoing institutional published output) while funds are still stretched to the limit paying for subscriptions that remain uncancellable — until and unless other institutions' output is made accessible by another means (Green OA).

6. That other means is 4, above. The resulting transition scenario was presented implicitly in 1994, 1998 and 2000, and has since been described explicitly many times, starting in 2001, with updates in 2007, 2010, 2013, 2014, and 2015, keeping pace with ongoing mandate and embargo developments.

7. An article that is freely accessible to all online under CC-BY-NC-ND is most definitely OA — Gratis OA, to be exact.

8. For the reasons I have likewise described many times before, the transition scenario is to mandate Gratis Green OA (together with the Button, for embargoed deposits) universally. That universal Green Gratis OA will in turn make subscriptions cancellable, hence unsustainable, which will in turn force publishers to downsize to affordable, sustainable Fair-Gold Libre OA (CC-BY), paid for out of a fraction of the institutional subscription cancellation savings. The worldwide network of mandated Green OA repositories will do the access-provision and archiving.

9. It is a bit disappointing to hear an OA advocate characterize Green OA as parasitic on publishers, when OA’s fundamental rationale has been that publishers are parasitic on researchers and referees’ work as well as its public funding. But perhaps when the OA advocate is a publisher, the motivation changes…

Stevan

CHALLENGES TO THE RULE OF LAW IN THE EUROPEAN UNION: THE CASE OF HUNGARY
(March 3rd 2015 Concordia University, Montreal, Canada)

Professor Kim Lane Scheppele, Princeton University, USA
Professor András Bozóki, Central European University, Hungary
Professor András Göllner, Concordia University, Canada
    + Hungarian Government Response (Lajos Olah, Deputy Head of Mission, Hungarian Embassy, Ottawa)

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How Hungary's Orban Regime departed from democracy in the EU
(Prof A Bozoki, Central European University) (1 of 4 videos)

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How the EU can help restore Democracy in Hungary
(Prof KL Scheppele, Princeton University) (2 of 4 videos)

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Democracy 101
(Prof. A Gollner, Concordia University) (3 of 4 videos)

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     Hungarian government response... (4 of 4 videos)

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