Nerdfame, Part I: the second best thing to real fame

Today hotshot social psychologist Felicia Pratto gave a talk to the people who study intergroup relations at UCLA. She and fellow important social psychologist Jim Sidanius (who's at UCLA) are responsible for Social Dominance Theory, which, in regular-people-speak says that there are basically two kinds of people -- bastards who want to keep oppressed people in their place of relative disadvantage ("hierarachy enhancers") and good people who believe in equality between groups ("hierarchy attenuators"). Of course the real theory is much more complex, but you get the idea. Her talk was about a new theory of power she's developing, but my favorite part was when she was describing how she was measuring power relations with a fairly complicated allocation game her team created. Total deadpan delivery and in all earnestness she says, "I'm a full professor now so I can do whatever stupid thing I want." The other non-theory related but noticeable piece of her talk was that she kept using the word "fungible." Fungible? Really? Yes. Fungible is not a beautiful word. It sounds like it should describe the shower mats in a junior high gym. I looked it up after the talk and it means interchangeable-- she was talking about dynamic bases of power after all. I think she could've found a more pleasant sounding word.