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The Yale Problem Begins in High School

heterodoxacademy.org

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Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#221

Post by kelukelugames »

caseysoftware wrote: post #181
kelukelugames wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which ideas do they want to censor? Edit: I'm looking for specific examples. Otherwise we are just feigning outrage. I had an ex co-worker who confided in me that he doesn't like gay people. I was very happy that he couldn't say that in public.

> I had an ex co-worker who confided in me that he doesn't like gay people. I was very happy that he couldn't say that in public. Good call. As long as your opinions remain "acceptable" you have nothing to worry about.

Are you being sarcastic? I'm happy that he's not harassing my other co workers.

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#222

Post by Nickersf »

BurningFrog wrote: post #112
lumberjack wrote: post #25

These people act this way because they are elitist. They think they know what should be better than anyone else and therefore there is no need for debate or for rights like free speech. I find that quite ironic because presumably, these people subscribe to left leaning ideologies. But maybe there isn't so much of a contradiction. They are simply more elitist than they are anything else. They don't really stand for eq…

The interesting part is not why these people do this, but why they are winning.

Because until recently no one has had the balls to stand up to sjw/radfem kids. What worries me the most is that in the process of fixing this social misalignment the far right could gain ground. Which is replacing one evil with the other...

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#223

Post by dragonwriter »

flopto wrote: post #220
dragonwriter wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When talking about white privilege, the point is that poor whites are better off than poor blacks, just by virtue of being white. Its not clear to me that that that's true; there is complicated intersectionality at play. Poor whites are more likely to have social networks and other advantages that provide things useful to getting out of poverty, and may -- due to racism and the racially unequal distribution of weal…

Poor blacks, unlike poor whites, are subject to mass incarceration. Edit: this is technically incorrect, see dragonwriter below.

Poor whites and poor blacks are both subject to mass incarceration; though poor blacks are incarcerated at even higher rates. This is clearly among the factors that, on average, favors poor whites over poor blacks. I certainly did not deny the existence of such factors (I even enumerated some of them.)

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#224

Post by lern_too_spel »

refurb wrote: post #214
lern_too_spel wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to have bought into fair and balanced horseshit. There are certain views that are morally superior to others, just as there are certain hamburgers that are better than others. Taking rights away from other people loosely based on ancient superstitions (the Bible says nothing about allowing gays to marry but says a lot about how to punish them -- the only reason Eich and his ilk aren't politically promoting t…

There are certain views that are morally superior to others Whose morals? Back in the 1800's in the South it was generally viewed as moral to have slaves. Was that right?

Secular morals. Owning slaves obviously doesn't pass the test.

As a secular person, your main purpose is to live a long healthy life because that's all there is -- secular people don't get brownie points in the afterlife for the bodycount of heathens they've racked up. You will live a longer life if you live in a society of educated people who can do the science to keep you healthy and don't want to kill you (because you've oppressed them in slavery, because they have no money, or because they're brain-damaged from lead poisoning).

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#225

Post by Retra »

xenihn wrote: post #218
Retra wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That is a direct contradiction. You acknowledge as much right after. What's even the point of writing this and posting it? Umm... to SHOW that it's a contradiction. To demonstrate the absurdity of making statements that betray one's behavior. It's easier to know how dumb you're being if you see someone else doing it. Let me rephrase this for you. I don't care about anime. When someone throws an anime conference, I d…

>I don't care about anime. When someone throws an anime conference, I don't care. I won't be going. What I'm not going to do is jump on the internet and start saying "I have a problem with anime conferences!" Apples and oranges, you're allowed to go to anime conferences. This is literally what you think: "You're opposed to gender-exclusive conferences, and you think that the prioritization of one gender over another…

A. I'm not talking about gender-exclusive conferences, nor was the person I responded to (as far as I can tell), nor have I ever heard of such a thing.

B. If you think my English is so poor that I'm unable to properly express myself, then maybe you shouldn't pretend to know what I'm thinking. You only have access to a few of my words, and you've already (actually, literally) indicated that you don't understand them.

So don't be an ass. And maybe take a step back and look at how your behavior supports your broader point.

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#226

Post by mynameisvlad »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #201
nine_k wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While their behavior was entirely legal and protected by the First Amendment, the problem lies elsewhere. It's in the utter lack of tolerance to the views not conforming to the group's, not unlike the reaction religious extremists would display. Can't help but quote: -- The Emperor summons before him Bodhidharma and asks: “Master, I have been tolerant of innumerable gays, lesbians, bisexuals, asexuals, blacks, Hispan…

You seem to have bought into fair and balanced horseshit. There are certain views that are morally superior to others, just as there are certain hamburgers that are better than others. Taking rights away from other people loosely based on ancient superstitions (the Bible says nothing about allowing gays to marry but says a lot about how to punish them -- the only reason Eich and his ilk aren't politically promoting t…

> just as there are certain hamburgers that are better than others

There's nothing that objectively makes a hamburger better than another. It's all subjective, just as views are subjective. Some people like bread a lot, so they may want a really thick bun which could be overpowering to another person. Some people are vegetarian, while others cringe in disgust at a black bean burger. It doesn't make those hamburgers any better or worse than others, though.

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#227

Post by rmxt »

rewqfdsa wrote: post #204
rmxt wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not demanding hypersensitivity, I'm simply claiming that the path towards better debate is one where emotional invective is left off the table. If you can clearly explain why classifying people as "raving lunatics" adds insight on how to mediate the state of open ("free") college campus discourse, then I'll keep an open ear as to the value of such comments. Also, I find it hard to believe that "fuck that piece of…

> I'm not demanding hypersensitivity, I'm simply claiming that the path towards better debate is one where emotional invective is left off the table. You're taking the standards of a debate hall, applying them to an internet community, and then using the predictable and inevitable discrepancy to call the internet community hateful when, in fact, that's the normal level of discourse for _any_ internet community. > I r…

Calling /r/SJWhate and /r/SJSucks hateful are calling spades, spades. I've said nothing about the moral compass of the movement as a whole. To go way back upthread, I was responding strictly to the point that "those subreddits are disagreeable" and I've evaluated that claim for all of the instances provided. However, If you want your points to be taken seriously, I'd suggest that you not make /r/SJWhate the cross that you hang on. Likewise, I would hope that people espousing pro-[women's/minority/abortion/etc.] rights viewpoints wouldn't make "kill all [men/cops/priests/etc.]" their rallying cry.

I wouldn't and don't excuse "kill all men," and I personally think that opinions should be evaluated on their own merits, and not by [x] feature possessed by they who come up with it. You're projecting these beliefs on to me because I've called out certain subreddits as being stomping grounds for emotionally charged, rather than fact based, content. I think both sides of this debate have salient points, but neither side benefits from the content coming out of /r/*hate subreddits.

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#228

Post by Retra »

sinxoveretothex wrote: post #200
Retra wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I don't care about the men/women ratio. I don't care about clothing styles, but if you dress very strangely, I'll judge you just the same. You know why? It's because dressing strangely means you do care about style, and even though I don't care about style, I do care about priorities, and I might find your prioritizing of style to be counter-productive and off-putting. So yeah, I actually do care about style, becaus…

> And right now, you are not focussing on technology, but on gender issues. So you're a hypocrite. You care enough about gender to voice an opinion, but only to lash out at others who dare to have an opinion? When two unrelated fields clash (say science and religion to illustrate the point with different topics), you have to "take a stand" on both even if you want to care only about one of them. In the specific case…

They're not really unrelated fields. No two fields are unrelated, especially to sociology and psychology.

HTTPS was invented to solve a security problem -- a completely social issue that wouldn't exist if people just could be trusted with your data. Unicode was invented to solve the problem that not everybody writes with the Latin alphabet, a problem caused only because people don't agree to fix it. Neither of those would have meant anything if someone didn't convince everybody to use them -- another purely social problem. In fact, almost all computer science issues are attempts to solve or make irrelevant certain classes of social problems. They're not unrelated fields at all. Communication and technology are practically the same thing.

>I think that what he means is that he wants the most important criteria to be about technology

The most important criteria for what? For what conferences people should have? For establishing what a given human wants out of life? For determining whether an industry is prejudiced?

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#229

Post by cespare »

jon-wood wrote: post #140
nickbauman wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with "balancing viewpoints" argument is that it isn't based on a critical ethos and so it cannot progress on the basis of logos. You can have a "balanced viewpoint" and still have debates about "whether the moon is made of the body of Vince Foster or not." There are certain ideas that just don't belong in a university setting because they are bunk and this has nothing to do with diversity of opinion. It s…

Thank you, you've summed up the question of balanced journalism far better than I ever could. The current approach of sticking someone with an opposite opinion on the news, even if that opinion is clearly utter horseshit, really gets to me, but I wasn't able to properly describe why.

BTW the name for this is "false balance".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_balance

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#230

Post by astroalex »

coreyp_1 wrote: post #137

This directly relates to us in tech. Specifically, there is a huge push to reach out to women and girls in CS. I am not opposed to females in CS at all. I will encourage males and females alike to pursue it, because I see CS as the great equalizer; the only thing that matters is what you produce. What I can't stand are these "Women in technology" conferences and workshops to "close the (gender) gap". Why? Because if…

I might agree that "CS is the great equalizer" if everyone is given an equal opportunity to pursue it. But I don't think they are. Boys are given the focus by default: just watch any Hollywood movie with a "hacker" -- are they a man or a woman? I believe girls are taught from a young age that CS isn't for them.

How many potentially brilliant female computer scientists are we missing out on as a society because our media and culture barrages them with images of male programmers? It's in my selfish interest as a white male to promote CS among underrepresented groups -- because one of them might come up with the next innovation that changes my life. But they don't get the chance, because they're told they can't be programmers.

That's why I think outreach focused on young minorities & girls is important.

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