The Yale Problem Begins in High School

Well, you haven't exactly come out and said anything, given that you've posted under a pseudonym....

I'm certain that poor whites are better off than poor blacks, but both are much worse off in most respects than wealthier people of all races. The problem is that poor and lower middle class people of all races are fighting among themselves for scraps.

Yes poor whites are privileged compared to poor blacks, and poor blacks are privileged compared to poor indians living on a reservation. There is almost always someone worse off than you, arguing about who is the most worse off is the wrong fight.

The groups that we divide people into are fairly arbitrary anyway. Why stop at race? Surely you can subdivide any race into smaller groups where some are more privileged than others.

But to most people taking about privilege (especially college students) this issue is purely binary. If you are white you're privileged, if you're black you're not. To them it doesn't matter if you're comparing a middle class black guy and a dirt poor white dude.

> Discussing nursing isn't relevant, and even if it is two wrongs don't make a right, which is the logical fallacy you keep making here. But if you want to hear me say it: there's a shortage of nurses and the fact that men aren't going into it due to social pressures is an issue.

As long as we're pointing out fallacies, you're attacking a straw man here. I'm not saying two wrongs make a right; I'm saying neither wrong is actually a wrong. They are simply outcomes, neither negative nor positive. The overarching point I'm trying to make is that if we both agree we need more nurses, and we both agree we need more techies, and we both agree that men tend toward tech and women tend toward nursing, and operating under the assumption that it's a zero sum game (hint: it's not), then there's nothing wrong with women staying in nursing to keep the overall number of nurses high and men staying in tech to keep the overall number of techies high.

I simply do not see the need for the fields of nursing and tech to swap genders until they both hit some gender equilibrium. The goal should be to increase the overall volume of both nurses and techies (and decrease, perhaps, the number of lawyers ;-).

And by the way, the other day my 3 year old daughter told me she wants to be a nurse when she grows up. It would feel wrong to discourage her by pushing her toward a career in programming, but maybe that's just me.

edit: grammar and added the bit about increasing overall volume of nurses and techies

I liked the following comment. The speaker himself is probably biased as to what happened to him:

As a student of ‘centerville high school’ as well, I can assure you this comment is completely true. While multiple questions were phrased as attacks towards Haidt personally, many of them were completely rational. In response to one question (about his annoyance towards people who are pushing women to be in more stem positions) he stated a very vague position on how women, no matter their environmental conditions in childhood, are still predisposed to not be in stem positions (genetically). This was not the only ‘sketchy’ point he made. The question about his condoning of rape, while completely unnecessary, was founded on his insensitivity towards the subject (which continued into many subjects, including race and gender). His careful picking of data allowed his points to made clearly and succinctly in his mind. Questions that were too long or that had follow ups were completely ignored. In response to one of the first (albeit angry and unnecessary) questions, Haidt’s response was to tell the audience that in order to fully look at an argument, one had to look at both sides, something I (as someone who did believe in a large amount of what Haidt was saying) had to scoff at. His entire argument was founded on the idea that everyone being free to say whatever they want is the best thing possible for American schools, while being politically correct in all scenarios is the worst thing possible for American schools. Obviously there are positive and negative aspects to both. This completely contradicts his belief to look at both sides of an argument dispassionately, not to mention being hard, as students who do care about their education, to listen to. Haidt’s talk was difficult to listen to. Even though I believe in almost all of his points (despite being part of many, although not all, of the minority groups mentioned) his inability to speak to us effectively (in a way that didn’t seem like he condoned rape) made it so that his argument was not relayed to us clearly. His blatant misunderstanding of his audience put him in the position to be attacked. One can say that he did that on purpose, to prove his point about shaking those who do walk on eggshells. But that doesn’t work. Telling defensive people their wrong doesn’t work. Sorry.