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The Yale Problem Begins in High School

heterodoxacademy.org

421–430 of 526 posts

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#421

Look how Silicon Valley folks treated Brandon Eich when he made a donation to the majority side in a California proposition. It's not just academia where you can't speak freely.

Ugh. The Brendan Eich issue was about freedom of association -- in particular, the right of Mozilla employees and stakeholders not to be associated with the bigoted groups (and their hateful TV ads) Eich was supporting -- rather than freedom of speech. If you're still not clear as to the distinction, please see: https://xkcd.com/1357/

That would be the freedom FROM association.

Freedom of Association is the right to join or remove yourself from a group for the sake of collective right.

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#422

I've taught at two colleges and based on my (purely) anecdotal experiences and attention to the climate, I'd say that the number of students and faculty interested in stifling or censoring ideas is small but also very, very noisy. They also have no sense of humor and college administrators as a group have no sense of humor or perspective, and they're chronically worried about accusations of indifference or insensitiv…

> They also have no sense of humor and college administrators as a group have no sense of humor or perspective, and they're chronically worried about accusations of indifference or insensitivity (which are themselves as good as convictions).

I don't think this is where I want to draw the argument. If someone makes an insensitive joke, it's true that the social justice movement often reacts disproportionately, but I'm not that worried about people's right to make insensitive jokes. I'm much more worried about the people who are sharing opinions that are perfectly reasonable and necessary to the public discourse and are being squashed. Erika Christakis presented a reasoned argument at Yale for free speech, and people were calling for her and her husband to resign. This isn't a matter of lacking a sense of humor, this is an active campaign to forcibly silence discussion.

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why aren't we as interested in getting, say, more men into nursing I take it from this comment that you don't work in nursing or know anyone who does. There is an active movement to get more men into nursing, though I don't follow nursing statistics closely enough to characterize its success.

> I take it from this comment that you don't work in nursing Correct > or know anyone who does Incorrect > There is an active movement to get more men into nursing, though I don't follow nursing statistics closely enough to characterize its success. Enlighten me.

Well, I'm not in the profession, but my partner has and she has seen a focus on male students at her school, as well as a preference for male nurses in hiring. These are completely anecdotal, of course, so what do we get if we google "men in nursing"?

American Assembly for Men in Nursing: http://aamn.org/

Census report on men in nursing fields: https://www.census.gov/people/io/files/Men_in_Nursing_Occupa...

An article from Men In Nursing magazine: http://www.nursingcenter.com/journalarticle?Article_ID=65843... (admittedly on the second page)

The Male Nurses Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/MaleNurses/

I just thought male nurses was a particularly poor example, as people are interested in increasing the number of male nurses, and looking at the census report they have been having steady success.

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying "I don't like you" is not harassment.

Does HN really think telling a person that you don't like them because of orientation/gender/race/religion doesn't contribute to a hostile work environment? That's kind of disturbing.

Yes, ALL of HN thinks that! What a violent online community!

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When that happens, I'll be malicious and dismissive toward feminism. But that hasn't happened yet. There are more feminists who are reasonable people than there are vocal crazies. Some things said by feminists: * "Men weren’t really the enemy — they were fellow victims suffering from an outmoded masculine mystique that made them feel unnecessarily inadequate when there were no bears to kill." -- Betty Friedan * "Wome…

And then you get people who promote the Duluth Model, which declares men guilty until proven innocent. No, feminism has turned into an anti-male movement. Prominent exceptions aside, feminism is the excuse the current illiberal generation is using to curtail the rights of men. "Bitch" is profane, but the word "mansplain" is apparently respectable vocabulary. Tell me all you want that feminism isn't a harmful force in…

> No, feminism has turned into an anti-male movement.

If you're incapable of recognizing that feminism isn't one set of ideas, but a diverse set of ideas, you're just as bad as those who espouse the Duluth model. You accuse all feminists of declaring men guilty until proven innocent, but in doing so, you're declaring all feminists guilty even despite the fact that I've already shown some of them to be innocent. And what's more, you're alienating a lot of feminists who would be on your side.

> That idea is not consistent with my experience.

Which is why I tried to expand your experience by quoting major feminist writers. Do you not realize that your experience is limited?

> These days, every time I hear someone arguing against equal treatment, against free speech, against due process, and again diversity of opinion, that person is a self-proclaimed feminist.

Every time I see a rapist on the news that person is a self-proclaimed man. If you're going to (correctly) complain about being judged by a few poor examples of our gender, you should recognize the hypocrisy of judging all feminists by a few poor examples of their movement.

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's important to note the distinction between "blacks commit 50% of the murders in the US" and "50% of the murder convictions in the US are black people." It's well-documented that 40 years ago a white person could openly kill a black person and they would not be convicted. I've read a lot of studies, reviews of court cases, and court judgements about the subject, and it is clear that prosecutors are far less likely…

Other data support these ratios. For example, in surveys of crime victims such as the National Crime Victimization Survey, the race reported by victims of their attacker reflects the proportion of conviction rates: "The UCR and NVCS show similar trends regarding the races of offenders. Generally, the number of minorities identified as offenders is disproportionately high compared to their overall numbers in the popul…

Those statistics are just false. More reliable numbers are:

  Blacks killed by blacks: 90%
  Blacks killed by whites: 8%
  Whites killed by whites: 82%
  Whites killed by blacks: 15%
  Ratio of whites killed by police to blacks killed by police: 1.857
[1] http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/nov/...

[2] https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/...

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 wron…

You are wrong that there is a shortage of nurses and possibly programmers, but maybe the shortage of nurses is because men who would be good nurses don't want to become nurses for whatever reason. Convincing more people who have good nurse-aptitudes that becoming a nurse is worthwhile is a legitimate strategy for increasing the number of nurses. Same for people who have good programmer-aptitudes and have been discour…

The point, though, is that's not what these tech equality conferences are about - they are about equalizing the gap, i.e. it is the gap that is important, not the value of the work being done (or otherwise).

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#428

I've taught at two colleges and based on my (purely) anecdotal experiences and attention to the climate, I'd say that the number of students and faculty interested in stifling or censoring ideas is small but also very, very noisy. They also have no sense of humor and college administrators as a group have no sense of humor or perspective, and they're chronically worried about accusations of indifference or insensitiv…

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.

Why should that idea be censored by an external source? If he really wants to say that, he will pay the societal penalties.

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then you get people who promote the Duluth Model, which declares men guilty until proven innocent. No, feminism has turned into an anti-male movement. Prominent exceptions aside, feminism is the excuse the current illiberal generation is using to curtail the rights of men. "Bitch" is profane, but the word "mansplain" is apparently respectable vocabulary. Tell me all you want that feminism isn't a harmful force in…

> No, feminism has turned into an anti-male movement. If you're incapable of recognizing that feminism isn't one set of ideas, but a diverse set of ideas, you're just as bad as those who espouse the Duluth model. You accuse all feminists of declaring men guilty until proven innocent, but in doing so, you're declaring all feminists guilty even despite the fact that I've already shown some of them to be innocent. And w…

> feminism isn't one set of ideas, but a diverse set of ideas

Irrelevant. What matters is the people who have social currency and power today, and they're the toxic variety of feminist.

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>People are not being wrongly incarcerated (wholesale) for violent crimes that dont exist, not being violent is sufficient to avoid incarceration for such crimes. That's absurd. You're completely ignoring the face that the FBI invented completely bogus disciplines of forensic science (hair analysis, bite marks) and self-certified experts in those disciplines who then went forth and helped convict scores of people for…

Of all murder cases in a period of time what % of cases are effected by these issues with these types of forensic science (you arent suggesting all forensic science is bunk are you?), I never said the justice system is infallible, however are you suggesting that the majority people who are convicted of murder are innocent?

I'm not suggesting, I'm pointing out the fact that the FBI has systematically perverted the courts with bogus testimony, and for a long time.

I'd suggest that the fraction of wrongly convicted people is much higher than the number of those who are/were known to be wrongly convicted.

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