The Yale Problem Begins in High School • Hacker News Board

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#431

Post by sinxoveretothex » Wed, Nov 25, 2015, 11:17 PM UTC

bmelton wrote: post #202

sinxoveretothex wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This distaste is unsurprising. Research has concluded (see this popular science article about it http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-09/why-were-shutt... ) that polarized opinions do affect how strongly readers react to information. But the core of the article is about how there is a problem about polarized opinions: the core problems with the Mizzou, Yale and al. situations are not related to the opinions exp…

> Research has concluded that polarized opinions do affect how strongly readers react to information. Ironically enough, Jonathan Haidt, the author of this article contributed greatly to the insights on the effects of such bias. http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/jhaidt-819710-haidt...

I love material that so profoundly affect my thinking like this one did (last time was probably being introduced to LessWrong).

I can't thank you enough for linking this.

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#432

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Nov 25, 2015, 11:20 PM UTC

Pyxl101 wrote: post #403

lukeschlather wrote: post #360

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…

[deleted]

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#433

Post by fleitz » Wed, Nov 25, 2015, 11:24 PM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #340

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But in a classroom setting, the students should feel free to debate the composition of the moon. No, they shouldn't, and I'll follow-up as to why below. >Very quickly, the proposal that the moon is made of Vince Foster would be dismissed as false. This is critical thinking in action. Given sufficient rhetorical skill and sufficiently many appeals to "open thought" or "questioning assumptions" or "viewpoint diversit…

Who gets to decide which ideas are off limits?

The epistemological method in use in the class, so for instance in theology appeals to faith or words written thousands of years ago would be acceptable, while you'd probably want to reject appeals to logic/rationality.

In science you'd want to use the scientific method and reject appeals to faith.

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#434

Post by sinxoveretothex » Wed, Nov 25, 2015, 11:26 PM UTC

Retra wrote: post #228

sinxoveretothex wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

The cases you give are good examples of places where technology was harnessed to solve social problems.

But it is possible to not "care" about these issues: either by working on solutions to other problems or by focusing only on making the technology better.

That is what I meant by "unrelated", maybe I should have used "independent".

> 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?

The most important criteria for technological pursuits, not social ones. People who disagree on political issues can still pursue technology progress together on issues that don't involve those political issues for example (not that this is the case here, I'm speaking generally).

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#435

Post by jonnathanson » Wed, Nov 25, 2015, 11:27 PM UTC

kelukelugames wrote: post #40

jseliger wrote: post #12

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.

"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."

Let's unpack this.

Are you happy that homophobia is now socially inappropriate? Or are you happy that it is verboten to reveal or express a homophobic opinion?

There is an important distinction to be drawn here. That homophobia is becoming socially backward and marginal is a wonderful thing. That nobody can say something homophobic is not. The way free speech works is, at its most basic: you're allowed to express yourself publicly. The public will then determine how it deals with you. If you say "I don't like gay people" to your co-workers, and your co-workers ostracize you, and/or you are fired for creating a hostile work environment, then you reaped the just results of your decision to speak up. But you should have the freedom to speak up, nevertheless. The choice should be yours.

We should also note that prior restraint and group-self-censorship aren't going to change your co-worker's opinions. Whether or not he's too scared to speak his mind, his mind is made up. Deprive him of the chance to engage in any sort of dialogue about his beliefs, and he'll never get the chance to have them challenged, and they'll remain deeply held.

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#436

Post by fleitz » Wed, Nov 25, 2015, 11:27 PM UTC

Jtsummers wrote: post #280

1812Overture wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a history class that can't make a strong argument that the holocaust wasn't a hoax and a law class that can't make the argument that rape victims exist are in VERY serious trouble. Being able to debunk such looney claims is very valuable for students so they should develop these skills not be shielded from exposure to them.

In general I agree with you, but having dealt with (less severe) examples of this with some coworkers, it's really, really annoying. When someone simply states their (contrary or contrarian) viewpoint and refuses to admit any evidence presented is valid, you can't win. It's an exercise in futility. I had a guy simply insisting that evolution wasn't real. "Ok", I say, "what about (found some reports demonstrating obse…

Run your meetings / classes according to Roberts rules, move to set out a time limit for each person to make their point, limit each person to 1 rebuttal, and then vote on the issue.

Whenever I had to deal with contentious issues as a chair of a meeting this is exactly how I proceeded, much to the dismay of the people who wanted to argue all day.

The people who cause the most issues usually take their rebuttal early and then the debate can proceed amongst the more reasonable people.

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#437

Post by fleitz » Wed, Nov 25, 2015, 11:35 PM UTC

wildmusings wrote: post #367

erikpukinskis wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they're winning because the overall premise is just correct. Black death and torture is one of the most serious moral issues the U.S. faces today. There are some people with poor impulse control who get in the news a lot. The opposition promotes the hell out of those people (as we are doing right now) in order to try to discredit the leaders. The fact that the movement is still winning despite the countercamp…

Generational poverty and crime are definitely serious issues, but that's not the movement's "overall premise". The movement's philosophical underpinning is a complete abdication of personal agency and responsibility. They perceive themselves to be part of a powerless and oppressed group (which is false, especially for some of these 'victims' that are Ivy League students with many open doors). To support that, they've…

Freedom is not their goal, the goal is equality of outcome.

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#438

Post by iamsohungry » Wed, Nov 25, 2015, 11:36 PM UTC

rewqfdsa wrote: post #429

iamsohungry wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

The feminists you are dismissing as irrelevant have every bit as much social currency and power as the ones who are vocal, they just aren't using it as often, which is why it's so short-sighted of you do dismiss them. The public debate on this isn't going to be won by men dismissing feminism: that's just going to radicalize more feminists. And even if it could be won that way, that is that what you want: for men to control the public discourse and women be trivialized? That's not what I want. I want actual equality.

More likely, the path to reason is for reasonable feminists to hear how important this issue is from reasonable men, and start taking our side.

It's political suicide for a man to publicly stand against radical feminism. It's not political suicide for a moderate feminist to stand against radical feminism.

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#439

Post by kafkaesq » Wed, Nov 25, 2015, 11:38 PM UTC

woah wrote: post #216

kafkaesq wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/

What a ridiculous line of reasoning. If the ceo at my company likes to tango and donates to a tango club, it doesn't mean that I like to tango. I'm absolutely supportive of gay marriage, but the people pillorying Eich find it necessary to contort their logic in the strangest ways.

If the ceo at my company likes to tango and donates to a tango club,

...this would of course be in no way analogous to the activity Eich was supporting.

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#440

Post by dragonwriter » Wed, Nov 25, 2015, 11:40 PM UTC

fleitz wrote: post #433

nostromo wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who gets to decide which ideas are off limits?

The epistemological method in use in the class, so for instance in theology appeals to faith or words written thousands of years ago would be acceptable, while you'd probably want to reject appeals to logic/rationality. In science you'd want to use the scientific method and reject appeals to faith.

> The epistemological method in use in the class, so for instance in theology appeals to faith or words written thousands of years ago would be acceptable, while you'd probably want to reject appeals to logic/rationality.

Theology, while its foundational principles may be established on the basis of revelation such as scripture, often proceeds from foundational principles by logic.