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The Yale Problem Begins in High School

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Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#461

Post by lern_too_spel »

sinxoveretothex wrote: post #410
lern_too_spel wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think it's OK for a majority to say that racial Jews should not have property rights and then make it so? Eich achieved hos goal of writing oppression into the state constitution. Ignoring or tolerating promotion of oppression doesn't make it go away. (That's exactly the fair and balanced horseshit I was talking about.) Tolerating morally neutral actions is entirely different from tolerating morally bad actions.…

Suppose that everyone in the world (except Jews perhaps) believed that it WERE OK for them not to have property rights, then what would protect their property rights? The truth is that what is right is decided by how well the arguments for it can convince people. If you look back far enough, the arguments were: my army is stronger than you. As you get closer to the present, we tend to like using better arguments (the…

You make a nonsense point (nobody is arguing for morality by majority rule) then refute it by pointing out that you have good arguments for advocating a certain morality. Then you make a straw man (nobody is arguing for stifling anybody).

At the core, you seem to agree with me that there are certain actions that we should be intolerant of. Things like murder we should not tolerate forcefully, and things like oppression, we should argue against strongly until they go into effect, in which case, other action is sometimes better.

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#462

Post by ps4fanboy »

fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #430
ps4fanboy wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So its a subjective claim then not something that can be looked quantitatively? There are around 13,000 murders per year in the US, how many of these murders per year result in the wrong person being convicted? I would be surprised if its greater than 4%

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#463

Post by ta0o0o0 »

kafkaesq wrote: post #446
ta0o0o0 wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What can I say, that is just not the world I want to live in. A world in which your defeated [1] political opponents must repent, wear sackcloth, and cast ashes in their hair or else be professionally destroyed. [1] Proposition 8 had been struck down by the time of Eich's appointment to CEO

It's now about repenting and wearing sackcloth. And it isn't even about Eich. People had just gotten very, very, VERY tired of the pseudo-tolerant stance he was endorsing [1], and didn't want to feel that they were lending credibility to it, by having him at the head of an organization they were a part of. The message they were trying to send was simply, "we're really tired of this shit, and we want it to stop." [1]…

It was the activists who dragged Eich's donation from years ago into the spotlight, made it an issue, and demanded that he apologize. The "pseudo-tolerant stance" people are/were "sick of hearing" or "being a party to" would never have seen the light of day if the activists just left Eich's personal political beliefs alone. This is precisely a demand for repentance.

Eich's stance was "pseudo-tolerant" because the activists were demanding that he renounce his religious beliefs. At least he had the stones not to say something he didn't believe just to keep his job. So instead he was cast out. Should a Catholic CEO be subjected to the same treatment if they personally oppose abortion? A Republican one for opposing Affirmative Action?

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#464

Post by lern_too_spel »

kafkaesq wrote: post #183
bsamuels wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

responding to someone's opinion with "Ugh." is exactly what the op article is about

It's not their opinion that merits the "Ugh." It's that people seem to be perpetually misinformed about many basic factors regarding the Eich case.

People hate to have their heroes torn down, even if their hero is just the creator of a fifth-rate programming language that nobody would willingly use if it weren't the only available zero-compile option on Berners-Lee's juggernaut of an application platform.

Turing's suicide is merely a distant memory.

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#465

Post by TeMPOraL »

Double_Cast wrote: post #312
lukeschlather wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The post you replied to described "bitter, spiteful, demanding, insecure, Us-vs-Them types." I think there are people in various leftist movements that can fairly be described in that way. But I also think it's a good description for anyone who describes a desire for social justice as a cancer.

Temporal was referencing what's remembered as the Whale Cancer post [0]. The metaphor is meant to (rather than insult) describe a social dynamic by analogy of a biological mechanism. [0] http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/06/14/living-by-the-sword/

Yes, I was referencing that post; the phrasing of "cancer getting cancer" stuck with me. I admit that I might have sprinkled a little bit of hidden insult, because it's hard to filter out the feeling of anger at uncivil behaviour so that it doesn't show up in writing.

But I mean cancer mostly in the same way Scott Alexander used it - uncontrolled growth by "all means necessary", not an insult. Cancer happens when some cells eschew cooperation and start promoting their interests at the cost to everyone else. As it grows in size it grows in complexity, and given that it's made of components who tend to disregard cooperation, Scott argues that instead of self-organizing it tends to develop a cancer of its own, which slows the overall growth. Similarly, if the group gains voice by using every dirty trick in the book and then some because it's most effective, they should not be surprised that - as their movement grows in size - they end up fighting each other at some point.

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#466

Post by TeMPOraL »

tomp wrote: post #273
TeMPOraL wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is, thanks to Social Justice Warriors, you never know what comment could affect your career. Expressing opinion about merits of Angular.js is probably safe. But anything that involves gender - a study, or a remark about distribution of men and women in tech industry - is not to be touched with a ten foot pole if you value your employability. It takes very little to become a victim of a Twitter outrage.

> Expressing opinion about merits of Angular.js is probably safe. As long as you don't say that Angular is better or anything else that might be construed as you supporting meritocracy ...

Still, people are not that insane yet to make expressing opinions about frameworks a danger to your employability. I've frequently been a part of flamew^H^H^H^H^H^Hcivilized discussions about obvious superiority of Emacs over IDEs, or Lisp over everything, and never for a second felt I'll get fired for it, or that I'll lose my career, my home, or that I'll get into national news over it.

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#467

Post by TeMPOraL »

yawaramin wrote: post #288
Pyxl101 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bingo. Let's say that I wanted to argue that -- just for the sake of argument, not necessarily as a true belief -- that discrimination is not a significant problem in tech hiring with respect to diversity, and that the key problem is that there aren't qualified candidates from special-interest-group-in-question applying in the first place, and so the majority of the problem is upstream when you consider tech companie…

The problem with starting these hypothetical-filled discussions is that they're not helpful. People can and have been positing many hypotheses about the pipeline issue in tech (and of course many other issues) and the discussions have been mostly heat and very little light. What would be helpful, is if you would post actual objective findings--studies, analyses, etc. Cold hard facts. Otherwise you're just adding to t…

It's hard to post actual objective findings, beacuse scientists themselves are seriously affected by the culture around those issues. Just like people are afraid of saying something contrary to the mainstream narrative, scientists are afraid to publish it too. On the other hand, a lot of studies - even completely unrelated to the issue - are having their conclusions purposefully and forcefully fitted to match the narrative, to score cheap popularity points. The topic is so politicized, that you can't rely even on studies to tell you anything at the moment.

I'm willing to admit that all I think about various minorities is completely wrong. I'll be happy to, when presented with evidence (and I've been adjusting my views every time I stumbled upon something that looked even little like legit research). Personally, I'm not arguing for any side of the issue. I'm arguing against using bad methodology, bad science, logical fallacies, lies and propaganda. I'm arguing for civility and detached behaviour in discussion. Only when people calm the fuck down we'll be able to figure out where the truth lies and how much we have to adjust at personal and societal level.

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#468

Post by GFK_of_xmaspast »

venomsnake wrote: post #304
kelukelugames wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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

There's a difference between saying "I don't like gay people" to a gay person and "I don't like you."

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#469

Post by marknutter »

aeturnum wrote: post #423
marknutter wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 articl…

I guess I don't see nearly as much in the mainstream media about the gender disparity in nursing as I do for tech, and certainly not on Hacker News. I can come up with other examples though. There aren't big pushes to get more women into construction, the military, emergency services, and other less topical fields just like there aren't pushes to get more men into interior design, event planning, human resources, and other female dominated fields. Could it be that people are just choosing what they would like to do for a living rather than being told what they should like to do?

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#470

Post by wbsgrepit »

nickbauman wrote: post #127
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…

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…

The issue with this stance is that history has shown many times that unpopular views and lively debate leads to growth, understanding and knowledge.

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.

IMHO this concept falls on its own sword. What harm is there debating about the moon being made of Vince's body if there is a question in the forum? Does it harm the people that have solidified beliefs about it being false? The person who believes it to be possible? What is learning beyond discussing the possibilities, informing each other about beliefs, viewpoints and deductive reasoning leading to growth/questioning what is true and false and constructing and reconstructing your closely held beliefs.

Uniform thought begets uniform thought and does not foster growth. I shiver thinking about wonders/discoveries would have been lost if people in our history were afraid to discuss unpopular ideas and constructs; as it stands too many already have been.

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