The Yale Problem Begins in High School • Hacker News Board

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#481

Post by thelastguy » Thu, Nov 26, 2015, 8:07 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #14

tosseraccount wrote: post #13

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.

The fact that other people are free to speak against you does not mean that you can't speak freely. Free speech does not mean freedom from having your speech acts criticized (quite the opposite; it includes freedom of others to criticize your speech acts.) And, yes, it means that your speech acts may affect your ability to hold a job where you are one of the major public faces of an organization (such as its CEO) and…

If you're a CEO and you're purposely creating a toxic work environment by continuously saying racist things to your workers, then obviously, you deserve to get fired.

But hell no you should not deserve to get fired for donating to the Republican Party. You have the right to donate to whichever LEGAL organization you want.

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#482

Post by thelastguy » Thu, Nov 26, 2015, 8:12 AM UTC

snowwrestler wrote: post #368

BurningFrog wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

They're winning because, while their tactics can be terrible, immature, and oppressive, their moral thrust is correct. Most women and minorities do face obstacles in American society--even today--that most white men don't. This is evidenced in a wide variety of population statistics, at confidence levels that would be high enough to make headlines if they were risks in a medical study.

I don't see how getting an administrator, who support a women's right to freedom of speech, freedom of expression (the ability to wear a nurse outfit for Halloween, the ability to wear a Native American outfit for Halloween, since she loves Native Americans). I don't see how getting an administrator, who support a women's right to freedom of speech and freedom of expression, fired is going to help women become less oppressed.

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#483

Post by thelastguy » Thu, Nov 26, 2015, 8:32 AM UTC

remarkEon wrote: post #380

AngrySkillzz wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could be both; that when young men have "traditional masculinity" exposed as bullshit (which I agree with) and pulled out from under them, they have difficulty understanding themselves in a world without such a framing device.

What is "traditional masculinity" and why is it bullshit? I ask because it seems this is going to end up as some kind of no-true-scotsman.

"Traditional masculinity" is the kind of masculinity that have enabled humanity to survived for millions of years.

It includes traits such as:

- Protecting women and children - Not crying when a tiger attack - Attacking the tiger instead, and to do so, requires - Forming a group of hunters, to go and kill that tiger, aka leadership - This also requires some amount of muscles, and aggression - because you can't kill a tiger with love and passivity - Declaring war on other men who want to rape your wife and daughter - Not wanting to, but having to fight wars against other group of men who want to rape your wife and daughter - Letting your son fight, and practice fighting with friend, so that they can defend themselves against enemies, who want to rape your wife and daughters, and... tigers, who wants to eat your wife and daughters - Also, if a tiger attacks, the brother has to save the sister, and if necessary, sacrifices himself to make sure the sister survives - Most important of all, a guy must be able to acquire resources in some form (food, woods, money, cows, etc) to provide for his family (without complaining, whining, crying, or any other emo bullshit that doesn't help him in his goal of acquiring resources) - etc. etc.

You know. The traditional traits that a woman look for in a man. Obviously, as we have found out, these traits are bullshit and toxic and men MUST get rid of these traits that helped humanity survived for millions of years, because, like they said, they're all toxic.

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#484

Post by thelastguy » Thu, Nov 26, 2015, 8:46 AM UTC

CM30 wrote: post #153

holmak wrote: post #94

The concept presented here of "seeking justice by appeal to the majority" reminds me of the Twitter phenomenon in which people learned that the only way to get customer service from Google/Ubisoft/Bank of America/(insert giant faceless company) was to tweet a grievance publicly. It seems to work well, at least in a few high-profile cases. At least, it worked a few times when private requests failed. Perhaps people ar…

Well yes, they're learning by example. People are getting fired or ostracised by mobs on sites like Twitter based on things like this. It's an unfortunate pattern where instead of countering arguments or having a debate, a lot of people (especially in these SJW groups) tend to try and destroy someone's livelihood instead. And because a lot of companies seem to care more about their 'reputation' then any sort of princ…

It's the classic witch hunt mob.

Girl A: I like apples. Girl B: I don't like what you're saying. Hey everybody, she's a witch!

Mob deals out punishment.

You can clearly see that the mob is being played, being used like a pawn, by Girl B. The mob doesn't actually benefit form this. Girl B benefits from this because she got rid of her competitor.

The same way those students protesting are being used by the person at the top. The students don't actually benefits. Meanwhile, the person calling the mob to action is actually the person that benefits (law suit settlement, patronage, donations, government funding, etc).

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#485

Post by thelastguy » Thu, Nov 26, 2015, 8:51 AM UTC

thegayngler wrote: post #298

I guess you could argue the up/down voting on this forum is a question of group think or bulling type of behavior.

It's a type of group think. BUT, it is NOT a type of bullying. Bullying requires that people shame/harass/doxx the op. Which they do not.

Compare to the universities, where students bullies other administrators to fire other administrators for defending freedom of speech.

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#486

Post by thelastguy » Thu, Nov 26, 2015, 8:53 AM UTC

erikpukinskis wrote: post #329

There's nothing wrong with what is being said here. Except that there are just as many "climate" issues that woman and people of color have to face, if not more. This person is cherry-picking discussions about race and gender and saying "it's horrible that climate issues are making it difficult for these white/male students from participating" but the same level of outcry doesn't exist even though in almost every oth…

>You can't just have boys who have never thought about what colonialism actually feels like

And now, you're just assuming that white boys have no empathy. Wow.

>Proper affirmative action requires you to get in and take responsibility for your recruitment process and the social issues surrounding it...

If everybody just stop fighting, there would be world peace. BUT, the reality is, not everybody will stop fighting. And there is nothing we can do to change that. We can make fighting illegal. BUT, nothing can change the reality. The reality is, people will still fight.

>Proper affirmative action requires you to get in and take responsibility for your recruitment process and the social issues surrounding it...

I know of a way to solve the economic problem we're facing. If we just make all CEOs of all companies competent...

>Proper affirmative action requires you to get in and take responsibility for your recruitment process and the social issues surrounding it

You may be responsibility in your recruitment process, but that doesn't mean others will be.

>But if everybody just be more responsible in their recruitment process...

Again, if the world just stop fighting wars, there would be no wars.

But really, I don't see how that is an implementable solution. How are you going to implement something like that? How are you going to implement "world-stop-fighting-wars"? How are you going to implement "everyone-is-more-responsible-when-recruiting"?

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#487

Post by thelastguy » Thu, Nov 26, 2015, 9:09 AM UTC

astroalex wrote: post #230

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 me…

>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?

Something very wrong with this. Why do those potentially brilliant computer scientist have to be female? Why can't they be male? Are you saying that males are not as brilliant as females? In fact, why does the gender of those potentially brilliant scientists even matter? As long as those scientists are brilliant, why does their gender matter?

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#488

Post by thelastguy » Thu, Nov 26, 2015, 9:15 AM UTC

Retra wrote: post #342

coreyp_1 wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You completely misunderstand what I am saying. 1. I care about people, and believe that they have unlimited potential. If anything, this fundamental belief is the core of all of my interactions with my students. 2. I do not believe in bias against someone else because of something they cannot control. We call that discrimination. 3. What, then, do we call bias in favor of someone, also because of something they canno…

You're not the bad guy for expressing that discrimination is a problem, you're the bad guy for not doing so eloquently and revealingly. But discrimination is not inherently a problem, it is only a problem when it leads to bad decision-making, especially in the long term. If I were very short (a factor I cannot control) and I was responsible for reaching high places, it would be discriminatory to deny me the position,…

>If I build a ladder for short people, am I insulting tall people? Am I ignoring them? Am I reducing them to a number?

The problem is that, you're not just building a ladder. You're purposely not hiring the tall peoples. Instead, you purposely hire the short people, because you perceived the short people to have a disadvantage in height. Then after you hired them, you build each and everyone of them a ladder, to make them as tall the the tall people in the first place, who, you could have hired in the first place, and wouldn't have needed the ladder in the first place if you hired the tall peoples in the first place. And not only that, the short people understands that this job require reaching high places, so most of them have already decided to go for another job, a job that they love that doesn't required them to reach high places with their hands. And then you're wondering, why don't short people comes for hire? I must enforce quote and force all jobs that require tall peoples to hire short peoples, instead of just letting things fall where they fall, naturally.

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#489

Post by saint_fiasco » Thu, Nov 26, 2015, 1:21 PM UTC

kafkaesq wrote: post #449

saint_fiasco wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't remember where I heard this, but someone once said that defending your actions by citing freedom of association is sort of the ultimate concession; you're saying that the most compelling thing you can say for what you do is that it's not literally illegal to do so.

I'm not saying that the sanction against him was the best course of action, or that it was even necessary. Just that people who think that his "freedom of speech" was in some way violated -- or that the anger directed against him was simply about his being on the wrong side of a ballot issue -- are at least very misinformed about certain things.

>his "freedom of speech" was in some way violated

Not just his freedom. There is a chilling effect that makes people more afraid of expressing their opinions for fear of losing their jobs.

Of course, I'm not arguing about the legal definition of freedom of speech, I'm making a moral argument.

>the anger directed against him was simply about his being on the wrong side of a ballot issue

What was it about? If his opinions on gay marriage make everyone involved in Mozilla look bad, then certainly the reputational effects of firing someone for his political opinions have to be taken into account as well. People might start being less enthusiastic about working for Mozilla if they feel they have to walk on eggshells all the time.

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#490

Post by saint_fiasco » Thu, Nov 26, 2015, 1:27 PM UTC

kafkaesq wrote: post #439

woah wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Of course not because tango is perceived as being harmless and therefore an ethical injunction against firing people for liking tango is unnecessary.

Firing people for having wrong opinions on important things that are not directly related to the job is more controversial.