Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Escape the echo chamber

aeon.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 69 posts

Re: Escape the echo chamber

#21

Post by arkh »

3131s wrote: post #10
jackfraser wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And they would come back with 150 more recent, more well researched studies and explain to me how statistics works Has anyone actually put this data together in a presentable way? I've only seen things that say the opposite and it would be good to actually have a read of something well-formed that sets the modern progressive case for dealing with this research, beyond simply ignoring it altogether.

Tell them that it is completely impossible to set up rigorous controls in a study of ethnicity and intelligence anyway. The bigger question is why do some people care so much and why are they so focused on ethnicity among many other data points that could be predictive of intelligence. I typically ask these people if some connection between race and intelligence actually existed, is it your intention to change how so…

If IQ is closely related to genetics and IQ is important for your society (two bold assumptions) you could argue for some eugenics and advantage high IQ people for reproduction.

But as you say it could go really bad really fast. Especially if some of those high IQ genes are linked to some illness.

For your question about why some people are focused on ethnicity? As usual: people's appearance are easier to discriminate upon so it makes it easy to make different people an out-group. But it's not just some supremacists doing it: the hardcore NA "diversity is good" groups focus on skin color. I'd argue they seem to be worse because it feels like for them all blacks are the same (African American) while the recent history of Africa should tell them how wrong it is.

Re: Escape the echo chamber

#22

Post by IIAOPSW »

>we get much of our news from Facebook feeds and similar sorts of social media.

I disagree with the premise already. Anyone got data? How many people actually get their news from FB?

And no hn, reddit and other content aggregators are not just as bad. Following topics != following people.

Re: Escape the echo chamber

#23

Post by rapnie »

rapnie wrote: post #18

Your page has loads of problems! Like: Who are you? Why would I trust you? What's your business model? What's your privacy policy? Code of Ethics? Security? How does it work? I would not install the app, nor fill in your website forms before anything like that is clear! Maybe you should interact with The Center for Humane Technology (humanetech.com), because the subject matter is really interesting, and the problem a…

I am getting downvoted, but this is honest feedback. Points for improvement.

Re: Escape the echo chamber

#24

Post by arkh »

stillkicking wrote: post #20
3131s wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell them that it is completely impossible to set up rigorous controls in a study of ethnicity and intelligence anyway. The bigger question is why do some people care so much and why are they so focused on ethnicity among many other data points that could be predictive of intelligence. I typically ask these people if some connection between race and intelligence actually existed, is it your intention to change how so…

Why care? That seems pretty obvious: because ethnicity is already used to justify policies of affirmative action, used as a measure of prosperity and equality. The common reasoning is that until the conditional probabilities by demographic are flat, there must be systemic oppression which must be rectified by applying concerted pressure in the other direction. This is an a priori assumption that there are no relevant…

> You see the exact same thing in STEM: anything but a 50/50 representation of gender is an indicator of discrimination. The 'cure' is to roll out the red carpet with biased programs, so that you actually get lower qualified and less interested people working side by side with others who receive no special provisions and worked hard to get there. It's associated with a moral panic that very noticeably makes the relations between the genders worse.

Just staying with races: the fact Ivy league schools discriminate against people of Asian origins by having quotas against them for decades is fucked-up.

Re: Escape the echo chamber

#25

Post by jlebar »

kristianc wrote: post #15

> A social network composed entirely of incredibly smart, obsessive opera fans would deliver all the information I could want about the opera scene, but it would fail to clue me in to the fact that, say, my country had been infested by a rising tide of neo-Nazis. Except it would. I know no-one that talks about opera (or anything) all of the time, and it's hard to think that a rising tide of neo-Nazis would escape the…

>> A social network composed entirely of incredibly smart, obsessive opera fans would deliver all the information I could want about the opera scene, but it would fail to clue me in to the fact that, say, my country had been infested by a rising tide of neo-Nazis.

> Except it would.

I dunno. There are a lot of people on this site who think we shouldn't talk about politics, at all, ever.

I guess the fact that we do talk about it is a point in your favor. But it isn't at all inconceivable that there might exist a HN-like site where only strictly "on-topic" conversations are allowed.

Re: Escape the echo chamber

#26

Post by nl »

jackfraser wrote: post #7
ScottBurson wrote: post #6

Look at the many stories of people leaving cults and echo chambers. Take, for example, the story of Derek Black in Florida – raised by a neo-Nazi father, and groomed from childhood to be a neo-Nazi leader. Black left the movement by, basically, performing a social reboot. He completely abandoned everything he’d believed in, and spent years building a new belief system from scratch. He immersed himself broadly and ope…

> And they would come back with 150 more recent, more well researched studies and explain to me how statistics works Has anyone actually put this data together in a presentable way? I've only seen things that say the opposite and it would be good to actually have a read of something well-formed that sets the modern progressive case for dealing with this research, beyond simply ignoring it altogether.

The Atlantic has a pretty good piece about it: https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/www.theatlantic.com/amp/arti...

It addresses one specific study, but the arguments are the same.

Re: Escape the echo chamber

#27

Post by lopmotr »

arkh wrote: post #24
stillkicking wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why care? That seems pretty obvious: because ethnicity is already used to justify policies of affirmative action, used as a measure of prosperity and equality. The common reasoning is that until the conditional probabilities by demographic are flat, there must be systemic oppression which must be rectified by applying concerted pressure in the other direction. This is an a priori assumption that there are no relevant…

> You see the exact same thing in STEM: anything but a 50/50 representation of gender is an indicator of discrimination. The 'cure' is to roll out the red carpet with biased programs, so that you actually get lower qualified and less interested people working side by side with others who receive no special provisions and worked hard to get there. It's associated with a moral panic that very noticeably makes the relat…

Absolutely. Even worse though, is the fact that ivy league colleges aren't growing much bigger. If they're so good at educating people, and have so much donation money, why not expand? I think they intentionally limit their size to maintain their elite status, which shows they're more of a zero-sum selection filter than simply good at educating.

Re: Escape the echo chamber

#28

Post by zaarn »

arkh wrote: post #21
3131s wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell them that it is completely impossible to set up rigorous controls in a study of ethnicity and intelligence anyway. The bigger question is why do some people care so much and why are they so focused on ethnicity among many other data points that could be predictive of intelligence. I typically ask these people if some connection between race and intelligence actually existed, is it your intention to change how so…

If IQ is closely related to genetics and IQ is important for your society (two bold assumptions) you could argue for some eugenics and advantage high IQ people for reproduction. But as you say it could go really bad really fast. Especially if some of those high IQ genes are linked to some illness. For your question about why some people are focused on ethnicity? As usual: people's appearance are easier to discriminat…

It does not have to be genetics to show correlation. Sadly research in this area is sparse but we can establish that there will be some correlation;

1) Lack of proper nutrition is linked to lower IQ. This can be fairly easily explained in that the lack of resources will lead to less development in the brain, one of the most resource intensive organs in the body.

2) Certain ethnicity types are disproportionately poor (in the US). Lack of income generally also means that nutritional situation is less ideal.

From 1 and 2 you can easily conclude there is very likely some correlation.

Does that mean we should immediately deploy eugenics? Most likely not. As you mention, high IQ "genes" could be linked to something bad. IIRC they are linked to mental conditions like depression. (Which might lead to an interesting question: if we fix poverty, will people become more miserable on average because the average IQ goes up? It seems likely total misery will go down though)

I also agree with your later statements, a lot of people tend to put all people with black skin into a single pot but there are some many fascinating different cultures and a fascinating history once you go beyond colonialism.

I think a lot of people tend to forget that diversity isn't only skin color. Diversity goes deeper than skin and body.

Re: Escape the echo chamber

#29

Post by eecc »

Normal_gaussian wrote: post #16
3131s wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell them that it is completely impossible to set up rigorous controls in a study of ethnicity and intelligence anyway. The bigger question is why do some people care so much and why are they so focused on ethnicity among many other data points that could be predictive of intelligence. I typically ask these people if some connection between race and intelligence actually existed, is it your intention to change how so…

There is often a discussion about ethnicity (and gender) in relation to athletic events; when you have the position put to you, by observation or another, that despite the general adversity faced by certain ethnicities they dominate the medal tables - you are forced to seriously consider the position that not all ethnicities are equal. This will quickly spawn the question of the relationship between ethnicity and int…

Well, the brain is so much more complex than a bunch of muscles; whatever impact genes have on it’s higher functions the phase space is so huge that hardly enough humans have ever lived to explore a significant amount of it.

Re: Escape the echo chamber

#30

Post by drjesusphd »

lopmotr wrote: post #27
arkh wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You see the exact same thing in STEM: anything but a 50/50 representation of gender is an indicator of discrimination. The 'cure' is to roll out the red carpet with biased programs, so that you actually get lower qualified and less interested people working side by side with others who receive no special provisions and worked hard to get there. It's associated with a moral panic that very noticeably makes the relat…

Absolutely. Even worse though, is the fact that ivy league colleges aren't growing much bigger. If they're so good at educating people, and have so much donation money, why not expand? I think they intentionally limit their size to maintain their elite status, which shows they're more of a zero-sum selection filter than simply good at educating.

How is MIT's Open Courseware and the many programs like it not exactly such an expansion in line with the mission to educate?

The idea that success == expansion is a capitalist (or even more narrowly, Wall Street) ideal and Universities should not be run like businesses.

Post reply on HN