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‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

theguardian.com

281–290 of 674 posts

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#281
post #34
post #4

I like the More in Common Project. But it overlooks the disproportionate representation of the extremists in our institutions. This happened at my alma matter earlier this year: https://freebeacon.com/campus/northwestern-law-administrator... . They also voted to abandon entrance exams at my magnet high school: https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=4979 It’s not comforting to know that only a tiny minority of people a…

I know those diversity sessions... They claim everyone who is white or passing as white is racist. I had to "confess" that i'm racist and promise to do better or it would have consequences for my career. Sidenote: I volunteer at a refugee center and took in a syrian family. Literally hitler, i know. A colleague got fired because he wouldn't confess and left the session. So even if that Dean said he is a racist, he's…

It's simple, we just have to fully embrace that all White people are Racist due to the history of oppression of PoCs in the West by Whites.

Then you will understand that it is Whites who are Racist. Then you must swear your fealty to being Anti-Racist. Not just Non-Racist, that's not enough, you must fight to eliminate Racists from positions of power and eventually from society. Anti-Racism. Fight to eliminate Racist Whites from power. Fight to eliminate Whites from power. Fight to eliminate Whites.

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#282

I think the main culprit exacerbating this is the main stream media. "Vox pops" have formed part of filling air-time or column inches for a long while, but this is largely replaced now by journalists looking at Twitter and either a) using that as a stand-in for 'this is what the public think' or b) making it the story itself. Social media is no longer just "second screen" below-the-line commenting on events, it's hel…

I am curious about how do you see street corner enquetes and random telephone sampling before SNS.

Thoses enquetes were done on somewhate crowded yet non busy places for convenience, and tended to sample a specific part of the population: e.g. people going to shopping districts at off hours, or people coming out of church for the most biased samplings.

Telephone checks were similar in that you had a very high percentage of at home caregivers responding to them.

Do you the past journalistic methods as that much more sophisticated than nowadays ?

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#283
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is terrifying, almost cult-like. The fact that this is what "fighting racism" looks like when forced hysterectomies are performed on undocumented immigrants in concentration camps show that it's not really about racism for the people that are doing this.

They are just conformists. PG wrote an excellent piece about conformism here: http://paulgraham.com/conformism.html True progressives are out there fighting current battles. Corruption, bribery, current-day slavery etc. Conformists are out there marching about battles already won like gay rights, slavery in the United States etc.

Gay rights is hardly a settled issue. If it were, the GOP wouldn't have adopted reversal of the Obergefell v. Hodges precedent as a party platform plank in 2016.

https://news.yahoo.com/richard-grenell-addresses-rnc-gop-220...

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#284
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know those diversity sessions... They claim everyone who is white or passing as white is racist. I had to "confess" that i'm racist and promise to do better or it would have consequences for my career. Sidenote: I volunteer at a refugee center and took in a syrian family. Literally hitler, i know. A colleague got fired because he wouldn't confess and left the session. So even if that Dean said he is a racist, he's…

Is there any real proof that these diversity sessions actually help people work in diverse environments? The way you describe this, it reads like a really, really weird cargo cult where just confessing to one's supposed racism will somehow make you more open to people of differing backgrounds. How exactly does this help?

They do sometimes cause Googlers to out themselves as a hostile work environment hazard and get fired.

So, benefit there. ;)

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#285
post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think the main culprit exacerbating this is the main stream media. I understand your argument but I also in no way want to distract from the culpability owned by social media companies, their product designers and managers, and the people who wrote the code to implement their desires. They are ultimately guilty for the damage they have wrought on our societies. Traditional media companies may have exacerbated the…

The PMs of Facebook are not responsible for the decision by CNN producers to use Twitter commentary as a source of information and legitimacy. I'm not generally one to speak out against capitalism, but having come from a country that has 'strong, communitarian and cultural ideals' - I believe that hyper-individualism and capitalism have created an ugly, 'perfect storm of self flagellation' here with MSM, Social Media…

I'm not sure why we'd treat FB and Twitter PMs separately?

They both built a virality engine, and then acted dumbfounded (at first) when news sites used this to tune their content to go viral. It's an intentionally incredibly addictive, and borderline malicious, product that capitalizes on the worst human instincts. The entire thing exists as a feedback loop that grants you legitimacy by counting the number of eyeballs (real or not) that see it.

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any real proof that these diversity sessions actually help people work in diverse environments? The way you describe this, it reads like a really, really weird cargo cult where just confessing to one's supposed racism will somehow make you more open to people of differing backgrounds. How exactly does this help?

Not yet, but these are still pretty new to corporate environments. I've been in "harassment prevention" training sessions for years, but only within the last year sat through my first "diversity, equity, and inclusion" (DEI) training. (It was not an inquisition; quite helpful in the opinion of this middle aged white guy.) There is research that shows that companies with diverse leadership and staff financially outper…

I'm super suspicious of research like that for a couple of reasons.

One it would it be impossible to publish research that came to the opposite conclusion. Imagine seeing a headline that said "replacing female and black executive leadership with old white dudes increases profit" by McKinsey.

Second the magnitude of the impact seems insane. This seems larger than the difference most studies find between good leadership and average leadership. And while I wouldn't be surprised if diverse leadership is marginally better than non-diverse leadership I would be surprised if it's larger than the difference between average and good.

Three they're pulling from many different countries which could potentially create huge confounds.

In general "research" that comes out of a place like McKinsey and Bane is pretty suspect but something like this is even more.

Even if none of the other problems are real they still don't establish causation. It could easily be the case that diverse candidates are harder to find, so more competitive/better firms are able to better attract them.

I think diversity is great and there are lots of great reasons to increase it but I doubt the impact on profitability would be anything beyond marginal.

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trainings I'm familiar with have the opposite intent: to help people who don't believe they are racists (or believe racism doesn't exist) understand the unconscious mental processes that feed into racism and the nature of structural discrimination, even when unintended.

> understand the unconscious mental processes that feed into racism and the nature of structural discrimination, even when unintended. I wonder how scientific this understanding is

UCSF has a useful overview on the topic.

https://diversity.ucsf.edu/resources/state-science-unconscio...

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. But the goal isn't for it to work, the goal of the advocates is to bill a lot of money and the goal of the company is to virtue signal. https://hbr.org/2012/03/diversity-training-doesnt-work

> he goal of the advocates is to bill a lot of money and the goal of the company is to virtue signal. You miss the biggest goal: for departments of diversity, inclusion, etc to gain more power and hires.

My observation at past employers has been that D&I teams are consistently under-staffed and overwhelmed.

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#289

I think the main culprit exacerbating this is the main stream media. "Vox pops" have formed part of filling air-time or column inches for a long while, but this is largely replaced now by journalists looking at Twitter and either a) using that as a stand-in for 'this is what the public think' or b) making it the story itself. Social media is no longer just "second screen" below-the-line commenting on events, it's hel…

In the US, it seems these 13% receive outsize political attention as well. I recall at the run up to the 2016 election, one of the main issues was gender and public bathroom usage. I couldn't help wondering at the time why that issue received so much attention vs. the 42,000 opioid overdose fatalities that year alone, which got virtually zero attention.

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not yet, but these are still pretty new to corporate environments. I've been in "harassment prevention" training sessions for years, but only within the last year sat through my first "diversity, equity, and inclusion" (DEI) training. (It was not an inquisition; quite helpful in the opinion of this middle aged white guy.) There is research that shows that companies with diverse leadership and staff financially outper…

I'm super suspicious of research like that for a couple of reasons. One it would it be impossible to publish research that came to the opposite conclusion. Imagine seeing a headline that said "replacing female and black executive leadership with old white dudes increases profit" by McKinsey. Second the magnitude of the impact seems insane. This seems larger than the difference most studies find between good leadershi…

The issue a non-diverse team will hit is getting blind-sided by lack of perspective on emerging phenomena. Given that aspect, I don't find it surprising that the benefits from a diverse team could exceed the benefits between the difference in average and good leadership.

Both an average and a good leader will drown the same army if they lead them into a swamp because they've never seen a swamp before.

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