Live data from Hacker News

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

theguardian.com

341–350 of 674 posts

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

#341
post #75
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…

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.

> 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.

The accused doctor is named Mahendra Amin, is an immigrant, is brown (if you couldn't tell from his name), and has a history of medicare/medicaid fraud (he settled with the State of Georgia). How did what is most likely just more insurance fraud from a brown immigrant quack with a history of insurance fraud become "Nazi forced sterilizations in concentration camps?"

Ironically, I'm more likely to be downvoted/flagged for pointed out the doctor's name, race, and immigration status than you are for spreading misinformation.

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

#342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neil Postman's books influenced me tremendously. I've been rereading McLuhan, Postman, Huxley, etc. Manufacturing Consent is the most directly applicable to understanding social media. With at least two updates to the thesis. #1 The outrage machine is fueled by advertising, right? What's new is the motivating control (choice) moved from the advertiser's intent to the algorithmic recommenders. #2 Third parties learned…

> The outrage machine is fueled by advertising, right? The purpose of purchaing advertising is to increase sales of the advertised product or service. How does the "outrage machine" lead to increased sales of the products or services being advertised? Do you think many people are actually buying products through advertisements posted in, say, Trump vs. AOC flamewars?

The "outrage machine" in this instance keeps the eyeballs on the page, which display the ads, which ties into the psychology of advertising. e.g. people remember advertising, even if they aren't consciously aware of it.

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

#343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if dang or others could comment on whether this is true of HN too.

Dang comment about the 1% rule from 7 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22622983 > The number of accounts that have posted to HN this year, divided by the number of IP addresses that have accessed HN, is 0.008. How close that is to the '1% rule' ratio depends on which is the bigger factor: users with more than one IP or IPs with more than one user. We don't know. If the former is bigger, then 0.008 is…

Very interesting, thanks.

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

#344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We're talking about people who routinely get murdered and harassed by police, disenfranchised, paid less ins salary, and excluded from many professional roles by default. You're of course right that the criminal justice system treats minorities very badly, and that many people are unfairly disenfranchised and excluded from many professional roles due to their past interactions with this problematic system. But that…

Why add the word "irredeemably?"

Does woke religion offer a path to redemption?

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

#345

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…

It’s not clear that cigarette smoking is actually net harmful, due to the substantial decrease in obesity associated with smoking.

They did the math actually on that one - comparing smoking rate and obesity counter-correlations and the rise and fall across various countries. The smoking drop was modest, less than 10% which makes it a fairly clear net harm unless one defines net harm ghoulishly such that dying soon after retirement is a good thing due to reduced healthcare costs.

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

#346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Demanding people declare they are racists sounds very strange to me - I'm not sure that would help things much. But I've also seen some people do some pretty oblivious things in my time - like ordering company tee-shirts for their mixed-gender team, but only getting male sizes. Or evaluating every interview candidate's communication skills and cultural fit based on a conversation about rock climbing and craft beer. A…

While I'm sure there are complicated issues around race and gender that training can give you the tools to solve these examples seems pretty easy to fix. > Or evaluating every interview candidate's communication skills and cultural fit based on a conversation about rock climbing and craft beer. I feel like any cultural fit test is going to be inherently sexist/racist/classist. Better to just throw them out. Also why…

> Is the complaint this person isn't doing their job? Then it should be treated like every other complaint.

Sure, but how is that? Different performance problems call for different solutions.

Do you treat it like the newly hired dyslexic person? Like the person who's going through a difficult divorce? Like the person who likes to party and sometimes comes in tired or hung over? Like the person with gaps in their education and training? Like the parent who sometimes gets called for child-related emergencies? Like the person who disagrees with the policies, but can be convinced with better explanation? Like the person who finds the work too boring to be able to concentrate on? Like the person who doesn't like the job, but hasn't found another yet?

A competent manager will have half a dozen different tools in their toolbox - and it takes some forethought to be able to reach for the correct one first time on receipt of a complaint.

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

#347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd have to nail down what rhetoric you mean for me to have any response to that.

I don't think specific examples are really useful here. At the end of the day, either I'm allowed to say "I am not a racist" at work and be left alone for making that statement, or I'm not. If I'm not, it's a cryptofascist struggle session.

Without specific examples, I have no idea if I am committing a motte and bailey fallacy because the specific examples I have in my mind are the weaker example, the specific examples the speaker has in their mind are a different example, I've never experienced their example (but have experienced people experiencing my example and treating it as something more draconian that could, perhaps, approximate their example).

So not much more to say on this topic without specific examples.

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

#348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm definitely not. I also hold such descriptions of these trainings in high skepticism, because I've been through a similar training and had a coworker describe it as such when all the training was doing was surfacing the scientific evidence suggesting unconscious bias is a real phenomenon that people aren't aware of. The fact my colleague took it so personally says more about them, I think, than the training.

You might have visited different seminars than the ones this thread was originally about, or you might just experience them differently given that you appear to be a staunch believer in white privilege & the post-modern theory of racism. Religious rituals seem totally normal to the initiated and strange and cult-ish to others.

Conflating trainings derived from theory based on research and evidence with religion is also strange.

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

#349

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.

How is that not the same as forcing people to stay in an unpleasant class until they confess to racism?

I believe the fact some people perceive it to be is the root of, perhaps, quite a bit of consternation on the issue.

But I see it is the same as forcing people to stay in an unpleasant class until they understand type theory. We teach people things they need to know so that they know them, because knowledge is useful. We're certainly not calling the question of "having education seminars" into question, are we?

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

#350

This is not my experience in the US. Culture wars have invaded both work and family life. It's not a tiny minority, it's many, if not most, Americans. I feel sure most Americans have the same experience, but perhaps I'm an outlier?

How has this so-called culture war invaded your family life?
Post reply on HN