‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study • Hacker News Board

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

#511

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 9:55 PM UTC

ardy42 wrote: post #424

jimbokun wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the absolute laziest ways to write a "news" article is the "here are a list of things people tweeted about this topic" compilation.

> One of the absolute laziest ways to write a "news" article is the "here are a list of things people tweeted about this topic" compilation. It's definitely less work that investigative journalism, but to the extent that twitter is influential, it's a topic that should be covered. IMHO, the media has (at least) two important jobs: 1) conduct novel investigations and 2) summarize the firehose of events and ideas into…

Your #2, summarizing, isn't what I usually see in these "here's what people are saying on Twitter" stories. The valuable version that you're talking about would have to include things like polls or something, saying "20% of people agree with this idea, 5% agree with this other idea, etc." Instead, these stories just say here's some tweets that are really edgy/funny/gotchas/something I agree with."

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

#512

Post by standardUser » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 9:58 PM UTC

stale2002 wrote: post #410

standardUser wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious how culture wars have impacted your work and family life. I've lived most of my life in large metro areas, so from my perspective "culture wars" are mostly people in far away towns waving fists at us city folk. The actual impact on my life is minimal.

The way that this usually effects people's personal lifes, is when there are individuals who care way to much about abstract politics, turn it into a moral cursade, and think that if you don't agree with them on every single issue then this is some huge judgment on you as a person. Basically, it is with us or against us mentality. Even not having an opinion on some abstract idea, means that you are therefore a perpet…

"If you don't agree with me on X, then unfriend me, as I don't want any people like you in my life!"

Most of those comments I have seen are specifically related to racism. For example, an individual will state that "if you don't support Black lives, unfriend me". I fail to find fault with that. Can you explain why it is problematic for someone to want to distance themselves socially from people that are opting-in to oppose a modern civil rights movement? I would certainly do the same with anyone who opposed the right of Women to vote, or gay people to marry.

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

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Post by oblio » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 10:00 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: 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…

Maybe you're aware, but your first source is far from unbiased.

I'm not even American but I've found the more pompous a thing is named, the more likely it is to be Republican backed. I guess it's their penchant for drama :-)

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

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Post by shadowgovt » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 10:08 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #496

shadowgovt wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I don't see much distinction between teaching people about structural privilege and suggesting they admit they benefit from it. Difference of degree, perhaps, but not much. You trusted your alma mater when you were taught there; not trusting the direction it's taking now? Is it possible you're not seeing the picture the way they are?

But do you see the difference between teaching people about structural racism and having them stand up and declare "I am a racist" and "I am a gatekeeper of white supremacy?" Two things about that are outside acceptable norms: 1) Having people declare personal complicity for a general social ill; and 2) Using words that have widely-understood connotations to mean something different in order to achieve shocking rheto…

How does that change the normal interaction dynamic?

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

#515

Post by shadowgovt » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 10:10 PM UTC

tpxl wrote: post #508

shadowgovt wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In computer security, we often talk about the lack of distinction between malice and ignorance---if the security system is bad, it doesn't matter if the attacker is intent on causing harm or merely innocently curious and hack-sawing away through your computer security for fun. The outcome is the same. I think the same principle applies here. Malicious racism and passive racism have the same effect.

I'll bite, what the fuck is passive racism?

The unconscious biases people walk around with in their heads. They're things people pick up without realizing it that lead to friction for minorities in society.

Studies have shown that people who don't think themselves to be actually racist still act in race-discriminatory ways. For example, people with non-ethic-names get more callbacks for their resume controlled for qualifications on the resume (https://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/employers-replies-racial-n...).

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

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Post by shadowgovt » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 10:12 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #497

shadowgovt wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing about the article suggests that text was forced. I'm not going to trust the Free Beacon's interpretation of some out-of-context screenshots.

The statements standing alone are damning, whether forced or not. That's not how faculty and administrators should be speaking in front of students.

Agree to disagree

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

#517

Post by shadowgovt » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 10:13 PM UTC

SuoDuanDao wrote: post #483

shadowgovt wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's precisely what many of us don't believe. With respect, I'll defer to the career sociologists and psychologists on the topic, much as I'd defer to the risk management PhD on the topic of risk management. I've known too many tech-savvy folk who think humans can be reduced and deconstructed like a computer, declare humanities research bunk because it doesn't fit their mental model, and get profoundly surprised…

With respect, these careerists subscribe to journals that will literally publish translations of Mein Kampf so long as a few buzzwords are exchanged. On a less sensationalist but more quantifiable note, 70% of the research comprising the field can't be replicated. I think my scepticism is warranted.

Even still, my Bayesian priors suggest that techies get worse than chance results on second-guessing them.

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

#518

Post by shadowgovt » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 10:14 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #434

shadowgovt wrote: post #274

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.

We have been teaching people about unconscious bias for years without these theatrics.

How well has that worked?

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

#519

Post by mainstreem » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 10:21 PM UTC

blm202021 wrote: post #414

cmdshiftf4 wrote: post #205

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…

I'm going to retort, specifically in the context of a very important issue in the US currently: the BLM movement. Contrary to popular thought, the "liberal" media utterly failed minorities. The abuse of minorities in the US spans generations and has consistently been relegated to the margins of mainstream news. It has been typical in the US -- for decades -- for the NY Times to grant a single death in Israel front pa…

The BLM movement claims to speak for minorities but the burden of proof that this is actually the case remains on you.

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

#520

Post by crazygringo » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 10:21 PM UTC

throwaway2245 wrote: post #501

crazygringo wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean "fish hook theory", the idea that centrism is somehow inherently ideologically aligned with the far right? AFAIK that's simply a fantasy promoted in certain corners of the internet (like the ironically-named r/EnlightenedCentrism). It's not supported by any actual quantitative evidence at all, nor am I aware of any credence given to it in academia. It's essentially made-up. There is no political scientist I'…

The Martin Luther King quote that begins: "I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate," should be read in full. If you define a centrist as someone who finds the status quo a reasonable compromise, and you recognise that the history of the United States (among others) and its status quo is infused with white supremacy, then it's unsurprising that a self-declar…

But that's not how centrism is defined.

Centrist public opinion is very different from the status quo, and this is a hugely important distinction to make.

The status quo is set mainly by elites who have a vested interest in their own wealth and power.

The "center" of public opinion, when you actually survey people in detail on the preferences they hold, does not match particularly well with government policy in the US.

(If democracy worked perfectly, then the two might coincide, but they don't because it doesn't.)

From surveys I've seen, the American "center" maps best to a moderately liberal position in current politics, though it really depends on the issue. The American center is extremely liberal when it comes to gay marriage, very liberal with a public option for health care and race issues, moderately liberal when it comes to abortion and gun ownership, and moderately conserative when it comes to economic policy.