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

theguardian.com

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

#661

Post by corin_ »

liveoneggs wrote: post #423
another-dave wrote: post #56

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…

"news" about tweets is the most ridiculous thing to happen in the last decade.

Is it really new?

Some news about tweets is justified - for example the president of the US has at times announced policies on Twitter first. It's a modern equivalent of making an brief announcement to the press or sending out a very sparse press release.

And the tweets that you (and I) hate to see reported, those of random people and especially headlines like "Twitter goes mad about (whatever)" somehow making an entire article out of quoting 6 random Twitter users... it's a digital form of voxpops on TV or reader's letters in newspapers. All of them can be a nice addition at times, but in my opinion the vast majority shouldn't be part of a "news" medium.

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

#662

Post by barry-cotter »

UncleMeat wrote: post #652
barry-cotter wrote: post #648

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not support the entrance standards you describe but if the school is as AP test centric as you describe not that much will be lost. I oppose any standards that for a gifted and talented school that allow anything but test scores on blindly marked tests to count because I trust that they will be used to keep the wrong sort out, whether that’s currently Asians or Jews. IB is at best very little better than AP. If…

> if the school is as AP test centric as you describe not that much will be lost The school is stunningly AP centric. When I attended, total number of AP courses taken was the primary measure distinguishing students. There were entire core classes that were not offered as non-AP courses. It is a major metric in what makes the school so highly rated in magazines. The school does teach advanced classes, but the best st…

> How precisely is a random lottery that requires certain education history and grades to enter discriminating against asians? Asian students still disproportionately make up lottery-eligible students.

Don’t forget the administrator letters. Or that the random lottery’s purpose is to move from admissions by moving from highest score down until the classes are filled to fulfills minimum requirements. That latter is to reduce the proportion and number of Asians. It’s phrased as a student body more reflective of the district’s student population but the effect, which is both foreseen and desired is to reduce the number of Asians.

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

#663

Post by bootlooped »

wnissen wrote: post #523
bootlooped wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get this a lot and not just on my phone. What is wrong with their site?

They definitely block all of AWS, are you using a VPN or similar aggregated connection?

Sometimes, yes. It seems like it usually fails when I first go to a tweet from a link on another site. Then if I refresh the page it might finally load.

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

#664

Post by Ichthypresbyter »

arethuza wrote: post #14
Ichthypresbyter wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither does most of the UK (the exception is Welsh in Wales).

Scotland appears to have "official languages" used by the Scottish Government: https://www.gov.scot/policies/languages/

There is some difference between the status of Gaelic in Scotland and of Welsh in Wales. For instance, you can take your driving test (which is administered in both countries by an agency of the UK government) in Welsh, but not in Gaelic.

Similarly, a Welsh speaker in Wales can insist on using Welsh in court proceedings even if they are also fluent in English. A Gaelic speaker in Scotland can't- an interpreter will be provided in the very rare case where a witness or party to a case speaks Gaelic but not English, just as if they only spoke Polish, Punjabi or Cantonese, but someone who is bilingual like the vast majority of Gaelic speakers is expected to use English.

In general, while Gaelic has some official status, it's not an official language of Scotland in the same way as Welsh is an official language of Wales.

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

#665

Post by nailer »

jlokier wrote: post #625
nailer wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> UK gov destroyed the paperwork You're right. I quoted the parent but it's an important distinction. > Because both sets of people were treated exactly the same by the system. I.e. inhumanely. The destroying of paperwork was incompetence rather than inhumanity. The removal of illegal migrants is also not inhuman: it is lawful and reasonable - if you enter a country illegally, you may be kicked out.

No, the majority of migrants subject to removal have not entered the country illegally. Most enter legally, and then something happens which changes that. For some it's government maladministration. Outside their control. This happens a lot. I think that's inhumane because it's outside their control and they don't have the money or legal backing to fight it, and because the system does not apply ordinary principles o…

> I think (beaurocratic failure) is inhumane because it's outside (the migrant's) control

I think inhumane implies malice. This is incompetance.

> intentional administrative action which is against the law.

Agreed that's malicious.

> For some it's that their partner's wage drops below a threshold. Outside their control. I think that's inhumane because once you are in and settled and started a family etc.

That's sometimes part of the contract for entering a country. Nobody is forced to accept it.

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

#666

Post by arrosenberg »

Nasrudith wrote: post #660
arrosenberg wrote: post #603

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Algorithmic advertising allows companies to take advantage of evolved human behaviors to drive sales. For my tastes, it has gotten out of control and disgusting. I'm tired of being treated like a consumer, and I'd imagine the majority of people feel that way in their bodies, even if they aren't conscious of it (my small N sample is pretty heavily in agreement). The whole process of being advertised to is exhausting.…

Tell me - what is the difference between algorithims and salespeople taking advantage of evolved human behavior to drive sales? Is a real estate agent who has baking chocolate chip cookies? Is the canned bread smell of subway not the same thing?

Scale and automation. A salesman in Dubuque, Ill. can only apply his charms to one person at a time, in one location, for a limited amount of time per day. The algorithm industrializes this ability and can hit everybody on Earth at once.

Plus, the experience of eating a cookie has an inherent, positive psychological value, even if the intention is still to separate your from your money. Art vs. Science, God vs. the Devil, etc.

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

#667

Post by jlokier »

nailer wrote: post #665
jlokier wrote: post #625

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the majority of migrants subject to removal have not entered the country illegally. Most enter legally, and then something happens which changes that. For some it's government maladministration. Outside their control. This happens a lot. I think that's inhumane because it's outside their control and they don't have the money or legal backing to fight it, and because the system does not apply ordinary principles o…

> I think (beaurocratic failure) is inhumane because it's outside (the migrant's) control I think inhumane implies malice. This is incompetance. > intentional administrative action which is against the law. Agreed that's malicious. > For some it's that their partner's wage drops below a threshold. Outside their control. I think that's inhumane because once you are in and settled and started a family etc. That's somet…

> That's sometimes part of the contract for entering a country. Nobody is forced to accept it.

That truly depends on your meaning of "force". For example, if I point a gun at you and tell you to give me your money or else, you are not forced to give me the money. You still have a choice. Yet, we commonly say that someone is forced because they are compelled by the alternative being a worse option created by someone else deliberately.

In that sense, yes people are forced to accept that contract.

Although it is part of the contract, I think it's inhumane that the contract is set up that way, and nation states should be held to higher standards than that.

If the contract for living in a country was that they chopped off a finger each year, would that be humane? No it wouldn't, and we'd protest against it. Some people would still choose it anyway. But something being part of a contract does not make that thing humane.

Why would people choose it anyway? Because being with the person you love matters a lot to some people.

And it matters to me that people who love each other, whoever they are, are allowed by nation states to be together if they wish. I consider it a basic facet of humane society to allow that. A proper example of what ought to be a simple human right. In the ballpark of "we hold these truths to be self-evident".

For two people who love each other to be prevented by law from being together in either of their home countries (because it's certainly possible for both ends to have incompatible restrictions) is, in my opinion, inhumane.

Also, for someone to be with someone else and then if the relationship turns sour to have the state applying enormous pressure to stay in the abusive relationship (whether with a partner or employer), that is also, in my opinion, inhumane and not a state functioning as it should. The state's job is to protect all people in its care, that includes all people it has accepted into its care as well. A state is ideally held to the standards of its noble constitution. It is not good enough to say "well it was part of the contract". We do not allow abusive terms in contracts to be upheld, even if they have been accepted. If someone agrees to be a slave, we declare that agreement void. Some things are struck out by courts if necessary when deciding what is right. Same should apply, in my opinion, to this.

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

#668

Post by alentist »

Chris2048 wrote: post #627
rayiner wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

But what have we been teaching them? "there is no good evidence that people are unaware of their biases. While people do often express surprise at the score they get on the Implicit Association Test, that often reflects the labels that are used to express the degree of bias rather than the presence of some difference in attitudes toward different groups" -- https://www.psychologytoday.com/ie/blog/ulterior-motives/201…

The IAT is pseudoscience.

The Implicit Association Test at Age 21: No Evidence for Construct Validity [0]

> The Implicit Association Test (IAT) is 21 years old. Greenwald et al. (1998) proposed that the IAT measures individual differences in implicit social cognition. This claim requires evidence of construct validity. I review the evidence and show that there is insufficient evidence for this claim. Most important, I show that few studies were able to test discriminant validity of the IAT as a measure of implicit personality characteristics and that a single-construct model fits multi-method data as well or better than a dual-construct models. Thus, the IAT appears to be a measure of the same personality characteristics that are measured with explicit measures. I also show that the validity of the IAT varies across personality characteristics. It has low validity as a measure of self-esteem, moderate validity as a measure of racial bias, and high validity as a measure of political orientation. The existing evidence also suggests that the IAT measures stable characteristics rather than states and has low predictive validity of single behaviors. Based on these findings, it is important that users of the IAT clearly distinguish between implicit measures and implicit constructs. The IAT is an implicit measure, but there is no evidence that it measures implicit constructs.

The Creators of the Implicit Association Test Should Get Their Story Straight [1]

> The problem, as I showed in a lengthy rundown of the many, many problems with the test published this past January, is that there’s very little evidence to support that claim that the IAT meaningfully predicts anything. In fact, the test is riddled with statistical problems — problems severe enough that it’s fair to ask whether it is effectively “misdiagnosing” the millions of people who have taken it, the vast majority of whom are likely unaware of its very serious shortcomings. There’s now solid research published in a top journal strongly suggesting the test cannot even meaningfully predict individual behavior. And if the test can’t predict individual behavior, it’s unclear exactly what it does do or why it should be the center of so many conversations and programs geared at fighting racism.

Psychology’s Favorite Tool for Measuring Racism Isn’t Up to the Job [2]

[0] https://replicationindex.com/2019/02/15/iat21/

[1] https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/12/iat-behavior-problem...

[2] https://www.thecut.com/2017/01/psychologys-racism-measuring-...

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

#669

Post by alentist »

free_rms wrote: post #360
luckylion wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think research & evidence is vague when you include gender & diversity studies in sciences. There's a lot that's barely above an essay, it'll stick for a few years and then get retracted (gender pay gap anyone?) The cultish behavior surrounding it ("I'm a sinner, even though I never know when I'm sinning, I'm worthless, oh please, Lord, forgive me, I submit myself before your will") makes it look like a replacement…

The "school of thought" behind the cultural revolution was twofold: 1) Mao had been frozen out after the disaster of the Great Leap Forward, and this was his way of discrediting his enemies and getting back on top. 2) Young people full of fervor are fucking vicious . None of it really had much to do with marxist philosophy in general or with the things Mao in particular had said before he'd been frozen out. But it sa…

> None of it really had much to do with marxist philosophy

Nonsense. The Cultural Revolution had much to do with Marxist philosophy. For goodness’ sake, read the May 16 Notification and Sixteen Points.

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

#670

Post by barry-cotter »

charlesu wrote: post #659
ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> " As for affirmative action being an effort to keep out Asians...have you been to Harvard’s campus? There are many, many Asian students there. In fact, nearly one in five students at Harvard are of Asian descent. The idea that elite schools are purposely excluding Asians is absurd on its face. The people pushing the idea have an axe to grind and it usually isn’t actually in the interest of Asian-Americans. " If you…

You’re right. I was wrong to minimize the struggles of Asians in this country. There is real discrimination against Asians. Your comment and others have changed my view. Thanks for helping me work through my own blind spots on this issue. I didn’t mean to wave away your pain.

Bravo
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