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Encountering Thomas Sowell

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Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell

#51

Post by dmpk2k »

pharmakom wrote: post #40
inglor_cz wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Kendi's work is extremely good Kendi proposes a constitutional amendment that would enshrine the principle that Racial inequity is evidence of racist policy (from certain threshold that he does not specify), and create Department of Anti-racism (DOA) comprised of formally trained experts on racism and no political appointees. The DOA would be responsible for preclearing all local, state and federal public policies…

"Racial inequity is evidence of racist policy" if it's not, then would wildly unequal outcomes not imply some races are superior to others? the science indicates that this is not the case so how else can it be explained? --- Hmmm people didn't like this. I will add the statistic I can't get out my head: Incarceration rates in USA (adult male) per 100k White - 450 Hispanic - 831 Black - 2306 Asian - 210 I don't think…

> that would imply

No, it would not. There are more alternatives than "racist policy" and "racial superiority".

Also, we're most likely dealing with continuums between many variables, not discrete buckets.

Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell

#52

Post by glasss »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #33
glasss wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do hope everyone would be at least sympathetic towards other human beings wanting justice and equal treatment. I would be wary about that website and I would take whatever you see about a central organization relating to BLM with a grain of salt. I've been involved in local protests and other events in Chicago and I've never once been directed to or heard of a centralized website. I hope you reconsider your stance…

I get that BLM is decentralized and I agree that most people are just protesting injustices, but then my question is: to whom did all that money go? Clearly it went to someone . Isn't it fair to consider this organization representative of BLM? > Black Lives Matter raised more than $90 million in 2020 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/black-lives-matter-raised-...

I don't know where all that money went. I do know that I, along with several other thousand people, helped fund our local protests and events. I don't know of anyone who donated to "Black Lives Matter". The donations I was aware of went towards specific events or pre existing charity funds for specific causes, such as community centers or legal fee funds. Again this is all anecdotal.

I would assume it is fair to say this organization is representative of BLM, as I'm sure they have been under more scrutiny than I can provide and I would hope any bad intentions or funny things happening to the money would have been caught by now. So if I think it's fair to say that if this organization is representative of BLM, I think it would be fair to assume they would also be sending the money to the places they are stating.

Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell

#53

Post by brigandish »

pharmakom wrote: post #40
inglor_cz wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Kendi's work is extremely good Kendi proposes a constitutional amendment that would enshrine the principle that Racial inequity is evidence of racist policy (from certain threshold that he does not specify), and create Department of Anti-racism (DOA) comprised of formally trained experts on racism and no political appointees. The DOA would be responsible for preclearing all local, state and federal public policies…

"Racial inequity is evidence of racist policy" if it's not, then would wildly unequal outcomes not imply some races are superior to others? the science indicates that this is not the case so how else can it be explained? --- Hmmm people didn't like this. I will add the statistic I can't get out my head: Incarceration rates in USA (adult male) per 100k White - 450 Hispanic - 831 Black - 2306 Asian - 210 I don't think…

No, because it may be possible that breaking a monolithic group into smaller blocks for analysis would show that some parts of that monolith do better than others, and even other parts of other monolithic blocks that were considered “superior”.

Sowell himself gives the example of West Indian immigrants in New York and how they fare far better than American born blacks even though they live in the same area and cannot be distinguished by sight. (From memory) Coleman Hughes, in critiquing Kendi’s position will contrast Russian whites living in the States with those of French whites in the States that show greater disparities than between whites and blacks as monolithic groups.

Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell

#54

Post by Proziam »

pharmakom wrote: post #40
inglor_cz wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Kendi's work is extremely good Kendi proposes a constitutional amendment that would enshrine the principle that Racial inequity is evidence of racist policy (from certain threshold that he does not specify), and create Department of Anti-racism (DOA) comprised of formally trained experts on racism and no political appointees. The DOA would be responsible for preclearing all local, state and federal public policies…

"Racial inequity is evidence of racist policy" if it's not, then would wildly unequal outcomes not imply some races are superior to others? the science indicates that this is not the case so how else can it be explained? --- Hmmm people didn't like this. I will add the statistic I can't get out my head: Incarceration rates in USA (adult male) per 100k White - 450 Hispanic - 831 Black - 2306 Asian - 210 I don't think…

People don't live in uniform distribution across the country, and different regions have different economic and social climates. The percentage of people born in Scranton, PA that grow up to become software engineers is going to be different than those who grew up in Pittsburgh, San Francisco, or Gary.

The geography variable is just one of many that can have a huge impact on outcomes.

Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell

#55

Post by IanDrake »

pharmakom wrote: post #40
inglor_cz wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Kendi's work is extremely good Kendi proposes a constitutional amendment that would enshrine the principle that Racial inequity is evidence of racist policy (from certain threshold that he does not specify), and create Department of Anti-racism (DOA) comprised of formally trained experts on racism and no political appointees. The DOA would be responsible for preclearing all local, state and federal public policies…

"Racial inequity is evidence of racist policy" if it's not, then would wildly unequal outcomes not imply some races are superior to others? the science indicates that this is not the case so how else can it be explained? --- Hmmm people didn't like this. I will add the statistic I can't get out my head: Incarceration rates in USA (adult male) per 100k White - 450 Hispanic - 831 Black - 2306 Asian - 210 I don't think…

Races are equal. However, some cultures are superior to others. Race != culture, although they often follow that line.

If races were evenly distributed to cultures there would be no racial disparity that you seek to "repair".

You can do the same thing with genders. Women and men (in general) value different things, which is why you don't see many women pumping septic tanks.

Value systems lead to outcomes...Gasp!

This is something nobody likes hearing these days, since extreme right racists insist their race is better and extreme left racists insist other races must need their help.

Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell

#56

Post by ceilingcorner »

glasss wrote: post #52
ceilingcorner wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get that BLM is decentralized and I agree that most people are just protesting injustices, but then my question is: to whom did all that money go? Clearly it went to someone . Isn't it fair to consider this organization representative of BLM? > Black Lives Matter raised more than $90 million in 2020 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/black-lives-matter-raised-...

I don't know where all that money went. I do know that I, along with several other thousand people, helped fund our local protests and events. I don't know of anyone who donated to "Black Lives Matter". The donations I was aware of went towards specific events or pre existing charity funds for specific causes, such as community centers or legal fee funds. Again this is all anecdotal. I would assume it is fair to say…

I'm not saying that they used the money unwisely, but that clearly such a thing as "BLM" exists and is run by certain people, people who have supported things like "disrupt the nuclear family."

Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell

#57

Post by justaman »

chumich1 wrote: post #19
nullifidian wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Just ask BLM leaders Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi. In a revealing 2015 interview, Cullors said, “Myself and Alicia in particular are trained organizers. We are trained Marxists.” That same year, Tometi was hobnobbing with Venezuela’s Marxist dictator Nicolás Maduro, of whose regime she wrote: “In these last 17 years, we have witnessed the Bolivarian Revolution champion participatory democracy and c…

The idea of somebody being a "trained Marxist" is very funny. Personally, I'm a 4th degree Historical Materialist and I'm training for the 2nd level Communist obstacle course

"Trained Marxist" might as well mean college graduate these days.

Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell

#58

Post by cdavid »

bcoates wrote: post #47
cdavid wrote: post #25

I don't get what make him popular around certain crowds in HN. He is very polemical (I mean he was arguing that Obama would lead the US to live under Sharia law), is not a particularly good scholar, nor very insightful. Certainly, nothing he wrote as articles gave me a desire to read some of his books. There are tons of smarter, more interesting people in the conservative sphere, especially around libertarian/conserv…

That's a bizarre reading of the article: http://web.archive.org/web/20090624060334/http://article.nat... You can argue that his claims about Iran's capabilities are exaggerated (Or that he was unaware of the then-secret war against Iran already going on), but the idea that Iran claims to be a sharia state and the laws of Iran are not something most Americans would want their granddaughters to have to live under is ha…

I guess we can argue on what he meant to convey by this sentence, but would you agree this is not especially nuanced ? That one example was particularly bad, but I find it representative of the man. I fail to see the nuance or the depth.

Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell

#59

Post by throwaway894345 »

JasonFruit wrote: post #10
seneca wrote: post #4

It's a loss for Americans of all political stripes that Sowell hasn't been the public face of American Conservatism for decades. He's passionate, articulate, and, most of all, deeply nuanced in his thoughts. I don't always agree with him, but I've rarely read or listened to his thoughts and not come away with something to consider. I'm excited to read the linked biography when it's published.

I'm on the conservative side, mostly, and I'm deeply disappointed by most prominent conservative voices. There's much more of value in conservative thought than people hear from conservative mouthpieces in the media, but instead we get ugly stupidity.

I agree. Even though I'm a liberal, I'm sad to see the conservative intellectual tradition in such bad shape. I always felt it would be better for your opponents to rally around their best arguments/figures rather than their least savory arguments/figures. I think it has also made us (liberals) lazier--we don't need to bring coherent, reasoned arguments because we can settle for "well, at least we're better than Trump". We're all racing to the bottom.

Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell

#60

Post by throwaway6734 »

rayiner wrote: post #48
f154hfds wrote: post #2

> Many people wondered last summer why, for example, on the Black Lives Matter website the organization declared (and has since deleted) a “disruptive” stance on the nuclear family. What did that have to do with mobilizing against police violence? For a long time I was very sympathetic to BLM, I would even have considered protesting with them. It was the above that caused me to rethink my position and eventually deci…

The alliance of necessity between social liberals and racial justice advocates creates this problem. There is not anything inherent about “people of color should be treated equally” that also requires buying into “we should disrupt the nuclear family.” That’s just how the political alliances have worked out. The latter ideology in practice works to undercut the former ideology. The contribution to racial inequality i…

>But it’s almost taboo in socially progressive circles to say that family structure matters (even though this is obvious to Asians).

You must hang in some especially woke circles

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