Encountering Thomas Sowell • Hacker News Board

Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell

#61

Post by hirundo » Tue, Mar 16, 2021, 3:06 PM UTC

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…

Cultures are different from each other in almost any measurable respect. Cultures and races cluster together. Even if the genetic predispositions are identical, surely the cultural programs running on top of them are not. Shall we legislate away cultural predispositions?

Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell

#62

Post by _etyf » Tue, Mar 16, 2021, 3:07 PM UTC

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

I’ve had colleagues in Silicon Valley who were members of their home countries’ Communist Party student organizations.

Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell

#63

Post by droopyEyelids » Tue, Mar 16, 2021, 3:08 PM UTC

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…

Overall you seem to be saying you don't know anything about the actual organization or people at the helm of BLM, or what they've done with the money they've collected, but you hope it's all good.

I guess I agree with all of that, but I don't feel like it's a strong argument.

Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell

#64

Post by debacle » Tue, Mar 16, 2021, 3:08 PM UTC

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.

The 24 hour news media has created a world where the only public faces for politics on either side will be loud, obnoxious, or controversial.

Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell

#65

Post by MuffinFlavored » Tue, Mar 16, 2021, 3:08 PM UTC

lbj wrote: post #21

Great piece. I have to admit I'm a bit of a fan when it comes to both Friedman and Sowell. They seem to have the rare gift of understanding subjects so well and intuitively that they can explain those subjects more plainly than anyone else. Where most economists have disappointed me greatly in their understanding of math, Sowell has done to opposite.

I have this feeling Sowell isn’t liked/respected by AOC/Pelosi because of how hard he disagrees with them. Can anybody tell me how he is perceived by liberals? Not trying to get political. Genuinely curious if he is an outcast to the left because a ton of what he says seems to fall into “conservative views”.

Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell

#66

Post by ceilingcorner » Tue, Mar 16, 2021, 3:08 PM UTC

throwaway6734 wrote: post #60

rayiner wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Doesn't seem that extreme to me. Even saying that divorce should be avoided at all costs and a two parent household is vastly superior to a single parent one is enough to get labeled as a conservative by many.

Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell

#67

Post by Grustaf » Tue, Mar 16, 2021, 3:09 PM UTC

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…

Culture goes very deep, most of the time you don't need to bring up genes to explain differences.

Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell

#68

Post by anoonmoose » Tue, Mar 16, 2021, 3:10 PM UTC

monoideism wrote: post #23

sradman wrote: post #9

Written by Thomas Chatterton Williams [1], author of Self-Portrait in Black and White [2]: > “It’s not about color for me,” my aunt said while railing against Obama. “For example, I love Thomas Sowell.” > To that side of my extended family, I became the stereotype of a coastal liberal, writing for the New York Times and wholly out of touch with the real America. In fact, I’ve always prided and defined myself as an an…

> Why was this published in Law & Liberty, has he burned his left-of-center media bridges? No, left-of-center media is under the throes of the cultural far left, and they "de-platform" anyone who doesn't adhere to their ideology. So conservative media, along with non-traditional dissident media like Quillette, are often the only place dissident liberals like TCW can be published.

more like non-traditional dissident phrenologists

Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell

#69

Post by inglor_cz » Tue, Mar 16, 2021, 3:11 PM UTC

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…

This is a list of differences in average income by ethnicity (in the USA).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_U...

Indian Americans are on the top. Russian Americans are 12th in the list. Dutch Americans are 54th.

Do you think that this is a proof of Indian supremacy and Dutch mediocrity? Or is there a policy that systematically oppresses whites of Dutch ancestry and elevates whites of Russian ancestry?

Obviously none of those is true.

Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell

#70

Post by zo1 » Tue, Mar 16, 2021, 3:12 PM UTC

runako wrote: post #50

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-...

> my question is: to whom did all that money go? (The link you provide outlines where the money went.)

The point is that this "decentralized" movement has a central organization that has a lot of money donated to it, and that the central/important tenets of that central organization probably has some measurable influence in deciding which "decentralized" parts of the organization get funding/donations/focus/marketing.

So if the "BLM" organization views the nuclear family as something that has to be abolished, then one can assume that they wouldn't donate to local BLM chapters that don't subscribe to that idea. Maybe not always, but a greater than 0% chance for sure.

With this whole "decentralized" argument, we might as well say the Republican/Democratic parties are decentralized and that what the RNC and DNC do/say hasn't a huge bearing on the way that the individual local leaders/sub-organizations of the parties do or how their rallies behave. It's more "centralized" than BLM, sure, but like with a lot of things, it's not a black/white description. It's rather a range, and we can't just say "no it's not" when we can clearly see that the "central" portion has some bearing on the smaller parts.

So, my thinking on this also aligns with the Sorites Paradox:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorites_paradox