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Mandated diversity statement drives Jonathan Haidt to quit academic society

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Re: Mandated diversity statement drives Jonathan Haidt to quit academic society

#361

Post by mw888 »

bluejekyll wrote: post #238
rhaksw wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When one group wants to eliminate open society and civility, how is possible to have an open and civil debate with them? Roger Baldwin, founder of the now gone-astray ACLU, said this [1], > Host: "What possible reason is there for giving civil liberties to people who will use those civil liberties in order to destroy the civil liberties of all the rest?" > Roger: "That's a classic argument you know, that's what the…

There is no nuance in this debate. Roger made those statements in 1982. The only access to broad public announcement was via TV, controlled by private companies for the most part. Today platforms have the same choices about what to air or not. Free Speech is also about not forcing people to say things they do not want, it is also about not forcing platforms to broadcast lies. These are not the same thing.

Free speech is about free expression of ideas; nothing more or less specific.

Re: Mandated diversity statement drives Jonathan Haidt to quit academic society

#362

Post by CamperBob2 »

whythre wrote: post #250
bluejekyll wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no nuance in this debate. Roger made those statements in 1982. The only access to broad public announcement was via TV, controlled by private companies for the most part. Today platforms have the same choices about what to air or not. Free Speech is also about not forcing people to say things they do not want, it is also about not forcing platforms to broadcast lies. These are not the same thing.

That is a lot of fancy words in favor of suppression.

I'm (still) strongly sympathetic to Baldwin's point of view, but the GP also has a valid point, in that liars have gained most of the benefit of the civil-libertarian point of view since the rise of the Internet. These days, a lie can literally travel around the world before the truth makes it out past the firewall.

There's a reason we divide history into the time before and after the invention of movable type made mass publication possible. We're living in a similar transitional era now, likely an even-more profound one. The resulting intellectual and political upheaval is so extensive that some things are going to have to change, including minds. Maybe even mine.

Re: Mandated diversity statement drives Jonathan Haidt to quit academic society

#363

Post by Manuel_D »

specialist wrote: post #337
rhaksw wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is, countering negative ideas with suppression does not work . Countering speech with more speech is better. Roger Baldwin, founder of the now gone-astray ACLU, may have put it best [1], > Host: "What possible reason is there for giving civil liberties to people who will use those civil liberties in order to destroy the civil liberties of all the rest?" > Roger: "That's a classic argument you know, that's w…

[flagged]

> How has Chomsky's strategy worked?

It's worked incredibly well. The United States - the country with easily some of the most well protected free speech laws - continues to be one of the most diverse and welcoming countries in the world. It's one of the most desired places for people to immigrate to, and continues to have a large foreign born population. By comparison, look at how a single digit percentage influx of foreigners rattled Europe. When racists do gather it usually results in plummetting support for their causes. This was the case with the Unite the Right rally: following the rally support for the movement dropped considerably.

By what metric has Chomsky's strategy failed? You seem to be postulating this as fact, without anything backing it up.

Re: Mandated diversity statement drives Jonathan Haidt to quit academic society

#364

Post by canadiantim »

plasticchris wrote: post #255
canadiantim wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone else find it unsettling that the acronym the social justice crowd settled on was DIE (Diversity, Inclusion, Equality)?

Equity, not equality. Big difference (almost the opposite meaning !)

What is equity if not equality then? (Honest question, as I just assumed it was equality as generally that's something we've been historically striving for.)

Re: Mandated diversity statement drives Jonathan Haidt to quit academic society

#365

Post by canadiantim »

orf wrote: post #249
canadiantim wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone else find it unsettling that the acronym the social justice crowd settled on was DIE (Diversity, Inclusion, Equality)?

No, because the acronym is DEI…

mhmm, because of course everyone knows that we order the letters in an acronym according to the least rememberable order, right?

Re: Mandated diversity statement drives Jonathan Haidt to quit academic society

#366

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

mlyle wrote: post #348
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also have an explicit expectation that most papers will "slightly to moderately advance[] SPSP's goal of promoting equity, inclusion, and anti-racism", as well as a header that separates the DEI review from the normal review. It's hard to imagine someone reading this policy and saying "well, my research is unrelated to equity or anti-racism, so I'll just say that and it'll be fine".

I doubt it's SPSP's intention to completely abandon all non-diversity related research. OTOH, it may get a little harder to publish research where your study population / sample is all-white-wealthy-undergrads.

I guess I'm not sure why you doubt that. The standards are pretty clear that "does not advance SPSP's goal of promoting equity, inclusion, and anti-racism" is a failing grade on the DEI section, and that anti-racism in particular is not merely a thing the conference does but a core component of their identity. I'm sure if you sat down with them, they wouldn't frame it as abandoning anything; they would tell you that social psychology inherently touches on diversity and authors who believe their papers are unrelated should maybe think a bit harder about it.

Re: Mandated diversity statement drives Jonathan Haidt to quit academic society

#367

Post by pas »

busterarm wrote: post #340
pas wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> DEI folks are getting exactly what they want in the end anyway. serious question: what do they want exactly? give money to disadvantaged folks? give them training? check quota boxes? do they personally care?

A staff that is both dependent on and united by having the same, consistent politics throughout the company (and all companies). More eloquently put by this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33053801

wow. that's ... so foreign to everything that I could imagine. (I'm from Europe, never worked at a big company.)

How does this allegiance manifests in these "diversity hires"? Do you have some experience with this? Could you explain this somehow?

Re: Mandated diversity statement drives Jonathan Haidt to quit academic society

#368

Post by hackerlight »

1MachineElf wrote: post #248
bluejekyll wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

>When one group wants to eliminate open society and civility, how is it possible to have an open and civil debate with them? In the US, there is not one group trying to do that, but a multitude of groups, some who are in power and some who are not, most of whom deny that they are trying to do what you charge them with.

There are a multitude of groups doing that, but they're not equally dangerous now. The problem is that the hard right has control of the Republican Party. The hard left does not have control of the Democratic Party. If US democracy falls in the next few years, it's almost guaranteed to be because of the hard right.

Re: Mandated diversity statement drives Jonathan Haidt to quit academic society

#369

Post by logifail »

pas wrote: post #358
logifail wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we know that have a tendency to abuse such spaces through techniques such as emotional rhetoric [..] In the spirit of fairness, should one actually no-platform everyone using emotional rhetoric? Your favourite media outlet will almost certainly have a lot less to say if we do. Depending on your PoV, this may or may not be a bad thing.

It's not a problem if someone with a big audience advocates for and does not use rational arguments, as long as that thing is relatively harmless. (Let's say Bono advocates for peace, or a local group wants a new playground because it would warm their hearts. Or a group wants lower taxes, or a different group wants to tax the rich more. Even this last one, while advocates discrimination, it's not against a disadvanta…

> It's not a problem if someone with a big audience advocates for and does not use rational arguments, as long as that thing is relatively harmless. (Let's say Bono advocates for peace [..]

Q: Who gets to define "relatively harmless"?

"Advocating for peace" sounds pretty harmless, yet if you dare to mention any specifics - at least this year - it seems supporting it is deemed anything but harmless. Before my time, but seems the same applied in 1964 – 1973.

Re: Mandated diversity statement drives Jonathan Haidt to quit academic society

#370

Post by Manuel_D »

viraptor wrote: post #207
rhaksw wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't comparing academia to nazis. Rather, I was saying that even in the most extreme situations e.g. nazis and communists, open and civil discourse is still better than censorship. It's also worth noting that FIRE was expressly founded to deal with free speech violations in higher education. FIRE's president often discusses this, for example in a recent interview with Nick Gillespie [1]. FIRE recently expanded to…

He may be right with the general idea, but the point was that his phrasing needs some serious work. The classic argument is really that they should be censored so they can't easily organise and kill us. If he doesn't say that, I don't know if he realises what stakes he's talking about. (he probably does, but... say it) I'm annoyed, because there are lots of people who don't realise this is literally about survival fo…

> some serious work. The classic argument is really that they should be censored so they can't easily organise and kill us.

There's a difference between words and actions. Words fo not kill. No, words are not violence no matter how much people try to claim otherwise.

Furthermore, censoring people does nothing to reduce a groups ability to kill. Taking away someone's public voice does not take away their capacity to carry out violence. Disinviting a speaker or banning a book does not magically make people's guns disappear.

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