Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Mandated diversity statement drives Jonathan Haidt to quit academic society

reason.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

381–390 of 906 posts

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

#381

Post by darkteflon »

shellami wrote: post #373
wcerfgba wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Censorship is all these characters need to gain new followers. No, they also need a platform to make people aware of their existence, their views, and to recast their censorship to be in their favour. The whole point of no-platforming individuals is to make a statement that their views are seen as reprehensible and to stop them from being able to air those views to an audience. Not all ideological disputes are abou…

All we need to do to end piracy or pornography is "no-platform" it, right? Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Rational or not, it's better for bad ideas (ignoring the even more pernicious question of who decides which ideas are "bad") to be examined than have them fester in dark corners.

21st century: “Hold my beer.”

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

#382

Post by jscipione »

Jordan Peterson also recently retired from the University of Toronto citing diversity statements as his reason.

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2022/01/20/jordan-peterson-re...

I would source a publication more well-received by the Hacker News moderators, but I couldn’t find any stories published by those sources. This reporting bias seems to be more and more common unfortunately.

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

#383

Post by Ancapistani »

thebooktocome wrote: post #323
trention wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can an academic society in the USA today have an ideology explicitly presented as "the advancement and preservation of the white race"? No? Then your whole argument falls apart.

The white suprematists found it more effective not to explicitly state their ideological goals. There are plenty of academic legal societies very interested in “states’ rights”, “returning to the constitution”, “memorializing the Confederacy”, etc. I don’t see a important distinction between an explicit statement and dog-whistle so thinly veiled that everyone knows what it stands for.

> I don’t see a important distinction between an explicit statement and dog-whistle so thinly veiled that everyone knows what it stands for.

That’s an interesting statement.

I’ve personally attended a memorial ceremony hosted by the United Daughters of the Confederacy where a Black woman spoke for an hour about the conditions under which Blacks, both enslaved and free, existed in the Confederacy. She was a UDC member, which means that she was a thoroughly documented descendant of a Confederate soldier. In her case, that was a man who was offered his freedom in exchange for military service.

You say “everyone knows it stands for”, but my experience says that a more truthful statement would be “most people believe they know what it stands for”.

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

#385

Post by hackerlight »

shellami wrote: post #373
wcerfgba wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Censorship is all these characters need to gain new followers. No, they also need a platform to make people aware of their existence, their views, and to recast their censorship to be in their favour. The whole point of no-platforming individuals is to make a statement that their views are seen as reprehensible and to stop them from being able to air those views to an audience. Not all ideological disputes are abou…

All we need to do to end piracy or pornography is "no-platform" it, right? Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Rational or not, it's better for bad ideas (ignoring the even more pernicious question of who decides which ideas are "bad") to be examined than have them fester in dark corners.

[flagged]

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

#386

Post by nilespotter »

canadiantim wrote: post #364
plasticchris wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

Opportunities and rights on the one hand, outcomes on the other. e.g.

- Equality: We are both free to operate in an open market to secure the best outcomes for ourselves

- Equity: You made $1000, I made $100, we both get $550

Wokes will bend over backwards to paint equality as an impossible project, claiming that it is doomed because of historical white supremacy, generational oppression, moon phases, etc. We're asked to believe uncritically that the goal of equal opportunity is equal outcome, and commanded to pursue equal outcome at all costs lest we are labeled racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic and misogynist; de-platformed from all social media and made infamous and unemployable so we can't work to support our families. Equality is the American civil rights movement, equity is literally communism.

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

#387

Post by [deleted] »

pessimizer wrote: post #319
krapp wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"That's a classic argument you know, that's what they said about the nazis and the communists, that if they got into power they'd suppress all the rest of us. Therefore, we'd suppress them first. We're going to use their methods before they can use it.""Well that is contrary to our experience. In a democratic society, if you let them all talk, even those who would deny civil liberties and would overthrow the governm…

> I can raise you book burnings and gulags and death camps galore. Yes, the famous events that come from letting everyone speak: book burnings and death camps. If we could just burn enough books, we could keep books from being burned forever. If we silence enough people, we can keep people from being silenced.

[deleted]

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

#388

Post by ZeroGravitas »

yakshaving_jgt wrote: post #314
jknoepfler wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One might respond along the lines of: "why are we investing in ways to operationalize a concept of 'superiority' in the first place?" The long lesson from the history of this research is that it produces garbage wrapped in a thin veneer of credibility, and becomes a weapon to justify or deepen real existing problems. It doesn't matter if it gets debunked eventually, the problem is how it is used now." edit: (I don't…

> One might respond along the lines of: "why are we investing in ways to operationalize a concept of 'superiority' in the first place?" Becomes sometimes it's important. The efficacy of modern medicine is not uniform across ethnic groups. To deny this fact would effectively be to deliberately withhold treatment from some groups of people. Does that seem fair and just to you? - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/article…

That's not fair, they should encourage people to include:

> Diverse research participants (e.g., understudied or underserved populations)

or in case it's due to the team they should also probably encourage:

> Diverse members of the research team (e.g., those from underrepresented sociodemographic backgrounds, from an array of career stages, from outside the United States, or with professional affiliations that are not typical at SPSP such as predominately undergraduate serving institutions, minority-serving institutions, or outside academia)

Hopefully if thay do that won't be portrayed as a bad thing by anyone.

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

#389

Post by Eddy_Viscosity2 »

collegeburner wrote: post #291
Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's that research going to be used for? Will it become of the basis of policy that says 'only asians are allowed to enter the power lifting club', 'only east africans on the running team', 'only white land owning men are allowed to vote'.

1. we don't know how a piece of research will be used because we don't even know what the outcome will be. 2. rarely is a piece of research only used for 1 thing, and even if someone uses it wrongly, maybe someone else uses it for good purpose or builds on it for an important discovery. 3. the correct answer is to address the person attempting to abuse the data when that person does it not to attempt to suppress that…

The question of whether certain research should be banned because of the potential outcomes is one with deep philosophical roots and the basis of much science fiction. The 'just because we could do something, doesn't mean we should' question. I don't think there is a single absolute answer to this, as context matters.

What I do see is a long history of race-based 'science' being used to justify some pretty terrible policies and laws.

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

#390

Post by web007 »

Make your statement "This ain't got nothin' to do with that malarkey!" and move on, there's no need to throw a tantrum and take your ball and go home. It's like a conflict of interest statement, "yes" or "no" are both acceptable answers, just say something.

For others who view this DEI addition as positive, it gives them an explicit place to call out areas of focus. For people who are looking for DEI-impacting work it's a much simpler filter than abstracts or full papers.

Post reply on HN