241–250 of 328 posts
"If you are white and male there is no chance of finding a junior role at this time, however since you are female, it might be very likely"
Such healthy environment these diversity initiatives have been pushing /s
Diversity is based on the belief that some group‘s behavior patterns are fitting better with the environment, even temporarily and locally. But DEI is denying this difference, expecting any behavioral pattern should deserve the same result. They can’t even reach a logic consistency.
No, you’re wrong. Belief in “diversity” is the belief that many different groups/identities can contribute, and that none are strictly “best”. DEI is an effort to include more groups in institutions, in order to benefit from the mixing of ideas that results.
Your second point undoes your first point. “Ideas” can certainly be compared and ranked; there are good ideas and bad ones, ideas that have worked in practice and ideas that don’t work in practice. Defining people by “ideas” widely held by their group is a recipe for discrimination.
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It reminds me of my Catholic childhood. In church we regularly had to say prayers and creeds, which involved everyone confessing to having sinned, and reaffirming the absurdities we allegedly believed in.
In the year 3000 a schoolboy will find it hard to distinguish between a progressive and their jesuit/quaker antecedents.
I hope more people will pick up on the danger of this slippery slope. Part of the problem though is that we seem to have a tendency towards polar vortices of worldviews that suck in various issues that aren't even necessarily strongly connected, just to make them more effective in opposing the other side in an excessively concentrated way. So there is this tendency of social activists towards conformance and centrali…
> we seem to have a tendency towards polar vortices of worldviews First past the poll voting with primaries encourages (forces) politicians to go to the extremes. Ranked choice voting can reduce extremism. It’s also cheaper for tax payers as it eliminates expensive and wildly discriminatory/disenfranchising runoff elections.
1. The rate of spoiled ballots goes way up, and disproportionately so in lower-income areas (https://rangevoting.org/SPRates.html#minn). Suppressing 3 to 5% of the vote in poor districts would be devastating; the winning margin is smaller than that in lots of elections.
2. With RCV, sometimes voting for someone you like will make them lose (https://rangevoting.org/ClayIrv2.html).
3. RCV doesn't break us out of two-party dominance. Once a third-party candidate gains more support, they can still be a spoiler under RCV, forcing you to choose between the lesser of two evils.
4. Audits are essential to ensure an accurate count, but RCV makes them vastly more difficult because you can't add up the votes from smaller districts to get the overall result.
5. Let's have voting machine companies write more unreviewed proprietary software and make it more complicated, that sounds like a great idea!
There's a much better method that actually does help us escape two-party rule. It's simple, cheap, well-tested, accessible, easy to understand, and doesn't even require changing any ballots or software. That method is Approval Voting (https://electionscience.org/library/approval-voting-versus-i...). Simply:
• Use the same ballots as we do today
• Let people vote for all the candidates they like
• Count all the votes
Done. No new ballots, no new procedures, no new software, and extremely simple to explain to voters.
Here's the intuition for why this works. When you vote using the current system, expressing support for one candidate requires you to withdraw your support from another candidate. RCV is the same in that you can only have one first choice: if you want to rank one candidate higher, you must rank another candidate lower. That's what keeps you from voting for your true favourite. With Approval Voting, your decisions about each individual candidate are fully independent: how you vote on one candidate has no effect on any other candidate. So you can express your full support for your favourite without harming the "lesser evil" candidate.
RCV is frequently criticized by mathematicians and economists, who are familiar with its many problems. This is one of those uncommon situations where the theorists and pragmatists agree: Approval is better from both perspectives.
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Sure, counterpoint to freedom is that you can make a mistake. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't have that freedom. The Brexit referendum was organized (and supported) by the conservative government, which wanted more neoliberalism. It was more of a populist stunt than the expression of the will of the people. That's not true to the spirit of referendums or direct democracy - these should exist to allow people to di…
That characterisation is imprecise to the point of being misleading; may I tell the story in detail? I particularly rebut any suggestion that the Tories organised the referendum. That's only true at the most superficial reading. The whole farrago (pun intended) was founded by fringe nutters in the party, offered as a sop by the party leadership, and co-opted and orchestrated by interests inimical to the nation. (Ther…
"Ever since the first referendum to join the EU in 1975"
The referendum in 1975 asked "Do you think that the United Kingdom should stay in the European Community (the Common Market)?"
We'd already been forced into the EC (the predecessor of the EU) without our consent. We were then forced into the EU without our consent as well.
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It reminds me of my Catholic childhood. In church we regularly had to say prayers and creeds, which involved everyone confessing to having sinned, and reaffirming the absurdities we allegedly believed in.
Yes, DEI is a religion in practice, even if not in name. It should remind you of Christianity as well. It has - Sinners, including "original sin," and a need for confession and atonement for these sins - Various sacrificial lambs, saints, martyrs, etc. - Holy times (days, weeks, months) and celebrations, remembrances of past wrongdoing, etc. In many ways it's an intensely negative religion. It has a concept of _colle…
Hmm, powerful invisible thing that is everywhere... Inspires creeds and prayers... Associated with original sin... Can't be questioned... Sounds familiar somehow.
I hope more people will pick up on the danger of this slippery slope. Part of the problem though is that we seem to have a tendency towards polar vortices of worldviews that suck in various issues that aren't even necessarily strongly connected, just to make them more effective in opposing the other side in an excessively concentrated way. So there is this tendency of social activists towards conformance and centrali…
Well, 'slippery slope' is a logical fallacy. The issue here, more precisely, is that without something to push against the US is inculcating ideas into the next generation of leaders that make ex-Soviets think "wait a second, this looks like home!". It isn't a slope, this is literally rebuilding the dangerous parts of authoritarian bureaucracy - people who can't think and are then given unearned and easily abusable p…
The slippery slope is a fallacy when it is assumed it will surely happen.
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What makes you think only white ladies require these? That wouldn't be true of my school where that office is quite diverse. Are you saying that non-white people would never do something like racialize admissions and hiring? because I don't believe that
Something like 80% of university administrators are white: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/10/28/black-adminis... . The modern concept of “diversity” was created by white people. It is a framework the white people in charge of universities use to accommodate the demands of different non-white groups. Besides, writing for someone from a different non-white group wouldn’t be any different. What context does a…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> we seem to have a tendency towards polar vortices of worldviews First past the poll voting with primaries encourages (forces) politicians to go to the extremes. Ranked choice voting can reduce extremism. It’s also cheaper for tax payers as it eliminates expensive and wildly discriminatory/disenfranchising runoff elections.
That's the wrong way around, I don't think any conventional analysis of voting systems concludes that. FPTP forces parties to the center, because they have to be pre-formed coalitions before going to the polls. Single issue parties and fringe parties end up with nothing in FPTP. That's why the usual argument for PR is that it allows smaller (fringe/extreme) parties to exist and have influence, so represents minoritie…
FPTP by itself might not be so bad, but combine it with primaries and you’ve got a recipe for extremism and scorched earth politics. Now throw in gerrymandering and we’ve got a wildly unrepresentative election process.
Don’t get me started on the electoral college either. I’m for a national popular vote.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> we seem to have a tendency towards polar vortices of worldviews First past the poll voting with primaries encourages (forces) politicians to go to the extremes. Ranked choice voting can reduce extremism. It’s also cheaper for tax payers as it eliminates expensive and wildly discriminatory/disenfranchising runoff elections.
> First past the poll might be a typo, but it's first past the post , not poll; in case someone else gets it confused not knowing the term.