141–150 of 214 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm sorry, are you saying Zuck should be required to dress his socioeconomic class?
No. I just think it's posturing on his part. He's pretending to be something he's not, so that people see the friendly brogrammer instead of the ambitious "They trust me — dumb fucks" CEO who disregards privacy.
I will agree the value of a put-together appearance is valid, in many contexts. and i wouldn't take from that at all. However ... it's ridiculous to use this to defend a $2,500 handbag purchase. the purchase was inadvisable at best. marshall's, target, JCP etc have a massive business strategy around making sophisticated looks available on a low budget. so there are plenty of ways to accomplish the objective of self r…
I agree. Two different things being discussed as one. 1) Everyone should have at least one outfit that is super classy. A cheap solution is a Salvation Army or Goodwill store in a nice part of town. 2) People who live on the dole and buy things they clearly don't need or deserve. Rocking an iPhone 5 while using your food stamp debit card at the grocery store to buy junk food is the typical "Stupid" poor person move m…
Deserve? Where does deserve come into this? Posessing money makes it easy to aquire things, but having it or lacking it doesn't say anything about if someone deserves something or not.
I cannot speak to the gendered or racial points (white male, here), but during my time in NYC I experienced first hand the escalation of opportunity that tracked with my escalation of signaling clothing and accessories. I was lucky enough to be poached from my job as a movie theater cleaner/attendant by the manager of a 5th Avenue Kenneth Cole. At the time I was struggling and would eventually end up temporarily home…
I will agree the value of a put-together appearance is valid, in many contexts. and i wouldn't take from that at all. However ... it's ridiculous to use this to defend a $2,500 handbag purchase. the purchase was inadvisable at best. marshall's, target, JCP etc have a massive business strategy around making sophisticated looks available on a low budget. so there are plenty of ways to accomplish the objective of self r…
I agree. Two different things being discussed as one. 1) Everyone should have at least one outfit that is super classy. A cheap solution is a Salvation Army or Goodwill store in a nice part of town. 2) People who live on the dole and buy things they clearly don't need or deserve. Rocking an iPhone 5 while using your food stamp debit card at the grocery store to buy junk food is the typical "Stupid" poor person move m…
Are you making a moral judgement about income?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think I've ever seen a serious maths problem not be specific about the type of average they are referring to. In general speech, all three common types are meant (mode being the usual meaning of "the average/typical person...") and the context usually explains which someone means. > I will concede that yes, I did mean the mean average Which is fine, but you were complaining that someone else was wrong even th…
I have never in my time in 8 years of math classes ever heard the term "average" referred to as the median or mode. When median or mode has been meant, it has always been explicitly stated as such. The more vague "average" being left to implicitly reference the arithmetic mean average of "sum total divided by count of values"
Good, I've never seen that too, as I said.
> When median or mode has been meant, it has always been explicitly stated as such.
As I said.
> The more vague "average" being left to implicitly reference the arithmetic mean average of "sum total divided by count of values"
This is not the case in common usage which is exactly the reason this comment thread started.
When debating social justice issues, it is wise to bear in mind that deconstructing one particular thesis in a vacuum offers little more than intellectual showboating; much of the social justice narrative describes small and seemingly-trivial barriers cumulatively forming concrete obstacles. For a better metaphor, Marilyn Frye writes in The Politics of Reality : "Cages. Consider a birdcage. If you look very closely a…
This article is unconvincing at best. She claims that you can only look presentable on a tight budget, which is patently false. You can look classy with affordable items: it only takes a tiny bit of basic fashion knowledge and a little more money than for the K-Mart option. I've seen plenty of people who bought brand items but used them in a vulgar or trashy way: the result was that you could immediately identify the…
When debating social justice issues, it is wise to bear in mind that deconstructing one particular thesis in a vacuum offers little more than intellectual showboating; much of the social justice narrative describes small and seemingly-trivial barriers cumulatively forming concrete obstacles. For a better metaphor, Marilyn Frye writes in The Politics of Reality : "Cages. Consider a birdcage. If you look very closely a…
Just to lay my cards on the table: I'm registered as a member of the US Green Party and have been involved with various left wing activist movements since I was fifteen. I've also been poor, living in a junkie hotel and doing day labor for cash. My most upvoted comment on hn (before I ragequit my previous account (for basically leftist grievances (!))) was one describing what that was like. Still, I find the intellec…
I agree retreating to argue on the structural level is rhetorically weak. That's all that can really be said against it, and it's unfortunate, because someone saying how really you are a member of the oppressed (as seen in white supremacist and MRA groups) is much more alluring than some intangible narrative about structural inequality.
I say narrative because that's the form it has taken, and indeed had to take. Mary Wollstonecraft couldn't spend her time arguing point by point in a council chamber. She wrote books, compelling novels which had to fight viciously for every inch of ground on which they stood.
You've seen how easily people convince themselves that gripes of oppression are baseless, today, 200 years after A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. We've had academics write and study and provide rhetorical tools for generations now, building a narrative, because that is what is needed. To truly argue against it, it must be met on that same narrative ground.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think I've ever seen a serious maths problem not be specific about the type of average they are referring to. In general speech, all three common types are meant (mode being the usual meaning of "the average/typical person...") and the context usually explains which someone means. > I will concede that yes, I did mean the mean average Which is fine, but you were complaining that someone else was wrong even th…
You know what I most like about Hacker News though? That instead of bitching about the content of the article, we're busy debating the semantics of mathematical definitions that infer the "average" person's impression of society than caring about the content of the article... that's pretty neat :P
> Er yeah, averages aren't made by half and half, they're made by dividing the sum by the count. It's quite possible to have 90% of the population be below average if the 10% is significantly above the average.
I then replied saying that the parent was correct if he meant a specific type of average, subtly implying that you were being ridiculous for complaining about it. Now you're complaining about the thing you did?
While I agree that $2500 on a purse is ridiculous, some less expensive brand signalling across multiple pieces of clothing might be equally effective. I am reminded of this experiment using the Lacoste and Hilfiger logos: http://www.economist.com/node/18483423