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> they’re just out to steal cows. What does this idiom mean? I've never heard of it before.
> they’re just out to steal cows. What does this idiom mean? I've never heard of it before.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Side note... Funny thing about white supremacy. If you go on raw IQ statistics alone, then whites are certainly not the master race. That title would belong to Asians and Ashkenazi Jews. But then again I'm a skeptic of IQ = everything.
It's a benchmark for the brain. It's not close to everything, but it measures something and that something is significant. I'm sure you agree, but I need to get it out.
By context, I mean that IQ has meaning for the way life is for humans right now, but given a return to an earlier context (hunter-gatherer) or a transition to a new context (say some high-tech utopia where computers do the heavy thinking), it becomes functionally meaningless.
Since this seems to be the overall point >But when other people are totally happy to talk about speed and blood pressure and comas and the crime rate, and then suddenly switch to a position that we can’t talk about IQ at all unless we have a perfect factor-analytical proof of its obeying certain statistical rules, then I worry they’re just out to steal cows.... But when people never even begin to question the idea of…
Remember that Scott was able to write his (justly famed) Neoreactionary FAQ because he knows a pile of the neoreactionaries personally.
[1] c.f. the recent case of http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2014/08/09/our-lette... in which 139 geneticists told Nicholas Wade to stop misreading and quote-mining their own results in the service of scientific racism.
This is a tactic that I've yet been able to counter effectively. It's more about mixing levels of rigor. Case in point: a tech company releases diversity numbers. A reasonable point is to ask for a breakdown into tech, admin, support, etc. Often in these companies the diversity is shoved into sales and marketing. But then another commenter will ask about the diversity of the candidates, and speculate that they are id…
What the argument is really about is whether there is a problem to fix. The diversity numbers clearly indicate that there is. You can't draw a normative conclusion from a positive claim alone. You additionally need some normative axiom. No fact can tell you what you should do. In the discussion you cite, the disagreeing parties have different normative axioms. Some people believe in statistical equality as an end goa…
If you agree that women are not somehow less mentally capable than men, then the fact that technical jobs are 85% dominated by men should be a concern. Not just for "normative" reasons or "statistical equity", but simply that there are a lot of talented people being excluded for one reason or another. If not, you should explain WHY not. Anomalies demand explanation.
You dismiss the numbers because of an assumed equality of treatment and saying, well, I don't see anything therefore it's not a problem... and if it is, it's somebody else's problem. That's exactly the mismatch of rigor I'm talking about. You put the burden on others to "prove" that something is amiss, then when they do, demand more.
Since this seems to be the overall point >But when other people are totally happy to talk about speed and blood pressure and comas and the crime rate, and then suddenly switch to a position that we can’t talk about IQ at all unless we have a perfect factor-analytical proof of its obeying certain statistical rules, then I worry they’re just out to steal cows.... But when people never even begin to question the idea of…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What the argument is really about is whether there is a problem to fix. The diversity numbers clearly indicate that there is. You can't draw a normative conclusion from a positive claim alone. You additionally need some normative axiom. No fact can tell you what you should do. In the discussion you cite, the disagreeing parties have different normative axioms. Some people believe in statistical equality as an end goa…
A good example of the debate and tactics I'm describing. :) If you agree that women are not somehow less mentally capable than men, then the fact that technical jobs are 85% dominated by men should be a concern. Not just for "normative" reasons or "statistical equity", but simply that there are a lot of talented people being excluded for one reason or another. If not, you should explain WHY not. Anomalies demand expl…
As for the undue rigor involved, it's you who seems to be demanding a lot: you demand proof that men and women are statistically unequal merely to admit it as a possibility.
More precisely, let A = "women are unequally treated" and B = "women are not statistically equal to men" (at the point of application for Facebook employment). The diversity numbers imply A || B. You are assuming that B is false because there is no proof it is true, and therefore concluding A must be true (since A || B and !B => A). But strangely, you are not asserting that A is false without a rigorous proof that A is true (which would imply B).
That's the fundamental asymmetry that Scott Alexander is talking about. The people you disagree with are merely saying "A || B, we don't know which."
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Side note... Funny thing about white supremacy. If you go on raw IQ statistics alone, then whites are certainly not the master race. That title would belong to Asians and Ashkenazi Jews. But then again I'm a skeptic of IQ = everything.
It's a benchmark for the brain. It's not close to everything, but it measures something and that something is significant. I'm sure you agree, but I need to get it out.
This is a tactic that I've yet been able to counter effectively. It's more about mixing levels of rigor. Case in point: a tech company releases diversity numbers. A reasonable point is to ask for a breakdown into tech, admin, support, etc. Often in these companies the diversity is shoved into sales and marketing. But then another commenter will ask about the diversity of the candidates, and speculate that they are id…
1. Hypothesis: Women are discriminated in tech.
2. Argument: There are less women in tech. (shows number of women in tech)
3. Counter argument: There are less applicants.(shows number of applicants, number of uni students)
4. Counter counter argument: They self-select out of tech because of the discrimination.
Afaik, there is solid evidence for points 2&3. What is the evidence for 4?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A good example of the debate and tactics I'm describing. :) If you agree that women are not somehow less mentally capable than men, then the fact that technical jobs are 85% dominated by men should be a concern. Not just for "normative" reasons or "statistical equity", but simply that there are a lot of talented people being excluded for one reason or another. If not, you should explain WHY not. Anomalies demand expl…
Claiming that "a lot of talented people being excluded for one reason or another" is a positive claim. It's merely a fact about the world. If you are against this, that's a normative axiom (or possibly a normative conclusion derived from another normative axiom). As for the undue rigor involved, it's you who seems to be demanding a lot: you demand proof that men and women are statistically unequal merely to admit it…
[edit] For fuck sake - if you had noticed a 50% imbalance in CPU usage on your server farm, surely you'd spend some time trying to understand it. What the hell is wrong with so many people who are busy inventing facile excuses and dredging up mathy reasons why to NOT recognize the problem as a problem and looking into why it might exist?