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God's Lonely Programmer

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Re: God's Lonely Programmer

#311

Post by bmelton »

achompas wrote: post #290
btilly wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe that you should be downvoted. If you read Paul Graham's essay http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html , it is clear that our current hypersensitivity to racism is a current moral fashion. You're not allowed to be racist, you're not allowed to think racist things, you're not even allowed to question our society's chosen approach to racism. Which is just silly. Facts remain facts even if we don't like them.…

[per PG's essay] it is clear that our current hypersensitivity to racism is a current moral fashion Is it, actually? Or is it a stance acquired after centuries of marginalization? Consider PG's examination of social issues: Changes between the past and the present sometimes do represent progress. ... But this becomes rapidly less true as you move away from the certainty of the hard sciences. By the time you get to so…

> I don't expect that marginalization of entire groups of people will be in vogue again any time soon.

While we've definitely made progress towards racial, gender and sexual equality, this still happens every day, and may not be a fixable problem. Democrats routinely marginalize Republicans, and vice versa. Even those who benefit from the recent shifts in favor of gay marriage equality routinely marginalize bigamists, or polygamists. There's always a group of people not in vogue, and the way in which we deal with these things is somewhat absurdist.

The current de rigueur is for society to realize that our unjust treatment of a special group is unfair. In the 60s, it was our unfair treatment of blacks. In the 90s, it was our unfair treatment of gays. Then we work to get them declared as a protected class, and then we fight for their rights using that protected status as leverage.

Instead, we should do a better job of understanding what rights entitle us to, and then simply afford those rights to all people, whether or not they belong to a majority class, a protected class, or an unpopular minority.

Tribe mentality will always cause us to identify more with people we can more easily identify, and it will always cause us to mentally place others as being outside our tribes. Creating special rules for the disenfranchised du jour just reinforces that there will always be groups of people fighting for some form of equality.

Re: God's Lonely Programmer

#312

Post by esaym »

Nursie wrote: post #306
zafka wrote: post #33

I really enjoyed this window into the life of "LoseThos". I am glad that he seems to be both relatively safe and happy. I think in the long run the value his life's work will be comparable or greater than the worth of most of his peers.

How do you figure that? I'm genuinely interested. He's made a network-less OS with a fixed, low-resolution display, that is of seriously limited utility in the modern world and (AFAICT) doesn't advance the state of the art, all as an act of worship. It's a curiosity, but of value? Not so much.

Well that is a heck of a lot more than I can do...

Re: God's Lonely Programmer

#313

Post by publicfig »

kelvin0 wrote: post #305
publicfig wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would think the downvotes were because his name was in the article and due to the fact that a good percentage of people around here know his name, people assumed you were being snarky with the question as opposed to curious.

The key here is : '...People ASSUMED you were being snarky...'.

I was only explaining the reasoning, not defending or condemning it.

Re: God's Lonely Programmer

#314

Post by dragonwriter »

alextgordon wrote: post #206
BenDaglish wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Facts remain facts even if we don't like them. It depends not only on your definition of "facts", but on the interpretation of the same, and how that affects policy and decision making. For instance, these too are all "facts". "Poor people have lower IQ's than rich people" "Americans have lower IQ's than the Japanese, Italians, Mongolians, British, Austrians and many many others" "More men have high IQ's than women…

I'm as sceptical as anybody of the merits of IQ as a means for assessing "intelligence", however the fact remains that it is simply a test of memory and logical reasoning. You might as well ban giving maths tests. I think you'd agree that IQ does not discriminate based on race at all, it discriminates based on class . It seems common in American discourse to dress class divides up in some kind of "-ism", to subvert t…

> You might as well ban giving maths tests.

No one banned giving any kind of test. What the case at issue found illegal was using a test that had a discriminatory effect when the employer could not demonstrate that the test at issue was "a reasonable measure of job performance", based on the Civil Rights Act of 1964, wherein Congress banned job discrimination on race and placed the burden of proof on employers to demonstrate that practices with disparate impact were reasonably job related.

> I think you'd agree that IQ does not discriminate based on race at all, it discriminates based on class.

Tests don't discriminate, people do. An employer who has an overt policy of racial discrimination, who replaces that policy on the day the Civil Rights Act of 1964 goes into effect with an IQ test requirement covering the same jobs that were previously covered by the overt discrimination policy, where results on the test in question both has disparate racial results and have no demonstrable tie to performance in the jobs covered, well, its not hard at all to see that as the employer (not the test) discriminating on race, using the best tool for that purpose that they think they can get away with.

Re: God's Lonely Programmer

#315

Post by vlaube »

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #96
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time his story comes up, there are people who respond with answers along the lines of "what can we do for him? can we find him assisted employment? can we raise money for him?" etc. While these comments are surely well intentioned, they end up being mostly condescending and out of place, as if talking about a completely helpless being. He is openly racist. He can't find a job on his own, unless it's among other…

The help that he wants is for people to use his software. Perhaps someone could sponsor a hackathon to develop games, or other software for TempleOS.

This sounds like a really nice idea.

Re: God's Lonely Programmer

#316

Post by AndrewKemendo »

BenDaglish wrote: post #179
btilly wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe that you should be downvoted. If you read Paul Graham's essay http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html , it is clear that our current hypersensitivity to racism is a current moral fashion. You're not allowed to be racist, you're not allowed to think racist things, you're not even allowed to question our society's chosen approach to racism. Which is just silly. Facts remain facts even if we don't like them.…

> Facts remain facts even if we don't like them. It depends not only on your definition of "facts", but on the interpretation of the same, and how that affects policy and decision making. For instance, these too are all "facts". "Poor people have lower IQ's than rich people" "Americans have lower IQ's than the Japanese, Italians, Mongolians, British, Austrians and many many others" "More men have high IQ's than women…

"On average, when given a written test invented by white men over 100 years ago, a sample group consisting of historically enslaved, disenfranchised and under-educated people of African heritage in the United States performed less well than a sample of their European-descended counterparts"

That is a really good way to describe the test results. I'm gonna use this from now on.

Re: God's Lonely Programmer

#317

Post by wormparoxysm »

king_jester wrote: post #141
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time his story comes up, there are people who respond with answers along the lines of "what can we do for him? can we find him assisted employment? can we raise money for him?" etc. While these comments are surely well intentioned, they end up being mostly condescending and out of place, as if talking about a completely helpless being. He is openly racist. He can't find a job on his own, unless it's among other…

> His racism probably isn't his fault. It's probably a factor of his condition. I don't know if his racism is the result of or related to his condition. However, even if it is, so what? Why exactly does that behavior get to be overlooked as though it doesn't have a real effect on people who suffer from it? Why does he get assistance to find a job while non-white people struggle to find work in tech?

The same mob that is going after his explicit racism here, knows that it can't handle being incited to anger. That it can't trust itself.

Who knows better than the mob?

Re: God's Lonely Programmer

#318

Post by daveloyall »

DigitalJack wrote: post #245
daveloyall wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I find this guy's moments of clarity amazing. Oh, that's because: > I'm not very familiar with mental illnesses [...] :) Schizophrenics are frequently lucid. Well, a modified sort of lucid... It's as if they are rational folks for whom first principles or axioms have been shaken up, and indeed are malleable all the time. It doesn't sound like Terry would ever think that his dinner plate would sprout legs and walk a…

Once you believe in God it's all downhill from there?

I dunno, Jack. Maybe it only applies if you're also schizophrenic. :)

Re: God's Lonely Programmer

#319

Post by btilly »

dragonwriter wrote: post #253
btilly wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe that you should be downvoted. If you read Paul Graham's essay http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html , it is clear that our current hypersensitivity to racism is a current moral fashion. You're not allowed to be racist, you're not allowed to think racist things, you're not even allowed to question our society's chosen approach to racism. Which is just silly. Facts remain facts even if we don't like them.…

> For example the Supreme Court has ruled that it is illegal to make an IQ test be part of a job hiring practice because allowing it will discriminate against blacks. Don't believe me? Go read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Co. ! Perhaps you should read Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424 (1971), particularly at 436: "Nothing in the Act precludes the use of testing or measuring procedures; obvio…

Yes, there is no question that Duke Power Co had racist intent.

However the measure that they hit on is actually a reasonable way of improving your interview process. There is general research to that end, and it was presented in that case. But the sample set of previous employees hired by Duke Power Co was not large enough to statistically demonstrate that fact. Therefore the court decided as it did. As a result the fact that IQ tests are more effective at figuring out who to hire than human interviews is no longer actionable by any normal employer.

There are some notable exceptions. For example the US military has enough history and experience with the ASVAB that they are able to safely use it. But very few companies are in a position to do such research for themselves.

Re: God's Lonely Programmer

#320

Post by innguest »

kstenerud wrote: post #163
davidw wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article: > Unable to work, he collects Social Security disability He's doing ok because the 'collective' takes care of him.

You say it as though it were a bad thing. He has money coming in, has a roof over his head, does fulfilling work, and from his description is quite satisfied with his life. Where is the problem?

The problem is we can't all do that.

I'd love to have all that and not need to work. I also do fulfilling work for myself and so I meet all the requirements. How can I sign up to that gravy train?

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