171–180 of 624 posts
Set standards, let people meet them, and don't worry about what they look like.
Ideally, yes. But if the group of people who meet your standards does not exactly match the demographics of the general population, you will be held accountable.
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We'll see if you still think line that lowering the bar is a chance for America when you have to take a plane designed by a 2.1 GPA.
So what exactly does my anecdata mean? Exactly nothi g. But So does your "argument" (you didn't make one except touting a statement full of subliminal racism in the context of this discussion).
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You don't. That shouldn't ever be a goal. Unfortunately a lot of people don't realise that the real world isn't, and can't be, that way.
Don’t you want to look at my dice if I don’t get a 6 after 50 rolls? 12? I think it’s reasonable at a certain point
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> but it's good for society I feel like you've taken this position as a fact without having any evidence supporting it.
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The 26% and 10% have a culture of striving, and they typically aspire towards business and/or the professions.
The 60% (the majority) are indigenous and had civilization that stretches back centuries. However, they did not (and do not) have a achievement-oriented culture and therefore are not given to striving (at least in comparison to the former groups).
For the longest time, the 26% and the elite among the 10% controlled the economy. This all came to a head when racial riots broke out, after which the government introduced affirmative action favoring the 60%, for exactly the reasons you outlined -- to create racial harmony and to quell the racial resentment.
In a sense, it worked. For decades racial strife was low, at the expense of marginalizing the capable 26% and 10%.
The problem is that once you introduce affirmative action, it becomes a political tool for staying in power, and no government can ever remove it without risking losing an election.
Affirmative action is a short term band-aid. If you keep it on for too long, people depend on it and the entire system degrades, especially when it applies to a large enough number of people. People lose the incentive to strive to do better, and the standards go down to accommodate the lowest common denominator. Affirmative action in my country has led to an overall decline in competency in many fields, and a brain drain of the people who are marginalized to neighboring countries and beyond. With every passing year, my country is surpassed by other countries in the region.
The feedback loop of stomping on meritocracy (where ascribed qualities like skin color or race are elevated over competence) is self-reinforcing. Our politics has gotten worse, we're getting less and less competitive by the day, and competitive forces are eating our lunch. We may have a more equal pie, but we got there by pulling everybody down so our pie is smaller. The society feels stagnant and continues to degrade. This is my lived experience.
The country next to us has also achieved low racial strife, but they adopted much more directed and -- I dare to say -- more social darwinist policies. They are economically much more successful than we are, and much more dynamic than we are, even though we both started out with similar initial conditions.
I do think we need to have a society where everyone has an equal shot at social mobility. However I also believe that affirmative action is too blunt an instrument for achieve that and it is one that creates vicious feedback loops that are politically difficult to get out of even when it's clear its usefulness is over.
So no, I'm not a big fan of affirmative action as it is conceived here in this article. To achieve a more equal society you cannot merely force equality by tweaking the gates, because (1) there's irreducible variance among humans that you quell at your own peril, (2) some of those gates are important -- remember Chesterton's fence. It's clear to me that a more thoughtful approach than affirmative action (or even a more thoughtful kind of affirmative action) is needed.
I'm a confused by the equity claim to justify discriminatory behavior with what seems like heavy emphasis on race. It seems difficult to achieve equity without transparent, and standardized methods emphasizing a holistic assessment covering visible and invisible, immutable and mutable characteristics--each of which impact individual outcomes. I understand that tackling overrepresentation and underrepresentation is im…
1. Admitting children-of-elites for funding and advancement purposes 2. Admitting extremely high-competent students to build an alumni reputation 3. Maintaining a demographics profile that the general population will see as legitimate
Fundamentally, today's racial quotas and preferences are in place for the same reason as why Harvard discriminated against Jewish students in the 1920s and 30s. If they didn't, the university would be seen as an attempt by outside demographic groups to install elites by a significant section of the population.
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Some positive discrimination can somtimes be beneficial, but doing it based on racial group is just asking for problems. How does it even work practically? What stops an Asian American from saying they are African American?
Ivy league and other top-tier schools dominate placements in industry, the Supreme Court, and public institutions. When race is a factor for consideration (e.g. Biden only considered black women for the Court vacancy), it will be a factor for these schools. If they instead accepted based on standardized test scores and became 50-60 percent Asian, it would mean that most of their students (by virtue of being Asian) would get shut out of positions of influence and power. Those positions would instead be filled by students from other schools.
One must always remember that elite schools exist to grow their own prestige. An honest hard-working student at Harvard Medical School who then opens a small private practice in his hometown, doing good for his community and his family, is, in the eyes of the elite, a waste of an education. These schools want students with talent and ambition who will be well-placed to change the world.
On the other hand, for lower-tier schools, I see little justification (from their perspective, not from a universalist ethical point of view) borderline-quota affirmative action policies.
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I haven't formed a strong opinion on affirmative action yet. > You cannot justify holding Asian-Americans to a higher level because "they can handle it." The person you're replying to didn't say anything like that. > It disgusts me that you can say "this is good for America" when Asian-American children have to go through a nightmare to have a chance at opportunities comparable to their peers, simply because of the c…
How do we know what 'race' someone is, do we just ask them or do we test for DNA. The more you drill down into the race question the more absurd it seems, and you quickly realize people either mean culture or some DNA pseudo-science.
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Racism is not good for society. You cannot justify holding Asian-Americans to a higher level because "they can handle it." Asians are part of society too, and yet Asian-American children have dramatically different and more stressful childhoods than their counterparts - a constant churn of studying, stress, and pressure, compared to the relatively carefree childhoods of their peers. It disgusts me that you can say "t…
On the flip side, the selection process (I dont think I'd call it racism). Special admission can benefit marginalized low income communities if one of their students gets a step up. For example, a student of low socioeconomic status (or from under representative race). Let's say they qualify for a special admission. They train hard for years to become a doctor. It may be advantageous to have a doctor that can look ba…