Live data from Hacker News

In Supreme Court brief, Yale and peers defend use of race in admissions

news.yale.edu

211–220 of 363 posts

Re: In Supreme Court brief, Yale and peers defend use of race in admissions

#211

I dont know why peoplehate meritocracy but i can say one thing for sure that communities/orgs dont encourage meritocracy go down the drain. I look for the best surgeon not someone with some race to do a surgery on me.

they hate it because it doesn't produce the results they want. And instead of introspecting they want to blame the system itself.

most arguments i see for affirmative action are on the face not logically consistent. but it feels more like the type of policy where people choose what action they want ahead of time and then desperately scramble for any justifications possible.

Re: In Supreme Court brief, Yale and peers defend use of race in admissions

#213
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but it leads to absurd results, where the black daughter of two doctors, with 500K+ in annual family income is given preferential treatment, while the Chinese-American son of a janitor is discriminated against.

But he has privilege, and she doesn't.

My understanding of people claiming privilege is that, under ceterus paribus ("all else equal") assumptions, certain groups have worse socioeconomic outcomes than others.

The hypothetical here doesn't match that.

Re: In Supreme Court brief, Yale and peers defend use of race in admissions

#214
post #207
post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is 18% Marxists in the social sciences evidence for "a repressive liberal orthodoxy, and no dissent is tolerated"?

It is evidence that academia doesn't require evidence for left-wing claims. So to the extent that they do that, insisting on evidence from conservatives is discrimination. (I'd prefer that everyone's claims require evidence.) But https://www.johnlocke.org/academics-support-discrimination-a... speaks more directly to your question. Conservatives are discriminated against in academia for being conservative.

Doesn't this just mean that conservatives believe Marxism is an unacceptable worldview, since it exists?

Why would we police evidence-based thought in academia?

Re: In Supreme Court brief, Yale and peers defend use of race in admissions

#215
post #118
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the danger of focusing on equality of outcome instead of equality of opportunity. In my opinion, the former is not possible anyway, it's not a good goal. People are different and they're going to have different outcomes, even if only considering chance. But they should have the same opportunities regardless of race, gender, etc. Making policy to address this is tackling the root of the problem instead of the…

I largely agree, but here's an attempt at a "steel man" of the opposing point of view: Unjust discrimination is complex, often subconscious, and deeply rooted in institutional structures and culture. It's too complex and elusive to address directly beyond the obvious removal of explicit regulations (desegregation) and finger wagging. Those things have already been done and yet extreme inequalities persist, so address…

Deeply rooted institutional and cultural discrimination can only exist if discriminating behavior is acceptable when it done against the right target. Changing which demographic is permitted to discriminate (and hate) against only changes the smallest amount of variable, which is the opposite strategy of going deeper in the effort to eliminate discrimination.

It is very similar to violence. People abhor violence when it done against the wrong person and love violence when it feel justified against the right target. This is why laws regulating violence is often written to be as broad as possible. If you give people the right to turn to violence when they feel its justified, you get mob justice which only create spirals of more violence.

When people feel extreme inequalities persist even when laws should prevent them, people reach for mob justice. Riots, occupations of buildings, looting and shooting. The result is rarely that the extreme inequalities goes away. The cure is almost always the same, which is restricting violence even further and working directly at removing violence from institutional structures and culture.

Re: In Supreme Court brief, Yale and peers defend use of race in admissions

#216

I think a lot of people who defend "affirmative action" [1] are misinformed about the extent of it. It's not about preferring the more "diverse" or less privileged candidate among roughly equally qualified candidates. It's a direct attack on the concept of merit. Some of its ardent proponents aren't too shy about this fact either. [2] This chart [3] by the Economist is illuminating: In Harvard undergraduate admission…

[deleted]

Re: In Supreme Court brief, Yale and peers defend use of race in admissions

#217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

> A person should be advantaged on the basis of their race I read your entire comment, and understand that it contains more nuance than the first statement - but that does not diminish the fact that this position is explicitly racist. You can either want people to be treated without regard for their race, or you can try to use racist policies to "push the needle the other direction". They are mutually exclusive persp…

It's not racist as it does not support the idea that one race is superior or inferior to another.

A "racist" idea would be that one race deserves more than another because of some inherent flaw or virtue.

The idea of affirmative action is the objective fact that racist policies have already been created, and to decide to "go colorblind" would be de facto support for those racist policies that are already in place.

The position you quoted is explicitly antiracist, because it suggests the racial groups are equals in all their apparent differences.

Re: In Supreme Court brief, Yale and peers defend use of race in admissions

#218
post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> The highest IQ people tend to be libertarian. Libertarian, the conservative ideology, or classical liberal, the much more diverse group of folks? Both are funded by Kochs and others at the end of the day, but having attended meetings by both groups my experience has been that classical liberals are very intellectually honest (and absolutely the smartest folks I've met) even when we agree to disagree. Libertarians,…

Could you clarify the distinction between libertarian and classical liberal? I know many libertarians treat these terms as synonyms, and I know there is a diversity of attitudes within the libertarian camp, but I'm not sure how they match up with what you are saying.

Re: In Supreme Court brief, Yale and peers defend use of race in admissions

#219
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't understand current progressive ideology. Apart from discrimination against Asians, there is also the whole "Hijab empowers women" nonsense. I come from a part of the world where women have to fight for the right to take off hijab. They are shunned socially for doing so. In worse places, they can be jailed or beaten. Imagine coming from such a place to America, and seeing here women are wearing that sym…

> Its analogous to if you were an American slave in 1800s, got your freedom and sailed to the UK. And on landing saw blacks in the UK wearing chains as a fashion accessory. It seems so disrespectful towards your struggle. I would point out that chains are indeed a popular fashion accessory. I think that telling people what to wear removes power from them. It isn't contradictory to believe that telling people that the…

> I think that telling people what to wear removes power from them.

Indeed, it does remove power from them. It is also something which every country, every culture, and every religion has in common. They all put in rules about what people are allowed and not allowed to wear. The support for those are also quite high when people are forced to think about them, but since they are such an omnipresence, it like talking to fish about water.

It is a rare event that I find a person who honestly believe that people should have an inalienable-right to decide from themselves what to wear with neither government, culture or religion being able to overrule that decision.

Re: In Supreme Court brief, Yale and peers defend use of race in admissions

#220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Ivy leagues today are anything but diverse in thought, this should be obvious. What actually exists is a repressive liberal orthodoxy, and no dissent is tolerated. I ought to expand on this since this comment will surely be controversial. I make no comment on which view is right or wrong; but suppose the conservative view were favored, and any disagreement with the ideology got your fired from your job, publicly…

[flagged]

The more education you get, the overwhelmingly less likely you are to be conservative.

This is false.

You can find data at https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2016/04/26/a-wider-ideo.... In 2015, college graduates saw a higher share of those who are mostly or consistently conservative than any other strata of education. Those with a postgraduate education are more likely to be mostly or consistently conservative than those who didn't finish high school!

What IS true is the people in the middle mostly disappear among more educated adults, and overwhelmingly became liberal. Which is not surprising considering how liberal academia is.

It is also true that conservatives tend to go into some professions more than others. If you're an engineer (not "software engineer", actual engineer) or are on Wall St, you'll be surrounded by educated conservatives. If you wind up in a humanities department, you probably aren't.

That's because you learn critical thinking skills and how to recognize bullshit.

There is an irony to your having just demonstrated your own lack of critical thinking skills.

It's very unfortunate for conservatives that reality has a hard-left bent to it.

And yet the people who have to deal with the hard reality required to make your bridge not fall down, are most likely conservative. The most liberal major is women's studies.

https://www.businessinsider.com/charts-show-the-political-bi... https://futurefemaleleader.com/most-conservative-and-liberal...

What Ivy did you go to?

Dartmouth College. Yourself?

Post reply on HN