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The Yale Problem Begins in High School

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Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#231

Post by lern_too_spel »

mynameisvlad wrote: post #226
lern_too_spel wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to have bought into fair and balanced horseshit. There are certain views that are morally superior to others, just as there are certain hamburgers that are better than others. Taking rights away from other people loosely based on ancient superstitions (the Bible says nothing about allowing gays to marry but says a lot about how to punish them -- the only reason Eich and his ilk aren't politically promoting t…

> just as there are certain hamburgers that are better than others There's nothing that objectively makes a hamburger better than another. It's all subjective, just as views are subjective. Some people like bread a lot, so they may want a really thick bun which could be overpowering to another person. Some people are vegetarian, while others cringe in disgust at a black bean burger. It doesn't make those hamburgers a…

It's exactly like hamburgers. At the top, there are actions that are hard to distinguish morally, just as there are hamburgers that are hard to distinguish quality-wise.

But we can all agree that a hamburger with actual shit in it is worse than a hamburger from Smashburger, just as there are certain actions that are clearly morally wrong and don't need to be evaluated with some false fairness.

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#232

Post by nostromo »

nickbauman wrote: post #127
jseliger wrote: post #12

I've taught at two colleges and based on my (purely) anecdotal experiences and attention to the climate, I'd say that the number of students and faculty interested in stifling or censoring ideas is small but also very, very noisy. They also have no sense of humor and college administrators as a group have no sense of humor or perspective, and they're chronically worried about accusations of indifference or insensitiv…

The problem with "balancing viewpoints" argument is that it isn't based on a critical ethos and so it cannot progress on the basis of logos. You can have a "balanced viewpoint" and still have debates about "whether the moon is made of the body of Vince Foster or not." There are certain ideas that just don't belong in a university setting because they are bunk and this has nothing to do with diversity of opinion. It s…

But in a classroom setting, the students should feel free to debate the composition of the moon.

Very quickly, the proposal that the moon is made of Vince Foster would be dismissed as false. This is critical thinking in action.

The problem today is that students and faculty are self-censoring. This doesn't expand erudition.

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#233

Post by marknutter »

rm999 wrote: post #219
marknutter wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree completely, and am publicly willing to do so because I'm not willing to live in a future where I can't publicly disagree with someone. Why is it technology, specifically, that needs to be equalized? Because it's currently trendy? Because there's a lot of money in it? Is money all that matters? Why aren't we as interested in getting, say, more men into nursing, considering there a lot of underemployed, undered…

>Why aren't we as interested in getting, say, more men into nursing... I also don't see a lot of "Women in Pro Football" groups This is seriously your argument? That's so fatalistic: this is the way things are, so this is the way things will be. You're also arguing a very "us" vs "them" mentality, which is what makes professions gendered to begin with. >CS is intriguing to me precisely because it's such a great equal…

> This is seriously your argument? That's so fatalistic: this is the way things are, so this is the way things will be. You're also arguing a very "us" vs "them" mentality, which is what makes professions gendered to begin with.

Yeah, seriously. It's my argument. Did I not sound serious enough? Are you addressing the content within my argument or the tone of my argument?

I'm not being fatalistic, I'm genuinely asking those questions. I have a lot of male friends who didn't go into tech or nursing who are really struggling. One might go as far as to say they were "actively discouraged from nursing early on" while my female acquaintances happily slid into comfy and lucrative nursing positions. Yet, not once have I heard of or seen advertisements for Men in Nursing conferences or groups. I'm not making this "us" vs "them" as much as you want to frame my argument that way, and even if I did you'd have to explain why you think that leads to gendered professions.

> You're ignoring the social aspect. Women are often discouraged from tech early on, which makes the profession more male-dominated, which makes women feel less comfortable, etc.

Again, I could make the same (bad) argument by replacing "women" with "men" and "tech" with "nursing". Unless you're also willing to admit the problem exists there and needs to be dealt with, then I'm not sure we have much more to discuss.

If however, you do think the gender imbalance in the field of nursing is a problem, then I need to be educated as to why it's a problem. I've heard arguments about why we need to get more women in tech, but they've never made a whole lot of sense to me.

You know what we need more of in tech? People. Period. Far too few people chose CS as their field of study and as such there's a huge mismatch between supply and demand. If your mission is to increase the volume of people in tech, regardless of their race, gender, age, or creed, then count me in and how can I help?

edit: accidentally a word

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#234

Post by Pyxl101 »

flopto wrote: post #220
dragonwriter wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When talking about white privilege, the point is that poor whites are better off than poor blacks, just by virtue of being white. Its not clear to me that that that's true; there is complicated intersectionality at play. Poor whites are more likely to have social networks and other advantages that provide things useful to getting out of poverty, and may -- due to racism and the racially unequal distribution of weal…

Poor blacks, unlike poor whites, are subject to mass incarceration. Edit: this is technically incorrect, see dragonwriter below.

Because (at least in part) they commit crime at far higher rates per capita. Black men commit about half of all murders in the USA, despite being about 13% of the population. The statistics are similar for many other crimes. 39% of people arrested for murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault were black from 2011-2013 per FBI statistics [1] [3].

In 2010, 62,593 blacks were victims of white violence, while 320,082 whites were victims of black violence. (Bureau of Justice Statistics). 2013 FBI homicide numbers show a similar ratio, with blacks being about 12 times more likely to kill a white person than whites were to kill a black person [2] (~10 blacks per 100k population kill a white, while ~1 white per 100k kill a black).

Some studies have shown that crime is correlated primarily with poverty, while other studies have found that being black correlates to criminality while controlling for other factors [4]:

"As a means to assess these possibilities, I estimate separate regression equations for the black and white block groups in Atlanta. [...] Consistent with previous research, percent black retains a strong, significant effect on violent crime net of the effects of other controls. [...]" "[...] Although this finding appears to provide partial support for the racial invariance assumption, the fact remains that for a large proportion of the black neighborhoods, the effect of disadvantage on violence is weaker than is the effect evident among all of the white neighborhoods in the analysis" (However this paper is largely inconclusive on the issue overall, and predominately suggests that previous research into the topic is inadequate to understand it)

Why this is the case is an interesting problem that I hope we can tackle, better understand, and attempt to solve as a society (by solve I mean bring violent crime down to zero generally, across all groups)

[1] FBI crime statistics by race for 2010: https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2010/...

[2] FBI homicide statistics by race for 2013: https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/...

[3] http://blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/factcheck-black-american... has additional details and citations.

[4] http://www.udel.edu/soc/faculty/parker/SOCI836_S08_files/McN...

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#235

Post by woah »

flopto wrote: post #185
detaro wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what's your explanation for the events described?

The school (teachers and students together) recognizes an ideology (patriarchy) that they see as a problem and responds by creating a culture that opposes that ideology, in order to reduce the power of that ideology. I don't see any way to take a neutral stance on this issue, as ``doing nothing'' is supporting the status quo (patriarchy), so if you agree that patriarchy is a problem, then the school should be celebra…

So basically, anyone who disagrees with you is a racist/sexist?

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#236

Post by ams6110 »

flopto wrote: post #185
detaro wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what's your explanation for the events described?

The school (teachers and students together) recognizes an ideology (patriarchy) that they see as a problem and responds by creating a culture that opposes that ideology, in order to reduce the power of that ideology. I don't see any way to take a neutral stance on this issue, as ``doing nothing'' is supporting the status quo (patriarchy), so if you agree that patriarchy is a problem, then the school should be celebra…

You can reject (or at least question) the premise.

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#237

Post by pjscott »

lukeschlather wrote: post #215
TeMPOraL wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's actually our biggest hope of getting rid of SJW phenomenon. The underhanded methods they use means also that as they grow, they start to turn on each other. The cancer gets cancer, and dies before it can grow too much. I think the general population will slowly realize that being evil is not the best strategy for making others better people.

The post you replied to described "bitter, spiteful, demanding, insecure, Us-vs-Them types." I think there are people in various leftist movements that can fairly be described in that way. But I also think it's a good description for anyone who describes a desire for social justice as a cancer.

There's a small confusion in terms here: the "social justice movement" and "a desire for social justice" are not even close to synonymous.

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#238

Post by warfangle »

caseysoftware wrote: post #181
kelukelugames wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which ideas do they want to censor? Edit: I'm looking for specific examples. Otherwise we are just feigning outrage. I had an ex co-worker who confided in me that he doesn't like gay people. I was very happy that he couldn't say that in public.

> I had an ex co-worker who confided in me that he doesn't like gay people. I was very happy that he couldn't say that in public. Good call. As long as your opinions remain "acceptable" you have nothing to worry about.

There's a difference between discussing much a person hates a group of people and discussing why people hate people; There's a difference between discussing why racist halloween costumes are offensive (and perpetuate subconscious hate) and discussing whether or not hate speech has a place on college campuses.

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#239

Post by cthalupa »

ccernaf wrote: post #18
zekkius wrote: post #11

I find the underlying premise of this article and the claim that there is a "war on boys" absurd. It's a old argument from the same old set of people who have the same old intolerant (and dying) paradigm. Not sure why it is on HN at all as the content has nothing to do with tech...

I'm pretty disappointed in the article and the comments, and how like Reddit this website is turning out to be. I'm not going to make any judgements (though I really really am), but this same article has been posted to 10 subreddits, among them such gems as: SJWsAtWork, ThisIsNotASafeSpace, sjsucks, and sjwhate.

Any sort of work should always be judged based on the actual content, not who likes it or where it has been shared.

To reduce this argument to absurdity, let's say I create a recipe for pecan pie. People love it, including the people at stormfront or other white power sites. Let's say I created this recipe back in the 1920s, and it happens to be Hitler's favorite pie.

Is there anything wrong with that pie?

People with extreme viewpoints will often like things that are a more moderate version of their own viewpoints. Just because you don't agree with the extremists doesn't mean that you should also disagree with the moderates.

Re: The Yale Problem Begins in High School

#240

Post by nickff »

dragonwriter wrote: post #167
nickff wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think that this corporate executive will be hired in a similar role from which he was let go? If not, how is this functionally different from a blacklist (or "conspiracy in restraint of trade")?

Since he is currently CEO of a technology company, I don't think it's anything like an industry blacklist, in effect (obviously, its nothing like it in structure, either.)

Being forced to leave one of the most influential software developers, and go start a new small startup is comparable to being forced out of the major studios and starting your own. I fail to see any significant difference between what happened at Mozilla and the Hollywood blacklist.
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