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A math professor who objects to diversity statements

theatlantic.com

251–260 of 328 posts

Re: A math professor who objects to diversity statements

#251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As an example, a whole bunch of people, for some reason, took "Black Lives Matter" to mean "Only Black Lives Matter", as if that was said or as if that was the point. That was never my issue, or the issue of anyone I encountered. My issue (and those other people's issue) was the implicit bad-faith assumption that we didn't already think black lives mattered, and needed to be scolded about it. Such rhetoric is needl…

Why would you feel that anybody was personally scolding you by saying "black lives matter" if you already believed that black lives matter? Clearly, plenty of people, through both their actions and their words, have made it very clear that they don't believe that black lives matter, and the movement was always aimed squarely at them.

> Clearly, plenty of people, through both their actions and their words, have made it very clear that they don't believe that black lives matter, and the movement was always aimed squarely at them.

Correction: the movement is aimed at only a very small subset of black lives. It is not aimed at the much larger number of ones taken by other black people.

But I guess "a specific subset of black lives matter, and let's not talk about the others" doesn't quite roll off the tongue.

Re: A math professor who objects to diversity statements

#252
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you’re wrong. Belief in “diversity” is the belief that many different groups/identities can contribute, and that none are strictly “best”. DEI is an effort to include more groups in institutions, in order to benefit from the mixing of ideas that results.

That logic is a hot mess. Why do you assume an implicit link between “different groups/identities” and “ideas?” It’s easy to accept your premise that everyone can contribute and that no group/identity is the “best.” But that just gets you to color-blind non-discrimination. Your second point undoes your first point. “Ideas” can certainly be compared and ranked; there are good ideas and bad ones, ideas that have worked…

I don’t assume a link between groups and ideas. Its something many people have observed. This is typically called “culture”.

The thing about people and cultures is that they are comprised of many different, often changing, sometimes mutually conflicting ideas. This why ranking people and their cultures is an impossible, asinine idea.

Re: A math professor who objects to diversity statements

#253
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The first time some people will see or touch a book is when they get to elementary school. Those people are set up to fail in life, and anybody growing up from birth in an environment with no books is disadvantaged. That is the concern of the parents, there is nothing preventing anyone from reading if they are so inclined today. >We all exist within history, it’s not some bubble where what happened before your birth…

It’s impossible to read a book you don’t have access to. That’s the entire point, there was a multigenerational intentional program of making sure one race couldn’t read. The effects of it persist. I think you aren’t engaging with this logically and are being emotional. Please try to think clearly and critically. You seem angry.

Your tone is antagonizing. I think you should apologize to the person.

Re: A math professor who objects to diversity statements

#254

So many people here are boosting the idea that mandatory DEI statements are like loyalty oaths of the 1950s, and implied they must be removed on that basis alone. California state universities have required their professors to sign loyalty oaths since the 1950s. The courts have long agreed this requirement is constitutional. Yes, this is exactly the sort of oath the Canadian criticizes, though it gets far less news t…

Your fourth paragraph doesn’t make logical sense.

Re: A math professor who objects to diversity statements

#255
post #195
post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can go much further and adopt more direct democratic approaches, for example, referendums, which focus more on actual issues than on which individual gets the power. This can also reduce extremism, as it requires (and causes) a wider debate (and thus mutual understanding) in society. There is a historic reason why US and UK suffer from this problem the most, because they were built primarily on liberalism and not…

counterpoint to referendums: Brexit, which has been a disaster for Britain.

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Re: A math professor who objects to diversity statements

#256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That logic is a hot mess. Why do you assume an implicit link between “different groups/identities” and “ideas?” It’s easy to accept your premise that everyone can contribute and that no group/identity is the “best.” But that just gets you to color-blind non-discrimination. Your second point undoes your first point. “Ideas” can certainly be compared and ranked; there are good ideas and bad ones, ideas that have worked…

I don’t assume a link between groups and ideas. Its something many people have observed. This is typically called “culture”. The thing about people and cultures is that they are comprised of many different, often changing, sometimes mutually conflicting ideas. This why ranking people and their cultures is an impossible, asinine idea.

Okay, let’s be concrete. What’s the “culture” of say Mexican Americans, and how would those differences make a team of Chinese software developers more effective?

Once you actually unpack this diversity idea it unravels. You can’t have it both ways. If you posit that people are basically the same regardless of identity group, then your notion of “diversity” being anything other than neutral makes no sense. But if you posit that people’s group membership makes them substantively different, then you’re inviting analysis of whether those differences are good ones or bad ones.

Re: A math professor who objects to diversity statements

#257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do people keep repeating this lie; there is no Brexit disaster. Life goes on as normal in post Brexit Britain; lockdowns did way more harm than Brexit and we've mostly recovered from those. The rest of the EU seems to be suffering more economically than Britain. We're selling more into the EU than when we were in the EU, have many trade agreements with US states and other countries, were ahead of the EU with Covi…

Geez dude, we are living in two very different Britains.

He listed a series of facts. You are living in that Britain even if you don't realize or accept it. The different Britain you believe you inhabit may exist only in your mind.

Re: A math professor who objects to diversity statements

#258
post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Americans don't understand progressive tax because they are constantly being bombarded with information as to what it means. If you watch Fox news daily you will have a misunderstanding on the matter. Take care to make generalizations when you see things like knowledge differences divided between party lines. People aren't different, but the information they get is. 2) Many social choice experts advocate for cardi…

It is plain from the stories of fox news orphans that information diet can ruin good people, but I refuse to believe that people aren't different. I rebut your thesis thus: Oskar Schindler.

What do you think the main difference in people is? Biological? Because I'm saying environmental. I'm not sure why you reference Schindler. Certainly there is a distribution and I'm not claiming people are clones (I don't think you are either). So outliers aren't proof of anything, to either argument.

Re: A math professor who objects to diversity statements

#259
post #226
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, 'slippery slope' is a logical fallacy. The issue here, more precisely, is that without something to push against the US is inculcating ideas into the next generation of leaders that make ex-Soviets think "wait a second, this looks like home!". It isn't a slope, this is literally rebuilding the dangerous parts of authoritarian bureaucracy - people who can't think and are then given unearned and easily abusable p…

I support your railing against bureaucracy, but question your assertion that a specific quantity of public spending is bad. Firstly, government spending does not imply greater bureaucracy; compare and contrast healthcare in America with pretty much anywhere else. Secondly, fiscal policy should be dynamic and reactive to economic conditions. I don't pretend to understand Keynes, but I believe he established that princ…

Keynes has been discredited in recent years, it's odd that you think he's established anything. The Austrians were proven right and recent monetary policy reflects their view - you don't see much discussion of Keynes anymore. If you don't understand Keynes maybe that's why you don't realise that?

To recap Keynes: his core idea was countercyclical monetary policy, i.e. to issue debt (print money) when times are bad and pay down debt (recall money) when times are good.

It sounds good but the Austrians pointed out that there would be two problems in practice:

1. Give governments a nice sounding justification for money printing and they will do it to excess, creating inflation. The Austrians were right: governments cited Keynes when printing money in a recession, and then the "emergency measures" would conveniently never end. The part where you pay down the debt in good times by running a primary surplus would never be respected.

2. Keynes misunderstood the nature and cause of recessions.

Recessions occur when there has been widespread misallocation of resources, usually due to some collective delusion or state mismanagement. The groupthink breaks and people realize that their investments are duds. Credit is withdrawn, investments cease and there's a giant sucking sound as people lose their jobs whilst those who still have money try to figure out what to do next.

Keynes posited that recessions are quasi-natural disasters that just inexplicably happen, and that the fix is for the government to spend money to balance them out. But this isn't the case and so his fix just makes things worse. It may appear to end the recession if all you look at is a handful statistics, but the underlying misallocation still occurred and when governments step in desperate to create employment - any employment - they misallocate resources still further. Like someone taking stimulants to try and delay the end of the party, it works for a while but they get more and more messed up. There's lots of activity but not much is actually useful. Governments don't care though, because all they're trying to do is keep people digging proverbial holes and filling them back up again.

You can drown the signals of a recession by misallocating resources still further, but it's not a good idea.

Keynesianism has worked out in the past 15 years exactly as the Austrians always said it would, and now Austrian economics is back in vogue. The 2008 recession led to the ZIRP years of easy money that never ended, even when the economy was booming. Government debt climbed endlessly. Inflation span out of control and now interest rates have been hiked repeatedly even though the economy was trashed by lockdowns - exactly the moment Keynes said to do the opposite.

Re: A math professor who objects to diversity statements

#260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The E of DEI is very Marxist indeed. We all want equal opportunity, some just want to have the government forcibly take what others have earned.

Actually, Marxists got into quite a fight against other leftists in the early days because they were opposed to equity. Marxists are, in theory, only for equality of opportunity, hence why Marxists countries like the USSR had things like pay by commission, higher pay for certain jobs, etc...

Marx is the poster child for equality of outcome. Would be very interested to know where you heard he stood for equal opportunity.

For example he is famous for saying "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need" i.e. everyone works as hard as they can yet gets the same pay, because everyone's "need" is the same. Maybe adjusted by a few exceptions like family size and medical conditions, but the point of this is to separate how hard you work from what you get.

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