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Major AI conference is moving to Africa in 2020 due to visa issues

venturebeat.com

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Re: Major AI conference is moving to Africa in 2020 due to visa issues

#41

Post by logicchains »

andybak wrote: post #30
logicchains wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Are you seriously trying to claim that science is a perfect meritocracy? I'm not making any particular claim about science. I'm making a general claim about reason: someone making a moral argument must provide some reason or evidence to support that argument. In this particular case, it means that if someone wants to make a claim that there is something morally wrong with the distribution of scientists with respect…

If this was an academic paper then maybe but it's a comment on a forum on a website and life is too short to marshal supporting evidence for every stated opinion. So I put it to you again, do you agree with the statement or do you disagree?

>If this was an academic paper then maybe but it's a comment on a forum on a website and life is too short to marshal supporting evidence for every stated opinion.

The reason academic papers require rigour is because such rigour is necessary to make a convincing argument. Without rigour, people end up just talking past, misunderstanding or shouting at eachother; nobody's going to convince someone else to change their mind just by stating an opinion.

>So I put it to you again, do you agree with the statement or do you disagree?

Personally, I agree that science is not a perfect meritocracy, but I'm not convinced it's due to discrimination by scientists: I've never met a scientist I could imagine making a hiring decision based on race. If there is a problem I'd suspect it's due to other factors; if there are fewer people with a particular characteristic studying science in university or high school, then seems like the root cause of that would be the real problem. You can't expect scientists to hire a certain percentage of people with that characteristic if the percentage of science graduates with that characteristic is much lower.

Re: Major AI conference is moving to Africa in 2020 due to visa issues

#42

Post by andybak »

gsich wrote: post #40
andybak wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this was an academic paper then maybe but it's a comment on a forum on a website and life is too short to marshal supporting evidence for every stated opinion. So I put it to you again, do you agree with the statement or do you disagree?

If no evidence is presented, the argument is invalid. This also applies to forums.

I highly doubt that you apply this principle consistently yourself. In fact I just skimmed your comment history and there's a wealth of arguments presented without supporting evidence.

Re: Major AI conference is moving to Africa in 2020 due to visa issues

#43

Post by andybak »

nisuni wrote: post #36
andybak wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> things are not where they should be Are you seriously trying to claim that science is a perfect meritocracy? Seriously?

Science is probably the most meritocratic field in the world.

I don't disagree. But that statement doesn't contradict the original point.

Re: Major AI conference is moving to Africa in 2020 due to visa issues

#44

Post by andybak »

nisuni wrote: post #34
Jare wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in science there’s no place for identity politics Sounds like a "theory vs practice thing". Do you believe that identity should not, and/or does not affect a person's ability to practice science to the best of their potential? Of course I believe that in theory it should not but in practice it does. Organizations that try to correct, compensate, steer, etc. things towards where they should be, need to exist because…

I believe that identity may affect a person’s ability to do science, since there’s a correlations between identity and economic status. That said, science is about equality of opportunities, not about equality of outcomes. This means that we should of course strive for having easier access to universities for people of all backgrounds. But after that Academia is PURE meritocracy. Anyone who fights for more graduates…

> But after that Academia is PURE meritocracy.

Are you claiming it is a pure meritocracy or that it aspires to being such? If the former then I think that's remarkably optimistic to the point of naivety so I'll presume you mean the latter.

Re: Major AI conference is moving to Africa in 2020 due to visa issues

#45

Post by andybak »

logicchains wrote: post #41
andybak wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this was an academic paper then maybe but it's a comment on a forum on a website and life is too short to marshal supporting evidence for every stated opinion. So I put it to you again, do you agree with the statement or do you disagree?

>If this was an academic paper then maybe but it's a comment on a forum on a website and life is too short to marshal supporting evidence for every stated opinion. The reason academic papers require rigour is because such rigour is necessary to make a convincing argument. Without rigour, people end up just talking past, misunderstanding or shouting at eachother; nobody's going to convince someone else to change their…

I made a similar point in another comment below but I'll repeat it here. I think it's unlikely you provide supporting evidence every time you make a factual claim because if you did it would be astonishingly laborious to carry out any kind of conversation.

And a brief look at your post history shows many examples of statements unaccompanied by supporting evidence.

As laudable as your sentiments are, they are rather unrealistic. We make unsupported claims all the time because normal human communication is not the same thing as rigorous chains of deductive statements.

Re: Major AI conference is moving to Africa in 2020 due to visa issues

#46

Post by andybak »

baddox wrote: post #39
logicchains wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Are you seriously trying to claim that science is a perfect meritocracy? I'm not making any particular claim about science. I'm making a general claim about reason: someone making a moral argument must provide some reason or evidence to support that argument. In this particular case, it means that if someone wants to make a claim that there is something morally wrong with the distribution of scientists with respect…

That’s a bit silly though. A citation can’t somehow “prove” a moral statement. I think it’s clear that the commenter was assuming the reasonable moral claim that ethnicity/gender/etc. should not affect one’s opportunities in science, and then claiming that there is still work to be done in achieving that goal.

This is a much better phrasing of the point I was stumbling to make. Thank you.

Re: Major AI conference is moving to Africa in 2020 due to visa issues

#48

Post by gsich »

andybak wrote: post #42
gsich wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If no evidence is presented, the argument is invalid. This also applies to forums.

I highly doubt that you apply this principle consistently yourself. In fact I just skimmed your comment history and there's a wealth of arguments presented without supporting evidence.

Very true. But you made a controversial statement without backing it up. Then you replied with a typical "just a forum" excuse. Which probably means: You can't find sources to back up your statement, or available sources contradict your statement.

If someone wants a source to my comments, I'll provide it as best I can.

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