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Mandated diversity statement drives Jonathan Haidt to quit academic society

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Re: Mandated diversity statement drives Jonathan Haidt to quit academic society

#571

Post by etherael »

hackerlight wrote: post #360
pessimizer wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, they also need a platform to make people aware of their existence, their views, and to recast their censorship to be in their favour. The whole point of no-platforming individuals is to make a statement that their views are seen as reprehensible and to stop them from being able to air those views to an audience. The only way that this works is to exert total control of the content of all communications. Otherwi…

Quoted post unavailable.

By this logic torture also "works".

In both cases the application thereof, while it will not assist at all with getting to the truth of any issue, will certainly allow you to manipulate those you subject to it to tell you whatever you want to hear.

Of course, as soon as they are removed the subject will typically recant, and often overcorrect in the exact opposite direction, in light of the exposure to loathed coerced manipulative strategies.

Sunlight doesn't have that problem. People may make mistakes and come to the wrong conclusion, but at least they won't double down on their erroneous position as a retributive strategy for the coercive manipulation to which they have been subjected.

But hey, maybe some ends are just so awful they justify any means in pursuit of their prevention, be it torture, censorship or whatever. Certainly lots of people these days clearly seem to think so.

Re: Mandated diversity statement drives Jonathan Haidt to quit academic society

#572

Post by brightball »

He’s right to do so. Statements that your research must be presented with a filter based on how it will advance political goals calls into question the integrity of all research. When people don’t “trust the science” this will be why.

But further, I’d never seen the statement from antiracist before…wow. The idea that the only cure for discrimination is discrimination is akin to saying the only cure for violence is violence. It’s abject insanity that such a notion is being advanced in society.

The cure for discrimination is forgiveness. The cure for violence is forgiveness. The cure for hatred is forgiveness.

The only way anything stops is for people to have the humility and wisdom to say “this will stop with me.”

Re: Mandated diversity statement drives Jonathan Haidt to quit academic society

#573

Post by darawk »

beowulfey wrote: post #568
darawk wrote: post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People love to cite this study as an example of absolute proof of discrimination, but it isn't. There is an obvious rational non-racist explanation for the outcome in question, and it is affirmative action. A black person, a white person, and an asian person with the exact same credentials mean extremely different things in terms of absolute rather than relative competence level, as a consequence of affirmative actio…

Take a moment to wonder at the implication of your observation. Why do you assume, if three people all went to the same university and had the same credentials, that one of those people is almost certainly at the top 1% of absolute test scores because of their race? Perhaps you may be experiencing subconscious biases without even realizing it? Based on your other comment, you would claim "Affirmative Action" is why y…

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. Affirmative action policies mechanically have this consequence. Asians have the highest test scores (among the racial groupings commonly used for AA policies), and affirmative action policies effectively z-score test scores by racial group for the purpose of admittance. The effect I described is a mechanical consequence of these two facts, it doesn't require any further assumption.

Re: Mandated diversity statement drives Jonathan Haidt to quit academic society

#574

Post by peter422 »

kansface wrote: post #564
water-your-self wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IQ is generally thrown out entirely. Im shocked to see it treated as a legitimate metric on hacker news

The military still uses it because it is highly predictive. They also have a hard cutoff at the bottom which wasn’t always the case (see McNamara’s Folly for the history of when the army accepted literally retarded people - it didn’t end well). We also see a very strong correlation between eg IQ and occupation. It is a legitimate metric of *something*.

The U.S. marine corp promoted its first black 4 star general this year. I don’t think it’s the shining example of a race-blind institution, at least as far as leadership is concerned.

Re: Mandated diversity statement drives Jonathan Haidt to quit academic society

#575

Post by secondcoming »

undersuit wrote: post #536
djohnston wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes this needs more adoption. Why aren't math papers being gauged for their DEI readiness before publication?!!? /s

Respectfully they should. Math papers against, fighting, or attacking DEI should be suspect.

suspect of what?

Re: Mandated diversity statement drives Jonathan Haidt to quit academic society

#576

Post by [deleted] »

beowulfey wrote: post #568
darawk wrote: post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People love to cite this study as an example of absolute proof of discrimination, but it isn't. There is an obvious rational non-racist explanation for the outcome in question, and it is affirmative action. A black person, a white person, and an asian person with the exact same credentials mean extremely different things in terms of absolute rather than relative competence level, as a consequence of affirmative actio…

Take a moment to wonder at the implication of your observation. Why do you assume, if three people all went to the same university and had the same credentials, that one of those people is almost certainly at the top 1% of absolute test scores because of their race? Perhaps you may be experiencing subconscious biases without even realizing it? Based on your other comment, you would claim "Affirmative Action" is why y…

[deleted]

Re: Mandated diversity statement drives Jonathan Haidt to quit academic society

#577

Post by jmugan »

seattle_spring wrote: post #450
fareesh wrote: post #223

This is now firmly in religious territory. Is there much of a difference between this and halal/kosher certification?

Ironically, most of the people against DEI are also likely people who would be AOK with more Christianity in schools and academics.

It seems to me that most people just want everything to be rational. It's just that the most idealogical on both sides are the ones that are always speaking.

Re: Mandated diversity statement drives Jonathan Haidt to quit academic society

#578

Post by curioushacking »

jhoechtl wrote: post #569
curioushacking wrote: post #465

My understand for how we measure systemic racism issues seems to typically be predicated on assumed outcomes. For example that if the distribution of employees race does not match the general population then there must be a systemic cause for this. What I don’t understand is why that is assumed true. If we want to encourage many different cultures to live together wouldn’t it naturally make sense that different cultu…

> For example that if the distribution of employees race does not match the general population then there must be a systemic cause for this. The assumption alone is wrong yet any other assumption inevitably leads to stigmatisation and segregation. Whatever study anyone comes up with it will inevitably turn into a discussion if either racism or discrimination.

This seems to be the largest potential issue then with my understanding of requiring research a-priori to match an assumed outcome or ideal. I wonder if an academic wanted to rigorously attempt to isolate between these, would they be allowed to publish the results were found that systemic issues were not significant. It seems potentially dangerous if we stifle publications of studies that find minimal impact of racism because it could have the impact of only highlighting the cases of racism, but not the net impact.

Re: Mandated diversity statement drives Jonathan Haidt to quit academic society

#579

Post by beowulfey »

darawk wrote: post #573
beowulfey wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take a moment to wonder at the implication of your observation. Why do you assume, if three people all went to the same university and had the same credentials, that one of those people is almost certainly at the top 1% of absolute test scores because of their race? Perhaps you may be experiencing subconscious biases without even realizing it? Based on your other comment, you would claim "Affirmative Action" is why y…

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. Affirmative action policies mechanically have this consequence. Asians have the highest test scores (among the racial groupings commonly used for AA policies), and affirmative action policies effectively z-score test scores by racial group for the purpose of admittance. The effect I described is a mechanical consequence of these two facts, it doesn't require any further assump…

Let me try again. You receive three resumes for a job application, for three humans of three different races. They have the exact same credentials. You immediately assume one of the three is the brightest of them, because your understanding of Affirmative Action Policies says this particular race has the highest likelihood of having higher overall test scores.

One of the other two could have had the highest possible score of all time, but you have written them off by making an assumption about them, based on race. You have made a judgement based on statistical inference, when you should have treated them all equally.

You may not intend it in any ill-meaning way, but it is important to realize that minor assumptions like this are pervasive, and they have far-reaching effects.

Re: Mandated diversity statement drives Jonathan Haidt to quit academic society

#580

Post by josephg »

kenjackson wrote: post #359
josephg wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How is the principle incorrect? It’s a truth like evolution. You can’t fix past discrimination without future discrimination, in most cases. True like creationism more like. Here's some other perspectives: - Things in the past can't be fixed. We can't "fix" past discrimination any more than we can fix 9/11 or retroactively fix the holocaust. - Are you trying to decrease discrimination or racially biased life outcom…

> - Things in the past can't be fixed. We can't "fix" past discrimination any more than we can fix 9/11 or retroactively fix the holocaust. You're right -- fix is not the right word. But you can dampen the impact of the event. For example, I think we provided various types of relief to different classes of victims of 9/11. > - Are you trying to decrease discrimination or racially biased life outcomes? If you want les…

> based on anti-racism principles these policies are indeed anti-racist, and discriminatory against whites.

I don’t think the best policies are racist. Providing more financial support for single parent households helps poor, struggling single parents of every race. It doesn’t discriminate.

And nor should it - poor white children deserve support just as much as poor black children do. No child deserves to be homeless.

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