Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

“Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans”

nature.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

641–650 of 883 posts

Re: “Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans”

#641

Post by ZeroGravitas »

istinetz wrote: post #594
irrational wrote: post #589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

I have seen several videos of entirely black crowds looting stores. How is this Trump's fault? How is this "pure white supremacy"?

There was an actual "white supremacist" that smashed windows and spray painted "free shit for everyone zone" on the side of a building while the crowd called him out as an agent provocateur, so...

https://minnesotareformer.com/2021/06/02/whats-up-with-umbre...

> The man whose cell phone records were sought is said to be a member of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang and “known associate” of the Aryan Cowboys white supremacist prison gang based in Minnesota and Kentucky. He was photographed with a group wearing Aryan Cowboy leather vests in Stillwater harassing a Muslim woman on June 27 of last year, according to the search warrant.

> The search warrant sought the suspect’s cell phone activity and cell tower “pings” on the day of the AutoZone incident. The man, who has a lengthy criminal history, did not return a phone call seeking comment.

Re: “Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans”

#642

Post by ZeroGravitas »

kkfdkerpoe wrote: post #616
onion2k wrote: post #607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this "pure white supremacy"? That's an easy one. America has had a couple of centuries of systemic racism keeping majority-black communities poor, uneducated, and not particularly fearful of prison (relative to majority-white communities). When you combine that poverty with an easy opportunity to loot something valuable in a situation where there's a perception of not being caught due to the chaos, people will…

Guess what keeps those black neighbourhoods poor? Lack of progressive taxation, which also impacts poor people of all other colors as well, including whites. Many Americans are obsessed with race, but really the main source of inequality is money these days. Fix the money issue and all poor people will benefit, including minorities. Take more money from the rich and use it to fund public services, education regardles…

If you look at the historical record, the people working to stop progressive taxation were openly racist, and used that to get poor white people to support the policies.

So, white supremacy lead directly to lots of poor white people getting hurt, just like the civil war killed a whole bunch of poor white people.

https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_r...

> In this “systemic racism” frame and with an understanding of the pre-existing condition of racial wealth disparities, the “anti-tax” shift of the U.S. tax system from more to less progressive comes into focus as a current manifestation of relentless racism. Beginning in the early 1980s, our tax systems have become less progressive. “Anti-tax” fervor took root with caps on property taxes in California in 1978 and the Reagan tax cuts in the early 1980s, and it has steadily flourished. Congress has decreased wealth taxes along with top marginal income tax rates. State and local governments have reduced reliance on income and property taxes, replacing them with increased sales and other consumption taxes.

> The “anti-tax” movement and economic inequality go hand in hand. Leading economists identify decreased progressivity in the tax system as an important cause of rising economic inequality. High-income earners who are taxed at lower rates are able to add more to their wealth every year compared to low-income earners. “Anti-tax,” it turns out, is less about taking the burden of taxation off of everyone and more about shifting that burden away from wealthy taxpayers who can, for example, choose to domicile in states that raise revenues through (regressive) sales rather than (progressive) income taxes.

Re: “Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans”

#643

Post by EntropyIsAHoax »

blueflow wrote: post #636
EntropyIsAHoax wrote: post #620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well words like "transgenderism" don't even mean anything and are just far-right buzzwords to scare people like you, so consider first looking into what's informing your worldview. It's certainly not anything approaching objectivity

I can name a specific dogma of transgenderism: That gender is more than performing (like an actor on the stage) an arbitrary set of gender ideals.

Don't know where you get that idea, honestly. A lot of trans people certainly think that, but there is definitely no consensus within the trans community about the definition of gender. Personally I even subscribe more to performativity (mostly as described by Judith Butler) than any other theory. But also I don't care that much about gender philosophy.

My "transgenderism ideology" is quite simple: other people's gender or presentation is none of my business and everyone deserves the same basic human rights. If that's dogma, okay I guess

Re: “Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans”

#644

Post by FabHK »

indymike wrote: post #332
Banana699 wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know the people behind statments like these are coming to it with extremly unintelligent and bad faith definitions and intentions, but the actual words are actually correct. If you had the option to delay humanity's discovery of atomic bombs to late 20th century or after, and therefore delay any substantial deep understanding of the atomic physics beneath, you would probably do it. If you had the atomic bomb, you p…

> If you had the option to delay humanity's discovery of atomic bombs to late 20th century or after, and therefore delay any substantial deep understanding of the atomic physics beneath, you would probably do it. The alternative was 20-30 million more dead people via conventional means. There were many teams around the world working to build the bomb. One always wonders about the German team and why they were not fir…

Agreed on the first half of your comment.

Philosophy of science, however, is a well established, important, and fascinating field. Keywords: Positivists/Viennese circle, Karl Popper and falsification, Feyerabend and Against Method, Thomas Kuhn and The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, W. V. Quine and the Two Dogmas of Empiricism, the Science Wars.

Re: “Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans”

#645

Post by n4r9 »

intimidated wrote: post #215
n4r9 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a great example, much better than the one I thought of. The line has to be somewhere, right? Even if someone dismisses your example, you can make it more and more extreme to the point of "if this knowledge becomes public, a maniac will 99% likely destroy the rest of the earth".

Which is more likely: 1. These censorship policies will be used to save the world from 99% certain destruction at the hands of a maniac. 2. These censorship policies will be used to crush evidence that [GROUP X] is overrepresented in [FAVORABLE SITUATION Y] due to [FAVORABLE TRAIT Z], thus legitimizing policies unjustly punishing [GROUP X]. Even if you think this censorship is righteous and good, how will you deal wi…

Which of the guidelines do you think would prevent the discovery of genetic differences between two groups?

Re: “Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans”

#646

Post by FabHK »

nubero wrote: post #584
cetahfh14615 wrote: post #577

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you're sort of assuming what I mean by "equality" I'm not talking about leveling, I'm talking about something more like job applications that are completely race-sex-etc blind, where that signal isn't even allowed into the mix. I think that in a truly meritocratic system you'll see a diverse representation. No, it might not be perfectly diverse, but it would lead to more (and fairer) diversity and not less

In the international FIDE list of chess grandmasters, 39 out of 1953 are female. That’s 2%. And while I’m certain that there’s some icky misogynistic men who have made some decisions in that regard, I’m equally certain that we will never see the ratio being fifty-fifty. Not even close. That being said, I really don’t care what we will see or what the outcome will be in a truly meritocratic system. I’m just interested…

Could that fact still be published in Nature?

Re: “Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans”

#647

Post by claudiawerner »

WalterBright wrote: post #277

Science has nothing to do with the dignity and rights of all humans. Science just a mechanism for separating truth from nonsense.

I don't think that's true - science is a social process just as much as it is a method; it has institutions, funding, public relations, disputes on technical and non-technical points (article is case in point). As a social institution, it is well within the purview of social norms, unless we are to exempt scientists from criticism of their activities while wearing a lab coat (or to render such criticism incoherent) - an absurt proposition itself.

Re: “Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans”

#648

Post by ZeroGravitas »

istinetz wrote: post #637
onion2k wrote: post #607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this "pure white supremacy"? That's an easy one. America has had a couple of centuries of systemic racism keeping majority-black communities poor, uneducated, and not particularly fearful of prison (relative to majority-white communities). When you combine that poverty with an easy opportunity to loot something valuable in a situation where there's a perception of not being caught due to the chaos, people will…

>It's simply that you've grown up in a society where white people are literally considered superior. The white supremacy is all around you. You don't notice it in the same way you don't notice the air you breathe. When someone points it out though, you should probably listen at least, even if you choose not to act. I'm Bulgarian. We've been slaves longer than the trans-atlantic slave trade existed. Up until 45 years…

> we don't riot and loot and burn buildings every time there is a political controversy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020%E2%80%932021_Bulgarian_pr...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Protests_in_Bulgaria

I'm no expert on Bulgaria, but I can't think of any scientific reason why they would be less likely to riot over politics than any other country?

You have football hooliganism and criminal gangs and all that other normal human stuff right?

Re: “Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans”

#649

Post by n4r9 »

nathanaldensr wrote: post #148
n4r9 wrote: post #108

There is a very clear trend in the HN crowd's reaction to this statement, so I'm inclined to offer a defense. I'm not linked to Nature in any way, just of a rebellious bent. The principle objections to the guidance appear to fall into the following categories: * They threaten the objectivity of science * They prevent the publication of "heretical"/"non-PC" results * They are too vague I strongly recommend that people…

> At the end of the day, a journal has a great ethical responsibility for the impact of what it publishes, and is within its rights to say "no" on that basis. You state this like it is or should be fact, but this is precisely the problem. Science should be the beginning of a chain starting at knowledge and leading to policy: science -> politics -> policy. It is not the job of scientists to try and predict or assume r…

> Science should be the beginning of a chain starting at knowledge and leading to policy

I sympathise with the goal of separating science from cultural politics. It feels like I'm against the tide here but I actually think the great majority of the guidelines strengthen this chain by promoting clarity and eliminating cultural assumptions. For example, specifying that the commonly accepted and/or scientific meanings of words like "sex" and "race" are used, and that the language adheres to bias-free practises.

A thought experiment: if you were an editor and received a manuscript which was perfectly fine up until the last line which said "and as well all know, homosexuals are weak-willed sissies", would you still go ahead and publsh if the author completely refused to remove that line?

Re: “Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans”

#650

Post by onion2k »

istinetz wrote: post #637
onion2k wrote: post #607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this "pure white supremacy"? That's an easy one. America has had a couple of centuries of systemic racism keeping majority-black communities poor, uneducated, and not particularly fearful of prison (relative to majority-white communities). When you combine that poverty with an easy opportunity to loot something valuable in a situation where there's a perception of not being caught due to the chaos, people will…

>It's simply that you've grown up in a society where white people are literally considered superior. The white supremacy is all around you. You don't notice it in the same way you don't notice the air you breathe. When someone points it out though, you should probably listen at least, even if you choose not to act. I'm Bulgarian. We've been slaves longer than the trans-atlantic slave trade existed. Up until 45 years…

And you'll notice that despite being significantly poorer than even poor Americans, we don't riot and loot and burn buildings every time there is a political controversy.

Maybe you should.

Post reply on HN