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Jewish problems (2011)

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Re: Jewish problems (2011)

#71

Post by wobbleblob »

hackuser wrote: post #67

A bit preachy, sorry: Everyone frowns on discrimination by others, people in different times and/or places, but much more important than criticizing others is to do the right thing ourselves. We need to look in the mirror (myself included!). To choose a prominent example, open discrimination against people who believe in Islam is socially acceptable in much of Western society. How stupid can we be? We're blatently re…

> We're blatently repeating the exact same mistakes as before, the exact thing we frown upon.

I find it enlightening. Why did people let the nazis take the jews away? Why did people support slavery, even turn escaped slaves in, for money? Why did they allow lynchings to happen?

Well, now we know. Now we understand. Maybe we can view our ancestors in a different light now.

Re: Jewish problems (2011)

#72

Post by gist »

randycupertino wrote: post #46
gist wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"attributed to". Reminds me of when I am in my car at a stop light and a man looks over at me. I always think "wow if I was a woman or if I was black I would think that that is the reason they are looking at me".

Instead you just use it to validate your extreme attractiveness, right? :) "I'm looking good today, check out everyone sneaking a peak at me!"

Well no because if a person turns their head to look they don't necessarily know in advance that the person is good looking! (It might be the car that I drive though...). Now of course if I was to do that with women it wouldn't be based on the car of course!

Re: Jewish problems (2011)

#73

Post by kelukelugames »

hackuser wrote: post #67

A bit preachy, sorry: Everyone frowns on discrimination by others, people in different times and/or places, but much more important than criticizing others is to do the right thing ourselves. We need to look in the mirror (myself included!). To choose a prominent example, open discrimination against people who believe in Islam is socially acceptable in much of Western society. How stupid can we be? We're blatently re…

I've been reading US immigration history for various groups. Each group suffered, assimilated, and then promptly shat on the next group. History repeats.

Things are better now because of civil rights. Discrimination is less violent. But things could be better.

Re: Jewish problems (2011)

#74

Post by hackuser »

PRJIUS2 wrote: post #39

Posted last two times[1][2] one of these stories came around, comment applicable here: As a preamble there most definitely existed anti-semitism in Soviet Union. I am a Russian living in the US with Jewish family in Russia. This is a throw away account. With that said, stories of anti-semitism told by Russian Jews in US should not be taken at face value. These folks are subject to a very strong selection bias. Most o…

I know nothing of the parent or their experiences. Unfortunately, it fits a pattern. That could be coincidence in the case of this comment, but I think the overall pattern is worth pointing out:

A common response to reports of any kind of discrimination is to downplay them -- it's not as bad as people report, they are a little paranoid, exaggerating, spreading stories, etc. If you watch for the pattern you can see it happenning a lot.

It's good, old fashioned FUD[1]: It minimizes the current issue, and more importantly it creates a situation where there are doubts about the credibility any future reporters of discrimination and problems. Finally, it's easy, when it doesn't affect you, to say someone else's problems are no big deal, they're just exaggerating, etc. 'Comedy is you fall down a manhole; tragedy is I stub my toe'.

In my experience, the truth is the opposite of what the FUD says: Discrimination is vastly underplayed, not exaggerated. Think how often the story you read is about a practice that's gone on for years or decades, and you had no idea. The group facing discrimination has much less of a voice, they don't control the media and movies aren't made about their experiences, and they are intimidated into not speaking out (partly due to comments like the ones I'm criticizing: The majority will simply discredit and smear them anyway).

-----

I'll also add that the parent comment fits another pattern: It's all anecdote. It's all based on hypothesis, and subjective analysis and impressions with no real basis.

-----

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt

Re: Jewish problems (2011)

#75

Post by JIhadishateshim »

frandroid wrote: post #63
jjoe wrote: post #25

While we're discussing this subject, and hoping to shine a bright light away from all the negativity, the solidarity of the Jewish people is amazing and unequalled! Jews seem to show great compassion and provide unconditional help for their own. There's wisdom to be gleaned from this I'm sure...

Too bad the Zionist subset is so intent on their solidarity with each other that they're conducting a slow ethnic cleansing of all other non-Jews on the lands that they occupy...

I never see you social activists care so much about anything that doesn't involve Jews as culprits. It's quite odd really. Tibet, no?

Islamic Imperialism across any other land, no?

It's really just jews, oh sorry "zionists" that falls under your area? Your modus operandi starts becoming obvious for those outside and eventually have the opposite effect to your "social activism". Just my two cents.

Our family have non-jewish friends living and enjoying their culture happily in Israel. Too much Al Jazeera can be hazardous to your health.

Re: Jewish problems (2011)

#76

Post by Moshe_Silnorin »

RivieraKid wrote: post #70
Moshe_Silnorin wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder why it's discouraged? I think it undermines antisemitism rather than otherwise. As it's a benign explanation for jewish overrepresentation in cognitively demanding endeavours.

First because it validates the hypothesis that there are significant differences in intelligence between ethnicities (i.e. if Ashkenazis are genetically smarter, perhaps the lower avg IQ in blacks is at least partly genetic). And second, it can cause some people to perceive Ash. as "others", enemies and give rise to various conspiracy theories.

I'll grant you the first point. But what sort of conspiracy theory? It elegantly explains overrepresentation without any coordination. Once you account for the Ashkenazis much higher IQ, there isn't anything for a conspiracy to explain.

Re: Jewish problems (2011)

#77

Post by hackuser »

gist wrote: post #42
PRJIUS2 wrote: post #39

Posted last two times[1][2] one of these stories came around, comment applicable here: As a preamble there most definitely existed anti-semitism in Soviet Union. I am a Russian living in the US with Jewish family in Russia. This is a throw away account. With that said, stories of anti-semitism told by Russian Jews in US should not be taken at face value. These folks are subject to a very strong selection bias. Most o…

"attributed to". Reminds me of when I am in my car at a stop light and a man looks over at me. I always think "wow if I was a woman or if I was black I would think that that is the reason they are looking at me".

> I always think "wow if I was a woman or if I was black I would think that that is the reason they are looking at me".

This statement imagines what an imaginary person would be thinking, and implies that it represents the thinking of billions of people.

I wish my subjective imagination was so reliable. Think of all the time I could save studying facts, improving my analytical skills, and most of all, learning from and listening to other people who have different perspectives and experiences than I do. 'I imagine, therefore they are.'

Re: Jewish problems (2011)

#78

Post by hackuser »

tacon wrote: post #33

In the early 1900s, Harvard was on track to be a Jewish dominated university, and they made the (then common) decision to limit Jewish enrollment.[1] In reading that article, I learned that even Richard Feynman was affected by Columbia's quota, and ended up at MIT instead. (Go MIT!) Non-meritocratic quotas exist to this day at all elite US universities, with one exception: Caltech.[2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wik…

I know a Jewish family that, in the middle of the 20th century, changed their last name to something not associated with Judaism so that their children could get into college. Imagine having to hide your religion as a way of life, treated by society as if you were hiding a dirty secret.

Re: Jewish problems (2011)

#79

Post by hackuser »

Udik wrote: post #4
vkazanov wrote: post #3

This is a well-known fact, actually. My math teacher in Lithuania mentioned that back in his days (50-s) it was practically impossible for a non-Jewish student to get into any math- or physics-related faculty: Jewish families had a very strong multi-generational tradition of both in-school and additional education. He also said he was the only non-jewish in his group in Moscow State University that year. So at some p…

Wouldn't that be called "affirmative action" in the US?

No. Affirmative action is giving extra support to a minority that suffers widely from discrimination and who lack social and political power. It recognizes that admissions are not a meritocracy for many (and in many ways, for anyone - people with the right social network have a big advantage) who because of discrimination don't have access to the same playing field or equipment as everyone else.

Jews in the USSR were the ones suffering widely from discrimination.

Re: Jewish problems (2011)

#80

Post by drostie »

Some answers:

    1. Solve for positive x: 
        x (8 sqrt(1 - x) + sqrt(1 + x))
The upper bound is clearly x=1 because the square roots cease to exist for x > 1 and and substituting in x = 1 - epsilon^2 gives to first order (8 e + 1) The inverse of y = sqrt(1 + x)/sqrt(1 - x) is with some work x = (y^2 - 1)/(y^2 + 1) so when we divide through by sqrt(1-x) which we know now to be positive, and replace the above, we find:

    (y^2 - 1)/(y^2 + 1) * (8 + y) = 11 y - 16
Expanding out we're looking for a root of

    -10 y^3 + 24*y^2 - 12 y + 8 = 0
Dividing by -2 to normalize somewhat:

    5 y^3 - 12 y^2 + 6 y - 4 = 0
At this point I almost gave up (since it's a cubic and I had no guarantee that x was rational) but got lucky, I started trying positive integers to see where this transitions from negative (y=0) to positive (5y^3) and accidentally found that y=2 solves the equation. Sending it back through I find 3/5, so assuming that it doesn't double back somewhere in the interval [3/5, 1] that's the interval that we're looking for. Phew!

    2. Find all functions F(x) : R -> R having the propery that for any x1 and x2, 
       F(x1) - F(x2)
Yeah, if you're just entering a university you're probably not going to get this one. Rewriting x1 as x + dx, x2 as x, then this says F(x + dx) - F(x) 
    3. Given a triangle ABC construct with a straightedge and compass a point K on 
       AB and a point M on BC such that AK = KM = MC.
This seems in general impossible except for some very specific triangles -- is that true? For example if |AB| = 2 and |BC| = 1, it seems that the only point on AB which could possibly be a candidate for K is the midpoint, with M being B. But the only way that the distance from K to M is the same is if BCK is an equilateral triangle, which requires furthermore that the angle BAC is 60 degrees, no?

    4. Solve 2 cubert(2y - 1) = y^3 + 1 for real y.
So y = 1 is an obvious solution. Cubing both sides we get

    y^9 + 3y^6 + 3y^3 - 16 y + 9 = 0
Then doing polynomial division by y-1 I get

    y^8 + y^7 + y^6 + 4 y^5 + 4 y^4 + 4 y^3 + 7 y^2 + 7 y - 9.
At this point I got stuck and turned to automated tools, which say that this is factorizable as:

    (y^2 + y - 1)(y^6 + 2 y^4 + 2 y^3 + 4 y^2 + 2 y + 9)
Graphing the right hand side it seems to be consistently positive, so that just leaves the left hand side, which is -1/2 +/- sqrt(5)/2. That's pretty difficult.
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