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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

#791

Post by Ferrotin »

joshuamorton wrote: post #681
Ferrotin wrote: post #563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s completely hypothetical and easily refutable by rural/urban breakdown, county-level breakdowns, outperformance by poor Asians, historical LA smog, etcetera.

no, subcounty level breakdowns actually support the thesis that higher pollution is at least correlated with lower educational attainment. Don't post misinformation. "historical LA smog" isn't a statement that refutes anything. The international consensus is that pollution is bad for educational attainment as well as other iq-like metrics, this is true in India, China, Brazil, and the UK, as well as impacts of prenat…

The performance gaps are too high for this kind of nonsense.

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

#792

Post by thr0w__4w4y »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #150
perceptronas wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly, in my EU country we have explicit laws in constitution which forbid any kind of preferential treatment or discrimination based on gender, race and etc. However, there are agencies and courts who allow affirmative action policies to exist. For example, a public grant for entrepreneurs where women are officially awarded extra points for their gender. So basically constitution is ignored and no one cares.

> Interestingly, in my EU country we have explicit laws in constitution which forbid any kind of preferential treatment or discrimination based on gender, race and etc. However, there are agencies and courts who allow affirmative action policies to exist. For example, a public grant for entrepreneurs where women are officially awarded extra points for their gender. This is also the case in the United States.

Yes it sure is. Interesting, in California in 2020, there was an attempt (Proposition 16) to overturn Proposition 209. It went down in flames, almost 60% against / 40% for.

Prop 209, passed in 1996, "amended the state constitution to prohibit government institutions from considering race, sex, or ethnicity, specifically in the areas of public employment, public contracting, and public education."

If Prop 16 had passed, it would have allowed government agencies to deliberately and explicitly discriminate against people based on immutable characteristics.

The wording from Prop 16's advocates seems to embrace Kendi's punitive stance on using active discrimination to reach some kind of equity goal:

"Despite living in the most diverse state in the nation, white men are still overrepresented in positions of wealth and power in California. Although women, and especially women of color, are on the front lines of the COVID-19 response, they are not rewarded for their sacrifices. Women should have the same chance of success as men.

Today, nearly all public contracts, and the jobs that go with them, go to large companies run by older white men. White women make 80¢ on the dollar. The wage disparity is even worse for women of color and single moms. As a result, an elite few are able to hoard wealth instead of investing it back into communities. Prop. 16 opens up contracting opportunities for women and people of color. "

In 2020 I tried to find data and studies backing the laundry list of assertions but came up empty-handed. The wording seemed very slanted... "older white men"... "single moms"... Certainly there are disparities in society, but we must always consider, objectively, what are the root causes.

Where does it end? Does anybody want an NBA where the makeup of the teams is based on the racial percentages in society, or do people want the best players playing? Do you want the best surgeon or pilot? Absolutely I bet 99% of people on HN want everyone to have equal opportunity; in my experience, in the vast majority of American tech companies (I don't work in healthcare of finanace, etc. so I can't speak to them), if you had 2 equally qualified candidates, and one was a white man and one was a woman or a racial minority or perhaps even not-straight, the white man will usually be the one not getting the job.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_California_Proposition_16

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

#793

Post by rayiner »

arinlen wrote: post #771
rayiner wrote: post #757

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think they’re not nakedly self interested? They get the most out of the system, because they get to run the show. They not only get a powerful club against “bad white people,” but also get to hand-pick “representation” to shape minority groups according their own preferences. They’ll pick Hispanics who answer to “Latinx” but never one that believes that abortion is wrong. They’ll pick Muslims that endo…

> They’ll pick Hispanics who answer to “Latinx” but never one that believes that abortion is wrong. They’ll pick Muslims that endorses white American views of gender roles. They’ll pick the Asian that says Asian values are a “model minority myth.” Is that worse than not picking a single Hispanic, Muslim, or Asian because they are Hispanic, Muslim, and Asian? The main flaw in your blend of anti-affirmative action argu…

No, what would be preferable would be a non-racist, objective system where minority groups can have independence and agency. Systems where minorities don’t have to appeal to the tastes of panels of white people in order to advance. Instead of a system of managed racism where white people create carefully curated collections of minorities, like Apple’s goddamn App Store.

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

#795

Post by Jochim »

JellyBeanThief wrote: post #760
brightball wrote: post #572

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 vi…

> The cure for discrimination is forgiveness. The cure for violence is forgiveness. The cure for hatred is forgiveness. Stepping aside from the main debate, how can you possibly justify this? If I'm going to be forgiven every time I discriminate, assault, and slander people, why would I ever want to change my behavior? After all, I get rewarded for it: When I do those things I gain advantages over other people that b…

> Discrimination, violence, and hatred are antisocial behaviors. They need to be reduced in a way that is just and fair and effective. Forgiveness is none of those.

The key thing for me is we give people the opportunity to change. This doesn't necessarily mean that there shouldn't be consequences. Only that the consequences are proportionate and finite.

In my opinion, hostility towards people who have made mistakes is a major problem that holds the left back. Identity politics has been very successful in driving a wedge between groups that would otherwise have very similar economic and class interests. I don't believe that was a mistake.

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

#796

Post by Jochim »

deepl_derber wrote: post #682
brightball wrote: post #572

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 vi…

>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. Absolutely not. The idea that any of this is fixable with 'forgiveness' is far more insane. You can't undo hundreds of years of systematic disenfranchisement and subjugation with forgiveness - you have to discriminate in the o…

> To quote LBJ, "You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, ‘You are free to compete with all the others,’ and still justly believe that you have been completely fair." That's what Kendi is saying, and he's completely right.

My problem with this quote is it intentionally ignores the plight of anyone who has nothing and isn't African American. Kendi's approach is an inherently selfish one and that's what makes it so polarising.

The answer to the societal issue of wealth disparity is not to give the poor of one racial group an advantage over the poor of another. It's to actually address the source of the problem in a manner agnostic to race. Doing anything else only serves to stoke division and racism.

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

#797

Post by andrew_ »

mint2 wrote: post #756
andrew_ wrote: post #754

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Godwin, every time.

The only thing surer than debates on the internet eventually leading to nazi comparisons is that some commenter will then cite godwins law. It’s actually godwins second law of nature. how pertinent nazis are to the topic is not relevant, Godwin’s law will be brought up and very often inappropriately as even Godwin himself has noted. “Godwin's law itself can be applied mistakenly or abused as a distraction, diversion…

And yet it doesn't make it any less true. The correlation exists, just as tides to moon phase, and doesn't negate the existence of either. HN has turned into that one site where any remotely ideological topic, any minutely political (cue the "everything is political crowd") will invariably bring out the "BUT NAZIS" replies. It's insufferable.

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

#798

Post by foofoo4u »

nyxtom wrote: post #587

I firmly believe that DEI and its neighbor ESG have become one giant scam. Anyway to demonstrate that your corporation, literature, or organization mimics the ideologically virtue-signaled narrative and you are more likely to get better funding/support/grants.

You're not the only one. I see DEI and ESGs as a giant scam as well. More people are starting to see them this way as well. Here's a take I enjoyed listening to by Capitalisn't: [The Smoke and Mirrors of ESG Investing with Tariq Fancy](https://capitalisnt.com/episodes/the-smoke-and-mirrors-of-es...)

Episode Summary

> Environmental, social and governance investing, also know as ESG, has exploded in recent years. It promises to help us solve problems like climate change and inequality all while allowing investors to still turn a profit.

>

> But BlackRock’s former global chief investment office for sustainable investing, Tariq Fancy, says it isn't what's being advertised. Recently, he penned a blog post claiming that not only are ESGs not making societal problems better, they may actively be making them worse.

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

#799

Post by andrekandre »

naasking wrote: post #600
hackerlight wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

> Sunlight isn't the best disinfectant. Censorship is. Ideas, especially those that stoke resentments, are like viruses Prove it.

i would just say to that, if censorship didn't work, then why are people (especially on "the right" nowadays) so up in arms about it?

is it just a grift?

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

#800

Post by mlyle »

noobermin wrote: post #785
mlyle wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it's explicitly giving an advantage to submissions that engage with these diversity goals. Favoring research of understudied populations makes a lot of sense and is necessary. Favoring researchers based on their own personal diversity metrics is controversial. Favoring research whose findings support specific diversity-related desired outcomes is dangerous (and the policy may do this in practice).

What is your argument for the last point because that isn't clear at all.

If you can publish research that has a finding that supports "A", but cannot publish research that supports "!A", then the only published research will say "A", whether or not "A", "!A", or something else entirely are true.

Even modest publication biases can dwarf true effect sizes in social research, and can create the illusion of consistent effects and scientific consensus when neither actually exists.

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