“Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans” • Hacker News Board

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

#831

Post by DocTomoe » Sat, Aug 27, 2022, 8:40 AM UTC

chaps wrote: post #672

DocTomoe wrote: post #666

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> on May 29th in Chicago, the address with the highest number of arrests by far was at Trump tower, against peaceful protesters. I am not surprised that the one place in town which has a strong connection to a sitting US president who is considered racist by protesters is a protest, and thus an arrest hotspot. I see no proof that the arrest was made against peaceful protesters. Other sources, by the way, speak of 108…

Heh. I'm the reporter who did the analysis and I absolutely assure you the data was not incomplete. Where in the article was that said? Maybe I'm missing something, but I've spent many hours looking at the arrests in those early days and I can't recall anything that I'd call "incomplete". The reporting we did at Chicago Reporter was effectively in response to what was said in past reporting (like the one you link), w…

> Where in the article was that said?

From the article:

> The Reporter does not have access to the arrest narratives, so our analysis includes crimes that could be considered looting in the context of a protest, but may also be everyday crimes like burglary.

This becomes particularly interesting because only two paragraphs further up, it is pointed out that police was able to - and likely did - arrest groups of people based on the same narrative.

> Edit: if you want to look at the data yourself, here [2] you go. They remove the address info in this data, but journalists/students/nonprofits have access to an "authorize-only" version that has address info.

I wish journalists would give that information - link to sources of their articles - with the articles, especially when working for clearly opinionated media. It increases trust and reliability imho.

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

#832

Post by marginalia_nu » Sat, Aug 27, 2022, 9:45 AM UTC

matheusmoreira wrote: post #320

AlanYx wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting that the linked policy says almost the exact opposite of Fermi's statement, implying that ignorance is sometimes better than knowledge: "...considerations of harm can occasionally supersede the goal of seeking or sharing new knowledge, and a decision not to undertake or not to publish a project may be warranted."

Well, sometimes information can cause harm. For example, revealing a terminal diagnosis to a patient could lead to suicide. I don't think science should be censored, scientific inquiry should continue with integrity regardless of what people think. What I think is people who can't handle it should not have access to the truths revealed. I generally believe in unrestricted free information but I've been rethinking tha…

> Well, sometimes information can cause harm. For example, revealing a terminal diagnosis to a patient could lead to suicide.

That is arguably, depending in the diagnosis, a good example of a time where suicide may be the good option, where postponing death magnifies suffering, and the only reason to keep the poor patient alive is essentially because we're too busy selfishly thinking about avoiding our own pain of loss to permit them to erase their agony.

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

#833

Post by parkingrift » Sat, Aug 27, 2022, 10:43 AM UTC

bawolff wrote: post #675

parkingrift wrote: post #664

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Epic straw man. Is your counter argument so poor that you must resort to defeating a comically false version of what OP said? Where in the world does shooting someone in the head come in based on what OP said?!?

Context is a thing. Person was responding to a comment that mentioned shooting, and proposing an alternate situation. One presumes they are claiming the alternate situation is equivalent or their comment makes no sense as a response to the previous comment they were replying to.

You are mistaken or on the wrong comment chain.

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

#834

Post by ETH_start » Sat, Aug 27, 2022, 11:14 AM UTC

A large section of the sciences has now been thoroughly captured by the social justice ideology.

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

#835

Post by diffeomorphism » Sat, Aug 27, 2022, 12:36 PM UTC

emmelaich wrote: post #506

matheusmoreira wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, sometimes information can cause harm. For example, revealing a terminal diagnosis to a patient could lead to suicide. I don't think science should be censored, scientific inquiry should continue with integrity regardless of what people think. What I think is people who can't handle it should not have access to the truths revealed. I generally believe in unrestricted free information but I've been rethinking tha…

Information cannot cause harm. Harm is done by people.

That is just wrong or a very unfunny pun. Lots of info is classified because it would be harmful in the wrong hands.

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

#836

Post by istinetz » Sat, Aug 27, 2022, 1:34 PM UTC

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #648

istinetz wrote: post #637

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

I've been to those protests. 3 hours of football hooligans and extreme nationalists cannot compare to however many months BLM was. I wouldn't call it rioting and there definitely wasn't any looting or burning buildings.

So don't tell me that it's the same, because it isn't. It's possible to air your grievances in a civilized manner, without stealing sneakers.

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

#837

Post by ravel-bar-foo » Sat, Aug 27, 2022, 1:40 PM UTC

VerminOctopus1 wrote: post #803

ravel-bar-foo wrote: post #546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Race and ethnicity are sociopolitical constructs. Humans do not have biological races, at least based on modern biological criteria for the identification of geographical races or subspecies. The first sentence is a liberal shibboleth: it has no more meaning than "colors (of light) are social constructs", or "embryos are sovial constructs." People will go to war over whether and where the lines of "sociopolitival c…

The second sentence is a statement of fact in the world of genetics, phylogeny, and taxonomy. Your criticism of it tells me you are not adequately knowledgeable about these areas of science to participate in this conversation at the level required.

I think we're on the same side here.

My point is that all three statements are true, but that in the later two cases the otherwise "socially constructed" boundaries are so useful and so meaningful to people that to say they "don't exist" is very odd.

There is no clear boundary between blue and green (and some cultures have a word for green-blue), but nobody goes about saying that "colors don't exist."

Ditto embryos. Genetics, phylogeny, and taxonomy provide definitions, which are socially constructed based on ground truth and utility for purpose. Each definition is "socially constructed" but to say the categories "don't exist" because they are socially defined is nuts.

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

#838

Post by istinetz » Sat, Aug 27, 2022, 1:43 PM UTC

onion2k wrote: post #650

istinetz wrote: post #637

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

No, we shouldn't. It's possible and desirable to air your political grievances in a civilized manner, without stealing sneakers.

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

#839

Post by trasz » Sat, Aug 27, 2022, 2:08 PM UTC

dissent wrote: post #819

trasz wrote: post #692

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s wrong with suppressing religious “teaching”? Let me remind you that freedom of religion was mostly about freedom from religion.

Don't mistake me for a religious person. I think it's the bane of mankind. My point is that despite this, trying to ban it is counter productive.

Banning harmful behavior promoted by religion can be quite productive. Hate speech laws are one example. Barring religiously-affiliated institution from government money is another.

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

#840

Post by freejazz » Sat, Aug 27, 2022, 3:10 PM UTC

LawTalkingGuy wrote: post #796

n4r9 wrote: post #764

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The guidelines include the qualifier "at least based on modern biological criteria". This is true: if you use the modern biological criteria for race, then there is only one human race.

Nobody just says that "observable differences in humans are rarely genetically related to actual genetic differences", they say "race has absolutely no meaning in humans - but here in animals it means exactly what lay-people mean when they say it". The elites are panicking about the perceived mental limits of the commoners. Normals know the limits of the words they use and actual bigots won't be deterred.

> they say "race has absolutely no meaning in humans - but here in animals it means exactly what lay-people mean when they say it"

Weird hill to stand on in a thread that started with me saying that race is a cultural concept that has little to no utility in science outside of its cultural context, lawtalkingguy.