Mandated diversity statement drives Jonathan Haidt to quit academic society • Hacker News Board

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

#891

Post by joenot443 » Wed, Oct 05, 2022, 9:52 AM UTC

scaramanga wrote: post #850

joenot443 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really a conspiracy when we're watching exactly what the theorists said would happen, happen? An earnest, good-hearted, and well-cited author and scientist is removing himself from academia because of the ever-accelerating creep of DEI influence into entirely unrelated work. This sounds like exactly what the so-called 'conspiracy theorists' were trying to warn us about back in 2012 or so. If anything, your comm…

Something of almost no significance to freedom of speech. Universities are advising their staff not to council in favour of abortion or offer condoms for the purposes of birth control (but OK for purposes of diseas prevenion). Violating these rules can result in felony convictions. This is what an attack on freedom of speech looks like. And the consequences are of far more significance in this case. Being fired for b…

I'm confused, you think adding restrictions to what someone is and isn't allowed to publish has no significance to freedom of speech?

> Violating these rules can result in felony convictions.

Can you provide us with an example of a university prof being given a felony sentencing for providing counsel related to abortion? It was a bizarre thing to bring up and admittedly just sort of reads like American fear-mongering. You're coming at this from a very strange angle, you're gonna need a better formed argument if you want to change any minds here.

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

#892

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Oct 05, 2022, 12:02 PM UTC

barry-cotter wrote: post #773

beowulfey wrote: post #658

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a good example, and I appreciate you trying to explain it further. But I think we are a bit like two ships passing in the night here. As I interpret it, you are trying to explain the effect of affirmative action on the likelihood that someone from a particular background is more likely to be skilled or not. I totally understand that this is an effect of AA, and that neither of us are arguing about the merits…

> However, the point that I am trying to make is that we, as a society, should be trying to ignore these obvious statistical likelihoods when we are choosing a candidate. The truth is one. If you lie to other people and demand they lie to you it affects your entire model of the world. If there are facts about the world that you would prefer not to acknowledge they are linked to other facts. Lying consistently require…

[deleted]

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

#893

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Oct 05, 2022, 12:05 PM UTC

mpweiher wrote: post #789

beowulfey wrote: post #647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I understand that affirmative action can have this consequence. I am not arguing for or against affirmative action. I am pointing out that it should not matter whether someone has an A, B, or C name when applications are being triaged. Because Allison, Brian and Caitlin all have the same credentials, they should be viewed as equally likely candidates. Making assumptions about them based on probabilities is exact…

> same credentials ... making assumptions about them based on probabilities is exactly the problem here Using the credentials is making assumptions about them based on probabilities.

[deleted]

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

#894

Post by MockObject » Wed, Oct 05, 2022, 3:08 PM UTC

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.

This is an excellent example of public discourse during a moral panic. We seem to be prone to them as a society, and every generation has its own. Today racism, before that, Satanism, Communism, and alcohol.

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

#895

Post by LawTalkingGuy » Wed, Oct 05, 2022, 6:01 PM UTC

Spivak wrote: post #706

ponow wrote: post #664

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think that it should be Why is it your choice to make? When you hire someone, you're hiring everything they bring to the table. You might be wrong in your interpretation, but it's what you've got. So perhaps you find names beyond the pale, but why not dress codes too? Names and many other characteristics involve human choices well beyond genetics. You do realize that the orchestras used to hire blind, that…

> The DIE crowd does not want fairness and equality of opportunity; they want equality of outcome I always find it weird that people see this is a bad thing. Equality of outcome is equity. Extra time for people with learning disabilities is equity, ada regulations is equity, hearing aids, glasses, booster seats, handicaps in golf and chess, giving bus seats to the elderly are all equity. Equity is the thing we natura…

> Equity is the thing we naturally strive for

If equity was our standard we wouldn't give eyeglasses to anyone because blind people can't see at all.

Instead we strive for equality, where everyone is able to use the best devices they or their insurance can provide regardless of others. I can get glasses to restore my vision to 25/20 even if yours never was 20/20.

> That's not what affirmative action is, it's recognizing both the systematic and individual disadvantages

Affirmative action doesn't treat people as individuals. It's specifically about using people's visible identities (whether or not they do!) to determine how they're treated. Under affirmative action a rich black man would get a job before a poor white man and it would be defended by its supporters as undoing systematic obstacles even if the recipient never encountered those obstacles themselves.

> people who have the time to waste on leetcode

Why do we hate people who teach themselves a skill? Why is it literally considered a negative these days?

> a skewed sample of the population

They're individuals, not population samples.

> Who is the more impressive student

If I was running a scholarship this would be the criteria because it would indicate who would get the most out of the resources. If I'm hiring them to fit a defined role I only care about their current skills, not where they started.

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

#896

Post by busterarm » Wed, Oct 05, 2022, 8:59 PM UTC

LawTalkingGuy wrote: post #843

pas wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wow. that's ... so foreign to everything that I could imagine. (I'm from Europe, never worked at a big company.) How does this allegiance manifests in these "diversity hires"? Do you have some experience with this? Could you explain this somehow?

I think actual diversity hires are a different thing and the parent post is more about demanding tribal allegiance in the non-diverse hires.

This exactly.

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

#897

Post by LawTalkingGuy » Wed, Oct 05, 2022, 9:57 PM UTC

socialismisok wrote: post #298

tomohawk wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination." - Kendi Kendi is a key promoter of "anti-racism", which is described in the above quote. Many institutions are signing on to this agenda, which requires people to view everything through this ideological (social j…

Let's apply this to a material, concrete condition that exists in our world. We can all hopefully agree that: A) Redlining existed B) Redlining was explicitly racist C) Redlining has impacts that are still felt today Let's use an antiracist lens to talk about it and compare to a modern, liberal "just don't be racist" lens. The standard liberal response is, "well, redlining is over, and we know now not to do that. So,…

> standard liberal response is, [...] So, problem solved, right?

Well, there's the problem. You can't declare something fixed, and you have to have standards to check against. Those people just aren't trying and you can't write every "standard liberal" off because you personally know lazy ones.

But yes, the race-blind answer would be to help people still experiencing those first-order (lack of ownership) and second-order (lack of generational equity) problems by tackling obstacles to low-end ownership and invest in wealth and estate planning classes, assisting with secondary education, etc.

A multitude of strategies and a goal of trying those and other things until the original victims are helped, while trying not the name those victims explicitly. In doing so, helping anyone similarly disadvantaged.

> antiracist lens might be, [...] wealthy white folks [...] you benefitted from it, we're asking you to pay a slightly larger share in fixing it.

The anti-racist lens mentions race a lot. I'm not just saying that to be snarky but because I believe that's harmful. Like the news reporting thoughtlessly about suicides.

But I don't see in that view is any concern for finding the unfair beneficiaries - merely all white people. This is where it goes from looking racist to being racist.

Most damningly, anti-racists don't have any consistent or desirable ideas on what the problems are or how the funds would go to help. It's all about race, categorizing and separating and stigmatizing by race, and confiscating by race, but barely if ever about defining and planning to fix the problems for people of any race, let alone all.

> people in my economic class [from another post]

I feel that this class-based analysis is much more useful and less counter-productive.

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

#898

Post by selimthegrim » Thu, Oct 06, 2022, 2:14 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #735

rayiner wrote: post #734

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That’s not what you should have taken from that example at all, which is specifically why I used two white coded names What’s a “white coded name?” Most Black people have names similar to other Americans. E.g. here are the top names by ethnicity for babies in NYC in 2013: https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/doh/downloads/pdf/vs/baby-names-... . The top 3 Black baby names are Ethan, Jayden, and Aiden. Playgrounds in Park Sl…

Don't be tendentious. There are obviously black-coded names, and decades of research about black-coded names.

As someone who belongs to a Muslim family living in this country since the 1920s, I for once have to drop my jaw, side with rayiner and point out that you’re being the tendentious one (many such names like Jamal are in fact held by “whites” and non Blacks too)

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

#899

Post by selimthegrim » Thu, Oct 06, 2022, 2:16 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #888

LawTalkingGuy wrote: post #886

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> intersectionality, which nobody disagrees with. Cough. Intersectionality assumes that people's problems are the problems of their identities, and that their identities are the ones visible to others. Black, short, etc. Identity politics seems purpose-built by "allies" to explain why the allies don't actually listen to the people they're helping. For instance, Thomas Sowell isn't treated as an individual who disagre…

Intersectionality also reframes all minority politics in terms of a framework defined by white people according to white people’s political priorities. It creates a framework where you “center POC” voices—but only if they agree with white people. To further your example, Justice Clarence Thomas is treated as unrepresentative of Black people even when his views are typical of a southern Black man. About half the Black…

Gullah Geechee black nationalism is typical of a Southern black man?

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

#900

Post by MisterBastahrd » Thu, Oct 06, 2022, 11:48 AM UTC

Markstar wrote: post #835

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #781

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's adorable. When white people have kids, they have to give their children the birds and the bees talk when they reach an appropriate age. When black people have kids, they have to give them the same talk, and also the one where you need to be really careful about acting a specific way around cops lest they unalive you because police officers view blacks as more aggressive than whites because of prejudice. As lon…

Hmm, while I was an exchange student in the US, I got that exact speach house from a friend's father ("hands on the wheel unless asked to do otherwise, stay friendly, no sudden moves"). However, I was very white (a geek who didn't get out much) and he was a white Mormon. That was in 1997 and since my friend had obviously heard that speech many times before, I just assumed that's what all kids are taught over there...

Did he tell you about how you shouldn't act suspicious when you walk into a convenience store lest the employees stalk you? Did he warn you that attempting to sell a house in this country will automatically result in a lower sale price from your own agent than if you were white? There are literally hundreds of these examples.