A math professor who objects to diversity statements(theatlantic.com)
theatlantic.com
A math professor who objects to diversity statements
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/12/professor-american-academia-parallels-soviet-union/676305/
327 comments
https://archive.is/j1Xyg
I hope more people will pick up on the danger of this slippery slope.
Part of the problem though is that we seem to have a tendency towards polar vortices of worldviews that suck in various issues that aren't even necessarily strongly connected, just to make them more effective in opposing the other side in an excessively concentrated way.
So there is this tendency of social activists towards conformance and centralization in the direction of authoritarianism. But on the other side, total denial of any systemic social problems that results in increasing inequality leaving more and more people fighting for scraps as monopoly powers increase.
I think you need a philosophy and system that embraces both the need for holism on some level, but also the importance of independence and evolution.
Typical human organizations may have a lot of trouble pursuing these goals simultaneously. But I think that the right technologies may be able to make it feasible.
But the first challenge would be for the left to acknowledge the need for freedom and the right to acknowledge the need for average people to exist without fighting for scraps.
It seems the war between camps means that anyone trying to promote a more subtle or intricate message is shunned or ignored by both sides. Leading anyone in the middle to just hide or more likely migrate to a camp and conform.
So I have to conclude that this is not just a left problem.
Part of the problem though is that we seem to have a tendency towards polar vortices of worldviews that suck in various issues that aren't even necessarily strongly connected, just to make them more effective in opposing the other side in an excessively concentrated way.
So there is this tendency of social activists towards conformance and centralization in the direction of authoritarianism. But on the other side, total denial of any systemic social problems that results in increasing inequality leaving more and more people fighting for scraps as monopoly powers increase.
I think you need a philosophy and system that embraces both the need for holism on some level, but also the importance of independence and evolution.
Typical human organizations may have a lot of trouble pursuing these goals simultaneously. But I think that the right technologies may be able to make it feasible.
But the first challenge would be for the left to acknowledge the need for freedom and the right to acknowledge the need for average people to exist without fighting for scraps.
It seems the war between camps means that anyone trying to promote a more subtle or intricate message is shunned or ignored by both sides. Leading anyone in the middle to just hide or more likely migrate to a camp and conform.
So I have to conclude that this is not just a left problem.
Well, 'slippery slope' is a logical fallacy. The issue here, more precisely, is that without something to push against the US is inculcating ideas into the next generation of leaders that make ex-Soviets think "wait a second, this looks like home!".
It isn't a slope, this is literally rebuilding the dangerous parts of authoritarian bureaucracy - people who can't think and are then given unearned and easily abusable power over others by an objectively dumb system. The US is already there (as I like to point out, about half the US economy is government spending these days - that isn't a free market, it is some sort of mixed open-command economy); it is only a question of how far the ripples reach.
It isn't a slope, this is literally rebuilding the dangerous parts of authoritarian bureaucracy - people who can't think and are then given unearned and easily abusable power over others by an objectively dumb system. The US is already there (as I like to point out, about half the US economy is government spending these days - that isn't a free market, it is some sort of mixed open-command economy); it is only a question of how far the ripples reach.
Slippery slope is not a fallacy when you are merely observing what already happened.
The slippery slope is a fallacy when it is assumed it will surely happen.
The slippery slope is a fallacy when it is assumed it will surely happen.
I support your railing against bureaucracy, but question your assertion that a specific quantity of public spending is bad.
Firstly, government spending does not imply greater bureaucracy; compare and contrast healthcare in America with pretty much anywhere else.
Secondly, fiscal policy should be dynamic and reactive to economic conditions. I don't pretend to understand Keynes, but I believe he established that principle beyond question. The Austrian school may have challenged it, but their axioms did not survive the light of day.
Firstly, government spending does not imply greater bureaucracy; compare and contrast healthcare in America with pretty much anywhere else.
Secondly, fiscal policy should be dynamic and reactive to economic conditions. I don't pretend to understand Keynes, but I believe he established that principle beyond question. The Austrian school may have challenged it, but their axioms did not survive the light of day.
Keynes has been discredited in recent years, it's odd that you think he's established anything. The Austrians were proven right and recent monetary policy reflects their view - you don't see much discussion of Keynes anymore. If you don't understand Keynes maybe that's why you don't realise that?
To recap Keynes: his core idea was countercyclical monetary policy, i.e. to issue debt (print money) when times are bad and pay down debt (recall money) when times are good.
It sounds good but the Austrians pointed out that there would be two problems in practice:
1. Give governments a nice sounding justification for money printing and they will do it to excess, creating inflation. The Austrians were right: governments cited Keynes when printing money in a recession, and then the "emergency measures" would conveniently never end. The part where you pay down the debt in good times by running a primary surplus would never be respected.
2. Keynes misunderstood the nature and cause of recessions.
Recessions occur when there has been widespread misallocation of resources, usually due to some collective delusion or state mismanagement. The groupthink breaks and people realize that their investments are duds. Credit is withdrawn, investments cease and there's a giant sucking sound as people lose their jobs whilst those who still have money try to figure out what to do next.
Keynes posited that recessions are quasi-natural disasters that just inexplicably happen, and that the fix is for the government to spend money to balance them out. But this isn't the case and so his fix just makes things worse. It may appear to end the recession if all you look at is a handful statistics, but the underlying misallocation still occurred and when governments step in desperate to create employment - any employment - they misallocate resources still further. Like someone taking stimulants to try and delay the end of the party, it works for a while but they get more and more messed up. There's lots of activity but not much is actually useful. Governments don't care though, because all they're trying to do is keep people digging proverbial holes and filling them back up again.
You can drown the signals of a recession by misallocating resources still further, but it's not a good idea.
Keynesianism has worked out in the past 15 years exactly as the Austrians always said it would, and now Austrian economics is back in vogue. The 2008 recession led to the ZIRP years of easy money that never ended, even when the economy was booming. Government debt climbed endlessly. Inflation span out of control and now interest rates have been hiked repeatedly even though the economy was trashed by lockdowns - exactly the moment Keynes said to do the opposite.
To recap Keynes: his core idea was countercyclical monetary policy, i.e. to issue debt (print money) when times are bad and pay down debt (recall money) when times are good.
It sounds good but the Austrians pointed out that there would be two problems in practice:
1. Give governments a nice sounding justification for money printing and they will do it to excess, creating inflation. The Austrians were right: governments cited Keynes when printing money in a recession, and then the "emergency measures" would conveniently never end. The part where you pay down the debt in good times by running a primary surplus would never be respected.
2. Keynes misunderstood the nature and cause of recessions.
Recessions occur when there has been widespread misallocation of resources, usually due to some collective delusion or state mismanagement. The groupthink breaks and people realize that their investments are duds. Credit is withdrawn, investments cease and there's a giant sucking sound as people lose their jobs whilst those who still have money try to figure out what to do next.
Keynes posited that recessions are quasi-natural disasters that just inexplicably happen, and that the fix is for the government to spend money to balance them out. But this isn't the case and so his fix just makes things worse. It may appear to end the recession if all you look at is a handful statistics, but the underlying misallocation still occurred and when governments step in desperate to create employment - any employment - they misallocate resources still further. Like someone taking stimulants to try and delay the end of the party, it works for a while but they get more and more messed up. There's lots of activity but not much is actually useful. Governments don't care though, because all they're trying to do is keep people digging proverbial holes and filling them back up again.
You can drown the signals of a recession by misallocating resources still further, but it's not a good idea.
Keynesianism has worked out in the past 15 years exactly as the Austrians always said it would, and now Austrian economics is back in vogue. The 2008 recession led to the ZIRP years of easy money that never ended, even when the economy was booming. Government debt climbed endlessly. Inflation span out of control and now interest rates have been hiked repeatedly even though the economy was trashed by lockdowns - exactly the moment Keynes said to do the opposite.
A warning to others: This is far more contested, and more nuanced, than this post makes it out to be. I believe this narrative as stated would not fly without lots of debate and pushback in any mainstream economics department today.
Among many other things, the recent history (of inflation, recession, and economic growth over the past 4 years) is completely wrong: stimulus was used during the COVID recession (early 2020), and the recession was very brief as a result. In the US we have had steady and strong growth continuously outside a short drop around March 2020. Inflation set in around a year later (due to many factors, not monetary or fiscal policy alone -- but again, this is complex and highly contested). Interest rates started being raised seriously two years later (spring 2022). Economic growth has continued throughout this process aside from the early-mid 2020 lockdown shock. There was never a time when "interest rates [were] hiked even though the economy was trashed by lockdowns."
Among many other things, the recent history (of inflation, recession, and economic growth over the past 4 years) is completely wrong: stimulus was used during the COVID recession (early 2020), and the recession was very brief as a result. In the US we have had steady and strong growth continuously outside a short drop around March 2020. Inflation set in around a year later (due to many factors, not monetary or fiscal policy alone -- but again, this is complex and highly contested). Interest rates started being raised seriously two years later (spring 2022). Economic growth has continued throughout this process aside from the early-mid 2020 lockdown shock. There was never a time when "interest rates [were] hiked even though the economy was trashed by lockdowns."
University economics departments are probably still bastions of Keynesianism, but they aren't the ones whose opinions really matter :)
COVID certainly saw stimulus be used, but I didn't say that's when Keynesianism was discredited. It's really happened during the post-pandemic recovery period.
The US claims to be experiencing strong growth right now, but there are reasons to be a bit skeptical of that. Opinion polls that have historically always tracked reported economic performance have now diverged significantly, with people telling pollsters that they feel the economy is poor whilst the government announces that it's actually doing great. This leads left wing economists like Noah Smith to claim that there's suddenly a sort of ignorance crisis in which people have suddenly stopped being able to assess their own economic security. I think it's more likely that US data has gone bad, ably assisted by a very pro-Biden civil service. For example one metric they use to measure economic strength is job openings, but read any thread about the job market on HN and you'll see lots of highly skilled people struggling to find work along with many reports of what appear to be fake job openings, held open just to collect CVs.
In Europe what we see is very weak or non-existent growth when controlled for inflation despite truly vast levels of immigration, i.e. real economy is probably shrinking in the UK:
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/gdp-constant-pri...
Did shrink in Germany:
https://archive.is/F2IX2
And inflation has reached very high levels.
For an Austrian "inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon". The post-COVID inflation is for them entirely a function of stimulus, which you'd expect to have a delayed impact in that case because when the stimulus money landed in people's bank accounts everywhere people might spend it was closed. The economy reopens, travel becomes possible again and that money starts flowing out of the bank. Inflation appears immediately, exactly as expected.
Again it's a clearer picture in Europe. The UK started rapidly raising interest rates at the start of 2022, just as COVID was ending. Two years of lockdowns had left the economy in a terribly weakened state, nobody in the UK would claim the boom times were back, yet the BoE left Keynesianism behind and ramped up interest rates to levels last seen just before the last crisis in 2008. Back then they reacted by dropping rates to zero. This time they reacted by raising them to historical norms. A pretty clear repudiation of Keynes.
COVID certainly saw stimulus be used, but I didn't say that's when Keynesianism was discredited. It's really happened during the post-pandemic recovery period.
The US claims to be experiencing strong growth right now, but there are reasons to be a bit skeptical of that. Opinion polls that have historically always tracked reported economic performance have now diverged significantly, with people telling pollsters that they feel the economy is poor whilst the government announces that it's actually doing great. This leads left wing economists like Noah Smith to claim that there's suddenly a sort of ignorance crisis in which people have suddenly stopped being able to assess their own economic security. I think it's more likely that US data has gone bad, ably assisted by a very pro-Biden civil service. For example one metric they use to measure economic strength is job openings, but read any thread about the job market on HN and you'll see lots of highly skilled people struggling to find work along with many reports of what appear to be fake job openings, held open just to collect CVs.
In Europe what we see is very weak or non-existent growth when controlled for inflation despite truly vast levels of immigration, i.e. real economy is probably shrinking in the UK:
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/gdp-constant-pri...
Did shrink in Germany:
https://archive.is/F2IX2
And inflation has reached very high levels.
For an Austrian "inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon". The post-COVID inflation is for them entirely a function of stimulus, which you'd expect to have a delayed impact in that case because when the stimulus money landed in people's bank accounts everywhere people might spend it was closed. The economy reopens, travel becomes possible again and that money starts flowing out of the bank. Inflation appears immediately, exactly as expected.
Again it's a clearer picture in Europe. The UK started rapidly raising interest rates at the start of 2022, just as COVID was ending. Two years of lockdowns had left the economy in a terribly weakened state, nobody in the UK would claim the boom times were back, yet the BoE left Keynesianism behind and ramped up interest rates to levels last seen just before the last crisis in 2008. Back then they reacted by dropping rates to zero. This time they reacted by raising them to historical norms. A pretty clear repudiation of Keynes.
Thanks. My door is always open to Cunningham. If you're in a pedagogical mood, may I submit further misconceptions?
I've always linked Keynes with the concept of national debt as a lever to pull, so I'm surprised that you mention printing money. AIUI, the Keynesian approach to the 2008 crisis would have been to issue debt in order to finance public spending, and that spending should be on social security and infrastructure projects. The former stimulates the economy at the roots, the latter generates immediate employment and long-term wealth.
I accept your counters, except that we hope to do better than digging holes and filling them in again. That may be peculiar to America.
I grant that public spending doesn't address the cause of 2008. But sandbags are still useful when the river floods, no? Is gate-shutting the only permissible response to bolted horses, or are we allowed to also engage in horse-fetching?
My weak understanding of the Austrian school is summarised as: small government, laissez-faire, and caveat emptor. I understand them to say of 2008: "you're broke, that's because you took part in an economy where Goldman Sachs pulled a fast one and shat in your pension fund. You should have selected a DESOLBA fund (Doesn't Eat Shit Out of a Lying Bastard's Arse). Now cry."
I observe that our rulers selected a stimulus program that big corp used for stock buyback, and conclude that they used the crisis to advance their own agenda. I understood that they vaunted the Austrian school as the authority for this program. You have disabused me. Please, then, what would von Mises do in 2008?
I've always linked Keynes with the concept of national debt as a lever to pull, so I'm surprised that you mention printing money. AIUI, the Keynesian approach to the 2008 crisis would have been to issue debt in order to finance public spending, and that spending should be on social security and infrastructure projects. The former stimulates the economy at the roots, the latter generates immediate employment and long-term wealth.
I accept your counters, except that we hope to do better than digging holes and filling them in again. That may be peculiar to America.
I grant that public spending doesn't address the cause of 2008. But sandbags are still useful when the river floods, no? Is gate-shutting the only permissible response to bolted horses, or are we allowed to also engage in horse-fetching?
My weak understanding of the Austrian school is summarised as: small government, laissez-faire, and caveat emptor. I understand them to say of 2008: "you're broke, that's because you took part in an economy where Goldman Sachs pulled a fast one and shat in your pension fund. You should have selected a DESOLBA fund (Doesn't Eat Shit Out of a Lying Bastard's Arse). Now cry."
I observe that our rulers selected a stimulus program that big corp used for stock buyback, and conclude that they used the crisis to advance their own agenda. I understood that they vaunted the Austrian school as the authority for this program. You have disabused me. Please, then, what would von Mises do in 2008?
Digging and refilling holes is a metaphor, it's not meant literally. It's used in economics discussions to refer to any kind of economic activity that's taking place just for the sake of it.
Debt and money printing are intimately linked in our system, to the extent that they're nearly the same thing, which is why I used them interchangeably.
If you go back a few hundred years, money printing was pretty simple: the King wanted more money than he could raise through tax to pay for a war, so he'd debase the currency by reducing the quantity of gold in it. We don't use gold anymore so there's no theoretical limit on how much money can be created.
The creation of central banks introduced an indirection. Nowadays governments pretend to not print money. Instead they always "borrow" it. Sometimes this is actually legitimate borrowing, because the lender is someone domestic or foreign who has some surplus currency and wishes to earn interest on it. But very often the lender is the central bank. The central bank is described as independent, but in fact is just another arm of the government. It is granted special powers by law, and in many countries (e.g. the UK) the head is appointed by the government, answers to government and their salary is paid by taxes. Specifically the Central Bank is allowed to type a higher balance into its own computers, and banks are required to respect that balance. So the Treasury issues bonds, and the CB buys those bonds with newly "typed in" money, and this is just an obfuscated way for the government to print money in the end. They literally borrow from themselves.
You may wonder what happens to the interest payments, if the government is borrowing from itself. The answer is that the Treasury pays the central bank which keeps the interest payments for a while ... and then the Treasury takes them back!
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/nov/09/bank-of-eng...
Repayments meanwhile simply disappear, the money is wired to the central bank and then deleted. This really puts into perspective how meaningless the whole charade really is.
> The former stimulates the economy at the roots, the latter generates immediate employment and long-term wealth.
Well, spending on welfare is an economic depressant, you're paying people to not work. The second part is on firmer ground: Keynesians argue that the government should spend abstractly on "infrastructure" during recessions to stimulate employment (in the construction sectors primarily), and this will create wealth.
But this argument also has great problems. It's not yet as discredited as counter-cyclical monetary policy. You'll see governments refer to this concept routinely. However it doesn't work, conceptually:
1. With only a few exceptions if an infrastructure project was actually worth it the private sector would want to be building it already (because it'd have clearly positive ROI). The exceptions are ones where you need eminent domain to seize large quantities of contiguous land, which pretty much means railways, airports and roads (but usually not roads these days). So either the government can simply take over private sector activity, which doesn't actually improve the economy (same stuff gets built), or it can invest in things with expected negative ROI.
2. Governments have a long track record of being very bad at calculating infrastructure ROI.
The problem is that there are very limited opportunities to build heavy transport projects these days. Look at the difficulties the UK has faced with HS2, Heathrow third runway etc. You have to demolish a lot of homes and people don't like it, and environmental law offers many opportunities for delay, so in practice by the time an infrastructure project gets off the ground the recession was already years in the rear view mirror.
Combine these things and infrastructure spending by governments, counter-cyclical or not, often ends up just being a waste of resources, or very ambiguous at best. The poster child for this problem right now is Belt & Road, although in the past EU spending was also famous (Spain's airports to nowhere, etc). An airport in a place with no demand i.e. not a city, is not literally digging a hole and filling it again, but it's somewhat similar from an economic perspective. You move a lot of earth and in the end it's not useful for much.
> I understand them to say of 2008:
That's not quite what they say about 2008 no lol :)
von Mises would have done nothing in 2008. Just let the recession proceed without interference until it reaches its natural end. Fundamentally those houses just weren't worth much and the debt was bad, no way to go back in time and fix that, so you just have to take the economic hit and let things shake out. It sucks but you can't unspill milk, better to focus on what went wrong and how to avoid a repeat.
The Austrian analysis of 2008 is that it was caused by government interference in the market, specifically, governments became very keen on the idea of everyone being able to own their own home. US law and regulation was changed to strongly incentivize banks to issue mortgages, in particular, Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac started buying up pretty much any mortgage going even if it wasn't a good investment, but that didn't matter because the government was always willing to take them. Eventually it all came tumbling down. The fix would therefore be (a) stop government interference in the housing market, (b) forbid fractional reserve banking, which is why banks have to be bailed out when they fail.
Debt and money printing are intimately linked in our system, to the extent that they're nearly the same thing, which is why I used them interchangeably.
If you go back a few hundred years, money printing was pretty simple: the King wanted more money than he could raise through tax to pay for a war, so he'd debase the currency by reducing the quantity of gold in it. We don't use gold anymore so there's no theoretical limit on how much money can be created.
The creation of central banks introduced an indirection. Nowadays governments pretend to not print money. Instead they always "borrow" it. Sometimes this is actually legitimate borrowing, because the lender is someone domestic or foreign who has some surplus currency and wishes to earn interest on it. But very often the lender is the central bank. The central bank is described as independent, but in fact is just another arm of the government. It is granted special powers by law, and in many countries (e.g. the UK) the head is appointed by the government, answers to government and their salary is paid by taxes. Specifically the Central Bank is allowed to type a higher balance into its own computers, and banks are required to respect that balance. So the Treasury issues bonds, and the CB buys those bonds with newly "typed in" money, and this is just an obfuscated way for the government to print money in the end. They literally borrow from themselves.
You may wonder what happens to the interest payments, if the government is borrowing from itself. The answer is that the Treasury pays the central bank which keeps the interest payments for a while ... and then the Treasury takes them back!
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/nov/09/bank-of-eng...
Repayments meanwhile simply disappear, the money is wired to the central bank and then deleted. This really puts into perspective how meaningless the whole charade really is.
> The former stimulates the economy at the roots, the latter generates immediate employment and long-term wealth.
Well, spending on welfare is an economic depressant, you're paying people to not work. The second part is on firmer ground: Keynesians argue that the government should spend abstractly on "infrastructure" during recessions to stimulate employment (in the construction sectors primarily), and this will create wealth.
But this argument also has great problems. It's not yet as discredited as counter-cyclical monetary policy. You'll see governments refer to this concept routinely. However it doesn't work, conceptually:
1. With only a few exceptions if an infrastructure project was actually worth it the private sector would want to be building it already (because it'd have clearly positive ROI). The exceptions are ones where you need eminent domain to seize large quantities of contiguous land, which pretty much means railways, airports and roads (but usually not roads these days). So either the government can simply take over private sector activity, which doesn't actually improve the economy (same stuff gets built), or it can invest in things with expected negative ROI.
2. Governments have a long track record of being very bad at calculating infrastructure ROI.
The problem is that there are very limited opportunities to build heavy transport projects these days. Look at the difficulties the UK has faced with HS2, Heathrow third runway etc. You have to demolish a lot of homes and people don't like it, and environmental law offers many opportunities for delay, so in practice by the time an infrastructure project gets off the ground the recession was already years in the rear view mirror.
Combine these things and infrastructure spending by governments, counter-cyclical or not, often ends up just being a waste of resources, or very ambiguous at best. The poster child for this problem right now is Belt & Road, although in the past EU spending was also famous (Spain's airports to nowhere, etc). An airport in a place with no demand i.e. not a city, is not literally digging a hole and filling it again, but it's somewhat similar from an economic perspective. You move a lot of earth and in the end it's not useful for much.
> I understand them to say of 2008:
That's not quite what they say about 2008 no lol :)
von Mises would have done nothing in 2008. Just let the recession proceed without interference until it reaches its natural end. Fundamentally those houses just weren't worth much and the debt was bad, no way to go back in time and fix that, so you just have to take the economic hit and let things shake out. It sucks but you can't unspill milk, better to focus on what went wrong and how to avoid a repeat.
The Austrian analysis of 2008 is that it was caused by government interference in the market, specifically, governments became very keen on the idea of everyone being able to own their own home. US law and regulation was changed to strongly incentivize banks to issue mortgages, in particular, Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac started buying up pretty much any mortgage going even if it wasn't a good investment, but that didn't matter because the government was always willing to take them. Eventually it all came tumbling down. The fix would therefore be (a) stop government interference in the housing market, (b) forbid fractional reserve banking, which is why banks have to be bailed out when they fail.
There's more to unpack about welfare being "paying not to work" - 82 year olds, absence of employment in mining towns - but you've put the argument for small government well. You made me imagine a monkey driving a bulldozer.
Keynes' error was to pretend that the monkey is a qualified operator who follows the drawings. But the more democratic a nation becomes, the more its leadership resembles a cork bobbing on the tide. Furthermore, economics does not have perfect insight, so even a benevolent dictator will certainly fuck it up if she meddles.
Then, in a recession, you can take action to alleviate the pain somewhat, but you will inevitably just store up future pain for yourself. You could mitigate that future pain once the crisis has passed, but you won't, because the mitigation will alienate the voters. The pretence that you'll accept even a tiny amount of pain in the good times is the self-deception of an addict.
How am I doing?
This then reduces to the trolley problem. Where the one person on the side track is only presumed to be there, but might actually be further down the main track, and might get rescued anyway.
Here's my problem with von Mises. The cause of 2008 was a period of deregulation, basically Jamie Dimon going "trust me, bro" and kicking his lips. It's not an economic cause, it's a political one; but if we examine economists' contribution to the issue, we see decades of free-market-fundamentalism which, I put it to you, created massive overconfidence. The neolibs got exactly what they wanted and created a peculiarly neolib crisis. So the Austrian school is just as fingers-in-ears deaf to political folly as Keynes.
Keynes' error was to pretend that the monkey is a qualified operator who follows the drawings. But the more democratic a nation becomes, the more its leadership resembles a cork bobbing on the tide. Furthermore, economics does not have perfect insight, so even a benevolent dictator will certainly fuck it up if she meddles.
Then, in a recession, you can take action to alleviate the pain somewhat, but you will inevitably just store up future pain for yourself. You could mitigate that future pain once the crisis has passed, but you won't, because the mitigation will alienate the voters. The pretence that you'll accept even a tiny amount of pain in the good times is the self-deception of an addict.
How am I doing?
This then reduces to the trolley problem. Where the one person on the side track is only presumed to be there, but might actually be further down the main track, and might get rescued anyway.
Here's my problem with von Mises. The cause of 2008 was a period of deregulation, basically Jamie Dimon going "trust me, bro" and kicking his lips. It's not an economic cause, it's a political one; but if we examine economists' contribution to the issue, we see decades of free-market-fundamentalism which, I put it to you, created massive overconfidence. The neolibs got exactly what they wanted and created a peculiarly neolib crisis. So the Austrian school is just as fingers-in-ears deaf to political folly as Keynes.
Right, 82 year olds can't usually work anyway so state pensions are indeed not holding back the economy. It gets blurrier in the somewhat common case where state pensions can be awarded at, e.g. 55 (see Greece, US air traffic controllers...). I was mostly thinking of minimum wages, out-of-work credits, long term disability benefits in the case where working is actually possible, etc.
I think your description of Keynesian monetary policy in terms of addiction is interesting!
You can view 2008 as either caused by regulation or deregulation, it's a fascinating event in that way, and is why different parties were at loggerheads over it.
The view that it was caused by deregulation is as you say: banks were allowed to do risky things that leveraged up their risk until they were going to fail, and this provoked the crisis.
The view that it was caused by regulation is to observe that the only reason banks aren't allowed to collapse in the first place is the odd way in which they are regulated. A banking license is a regulatory permission to tell people they have $1000 on deposit whilst not actually being able to service such a withdrawal. In the case of a normal company like FTX, that's fraud. With the right license, it's not.
If retail banks weren't allowed to do anything with deposits except keep them safe, they could not have become endangered by bad aggregated mortgage debt, and then could have just been allowed to fail. It would have hurt investors a ton but bubbles always do - the ATMs would have kept working though and that's what politicians really respond to, the crisis of the innocent working guy. To fix this situation you don't pass a law, you repeal a law, hence, caused by regulation.
I think your description of Keynesian monetary policy in terms of addiction is interesting!
You can view 2008 as either caused by regulation or deregulation, it's a fascinating event in that way, and is why different parties were at loggerheads over it.
The view that it was caused by deregulation is as you say: banks were allowed to do risky things that leveraged up their risk until they were going to fail, and this provoked the crisis.
The view that it was caused by regulation is to observe that the only reason banks aren't allowed to collapse in the first place is the odd way in which they are regulated. A banking license is a regulatory permission to tell people they have $1000 on deposit whilst not actually being able to service such a withdrawal. In the case of a normal company like FTX, that's fraud. With the right license, it's not.
If retail banks weren't allowed to do anything with deposits except keep them safe, they could not have become endangered by bad aggregated mortgage debt, and then could have just been allowed to fail. It would have hurt investors a ton but bubbles always do - the ATMs would have kept working though and that's what politicians really respond to, the crisis of the innocent working guy. To fix this situation you don't pass a law, you repeal a law, hence, caused by regulation.
I've been lurking on HN for years, and I just created an account to thank you for this post.
I always had this gut feeling that the Keynesianism in the aftermath of 2008 was a really bad idea but economics isn't my space and I don't care to argue with politicos about economics. This explains it really well.
So... now what?
I always had this gut feeling that the Keynesianism in the aftermath of 2008 was a really bad idea but economics isn't my space and I don't care to argue with politicos about economics. This explains it really well.
So... now what?
If so, you need to adjust your critical thinking skills. Deeply unnuanced posts about highly debated topics - like the one you replied to - should set off alarm bells. Unless you think that a random HN user (with a very dodgy comment history) can just "set the record straight" after a few decades of debate.
You're welcome!
What now? Well, economics isn't really that complex.
Rule 1. Don't print money - it distorts the natural flow of information and incentives through the market, leading to misallocations.
Rule 2. Get rid of fractional reserve banking. It's an unnatural privilege that other companies would be forbidden from engaging in (it's considered fraud if you don't have a banking license). This forces all interest bearing investment to take place through funds that expose their actual risks and liquidity constraints to investors.
When it's possible to save money risk free because banks can't loan it out and there's no monetary inflation, the moral hazard evaporates and you can allow funds to collapse if they make persistently bad investments. There is no longer any need for bank bailouts.
Recessions can still happen in such a world, because mass hysteria and utopian thinking is a part of human nature. There's no law you can pass to stop people getting over-excited about dotComs or AI startups. You just have to let people work out the true value of these things themselves.
What now? Well, economics isn't really that complex.
Rule 1. Don't print money - it distorts the natural flow of information and incentives through the market, leading to misallocations.
Rule 2. Get rid of fractional reserve banking. It's an unnatural privilege that other companies would be forbidden from engaging in (it's considered fraud if you don't have a banking license). This forces all interest bearing investment to take place through funds that expose their actual risks and liquidity constraints to investors.
When it's possible to save money risk free because banks can't loan it out and there's no monetary inflation, the moral hazard evaporates and you can allow funds to collapse if they make persistently bad investments. There is no longer any need for bank bailouts.
Recessions can still happen in such a world, because mass hysteria and utopian thinking is a part of human nature. There's no law you can pass to stop people getting over-excited about dotComs or AI startups. You just have to let people work out the true value of these things themselves.
I like your analysis elsewhere. But you can’t avoid misallocations always. Some risk has to be taken by everyone. Even the private markets miscalculate roi.
You also can’t avoid debt (printing money). At the simplest, you can tell yourself you will postpone your own retirement to take the risk of misallocating resources yourself, for a gamble.
You also can’t avoid debt (printing money). At the simplest, you can tell yourself you will postpone your own retirement to take the risk of misallocating resources yourself, for a gamble.
That's true, but market misallocations do eventually correct (recessions). Government mandated misallocations can go on for decades without anything to naturally check them.
I'm not sure what you mean in your second paragraph. Keeping the monetary base stable is eminently possible.
I'm not sure what you mean in your second paragraph. Keeping the monetary base stable is eminently possible.
You can owe yourself (your future self) money. You can keep energy in reserve or burn at a greater than sustainable rate (give a 110% in nba speak).
You’re gonna love this
https://youtu.be/d0nERTFo-Sk
And this
https://youtu.be/GTQnarzmTOc
:-)
And this
https://youtu.be/GTQnarzmTOc
:-)
Hey, looking for a source for "about half the US economy is government spending these days". I've searched online for 2023 and I'm seeing a pretty okay 23% for government spending.
Slippery slope is only a fallacy if you assume a certain form of certainty or determinism. Otherwise it is just an older term referring to Bayesian updating of priors.
> we seem to have a tendency towards polar vortices of worldviews
First past the poll voting with primaries encourages (forces) politicians to go to the extremes. Ranked choice voting can reduce extremism. It’s also cheaper for tax payers as it eliminates expensive and wildly discriminatory/disenfranchising runoff elections.
First past the poll voting with primaries encourages (forces) politicians to go to the extremes. Ranked choice voting can reduce extremism. It’s also cheaper for tax payers as it eliminates expensive and wildly discriminatory/disenfranchising runoff elections.
That's the wrong way around, I don't think any conventional analysis of voting systems concludes that.
FPTP forces parties to the center, because they have to be pre-formed coalitions before going to the polls. Single issue parties and fringe parties end up with nothing in FPTP.
That's why the usual argument for PR is that it allows smaller (fringe/extreme) parties to exist and have influence, so represents minorities better.
In practice this is what we see. Countries with PR often have very powerful fringe or single issue parties (often the Greens), whereas in countries with FPTP the main parties are all big tents that just represent the centre-left or centre-right.
FPTP forces parties to the center, because they have to be pre-formed coalitions before going to the polls. Single issue parties and fringe parties end up with nothing in FPTP.
That's why the usual argument for PR is that it allows smaller (fringe/extreme) parties to exist and have influence, so represents minorities better.
In practice this is what we see. Countries with PR often have very powerful fringe or single issue parties (often the Greens), whereas in countries with FPTP the main parties are all big tents that just represent the centre-left or centre-right.
> with FPTP the main parties are all big tents that just represent the centre-left or centre-right.
FPTP by itself might not be so bad, but combine it with primaries and you’ve got a recipe for extremism and scorched earth politics. Now throw in gerrymandering and we’ve got a wildly unrepresentative election process.
Don’t get me started on the electoral college either. I’m for a national popular vote.
FPTP by itself might not be so bad, but combine it with primaries and you’ve got a recipe for extremism and scorched earth politics. Now throw in gerrymandering and we’ve got a wildly unrepresentative election process.
Don’t get me started on the electoral college either. I’m for a national popular vote.
FPTP essentially means that the actual government is operated as a time-limited dictatorship, since it's a winner-takes-all system. That means that once the elections are over, there is no need for actual politicking and bridge-building, the reigning champion or party can do whatever they like (according to some, even including killing their rivals /s).
In multi-parliamentary systems, the politicking does not end when the elections are over.
In multi-parliamentary systems, the politicking does not end when the elections are over.
You can go much further and adopt more direct democratic approaches, for example, referendums, which focus more on actual issues than on which individual gets the power. This can also reduce extremism, as it requires (and causes) a wider debate (and thus mutual understanding) in society.
There is a historic reason why US and UK suffer from this problem the most, because they were built primarily on liberalism and not democracy. (Although to be fair, many US states has actually have quite a bit of direct democracy as a remainder from progressive era at the beginning at 20th century, and we would probably find that in issues that are put to referendums, people tend to vote much less by the partisan divides.)
There is a historic reason why US and UK suffer from this problem the most, because they were built primarily on liberalism and not democracy. (Although to be fair, many US states has actually have quite a bit of direct democracy as a remainder from progressive era at the beginning at 20th century, and we would probably find that in issues that are put to referendums, people tend to vote much less by the partisan divides.)
counterpoint to referendums: Brexit, which has been a disaster for Britain.
You are evidence for the argument made by the comment you replied to.
You think it is more important that the right (in your opinion) decision is made than the decision the electorate prefers is made.
This is actually a general argument in favour of rule by an oligarchy of experts rather than democracy.
You think it is more important that the right (in your opinion) decision is made than the decision the electorate prefers is made.
This is actually a general argument in favour of rule by an oligarchy of experts rather than democracy.
An oligarchy of elected experts is precisely what representative democracy is. Giving every decision directly to the voters is not something you see in any democracy today. We elect people to make these decisions on our behalf.
Experts in what? They are only expert in getting elected. Few of them have any expertise relevant to the position they are elected to.
A lot of decisions are also subjective - not how best to achieve an objective, but what what your objectives are.
A lot of decisions are also subjective - not how best to achieve an objective, but what what your objectives are.
Hopefully experts in lawmaking. Of course you’re right that we as an electorate do terrible job of electing good lawmakers, but that’s on us, not the lawmakers. You’re absolutely right that this system sucks because of this. In fact, it’s the worst system of government in the world, except for all the others.
Why do people keep repeating this lie; there is no Brexit disaster. Life goes on as normal in post Brexit Britain; lockdowns did way more harm than Brexit and we've mostly recovered from those. The rest of the EU seems to be suffering more economically than Britain. We're selling more into the EU than when we were in the EU, have many trade agreements with US states and other countries, were ahead of the EU with Covid vaccines and first to support the Ukraine.
Because they think they’re “citizens of the world” and ideologically believe nation-states are obsolete.
Geez dude, we are living in two very different Britains.
He listed a series of facts. You are living in that Britain even if you don't realize or accept it. The different Britain you believe you inhabit may exist only in your mind.
[deleted]
Sure, counterpoint to freedom is that you can make a mistake. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't have that freedom.
The Brexit referendum was organized (and supported) by the conservative government, which wanted more neoliberalism. It was more of a populist stunt than the expression of the will of the people. That's not true to the spirit of referendums or direct democracy - these should exist to allow people to discuss, raise and vote on issues aside from the government.
The Brexit referendum was organized (and supported) by the conservative government, which wanted more neoliberalism. It was more of a populist stunt than the expression of the will of the people. That's not true to the spirit of referendums or direct democracy - these should exist to allow people to discuss, raise and vote on issues aside from the government.
That characterisation is imprecise to the point of being misleading; may I tell the story in detail?
I particularly rebut any suggestion that the Tories organised the referendum. That's only true at the most superficial reading. The whole farrago (pun intended) was founded by fringe nutters in the party, offered as a sop by the party leadership, and co-opted and orchestrated by interests inimical to the nation. (There is a case to answer for treason.)
Ever since the first referendum to join the EU in 1975, the anti-Europe faction of the Tory party was muttering in dark corners.
They gathered political strength at the fringe, slowly bolstered by drips of propaganda such as Boris Johnson's baseless claim, as a journalist, that the EU regulated the bendiness of bananas. In 2013, a nameless senior Tory in the orthodoxy coined the phrase "swivel-eyed loons".
Boris Johnson, may he swing, is every bit as much a fabricator as Donald Trump. If truth enters his speech, it's because it got lost.
_Aside: English politics has always been a straight left-right axis, with the left split between Labour and Lib Dems but the right united in the Tories. Labour had always had a strong socially-conservative constituency, but social conservatism has never been a campaign theme, AFAICR, beyond "tough on crime", which is a cheap vote-winner for anyone anywhere. The Labour Party is relatively new, but the Tories and Lib Dems trace their ancestry back to the same Tory-Whig axis that America inherited. Brexit turned that axis into a quadrant, with the LDs united but with the Tories and Labour split._
After they dicked over the plebs with austerity in a recession, the nation was angry with neoliberals, and the anti-EU gang fed on that. Not without reason, given how Greece got the shaft to protect German investors.
Campaigning for an outright majority in 2013, Cameron (a widely-used nickname for Pigfucker) offered the loons a referendum to keep them inside the tent; if the right split, it would have been a huge embarrassment for him. At that point, an anti-EU platform would not have taken many votes, but they would mostly have been Tory votes.
The Tories were already a neoliberal govenment, and they were blithely confident that they would win the referendum - it was a free hit for the loons, which was supposed to shut them up for another decade. Cameron had nothing to gain except silencing an annoying sideshow. He was already five years into an aggressive neoliberal strategy.
He shrugged off the power of bullshit stories such as "bendy bananas" and "Romanian squatters", despite the fact that they were in the Sun (proles), the Mail (proles with pretensions of intelligence), the Spectator (unintelligent toffs), and the Telegraph (obedient middle class). My apologies if you take the Spectator for the cartoons.
Despite their swivelly eyes, the Leave campaign acquired a huge war chest - namely, money from forex speculators and from Russia, which tells you exactly who benefits.
_Aside: London has been a haven for Russian money since glasnost. Russian oligarchs had been funding the Tories for years. Russia had total access to English politics up until the 2022 sanctions. The report from the inquiry into Leave campaign irregularities was suppressed._
The Leave backers brought in Steve Bannon, fresh from Trump's campaign. Bannon is not a great talent, but, in the milieu of English political campaigns, he was ahead of the curve. England was unprepared for bare-faced lies being astroturfed on Facebook.
Meanwhile, Cameron burned his war chest on fucking leaflet drops.
Cameron failed to generate any positive talking points, and expected to win by default. He argued that we'd become poor if we left Europe, which did little to sway working-class voters whom he had spent 6 years impoverishing. This arrogance was reflected by Gove's soundbite "people in this country have had enough of experts".
A new constituency emerged: "gammon", named for their ruddy complexions; choleric boomers, typically educated and middle-class but who long ago waved goodbye to curious intelligence, susceptible to and active on Facebook. These people are not as bad as your American fox news zombies, but of the same ilk - spittle-flecked rants at the breakfast table, "simple common sense", highly emotional yet sublimely certain of their own rationality. These chumps did not have a legitimate grievance against the government or the EU; their apoplexy was inchoate; they were merely channeled by the grifters.
Combine the gammon with the uninformed working class plebs, who bought into the threats of waves of gypsies arriving from Romania and mixed it with baseline sentiment against immigrants from all countries, and also the huge constituency that just wanted to give the arrogant neoliberals a black eye, and you have a win against the odds for Leave.
Excuse my rambling. It's hard to be concise when you're incandescent with fury.
I particularly rebut any suggestion that the Tories organised the referendum. That's only true at the most superficial reading. The whole farrago (pun intended) was founded by fringe nutters in the party, offered as a sop by the party leadership, and co-opted and orchestrated by interests inimical to the nation. (There is a case to answer for treason.)
Ever since the first referendum to join the EU in 1975, the anti-Europe faction of the Tory party was muttering in dark corners.
They gathered political strength at the fringe, slowly bolstered by drips of propaganda such as Boris Johnson's baseless claim, as a journalist, that the EU regulated the bendiness of bananas. In 2013, a nameless senior Tory in the orthodoxy coined the phrase "swivel-eyed loons".
Boris Johnson, may he swing, is every bit as much a fabricator as Donald Trump. If truth enters his speech, it's because it got lost.
_Aside: English politics has always been a straight left-right axis, with the left split between Labour and Lib Dems but the right united in the Tories. Labour had always had a strong socially-conservative constituency, but social conservatism has never been a campaign theme, AFAICR, beyond "tough on crime", which is a cheap vote-winner for anyone anywhere. The Labour Party is relatively new, but the Tories and Lib Dems trace their ancestry back to the same Tory-Whig axis that America inherited. Brexit turned that axis into a quadrant, with the LDs united but with the Tories and Labour split._
After they dicked over the plebs with austerity in a recession, the nation was angry with neoliberals, and the anti-EU gang fed on that. Not without reason, given how Greece got the shaft to protect German investors.
Campaigning for an outright majority in 2013, Cameron (a widely-used nickname for Pigfucker) offered the loons a referendum to keep them inside the tent; if the right split, it would have been a huge embarrassment for him. At that point, an anti-EU platform would not have taken many votes, but they would mostly have been Tory votes.
The Tories were already a neoliberal govenment, and they were blithely confident that they would win the referendum - it was a free hit for the loons, which was supposed to shut them up for another decade. Cameron had nothing to gain except silencing an annoying sideshow. He was already five years into an aggressive neoliberal strategy.
He shrugged off the power of bullshit stories such as "bendy bananas" and "Romanian squatters", despite the fact that they were in the Sun (proles), the Mail (proles with pretensions of intelligence), the Spectator (unintelligent toffs), and the Telegraph (obedient middle class). My apologies if you take the Spectator for the cartoons.
Despite their swivelly eyes, the Leave campaign acquired a huge war chest - namely, money from forex speculators and from Russia, which tells you exactly who benefits.
_Aside: London has been a haven for Russian money since glasnost. Russian oligarchs had been funding the Tories for years. Russia had total access to English politics up until the 2022 sanctions. The report from the inquiry into Leave campaign irregularities was suppressed._
The Leave backers brought in Steve Bannon, fresh from Trump's campaign. Bannon is not a great talent, but, in the milieu of English political campaigns, he was ahead of the curve. England was unprepared for bare-faced lies being astroturfed on Facebook.
Meanwhile, Cameron burned his war chest on fucking leaflet drops.
Cameron failed to generate any positive talking points, and expected to win by default. He argued that we'd become poor if we left Europe, which did little to sway working-class voters whom he had spent 6 years impoverishing. This arrogance was reflected by Gove's soundbite "people in this country have had enough of experts".
A new constituency emerged: "gammon", named for their ruddy complexions; choleric boomers, typically educated and middle-class but who long ago waved goodbye to curious intelligence, susceptible to and active on Facebook. These people are not as bad as your American fox news zombies, but of the same ilk - spittle-flecked rants at the breakfast table, "simple common sense", highly emotional yet sublimely certain of their own rationality. These chumps did not have a legitimate grievance against the government or the EU; their apoplexy was inchoate; they were merely channeled by the grifters.
Combine the gammon with the uninformed working class plebs, who bought into the threats of waves of gypsies arriving from Romania and mixed it with baseline sentiment against immigrants from all countries, and also the huge constituency that just wanted to give the arrogant neoliberals a black eye, and you have a win against the odds for Leave.
Excuse my rambling. It's hard to be concise when you're incandescent with fury.
Your ignorance is clear from near the start of your rant.
"Ever since the first referendum to join the EU in 1975"
The referendum in 1975 asked "Do you think that the United Kingdom should stay in the European Community (the Common Market)?"
We'd already been forced into the EC (the predecessor of the EU) without our consent. We were then forced into the EU without our consent as well.
"Ever since the first referendum to join the EU in 1975"
The referendum in 1975 asked "Do you think that the United Kingdom should stay in the European Community (the Common Market)?"
We'd already been forced into the EC (the predecessor of the EU) without our consent. We were then forced into the EU without our consent as well.
I think the people have had enough of experts.
What if experts ran day-to-day things, but the people could override the experts with a popular vote?
Sounds like Switzerland. I think it works well there. But the Swiss make a virtue of civic duty, and, IIUC, voting is frequent and somewhat compulsory, which I imagine tends to sustain an informed electorate.
If you don't have an informed electorate, then you're in danger of Brexit. I could paste my previous, but let's just say that sheep exist to be fleeced.
If you don't have an informed electorate, then you're in danger of Brexit. I could paste my previous, but let's just say that sheep exist to be fleeced.
I read quite a bit on Swiss democracy and the causality seems to be the other way around than politicians elsewhere always claim. Having lots of referenda on many levels (local, cantonal, federal) increases voter participation and makes people more informed and involved in politics.
I agree - I'd call it a virtuous cycle. Although I suppose there's a time and effort cost.
But I dint see how, e.g. the UK, could get there from here. If we started having six referenda a year, I foresee the electorate largely switching off, leaving only the rabid and the pensioners. They don't need any more influence.
If we campaigned for this change, the campaign won't survive its first day. There's nothing in it for the legacy media, and it's not snappy enough to go viral.
Perhaps if we first moved to coalition-based politics, the way would open to direct democracy? I anyway like coalition-based politics on its own merits, which I hope would be:
- increased voter information and engagement - moving discourse from identity politics to issues - reduce the power of media interests - offer choices between broad manifestos and single-issue campaigns - enfranchise people not represented by the current dominant parties - capture voter preferences more accurately - reduce the cyclical nature of government - due to which, promote long-term thinking
Germany looks like a happy example; Israel looks like a problematic one. Israel suffers from an intolerant minority; from here, the tail looks to be wagging the dog on all the big issues, which is not a healthy dynamic. I think that's particular to that nation, though.
Coalition politics is still a very tough sell in countries with FPTP. We'd have to start by abolishing that.
Every time I think through a political issue, I arrive at the same conclusion: the most pressing issue for the UK and America is the abolition of FPTP. It's frustrating.
But I dint see how, e.g. the UK, could get there from here. If we started having six referenda a year, I foresee the electorate largely switching off, leaving only the rabid and the pensioners. They don't need any more influence.
If we campaigned for this change, the campaign won't survive its first day. There's nothing in it for the legacy media, and it's not snappy enough to go viral.
Perhaps if we first moved to coalition-based politics, the way would open to direct democracy? I anyway like coalition-based politics on its own merits, which I hope would be:
- increased voter information and engagement - moving discourse from identity politics to issues - reduce the power of media interests - offer choices between broad manifestos and single-issue campaigns - enfranchise people not represented by the current dominant parties - capture voter preferences more accurately - reduce the cyclical nature of government - due to which, promote long-term thinking
Germany looks like a happy example; Israel looks like a problematic one. Israel suffers from an intolerant minority; from here, the tail looks to be wagging the dog on all the big issues, which is not a healthy dynamic. I think that's particular to that nation, though.
Coalition politics is still a very tough sell in countries with FPTP. We'd have to start by abolishing that.
Every time I think through a political issue, I arrive at the same conclusion: the most pressing issue for the UK and America is the abolition of FPTP. It's frustrating.
Many Americans already don't understand progressive tax as a concept. How can we realistically expect them to understand ranked choice voting?
Proof by example: Alaska already does ranked choice voting
https://www.elections.alaska.gov/RCV.php
https://www.elections.alaska.gov/RCV.php
True, but that doesn't actually establish that voters understand how it works. IIRC, they've only had it for a short time, so there's not much of a track record to establish that voters are casting votes in ways that are consistent with their beliefs and desires.
The same way other nations do?
It's vital that a democratic nation fully understands the method they use to elect representatives. People need to understand how their vote maps to a preference, and how their votes are tallied to determine who wins and who doesn't.
If a significant share of the electorate does not understand the vote tallying process and expects an outcome different from the one that actually resulted from counting the votes, you will get accusations of vote fraud and election tampering.
If a significant share of the electorate does not understand the vote tallying process and expects an outcome different from the one that actually resulted from counting the votes, you will get accusations of vote fraud and election tampering.
Maybe, but on a maslow pyramid of healthy democracy, that would be a tier above an informed electorate and critical thinking skills.
If you figure out how to develop those, please include Britain on your speaking tour.
If you figure out how to develop those, please include Britain on your speaking tour.
Seems like you've already got that problem with FPTP.
(What I'm getting at is that the problem's not the voting system, it's something else).
(What I'm getting at is that the problem's not the voting system, it's something else).
1) Americans don't understand progressive tax because they are constantly being bombarded with information as to what it means. If you watch Fox news daily you will have a misunderstanding on the matter. Take care to make generalizations when you see things like knowledge differences divided between party lines. People aren't different, but the information they get is.
2) Many social choice experts advocate for cardinal systems over ordinal. Approval is quite popular due to its simplicity and effectiveness while Star or Score improve on alignment but all of these are substantially better than the current system. Cardinal has the advantage in the tabulation being that you do not need multiple elections (exception of Star, which is strictly 2 elections), and you can do a parallelized reduce sum tabulation. So algorithmically it is easy to understand (sum columns/candidates, pick largest total: argmax(column sum)). That has implications for transparency and election security. Some people are convinced these methods are harder for people to understand but I'd refer you back to point 1 and add that we're also very used to these systems as we're currently using a cardinal voting system on HN.
2) Many social choice experts advocate for cardinal systems over ordinal. Approval is quite popular due to its simplicity and effectiveness while Star or Score improve on alignment but all of these are substantially better than the current system. Cardinal has the advantage in the tabulation being that you do not need multiple elections (exception of Star, which is strictly 2 elections), and you can do a parallelized reduce sum tabulation. So algorithmically it is easy to understand (sum columns/candidates, pick largest total: argmax(column sum)). That has implications for transparency and election security. Some people are convinced these methods are harder for people to understand but I'd refer you back to point 1 and add that we're also very used to these systems as we're currently using a cardinal voting system on HN.
It is plain from the stories of fox news orphans that information diet can ruin good people, but I refuse to believe that people aren't different.
I rebut your thesis thus: Oskar Schindler.
I rebut your thesis thus: Oskar Schindler.
What do you think the main difference in people is? Biological? Because I'm saying environmental. I'm not sure why you reference Schindler. Certainly there is a distribution and I'm not claiming people are clones (I don't think you are either). So outliers aren't proof of anything, to either argument.
Didn't want to pollute my effortpost, but: thanks for clarifying, and I agree that the Schindler outlier isn't a point.
I think Dawkins' model of memes is helpful.
I'm going to use freighted language and examples for brevity. Readers, please be generous; I'm doing conservatism because it's the topic on hand, but this applies equally to progressivism.
A meme is the fundamental unit of transmissible culture - a catchy tune, laying napkins on the lunch table, the concept of punishment for wrongdoers. Memes are hosted in sentient minds.
A baby's first memes come from its parents. Subsequently, from family, babysitters, toys, telly, other children, books.
Memes are virulent to different degrees. An earworm is very infectious, but greeting people with "howdie doodie" is not particularly so.
A meme may fade away from a host in time, or be displaced by another meme, or last a long time in the host's mind.
Individuals are more or less susceptible to any given meme. This is influenced by the memes they have already. Some memes reinforce each other, and are often found together and transmitted together - for example, the meme for belief in god tends to cohabit with the meme for prayer, and we observe them being transmitted together.
The belief in a holy text tends to confer resistance to displacement on proximate memes such as the belief in a personal deity, and also tends to cause the host to expend effort on transmitting the meme complex. These meme complexes are self-sustaining.
We might expect meme complexes that include dogma to confer great tenacity on accompanying memes. Good luck convincing a fundie that the earth is old; their memes inoculate them against arguments.
So we have the fox news complex: initial infection is through mild right-wing memes, affect the host's behaviour, and increase susceptibility to secondary infections such as "election was stolen" or "9/11 was an inside job".
Someone with a very strong base set of memes, such as critical thinking or compassion, is much less susceptible to all the constituent memes of the fox complex. But someone with a weak base meme type - say, consumerism and apathy to books - is more easily infected.
I'm not aware of any research in this field. Do please improve my understanding!
I'm going to use freighted language and examples for brevity. Readers, please be generous; I'm doing conservatism because it's the topic on hand, but this applies equally to progressivism.
A meme is the fundamental unit of transmissible culture - a catchy tune, laying napkins on the lunch table, the concept of punishment for wrongdoers. Memes are hosted in sentient minds.
A baby's first memes come from its parents. Subsequently, from family, babysitters, toys, telly, other children, books.
Memes are virulent to different degrees. An earworm is very infectious, but greeting people with "howdie doodie" is not particularly so.
A meme may fade away from a host in time, or be displaced by another meme, or last a long time in the host's mind.
Individuals are more or less susceptible to any given meme. This is influenced by the memes they have already. Some memes reinforce each other, and are often found together and transmitted together - for example, the meme for belief in god tends to cohabit with the meme for prayer, and we observe them being transmitted together.
The belief in a holy text tends to confer resistance to displacement on proximate memes such as the belief in a personal deity, and also tends to cause the host to expend effort on transmitting the meme complex. These meme complexes are self-sustaining.
We might expect meme complexes that include dogma to confer great tenacity on accompanying memes. Good luck convincing a fundie that the earth is old; their memes inoculate them against arguments.
So we have the fox news complex: initial infection is through mild right-wing memes, affect the host's behaviour, and increase susceptibility to secondary infections such as "election was stolen" or "9/11 was an inside job".
Someone with a very strong base set of memes, such as critical thinking or compassion, is much less susceptible to all the constituent memes of the fox complex. But someone with a weak base meme type - say, consumerism and apathy to books - is more easily infected.
I'm not aware of any research in this field. Do please improve my understanding!
While I think at the broader level you are correct in mechanism I'm unconvinced that this is how it works in reality. There are too many examples of ideas spreading like wildfire far faster than people die out. Ideas that people hold with high passion. An example might be same-sex marriage where we see a larger rate of increase in support post legalization[0]. While younger generations have higher initial support, all generations increase in their support. 30% in the 00's and 60% today for the 55+ age group. That can't be due to the transfer of 35-55's because their baseline was only 40% in the 00's.
Remember that Dawkins use the analogy of a virus, not of an inheritable disease. Certainly you are correct in part as there are analogies to inheritable diseases with thought but it's also important to remember how quickly these mutate and that the mutation does not occur at inheritance like this is a game of telephone (in some way it is, but I hope that was clear). Moreso, things are mutating faster than ever. Religion is a great example of this, as it is a highly inheritable belief, yet the rate at which interpretations of a religious text has changed has changed much quicker than before. That's because, unsurprisingly, the interpretations are a reflection of ourselves and our times are changing faster than ever.
I don't know how old you are, but I do remember a time before Fox news and before the 24hr news cycle. They first took off around 9/11 and then gained many more during the financial crisis. I grew up in a Fox family and unlike my many liberal friends (which I am undoubtedly left), I will occasionally watch such shows like Bill O'Riley, Hanity, or Tucker. Why? Because they are well scripted programs that exploit the aforementioned principles. It helps me prepare for the nonsense my dad says during holidays. There's two points here which I'll rely on inference for as I'm already writing a lot. The first is about how they can rapidly change long held beliefs (e.g. Russians are the bad guys) and the second is about how this exercise let's me interrupt my dad (and uncle and BIL) and tell them exactly what they are about to say.
Everyone can be manipulated, including you and me. We're being constantly manipulated and not always by intentional forces (more often unintentionally). Dawkin's viral theory is a great place to start but like viruses you have to understand that there's a much more complex and intricate system involved that creates a large array of effects and you're not wrong that there are both genetic and environmental predisposition that makes a virus worse for some than others. But the same goes for the reproduction rate as well as mutation rate. The truth is that you can convince fundies that the Earth is old. I know this because I am an example. I know this because the rate of people like me is not just increasing, but accelerating. Apples fall a lot further from the tree than they used to, not because the laws of physics changed, but because the geography did. So either you believe that I'm (and others) are an exception to the rule or that there is an underlying mechanism that allows this to happen. The former does not have explanatory power for the increase, let alone the acceleration.
[0] https://news.gallup.com/poll/350486/record-high-support-same...
Remember that Dawkins use the analogy of a virus, not of an inheritable disease. Certainly you are correct in part as there are analogies to inheritable diseases with thought but it's also important to remember how quickly these mutate and that the mutation does not occur at inheritance like this is a game of telephone (in some way it is, but I hope that was clear). Moreso, things are mutating faster than ever. Religion is a great example of this, as it is a highly inheritable belief, yet the rate at which interpretations of a religious text has changed has changed much quicker than before. That's because, unsurprisingly, the interpretations are a reflection of ourselves and our times are changing faster than ever.
I don't know how old you are, but I do remember a time before Fox news and before the 24hr news cycle. They first took off around 9/11 and then gained many more during the financial crisis. I grew up in a Fox family and unlike my many liberal friends (which I am undoubtedly left), I will occasionally watch such shows like Bill O'Riley, Hanity, or Tucker. Why? Because they are well scripted programs that exploit the aforementioned principles. It helps me prepare for the nonsense my dad says during holidays. There's two points here which I'll rely on inference for as I'm already writing a lot. The first is about how they can rapidly change long held beliefs (e.g. Russians are the bad guys) and the second is about how this exercise let's me interrupt my dad (and uncle and BIL) and tell them exactly what they are about to say.
Everyone can be manipulated, including you and me. We're being constantly manipulated and not always by intentional forces (more often unintentionally). Dawkin's viral theory is a great place to start but like viruses you have to understand that there's a much more complex and intricate system involved that creates a large array of effects and you're not wrong that there are both genetic and environmental predisposition that makes a virus worse for some than others. But the same goes for the reproduction rate as well as mutation rate. The truth is that you can convince fundies that the Earth is old. I know this because I am an example. I know this because the rate of people like me is not just increasing, but accelerating. Apples fall a lot further from the tree than they used to, not because the laws of physics changed, but because the geography did. So either you believe that I'm (and others) are an exception to the rule or that there is an underlying mechanism that allows this to happen. The former does not have explanatory power for the increase, let alone the acceleration.
[0] https://news.gallup.com/poll/350486/record-high-support-same...
Yes, viruses are a very useful concept. Ideas propagate in ways that put us in mind of epidemiology.
Genotype is, broadly speaking, determined at birth. But our set of memes is in flux to a greater or lesser degree. That degree is the topic at hand; why are some more susceptible than others? I'm floating the idea that it's due to the ideas you already have at the time. That's why I brought up that some ideas confer resistance to certain other ideas.
Imagine instead a bacterium that is invaded by a variety of retroviruses, each of which change its DNA. Some of those DNA changes might increase our decrease resistance to some other retroviruses.
It's clear that strict logical consistency is not a necessary condition. Perhaps we could explore what "emotional consistency" might mean. It feels correct for me to say that when a person encounters an idea, the idea creates logical and emotional associations to other ideas that they hold, and that if the emotions reinforce the person's self-image, they will tend to adopt the new idea and incorporate it into their world-view. But I'm making this up - don't ask me to defend any of this!
Genotype is, broadly speaking, determined at birth. But our set of memes is in flux to a greater or lesser degree. That degree is the topic at hand; why are some more susceptible than others? I'm floating the idea that it's due to the ideas you already have at the time. That's why I brought up that some ideas confer resistance to certain other ideas.
Imagine instead a bacterium that is invaded by a variety of retroviruses, each of which change its DNA. Some of those DNA changes might increase our decrease resistance to some other retroviruses.
It's clear that strict logical consistency is not a necessary condition. Perhaps we could explore what "emotional consistency" might mean. It feels correct for me to say that when a person encounters an idea, the idea creates logical and emotional associations to other ideas that they hold, and that if the emotions reinforce the person's self-image, they will tend to adopt the new idea and incorporate it into their world-view. But I'm making this up - don't ask me to defend any of this!
First Past The Post is the cause of many of the political ills in the United States, and I used to think RCV was the answer. But it is a disaster:
1. The rate of spoiled ballots goes way up, and disproportionately so in lower-income areas (https://rangevoting.org/SPRates.html#minn). Suppressing 3 to 5% of the vote in poor districts would be devastating; the winning margin is smaller than that in lots of elections.
2. With RCV, sometimes voting for someone you like will make them lose (https://rangevoting.org/ClayIrv2.html).
3. RCV doesn't break us out of two-party dominance. Once a third-party candidate gains more support, they can still be a spoiler under RCV, forcing you to choose between the lesser of two evils.
4. Audits are essential to ensure an accurate count, but RCV makes them vastly more difficult because you can't add up the votes from smaller districts to get the overall result.
5. Let's have voting machine companies write more unreviewed proprietary software and make it more complicated, that sounds like a great idea!
There's a much better method that actually does help us escape two-party rule. It's simple, cheap, well-tested, accessible, easy to understand, and doesn't even require changing any ballots or software. That method is Approval Voting (https://electionscience.org/library/approval-voting-versus-i...). Simply:
• Use the same ballots as we do today
• Let people vote for all the candidates they like
• Count all the votes
Done. No new ballots, no new procedures, no new software, and extremely simple to explain to voters.
Here's the intuition for why this works. When you vote using the current system, expressing support for one candidate requires you to withdraw your support from another candidate. RCV is the same in that you can only have one first choice: if you want to rank one candidate higher, you must rank another candidate lower. That's what keeps you from voting for your true favourite. With Approval Voting, your decisions about each individual candidate are fully independent: how you vote on one candidate has no effect on any other candidate. So you can express your full support for your favourite without harming the "lesser evil" candidate.
RCV is frequently criticized by mathematicians and economists, who are familiar with its many problems. This is one of those uncommon situations where the theorists and pragmatists agree: Approval is better from both perspectives.
1. The rate of spoiled ballots goes way up, and disproportionately so in lower-income areas (https://rangevoting.org/SPRates.html#minn). Suppressing 3 to 5% of the vote in poor districts would be devastating; the winning margin is smaller than that in lots of elections.
2. With RCV, sometimes voting for someone you like will make them lose (https://rangevoting.org/ClayIrv2.html).
3. RCV doesn't break us out of two-party dominance. Once a third-party candidate gains more support, they can still be a spoiler under RCV, forcing you to choose between the lesser of two evils.
4. Audits are essential to ensure an accurate count, but RCV makes them vastly more difficult because you can't add up the votes from smaller districts to get the overall result.
5. Let's have voting machine companies write more unreviewed proprietary software and make it more complicated, that sounds like a great idea!
There's a much better method that actually does help us escape two-party rule. It's simple, cheap, well-tested, accessible, easy to understand, and doesn't even require changing any ballots or software. That method is Approval Voting (https://electionscience.org/library/approval-voting-versus-i...). Simply:
• Use the same ballots as we do today
• Let people vote for all the candidates they like
• Count all the votes
Done. No new ballots, no new procedures, no new software, and extremely simple to explain to voters.
Here's the intuition for why this works. When you vote using the current system, expressing support for one candidate requires you to withdraw your support from another candidate. RCV is the same in that you can only have one first choice: if you want to rank one candidate higher, you must rank another candidate lower. That's what keeps you from voting for your true favourite. With Approval Voting, your decisions about each individual candidate are fully independent: how you vote on one candidate has no effect on any other candidate. So you can express your full support for your favourite without harming the "lesser evil" candidate.
RCV is frequently criticized by mathematicians and economists, who are familiar with its many problems. This is one of those uncommon situations where the theorists and pragmatists agree: Approval is better from both perspectives.
> So there is this tendency of social activists towards conformance and centralization in the direction of authoritarianism. But on the other side, total denial of any systemic social problems that results in increasing inequality leaving more and more people fighting for scraps as monopoly powers increase.
Basically, from both ends of the spectrum here comes the tendency of concentrating and monopolizing power politically or economically. We are losing agency as individuals actors in the society.
Basically, from both ends of the spectrum here comes the tendency of concentrating and monopolizing power politically or economically. We are losing agency as individuals actors in the society.
> I hope more left-leaning people will pick up on the danger of this slippery slope.
They already spent the last few decades objecting to Joseph McCarthy. Denunciation of his evil, and celebration of his downfall to the "Have you no shame?" speech, was an element of modern leftist canon.
If they couldn't recognize what was happening every time they mentioned his name, they never will.
They already spent the last few decades objecting to Joseph McCarthy. Denunciation of his evil, and celebration of his downfall to the "Have you no shame?" speech, was an element of modern leftist canon.
If they couldn't recognize what was happening every time they mentioned his name, they never will.
I think you are unfortunately correct, although I don't think it's accurate to frame this as an issue which only affects the left (though maybe that isn't what you meant). It's clear that humans simply aren't capable of learning to not go on witch hunts. Even with all of the time we spent teaching our children about Salem, Joseph McCarthy, and the like, it goes out of people's heads the instant they encounter a cause they think is righteous and important enough. At this point it seems clear that witch hunts are hardwired into too many human brains to be able to educate people out of it. We will need to figure out how to structure society in such a way that the tendency does as little damage as we can manage.
I don't think the behavior is something specific to the left. What is specific to the left is making opposition to witch hunts an explicit element of their catechism. Thus engaging in witch hunts reflects more poorly on them.
I don't know. I recall listening to conservative thinkers discuss the left. I'm not talking about alt-right or hard-right bozos, I'm talking about Thomas Sowell and Bill Bennett. They consistently used words like "opponent" or "opposition" when describing fellow Americans with differing worldviews. Then they dive into the ideas.
While I don't recall, for example, President Obama or President Clinton saying things like "enemy" or "evil" when describing fellow citizens, we do have candidates and mainstream press using much harsher and more negative terms. I started watching a video from the self-avowed "left" discussing what the left ought to know about the right (pushed by the algorithm). The expert being interviewed was a professor of some sort, and in his very first answer he used the phrase "fight the enemy" and "understand the enemy" when describing how to deal with half the population of fellow citizens who disagreed with his ideology.
Hillary Clinton's memorable "basket of deplorables" is another. Don't get me wrong. Ten years ago, you wouldn't hear that kind of rhetoric from conservatives. But conservatism has been swallowed by alt-right Trump-style populism. I try to tune out the rants coming from the far right, so I imagine there are plenty of examples coming from awful sources. But this "enemy" rhetoric should never come out of the mouth of anyone respectable when speaking of their own countrymen or countrywomen.
I think I agree with you in that it is "not just a left problem" but there seems to have been a predominance of this "kill the enemy" rhetoric coming more from the left for many decades, than from the right. Part of the reason for this is that so many of the leftist playbooks like Rules for Radicals or Marxist strategy papers from Engels include "destroying the enemy" (encompassing eliminating morality, eliminating traditional family units, and fomenting violent revolt). Playbooks on the right, traditionally, have included understanding the rhetoric of the left, analyzing its ideas in terms of economics and personal freedom, and using debating tactics to "win" arguments.
I have to conclude that this is not just a "both sides" problem, but that one side spends a lot more of its energy on pushing toward the extremes.
While I don't recall, for example, President Obama or President Clinton saying things like "enemy" or "evil" when describing fellow citizens, we do have candidates and mainstream press using much harsher and more negative terms. I started watching a video from the self-avowed "left" discussing what the left ought to know about the right (pushed by the algorithm). The expert being interviewed was a professor of some sort, and in his very first answer he used the phrase "fight the enemy" and "understand the enemy" when describing how to deal with half the population of fellow citizens who disagreed with his ideology.
Hillary Clinton's memorable "basket of deplorables" is another. Don't get me wrong. Ten years ago, you wouldn't hear that kind of rhetoric from conservatives. But conservatism has been swallowed by alt-right Trump-style populism. I try to tune out the rants coming from the far right, so I imagine there are plenty of examples coming from awful sources. But this "enemy" rhetoric should never come out of the mouth of anyone respectable when speaking of their own countrymen or countrywomen.
I think I agree with you in that it is "not just a left problem" but there seems to have been a predominance of this "kill the enemy" rhetoric coming more from the left for many decades, than from the right. Part of the reason for this is that so many of the leftist playbooks like Rules for Radicals or Marxist strategy papers from Engels include "destroying the enemy" (encompassing eliminating morality, eliminating traditional family units, and fomenting violent revolt). Playbooks on the right, traditionally, have included understanding the rhetoric of the left, analyzing its ideas in terms of economics and personal freedom, and using debating tactics to "win" arguments.
I have to conclude that this is not just a "both sides" problem, but that one side spends a lot more of its energy on pushing toward the extremes.
While I largely agree with what you said, about
> there is this tendency of social activists towards conformance and centralization in the direction of authoritarianism
I don't think that's the case, actually. I suspect the tendency actually comes from liberalism, i.e. notion of individual freedom. If we are to give people individual freedom, then we are going to be neglectful of the power they attain as groups. This is easily observable in the economic sphere, where the rich people are getting richer under liberalism, and as you note, we are oblivious to the plight of losers.
Another problem that you note is that the conflict is treated as two sides. In my personal political philosophy, there are 4 basic (sets of) moral values:
1. Value of human being itself (this gives ideology of humanism, rejection of which can be considered to be extremist), i.e. rejecting harm to humans, accepting humans as they are, forgiveness
2. Value of individual freedom (this gives ideology of liberalism, which is inherently neither left or right, usually considered "center"), i.e. most individual rights, rights to freely socially organize, ability to act independently to society
3. Value of human equality (this gives ideology of progresivism/socialism, which is the core of the "left"), i.e. this includes democracy, the idea we should collectively all have equal rights in society, we should all have fair access to economic resources, also strong moral universalism (also in this context, this also includes DEI)
4. Value of culture and our shared past (this gives ideology of conservativism, which is the core of the "right"), i.e. we should preserve existing (social) structures and culture through institutions, we should have property ownership, and we should have authorities in place to preserve the potentially harmful changes in society
It's pretty easy to see that all these values are logically independent, people do however largely share all of them. However, each person sees the world from a slightly different perspective on each issue, moral dilemmas tend to occur where there is a disagreement.
For example, the tendency of society towards centralization and authoritarianism is just an expression of value (4). It happens more or less independently of values (2) or (3) (neither of them really values time, unlike (4)), although the proponents of (2), being by nature more permissive, oblivious to any social institutions and not defining the desired end result, tends to allow it to happen much faster (this is also called paradox of tolerance).
So while I agree when you write:
> It seems the war between camps means that anyone trying to promote a more subtle or intricate message is shunned or ignored by both sides.
I don't think there are just 2 sides, there are at least 4 big sides, see above; however, treating problems as 2-sided is often practical in terms of acquiring political power.
I do however take slight issue with:
> But the first challenge would be for the left to acknowledge the need for freedom and the right to acknowledge the need for average people to exist without fighting for scraps.
You're saying, people who value (3) need to acknowledge (2) and vice versa. I agree with this idea (that was actually why I developed the above philosophy, to understand these contradictions), but the practical reality is different than what you wish. Most of the left is more accepting of liberalism than liberals are accepting of the left (historically, at the French revolution, the liberal ideas were part of the left, while the right was only values of (4), like there should exist nobility). And in fact, the Western societies are now so heavily tilted towards values of (2) that the centrists proudly think they can ignore (3) completely. In fact, ignoring (3) by liberals is dangerous and historically led to concentration of power and fascism (which is an extreme of (4)), and that's what we observe (that's why anybody who wants power goes after (3) sooner before they go after (2) - often by falsely adopting (3) as an ideological goal, because individuals are harmless, it's the ability of groups to organize through shared value of (3) that is a dangerous antidote to concentrated power).
Most leftists can also easily see through what DEI is being promoted honestly, as being true to values of (3), and what is just an ideological BS (and whitewashing) designed to attain power. I mean, if corporations (true for many academic institutions as well) really wanted DEI, they would promote more democracy in the workplace (and transformed the corporations into cooperatives, for example). Claudine Gay affair is a nice practical example of these institutions (and their masters) showing true colors.
> there is this tendency of social activists towards conformance and centralization in the direction of authoritarianism
I don't think that's the case, actually. I suspect the tendency actually comes from liberalism, i.e. notion of individual freedom. If we are to give people individual freedom, then we are going to be neglectful of the power they attain as groups. This is easily observable in the economic sphere, where the rich people are getting richer under liberalism, and as you note, we are oblivious to the plight of losers.
Another problem that you note is that the conflict is treated as two sides. In my personal political philosophy, there are 4 basic (sets of) moral values:
1. Value of human being itself (this gives ideology of humanism, rejection of which can be considered to be extremist), i.e. rejecting harm to humans, accepting humans as they are, forgiveness
2. Value of individual freedom (this gives ideology of liberalism, which is inherently neither left or right, usually considered "center"), i.e. most individual rights, rights to freely socially organize, ability to act independently to society
3. Value of human equality (this gives ideology of progresivism/socialism, which is the core of the "left"), i.e. this includes democracy, the idea we should collectively all have equal rights in society, we should all have fair access to economic resources, also strong moral universalism (also in this context, this also includes DEI)
4. Value of culture and our shared past (this gives ideology of conservativism, which is the core of the "right"), i.e. we should preserve existing (social) structures and culture through institutions, we should have property ownership, and we should have authorities in place to preserve the potentially harmful changes in society
It's pretty easy to see that all these values are logically independent, people do however largely share all of them. However, each person sees the world from a slightly different perspective on each issue, moral dilemmas tend to occur where there is a disagreement.
For example, the tendency of society towards centralization and authoritarianism is just an expression of value (4). It happens more or less independently of values (2) or (3) (neither of them really values time, unlike (4)), although the proponents of (2), being by nature more permissive, oblivious to any social institutions and not defining the desired end result, tends to allow it to happen much faster (this is also called paradox of tolerance).
So while I agree when you write:
> It seems the war between camps means that anyone trying to promote a more subtle or intricate message is shunned or ignored by both sides.
I don't think there are just 2 sides, there are at least 4 big sides, see above; however, treating problems as 2-sided is often practical in terms of acquiring political power.
I do however take slight issue with:
> But the first challenge would be for the left to acknowledge the need for freedom and the right to acknowledge the need for average people to exist without fighting for scraps.
You're saying, people who value (3) need to acknowledge (2) and vice versa. I agree with this idea (that was actually why I developed the above philosophy, to understand these contradictions), but the practical reality is different than what you wish. Most of the left is more accepting of liberalism than liberals are accepting of the left (historically, at the French revolution, the liberal ideas were part of the left, while the right was only values of (4), like there should exist nobility). And in fact, the Western societies are now so heavily tilted towards values of (2) that the centrists proudly think they can ignore (3) completely. In fact, ignoring (3) by liberals is dangerous and historically led to concentration of power and fascism (which is an extreme of (4)), and that's what we observe (that's why anybody who wants power goes after (3) sooner before they go after (2) - often by falsely adopting (3) as an ideological goal, because individuals are harmless, it's the ability of groups to organize through shared value of (3) that is a dangerous antidote to concentrated power).
Most leftists can also easily see through what DEI is being promoted honestly, as being true to values of (3), and what is just an ideological BS (and whitewashing) designed to attain power. I mean, if corporations (true for many academic institutions as well) really wanted DEI, they would promote more democracy in the workplace (and transformed the corporations into cooperatives, for example). Claudine Gay affair is a nice practical example of these institutions (and their masters) showing true colors.
> Most of the left is more accepting of liberalism than liberals are accepting of the left
This isn't true, it is legal to be a communist in capitalist countries but many communist countries made it illegal and imprisoned anyone who argued for capitalism. Liberalism wins when people get to vote and decide, people hate when their liberties gets taken away so you need to become authoritarian to push further than for example Scandinavia.
And even USA is a counter example, it is full of social programs and the state controls 40% of the GDP so the private sector is just 60%, meaning it is already a compromise between the ideologies. Liberalism is very accepting of different ideals and how they can fit together, it is when you remove it that you get to a bad spot.
This isn't true, it is legal to be a communist in capitalist countries but many communist countries made it illegal and imprisoned anyone who argued for capitalism. Liberalism wins when people get to vote and decide, people hate when their liberties gets taken away so you need to become authoritarian to push further than for example Scandinavia.
And even USA is a counter example, it is full of social programs and the state controls 40% of the GDP so the private sector is just 60%, meaning it is already a compromise between the ideologies. Liberalism is very accepting of different ideals and how they can fit together, it is when you remove it that you get to a bad spot.
When I am talking about acceptance of the values of equality (3) from liberals, I mean willingness to compromise and understand the benefit of value (3) for society. You're talking about acceptance on paper - yeah, you can have all these fringe ideas, and talk about them all you want, as long as they are not actually implemented. Which is nothing more than value (2).
And communist countries.. ah what a stupid trope (most of the self-declared "communist" countries were simply right-wing dictatorships). I am pretty sure in e.g. Kerala you can have any beliefs you want. Ideologically, communism is a whole spectrum of ideas between values of (3) and (4), and it doesn't even explicitly reject (2) (although the most famous implementations did that).
You're ignoring the fact that any ideology can be abused for power. A good example is Milei in Argentina, who is claiming to be a liberal as a means of becoming an authoritarian dictator. Yet it doesn't devalue liberalism.
Taking any of the values (2), (3), (4) to the extreme (in particular, at the expense of (1)) is dangerous and liberalism is not different. It just manifests as a different blind spot, in liberalism (value (2)) taken to extreme, it is a blind spot towards people at the extremes of the social hierarchy. Values (3) or (4) taken to extreme share a blind spot towards individual self-expression.
And communist countries.. ah what a stupid trope (most of the self-declared "communist" countries were simply right-wing dictatorships). I am pretty sure in e.g. Kerala you can have any beliefs you want. Ideologically, communism is a whole spectrum of ideas between values of (3) and (4), and it doesn't even explicitly reject (2) (although the most famous implementations did that).
You're ignoring the fact that any ideology can be abused for power. A good example is Milei in Argentina, who is claiming to be a liberal as a means of becoming an authoritarian dictator. Yet it doesn't devalue liberalism.
Taking any of the values (2), (3), (4) to the extreme (in particular, at the expense of (1)) is dangerous and liberalism is not different. It just manifests as a different blind spot, in liberalism (value (2)) taken to extreme, it is a blind spot towards people at the extremes of the social hierarchy. Values (3) or (4) taken to extreme share a blind spot towards individual self-expression.
> yeah, you can have all these fringe ideas, and talk about them all you want, as long as they are not actually implemented.
Every developed nation is full of social programs to help the poor and give people things they need to live a good life. It varies a bit from country to country, but even USA has programs to give schooling to every kid and feed the poor so they don't starve and ensure even the poor get healthcare.
So no, I don't accept your argument here, we today do listen a lot to leftist ideas and implemented a ton of them, the evidence for that is everywhere.
Every developed nation is full of social programs to help the poor and give people things they need to live a good life. It varies a bit from country to country, but even USA has programs to give schooling to every kid and feed the poor so they don't starve and ensure even the poor get healthcare.
So no, I don't accept your argument here, we today do listen a lot to leftist ideas and implemented a ton of them, the evidence for that is everywhere.
I am not sure what country you're from, but if it's a Western one, it's unlikely that you have recently (in the past 40 years) fully adopted a more leftist proposal or idea compared to what was accepted 40 years back. So things as social programs largely exist as a consequence of value (3) being understood (and fought for) as important, rather than liberals understanding their importance (in fact, they let lot of it slide in the neoliberal era).
Although to be fair, dominance of ideological liberalism is probably ending, but it yet has to manifest in practical policies. In practical terms, value of (2) is the most important for the middle class, in contrast with value (3) which is the most important for the working (bottom) class, and value (4) which is the most important for the ruling (top) class. So the decline in the middle class (being teared apart by social inequality) in the US is changing the ideological dominance of (2). It's really just another way of reframing my point about liberalism causing its own demise.
That's why, when I am talking about importance of (3) compared to (2), I am not talking about just the bottom of social hierarchy, i.e. giving something to poor people to eat so they don't die (this is actually more based on value (1) than (3)). The value of (3) is also about having a political power (and democracy), and as such the top of the social hierarchy (to which liberalism is oblivious to) needs to be addressed as well. Value of (2) cannot do much about abuse of power by billionaires, for instance. It's simply out of the scope - as far as liberals are concerned, their existence and economic influence is fair and square. And that's why it can lead to fascism. (And we can see in practice, US is not very democratic at the moment, the will of majority of people is ignored in actual policy, but the will of the rich people prevails.)
Addendum (rereading my previous comment): Historically, the hubris that lead to suffering you describe under totalitarian communist regimes was ideological ignorance of value (2) (or (4) for that matter) when implementing (3), as in the circumstances of the communist revolutions, the (3) becomes a cultural hegemon. I think the left mostly learned from that, i.e. you can't have (3) without respecting (2), and also revolutions are tricky (meaning attaining anything without respecting (4) can be bloody). Today however, we are in a different situation, (2) has the cultural hegemony, and so the understanding that (3) is important has been lost to some extent, due to the same ideological hubris (but this hubris of liberals also exists towards conservatives, i.e. value (4), showing that it really comes from its ideological hegemony).
Although to be fair, dominance of ideological liberalism is probably ending, but it yet has to manifest in practical policies. In practical terms, value of (2) is the most important for the middle class, in contrast with value (3) which is the most important for the working (bottom) class, and value (4) which is the most important for the ruling (top) class. So the decline in the middle class (being teared apart by social inequality) in the US is changing the ideological dominance of (2). It's really just another way of reframing my point about liberalism causing its own demise.
That's why, when I am talking about importance of (3) compared to (2), I am not talking about just the bottom of social hierarchy, i.e. giving something to poor people to eat so they don't die (this is actually more based on value (1) than (3)). The value of (3) is also about having a political power (and democracy), and as such the top of the social hierarchy (to which liberalism is oblivious to) needs to be addressed as well. Value of (2) cannot do much about abuse of power by billionaires, for instance. It's simply out of the scope - as far as liberals are concerned, their existence and economic influence is fair and square. And that's why it can lead to fascism. (And we can see in practice, US is not very democratic at the moment, the will of majority of people is ignored in actual policy, but the will of the rich people prevails.)
Addendum (rereading my previous comment): Historically, the hubris that lead to suffering you describe under totalitarian communist regimes was ideological ignorance of value (2) (or (4) for that matter) when implementing (3), as in the circumstances of the communist revolutions, the (3) becomes a cultural hegemon. I think the left mostly learned from that, i.e. you can't have (3) without respecting (2), and also revolutions are tricky (meaning attaining anything without respecting (4) can be bloody). Today however, we are in a different situation, (2) has the cultural hegemony, and so the understanding that (3) is important has been lost to some extent, due to the same ideological hubris (but this hubris of liberals also exists towards conservatives, i.e. value (4), showing that it really comes from its ideological hegemony).
The first statement is not true, there were many capitalist countries that simply murdered anyone left of centre. Hell, its illegal to be a communist in Germany!
> So I have to conclude that this is not just a left problem
In America, the conservative movement drove fealty to ideals and invented cancel culture. It wasn’t leftists insisting our money trust god or that small children pledge allegiance.
The left adopted it because people were committing suicide because of the systematic hate and discrimination.
The religious right wing invented it because their feelings were hurt if everyone didn’t believe in their same sky fairy and preferred economic religion.
In America, the conservative movement drove fealty to ideals and invented cancel culture. It wasn’t leftists insisting our money trust god or that small children pledge allegiance.
The left adopted it because people were committing suicide because of the systematic hate and discrimination.
The religious right wing invented it because their feelings were hurt if everyone didn’t believe in their same sky fairy and preferred economic religion.
Specifically it's reactionary to American conformism
I'm sympathetic to diversity statements. I get why some people want them, or some departments want them from applicants. From my experience applying to PhD programs, though, writing and insisting on them is...unacademic and often downright misguided. When you write them you're confronted with essentially justifying your existence as it fits into the often nonsensical groupings of DEI initiatives. Your research is not appraised independent of your identity; instead, the obvious implication is that you will be appraised through your identity. The very of idea of well done scholarship (careful argumentation, corralling and presentation of evidence, citing sources and addressing counter-arguments) is insulted. Certain applicants are made to self-flagellate for their identity while others are incentivized to present their identity as an advantage.
I am familiar with diversity statements by institutions, but what would a diversity statement from an applicant consist of, what would be expected? for example, declared alignment with the institution? or statements about one's own "diversity"? just trying to get a grasp.
Here's a scoring guide to "how good" a statement is, along with examples.
https://ofew.berkeley.edu/recruitment/contributions-diversit...
https://ofew.berkeley.edu/recruitment/contributions-diversit...
I find this distressing. The “Track Record in Advancing Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging” and “Plans for Advancing Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging” seem like they’re trying to hire specifically for a DEI role. Is a math professor supposed to be hired based on their math research or based on the DEI workshops they’ve led?
Probably relevant as an example of the thinking, but it's worth noting that this is for evaluating applications to faculty positions, and not applicants trying to enter a PhD program.
What is expected is that the applicant will tell them what they want to hear.
Top marks: convince them that you’re a true believer.
Passing marks: convince them that, while you have yet to reach gnosis, you’re eager to learn from them, make a show of it, and encourage others to do the same.
Top marks: convince them that you’re a true believer.
Passing marks: convince them that, while you have yet to reach gnosis, you’re eager to learn from them, make a show of it, and encourage others to do the same.
Are they insisting on them for PhD applicants now too?
You might be asked to write about it, yes, though I don't recall one that insisted on it at the moment.
For example, the University of Nevada, Reno's Physics PhD application gives the following as one of the writing prompts to consider to address admissions criteria:
"Describe experiences and activities that demonstrate a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion."
For example, the University of Nevada, Reno's Physics PhD application gives the following as one of the writing prompts to consider to address admissions criteria:
"Describe experiences and activities that demonstrate a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion."
It seems a bit silly to ask academics to enhance DEI initiatives. These are initiatives created by administrators to solve issues that administrators have caused.
I also don’t like the surface level diversity metrics that schools target: reported race and gender. Of course these are historically important, but they’re also proxies for class which is a far more important type of diversity in my opinion. I see education as a driver of economic and social opportunity, so it doesn’t mean much to have an insular elite class of wealthy but mixed gender and multiracial graduates. Targeting class diversity naturally gets you racial diversity anyways.
I also don’t like the surface level diversity metrics that schools target: reported race and gender. Of course these are historically important, but they’re also proxies for class which is a far more important type of diversity in my opinion. I see education as a driver of economic and social opportunity, so it doesn’t mean much to have an insular elite class of wealthy but mixed gender and multiracial graduates. Targeting class diversity naturally gets you racial diversity anyways.
> Targeting class diversity naturally gets you racial diversity anyways.
Not only that, the opposite doesn't. There are fewer black kids than white kids who grew up in affluent / middle class families, but not so few that you couldn't fill every diversity slot at an elite university with them.
Which defeats the proper purpose of the program. You're supposed to be giving opportunities to people who didn't have them and bringing different perspectives into the student body, not further advantaging the most privileged subset of the people who can check the important box on the form who grew up in the same neighborhood as the other elite students.
Not only that, the opposite doesn't. There are fewer black kids than white kids who grew up in affluent / middle class families, but not so few that you couldn't fill every diversity slot at an elite university with them.
Which defeats the proper purpose of the program. You're supposed to be giving opportunities to people who didn't have them and bringing different perspectives into the student body, not further advantaging the most privileged subset of the people who can check the important box on the form who grew up in the same neighborhood as the other elite students.
> Which defeats the proper purpose of the program.
Or, cynically, is the point of the program. There has to be a large interest group who wants to keep lower classes out of the universities and DEI would make a good smokescreen. Get some disadvantaged kids the likes of the Obama children and Clarance Thomas' son. Then there is no space left for Wei Wang who gets great marks but who is probably an oppressor because his family are solidly middle class and not moving in the right social circles.
Or, cynically, is the point of the program. There has to be a large interest group who wants to keep lower classes out of the universities and DEI would make a good smokescreen. Get some disadvantaged kids the likes of the Obama children and Clarance Thomas' son. Then there is no space left for Wei Wang who gets great marks but who is probably an oppressor because his family are solidly middle class and not moving in the right social circles.
> Targeting class diversity naturally gets you racial diversity anyways.
Not always true. Look at the SHSAT. If you looked at the poor kids and took the top scores, it would be mostly Asians.
The same thing applies for admissions to the Ivies. If they set aside 25% of their incoming class to be from the bottom 25% of the income distribution they'd fill most of those slots with Asians.
Not always true. Look at the SHSAT. If you looked at the poor kids and took the top scores, it would be mostly Asians.
The same thing applies for admissions to the Ivies. If they set aside 25% of their incoming class to be from the bottom 25% of the income distribution they'd fill most of those slots with Asians.
> Not always true. Look at the SHSAT. If you looked at the poor kids and took the top scores, it would be mostly Asians.
But they’re simply gaming the admission systems by studying rather than spending all their waking hours on TikTok and Fortnite.
But they’re simply gaming the admission systems by studying rather than spending all their waking hours on TikTok and Fortnite.
> But they’re simply gaming the admission systems by studying rather than spending all their waking hours on TikTok and Fortnite.
That is the point, is it not? The whole reason for higher education is to study and research. The point of higher education is not to spend all your waking hours on TikTok and Fortnite. Shouldn’t the people dedicated to studying get in? I’m unsure how that’s gaming the system. It seems like the system is working as intended.
That is the point, is it not? The whole reason for higher education is to study and research. The point of higher education is not to spend all your waking hours on TikTok and Fortnite. Shouldn’t the people dedicated to studying get in? I’m unsure how that’s gaming the system. It seems like the system is working as intended.
> Not always true. Look at the SHSAT. If you looked at the poor kids and took the top scores, it would be mostly Asians.
That's assuming you're filling these slots solely on the basis of highest score and not, for example, setting a threshold score below which you might not expect those students to be able to succeed in that environment and then choosing from the remainder by lottery.
After all, if the point is diversity, "students with near-perfect standardized test scores" might not be the most heterogeneous group. And the kids with the near-perfect scores should be able to get in without consideration of their income level.
That's assuming you're filling these slots solely on the basis of highest score and not, for example, setting a threshold score below which you might not expect those students to be able to succeed in that environment and then choosing from the remainder by lottery.
After all, if the point is diversity, "students with near-perfect standardized test scores" might not be the most heterogeneous group. And the kids with the near-perfect scores should be able to get in without consideration of their income level.
Yes it depends on where you set the threshold. If you try to keep as close to your academic standards as possible, but also admit some kids from the bottom 25% of income then you'll get mostly Asians. If you set a much lower threshold and do a lottery as you propose it depends much more on the composition of the applicant pool.
> mostly Asians
So what? A few generations ago they said the same thing about Jews which was why they added extra admissions criteria in the first place. If one person has proven to be more academically qualified than another, they should be admitted. It doesn’t matter if they’re Jewish, Asian (which is an entire continent so it’s a bit silly to lump them all together, as if someone from China and someone from India have any kind of shared experience) or whatever.
So what? A few generations ago they said the same thing about Jews which was why they added extra admissions criteria in the first place. If one person has proven to be more academically qualified than another, they should be admitted. It doesn’t matter if they’re Jewish, Asian (which is an entire continent so it’s a bit silly to lump them all together, as if someone from China and someone from India have any kind of shared experience) or whatever.
I'm not taking issue with the outcome described. I'm pointing out that targeting class diversity will not always result in racial diversity as claimed.
SHSAT is an NYC-only HS thing, right? Are there any other US cities or regions doing similar at HS admissions level (ages 12-14)?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specialized_High_Schools_Admis...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specialized_High_Schools_Admis...
I don't know. But it's well known that this test is based on academic achievement and that low-income Asians do very well.
only if you live in NYC. If you don't live in NYC you won't ever have heard of it.
The test and controversy have been heavily covered in national media for years.
I live in California, I read national media for decades, and I've never heard of it.
When I google for it, the top-10 news hits for it are mostly NYPost, City Journal, NBC New York, NYDailyNews, also Manhattan Institute, TheNation.
Even if you google "SHSAT site:latimes.com" you only get hits for NYT, etc.
SFChronicle has only ever mentioned it once, and that was in 2021 in the context of the local (SF) debate about Lowell HS's entrance exam: (https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/S-F-s-Lowell-isn...). Googling "site:sfchronicle.com SHSAT" only has that one hit.
When I google for it, the top-10 news hits for it are mostly NYPost, City Journal, NBC New York, NYDailyNews, also Manhattan Institute, TheNation.
Even if you google "SHSAT site:latimes.com" you only get hits for NYT, etc.
SFChronicle has only ever mentioned it once, and that was in 2021 in the context of the local (SF) debate about Lowell HS's entrance exam: (https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/S-F-s-Lowell-isn...). Googling "site:sfchronicle.com SHSAT" only has that one hit.
We got told to accept a less promising candidate for an internship program based on their "racial diversity". It was discovered later on that their wealthy father knew the CEO from when they both went to Harvard. Our DEI program had just given an opportunity to a child of a privileged background, apparently based on the color of their skin, and this was something we were meant to be proud of and totally wasn't nepotism. After that I've refused to engage in DEI schemes which don't consider class, and there are few which do.
> their wealthy father knew the CEO from when they both went to Harvard.
Sounds like bog standard nepotism remained intact regardless of efforts to bypass it.
You can at least be certain that had it not been for DEI there would have been some other pressure exterted to much the same end.
Sounds like bog standard nepotism remained intact regardless of efforts to bypass it.
You can at least be certain that had it not been for DEI there would have been some other pressure exterted to much the same end.
> It seems a bit silly to ask academics to enhance DEI initiatives. These are initiatives created by administrators to solve issues that administrators have caused.
Some suspect they’ve gone too far and want to make sure they won’t be the only ones holding the bag. “Look, they signed the papers too and all agreed to participate, don’t blame just us”.
Some suspect they’ve gone too far and want to make sure they won’t be the only ones holding the bag. “Look, they signed the papers too and all agreed to participate, don’t blame just us”.
The issues DEI tries to solve run far deeper than being caused by administrators.
Here's a scoring guide from a US university for DEI statements. To me it's much more informative to go to primary sources for what is selected for, rather than only reading about them second hand.
https://ofew.berkeley.edu/recruitment/contributions-diversit...
https://ofew.berkeley.edu/recruitment/contributions-diversit...
Thanks,i agree its best to look at it directly.
But i do wonder what lines like "Clearly formulates new ideas for advancing equity and inclusion at Berkeley and within their field, through their research,..." mean
What does it mean for a math professor to advance diversity through their research?
Like i could maybe get it for the arts or even some social sciences, but what does that look like for math?
But i do wonder what lines like "Clearly formulates new ideas for advancing equity and inclusion at Berkeley and within their field, through their research,..." mean
What does it mean for a math professor to advance diversity through their research?
Like i could maybe get it for the arts or even some social sciences, but what does that look like for math?
Not only that, but it presupposes that diversity is a good in and of itself, which I think is quite false when it comes to diversity of physical characteristics (which is all that these initiatives ever care about). Diversity is neutral. It is just as erroneous to think that a group is enhanced by adding people just for their race (or gender, etc) as it is to think that a group is enhanced by excluding people just for their race (etc).
Some may presuppose that, others may suppose instead that physical diversity is a proxy indicator for other diversities of experience and culture. Sometimes proxies are good enough, other times they’re not.
You aren’t going to get a job like that.
Well you could always turn to a life of crime if you want to keep your dignity. Only half joking.
It helps to think of the things _around_ math rather than the elements of any particular mathematical field. For example, the authority conveyed when an economics argument relies heavily on partial differential equations. Those things _around_ math are studied in the anti-racist math classes.
The American Mathematical Society has been grappling with this:
https://blogs.ams.org/inclusionexclusion/2020/01/31/can-math...
Pure math is very different than social studies. But, in applied math, your research will be used for something promoting one group over another. Personally, I find it manipulative to attribute my own problem-solving contributions to the politics of someone using them.
The American Mathematical Society has been grappling with this:
https://blogs.ams.org/inclusionexclusion/2020/01/31/can-math...
Pure math is very different than social studies. But, in applied math, your research will be used for something promoting one group over another. Personally, I find it manipulative to attribute my own problem-solving contributions to the politics of someone using them.
> new ideas for advancing equity and inclusion
It means providing research containing useful narratives that can be used by others to promote DEI political objectives.
For example, in math it means publishing commentary on how math is widely used for racial discrimination and should generally not be trusted. See the popular book "Math Is Racist". Several Mathematicians are cited in the book.
It means providing research containing useful narratives that can be used by others to promote DEI political objectives.
For example, in math it means publishing commentary on how math is widely used for racial discrimination and should generally not be trusted. See the popular book "Math Is Racist". Several Mathematicians are cited in the book.
The full quote is "Clearly formulates new ideas for advancing equity and inclusion at Berkeley and within their field, through their research, teaching, and/or service." The last two are naturally more relevant for fields where advancing DEI through the research itself isn't as feasible. The examples given in the rubric are all of teaching/service categories, as well.
Not research, but Jelani Nelson at Berkeley ran programmes in Ethiopia to expose schoolchildren to programming. (In case it needs to be said, Jelani is a top-shelf theoretical computer scientist.)
Why should a STEM professor be required to devote time to such activities? It doesn't seem to be their specialty, humanity does better when we are allowed to specialize, other people can do such things.
To try to argue it:
Humanity does better when we don't marginalise people for dumb reasons such as membership in a visible minority group. Marginalising someone for a dumb reason is an individual decision, and it's a decision that a professor is frequently in a position to make.
Arguably the higher-leverage parts of a professor's job are teaching classroomfuls students at once, advising graduate students, and "service," meaning things like sitting on committees within the university, attending and sometimes organising conferences, and so forth. These all involve the professor spending time to help others' careers. Owing to their leverage, it's especially important that these aspects are done well. And since candidates for tenure-track jobs generally haven't been in such a position of leverage before, it's especially important to screen for suitability for teaching and service when hiring tenure-track professors.
I'm sure you can polish this, and I'm sure there are other arguments in the same direction.
Regarding specialisation, I gave an example of a world-class researcher who also does outreach to an underrepresented group in the post you replied to.
Moreover, the research, teaching, and service parts of a professor's job aren't as separable as you'd hope---the overarching purpose of it all is to keep a field of academic inquiry alive, where research, teaching, advising, and service all operate at different time scales. The field of a group of researchers who don't teach or advise students dies when they all die. A hypothetical teacher who isn't involved in research can't bring students near research-level work.
Humanity does better when we don't marginalise people for dumb reasons such as membership in a visible minority group. Marginalising someone for a dumb reason is an individual decision, and it's a decision that a professor is frequently in a position to make.
Arguably the higher-leverage parts of a professor's job are teaching classroomfuls students at once, advising graduate students, and "service," meaning things like sitting on committees within the university, attending and sometimes organising conferences, and so forth. These all involve the professor spending time to help others' careers. Owing to their leverage, it's especially important that these aspects are done well. And since candidates for tenure-track jobs generally haven't been in such a position of leverage before, it's especially important to screen for suitability for teaching and service when hiring tenure-track professors.
I'm sure you can polish this, and I'm sure there are other arguments in the same direction.
Regarding specialisation, I gave an example of a world-class researcher who also does outreach to an underrepresented group in the post you replied to.
Moreover, the research, teaching, and service parts of a professor's job aren't as separable as you'd hope---the overarching purpose of it all is to keep a field of academic inquiry alive, where research, teaching, advising, and service all operate at different time scales. The field of a group of researchers who don't teach or advise students dies when they all die. A hypothetical teacher who isn't involved in research can't bring students near research-level work.
I think there is a pretty big jump between expecting a professor to treat all their students equally and with respect regardless of their gender/race/religion/etc and expecting them to to teach underprivleged children in foreign countries.
Everyone (well at least everyone reasonable) agrees with the former. The latter on the other hand feels like a totally different set of skills than what a professor does, and it feels unfair to expect that out of someone who doesn't have the inclination to do that (or to bring it in terms suitable to the HN crowd, the same way it is toxic when companies push good engineers into management against their will or as a requirement in order to advance)
Everyone (well at least everyone reasonable) agrees with the former. The latter on the other hand feels like a totally different set of skills than what a professor does, and it feels unfair to expect that out of someone who doesn't have the inclination to do that (or to bring it in terms suitable to the HN crowd, the same way it is toxic when companies push good engineers into management against their will or as a requirement in order to advance)
Because if they don’t, they might be the wrong sort of people.
Collaboration would be the most obvious answer to me for that.
Note that collaboration is not mentioned in that rubric at all. It is very much judging an individual commitment to DEIB.
Collaboration with external partners typically overlooked is an answer to advancing equity and inclusion within your field through your research. Actively seeking out and forming these relationships is something you are committing to doing individually.
The sound of that "written statement" indeed rings alarm bells for me:
> We understand and acknowledge that systemic racism permeates all aspects of our society. We acknowledge that systemic racism permeates the culture of our own institution and department. For this we are deeply sorry; we know that we have work to do.
> We understand and acknowledge that systemic racism permeates all aspects of our society. We acknowledge that systemic racism permeates the culture of our own institution and department. For this we are deeply sorry; we know that we have work to do.
It's the Kendi school of everything is racism.
It reminds me of my Catholic childhood. In church we regularly had to say prayers and creeds, which involved everyone confessing to having sinned, and reaffirming the absurdities we allegedly believed in.
Yes, DEI is a religion in practice, even if not in name. It should remind you of Christianity as well. It has
Unlike Christianity though, even if there is confession and atonement by the sinners, there isn't any redemption. Once a sinner (someone with "privilege," say like all White people) always a sinner.
- Sinners, including "original sin," and a need for confession and atonement for these sins
- Various sacrificial lambs, saints, martyrs, etc.
- Holy times (days, weeks, months) and celebrations, remembrances of past wrongdoing, etc.
Unlike Christianity though, even if there is confession and atonement by the sinners, there isn't any redemption. Once a sinner (someone with "privilege," say like all White people) always a sinner.
And think of the "systemic racism" that allegedly "permeates" everything. Unlike ordinary racism, "systemic" racism is supposed to be an invisible force, causing lack of diversity, although mysteriously without the possibility of direct observation.
Hmm, powerful invisible thing that is everywhere... Inspires creeds and prayers... Associated with original sin... Can't be questioned... Sounds familiar somehow.
Hmm, powerful invisible thing that is everywhere... Inspires creeds and prayers... Associated with original sin... Can't be questioned... Sounds familiar somehow.
The trick is to have some non-white holy DNA in your family tree, reverse nurnberg style.
'Painful experiences long ago convinced Barvinok that requirements to affirm any ideal are corrosive in academia.
“I grew up in the Soviet Union, where people had to affirm their fealty to ideals, and the leaders embodying those ideals, on a daily basis,” he told me. “As years went by, I observed the remarkable ease with which passionate communists turned first into passionate pro-Western liberals and then into passionate nationalists. This lived experience and also common sense convince me that only true conformists excel in this game. Do we really want our math departments to be populated by conformists?”
Barvinok insists that it isn’t diversity to which he objects. Any coerced statement, he says, would trouble him as much. “Even if one is required to say ‘I passionately believe that water would certainly wet us, as fire would certainly burn,’” he wrote in his resignation letter, “the routine affirmation of one’s beliefs as a precondition of making a living constitutes compelled speech and corrupts everyone who participates in the performance.”'
“I grew up in the Soviet Union, where people had to affirm their fealty to ideals, and the leaders embodying those ideals, on a daily basis,” he told me. “As years went by, I observed the remarkable ease with which passionate communists turned first into passionate pro-Western liberals and then into passionate nationalists. This lived experience and also common sense convince me that only true conformists excel in this game. Do we really want our math departments to be populated by conformists?”
Barvinok insists that it isn’t diversity to which he objects. Any coerced statement, he says, would trouble him as much. “Even if one is required to say ‘I passionately believe that water would certainly wet us, as fire would certainly burn,’” he wrote in his resignation letter, “the routine affirmation of one’s beliefs as a precondition of making a living constitutes compelled speech and corrupts everyone who participates in the performance.”'
> “the routine affirmation of one’s beliefs as a precondition of making a living constitutes compelled speech and corrupts everyone who participates in the performance.”'
Very well said and it serves as a corollary to Goodhart's Law: "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."
By making people affirm some belief, that affirmation itself becomes a target and ceases to reflect that belief in the real world. Even those who would normally act on that belief eventually twist it into an empty performance because they're forced to by their less scrupulous peers, just to keep their jobs.
Very well said and it serves as a corollary to Goodhart's Law: "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."
By making people affirm some belief, that affirmation itself becomes a target and ceases to reflect that belief in the real world. Even those who would normally act on that belief eventually twist it into an empty performance because they're forced to by their less scrupulous peers, just to keep their jobs.
> “Even if one is required to say ‘I passionately believe that water would certainly wet us, as fire would certainly burn,’” he wrote in his resignation letter, “the routine affirmation of one’s beliefs as a precondition of making a living constitutes compelled speech and corrupts everyone who participates in the performance.”
An echo of how Rudyard Kipling was recently stripped out of Roald Dahl's Matilda because the idea that people might enjoy his literature has become offensive.
The referenced poem is, aptly enough, on the theme that reality will still be there regardless of what your ideology says.
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."
Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!
(There are other verses: https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poem/poems_copybook.htm )
An echo of how Rudyard Kipling was recently stripped out of Roald Dahl's Matilda because the idea that people might enjoy his literature has become offensive.
The referenced poem is, aptly enough, on the theme that reality will still be there regardless of what your ideology says.
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."
Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!
(There are other verses: https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poem/poems_copybook.htm )
The Russians really love their Kipling. Not sure why he is so popular in Russia.
I can think of a few reasons.
- Russians like poetry that actually rhymes
- "The Jungle Book" and "Riki Tiki Tavi" were very popular
- The controversial pieces like "The White Man's Burden" weren't translated until after Kipling's death
Also, "The White Man's Burden" is viewed with a bit of distance. Few in America remember the context in which it was written, and that context is as important as the text of the poem if not more so. It was an argument for America subjugating the Philippines. Mark Twain wrote a poem to counter imperialism and that argument. Later Americans managed to both defeat the Philippines and cancel both poets :)
- Russians like poetry that actually rhymes
- "The Jungle Book" and "Riki Tiki Tavi" were very popular
- The controversial pieces like "The White Man's Burden" weren't translated until after Kipling's death
Also, "The White Man's Burden" is viewed with a bit of distance. Few in America remember the context in which it was written, and that context is as important as the text of the poem if not more so. It was an argument for America subjugating the Philippines. Mark Twain wrote a poem to counter imperialism and that argument. Later Americans managed to both defeat the Philippines and cancel both poets :)
> Russians like poetry that actually rhymes
That's true of most people, but it seems unlikely to explain why they like particular poetry in a foreign language. It won't rhyme in translation.
Kipling was a great writer; that seems sufficient to explain why people like his work.
That's true of most people, but it seems unlikely to explain why they like particular poetry in a foreign language. It won't rhyme in translation.
Kipling was a great writer; that seems sufficient to explain why people like his work.
It does rhyme in translation! And yes, there is a lot of hard work in taking a poem from another language, adapting it to not only not sound weird but also preserve as many of the little connotations of words, and then also making it rhyme. I admire a good translation as much as the original.
I'm curious about the rhyming in Russian poetry. Latin poetry doesn't rhyme (it's defined almost entirely by the patterning of long and short syllables; word stress exists in Latin but isn't relevant to poetic meter), and my Latin teacher explained this by reference to the fact that, Latin inflection being what it is, it would be extremely easy to rhyme. So easy, apparently, that nobody ever even tried.
It is my impression that Russian is heavily inflected in much the same manner as Latin. So - do Russians feel that certain rhymes are "cheap" or otherwise unworthy? Is it common in poetry to rhyme e.g. one verb form with an identical verb form in the rhyming line, or one noun case ending with the same noun case ending? Any distinction between "high" poetry and vulgar or vernacular poetry?
(For what it's worth, my instincts for English poetic rhyming are:
- Rhyming a word with itself is Poor Form. It's still Poor Form if you rhyme a word with a homonym of itself.
- Rhyming an inflectional suffix with itself doesn't work in the terms I just stated. The suffix is free to participate in a rhyme, but it can't supply the entire rhyme. So rhyming "being" with "seeing" is fine, because "be" and "see" rhyme and it's permissible to continue that rhyme into "being" / "seeing", but rhyming "being" with "doing" can't be done, even though -ing and -ing are the same syllable.)
It is my impression that Russian is heavily inflected in much the same manner as Latin. So - do Russians feel that certain rhymes are "cheap" or otherwise unworthy? Is it common in poetry to rhyme e.g. one verb form with an identical verb form in the rhyming line, or one noun case ending with the same noun case ending? Any distinction between "high" poetry and vulgar or vernacular poetry?
(For what it's worth, my instincts for English poetic rhyming are:
- Rhyming a word with itself is Poor Form. It's still Poor Form if you rhyme a word with a homonym of itself.
- Rhyming an inflectional suffix with itself doesn't work in the terms I just stated. The suffix is free to participate in a rhyme, but it can't supply the entire rhyme. So rhyming "being" with "seeing" is fine, because "be" and "see" rhyme and it's permissible to continue that rhyme into "being" / "seeing", but rhyming "being" with "doing" can't be done, even though -ing and -ing are the same syllable.)
>Do Russians feel that certain rhymes are "cheap" or otherwise unworthy?
Yes. Rhyming verbs with verbs is considered so basic only novice poets do it. I'm pretty sure there are some examples of such rhymes being used in classic poetry, but they are always used in extreme moderation. This is because they are very easy to construct. So easy in fact, they are mostly not used in children's limericks.
Yes. Rhyming verbs with verbs is considered so basic only novice poets do it. I'm pretty sure there are some examples of such rhymes being used in classic poetry, but they are always used in extreme moderation. This is because they are very easy to construct. So easy in fact, they are mostly not used in children's limericks.
> I grew up in the Soviet Union, where people had to affirm their fealty to ideals
Well, a scary % of the DEI professionals I've come across also self-identify as communists, so not sure if they view that as a bad association.
Well, a scary % of the DEI professionals I've come across also self-identify as communists, so not sure if they view that as a bad association.
The E of DEI is very Marxist indeed. We all want equal opportunity, some just want to have the government forcibly take what others have earned.
Actually, Marxists got into quite a fight against other leftists in the early days because they were opposed to equity. Marxists are, in theory, only for equality of opportunity, hence why Marxists countries like the USSR had things like pay by commission, higher pay for certain jobs, etc...
Marx is the poster child for equality of outcome. Would be very interested to know where you heard he stood for equal opportunity.
For example he is famous for saying "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need" i.e. everyone works as hard as they can yet gets the same pay, because everyone's "need" is the same. Maybe adjusted by a few exceptions like family size and medical conditions, but the point of this is to separate how hard you work from what you get.
For example he is famous for saying "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need" i.e. everyone works as hard as they can yet gets the same pay, because everyone's "need" is the same. Maybe adjusted by a few exceptions like family size and medical conditions, but the point of this is to separate how hard you work from what you get.
That is literally just false. That quote comes from "Critique of the Gotha Programme", and what it really means is that people have unequal capabilities and unequal needs, so that what people should receive cannot be equal, instead, it should follow from needs and abilities. In that text, Marx explains it by saying:
"one worker is married, another is not; one has more children than another, and so on and so forth. Thus, with an equal performance of labor, and hence an equal in the social consumption fund, one will in fact receive more than another, one will be richer than another, and so on. To avoid all these defects, right, instead of being equal, would have to be unequal."
"But one man is superior to another physically, or mentally, and supplies more labor in the same time, or can labor for a longer time; and labor, to serve as a measure, must be defined by its duration or intensity, otherwise it ceases to be a standard of measurement. This equal right is an unequal right for unequal labor. It recognizes no class differences, because everyone is only a worker like everyone else; but it tacitly recognizes unequal individual endowment, and thus productive capacity, as a natural privilege. It is, therefore, a right of inequality, in its content, like every right."
"The elimination of all social and political inequality,” rather than “the abolition of all class distinctions,” is similarly a most dubious expression."
Lenin also says:
"Even the most dull-witted and ignorant person can grasp the fact that individual members of the nobility are not equal in physical and mental abilities any more than are people belonging to the “tax-paying”, “base”, ‘low-born” or “non-privileged” peasant class. But in rights all nobles are equal, just as all the peasants are equal in their lack of rights."
"It means giving all citizens equal opportunities of working on the publicly-owned means of production, on the publicly-owned land, at the publicly-owned factories, and so forth."
Marx absolutely was opposed to equality of outcome, and had a lot of conflict against other leftists on this point. He was against class as a source of inequality, but he recognized that people have unequal capabilities and unequal needs.
I'm not a Marxist, but I actually read a bit of what he wrote - the difference between the words people typically put in his mouth and what he says is gigantic. This is an example. Marxism was a successful ideology over other leftist ideologies is in a huge part because it did recognize that people aren't equal, and that it based it's critique on capitalism on far more than that.
"one worker is married, another is not; one has more children than another, and so on and so forth. Thus, with an equal performance of labor, and hence an equal in the social consumption fund, one will in fact receive more than another, one will be richer than another, and so on. To avoid all these defects, right, instead of being equal, would have to be unequal."
"But one man is superior to another physically, or mentally, and supplies more labor in the same time, or can labor for a longer time; and labor, to serve as a measure, must be defined by its duration or intensity, otherwise it ceases to be a standard of measurement. This equal right is an unequal right for unequal labor. It recognizes no class differences, because everyone is only a worker like everyone else; but it tacitly recognizes unequal individual endowment, and thus productive capacity, as a natural privilege. It is, therefore, a right of inequality, in its content, like every right."
"The elimination of all social and political inequality,” rather than “the abolition of all class distinctions,” is similarly a most dubious expression."
Lenin also says:
"Even the most dull-witted and ignorant person can grasp the fact that individual members of the nobility are not equal in physical and mental abilities any more than are people belonging to the “tax-paying”, “base”, ‘low-born” or “non-privileged” peasant class. But in rights all nobles are equal, just as all the peasants are equal in their lack of rights."
"It means giving all citizens equal opportunities of working on the publicly-owned means of production, on the publicly-owned land, at the publicly-owned factories, and so forth."
Marx absolutely was opposed to equality of outcome, and had a lot of conflict against other leftists on this point. He was against class as a source of inequality, but he recognized that people have unequal capabilities and unequal needs.
I'm not a Marxist, but I actually read a bit of what he wrote - the difference between the words people typically put in his mouth and what he says is gigantic. This is an example. Marxism was a successful ideology over other leftist ideologies is in a huge part because it did recognize that people aren't equal, and that it based it's critique on capitalism on far more than that.
This is deeply confusing. I said:
> because everyone's "need" is the same. Maybe adjusted by a few exceptions like family size
And the parts of Marx you quote say literally that exact thing: that people's needs vary only depending on whether they are married, how many children they have "and so on and so forth".
In other words Marx didn't recognize any connection between quantity or quality of work and what you get back. In a Marxist system your income is a function of family size. Indeed Marx didn't even recognize the concept of "work smarter not harder" because he believed everyone's work was exactly the same and the only difference was that big strong men could deliver more units of abstract "labor" per hour than a small weedy sick man.
Why do you think your quotes dispute what I said? Is it not perfect support for it?
> because everyone's "need" is the same. Maybe adjusted by a few exceptions like family size
And the parts of Marx you quote say literally that exact thing: that people's needs vary only depending on whether they are married, how many children they have "and so on and so forth".
In other words Marx didn't recognize any connection between quantity or quality of work and what you get back. In a Marxist system your income is a function of family size. Indeed Marx didn't even recognize the concept of "work smarter not harder" because he believed everyone's work was exactly the same and the only difference was that big strong men could deliver more units of abstract "labor" per hour than a small weedy sick man.
Why do you think your quotes dispute what I said? Is it not perfect support for it?
It really doesn't do that. He was giving examples of how people's needs changed, to critique people who said that everyone's needs are the same. As I said, this where he disagreed with many leftists, and the name of the text is "Critique of..."
The next quote literally says that some are better or work more and therefore the right to one's work is a right to unequality.
If you want the full context, read the full text. It's not so long. Otherwise, you have to trust me for the context and not imagine one.
The next quote literally says that some are better or work more and therefore the right to one's work is a right to unequality.
If you want the full context, read the full text. It's not so long. Otherwise, you have to trust me for the context and not imagine one.
You are wrong. Even in Das Capital Marx comments that there are simpler labor and complex labor. You could think in a complex labor producing more value than a simpler one, in exchange of the worker needing more salary for compensating more time needed for its education and fomation. However, this changes almost nothing for the model and main argument presented in Das Capital, therefore, for most part he just simplified the model assuming that all labor was a simple one.
Marxism is incoherent so debating it is largely pointless, but in the quotes above he clearly defines labor as a "standardized unit" which differs only in duration and intensity. This is nonsense so it's not surprising he later tried to walk it back a bit, but as you note, that was half-hearted at best and he usually treated labor as if it were something like coal.
In reality there's already a standardized unit which sums up the worth of a person's labor (money) and a standardized way to compute it (the market). Marx didn't like what that system computed and argued strongly that it all be swept away and replaced with some notion of "need" (family size) and "ability" (simple hours worked or intensity of those hours) which is drastically too simple to reflect reality. That's why his ideas led to collapse everywhere they were tried.
In reality there's already a standardized unit which sums up the worth of a person's labor (money) and a standardized way to compute it (the market). Marx didn't like what that system computed and argued strongly that it all be swept away and replaced with some notion of "need" (family size) and "ability" (simple hours worked or intensity of those hours) which is drastically too simple to reflect reality. That's why his ideas led to collapse everywhere they were tried.
For me the part that resonated was this:
> The third trend he noticed was the changing nature of debate. More and more often, someone would claim that an argument was harming a particular demographic, often without specifying how. As he recalls it, “It was at this ‘harm’ stage that people became afraid to speak their minds.”
I've experienced this with people I know, on and offline, and I'm not talking about just ultra-hot-button topics. I recently had a friend tell me that when it came to Israel, "silence was violence" and I just had to break it to him that I support Israel. He then launched into a rant and left... haven't run into him since.
There's an element of fury and intolerance which has been absolutely weaponized, and it's the stuff of nightmares.
> The third trend he noticed was the changing nature of debate. More and more often, someone would claim that an argument was harming a particular demographic, often without specifying how. As he recalls it, “It was at this ‘harm’ stage that people became afraid to speak their minds.”
I've experienced this with people I know, on and offline, and I'm not talking about just ultra-hot-button topics. I recently had a friend tell me that when it came to Israel, "silence was violence" and I just had to break it to him that I support Israel. He then launched into a rant and left... haven't run into him since.
There's an element of fury and intolerance which has been absolutely weaponized, and it's the stuff of nightmares.
Perhaps you lost a friend there, because he pushed for your opinion on a matter where you disagreed. Silence-is-violence-speak is meant to scare people to agree, and when they object, like you did, it is even more harmful.
Imagine two friends, with different opinions on a hot topic, leaving their opinions aside, not bringing it up, because they realize that it makes no difference. In the small world, in relations between people day to day, there is value in leaving politics out of interactions. This is fairly well established in the workplace, but I think it goes about social settings and friends too. If you push for someones opinion, be prepared to accept it as a legitimate opinion. Otherwise, don't ask for it.
Imagine two friends, with different opinions on a hot topic, leaving their opinions aside, not bringing it up, because they realize that it makes no difference. In the small world, in relations between people day to day, there is value in leaving politics out of interactions. This is fairly well established in the workplace, but I think it goes about social settings and friends too. If you push for someones opinion, be prepared to accept it as a legitimate opinion. Otherwise, don't ask for it.
I’ve been in that situation. In my experiences the person is looking for a fight and won’t back down until they find one. Even if you came out in support of Hamas it probably wouldn’t have been enough and they still would have gone off a rant. Some people are just filled with hate and can’t stand it when someone try’s to avoid being their target.
Look, if you don't want an echo chamber on this topic, maybe consider the point of diversity statements.
I can't put it better than Stephen Jay Gould: "I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops."
Consider that a diversity statement is a way to evaluate if the applicant has even given a moment's thought to the fact that Gould raised, by seeking to cultivate talent among folks otherwise shut out of the top tier of academia.
I can't put it better than Stephen Jay Gould: "I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops."
Consider that a diversity statement is a way to evaluate if the applicant has even given a moment's thought to the fact that Gould raised, by seeking to cultivate talent among folks otherwise shut out of the top tier of academia.
I'll support your theory when I hear, even one time, a DEI leader mention poor white people. I grew up in a home with a mother who was an alcoholic and drug addict, and who had a parade of abusive boyfriends. There were times we didn't have electricity or water because it was turned off. We never had a telephone in the house or a working car.
I studied Math in college. Literally every single other math major I knew had parents who were in the top 10% (or higher) in wealth. Every single one. About 1/4 of the majors went to the same magnet high school in the richest county in the state. Several of them had parents that were university professors. There was NOBODY remotely like me. I had to join the Army Reserve to even be able to afford to live and go to school since I had no family help whatsoever. DEI aggressively works against people like me, because I'm a heterosexual white male. I grew up eating government peanut butter and free school lunch and waiting for the day the foodstamps would come because then there might be some food in our house instead of none, but I'm told that I'm "part of the problem". They would very happily push candidates that come from wealthy backgrounds and have parents that are rich or professors so long as they aren't white or asian or jewish. There are many programs to back-door people that are black or hispanic into PHD programs (google pre-phd programs for under-represented), but when I tried to talk to and advisor about such a program they literally laughed at me - again because I'm white and a male which means I'm "part of the problem".
I studied Math in college. Literally every single other math major I knew had parents who were in the top 10% (or higher) in wealth. Every single one. About 1/4 of the majors went to the same magnet high school in the richest county in the state. Several of them had parents that were university professors. There was NOBODY remotely like me. I had to join the Army Reserve to even be able to afford to live and go to school since I had no family help whatsoever. DEI aggressively works against people like me, because I'm a heterosexual white male. I grew up eating government peanut butter and free school lunch and waiting for the day the foodstamps would come because then there might be some food in our house instead of none, but I'm told that I'm "part of the problem". They would very happily push candidates that come from wealthy backgrounds and have parents that are rich or professors so long as they aren't white or asian or jewish. There are many programs to back-door people that are black or hispanic into PHD programs (google pre-phd programs for under-represented), but when I tried to talk to and advisor about such a program they literally laughed at me - again because I'm white and a male which means I'm "part of the problem".
I'm a white male from a very similar background. The thing that separates us from black and hispanic colleagues is that the white guys that are hiring automatically trust us 10x more than a black or hispanic candidate, regardless of where we came from, where we went to school, or how much money we had growing up. You might see a lot of diversity in PhD programs, but as soon as you step into a high paying professional role you're going to see maybe one black or hispanic colleague in 100. Now, I'll take any advantage I can get, but I also do my best to "hold the door open" for folks that face a lot more prejudice than I do; that don't get a carte blanche to reinvent themselves in an interview.
> The thing that separates us from black and hispanic colleagues is that the white guys that are hiring automatically trust us 10x more than a black or hispanic candidate
I just don’t think that’s true. I spend a lot of time around elite whites, and I think being a poor white is just about the worst thing in their eyes. God help you if you have a hick accent or something like that. I think they’re much more likely to trust non-white people from the right social class.
I just don’t think that’s true. I spend a lot of time around elite whites, and I think being a poor white is just about the worst thing in their eyes. God help you if you have a hick accent or something like that. I think they’re much more likely to trust non-white people from the right social class.
This is supported with data https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/americas-wh... if you scroll to the graphs.
But I think anyone who is elite thinks this way. This includes elite Asians, Blacks, etc. But elite is poorly defined so I am defining it as well-educated and left leaning
But I think anyone who is elite thinks this way. This includes elite Asians, Blacks, etc. But elite is poorly defined so I am defining it as well-educated and left leaning
I think you're right about that situation in particular. I've had people look down their nose at me before, but I work in the energy sector now, and that's just not a thing that happens anymore.
> God help you if you have a hick accent or something like that. I think they’re much more likely to trust non-white people from the right social class.
That sounds right. Accent is often a (weak) signal of educational level.
That sounds right. Accent is often a (weak) signal of educational level.
> the white guys that are hiring automatically trust us 10x more than a black or hispanic candidate
Doesn't help when you get filtered out from attending college. Poor white men is the least represented group at colleges among all race/class/gender combinations, it isn't a privilege.
Doesn't help when you get filtered out from attending college. Poor white men is the least represented group at colleges among all race/class/gender combinations, it isn't a privilege.
> Doesn't help when you get filtered out from attending college.
Please provide evidence of high application rates for underprivileged white males and then abnormally low acceptance rates to support your claim of white men being turned away at the door.
My experience was that college was more than happy to sign me up for financial aid, due to my family's lower income, and then student loans, to boot. They don't even care what you major in. Since you can't get out of the debt, it's just cashflow from their perspective.
Please provide evidence of high application rates for underprivileged white males and then abnormally low acceptance rates to support your claim of white men being turned away at the door.
My experience was that college was more than happy to sign me up for financial aid, due to my family's lower income, and then student loans, to boot. They don't even care what you major in. Since you can't get out of the debt, it's just cashflow from their perspective.
> high application rates
Unfortunately, for a lot of groups, low application rates are part of the problem. Not enough people are encouraging members of these groups to apply and not enough members of these groups figure out on their own that applying to things are worthwhile.
Everyone I met in college applied to college (of course!), but far too many had stories about how their high schools actively discouraged them from applying to fancy colleges.
Unfortunately, for a lot of groups, low application rates are part of the problem. Not enough people are encouraging members of these groups to apply and not enough members of these groups figure out on their own that applying to things are worthwhile.
Everyone I met in college applied to college (of course!), but far too many had stories about how their high schools actively discouraged them from applying to fancy colleges.
Sure! But the GP was stating that unprivileged white males were applying, but being filtered out. There's a difference between being underrepresented due to a bias, and underrepresented because your cohort has opted out.
Frankly, with the rising cost of a college education and the stagnation of income in a lot of fields, people should think long and hard about where they go to school and what they major in.
Frankly, with the rising cost of a college education and the stagnation of income in a lot of fields, people should think long and hard about where they go to school and what they major in.
I interpreted “filtered out” to mean that they weren’t making it from childhood to college due to any of a number of factors, not necessarily that they applied and were rejected.
I see that now. Sorry, they might have meant that.
> Please provide evidence of high application rates for underprivileged white males and then abnormally low acceptance rates to support your claim of white men being turned away at the door.
Why? The fact that they are under represented is enough evidence, at least according to the left.
Why? The fact that they are under represented is enough evidence, at least according to the left.
Because this is forum that values critical thinking and productive discussion. When you present things out of context, cherry pick data, or make otherwise unrealistic claims, people will push back on you to support your claims.
It is you who make the unrealistic claim that the least represented group can't possibly be discriminated against. Provide strong evidence that they aren't discriminated against in education, then we can talk, until then it is fair to assume that DEI initiatives is pushing out poor white men in favor of other groups because that is what the statistics tells us.
It also tells us why rich people love DEI based on race and gender, it is because it only pushes out poor white men and not rich white men, rich white men are still there.
It also tells us why rich people love DEI based on race and gender, it is because it only pushes out poor white men and not rich white men, rich white men are still there.
That’s because DIE is just apologetics for modern racism and colonialism:
Poor Whites, Jews, and Asians are acceptable sacrifices to the racists behind that movement — which resembles modern colonialism, eg, dividing a population by providing special privileges to an ethnic minority to ease your rule. Increasing rape and murder against natives in European countries is fine, as long as it disrupts their cultural coherence and makes them subjugated to groups like the WEF.
That’s why DIE was promoted by Wall St, WEF, et al: they wanted to end the class conscious discussion of their behavior, so they rebuilt the KKK, fostered grievance narratives, etc — as a way to bring the population to heel.
That’s frequently discussed in populist circles (eg, Jimmy Dore, Russell Brand, Vivek Ramaswathy) and why the working class is defecting from establishment politics (and particularly, the racist, neo-colonial Left).
Poor Whites, Jews, and Asians are acceptable sacrifices to the racists behind that movement — which resembles modern colonialism, eg, dividing a population by providing special privileges to an ethnic minority to ease your rule. Increasing rape and murder against natives in European countries is fine, as long as it disrupts their cultural coherence and makes them subjugated to groups like the WEF.
That’s why DIE was promoted by Wall St, WEF, et al: they wanted to end the class conscious discussion of their behavior, so they rebuilt the KKK, fostered grievance narratives, etc — as a way to bring the population to heel.
That’s frequently discussed in populist circles (eg, Jimmy Dore, Russell Brand, Vivek Ramaswathy) and why the working class is defecting from establishment politics (and particularly, the racist, neo-colonial Left).
This stuff you are saying is just ludicrous nonsense. The people you list are stupid assholes, especially Vivek who is a complete moron. There are plenty of reasons to worry about diversity, my point is it is done lazily as a game of 'less whites' because DEI programs are poorly run and it's easier for the low-iq, incompetent commissars who have been hired to run these programs to just go by what people look like. I don't think there is much of a coordinated agenda beyond incompetence.
I’m moved by your deep argument of baldly asserting things are “ludicrous nonsense” and calling people “stupid assholes” or “morons”. You’ve wowed me with the depths of your insight.
Never mind that there’s an openly stated coordinated agenda by the largest financiers, such as BlockRock, to promote exactly those ideas through ESG programs — or that large international gatherings such as the one in Davos happening this week pointedly discuss how they’ll coordinate to implement that agenda.
Your ad hominems clearly discount those facts with sophisticated argument.
Never mind that there’s an openly stated coordinated agenda by the largest financiers, such as BlockRock, to promote exactly those ideas through ESG programs — or that large international gatherings such as the one in Davos happening this week pointedly discuss how they’ll coordinate to implement that agenda.
Your ad hominems clearly discount those facts with sophisticated argument.
Yes, the narritives pushed by right wing popular internet personalities is nonsense. Sorry to be the one to tell you.
I’m from very similar circumstances and I’m sure you don’t want to see that harm perpetuated on the total 11M poor kids in America.
The solutions to child poverty are a mindmap of unpopular and politically-difficult policies. Nowhere is DEIB mentioned as even partially helping any poor child, non-white or otherwise. Currently, DEIB serves a different purpose than rescuing vulnerable people.
The solutions to child poverty are a mindmap of unpopular and politically-difficult policies. Nowhere is DEIB mentioned as even partially helping any poor child, non-white or otherwise. Currently, DEIB serves a different purpose than rescuing vulnerable people.
As a university professor, I can assure you that, in fact, “received food stamps growing up” and “first generation college student” are both identities that are specifically listed in DEI programs I am familiar with, for example special NIH fellowships for PhD sty to promote a diverse academia.
I’m sorry that you were misinformed.
I’m sorry that you were misinformed.
You are the one that is misinformed.
Here is the DEI dashboard for my university. Please point out where “received food stamps growing up” and “first generation college student” are mentioned? Because, very obviously, they only care about ethnicity and gender.
https://www.usmd.edu/IRIS/Dashboard/Diversity-and-Inclusion/...
Here is the DEI dashboard for my university. Please point out where “received food stamps growing up” and “first generation college student” are mentioned? Because, very obviously, they only care about ethnicity and gender.
https://www.usmd.edu/IRIS/Dashboard/Diversity-and-Inclusion/...
This is specifically what I had in mind: https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-20-0...
Keep in mind that administrative programs like DEI offices are often unsupported virtue signaling. What matters is government and private funding, and there are absolutely opportunities in both arenas for support for “heterosexual white males” who come from unusual backgrounds.
In your case, I’d suggest NSF graduate fellowships and the Simon’s foundation.
Keep in mind that administrative programs like DEI offices are often unsupported virtue signaling. What matters is government and private funding, and there are absolutely opportunities in both arenas for support for “heterosexual white males” who come from unusual backgrounds.
In your case, I’d suggest NSF graduate fellowships and the Simon’s foundation.
> administrative programs like DEI offices are often unsupported virtue signaling
That isn't what it looks like from the outside. The explanation circulating for how Claudine Gay ended up president of Harvard is that Harvard's DEI office was allowed to veto any candidate who wasn't diverse.
That isn't what it looks like from the outside. The explanation circulating for how Claudine Gay ended up president of Harvard is that Harvard's DEI office was allowed to veto any candidate who wasn't diverse.
Probably because universities promote those programs exclusively on protected class, not circumstance.
To the point that I believe claiming they’re focused on circumstance is a polite fiction to give cover for the institutional bigotry the Supreme Court condemned at Harvard and UNC.
To the point that I believe claiming they’re focused on circumstance is a polite fiction to give cover for the institutional bigotry the Supreme Court condemned at Harvard and UNC.
Right on. Diversity is not about diversity.
The question is whether diversity statements accomplish the stated purpose. The people best equipped to write a good diversity statement are those who come from privileged, educated backgrounds and are familiar with the specific conceptual framework and jargon of DEI and social justice. It's less likely that someone who comes from a working class or non-Western background is going to be fluent in these concepts. If the goal is to hire more of those people, are DEI statements helping or hurting the goal? This is an empirical question.
The recent case involving Yoel Inbar at UCLA provides evidence that DEI isn't just about measuring a candidate's ability to teach and mentor people from diverse backgrounds. There is also a component of signaling commitment to a specific political ideology. I would suggest listening to the interview he gave below, where it's pretty clear that even though he's critical of DEI statements, a stance which ultimately caused him to lose a job offer at UCLA, he's still in favor of diversity and social justice. (Interview starts at 41:30)
https://verybadwizards.com/episode/episode-263-free-yoel
The recent case involving Yoel Inbar at UCLA provides evidence that DEI isn't just about measuring a candidate's ability to teach and mentor people from diverse backgrounds. There is also a component of signaling commitment to a specific political ideology. I would suggest listening to the interview he gave below, where it's pretty clear that even though he's critical of DEI statements, a stance which ultimately caused him to lose a job offer at UCLA, he's still in favor of diversity and social justice. (Interview starts at 41:30)
https://verybadwizards.com/episode/episode-263-free-yoel
> Consider that a diversity statement is a way to evaluate if the applicant has even given a moment's thought to the fact that Gould raised, by seeking to cultivate talent among folks otherwise shut out of the top tier of academia.
But that isn't the job of a professor, they are there to cultivate the talent of people who are already privileged enough to be a part of academia.
But that isn't the job of a professor, they are there to cultivate the talent of people who are already privileged enough to be a part of academia.
For better or for worse, universities assign a lot of their duties to the faculty. So professors really are involved in outreach to prospective students.
But Gould’s point, however true, is about a situation that exists far back in the pipeline, and most faculty have absolutely no ability to airlift people out of cotton fields so they can do research.
But Gould’s point, however true, is about a situation that exists far back in the pipeline, and most faculty have absolutely no ability to airlift people out of cotton fields so they can do research.
Gould's statement is empty - there is no way to quantify it, so everyone assigns their own value to his statement. You may think its more than X,000,000, I think its 0.
Who is right?
So now it's you and me arguing past each other because there is no way to agree. And millions of other people who have to manage it.
And yes, it does matter what the number is, because that is what is being done to justify X seats into many workplaces and universities. There is always a cost for training + development, and all of it can go to waste at any time.
Who is right?
So now it's you and me arguing past each other because there is no way to agree. And millions of other people who have to manage it.
And yes, it does matter what the number is, because that is what is being done to justify X seats into many workplaces and universities. There is always a cost for training + development, and all of it can go to waste at any time.
These days, with the omnipresence of internet, most people have access to most books/courses/materials/tutorials/etc if they want to, also mathematical abilities develop pretty early in life. You want to add diversity? Base it on egalitarianism as well. And by the way most top tier universities already cover all the tuition fees without a diversity statement involved, so if a person is truly a mastermind, there's no way they are left out.
This is a very thoughtful and sensible reply, but it's going to get lost in the storm and that is a shame.
Personally I've always thought that a lot of these issues boil down to intentional misreading or lack of understanding of things unsaid. As an example, a whole bunch of people, for some reason, took "Black Lives Matter" to mean "Only Black Lives Matter", as if that was said or as if that was the point.
In your example with Einstein, to me it would be perfectly valid for Gould to have said "I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops. We should seek to find and develop those people." But of course I would worry that those same people who took umbrage with the example of BLM would assume that it would be done at the expense of others, or that it would be done to exclusively benefit in a zero-sum way the unheralded, unfound geniuses in Gould's example.
I run a small startup, fifteen people, and yes, I believe in diversity in hiring and team composition. If all things are equal, then I will hire the person that brings a diverse perspective to my team, not on basis of identity but on basis of opinion, basis of experience, and basis of perspective. I will not pursue that diversity at the expense of hiring the best candidate, and I suspect my perspective is shared a lot more than people think, solely because the "If all things are equal" part is unsaid and it is simply too easy for the cynic or bad-faith arguer to assume otherwise.
Personally I've always thought that a lot of these issues boil down to intentional misreading or lack of understanding of things unsaid. As an example, a whole bunch of people, for some reason, took "Black Lives Matter" to mean "Only Black Lives Matter", as if that was said or as if that was the point.
In your example with Einstein, to me it would be perfectly valid for Gould to have said "I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops. We should seek to find and develop those people." But of course I would worry that those same people who took umbrage with the example of BLM would assume that it would be done at the expense of others, or that it would be done to exclusively benefit in a zero-sum way the unheralded, unfound geniuses in Gould's example.
I run a small startup, fifteen people, and yes, I believe in diversity in hiring and team composition. If all things are equal, then I will hire the person that brings a diverse perspective to my team, not on basis of identity but on basis of opinion, basis of experience, and basis of perspective. I will not pursue that diversity at the expense of hiring the best candidate, and I suspect my perspective is shared a lot more than people think, solely because the "If all things are equal" part is unsaid and it is simply too easy for the cynic or bad-faith arguer to assume otherwise.
> As an example, a whole bunch of people, for some reason, took "Black Lives Matter" to mean "Only Black Lives Matter", as if that was said or as if that was the point.
That was never my issue, or the issue of anyone I encountered. My issue (and those other people's issue) was the implicit bad-faith assumption that we didn't already think black lives mattered, and needed to be scolded about it. Such rhetoric is needlessly divisive and should be avoided.
That was never my issue, or the issue of anyone I encountered. My issue (and those other people's issue) was the implicit bad-faith assumption that we didn't already think black lives mattered, and needed to be scolded about it. Such rhetoric is needlessly divisive and should be avoided.
Why would you feel that anybody was personally scolding you by saying "black lives matter" if you already believed that black lives matter?
Clearly, plenty of people, through both their actions and their words, have made it very clear that they don't believe that black lives matter, and the movement was always aimed squarely at them.
Clearly, plenty of people, through both their actions and their words, have made it very clear that they don't believe that black lives matter, and the movement was always aimed squarely at them.
People think that black lives matter, you trying to say they don't if they don't agree with the BLM movement is just making things worse. There is no reason to turn allies into enemies.
> Clearly, plenty of people, through both their actions and their words, have made it very clear that they don't believe that black lives matter, and the movement was always aimed squarely at them.
Correction: the movement is aimed at only a very small subset of black lives. It is not aimed at the much larger number of ones taken by other black people.
But I guess "a specific subset of black lives matter, and let's not talk about the others" doesn't quite roll off the tongue.
Correction: the movement is aimed at only a very small subset of black lives. It is not aimed at the much larger number of ones taken by other black people.
But I guess "a specific subset of black lives matter, and let's not talk about the others" doesn't quite roll off the tongue.
I think I know why people interpreted “Black Lives Matter” as “Only Black Lives Matter,” and it was the way BLM supporters reacted to the slogan “All Lives Matter.”
I’m not saying either one is right or wrong. I’m saying - if you imagine yourself as someone saying “All Lives Matter” and the response you get back is “No, you can’t say that, you can only say ‘Black Lives Matter’”… not a big logical leap to make
I’m not saying either one is right or wrong. I’m saying - if you imagine yourself as someone saying “All Lives Matter” and the response you get back is “No, you can’t say that, you can only say ‘Black Lives Matter’”… not a big logical leap to make
I don't think people are misreading it. Everyone understands what "black lives matter" means. It's a phrase that's been co-opted by a political movement with a broader set of ideological commitments. It's possible to have legitimate disagreements with the movement, about e.g. protest tactics, statistics about bias in policing, defunding the police, institutional racism, or the Israel-Palestine conflict, without disagreeing with the claim that black lives matter.
Honestly I think it is a matter of the current state of the economy. Competition for positions is so vicious, and the people running DEI are already established and powerful. So losing out is life changing and can mean the difference between having a comfortable normal life and a constant struggle. If the system was more fair, or if losing out didn't threaten falling into the economic abyss below it wouldn't be so dire. Who delegated the authority to pick winners and losers to these administrators? This is what happened when the professional class took over the liberal side of politics. They've ignored economic equality to the point where it feels like it is life and death to get positions. Along with the nepotism of people in making these decision, it feels like they're asking everyone else to sacrifice except for them and their friends.
Saying “black lives matter” is not inherently bad. Saying “black lives matter” while disagreeing with “all lives matter” is bad.
"Silence is violence" is the most authoritarian argument possible: it forces you to voluntarily identify your side, even if you refuse to do so. There's a reason why voting is secret: because no one should be forced to suffer consequences for their ideas. Forcing people to out themselves is bad, and it's time to ostracize who does it (along with those who incite mob pressure to fire wrong-thinkers, or to ban speakers from public places)
"Silence is violence" would fit in very well in George Orwell's "1984". If you're not proclaiming the party line incessantly, you're an enemy of the people.
That except from the declaration looks like it was taken directly from the confessions the "criminals" are forced to do in 1984.
But well, I guess they share the same roots.
But well, I guess they share the same roots.
The NLRB has come out against secret ballot elections:
https://www.mwe.com/insights/nlrb-abandons-primacy-of-secret...
Secret ballot means you vote your conscience. Open ballot means you vote the way the proctor tells you to, or else.
https://www.mwe.com/insights/nlrb-abandons-primacy-of-secret...
Secret ballot means you vote your conscience. Open ballot means you vote the way the proctor tells you to, or else.
I think you misunderstood the NLRB article entirely. The change is that in cases of election violations, the default remedy is now forced bargaining. There don’t appear to be any open elections, only the increased possibility that a union is formed by default.
This reminds me of anti-harassment training at my college. We were asked to go to a web site with interactive videos. I was struck that none of my colleagues could have achieved tenure creating cartoonish materials like this. Moreover, the quiz component was worded like a contract renegotiation. I have tenure, start proceedings to fire me if I breach our code of conduct, but my contract is not up for renegotiation.
I objected, and our lawyers came up with a statement I could instead sign to fulfill training.
I objected, and our lawyers came up with a statement I could instead sign to fulfill training.
They’re also goddamn demeaning. My diversity statement would be outside the Overton window of the white ladies who get paid to read diversity statements. Why should I have to perform for them?
What makes you think only white ladies require these? That wouldn't be true of my school where that office is quite diverse. Are you saying that non-white people would never do something like racialize admissions and hiring? because I don't believe that
Something like 80% of university administrators are white: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/10/28/black-adminis.... The modern concept of “diversity” was created by white people. It is a framework the white people in charge of universities use to accommodate the demands of different non-white groups.
Besides, writing for someone from a different non-white group wouldn’t be any different. What context does a Mexican American have to understand my diversity statement? Nobody ever made fun of my school lunches as a kid. My diversity statement would involve leaving a third world military dictatorship under a level of paranoia where my dad at one point thought my uncle (a military colonel) had come to arrest him for political reasons. As a result I’m deeply skeptical about third world influences on American culture—after all, we came to Reagan’s America to get away from all that. Am I going to write about that? Obviously not. I’d have to write something shallow and performative.
Besides, writing for someone from a different non-white group wouldn’t be any different. What context does a Mexican American have to understand my diversity statement? Nobody ever made fun of my school lunches as a kid. My diversity statement would involve leaving a third world military dictatorship under a level of paranoia where my dad at one point thought my uncle (a military colonel) had come to arrest him for political reasons. As a result I’m deeply skeptical about third world influences on American culture—after all, we came to Reagan’s America to get away from all that. Am I going to write about that? Obviously not. I’d have to write something shallow and performative.
Diversity I believe is not so much to accommodate the demands of different non-white groups as it is to oppose white people. What is a group of 100% white men? not diverse. What is a group of 100% black men? diverse. How does this make sense? Only if diversity actually means people who are some combination of white, straight, and male must surrender wealth and power to those who are not.
it's a play on n-wave feminism and how white lady feminism was/is different than that of the "subalterns".
Diversity is based on the belief that some group‘s behavior patterns are fitting better with the environment, even temporarily and locally.
But DEI is denying this difference, expecting any behavioral pattern should deserve the same result.
They can’t even reach a logic consistency.
But DEI is denying this difference, expecting any behavioral pattern should deserve the same result.
They can’t even reach a logic consistency.
No, you’re wrong. Belief in “diversity” is the belief that many different groups/identities can contribute, and that none are strictly “best”. DEI is an effort to include more groups in institutions, in order to benefit from the mixing of ideas that results.
Sorry but that's not how it has been over the last 5-10 years in most parts of academia.
I've been explicitly told "WE WILL HIRE A XYZ BECAUSE THAT WILL IMPROVE OUR US NEWS RANKING, AND ONLY THAT. BUT DON'T SAY IT OUT LOUD B/C IT'S NOT VERY LEGAL."
Beyond that, when I'm mentoring pre-phds that are preparing their applications, something I need to very carefully explain if they are white males (I'm a minority but I'm a male, fyi) is that they will have to do much better on the exams and predoc research than most of their peers in order to have the same success.
Now, everyone does their DEI incantations. Everyone puts their pronouns in their emails, their pronunciation link at the end of their signature (so they don't get mispronounced), and we participate in many alliship programs in coordination with our DEI leaders. But I doubt people really believe any of this, instead of mostly being in fear of getting fired or at the very least reprimanded. My ex-soviet colleagues joke that this is even worse than in the Soviet era, because back then you could at least joke in private about the speech being BS, but nowadays anyone would snitch on you.
I've been explicitly told "WE WILL HIRE A XYZ BECAUSE THAT WILL IMPROVE OUR US NEWS RANKING, AND ONLY THAT. BUT DON'T SAY IT OUT LOUD B/C IT'S NOT VERY LEGAL."
Beyond that, when I'm mentoring pre-phds that are preparing their applications, something I need to very carefully explain if they are white males (I'm a minority but I'm a male, fyi) is that they will have to do much better on the exams and predoc research than most of their peers in order to have the same success.
Now, everyone does their DEI incantations. Everyone puts their pronouns in their emails, their pronunciation link at the end of their signature (so they don't get mispronounced), and we participate in many alliship programs in coordination with our DEI leaders. But I doubt people really believe any of this, instead of mostly being in fear of getting fired or at the very least reprimanded. My ex-soviet colleagues joke that this is even worse than in the Soviet era, because back then you could at least joke in private about the speech being BS, but nowadays anyone would snitch on you.
That logic is a hot mess. Why do you assume an implicit link between “different groups/identities” and “ideas?” It’s easy to accept your premise that everyone can contribute and that no group/identity is the “best.” But that just gets you to color-blind non-discrimination.
Your second point undoes your first point. “Ideas” can certainly be compared and ranked; there are good ideas and bad ones, ideas that have worked in practice and ideas that don’t work in practice. Defining people by “ideas” widely held by their group is a recipe for discrimination.
Your second point undoes your first point. “Ideas” can certainly be compared and ranked; there are good ideas and bad ones, ideas that have worked in practice and ideas that don’t work in practice. Defining people by “ideas” widely held by their group is a recipe for discrimination.
I don’t assume a link between groups and ideas. Its something many people have observed. This is typically called “culture”.
The thing about people and cultures is that they are comprised of many different, often changing, sometimes mutually conflicting ideas. This why ranking people and their cultures is an impossible, asinine idea.
The thing about people and cultures is that they are comprised of many different, often changing, sometimes mutually conflicting ideas. This why ranking people and their cultures is an impossible, asinine idea.
Okay, let’s be concrete. What’s the “culture” of say Mexican Americans, and how would those differences make a team of Chinese software developers more effective?
Once you actually unpack this diversity idea it unravels. You can’t have it both ways. If you posit that people are basically the same regardless of identity group, then your notion of “diversity” being anything other than neutral makes no sense. But if you posit that people’s group membership makes them substantively different, then you’re inviting analysis of whether those differences are good ones or bad ones.
Once you actually unpack this diversity idea it unravels. You can’t have it both ways. If you posit that people are basically the same regardless of identity group, then your notion of “diversity” being anything other than neutral makes no sense. But if you posit that people’s group membership makes them substantively different, then you’re inviting analysis of whether those differences are good ones or bad ones.
I’m not interested in doing a rank ordering of racial groups.
You're setting up a false dichotomy: people are the same and diversity is neutral or some people are better and diversity is bad.
You seem to be assuming that its perfectly knowable which groups are “best”, and that we should therefore assemble teams strictly out of those people. My contention is that this is hubris and instead we should bring together lots of different types of people, then let them figure it out.
You're setting up a false dichotomy: people are the same and diversity is neutral or some people are better and diversity is bad.
You seem to be assuming that its perfectly knowable which groups are “best”, and that we should therefore assemble teams strictly out of those people. My contention is that this is hubris and instead we should bring together lots of different types of people, then let them figure it out.
We aren’t talking about “racial groups”—you shifted the conversation to “culture.”
So defend your premise. What is the “culture” of Mexican Americans (or any other group of your choosing) and how does that make a team of Chinese programmers better? That’s the central premise of “diversity”—that individuals from different groups are materially different—so give me one concrete example.
So defend your premise. What is the “culture” of Mexican Americans (or any other group of your choosing) and how does that make a team of Chinese programmers better? That’s the central premise of “diversity”—that individuals from different groups are materially different—so give me one concrete example.
Edit, sorry i think I misunderstood your post.
Are you asking about how a hypothetical non-Chinese person would improve an all Chinese team?
If so, I don’t presume to know. That would be up to the team members to find the ideas that best help them. This is the fundamental idea, put together different kinds of people and they’ll work out how to exhange cultural ideas in a way that works
Are you asking about how a hypothetical non-Chinese person would improve an all Chinese team?
If so, I don’t presume to know. That would be up to the team members to find the ideas that best help them. This is the fundamental idea, put together different kinds of people and they’ll work out how to exhange cultural ideas in a way that works
If you don’t know, why are you so confident your idea is right? “Diversity” posits that, for example, an all Chinese team would be improved by adding Mexican people. Feel free to substitute any other groups, if you like. This is an idea you apparently subscribe to, so why can’t you provide a concrete example, and instead speak only in abstractions?
The fundamental problem with your reasoning is that you’re taking on faith the notion that differences are good ones. There is no reason to assume that. If differences between people can be good ones, they can just as easily be bad ones.
The fundamental problem with your reasoning is that you’re taking on faith the notion that differences are good ones. There is no reason to assume that. If differences between people can be good ones, they can just as easily be bad ones.
So you just take for granted that cultural exchange is a net negative? Why do you think people won’t learn anything useful from another culture?
Since you insist, I can provide a personal example. My former boss is from Colombia. I’m from the US. He insisted I take more time than I would have chosen when my child was born. He said this was based on his cultural upbringing in which family takes precedence over work. I appreciated that and I feel that it prevented my burnout.
Here’s a well known case: Kaizen in manufacturing, which was originated in Japan based on a mix of American and Japanese ideas then reimported to America.
I base my more general and abstract belief that cultural exchange is good on many examples throughout human history. Cultures that don’t admit new ideas generally haven’t fared well in the long term.
Since you insist, I can provide a personal example. My former boss is from Colombia. I’m from the US. He insisted I take more time than I would have chosen when my child was born. He said this was based on his cultural upbringing in which family takes precedence over work. I appreciated that and I feel that it prevented my burnout.
Here’s a well known case: Kaizen in manufacturing, which was originated in Japan based on a mix of American and Japanese ideas then reimported to America.
I base my more general and abstract belief that cultural exchange is good on many examples throughout human history. Cultures that don’t admit new ideas generally haven’t fared well in the long term.
If you optimize for "different kinds of people" you cannot at the same time optimize for academic performance or IQ. You have to choose less capable people just to get more diversity. There is plenty of evidence that intelligence causes success on all kinds of measures, but I have never seen a study about racial/ethnic diversity causing success.
It's like buying a dozen Ford F-150s in different colors and claiming a diverse mix of capability.
After all, the elite applicants all have essentially the same background and identity, and the only difference is skin color.
Downvote away!
After all, the elite applicants all have essentially the same background and identity, and the only difference is skin color.
Downvote away!
If the desired outcome is to benefit from the mixing of ideas, is that best served by using mandatory diversity statements to narrowly filter the applicant pool?
My understanding is that diversity statements are typically asking what you plan to do build/maintain diversity. Like, “I’ll start a science club at a local elementary school with a large population of underrepresented students”. It’s not just a description of how you have some uniquely desirable combination of identities.
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I'm not sure how I was wrong.
Diversity claims groups are different, hence there must be some different outcomes, due to their different culture, language, mindset, sex, etc. If the outcomes are the same, then the only difference will be just color. I'm sure it is not what you want.
Then, given the expected outcomes will be different, why DEI is asking for equity of outcomes?
A bag has 100 balls: 90 are white and 10 are black. Please randomly grab 10, and send to to university, or jail. In this the only way you can get your DEI equity.
Diversity claims groups are different, hence there must be some different outcomes, due to their different culture, language, mindset, sex, etc. If the outcomes are the same, then the only difference will be just color. I'm sure it is not what you want.
Then, given the expected outcomes will be different, why DEI is asking for equity of outcomes?
A bag has 100 balls: 90 are white and 10 are black. Please randomly grab 10, and send to to university, or jail. In this the only way you can get your DEI equity.
I still don't know what "diversity" means. The modern use seems to mean that a person is inherently more valuable if they have less common appearance attributes, regardless of their character or the soundness of their beliefs. The problem with inverting bias discrimination is it tends to promote identity-based entitlement rather than accomplishment-based pride. Identity-based entitlement is a universally unhealthy outlook. My view is any group that needs help should have support and resource groups for them while the bar should stay simple, consistent, and high for all. Without this principle, society will unravel and technological leadership will founder.
PS: I saw an academic department with unwitting ideological and morphological homogeneity that couldn't see their hiring and selection biases. It wasn't done with malice, but most PI's hired people who looked like them because the dept chair was so hands off that there was no leadership conferred, i.e., blinding resume or CV details. The dept chair was rarely in and basically just a salesman and occasional figurehead.
PS: I saw an academic department with unwitting ideological and morphological homogeneity that couldn't see their hiring and selection biases. It wasn't done with malice, but most PI's hired people who looked like them because the dept chair was so hands off that there was no leadership conferred, i.e., blinding resume or CV details. The dept chair was rarely in and basically just a salesman and occasional figurehead.
To understand what "diversity" truly means in a modern context, simply ask yourself this question: have you ever heard anyone claim that the NBA is not diverse enough?
Yeah diversity just means non white
I kind of pieced something together recently that makes me feel sick to my stomach. Diversity only matters in white majority areas or white countries. Too many white people anywhere is a bad thing apparently. Nobody in Japan is losing out on a university job for being Asian.
I kind of pieced something together recently that makes me feel sick to my stomach. Diversity only matters in white majority areas or white countries. Too many white people anywhere is a bad thing apparently. Nobody in Japan is losing out on a university job for being Asian.
Top universities also discriminate against East Asians in the admissions process because of their high performance. Basically, DEI is discrimination against high performing races (except Jews, perhaps).
It’s really interesting to see the comments on this issue. I imagine this is what it would be like to confirm some religious screed from the Roman emperor. Everyone even here, some even anonymous, are tip-toeing still. Too scared to anger the powerful. Amazing.
I see opposing mandatory diversity statements as a tenable viewpoint on the same grounds that one might object mandatorily standing for the national anthem/pledge of allegiance.
I think these two examples help illustrate how this problem is not unique to any one political party.
I think these two examples help illustrate how this problem is not unique to any one political party.
Keep this in mind next time academia produces a study advocating for this or that social change - anyone willing to publish a study giving ammo to the wrong side of the culture war could not even get hired.
This is not speculation - this has been measured by a peer-reviewed study back in 2014, before the practice was made official with diversity statements: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25036715/
This is not speculation - this has been measured by a peer-reviewed study back in 2014, before the practice was made official with diversity statements: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25036715/
I think I feel a similar way. There’s issues and causes that I wholeheartedly believe in, but find myself pushing back against when I’m coerced to pledge a certain allegiance or wear a specific ‘scause. I dunno if I’m just being oppositionally defiant as some instinctive reaction or what.
In a way, the actual exercise of rebellion gives the issue meaning. If you’re forced to issue a statement of some sort, it just becomes a meaningless ritual, does it not?
In a way, the actual exercise of rebellion gives the issue meaning. If you’re forced to issue a statement of some sort, it just becomes a meaningless ritual, does it not?
The only beneficiary of a forced apology is the authority figure's ego.
Seems similar to the Yuri Bezmenov interview video. I don't know if this is an actual campaign or if just coincidence. In either case, it isn't headed in the right direction. Hopefully there is a self-correcting mechanism?
In my experience, most mathematicians are too shy to speak their mind about this topic for fear of rocking the boat. But I am sure many talented folks are getting turned away at the gates of academia by this DEI game.
Diversity statements are akin to brainwashing techniques used by religious cults to out heretics.
ISIS uses them to test the piety of people under their rule, and if they refuse to utter them, they are apostates and should be executed.
More amusingly but also sadly, it’s exactly the issue brought up by Seinfeld and the AIDS ribbon. Not wearing the AIDS ribbon, even while on the AIDS walk, is heresy and the heretic should be executed.
Not utterly diversity statements, even if you live and breathe diversity, means to DEI zealots that you are a heretic and a racist. It’s horrifying and I’m hoping all this nonsense clears up before my kids go to college.
ISIS uses them to test the piety of people under their rule, and if they refuse to utter them, they are apostates and should be executed.
More amusingly but also sadly, it’s exactly the issue brought up by Seinfeld and the AIDS ribbon. Not wearing the AIDS ribbon, even while on the AIDS walk, is heresy and the heretic should be executed.
Not utterly diversity statements, even if you live and breathe diversity, means to DEI zealots that you are a heretic and a racist. It’s horrifying and I’m hoping all this nonsense clears up before my kids go to college.
"Diversity statements are akin to brainwashing techniques used by religious cults to out heretics."
I would strengthen this statement to say that it is a brainwashing technique, and is employed by a religious cult.
I would strengthen this statement to say that it is a brainwashing technique, and is employed by a religious cult.
For two excellent books on the topic of how the woke ideology corrodes societies (academia in particular) check out "What's Our Problem?" by Tim Urban and "The Coddling of the American Mind" by by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt.
Interestingly enough, Jonathan Haidt is a proper full professor, unlike Tim Urban and Greg Lukianoff. I'm curious how he navigates the university culture.
Not too tricky to navigate after you've got tenure.
Basically, most professors can't navigate it then until they get tenure? They need to self-censor until tenure is achieved? That's a lot of years of self-censorship.
Aren’t you the guy that asks “innocent” questions about why black women should be on Bluesky.
That's me! I became more interested in the topic after the Bluesky question.
The issue I've always felt about this is this requirement of everyone having to do direct action that ultimately is just performative meant to virtue signal for a cause.
Which is why these people who support it conveniently will mostly only talk about it from a systemic perspective, as to ensure that they do not have to put money where their mouth is.
Since just advocating for higher taxes (that goes to struggling single parents programs for instance) or having university donate say 20 million dollars a year instead of spending it on administration would directly encourage a better society.
Which is why these people who support it conveniently will mostly only talk about it from a systemic perspective, as to ensure that they do not have to put money where their mouth is.
Since just advocating for higher taxes (that goes to struggling single parents programs for instance) or having university donate say 20 million dollars a year instead of spending it on administration would directly encourage a better society.
I really wish the young people on the left who snark about "late-stage capitalism" every time a Walgreens declines to refund pack of Sour Patches would talk to people from countries like China, India, or Russia. We truly don't understand how good we have it in the US.
Do we have corruption? Sure. Regulatory capture? Yeah. A stupid healthcare system? Absolutely. But you can't be thrown in jail for comparing Mitch McConnell to a tortoise. Things could be better, but they could also be way, way, way worse.
Do we have corruption? Sure. Regulatory capture? Yeah. A stupid healthcare system? Absolutely. But you can't be thrown in jail for comparing Mitch McConnell to a tortoise. Things could be better, but they could also be way, way, way worse.
Cool I'll keep that in mind as my friend slowly dies from a hereditary condition but can't get disability because he's never been able to work. Glad things like healthcare and corruption are actually just little nuances.
Do American people generally place more value on the ability to call elected officials names, rather than having proper health care, and solving regulatory capture and corruption? Is such a stance wise?
For those who want more context on Tolstoy's opinion on 'le bien publiqie', I found an essay that discusses it, under section 'Rastopchin’s Justification': https://sniggle.net/TPL/index5.php?entry=25Sep10
[deleted]
Don't use the linked archive.is, the page contains copyright infringements
The main problem with regarding diversity as a value in itself is that it is incompatible with meritocracy. If one wants to give preferential treatment to "diverse" individuals, one cannot at the same time prefer more capable individuals, since the two properties are far from perfectly correlated.
Capitalism is also incompatible with meritocracy, otherwise how to explain that the children of rich people will have better education and socialization than the rest of the population? Do they have more merit simply because of the womb they came from? Are they better than an equally capable person born in an underprivileged neighborhood?
Intelligence is indeed substantially heritable.
> The heritability of intelligence increases from about 20% in infancy to perhaps 80% in later adulthood.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4270739/
> The heritability of intelligence increases from about 20% in infancy to perhaps 80% in later adulthood.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4270739/
There are intelligent people in all levels of society and all cultures, so this changes nothing.
There also some women that are taller than some men, but men are still taller than women.
If you are better educated than I, you have probably developed skills that I couldn’t. This isn’t fair but it still matters; after a certain age it’s harder for anyone to benefit from my unrealized potential.
You're attacking a strawman. The person you're replying to didn't claim that rich people's children are more meritorious simply by birth. If we assume good faith (which we should), the other poster would similarly be opposed to nepotism which grants unfair advantages.
I'm not countering the poster's idea, I'm just pointing out that capitalism is also incompatible with meritocracy for the reasons that I mentioned.
The title says he objects to diversity, but the article states that "it isn’t diversity to which he objects".
The professor isn't consistent either. Yes, DEI is a sort of agreement between you and your current society. And yes, you will be punished (or forced out) if you don't agree to it. That doesn't mean the society is selecting conformists, who would sign anything giving them profits. It means the society wants people who agree with its established principles, that's all.
If a society ends up with people who would sell those principles for nothing - then it's the problem of the society and its principles. USSR collapsed for a reason. And yes, you may say it's because it was run by conformists who didn't believe in the principles they signed. But "the routine affirmation" (of communism) is not what caused this situation.
The professor isn't consistent either. Yes, DEI is a sort of agreement between you and your current society. And yes, you will be punished (or forced out) if you don't agree to it. That doesn't mean the society is selecting conformists, who would sign anything giving them profits. It means the society wants people who agree with its established principles, that's all.
If a society ends up with people who would sell those principles for nothing - then it's the problem of the society and its principles. USSR collapsed for a reason. And yes, you may say it's because it was run by conformists who didn't believe in the principles they signed. But "the routine affirmation" (of communism) is not what caused this situation.
> The title says he objects to diversity
I don't know if the title has been updated in the last 15 minutes, but the title currently says "A math professor who objects to diversity statements". Not "to diversity".
I don't know if the title has been updated in the last 15 minutes, but the title currently says "A math professor who objects to diversity statements". Not "to diversity".
As per article, he objects to signing "water is wet". Does it make the title correct?
this is moving
> Even if one is required to say ‘I passionately believe that water would certainly wet us, as fire would certainly burn,’ the routine affirmation of one’s beliefs as a precondition of making a living constitutes compelled speech and corrupts everyone who participates in the performance.
the link to the letter, stripped of the tracking data on the https://archive.is/j1Xyg link, is https://community.ams.org/journals/notices/202307/rnoti-p104... and is reproduced in full below
In 2022, having been a member of the AMS for more than 30 years, I decided not to renew my membership for another year.
Here are my reasons:
With grave concern, I see the growing use of DEI statements as a required component for job applications, in particular in mathematical sciences. In my opinion, it has an enormous corrosive effect on the math community and education in this country. Even if one is required to say “I passionately believe that water would certainly wet us, as fire would certainly burn”, the routine affirmation of one’s beliefs as a precondition of making a living constitutes compelled speech and corrupts everyone who participates in the performance.
I grew up in the Soviet Union, where people had to affirm their fealty to ideals and the leaders embodying those ideals, on a daily basis. As years went by, I observed the remarkable ease with which passionate communists turned first into passionate pro-Western liberals and then into passionate nationalists. This lived experience and also common sense convince me that only true conformists excel in this game. Do we really want our math departments to be populated by conformists?
Currently, the compelled speech of the compulsory DEI statements affects mostly people at the beginning of their careers, that is when they are most vulnerable. The sheer logic of bureaucratic expansion suggests that those who position themselves as experts in evaluating the merits and judging the sincerity of the DEI statements will find new venues to apply their skills, affecting other demographics.
The AMS does nothing to investigate these developments. About 25 years ago, when one of the universities decided to close its PhD program in math, the AMS saw it urgent enough to dispatch a fact-finding mission. Now, as we have a social experiment on a national scale, with potentially devastating consequences, the AMS demonstrates a remarkable lack of curiosity.
I can think of several reasons for this detachment.
First, it can be that the majority of members see nothing wrong in the DEI statements, or consider them a welcome development. I, for one, would be interested to find out if this is indeed the case. A couple of years ago, several letters were circulated and published that painted an inconclusive, to say the least, picture. As far as I can tell, the discussion ended having barely started. Wouldn’t it be useful to have it restarted, now that we have seen more results of the DEI proliferation?
Second, I anticipate an argument that the AMS is “not involved in politics”. But this is the kind of “politics” that, rephrasing Pericles, will get involved with you, whether you like it or not, and hence inaction is just as political as action.
Third, people can be simply afraid to voice their opinions (admittedly, the line between the second and third reasons is blurred). The fears of being accused of having certain pernicious attitudes and creating an unsafe environment, as well as the fear of losing one’s livelihood are not without merit. However, compared to the standards set by the totalitarian movements of the past these repercussions may not seem like such a big deal. The more we are afraid to talk and act now, the more debilitating the fear becomes, and the more devastating will be the effect of our inaction.
Sincerely,
Alexander Barvinok
> Even if one is required to say ‘I passionately believe that water would certainly wet us, as fire would certainly burn,’ the routine affirmation of one’s beliefs as a precondition of making a living constitutes compelled speech and corrupts everyone who participates in the performance.
the link to the letter, stripped of the tracking data on the https://archive.is/j1Xyg link, is https://community.ams.org/journals/notices/202307/rnoti-p104... and is reproduced in full below
In 2022, having been a member of the AMS for more than 30 years, I decided not to renew my membership for another year.
Here are my reasons:
With grave concern, I see the growing use of DEI statements as a required component for job applications, in particular in mathematical sciences. In my opinion, it has an enormous corrosive effect on the math community and education in this country. Even if one is required to say “I passionately believe that water would certainly wet us, as fire would certainly burn”, the routine affirmation of one’s beliefs as a precondition of making a living constitutes compelled speech and corrupts everyone who participates in the performance.
I grew up in the Soviet Union, where people had to affirm their fealty to ideals and the leaders embodying those ideals, on a daily basis. As years went by, I observed the remarkable ease with which passionate communists turned first into passionate pro-Western liberals and then into passionate nationalists. This lived experience and also common sense convince me that only true conformists excel in this game. Do we really want our math departments to be populated by conformists?
Currently, the compelled speech of the compulsory DEI statements affects mostly people at the beginning of their careers, that is when they are most vulnerable. The sheer logic of bureaucratic expansion suggests that those who position themselves as experts in evaluating the merits and judging the sincerity of the DEI statements will find new venues to apply their skills, affecting other demographics.
The AMS does nothing to investigate these developments. About 25 years ago, when one of the universities decided to close its PhD program in math, the AMS saw it urgent enough to dispatch a fact-finding mission. Now, as we have a social experiment on a national scale, with potentially devastating consequences, the AMS demonstrates a remarkable lack of curiosity.
I can think of several reasons for this detachment.
First, it can be that the majority of members see nothing wrong in the DEI statements, or consider them a welcome development. I, for one, would be interested to find out if this is indeed the case. A couple of years ago, several letters were circulated and published that painted an inconclusive, to say the least, picture. As far as I can tell, the discussion ended having barely started. Wouldn’t it be useful to have it restarted, now that we have seen more results of the DEI proliferation?
Second, I anticipate an argument that the AMS is “not involved in politics”. But this is the kind of “politics” that, rephrasing Pericles, will get involved with you, whether you like it or not, and hence inaction is just as political as action.
Third, people can be simply afraid to voice their opinions (admittedly, the line between the second and third reasons is blurred). The fears of being accused of having certain pernicious attitudes and creating an unsafe environment, as well as the fear of losing one’s livelihood are not without merit. However, compared to the standards set by the totalitarian movements of the past these repercussions may not seem like such a big deal. The more we are afraid to talk and act now, the more debilitating the fear becomes, and the more devastating will be the effect of our inaction.
Sincerely,
Alexander Barvinok
(2023)
So many people here are boosting the idea that mandatory DEI statements are like loyalty oaths of the 1950s, and implied they must be removed on that basis alone.
California state universities have required their professors to sign loyalty oaths since the 1950s. The courts have long agreed this requirement is constitutional. Yes, this is exactly the sort of oath the Canadian criticizes, though it gets far less news than anti-DEI activists.
So even if mandatory DEI statements are loyalty oaths [1], they are not un-American.
Given all the hype comparing DEI to loyalty oaths (this Atlantic link has been posted three times the last month), and the dearth of protests about agreeing to actual loyalty oaths, I can't help but wonder if the actual issue is that people don't like DEI, don't have a good argument against DEI, so are stretching for any parallel that might let them construct a defensible argument against the process, even if they don't actually believe that argument for any other case.
[1] And it isn't like plenty of other things are compared to loyalty oaths. "Musk demands Twitter workers take a loyalty oath" says https://ktla.com/news/money-business/musk-demands-twitter-wo...; "A Texas Elementary School Speech Pathologist Refused to Sign a Pro-Israel Oath, Now Mandatory in Many States — so She Lost Her Job" says https://theintercept.com/2018/12/17/israel-texas-anti-bds-la...; "Donald Trump didn't sign Illinois loyalty oath that pledges he won't advocate overthrow of government" says https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/donald-trump-didnt-s...; while also "Trump enforces ‘loyalty oath’ at Vermont rally, ejects any who don’t comply" at https://www.today.com/video/trump-enforces-loyalty-oath-at-v....
California state universities have required their professors to sign loyalty oaths since the 1950s. The courts have long agreed this requirement is constitutional. Yes, this is exactly the sort of oath the Canadian criticizes, though it gets far less news than anti-DEI activists.
So even if mandatory DEI statements are loyalty oaths [1], they are not un-American.
Given all the hype comparing DEI to loyalty oaths (this Atlantic link has been posted three times the last month), and the dearth of protests about agreeing to actual loyalty oaths, I can't help but wonder if the actual issue is that people don't like DEI, don't have a good argument against DEI, so are stretching for any parallel that might let them construct a defensible argument against the process, even if they don't actually believe that argument for any other case.
[1] And it isn't like plenty of other things are compared to loyalty oaths. "Musk demands Twitter workers take a loyalty oath" says https://ktla.com/news/money-business/musk-demands-twitter-wo...; "A Texas Elementary School Speech Pathologist Refused to Sign a Pro-Israel Oath, Now Mandatory in Many States — so She Lost Her Job" says https://theintercept.com/2018/12/17/israel-texas-anti-bds-la...; "Donald Trump didn't sign Illinois loyalty oath that pledges he won't advocate overthrow of government" says https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/donald-trump-didnt-s...; while also "Trump enforces ‘loyalty oath’ at Vermont rally, ejects any who don’t comply" at https://www.today.com/video/trump-enforces-loyalty-oath-at-v....
Your fourth paragraph doesn’t make logical sense.
I will try again.
I think a lot of people don't like DEI because they don't agree with the underlying premises. For example, DEI says there is a history of structural discrimination in higher education, that teachers must be aware that these biases exist, and that teachers must work to counter these biases. Diversity statements during hiring exist to see how well candidates understand those issues and have worked to improve the situation.
Some people do not like DEI because they want to believe they are in a meritocracy, and they are a professor simply because of personal effort.
Problem is, there's a lot of evidence supporting that DEI premise, and demonstrating the flaws in the meritocracy viewpoint.
Some do not like DEI because they believe accepting the systemic racism premise means accepting that most people are racist, while the evidence is that a system built on racism can continue to be racist even if no one involved is racist. We have generations to go before the wealth inequalities caused by deliberate racist government policies disappear. We have drug laws on the books which were created to persecute blacks more than whites. We have place names and statues meant to honor and remind everyone of white supremacists. These laws and statues were created by long dead racists and still enforced by non-racists.
There's an old quote: “If you have the law, hammer the law. If you have the facts, hammer the facts. If you have neither the law nor the facts, hammer the table”. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/07/04/legal-adage/
Since the premise is against the professor, instead attack the requirement to have a diversity statement. Liken it to Orwellian thoughtcrime and Soviet apparatchiks and anything else that might sound bad. It just has to have enough emotional power to get people riled up - it does not have have to be part of a larger, logically consistent framework.
Compare diversity statements to 1950s loyalty oaths, since those sound bad. It doesn't matter that 100,000s of people, including university professors are still required to sign loyalty oaths to get their job, because the point isn't to get rid of loyalty oaths, the point is to figure out some way to not sign a diversity statement.
Don't try to explain why some loyalty oaths are acceptable while others are not, because that's hard. Instead, just say that a political test is bad, and be "suspicious of an institutional requirement to do public good" .. while conveniently omitting how government funded higher education exists because of politics and how universities for centuries have said they contribute to the public good.
And even though this a diversity statement isn't actually oath, ignore how all sorts of other things are likened to loyalty oaths, like the Musk/Twitter example I gave earlier or even how the Pony Express riders swore an oath for their job.
Hammer the table and don't get caught in the weeds.
I think a lot of people don't like DEI because they don't agree with the underlying premises. For example, DEI says there is a history of structural discrimination in higher education, that teachers must be aware that these biases exist, and that teachers must work to counter these biases. Diversity statements during hiring exist to see how well candidates understand those issues and have worked to improve the situation.
Some people do not like DEI because they want to believe they are in a meritocracy, and they are a professor simply because of personal effort.
Problem is, there's a lot of evidence supporting that DEI premise, and demonstrating the flaws in the meritocracy viewpoint.
Some do not like DEI because they believe accepting the systemic racism premise means accepting that most people are racist, while the evidence is that a system built on racism can continue to be racist even if no one involved is racist. We have generations to go before the wealth inequalities caused by deliberate racist government policies disappear. We have drug laws on the books which were created to persecute blacks more than whites. We have place names and statues meant to honor and remind everyone of white supremacists. These laws and statues were created by long dead racists and still enforced by non-racists.
There's an old quote: “If you have the law, hammer the law. If you have the facts, hammer the facts. If you have neither the law nor the facts, hammer the table”. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/07/04/legal-adage/
Since the premise is against the professor, instead attack the requirement to have a diversity statement. Liken it to Orwellian thoughtcrime and Soviet apparatchiks and anything else that might sound bad. It just has to have enough emotional power to get people riled up - it does not have have to be part of a larger, logically consistent framework.
Compare diversity statements to 1950s loyalty oaths, since those sound bad. It doesn't matter that 100,000s of people, including university professors are still required to sign loyalty oaths to get their job, because the point isn't to get rid of loyalty oaths, the point is to figure out some way to not sign a diversity statement.
Don't try to explain why some loyalty oaths are acceptable while others are not, because that's hard. Instead, just say that a political test is bad, and be "suspicious of an institutional requirement to do public good" .. while conveniently omitting how government funded higher education exists because of politics and how universities for centuries have said they contribute to the public good.
And even though this a diversity statement isn't actually oath, ignore how all sorts of other things are likened to loyalty oaths, like the Musk/Twitter example I gave earlier or even how the Pony Express riders swore an oath for their job.
Hammer the table and don't get caught in the weeds.
Yesterday night we were discussing about the opportunity to work as a software developer in the current environment for a junior role and part of the discussion sounded like the following:
"If you are white and male there is no chance of finding a junior role at this time, however since you are female, it might be very likely"
Such healthy environment these diversity initiatives have been pushing /s
"If you are white and male there is no chance of finding a junior role at this time, however since you are female, it might be very likely"
Such healthy environment these diversity initiatives have been pushing /s
Good for him. DEI statements are insane zealotry.
We need to call "diversity" for what it really is: Discrimination.
You must consider an individual's race, gender, sexual preference, and other immutable factors in contexts that have absolutely no bearing upon the bigger matter at hand. That is racist and sexist, that is discrimination of the purest order.
And before someone accuses me of "white supremacy" or "patriarchy" or other buzzword nonsense: I'm Japanese-American, I'm Asian; I'm a "minority". I'm male, but more importantly a man as in mankind.
And no, do not dare call me a "POC". I'm an American man of Japanese heritage. Simple as that.
There is absolutely no reason why being White or Asian means they need to get inferior treatment and vice versa; there is absolutely no reason why men must be treated inferior to women and vice versa.
There is absolutely no reason why anyone must be treated inferior or superior to anyone else for reasons that do not concern their character or capabilities.
You must consider an individual's race, gender, sexual preference, and other immutable factors in contexts that have absolutely no bearing upon the bigger matter at hand. That is racist and sexist, that is discrimination of the purest order.
And before someone accuses me of "white supremacy" or "patriarchy" or other buzzword nonsense: I'm Japanese-American, I'm Asian; I'm a "minority". I'm male, but more importantly a man as in mankind.
And no, do not dare call me a "POC". I'm an American man of Japanese heritage. Simple as that.
There is absolutely no reason why being White or Asian means they need to get inferior treatment and vice versa; there is absolutely no reason why men must be treated inferior to women and vice versa.
There is absolutely no reason why anyone must be treated inferior or superior to anyone else for reasons that do not concern their character or capabilities.
Where I work the DEI training (mandatory, of course) has gone full-on bonkers. I am genuinely struggling to accept it is real and not some sort of massive joke or it was all some crazy fever-dream
The thrust of the training is that now treating people "equally" or "fairly" is now racist. If you treat people fairly or equally you are liable for HR punishments. The training then goes on to list various accusations for each major racial group (so and so are lazy, so and so are dirty, so and so are dishonest) and that you must now specifically go out of your way to think "oh yes, this person's race is considered to be sexually promiscuous! I must make sure I adjust my behaviour to address this." when you go into a planning meeting or performance review or something totally unrelated (and of course with that thought in your mind you cannot then unthink it). You cannot just treat everyone in the same professional manner, you must now think about and consider all of the racial stereotypes that apply to each person in everything that you do and adjust your behaviour to provide "equity" (not "equality"! That is now a dirty word!)
I simply could not believe it. This training was training me about racial stereotypes. It is teaching me new ways to stereotype people based on their race. Genuinely many of the things it was telling me were new to me and left me wondering "is this what people really think about foo? I had no idea! I am so naive!" before I caught myself.
Am I taking crazy pills? WTF is going on?!
The thrust of the training is that now treating people "equally" or "fairly" is now racist. If you treat people fairly or equally you are liable for HR punishments. The training then goes on to list various accusations for each major racial group (so and so are lazy, so and so are dirty, so and so are dishonest) and that you must now specifically go out of your way to think "oh yes, this person's race is considered to be sexually promiscuous! I must make sure I adjust my behaviour to address this." when you go into a planning meeting or performance review or something totally unrelated (and of course with that thought in your mind you cannot then unthink it). You cannot just treat everyone in the same professional manner, you must now think about and consider all of the racial stereotypes that apply to each person in everything that you do and adjust your behaviour to provide "equity" (not "equality"! That is now a dirty word!)
I simply could not believe it. This training was training me about racial stereotypes. It is teaching me new ways to stereotype people based on their race. Genuinely many of the things it was telling me were new to me and left me wondering "is this what people really think about foo? I had no idea! I am so naive!" before I caught myself.
Am I taking crazy pills? WTF is going on?!
You are not taking crazy pills. This comment perfectly tracks my thoughts upon confronting similar a couple years ago. The toughest part was that I didn’t know the words to name or describe it.
I’ll +1 someone else’s recommendation of Tim Urban’s book “What’s Our Problem” - he dove into this rabbit hole and explained what he found, and it’s super approachable.
For a deeper dive, Bill Ackman very publicly sharing his own reckoning with this realization[1] and credits Christopher Rufo’s book “America’s Cultural Revolution” for helping him make sense of it[2].
[1] https://x.com/BillAckman/status/1742441534627184760
[2] https://x.com/BillAckman/status/1742687058915938532
I’ll +1 someone else’s recommendation of Tim Urban’s book “What’s Our Problem” - he dove into this rabbit hole and explained what he found, and it’s super approachable.
For a deeper dive, Bill Ackman very publicly sharing his own reckoning with this realization[1] and credits Christopher Rufo’s book “America’s Cultural Revolution” for helping him make sense of it[2].
[1] https://x.com/BillAckman/status/1742441534627184760
[2] https://x.com/BillAckman/status/1742687058915938532
We have to oppose DEI by any means necessary
Christopher Rufo is an actual, openly and loudly, full on grifter. He has literally admitted to inventing the critical race theory concept and conflict. As in, truly made it up out of thin air by combining vague trends with a loosely related legal term and seeding it to the Tuckers of the world. These are not the kinds of people anyone should be listening to about "things happening in the world".
Yes, Rufo is an activist, and he is transparent about his intentions and strategies.
I have a JD and passed the bar. I know that a “protected class” is for all people and all manifestations of a trait, not specific identity groups.
It was plain to me that DEI, HR, and Legal teams were not explaining the law, but rather using their position as experts-with power and good intentions-as a pretext to conduct activism through ambiguity and deniability that look virtuous to them and Orwellian to me. And that it was working, because my managers and teammates were positively convinced that “protected class” means exclusively “minority.”
I went through HR training that said “only a manager can discriminate under the law - anyone can engage in harassment.” This is insane as a statement of law, because harassment _is_ discrimination [1]. But it makes sense when they’re trying to get unwilling ICs to endure pervasive “anti-racist” discrimination that isn’t intended as harassment. Flag the misstatement to Legal and it’s “huh, we don’t know how that happened, we’ll look into it.” (Read: we already signed off on the risks of this wording.) Rinse and repeat every training cycle, where it’s a full rewrite of the module with no continuity.
One of my first questions in trying to make sense of seemingly-insane trainings was “wait, is this that ‘CRT’ thing I heard about that everyone says is just a right-wing bogeyman that doesn’t actually exist?”
And it sure is easier to just call it “CRT” and laugh it off than to argue whether it’s even a thing that happened.
If the corporate activists were transparent like Rufo, they’d say “hey, we think discrimination laws are behind the times, and we can’t just wait around for them to change. We need to combat demographic disparities by shifting our culture in hiring and conflict resolution. Here’s how we expect you to promote that, and we’re prepared to indemnify you and defend these values in court.” I expect many people would get behind that, and I would truly respect their honesty in it.
Instead they try to have it both ways, and polarize people with irreconcilable values into each thinking the company has their back.
If you’re on the receiving end of a discrimination suit and try to say you were following company policy, the lawyers will hang you out to dry: “That wasn’t company policy, it was a peer exercise with no managerial oversight or involvement. That wasn’t a required training, it just had an attendance goal (of 90%) and your manager wasn’t authorized in pushing it. As a ‘safe space,’ it wasn’t even recorded for us to know what went on there. It was led by an external contractor who is obviously not an agent of the company. Of course cis white men are a protected class, and anyone who treats them differently is illegally discriminating.”
[1] “Harassment is a form of employment discrimination” https://www.eeoc.gov/harassment
I have a JD and passed the bar. I know that a “protected class” is for all people and all manifestations of a trait, not specific identity groups.
It was plain to me that DEI, HR, and Legal teams were not explaining the law, but rather using their position as experts-with power and good intentions-as a pretext to conduct activism through ambiguity and deniability that look virtuous to them and Orwellian to me. And that it was working, because my managers and teammates were positively convinced that “protected class” means exclusively “minority.”
I went through HR training that said “only a manager can discriminate under the law - anyone can engage in harassment.” This is insane as a statement of law, because harassment _is_ discrimination [1]. But it makes sense when they’re trying to get unwilling ICs to endure pervasive “anti-racist” discrimination that isn’t intended as harassment. Flag the misstatement to Legal and it’s “huh, we don’t know how that happened, we’ll look into it.” (Read: we already signed off on the risks of this wording.) Rinse and repeat every training cycle, where it’s a full rewrite of the module with no continuity.
One of my first questions in trying to make sense of seemingly-insane trainings was “wait, is this that ‘CRT’ thing I heard about that everyone says is just a right-wing bogeyman that doesn’t actually exist?”
And it sure is easier to just call it “CRT” and laugh it off than to argue whether it’s even a thing that happened.
If the corporate activists were transparent like Rufo, they’d say “hey, we think discrimination laws are behind the times, and we can’t just wait around for them to change. We need to combat demographic disparities by shifting our culture in hiring and conflict resolution. Here’s how we expect you to promote that, and we’re prepared to indemnify you and defend these values in court.” I expect many people would get behind that, and I would truly respect their honesty in it.
Instead they try to have it both ways, and polarize people with irreconcilable values into each thinking the company has their back.
If you’re on the receiving end of a discrimination suit and try to say you were following company policy, the lawyers will hang you out to dry: “That wasn’t company policy, it was a peer exercise with no managerial oversight or involvement. That wasn’t a required training, it just had an attendance goal (of 90%) and your manager wasn’t authorized in pushing it. As a ‘safe space,’ it wasn’t even recorded for us to know what went on there. It was led by an external contractor who is obviously not an agent of the company. Of course cis white men are a protected class, and anyone who treats them differently is illegally discriminating.”
[1] “Harassment is a form of employment discrimination” https://www.eeoc.gov/harassment
The first time some people will see or touch a book is when they get to elementary school. Those people are set up to fail in life, and anybody growing up from birth in an environment with no books is disadvantaged.
For generations it was literally illegal for one race of people to learn to read in the United States. This is unique in the world as well - an American innovation.
That type of structural oppression actually requires structural fixes as the problems are multigenerational.
You seem to be wholly rooted into a single generational mindset - eg “you”. We all exist within history, it’s not some bubble where what happened before your birth isn’t relevant.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-literacy_laws_in_the_Unit...
For generations it was literally illegal for one race of people to learn to read in the United States. This is unique in the world as well - an American innovation.
That type of structural oppression actually requires structural fixes as the problems are multigenerational.
You seem to be wholly rooted into a single generational mindset - eg “you”. We all exist within history, it’s not some bubble where what happened before your birth isn’t relevant.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-literacy_laws_in_the_Unit...
Compelled statements and a ton of performative bullshit aren't going to do anything about unjust laws in the 1800s, mind you.
>The first time some people will see or touch a book is when they get to elementary school. Those people are set up to fail in life, and anybody growing up from birth in an environment with no books is disadvantaged.
That is the concern of the parents, there is nothing preventing anyone from reading if they are so inclined today.
>We all exist within history, it’s not some bubble where what happened before your birth isn’t relevant.
Discrimination is not solved by discriminating harder.
Blaming the peoples of today for sins committed by the peoples of yesterday only breed resentment.
Judging the peoples of yesterday by the social, cultural, and judicial norms of today distorts and corrupts history, only breeding ignorance in the peoples of today.
That is the concern of the parents, there is nothing preventing anyone from reading if they are so inclined today.
>We all exist within history, it’s not some bubble where what happened before your birth isn’t relevant.
Discrimination is not solved by discriminating harder.
Blaming the peoples of today for sins committed by the peoples of yesterday only breed resentment.
Judging the peoples of yesterday by the social, cultural, and judicial norms of today distorts and corrupts history, only breeding ignorance in the peoples of today.
> Discrimination is not solved by discriminating harder.
Except it absolutely has been. The civil rights movement was full of it. Look at the history that lead to forced busing. The efforts to correct schooling disparity had become such a quagmire that an even worse solution was enforced. How can we expect things to get better, when just ending discrimination led to the worst possible outcome that was attacked from both sides. They knew the problem, and all reverting to no discrimination did was let segregationists and concerned parties kick the can down the road for 17 years after Brown vs Board of Education.
Reverse discrimination certainly has its cons, but to call it just "discriminating harder" isn't realistic. Making systemic changes hurts and feels unfair, but it's far from the racism that motivated discrimination in our past.
> Blaming the peoples of today for sins committed by the peoples of yesterday only breed resentment.
Where does this idea come from? I can recognize the disparities of the present. I can make actions to undo those. This isn't some fault I need to feel guilt for, it's just a reasonable outcome of understanding the past that lead to the current present, and a desire to change that present. Just like it is not my fault that some people are blind to the past, and feel resentful. Lots of people have resent though, some of it comes from those sins in the past. Sitting on our thumbs continues to breed resent. I don't see a major problem with shifting resent around between traditionally favored and unfavored groups, particularly if net resent goes down.
I say this with understanding that efforts can go to far, but also that oscillating between 0 mph and 100 mph to achieve an average speed of 50 is a stupid way to travel at 50 mph. Current efforts deserve to be moderated, not destroyed.
Except it absolutely has been. The civil rights movement was full of it. Look at the history that lead to forced busing. The efforts to correct schooling disparity had become such a quagmire that an even worse solution was enforced. How can we expect things to get better, when just ending discrimination led to the worst possible outcome that was attacked from both sides. They knew the problem, and all reverting to no discrimination did was let segregationists and concerned parties kick the can down the road for 17 years after Brown vs Board of Education.
Reverse discrimination certainly has its cons, but to call it just "discriminating harder" isn't realistic. Making systemic changes hurts and feels unfair, but it's far from the racism that motivated discrimination in our past.
> Blaming the peoples of today for sins committed by the peoples of yesterday only breed resentment.
Where does this idea come from? I can recognize the disparities of the present. I can make actions to undo those. This isn't some fault I need to feel guilt for, it's just a reasonable outcome of understanding the past that lead to the current present, and a desire to change that present. Just like it is not my fault that some people are blind to the past, and feel resentful. Lots of people have resent though, some of it comes from those sins in the past. Sitting on our thumbs continues to breed resent. I don't see a major problem with shifting resent around between traditionally favored and unfavored groups, particularly if net resent goes down.
I say this with understanding that efforts can go to far, but also that oscillating between 0 mph and 100 mph to achieve an average speed of 50 is a stupid way to travel at 50 mph. Current efforts deserve to be moderated, not destroyed.
>to call it just "discriminating harder" isn't realistic.
Affirmative Action was struck down because it is racist.[1]
[1]: https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-affirmative-action-...
>Making systemic changes hurts and feels unfair, but it's far from the racism that motivated discrimination in our past.
It is unfair when the "answer" is just turning the discrimination gears in reverse. The way to end discrimination is to, unsurprisingly, end discrimination and treat everyone equally and fairly.
You know what I feel if I'm barred from something because I dared to be born to Japanese blood? I feel anger and resentment towards the fools who judged me for the color of my skin rather than the quality of my character, for refusing to see me as just another American.
Sincerely screw discrimination with a rusty spork and may it die in a fire. Absolutely noone deserves to be treated better or worse than another for reasons not concerning their character or capabilities.
>Where does this idea come from? I can recognize the disparities of the present. I can make actions to undo those. This isn't some fault I need to feel guilt for, it's just a reasonable outcome of understanding the past that lead to the current present, and a desire to change that present
Children are born with no crimes or sins to their name. Whatever their ancestors might have done, that is of absolutely no liable consequence to them. If someone seriously tells me to apologize and pay amends for Pearl Harbor or Nanking or whatever else before my time because I'm Japanese, I am going to sincerely tell them to fuck off and pound sand.
Affirmative Action was struck down because it is racist.[1]
[1]: https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-affirmative-action-...
>Making systemic changes hurts and feels unfair, but it's far from the racism that motivated discrimination in our past.
It is unfair when the "answer" is just turning the discrimination gears in reverse. The way to end discrimination is to, unsurprisingly, end discrimination and treat everyone equally and fairly.
You know what I feel if I'm barred from something because I dared to be born to Japanese blood? I feel anger and resentment towards the fools who judged me for the color of my skin rather than the quality of my character, for refusing to see me as just another American.
Sincerely screw discrimination with a rusty spork and may it die in a fire. Absolutely noone deserves to be treated better or worse than another for reasons not concerning their character or capabilities.
>Where does this idea come from? I can recognize the disparities of the present. I can make actions to undo those. This isn't some fault I need to feel guilt for, it's just a reasonable outcome of understanding the past that lead to the current present, and a desire to change that present
Children are born with no crimes or sins to their name. Whatever their ancestors might have done, that is of absolutely no liable consequence to them. If someone seriously tells me to apologize and pay amends for Pearl Harbor or Nanking or whatever else before my time because I'm Japanese, I am going to sincerely tell them to fuck off and pound sand.
It’s impossible to read a book you don’t have access to. That’s the entire point, there was a multigenerational intentional program of making sure one race couldn’t read. The effects of it persist.
I think you aren’t engaging with this logically and are being emotional. Please try to think clearly and critically. You seem angry.
I think you aren’t engaging with this logically and are being emotional. Please try to think clearly and critically. You seem angry.
>It’s impossible to read a book you don’t have access to.
Who is prohibiting who from reading what today? Unless you're going to get pedantic about restricted access to classified or erotic materials, anyone can read anything they want whenever they want.
>Please try to think clearly and critically. You seem angry.
Yes, I am thinking clearly and critically which is why I'm telling you that "diversity" is merely a front to engage in flagrant discrimination.
Yes, I am angry that I am being asked to be racist and sexist after being taught and raised to treat all men equally and fairly.
Who is prohibiting who from reading what today? Unless you're going to get pedantic about restricted access to classified or erotic materials, anyone can read anything they want whenever they want.
>Please try to think clearly and critically. You seem angry.
Yes, I am thinking clearly and critically which is why I'm telling you that "diversity" is merely a front to engage in flagrant discrimination.
Yes, I am angry that I am being asked to be racist and sexist after being taught and raised to treat all men equally and fairly.
Your tone is antagonizing. I think you should apologize to the person.
How dare you sir. Good day indeed!
> Blaming the peoples of today for sins committed by the peoples of yesterday only breed resentment.
The goal is not to blame anyone, instead it is creating a plain level field. White people only need to compete amongst themselves, so I'm pretty sure that the best will survive.
The goal is not to blame anyone, instead it is creating a plain level field. White people only need to compete amongst themselves, so I'm pretty sure that the best will survive.
> Earlier this year, he resigned his three-decade membership in the American Mathematical Society in a letter citing the group’s failure to oppose the growing number of job openings for mathematics faculty that require applicants to draft and submit a statement on diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI.
It was a common theme in Soviet Union that to advance academically you had to produce work that somehow endorsed communism and communists, but especially Marx and Lenin. Despite the fact that Lenin was a mass murdering terrorist, he was idealized by the regime as a near god in Soviet Union. It was also clear to many thinking people that the communist regime is oppressive and absurd. Yet you had to comply if you wanted to have a meaningful career.
It was a common theme in Soviet Union that to advance academically you had to produce work that somehow endorsed communism and communists, but especially Marx and Lenin. Despite the fact that Lenin was a mass murdering terrorist, he was idealized by the regime as a near god in Soviet Union. It was also clear to many thinking people that the communist regime is oppressive and absurd. Yet you had to comply if you wanted to have a meaningful career.
On a completely opposite ideological side, back in times of Alfredo Stroessner's dictatorship in Paraguay (clearly fascistic, and I don't use that word lightly), any public officer making any public statement whatsoever necessarily had to include in such statement some kind of praise to the dictator, no matter the ocassion.
Commencement speech of the public university? Stroessner had to be praised.
Dedication of a school somewhere in the countryside? Stroessner had to be praised.
You were a general and were giving a talk to the troops? You had to include some praises of Stroessner.
This was mandatory and closely checked to test your alignment to the regime. You failed to do so? You were guaranteed to lose your position and maybe begin to be watched by the secret police and informants.
So I can very well relate to Barvinok's fears and experience.
Commencement speech of the public university? Stroessner had to be praised.
Dedication of a school somewhere in the countryside? Stroessner had to be praised.
You were a general and were giving a talk to the troops? You had to include some praises of Stroessner.
This was mandatory and closely checked to test your alignment to the regime. You failed to do so? You were guaranteed to lose your position and maybe begin to be watched by the secret police and informants.
So I can very well relate to Barvinok's fears and experience.
It's still a thing in China when applying for PhD programs, at least in some Unis in Beijing. Idk if it occurs once you're already in, or just at the application.
curtis3389(2)
jongjong(2)
The problem of the gradual, slippery conflation created by modern "liberalism" is between original openness and ideas that evoke good feelings are the only "correct" ideas is no longer openness and instead becomes a totalitarian, if not conservative, viewpoint.
In addition, the absence of mentioning issue A does not crowd out issue B or make someone against it. Nuance does exist and multiple issues can be important without being discussed at every moment.
Furthermore, to not be in feverous celebration of position 1 for issue X does not make someone immediately for alternative positions.
Finally, it is possible to discuss controversial subject, person, or work S without being for or against it.
I believe these to be some of the ideological nuances the predominant cargo-culted version of ignorant American university liberalism has lost through mission creep for competitive hyper-virtue signaling while losing touch with what principles and beliefs were important to maintain. Also, the previous generations of professors and grad students forgot to lead and transmit what liberalism meant to subsequent classes of students through action like say Bernie Sanders or Noam Chomsky.
I think it is wiser to reform the thought process by curious questioning rather than adopting or continuing to follow any corrosive ideological or political way.
Instead of seeking to fight enemies and celebrate victims at every moment, perhaps looking to persuade those in reasonable disagreement would be a better use of effort than preaching to the proverbial choir or perpetual harmony.
In addition, the absence of mentioning issue A does not crowd out issue B or make someone against it. Nuance does exist and multiple issues can be important without being discussed at every moment.
Furthermore, to not be in feverous celebration of position 1 for issue X does not make someone immediately for alternative positions.
Finally, it is possible to discuss controversial subject, person, or work S without being for or against it.
I believe these to be some of the ideological nuances the predominant cargo-culted version of ignorant American university liberalism has lost through mission creep for competitive hyper-virtue signaling while losing touch with what principles and beliefs were important to maintain. Also, the previous generations of professors and grad students forgot to lead and transmit what liberalism meant to subsequent classes of students through action like say Bernie Sanders or Noam Chomsky.
I think it is wiser to reform the thought process by curious questioning rather than adopting or continuing to follow any corrosive ideological or political way.
Instead of seeking to fight enemies and celebrate victims at every moment, perhaps looking to persuade those in reasonable disagreement would be a better use of effort than preaching to the proverbial choir or perpetual harmony.
This is a well established pattern: someone who grew up in the Soviet Union and had traumatic experiences with ideological conformity now reacts to something happening in the US with a ferocity of feeling that ends up comparing that thing to pogroms, forced collectivization and ideological purges.
Is it warranted? Depends what they are saying, and their points should stand on their own. But they are larded with Cassandra-style predictions about how the junior administrator down the hall is the first step toward the KGB.
Is it warranted? Depends what they are saying, and their points should stand on their own. But they are larded with Cassandra-style predictions about how the junior administrator down the hall is the first step toward the KGB.
Some patterns are so self-evident and prophetic that the end results are axiomatic. In tech, one example is “let’s add encryption backdoors so the Good Guys can Save the Children”. There is no doubt how that will end. In society, when a junior administrator can _force_ a greater mind to parrot The Message about the Current Thing (under the threat of removing their livelihood and making them radioactive) that heralds the end of free speech and free thought. Those who lived under a dictatorship know the pattern too well.
That pattern is not in evidence here. He seems very level about the whole thing, and much different than your caricature:
“ At the same time, the stakes were never nearly as dire as those in the society he’d left. As he put it, “Unlike in the Soviet Union and today’s Russia, it appeared that no one was sent to a labor camp, prison, or psychiatric ward. Another big difference with the Soviet practices was that to have the support of a few colleagues was often enough to stem the tide.””
He explicitly says he is concerned that it is sloppy, damaging thinking, but does not claim an analogy to the Gulag.
“ At the same time, the stakes were never nearly as dire as those in the society he’d left. As he put it, “Unlike in the Soviet Union and today’s Russia, it appeared that no one was sent to a labor camp, prison, or psychiatric ward. Another big difference with the Soviet practices was that to have the support of a few colleagues was often enough to stem the tide.””
He explicitly says he is concerned that it is sloppy, damaging thinking, but does not claim an analogy to the Gulag.
The U.S. (and the West more generally, to some extent) has its own history of enforced ideological conformity, viz. the Red Scare. It's not something that's inherently limited to Soviet Russia or Maoist China, it has happened here before. The concern is thus quite justified if only on that basis - and yes the ideological basis of the McCarthyist Red Scare was somewhat different to the current trends, but this does not really alter the underlying dynamic.
People born in Soviet Union are very good at detecting propaganda, because they learned to recognize what the system did to them. Americans have never learned this important skill. As someone born in a foreign country (not USSR though), I have a very well developed sense of when the government is lying to me. In my opinion, Americans are extremely easy to deceive.
The mistake here seems to be the somewhat naïve suggestion that the Soviet Union only took its path because the wrong people happened to find their way into leadership, rather than recognising that attempts at coërced ideological purity always seem to follow the same path historically no matter how well intentioned the ideology might have been.
I think we can call that an ad hominem attack:
"This person sounds like other people I don't like. Therefore I don't like him."
"This person sounds like other people I don't like. Therefore I don't like him."
The force of an argument should rest on what someone says, not their special backstory or whatever lurid grim stories they can tell. If anything, I think the pattern I described is all about ad hominem credit, not attack.
I don’t fully discount this persons experiences. But I’m wary of an appeal to emotion.
I don’t fully discount this persons experiences. But I’m wary of an appeal to emotion.
> they are larded with Cassandra-style predictions about how the junior administrator down the hall is the first step toward the KGB
"larded" : kinda strong, don't you think?
also the florid ridicule: "the junior administrator down the hall", "the KGB"
"larded" : kinda strong, don't you think?
also the florid ridicule: "the junior administrator down the hall", "the KGB"
It was a norm in Soviet Union that to advance academically you had to produce work that somehow endorsed communism. It was very good if you were able to put some citations of Lenin or Marx into your completely unrelated work at minimum or better to produce complete body of work that somehow academically promoted communism even when you worked as mathematician.
Of course many people understood that it is all bullshit but had to play along to have a meaningful academic career. Of course any obvious political dissent was observed and punished.
Therefore I think that it is not about what may or may come next but first about the clear absurdity of this forced ideological conformity itself.
But he is quite specific in fact and I'll recommend to read it and think about it.
Of course many people understood that it is all bullshit but had to play along to have a meaningful academic career. Of course any obvious political dissent was observed and punished.
Therefore I think that it is not about what may or may come next but first about the clear absurdity of this forced ideological conformity itself.
But he is quite specific in fact and I'll recommend to read it and think about it.
> Of course many people understood that it is all bullshit but had to play along to have a meaningful academic career.
And this is exactly the case with Academic DEI statements. You just have to say the correct things, and a checkbox is checked and you can get your grant or your job or your tenure. Nothing else really changes.
And this is exactly the case with Academic DEI statements. You just have to say the correct things, and a checkbox is checked and you can get your grant or your job or your tenure. Nothing else really changes.
Is this where all that stuff about Marx anticipating calculus came from?