Note also that the methods of 60 years ago (a) discovered Gwen's ability, (b) promoted her to a commensurate position, (c) gave a productive citizen a genuine sense of achievement and accomplishment. All in a period which was universally racist and sexist by today's progressive standards.
Now? Gwen's intelligence would probably also be detected, if by less straightforward and reliable methods. Because her African X chromosomes confer not one but two Diversity Points (tm), every institution she came in contact with would have a strong bureaucratic incentive to promote her not only to her actual abilities - but beyond them.
As a result, she'd be very likely to end up placed in a position where rather than leading enterprise IT projects, she was competing with (say) top-notch particle physicists. Lacking (like almost all of us) the mental horsepower to perform at this level, she would constantly feel like a fraud, and her colleagues would constantly suspect her of being a fraud. A suspicion which would be correct, though you couldn't really say it was her fault.
Lesson: be careful about hating on the past. Often the past looks pretty retarded by the standards of the present. Often the converse is the case as well.
Nonsense. Americans today are trained from a young age to have a sense of entitlement. People who are promoted above their ability are quite capable of blaming their inability to perform on prejudice or conspiracy on the part of peers or subordinates.
I'm not sure why I'm getting down voted. It's the truth. Most women are made to feel like they don't belong in computing. I convinced my girlfriend to major in Computer Science in school and she's constantly telling me how she faked her way through school. She feels like the only reason she got through it is because I helped her.
The reason she got through it is because she was smart. I didn't help her with her exams and I didn't help her land her job at Amazon. That was all her.
Cheryl Sandberg, the COO of Facebook gave a talk at the Grace Hopper conference about how she felt like a fraud. She wasn't as technical as the engineers so she didn't feel like she deserved her position. Turns out she's really good at her job.
Aggregate performance was either unaffected or improved in the presence of affirmative action. This fits with history: until 1972 almost no women were admitted to MIT, but it didn't make the men perform less well for all the affirmative action they received nor cheapen their accomplishments.
The issue is not that men perform less well because women are admitted into MIT. The issue is that women admitted due to AA might be lower quality than other candidates (men and women who would be admitted without AA), and therefore drag their group average down.
I'm arguing that men who were admitted might be lower quality than women who weren't admitted because their gender exclude them, but that didn't mean those men were unqualified or even necessarily dragged their group averages down.
None of our measurements are accurate enough to correctly distinguish 5,000 very good students from the next 5,000 nearly-identically-but-slightly-better students.
I'm arguing that men who were admitted might be lower quality than women who weren't admitted because their gender exclude them...
This is exactly what I'm saying - whichever group gets bonus points/preferences/etc will have lower quality. In the past, that group was women. Now it's usually men, though not always (some nursing schools give preference to men [1], some liberal arts colleges do also).
[1] Defining quality here is slightly trickier since nurses of both genders are needed for specific tasks (mostly related to bathing).
TL;DR: The Espenshade study found that African chromosomes (by the "one-drop rule") equaled 450 SAT points over Asian chromosomes as a college admissions factor.
(Not that actual genetic testing was used. It probably should be, though. Why encourage race fraud?)
Your link is to a study in which "affirmative action" is used in the sense it was originally implied, not the sense in which it is actually used:
Note that none of these constitute "reverse discrimination," an accusation affirmative action plans often face. In no case was a top-performing man denied a reward if he outperformed everyone else. The main effect the researchers found was an increase in the number of able women willing to participate.
Granted before some, perhaps most, would be below their level but it seems rather impossible to assume that nobody has now been moved artificially higher than they should have.
The claim isn't that nobody is above their "level"; it's that black people are "likely" to be - and I read that as "most" are - above their "level".
At what "level" are people with good connections, powerful parents etc.? Is affirmative action more effective in advancing people than pulling strings and calling in favours? Isn't this mechanism - the social status quo - what affirmative action is designed to change?
Why would one expect more incompetence from one than the other?
It's well known, of course, that two wrongs make a right.
It's also well known that all white people have rich, powerful parents. (Wasn't that a Dave Chappelle skit?)
Why doesn't it "look good?" Oh, noes - am I a witch?
Could you, as an engineer, design a better system to make sure that all Eskimos are "likely" incompetent at their jobs, than promoting Eskimos over Tamils just because they are Eskimos and not Tamils?
Another cross-cultural comparison might be useful:
Or a fascist, possibly? Which is worse - a racist, or a fascist? Discuss.
I'll give you my standard deal - I'll admit to being a fascist, if you'll admit to being a communist. I haven't gotten any takers yet but I'm looking forward to the first.
You know what - if someone, anyone, can tell me why it's absolutely necessary to persecute racists and fascists, yet utterly and completely wrong to persecute communists, I'll go whole hog and buy the R-word. Operators are standing by...
Because on one side you are discriminating against people, and on the other you aren't? They're not just opposite ends of the same spectrum, they're completely different. The opposite of communism isn't facism, it's capitalism - and the opporsite of facism isn't communism, it's just non-racism.
> this fallacy modifies the subject of the assertion to exclude the specific case or others like it by rhetoric, without reference to any specific objective rule
I don't need to do that.. I just need to point out that by picking an example of what one or more communists did or said doesn't make their actions a part of communism.
The only logical fallacy here is yours - I could equally point at some American murderers and say "capitalism is terrible, look at those capitalists murdering people for money".
So good job anticipating my response... the response of pointing out that your argument is basically bullshit, because sadly for you it isn't easy to back up racism.
I don't need to do that.. I just need to point out that by picking an example of what one or more communists did or said doesn't make their actions a part of communism.
Priceless! Where's my MasterCard?
For the record, Paul Graham kills hundreds of thousands of persons of color every year. All these capitalists are the same. Fred Wilson is walking down the street, sees some poor black homeless person he doesn't like... blam! He needs an extended magazine just to walk to work. And sells the organs, too - where do you think all this money comes from? But you never hear about it - our capitalist society is just so callous, you know, to the plight of the underprivileged.
I know there are communists out there who can spell "fascist." I just wish one of them would take my bait...
Alas, he is all too right. Attempts to rationalize racism, whether or not with the rather silly faux erudition we see here, may be soon classified as a mental illness:
I wasn't referring to the opinions, I was referring to the logic.
As for implying that he is right in general because you have read an article that says that some people would like to be able, in the future, to look at classifying some racist behaviour among a very narrow class of people who already are displaying symptoms of schizophrenia, as being a part of their symptoms. Well, you seem as bonkers as he is.
From your referenced article:
"At present, the state of research is inadequate to suggest one course or another"
And let's not forget Liam Stacey! We're skating on the edge here, neighbors - the very very edge. Big Twitter is in ur thoughts, making sure they "look good."
It could be that everyone is crazy. You and I together, comrades! If the 20th century doesn't prove the possibility of universal political insanity, what does it prove? Why is the English-speaking world somehow magically exempt from this general condition - appearing in all other places east of the Channel and west of the Pacific?
This the old trope that now-a-days the pendulum has swung too far and women, blacks etc. are now in a privileged position compared to white, straight, anglo men.
Nonsense. And spreads the idea that all black people shouldn't be where they are in the company and are all tricksters who are rubbish at their job.
Yeah, sucks that a supermajority of elected politicians, upper management, rich people, and influential cultural figures are all women of color who speak Spanish. Poor white anglo dude, his plight makes me weep.
It's not clear to me what the "privilege" of these few thousand people (who obviously achieved their positions by stealing them from worthy persons of color) has to do with the admissions odds of a million random Americans, black, white, purple or green.
But here, this might help you with your weeping problem:
Reported only overseas (with a helpful sidebar of tits) and in the local press. Nobody needs to weep for the kulak, the Jew, the enemy of the workers and peasants. But whoa - if some rapacious Jew defends himself against a good Aryan worker who's only trying to grind his head into the pavement, my gosh, well, that's an interplanetary sensation.
Affirmative action has and continues to be a problem, though. The vast majority of affirmative action has favored and continues to favor rich, connected white men. Famous example:
"I remember back in the late 1990s, when Ira Katznelson, an eminent political scientist at Columbia, came to deliver a guest lecture. Prof. Katznelson described a lunch he had with Irving Kristol during the first Bush administration.
The talk turned to William Kristol, then Dan Quayle's chief of staff, and how he got his start in politics. Irving recalled how he talked to his friend Harvey Mansfield at Harvard, who secured William a place there as both an undergrad and graduate student; how he talked to Pat Moynihan, then Nixon's domestic policy adviser, and got William an internship at the White House; how he talked to friends at the RNC [Republican National Committee] and secured a job for William after he got his Harvard Ph.D.; and how he arranged with still more friends for William to teach at Penn and the Kennedy School of Government.
With that, Prof. Katznelson recalled, he then asked Irving what he thought of affirmative action. 'I oppose it,' Irving replied. 'It subverts meritocracy.'"
The vast majority of affirmative action has favored and continues to favor rich, connected white men. Famous example:
And the famous example is that... white men network. As do black lesbians, Papuan pearl divers, and for all I know the Turkish blue-ringed octopus (our only social octopus).
The leap from "vast majority" to "famous example" is great, too. I never cease to be fascinated by the bizarre pseudosequiturs that pass for logic in the orthodox mind. It's like tumor pathology - every case its own disease.
What's wonderful is how similar this general strain of disparate impact theory is to the classic logic of German anti-Semitism. Did you know that 80% of the lawyers in 1932 Berlin were Jews, even though only 1% of the population was Jewish? Ineluctable mathematical proof the Jews are conspiring against the Aryans - scratching each other's backs, while stabbing their good German competitors under the table.
Too bad Streicher and company never got a chance to read Cochran and Harpending 2005:
Think like a smart person - you obviously are one.
If you wanted to confirm or deny this "old trope," how would you do so? What evidence would prove or disprove it? If you wanted to identify such privileges, what would they look like? What about counter-privileges which offset them?
A fun thought-experiment, for instance, is imagining that "women, blacks etc." could sell whatever privileges they have to groups that I consider underprivileged, such as Asians. With some money changing hands, the Asian would become legally black and the black legally Asian, for all official purposes (educational, legal, etc).
What do you think the price of this transaction would be? And who would be paying whom?
And spreads the idea that all black people shouldn't be where they are in the company and are all tricksters who are rubbish at their job.
This is certainly the case for some black people, as it's certainly the case for some whites, Asians, Eskimos, etc. Perhaps we just differ in our estimated percentages.
Wonderful! What I want you to notice, now, is how abstract every item on that checklist is.
As compared to really concrete, obvious privileges like: 450 free points on your SAT. Could that be the first entry on our 'Black Privilege Checklist?' What would be the second?
Now, let's imagine you design a sociological experiment in which randomly selected individuals of each race can exchange their privileges (and/or handicaps) - along with a payment to equalize the exchange.
Once again: who would pay whom? Or if we look at just one side of the comparison - what would be the market value of being legally black? What would parents pay, for instance, to purchase this privilege for their children?
Let's say we could restrict it only to college admissions. What would American parents pay to change their sons' and daughters' acceptance letters from Chico State, to Harvard? Then you'll have a fairly good price floor on the value of "black privilege" - this is obviously not the only benefit.
I welcome any thoughts on how one might perform the opposite experiment - that is, assessing the market value of "white privilege." Do tell, critical race theorists.
What I want you to notice, now, is how abstract every item on that checklist is.
Abstract?! They aren't abstract, some are very very concrete. If you're straight, you can get married in just about every country in the world, and, in nearly every country. If you're a straight married man, you don't have to worry about saying "my wife" in a new place.
People don't sit men down in secondary school and tell them how to avoid being raped, men don't worry about their drink being spiked.
It's true that the mechanism and value of "(succesful group) privilege" are difficult to quantify in a way that explicitly engineered (counter-)measures aren't. Further, it would be impossible to reassign them via contract unless you're a most imaginative thought-experimenter.
It's true that the mechanism and value of "(succesful group) privilege" are difficult to quantify in a way that explicitly engineered (counter-)measures aren't.
That's exactly right! Moreover, there's a very important reason your N-rays are so hard to detect...
Look at it another way. You step into a time machine and emerge in 1938 Berlin - speaking German. Your task: to explain and convince, by pure reason alone, that there is actually no such thing as the international Jewish conspiracy. Expect some downvotes!
Or we could go all science-fiction. The Federation selects you as the first Federation Ambassador to the ice planet of Goth. The people of Goth come in two categories - Ostrogoth and Visigoth. Conventional wisdom among the Ostrogoths is that they are generally oppressed by the Visigoths - and vice versa.
They can't be right. It's your first task, as Federation Ambassador, to construct objective tests that accurately measure whether the Visigoths are sticking it to the Ostrogoths or vice versa.
For instance, you might ask: how many Visigoths are killed extralegally by Ostrogoths? And vice versa? Are young Visigoths, or young Ostrogoths, subjected to the numerus clausus? Etc, etc, etc.
You could build up a spreadsheet of these types of human-rights violations - which would greatly assist you in deciding, as a mere neutral observer, which faction of Goths is holding the whip and which taking it in the tail.
Of course, you're not the Federation Ambassador and neither am I. But even if you're a Goth yourself, why not think this way? Isn't it, at the very least, refreshingly different?
Now? Gwen's intelligence would probably also be detected, if by less straightforward and reliable methods. Because her African X chromosomes confer not one but two Diversity Points (tm), every institution she came in contact with would have a strong bureaucratic incentive to promote her not only to her actual abilities - but beyond them.
As a result, she'd be very likely to end up placed in a position where rather than leading enterprise IT projects, she was competing with (say) top-notch particle physicists. Lacking (like almost all of us) the mental horsepower to perform at this level, she would constantly feel like a fraud, and her colleagues would constantly suspect her of being a fraud. A suspicion which would be correct, though you couldn't really say it was her fault.
Lesson: be careful about hating on the past. Often the past looks pretty retarded by the standards of the present. Often the converse is the case as well.