Honestly surprised at how many people are posting comments about this. You know you'll end up on some list, right? Maybe you think it's ok to debate this kind of measure now, but the line will keep moving. In three years you may have people scouring your internet history for past wrongthink to deny you that promotion, or to get rid of you. In five years, machine learning algorithms may take your comments as input for your Ethical Credit Score. Hacker News is not going to delete your comments if you come to regret them.
It's best not to think about these things at all. What can you do, anyway? Suppress your mind's wandering. Focus on that algorithm on that refactoring, someone needs to get that work done, and it's you. You need that promotion. You need to make a lot of money for the federal government, for the state of California, and for your landlord, and you better make enough that there is something left to save. You don't want to look back in ten years and realize your youth disappeared while you were sitting in front of a monitor, you're still unmarried, you don't own a house, and you haven't had an independent thought in a decade, right? At least you've got to have some money saved up, that's going to make it worth it. So put your head down and get back to coding.
It's an abuse of this site to use HN primarily for ideological battle, which this account has been doing for a long time. Would you please stop?
We don't care about your ideology, but we do care about not letting a minority of users ruin this site for everyone else by turning it into a political tire fire—especially given what's happening on the rest of the internet, which people come here for refuge from. The rest of the comments in this thread are bad enough as it is.
However, I disagree with the assertion that my comment was about ideology or politics. My comment was about the very concrete conditions of life of someone working in the tech industry in California, which is why I thought it may be of interest to the readers of HN.
The situation I mentioned is not about following this or that political faction. It is a threat to free discourse, to the ability to have an intellectual life, and to folks' actual livelihood. And it is certainly relevant to many people who visit this site or comment on this article.
The only connection to a particular political side was the work "against" in the first sentence. I regret that, and I have replaced it with "about". If, with that change, you feel that it is still possible to identify a particular political or ideological faction which is responsible for the danger I mentioned, that is not something I can control. I can only say that the boot may be on the other shoe someday, and I would still be speaking up against it.
As for the rule against using HN primarily for ideological battles, I was not aware of it, and I apologize. Would it be better if I started posting more technical comments as well?
Also, how does your interpretation of the rules affect users that use "throwaway" accounts? If a user makes a throwaway to talk about a controversial issue, that account may only have one post, meaning that 100% of its posts are controversial. Would that not prevent people from discussing controversial issues at all? Which, in the end, is the same as the advice I was offering.
It seemed to me an ideological rant like countless others—but I don't read them so closely, for the same reason a competitive hot dog eater doesn't savor each morsel: far too much quantity.
Your account's history seems clearly to be that of a single-purpose political account, and we ban those. HN is for the gratification of intellectual curiosity, not the prosecution of political battles. Those two things are incompatible, so we have to be proactive about this.
Throwaway comments don't change the equation much. The test is this: if someone is using HN primarily for political battle, we ban them (https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...). If they're occasionally commenting on a political topic as part of a range of intellectually curious interests, that's ok. In practice, these are two different classes of user: one is here for flamewar while the other isn't. There are always exceptions, but it's relatively clear where the line is. We don't want users who are here for flamewar.
Most users who create throwaway accounts to post political comments are just doing it so they can flame without restriction. We ban those. Earnest throwaway accounts are quite a bit rarer.
The guidelines say: "Please don't use Hacker News primarily for political or ideological battle. This destroys intellectual curiosity, so we ban accounts that do it."
"Throwaway accounts are ok for sensitive information, but please don't create them routinely. On HN, users should have an identity that others can relate to."
I honestly think there's a good chance your decision in this case goes against the spirit of the rules, dang.
In an idealized world it should. In reality, people aren't all equal. The circumstances of birth, genetics, society, societal memory and much more contribute to a world that left alone is inherently unfair. I'm for putting a finger on the scales a little bit to even out the inequalities. Not completely! But to look after the worst off, to right past wrongs (and we've made many mistakes getting here) and to push for a world where each individual is able to rise to the level of their competence and positive qualities by looking after their shortcomings. To create a meritocratic system in spite of the inherent inequalities.
So we're clear, I'm in favor or wealth inequality, and income inequality, but only coupled with social mobility. I'm in favor of having wealth as a reward for your contributions. And for a 90% estate tax to make sure each generation starts off without major advantages. I'm for socialized medicine so the circumstances of your birth or random chance don't stop you from achieving your potential. I'm for creating a world where nobody feels they can't achieve some level of success because of societal norms and if that means temporarily creating 'mandatory' role models, that's fine too.
If the world were inherently fair, wouldn't you already expect corporate boards to represent the rest of the society at large? And yet they don't so someone or somethings' finger must already be on the scales. Unless of course you're telling me only old white men are capable of being board members, that is. So in the interest of fairness, we should push back. A little. See what happens. Then act accordingly.
See how this would fit with my worldview?
I have friends who are incredibly right-wing and absolutely disagree with me, often, and I very much enjoy engaging them in conversation. I don't think they're wrong, I just disagree.
I don't think you're sexist for disagreeing with this law. I agree with it. I have my rationalizations and justifications, and I'm interested in hearing yours, and as always, in debating.
Predicting the future is your solid life advice? Would you recommend a crystal ball, a ouija board or a magic 8 ball?
Should I only concern myself with the long term history or do I have to worry about regressions mixed in? A lot of people thought they were on the right side of history with gay rights in Leninist Russia, it didn't turn out well.
FWIW my 'wrong side of history' comment was meant facetiously, nobody can know what the right side of history is until long after. Though in your specific case, I'd say they were, hopefully their day will come.
The impartial version "feels" impartial enough in tone, whereas the other two feel more openly partisan, the right one more than the left. But the story becomes more complicated when you look at the actual content.
Impartial version:
- Mentions historical dominance of left parties.
- Mentions rise of Sweden Democrats.
- Explains the Swedish political system.
- Explains the alliances.
- Explains that SD is unlikely to be in the government.
- Mentions that immigration is a central issue, but with no explanation.
- Quotes Kakabaveh from the Left party, at length. Mentions that she criticized Sweden's approach to integration, but with no details or explanation. Mentions threats on her by racists and fundamentalists.
- Is described as "impartial" at the bottom.
Left version:
- Mentions historical dominance of left parties.
- Mentions rise of Sweden Democrats.
- Explains the Swedish political system.
- Explains the alliances.
- Explains that SD is unlikely to be in the government.
- Only mention of immigration is that SD is anti-immigrant.
- Cites social democratic prime minister Löfven's criticism of SD.
- Is described as "positive" at the bottom.
Right version:
- Mentions historical dominance of left parties.
- Mentions rise of Sweden Democrats.
- Mentions that immigration and crime are top issues.
- Explains immigration and crime issues.
- Explains that SD "may not" be in the government.
- Cites SD leader Åkesson on broadening that party's appeal.
- Is described as "negative" at the bottom.
The left version goes into some detail on the workings of the Swedish parliamentary system, which are given a mere nod in the right version. On the other hand, the left version does not say anything at all about any issues with immigration in Sweden, while the right version goes into quite a bit of detail, and also discusses a crime issue, which is unmentioned elsewhere.
As for the impartial version, the content turns out to be basically the same as in the left version. Immigration is mentioned, but without any explanation of why it has become a political issue. And the politician cited is actually from the Left party, which sounds farther left than the Social-Democrat PM cited in the left version.
Violence, poverty and deprivation are the state of nature. The way all the evils of the world are laid at the feet of the West has no rational basis. The counterfactual against which West influence is compared is always a blissful utopia that never existed and never could have existed.
If you want to blame the refugees on what the West did, how about the fact that most of these people (most of whom are economic migrants, by the way) would literally not have existed without Western science and technology? Check out the population graphs, look at how many people the land could support before modern medicine, the green revolution etc.
> Violence, poverty and deprivation are the state of nature.
According to Hobbes. Rousseau had some nicer things to say about the state of nature.
In either case, we're not in the state of nature: we live in prosperous societies, and we both can and ought to provide humane treatment to those who seek it from us.
> If you want to blame the refugees on what the West did, how about the fact that most of these people (most of whom are economic migrants, by the way) would literally not have existed without Western science and technology?
What, like algebra[1] and basin irrigation[2]? "Western science and technology" is built on hundreds of years of near-Eastern and Eastern work. Neither region has any right to claim full responsibility for its fruits.
Even if they did, you would need to be wilfully ignorant to minimize our (Europe and the US's) actions in the Middle East. The fact that we had (and continue to have) a reciprocal exchange of knowledge with them does not excuse what we've done in the modern era.
I’m so tired of hearing about Algebra in this context. The notion that Algebra was discovered uniquely in one place is absurd. There can be no doubt Algebra was discovered repeatedly all over the world, and if or when civilization collapses it’ll be discovered again in no time because: it’s Algebra. People are going to discover it and will create notations that make it easy to perform. People like Gauss and Newton arise from all civilizations. So please enough with Algebra. It’s also like almost a thousand years old at this point if you want to point out valuable contributions from the Middle East please refer to something more current and less cliched than Algebra it really just devalues your point.
The point of bringing up algebra is not to somehow suggest that the Middle East today produces just as much good science and math as Europe or the US does today, or saying that it could only have been discovered in the Middle East, it's to educate people that the most dominant culture has shifted all the time throughout history and to somehow claim that Western culture is the apex of human history and that it could only have been the product of Europeans is extremely ignorant. The 250 years of rapid industrialization in the West is about 2.5% of the time from when humanity started the Agricultural revolution (which started in the Middle East).
What determines which culture will be the most dominant one is not one single factor, and some of them look completely random. For example, China invented movable type printing before Europe but Europe had an alphabet of discrete symbols that were optimized for stone engravings while China's alphabet was optimized for writing by hand quickly and with room for expression. That was one of the factors of why Europe could start the printing press revolution to democratize science and information.
I'm lucky to be living in Sweden in 2017, I would however want to move if this would've been 6th century Sweden.
Of course al-Khwarizmi wasn't the first or only person to "discover" algebra - he was building off of 2000 years of Greek, Persian, Arab, and Indian work.
The point wasn't that he's another great man[1], but that it's simply incorrect to talk about "Western science and technology" as if they're either isolated or monolithic -- they're neither.
If al-Khwarizmi hadn't have been Latinized and become the reference for Western mathematics until the Renaissance, then someone else would have. But that someone else would have come from the "Eastern" world, simply by virtue of where the relevant research and academic tradition was at the time.
You forget that the remarkable growth enjoyed by Western countries fuelled by science is mostly only possible because they have historically given themselves access to the entire world's natural resources, sometimes with the cooperation of non-West people, sometimes in spite of them. Nobody on this planet stands alone. We all depend on the Sun ultimately. Let's stop this game of "I'm better" and "You're better", and recognise that for better or worse, science and connectivity have made this one planet, one humanity and a whole lot of common problems we need to address. Erecting more walls may delay the inevitable but won't last forever, IMO. Human growth and science have a way of breaking all barriers given time.
The Greek texts were preserved by the Roman empire. And those in Constantinople went West when the city was taken by the Persian Empire. Some of the texts in the Western part of the Roman Empire were preserved in monasteries, that's the reason the reimplementation of Roman Law innovations was spearheaded by the Church.
> And how would modern medicine and western science have faired without Arabic math and the Arabic preservation of Greek medical texts?
Probably just fine. I’ve read my share of Aristotle and let me tell you, it doesn’t seem to have been a boon to Europe that people kept reading that crap. I mean the guy advocated for slavery as a good/natural thing. And was literally anti-empricical. His philosophy of science boiled down into a sentence was basically “if you think it, it must be true.” God knows how long his work kept the Scientific Method from the mainstream. Galileo was persecuted because the church coopted Aristotelian thinking as dogma. It’s great the Arabs saved all that stuff, but imo it’s great for historical reasons. Very little of it was actually useful legit stuff in the way we think of things today.
> His philosophy of science boiled down into a sentence was basically “if you think it, it must be true.”
Aristotle didn't have a "theory of science," because he didn't have just one science: he had the practical, rhetorical, and formal sciences, each with its own first principles.
> Very little of it was actually useful legit stuff in the way we think of things today.
Besides classical logic, universals, and virtue ethics, right?
> Besides classical logic, universals, and virtue ethics, right?
I don’t know: I went into the Classics expecting to encounter some great stuff—what with like 1000 years of hype and all—only to be pretty underwhelmed. My takeaway was that The Church put these Greek guys on a pedestal around 1200 and everyone in Europe didn’t know better until the Renaissance. Sure they played a role in history, but I never encountered anything particularly uniquely or irreplaceable or exciting in the Greeks that you can’t find elsewhere.
Yeah, Aristotle's impact on natural science is a mixed bag. On the other hand, that's not where his influence lies these days.
Just out of curiosity, what context did you read him in? Aristotle's influence is still very much felt across philosophy: virtue ethics is one of the three major schools of contemporary ethical thought, and deductive reasoning/classical logic are what every logic class begins with.
Aristotle has definitely been put on a pedestal over the years, particularly by powers looking to associate themselves with some sense of classical Greek "greatness". However, that doesn't diminish his real contributions to philosophical (and mathematical) thought.
Or so you would think, but as I recall her biggest detractors were SJWs complaining about how much skin she was showing. The whole idea of her being just a facade for some male engineer was driven by the feminist notion of "male gaze". By contrast, the "misogynistic nerd" crowd (Gamergaters and the like) were quite supportive of her.
I'm skeptical. All the high level summaries imply that most of the pre-Dougherty "fake" theories came from anonymous redditors. How do you know that was the "SJW" set?
> It seems unlikely that the connection between fines and large African American populations—a connection that cannot be explained by poverty—is the result of African Americans across the United States committing more finable offenses.
I'm not sure why that seems unlikely. African Americans commit a disproportionately large amount of violent crimes. It seems reasonable to expect that they also commit a larger amount of misdemeanors and minor infractions. It would be far more surprising if they had a higher propensity to break the law, but only when the violation is serious and the penalty heavy.
> Although African Americans and Whites report smoking marijuana at the same rates, African Americans are 3.7 times more likely get arrested for marijuana possession.
> An analysis of the National Survey on Drug Use and Health found that 6.6% of White people between the ages of 12 and 25 have sold drugs compared to 5.0% of Blacks. Yet Black people are 3.6 times more likely get arrested for selling drugs.
Those numbers conflate "ever sold" with "sold in the last N days", and yearly vs. weekly usage rates. For regular usage (which would be expected to track sales, and possession) the numbers are substantially higher for blacks.
> The discrepancy may be explainable simply by the police presence in the area.
I'd take it one step further:
I live in a medium to medium class neighborhood with a few lower priced apartments dotted throughout. One is actually next door to me. I had to call 911 last weekend when a bbq at the apt building next to me was close to violence. I listened through an open window as one calm male tried to disuade his friend from starting a fight as the latter ranted for 45 minutes in the street sometime after midnight. I heard male number one mention an open arrest warrant as an attempt to reason with male number two that violence was not going to end well. Male number two repeatedly dismissed this and periodically became hysterical with anger.
Between my initial call to 911 and the time when police arrived, I heard a new voice arrive, alerting the hostile guy that he (male number three) had called his cousin for backup and reminding everyone that his cousin is a Crip (a west coast gang, for those who are unfamiliar). I made a second 911 call to update the officers that the situation appeared to be escalating.
So, what I'm driving towards is the additional possibility that this type of behavior sticks out terribly in a quiet neighborhood where most residents have families and go to sleep by 10pm. The likelihood of someone notifying authorities is probably greater than in a high crime area because this is an extremely rare occurrence here.
Edit: yes, I live in a predominantly white neighborhood and the bbq attendees were all black, but that seemed less relevant until I remembered that someone is likely to ask.
> heard male number one mention an open arrest warrant as an attempt to reason with male number two that violence was not going to end well. Male number two repeatedly dismissed this
This is exactly what I was talking about in my post above.
The instinct or intuition to notice danger is totally different. Call it paranoia, call it introspection, it doesn't matter, it is there and it is real.
> this type of behavior sticks out terribly in a quiet neighborhood where most residents have families and go to sleep by 10pm. The likelihood of someone notifying authorities is probably greater
This is why the recent migration from MENA to Germany is going to go very wrong. Combining Germans, a people notoriously for being 'societal correct' with young men from MENA is perfectly calibrated to result in violence. There are no two ways about it.
A Chipotle exec just got busted for cocaine possession. Guess what the charge was, and guess what the proposed punishment is. Guess his skin color (or culture, if you prefer).
There are so many factors that arise in something like that. For example, the Chipotle executive has access to better lawyers whereas a young black man may only have duty counsel. The Chipotle executive can better speak for himself, knows not to answer police questions, can get character references, is likely under first offense. I'm not saying it's okay, but certainly there are so many factors at play here it would be impossible to distill it to just one and name it as the most prominent single factor.
In my experience working with a black coworker (doesn't smoke), he would seemingly ignore signals that he needed to modify his behavior example: once he wanted to go into a shop to browse but the shop owner was closing. He talked his way past her, but I distinctly remember feeling uncomfortable; thinking that was something I would never do in a million years, and I'm not the most socially adroit person either. Other than this boorish behavior he is a perfectly reasonable human being who is well known to be very friendly in the community, but I doubt he'd even recognize the existence of the possibility she could have called the police on him.
If people act like boors, it makes sense they are more likely to get arrested.
Another occasion he installed a wooden shed behind the council house (housing for the poor) he lived in. The council predictably told him they would kick his family out of the house if they didn't take it down. Again; another thing I would never have done in a million years because I would have assumed it was obvious I needed permission before building sheds on a property I do not own. Shit, I probably even need planning permission from the government, let alone the property owner in lots of cases.
I strongly suspect it is the same thing with smoking drugs. Some groups act in ways which are far more likely to get them arrested even if they commit those crimes at comparable rates to the native population example: smoking illegal drugs in the street vs smoking them in your own home.
I don't have an explanation for the underlying mechanism but I've seen the same thing time and time again in (five) black persons I've been working with. They're not bad people or stupid, certainly not the ones I work with, but their 'boundaries' just aren't the same as mine and other white coworkers. What is an immediate and definite red flag for trouble ahead to me is invisible to them, it is like there is a communication band they don't access. Which is weird because the five people I worked with were certainly more socially adaptive than I.
My rough guess is that I and other natives have, let us call it: a residual paranoia instinct that black foreigners do not. I expect different groups have different social relations and this is an invisible wall dividing people that hardly anybody feels comfortable thinking or talking about.
The definition of "selling drugs" needs to be better refined for this question. I'd like to see the percent of "sold drugs for profit" and "sold drugs to strangers".
My sister has twin girls that are 15 and a few years ago they stole some booze from the house. They took the booze and snuck out at 3AM. They went to their schools playground with a bunch of kids from high school. They got fucked up and the cops came. Both of them ran and hid in bushes and were caught.
They were running from the cops and dove into bushes. But pretty white girls that lived in a place where the average house is over a million. No ticket or anything. Cops took them home and woke up their mom and they had their iPhones taken away for a month. That was all.
If they were black males doing the same the situation would have ended very differently.
> African Americans commit a disproportionately large amount of violent crimes. It seems reasonable to expect that they also commit a larger amount of misdemeanors and minor infractions.
There is no obvious causal reason to link violent offenses and non-violent offenses. In fact, in my experience, I would expect an inverse causal relationship. I know quite a few ... people ... who would pick your pocket, steal from your house, etc. but would never actually physically assault somebody.
Your statement might be true, but some data is required.
In addition, non-violent offenses concerning alcohol are heavily skewed toward a racial component of white yet seem to not related to violent offenses at all.
You're going to have to work a lot harder to show causality.
Yes, Jews are overrepresented in journalism, politics, finance and other highly impactful careers. Take the percentage of Jews in such a category, divide it by the percentage of Jews in the general population, and you get a number larger than one: that is just a numerical fact. The anecdotal version of this simple statistic is that you see a lot of Jewish names.
But that is not proof of any conspiracy or nefarious scheme: it is simply the result of the high value Jewish culture places on learning. I think we all see that.
However, when there is a similar, or even lower, rate of overrepresentation for other demographics in other categories, suddenly the conspiracy theory becomes common sense. Too many males in tech because of sexism. Too many whites amongst entrepreneurs because of racism. For lots of people, and an even larger share of the media, that is an obvious fact that requires no justification.
This is what I find unbearable: that the exact same statistical signal is obvious proof of evil with some categories, while to even suggest the same of others is beyond the pale. Even making this comparison is wrongthink in the eyes of some. And I want to make peace with it, but I cannot. The mind rebels. It will not bend.
And that is why, as much as I love the Jews, I find myself unable to muster any outrage over this extension, until the same outrage is afforded to other categories. Not even outrage: the same defense. The same presumption of innocence. Or at least, the same non-presumption of guilt. Can't we even have that?
As a H1B worker, I know I am depressing wages for Americans. Not just by increasing the labor supply, but also by having a weaker negotiation position than I would have as a citizen or as a permanent resident.
The "STEM shortage" is pure fantasy. The US should only take in the very best people, those who end up hired by top companies at competitive salaries, and give them permanent residency quickly. The people who come in with low salaries to replace American workers, like in the Disney case, should never have been given an H1B. That sort of abuse is going to end up bringing down the entire program.
Accusation of bigotry are just a means of controlling the conversation using taboos.
You're being dishonest here. Your choice of words paints a certain picture, but we all know what kind of people get people fired for their controversial opinions, and they wouldn't go after a self-described poc for talking about race. The example you give further down (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10859834) shows that you know how it works in practice, which is why I'm saying "dishonest" rather than "confused".
It's best not to think about these things at all. What can you do, anyway? Suppress your mind's wandering. Focus on that algorithm on that refactoring, someone needs to get that work done, and it's you. You need that promotion. You need to make a lot of money for the federal government, for the state of California, and for your landlord, and you better make enough that there is something left to save. You don't want to look back in ten years and realize your youth disappeared while you were sitting in front of a monitor, you're still unmarried, you don't own a house, and you haven't had an independent thought in a decade, right? At least you've got to have some money saved up, that's going to make it worth it. So put your head down and get back to coding.