BLM, Thomson Reuters, and the Price of Dissent

Dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29823289

And also a dishonest portrayal of the chain of events:

He was sent to Human Resources and Diversity & Inclusion for the chance to reform his thoughts. He refused—so they fired him.

There was a bit more to the story than that, unfortunately. First he published a dubiously argued 12,000-word "rant" (using the article's own term). True, he may have been unfairly attacked for it. But if you just read the thing - on the face of it, it was plainly just poorly reasoned (and arguably, inflammatory).

Then came the final "self-immolating" gesture - which was to violate an explicit request by the company not to use company communications (including email) to discuss these matters. And not to just to email a handful of close colleagues, but apparently a mass, unsolicited mailing:

https://kriegman.substack.com/p/email-for-which-i-was-fired

Maybe he's right in some of his other arguments (e.g. maybe books like Race Cars really are poisoning the country). But to pain this episode simply as a matter of "dissent" and a lone scientist's brave defense of the truth is, in itself -- wildly misleading.

It's interesting that he identified statistics issues (eg a third variable, poverty, explains some of the correlation between race and police incidents) but there doesn't seem to be much interest in the next step: if poverty, ghettoisation, and wider systemic issues are the real problem, how to solve them?

An analysis concluding that 'defund the police is just a distraction' should logically conclude that the real response required is much bigger (reducing inequality, the effects of historical racism, and systemic racism), not that no action is required.