lexcorvus

We want the Recurse Center to be a space with as little bigotry as possible in it.

and yet their financial aid policies are explicitly discriminatory [2]:

The Recurse Center is free for everyone, and we offer need-based living expense grants for women and people from racial and ethnic groups traditionally underrepresented in programming.

In other words, poor white and Asian men can attend, but they don't qualify for any extra support. This is an "ism", but there's nothing subtle about it.

[1]: https://www.recurse.com/manual#no-subtle-isms

[2]: https://www.recurse.com/diversity

[1]: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=6642

For the overwhelming majority of organisms, including Homo sapiens, all proposed indicators of sex (anatomy, hormones, cells, chromosomes) give the same answer. Reading the final two paragraphs of the paper, it's obvious that attempts to muddy this naturally clear water are being made for political, not scientific reasons.

It's disappointing (though not surprising) to see Altman dismiss the possibility of genetic differences between populations playing a role in differential economic success. While it's true that the US population has enjoyed many non-genetic advantages, genetic and non-genetic factors are not mutually exclusive. Showing that non-genetic factors do play a role is not the same as showing that genetic factors don't play a role. (I'm tempted to call this the "Guns, Germs, and Steel Fallacy," since Jared Diamond's work on the subject is essentially a book-length expansion on this basic error.)

If you read Larry Bird's biography, you'll learn how in high school he became obsessed with basketball, practicing at every opportunity and shooting 500 free throws every morning. He also had the good fortune of having a series of outstanding coaches and living in a culture that valued basketball prowess. On the other hand, he also grew to be 6'9".

The verdict is in: yes, HN really is so humorless. Such a pity.

He wasn't the real Dread Pirate Roberts either. The real Roberts has been retired fifteen years and living like a king in Patagonia.

Well. My confidence is born of study and reflection, not youthful arrogance. In fact, I am a middle-aged scientist (a real one!). I weight my degree of confidence according to my understanding of the evidence, reserving judgment when the evidence is insufficient to justify a strong conclusion. I'd guess you strive to do the same. Indeed, I'd bet you're confident that evolution is right, and you'd probably cut creationists even less slack than I would—which makes your "knowing the truth is not possible" pablum utterly disingenuous.

Some people have a knack for it, but even then it takes practice. The tools are logic, reason, and evidence. Does that sound trite? It should. But we live in a world where, e.g., a straightforward application of evolutionary biology to H. sapiens immediately yields conclusions which, if you expressed them in an American workplace, would compel your employer to reprimand or fire you. When reporting the results of logic, reason, and evidence can get you fired, the trite becomes the profound.

Those people you deride

I derided no one. Calling absurd beliefs absurd isn't derision.

are quite sure that when they know is true

You assume a false symmetry. They are mistaken. I know this the same way I know that creationists are mistaken. Creationists may sincerely believe they are right, but it's not ironic to observe their error.

The Slate article you linked doesn't deal with nature vs. nurture at all. It simply assumes that nature doesn't matter, approvingly citing the views of one researcher who makes the astonishing claim that "Children aren’t born smart. They’re made smart by their parents talking to them." This view is definitively disproven both by studies of adoptive children and by studies of twins reared apart (not to mention common sense—cognitive ability must be at least partly heritable, else there would be no way for ever smarter animals to have evolved). For more details, I recommend The Blank Slate by Stephen Pinker.

http://isteve.blogspot.com/2014/03/2008-sat-scores-by-race-b...

The study in question involves the SAT, not formal IQ tests, but the two are highly correlated. [1] You'll also see that the original claim isn't quite supported, as the poorest group of whites scored slightly worse than the richest group of blacks, but the study does broadly support the conclusion that the poorest whites outscore all but the richest blacks.

[1]: See, e.g., http://www.psychologicalscience.org/pdf/ps/Frey.pdf?origin=p.... "These studies indicate that the SAT is mainly a test of g [general intelligence]."

It's far from certain. For example, Harvard social scientist Robert Putnam has (tentatively and, I think, somewhat reluctantly) suggested the opposite. Here's an interview he did for National Public Radio:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1280266...

Money quote:

Social scientist Robert Putnam, probably best known for his work "Bowling Alone," on the decline of civic engagement, wanted to know does diversity have an impact on our sense of community? His recent finding suggest that diversity might not make us stronger. In fact, it might just be the opposite. It might make us less inclined to participate in civic life, at least in the short term.

I am firmly convinced that whoever believes this suffers from a fatal misconception.

Although it has clear political implications, the last part of the quote-within-a-quote ("They are not our equals…") is a scientific hypothesis. Does it strike you that people who take the opposite view of Einstein's—or who even consider its possibility—are treated as merely mistaken? As suffering from a misconception? No—they are treated with opprobrium, condemned with epithets (racist, fascist, etc.), and purged from civil society.

No reasonable person denies that the ancestors of slaves were mistreated, but as an explanation for group differences this is not mutually exclusive with cultural or biological factors that may have nothing to do with past oppression. Unfortunately, this subject is not treated as a scientific matter—it has become a political fight. Einstein appears to be "ahead of his time" not because of the triumph of his scientific arguments but because his political allies have been consistently advancing.

We have such labels [for heresy] today, of course, quite a lot of them, from the all-purpose "inappropriate" to the dreaded "divisive." In any period, it should be easy to figure out what such labels are, simply by looking at what people call ideas they disagree with besides untrue. When a politician says his opponent is mistaken, that's a straightforward criticism, but when he attacks a statement as "divisive" or "racially insensitive" instead of arguing that it's false, we should start paying attention.

Especially when paired with coded language like "historically marginalized users" (I'm pretty sure Sam isn't talking about Republicans here [2]), targeting "inappropriate comments" suggests that Hacker News it at risk of becoming a progressive echo-chamber. (Of course, there are those [3] who fret that HN is insufficiently progressive, but the same people probably think Harvard and the New York Times aren't progressive enough, either.) I can understand flagging uncivil comments, but "inappropriate" comments? I'm not even sure what that means. Please proceed with caution.

[1]: http://paulgraham.com/say.html

[2]: If you don't think tech is hostile to Republicans, you've probably never been a Republican in tech. Indeed, who's more underrepresented in tech: women, or Romney voters? (Note: I didn't vote for Romney, and I am not now nor have I ever been a member of the Republican party.)

[2]: See, e.g., https://twitter.com/shit_hn_says.

Since most people are neither historians nor philosophers, the fact that Hitler was on the extreme Right, and this Reaction is also on the extreme Right, raises some natural concerns. Again: the only way to face these concerns is to (a) provide a complete engineering explanation of Hitler, and (b) include an effective anti-Hitler device in our design.

—Mencius Moldbug, http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2009/09/gentle-...

In other words, an explicit design goal is to avoid Hitler-like outcomes (because, duh). Thus, the accusation that he's a "Hitler-reboot type of person" reflects either simple ignorance—which you can fix by doing a little reading—or outright mendacity—for which, I'm afraid, there may be no cure.

With this post, the foundation has been laid for a counterattack. One way to do it would be to publicly name and shame any credentialed journalist who uses the quote out of context. Don't just be "curious how fixable this sort of bogus meme is"—use your formidable influence and numerous supporters to attack those who attack you.

You don't think the average person would want to fly their own airplane if it were as easy as driving a car?

[1]: See, e.g., http://xkcd.com/1357/.

[2]: I suspect the underlying reason is that "free speech" was an effective weapon against the ancien régime, but with the enemy defeated it is no longer politically advantageous.

Suppose a conference has 50 speaking slots, 40 of which last year went to white men and 10 of which went to women and "people of color". This year, the organizers are working hard to increase "diversity". For a fixed number of speaking slots, the only way to do this is to decrease the number of white men, since white men—no matter their beliefs, background, hobbies, interests, etc.—don't count as "diverse". Thus, while the organizers' intent is probably not to tell white men that "we need fewer people like you", that message is an inevitable result of efforts to increase "diversity". (Of course, the organizers could also expand the number of speaking slots, but this only works for so long; eventually you'll hit a ceiling, at which point the game again becomes zero-sum.)

I know it's difficult to reconcile these results with the warm & fuzzy feelings you've been taught to associate with "diversity", but it's a mathematical fact: in most of the fields where it's applied, increasing "diversity" means decreasing the number of white men.

You really need to study the French Revolution. You think that because you're part of the current revolution that it won't eventually consume you as well? Consider Danton and Robespierre, a couple of the original "activists seeking equality" (or, rather, égalité). Danton once thought as you do; on his way to the guillotine he shouted at his former ally, "Robespierre, you will follow me! Your house will be razed! Salt will be sown there!" [1] Robespierre once thought as you do; he met the same fate as Danton less than four months later.

[1]: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Jacques_Danton, « Robespierre, tu me suis ! Ta maison sera rasée ! On y sèmera du sel ! », my translation

Dude, you're white—or, at least, you look white [1], which is all the ammunition a Social Justice Warrior needs to accuse you of White Privilege, no matter what your surname is. Realize that, if they ever come after you, it will be people like me who'll defend you.

[1]: From jamesaguilar's HN profile (no cyberstalking required): http://fb.me/james.aguilar

Twitter, Like Other Big Tech Companies, Comes Up Short on Diversity

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/07/23/twitter-like-other-...

Once you realize that words and phrases like "diversity" and "person of color" are attacks, you'll see the hostility everywhere. For example, when you tell a white man that your company, conference, meetup, etc., is trying to increase its "diversity"—and which one isn't?—what you are actually telling him is we need fewer people like you. And when you realize how many white men support "diversity", et al., you'll understand how bizarre the whole situation really is.

The solution, by the way, is to grow a thick skin, suck it up, and deal. Indeed, there's no other choice at present; in our current political climate, complaining often works wonders for politically favored grievance groups, but no one wants to hear complaints from white men. The political power needed to change this is immense—far greater than the current pathetic attempts to push back (Republicans, the Tea Party, etc.). Best learn to live with it. (I still find it fascinating, though, which is why I can't resist commenting on the phenomenon.)