Sure, that's true. But being tall, attractive, and white, lets you get away with a lot of things were being under 30 and college educated doesn't matter as much.
For me, just growing out my hair and beard, which give away my ethnicity, result in drastically different treatment. Same for attractiveness, if I wear contact lenses and make an effort to look a certain way, life in general becomes significantly easier.
The comment opens with "I can share my individual perspective" There's no intent to negate other people's struggles at all.
Here's the hypothesis. If life is like an RPG, then whiteness / being male (in America) is a passive buff you get in character creation, like "+10 Social Points"
Truly, for many people, that still isn't enough to offset the many other debuffs life can bring.
The context of the original post is a hiring manager moralizing only considering candidates from underrepresented groups. I think many people have a deep sense of empathy for the struggles of people trying to climb the economic ladder and starting from a lesser point. I commend Apple for investing in the Propel center in Atlanta and creating a developer program in Detroit as creative ways to alleviate the social problem, but a hiring manager exclusively considering underrepresented minorities is discrimination and will lead to more racial resentment. If we are to work towards an inclusive future it means everyone is included and I really think we'd achieve more by working together than fighting. I think a lot more people have a deep sense of empathy than are given credit for. I'm concerned with the rent seeking behavior that I see and hear instead of a focus on wealth creation and growing the pie for everyone.
I think its great to give personal anecdotes, but I never want to judge an individual person from their group membership. There will definitely be similar experiences across members of a given group.
This is something I suspect is happening at a wide scale and will only create resentment. I like to see Apple investing in things like the Propel center in Atlanta and a new coding program for kids and teens in Detroit. Ibram Kendi asserts that Discrimination can create Equity. That may be true in the short term, but will it be a permanent solution?
The Propel Center in Atlanta and a new coding program for young developers in Detroit are innovative ways at alleviating the issue of tech teams not resembling overall population, discrimination is not a creative solution and will only ever create resentment (I doubt discrimination can create longlasting equity). I commend Apple for paving the way and showing what a solution can look like.
What about voices like James Lindsay and Christopher Rufo?
We are doubling down on this new era where we are experimenting with the thesis that Discrimination can and will create (long-lasting) Equity. With policies in place for decades like Affirmative Action in the US and BEE in South Africa I'm not convinced in the thesis. Corporations in the US have now went further with more Corporate Affirmative Action programs like Microsofts commitment to hire more Black employees which is being looked into by the Department of Labor as Discrimination (https://abcnews.go.com/Business/department-labor-investigati...). Microsoft is 4.5% Black employees so they are underrepresented as it is.
How do we have discussions on Race? Can Discrimination create Equity?
“The defining question is whether the discrimination is creating equity or inequity. If discrimination is creating equity, then it is antiracist. If discrimination is creating inequity, then it is racist.”
― Ibram X. Kendi, How to Be an Antiracist
I started a project during the lockdown in March and eventually want to launch and make it a self-sustaining side project. I recently filed paperwork to form an LLC (my first) in anticipation of launching and perhaps trying my hand at fundraising on Kickstarter or elsewhere.
The project is called Learn with Grok (https://github.com/GrokApp/learn-with-grok) and is a language learning application. Unlike existing applications, Grok is focused on people who have already studied a foreign language for years and are past beginner level content. Learn with Grok is focused on Critical Reading Skills and will tailor short story content to you at your proficiency level after taking a placement test. The more you read and do well on the quiz at the end of the short story, the more difficult content you can work towards to achieve mastery (or Grok!) a new language. You can hear what sentences sound like and see a translation on the spot if you struggle comprehending a sentence. Challenge yourself with a little content everyday.
This project is pre-launch and my first real try at creating a business. I work full-time and work on this nights and weekends while also balancing a machine learning grad program.
While I agree with this, I think its important to keep in mind that students right out of college and who have not taken part in our society's big discussion on how to address racial/gender inequality and working towards equal proportion may not speak with the greatest of nuance. Give room for people to speak on their authentic experience (without trying to feel any personal offense) and give this forum to people who identify on any side of the political aisle. I happen to take the opinion that this so-called "Anti-Racist" movement happens to espouse quite a few policies that are discriminatory. Its not to say that some of their efforts are bad, but there needs to be room for critique without accusations of harboring racial resentment. The lack of room of express is creating resentment IMO.
>> The lack of room of express is creating resentment IMO.
Some say the election of Donald Trump is in part due to the backlash against the intolerance of the left. He definitely does not say things to be "politically correct".
I think the whole DEI movement is a great example. It's easy to say "we should hire a POC or woman for this position", it's not ok to say "we should not hire based on gender or race".
The "E" means "Equity". I still don't know exactly what this means but I know it's not supposed to mean Equality. I think it infers affirmative action. I think it's one of those terms that's vague by design.
It’s equity as in “equity in your house” equity. Many people have been denied access to equity in “the system” and if the disenfranchised have skin in the game then this stabilizes the system.
It is similar to policies that made access to home ownership easier (for some) because having a mortgage (and equity) is implicit buy into the system which lowers the likelihood that you’ll fight against it.
"Good" discrimination, a worldview that requires racial essentialism and stereotypes.
Reduce everyone to their immutable attributes and tailor your behavior accordingly.
Since in the minds of social justice people, one group is unconditionally placed below another group (think of the vocabulary they use when they say "the work is never done"), we must actively discriminate to fix things.
Do other countries track this metric as well? I'd be curious to study worldwide trends in the quality of work and study the efficacy of policy in trying to reverse this trend.
I'm of the opinion that the future of work is focused on knowledge and creativity, but my worry is that that will leave out a big swath of people. Is Truck Driving an occupation that people want to do, or would freeing up people to do other things be a greater goal? Truck driving is a hazardous occupation, but it also provides opportunity for people that otherwise may have limited opportunity. There will surely be a transition period, but how can we create a large number of opportunities to ensure people are prepared for an economy with more robotics and automation? Maybe space ship building will employ a vast number of people, maybe indoor farming will provide new opportunities in an urban setting and maybe there will be new opportunities with implementing new forms of energy and transportation. I certainly think if you take a long term view the world it has trended towards solving many problems over the course of centuries, but we do need to factor the human element in or there will be another Luddite movement.
Idk what Facebook's decision will yield and I want a healthier discourse more than anyone else. The thing I would like to add to the conversation is that I think its important to know what people like Nick Cannon think or DeSean Jackson and Louis Farrakhan. Many prominent celebrities are followers like Snoop Dogg and P. Diddy.
When Nick Cannon came on air and said horrible things he got challenged and presumably (at least I hope), understands how his comments came off.
The main battle online is disinformation from not genuine sources. Many Holocaust deniers fit this bill and should be removed. That being said, there also needs to be room to discuss history and try to understand the events that led up to historical atrocities and I really want to know what the best way is to facilitate healthy discourse. I think the current method of upvoting and downvoting on the internet leads to an inorganic and not a serendipitous experience.
NYT and WSJ have sections for Featured Comments in an effort to put insightful comments at the top and eliminate recency bias. I just want to do anything to fight the tribalism happening in the USA.
I deactivated my account of 13 years, 4 weeks ago. As far as I'm concerned, its a propaganda machine the Soviets only could have dreamt of.
Its a shame because I got to briefly meet Alexis Ohanian in person and he's a great guy. I remember when redditors used to speak of the hivemind, but you don't hear about it anymore.
