I'm pretty disappointed in the article and the comments, and how like Reddit this website is turning out to be. I'm not going to make any judgements (though I really really am), but this same article has been posted to 10 subreddits, among them such gems as: SJWsAtWork, ThisIsNotASafeSpace, sjsucks, and sjwhate.
If you've progressed to the point where you can dismiss that guy without a thought, given his credentials and accomplishments, I submit to you that alarm bells ought to be going off in your head that you might have epistemologically closed yourself too far.
I'm not saying you're obligated to agree with him. I'm saying if you can't even engage with his arguments, it may be you that has the problem.
Not affiliated (except that I follow him on Twitter), but the author, Jonathan Haidt, is one of America's pre-eminent social psychologists. He is (or at least was) a liberal who has engaged in some very serious social psychology that gives massive insight into how people tick, especially where those ticks are related to or concerning political party affiliations.
If the idea is to dismiss him as an anti-SJW, or anti-free speech, then I would posit that you're simply inclined to dismiss no matter what. If the complaint is that his work is spreading to, or being adopted by the anti-SJW crowd, that's hardly his fault.
He may not be right, or he may not have done appropriate research, or he may be based (his own studies would suggest that it's inevitable that he is), but any dismissal predicated in part on that he's trolling is almost certainly knee-jerk.
My complaint was more to your second point, that "If the complaint is that his work is spreading to, or being adopted by the anti-SJW crowd, that's hardly his fault." I do see a problem with how one-sided the comments on the page (Heterodox Academy) are, and I do think that he should have stepped in. Then, when I came to Hacker News, I saw similar comments, and that was disheartening.
My distaste really came from comments like these, on the main page: "My white male sons are now 30 and 28. I’m so happy they escaped public high school relatively unscathed, but I could see the beginnings of the nonsense, led by a faculty of activist females and male eunuchs. Public schooling in this country may have begun with noble intent; kids are now truly being inculcated rather than educated." and "You state this like it is an article of faith that women would be totally rad in STEM if only men would stop holding them back. What makes this “sketchy”? There is an abundance of evidence that men and women are different and think differently. There is almost no evidence that women will change that position based on upbringing." and then on hnews itself: "#KillAll(White)Men is literally calling for ethnic / gender purging." (though it was downvoted).
It would be great to have a conversation with Dr. Haidt, but I was turned off by how both Heterodox and Hacker News turned into "amen" forums. There were two students who posted on Heterodox, and they had some interesting points, some of which disagreed with Dr. Haidt.
The commentators are self selecting - if they strongly agree, they comment, which they have. You're still trying to dismiss the article based on people having opinions different than yours, rather than critiquing the article itself.
Would you agree with me in saying that the comments are at least disappointing?
In terms of the article itself, I agreed with this part, "High schools and colleges that lack viewpoint diversity should make it their top priority" which seems like a pretty progressive viewpoint. Let's make sure everybody's voice is heard, and let's make sure that voices that are usually silenced outside the classroom have equal footing inside. But a sentence later, bam - "Schools that value freedom of thought should therefore actively seek out non-leftist faculty."
I'm not sure how exactly that flows, and that's what led me to be disappointed. Moreover, the idea that students and faculty are living in "fear" and we have to accommodate their fears is also just a tad hypocritical.
I also have a problem with victimhood culture being a thing, but that's a whole different argument.
> "Schools that value freedom of thought should therefore actively seek out non-leftist faculty."
Any argument that can be made in favor of cultural diversity should necessarily extend to left-right diversity as well.
FWIW, as I stated earlier, Haidt is leftist. Perhaps less so now than 7-8 years ago, but he is indeed a leftist, but one who appreciates that non-leftists are not evil, but who have different gradients of right/wrong, and different associations with which to be entrenched.
If you want children to have freedom of thought, then you should try to accurately present a range of ideas to students wherever possible. Students learn that 2+2=4, at least in some small part, because teachers say that it does. They later learn how and why 2+2=4, which mitigates the need for teacher acceptance as canon, but regardless, they learn that teachers ideas are to be given weight at the least, and that their expressions, even not necessarily strictly academic ones, are right.
Would you find fault with your children's education if every teacher were a Rush Limbaugh clone, or would you prefer them be exposed to a variety of thoughts and given the tools and knowledge to inform themselves and form their own viewpoints? If the answer is the latter, then you should reject the notion of your children being subscribed to any narrow ideological view, and adding non-leftist ideologies can only broaden it.
Edit: And yes, I would agree that if the comments are as you say they are, that is disappointing. I caught this article shortly after it was posted, and there weren't any other comments at the time, so I thankfully did not have those comments color my opinion of the article itself.
There are a lot more comments now than when you first looked, and I think the viewpoints expressed there go both ways now, so I don't see any issue there.
Non-leftist faculty would bring their own different worldview and perspective, increasing viewpoint diversity. I think it's a fairly logical statement.
And yes, we are accommodating their "fears". Rightfully so. They "fear" overzealous pushback for expressing their dissenting opinions. We should not accommodate those who "fear" opinions that differ from their own. That is not accommodation, that is censorship.
But the core of the article is about how there is a problem about polarized opinions: the core problems with the Mizzou, Yale and al. situations are not related to the opinions expressed themselves: the initial email was that opinion (in the specific case discussed in the article) and the administrator wanted to meet with that student to discuss it.
The problem is that the conversation is not about the concerns expressed in that email anymore, but about the use of one word in the response.
Is that the more important conversion you talk about wanting to have?
Glad I could accommodate. His research impacted me pretty profoundly too, quantifying with study a lot of what I'd felt, but been extremely uncertain of. I've since followed him around the net like a puppy consuming everything he puts out.
Since you enjoyed it so much, here are some more of his links:
How is the fact that the article has been posted to less than agreeable subreddits an indication of it's quality or the validity of the arguments and opinion in it?
The extreme of both sides of this debate, as illustrated in your post and in the actions of the most egregious student complaints at Yale, lack the nuance needed to find a healthy compromise. Those subreddits are "less than agreeable" because they advocate outlandish responses to perhaps slightly less outlandish beliefs.
> Those subreddits are "less than agreeable" because they advocate outlandish responses
Do they? What "outlandish responses" might those be? You're smearing by implication. What specifically do you find so "outlandish"? As far as I can tell, people making claims like yours think that creating a consistent set of rules for all, promoting free expression of all views, and countering group libel are thoughtcrimes. What's "disagreeable" is countering the idea that I might be guilty of something because of my gender and ancestry.
I don't have to do much "smearing by implication" when the upvoted comments speak for themselves. I think there are people that do this sort of "bullying" and unproductive rabble-rousing on both sides of the debate. I personally agree with the principles of "a consistent set of rules for all, etc.," but I don't think that the road to productive debate begins with including "hate," "sucks", "fuck them", etc., as a means to evoke an emotional response.
Specific instances of outlandishness:
SJWsAtWork -- low comment traffic, a bit more agreeable than the rest.
Perfectly appropriate informal language that means "You won the argument convincingly"
> It's sad that a bunch of raving lunatic SJWs can have this effect. Useless self-absorbed maniacs with no purpose in life but to pester those that have.
Many SJWs are, in fact, saving lunatics who have no purpose in life but to heckle and protest everything
> Fuck that piece of shit
Very common language when talking about public figures --- and I'd be willing to bet you used similar language about Bush, or Cameron, or Harper, or anyone else on the wrong side.
You're demonstrating exactly the kind of militarized hypersensitivity and craven hypocrisy that's turned colleges (and increasingly, workplaces) into zones for political indoctrination.
I'm not demanding hypersensitivity, I'm simply claiming that the path towards better debate is one where emotional invective is left off the table. If you can clearly explain why classifying people as "raving lunatics" adds insight on how to mediate the state of open ("free") college campus discourse, then I'll keep an open ear as to the value of such comments.
Also, I find it hard to believe that "fuck that piece of shit" was ever acceptable as college-level discourse. In fact, I think that even high school level L-D style debate shies away from that tone and temperament.
If you sincerely believe that using language that appeals to emotion, over logic and evidence, is a means to an end, then we probably will not get much further on this topic. (And I really don't see how this stance is hypocritical, or indoctrinated/pushing a doctrine in any way. It applies equally to both ends of the spectrum.)
> I'm not demanding hypersensitivity, I'm simply claiming that the path towards better debate is one where emotional invective is left off the table.
You're taking the standards of a debate hall, applying them to an internet community, and then using the predictable and inevitable discrepancy to call the internet community hateful when, in fact, that's the normal level of discourse for _any_ internet community.
> I really don't see how this stance is hypocritical
Do you excuse the other side's casual use of "kill all men"? What about explicit statements that I am literally unqualified to hold an opinion because of my chromosomal makeup and the color of my skin? Those come across as equally hateful to me.
Calling /r/SJWhate and /r/SJSucks hateful are calling spades, spades. I've said nothing about the moral compass of the movement as a whole. To go way back upthread, I was responding strictly to the point that "those subreddits are disagreeable" and I've evaluated that claim for all of the instances provided. However, If you want your points to be taken seriously, I'd suggest that you not make /r/SJWhate the cross that you hang on. Likewise, I would hope that people espousing pro-[women's/minority/abortion/etc.] rights viewpoints wouldn't make "kill all [men/cops/priests/etc.]" their rallying cry.
I wouldn't and don't excuse "kill all men," and I personally think that opinions should be evaluated on their own merits, and not by [x] feature possessed by they who come up with it. You're projecting these beliefs on to me because I've called out certain subreddits as being stomping grounds for emotionally charged, rather than fact based, content. I think both sides of this debate have salient points, but neither side benefits from the content coming out of /r/*hate subreddits.
Calling something or someone "disappointing" or "problematic" is how these people evade enumerating arguments while still attempting to establish themselves as intellectually superior to those they are criticizing. They assume to have the correct position and condescend to anyone who demurs.
Any sort of work should always be judged based on the actual content, not who likes it or where it has been shared.
To reduce this argument to absurdity, let's say I create a recipe for pecan pie. People love it, including the people at stormfront or other white power sites. Let's say I created this recipe back in the 1920s, and it happens to be Hitler's favorite pie.
Is there anything wrong with that pie?
People with extreme viewpoints will often like things that are a more moderate version of their own viewpoints. Just because you don't agree with the extremists doesn't mean that you should also disagree with the moderates.
You seem to claim that privilege will give you skill. It will not. You need sweat to gain skill.
Here is a quote from someone who actually became a Lamborghini tech[1]. It supports my statement that sweat is more important than privilege in acquiring skill, emphasis mine:
"i did need not go to any toher after school like audi etc. i got perfect attendence and didnt have a grade under 94. i always went to another school at night during my course in high performance engine building. just work hard and when you go to school work hard. more than half the kids sat thier all day talking about cars and didnt care about there grades. and the most important thing you need luck. haha to be honest. i am a technician here on the service side. you never know unless you try. every body told me i was nuts cause i sent about 60 resumes to every top dealer and performance shop that had something to do with lambo and ferrari and all these great companys, and i got it. just work hard and dont give up. my first day at work i got to work on and drive the veyron. it was insane "
I never claimed that you needed only privilege to gain skill, or that you didn't need sweat to gain skill. What I said was that even those who work hard were able to do so (able to work hard) because of some privilege that they had.
> "those who work hard were able to do so [...] because of some privilege they had."
Yes, this is where you are wrong. It is possible to work hard without starting from privilege. Try re-reading your statement in a week when you are less attached to it and see what you think:
Working hard does not require privilege.
Working hard is a choice every individual makes, every minute of the day.
It is possible to work hard with starting from privilege and then gain skill.
Skill is gained by hard work and is earned. It is not the result of privilege.
Skill is not the same as privilege. Skill is earned by sweat and can not be granted.
Privilege can grant many advantages, but it can never confer skill.
It's not even that any person is better than another... Classes at elite public schools like Berkeley, UCLA, UMich, etc. are more demanding than at any but a few private colleges.
And it isn't really fair to paint with even this broad a brush. The fact is that large public universities generally have a broader charter than small, elite private schools. This is a factor of how they're governed on the one hand (things like mandating x% of students are admitted from in-state, or enforcing affirmative action), and the fact that they [usually] have to provide a reasonably comprehensive set of study options on the other. I went to an "elite" state school and studied history & comparative religion. My wife went to a small private women's college (~750 students) and studied biology. The resources available at my uni, which has a $2b/yr operating budget, were orders of magnitude better than hers, but the education I received was far less personal and -- again speaking in generalities -- not as good as what she received with the small class sizes and personal tutelage from her professors.
I'm surprised at Winston and Franklin - I'm pretty confident that the bump/spike was due to Churchill and Roosevelt. Barack unfortunately was not in the list, so we can't compare that. But compare that to Joseph (Stalin), also a common name, which didn't experience a dip. But then again, neither did Adolph.
Is there a name that experienced a dip, and then became popular again, due to a significant person?
There really are many other apps that are useful besides just Google Maps though. It's great to have a phone that can play music for the gym, have an app like venmo for small transactions when you forget cash, or a portable e-reader for the bus or train, or uber for just-in-case situations... and many more. All of these aren't indispensable, but they just make life so much easier and better.
I definitely agree with you that removing social network apps is a great way to improve productivity a bit. And of course, if you don't need the apps listed above, then, yes, there isn't much point in paying extra for a smartphone. But please realize that many people are willing to pay for the significant convenience that a smartphone affords them.
Not using a smartphone just because of the battery life or durability though is silly. A specialized case will nearly solve both problems. There are privacy concerns and productivity concerns and price concerns, sure. But this is the future - and we should be trying to address those concerns and change them for the better, not fight smartphones altogether.
Why do you think that you would have to explain to your parents every single link you visit? Surely parents will use their discretion, just as they do with every other decision their child makes.
There is a difference between the government-citizen surveillance and parent-child surveillance.
The analogy between the spying government and the spying parent is a good one, and I am interested to hear how you say that it's different.
In both cases, a figure of authority (legitimate authority!) spys on you, pro[poradly for your own good. (Maybe even really for your own good! Just because the NSA's spying hasn't actually successfully foiled any terrorist plots yet doesn't mean that all spying programs of that sort are ineffectual...)
The one difference that I can see (and it's not an unimportant one) is that a good parent is open about what they are doing, and talks to the kid, gets the kids opinions. While organizations like the NSA try their hardest to make sure the citizenry don't even know that they're being spied on. This is a way in which a parent's spying might be not quite as bad.
However, remember that at least in theory the USA is a democracy, while a family is best described as a dictatorship. In the ideal world where the US government actually listened to its citizens and engaged in discourse with them, the USG would have by far the moral high ground over parents, even over parents who run a benevolent dictatorship where they actually listen the kid and make family policy accordingly, as a benevolent dictatorship still has certain problems when compared to a true democracy.
I very much agree. It's totally okay to be unprofessional by being yourself: if you truly feel strongly about a subject, then by all means showcase that opinion.
However, what made me a bit upset was the last line in the second-to-last paragraph: "... while still being ourselves." Is hating Nickelback really you/your team? So much that you exclude that particular music artist, and not anybody else?
Of course, the 'feature' is a silly easter egg, and no one needs to call each other names over it. Still, stuff like this makes your app seem incredibly childish (not just unprofessional). If it was a clever insertion of your team's opinions, then including something unprofessional is fine. A teenage-old joke however is not remotely clever or funny.
Disclaimer: I actually enjoy a few of Nickelback's songs.
Maps are just visualizations that focus on one attribute almost everything has: a spatial location. They don't need to show rivers or other physical features. A map of voting patterns for instance doesn't really have physical features. If you distort it to reflect population, you have an even looser map whose only tie to the world is the relative location of one area to another.
Physical maps like those that the USGS provide are just a tiny sample of the breadth of maps out there in the world. There are many, many really cool, non-traditional maps out there.
Who was the first Catholic president? Sure JFK did several other important things, and there were other events that transpired that made him famous.
Still, I think it's pretty important that Obama was at least partly black - it showed that it could be done, and I'm sure he inspired millions of people (black and otherwise).
Agreed. If the headline was "NSA refuses to comment on the Restore the Fourth protests", people would just comment that the NSA wasn't recognizing the protests, and that protesting would be useless, as the NSA would stick to their current attitude. I really don't know how the NSA could have responded better, besides actually promising to listen to the arguments of the protesters. It seems like a "damned if you do, damned if you don't"-type situation for the NSA. If one accepts that the NSA is /fundamentally/ flawed, which I doubt it is, nothing it says can change ones mind, including a public statement of it respecting people's rights to protest. The fact that it even has to release a statement though is good - it means that the NSA has realized that there is a backlash against their tactics.
I would like of course for the NSA to change some of its practices... but the amount of hate it is getting on HN is ridiculous.
