Sure, but the reality is that such conditions do interfere with the potential of academic success, as much as proponents of equity like to argue otherwise. If I had a severe brain injury as a child, or my mom drank and did a ton of drugs while pregnant with me, or any number of other reasons, I will probably be far less academically successful than in the counterfactual reality where I didn't get a brick dropped on my head as a child.
Equality proponents argue that brick-on-head and no-brick-on-head should be judged by the same standards. Equity proponents argue that brick-on-head should be given advantages over no-brick-on-head to make them obtain substantially similar educational outcomes.
Once again, from your own link:
>Equity recognizes this uneven playing field and aims to take extra measures by giving those in need more than those who are not. Equity aims to achieve equal outcomes for groups, also called substantive equality. Equity aims to ensure that everyone's lifestyle is equal, even if that requires unequal distribution of access and goods.
>In your scenarios, equity proponents would tend to advocate for things like extra testing time, access to tutoring, etc.
So you claim, but in reality proponents of equity instituted a system that gave Black students a roughly 450 point advantage over Asian students on the SAT:
Note that the NYT, in their pure, non-partisan spirit of fairness and equity, somehow found a way to describe this as an unfair advantage for White students.
> somehow found a way to describe this as an unfair advantage for White students
Make up your mind? If their having to score higher than Black students is unfair, how is "Asian-Americans had to score 140 points higher on their SATs than whites" not also unfair?
What if raw SAT score doesn't perfectly reflect lifelong achievement? As I noted elsewhere in the thread, wealth (translated to parenting time, tutoring access, better schools, etc.) can help do better on the SAT. How does one account for that?
I didn't say it was fair, I was pointing out the NYT being racially biased (as per usual). Imagine at a school that Jenny gets 10 cookies from the teacher, Timmy gets 3, and Johnny gets two. Billy sees all this, but he has a crush on Jenny, so when he tells everyone on the playground about it he doesn't say "Jenny got way more cookies than Johnny, that's so unfair!" Instead he says "Timmy got more cookies than Johnny, that's so unfair!". That's the ridiculousness that I'm pointing out here.
>What if raw SAT score doesn't perfectly reflect lifelong achievement?
It was never intended to?
>How does one account for that?
It's impossible to account for everything. As much as the thinkers of the Enlightenment and their successors have attempted to quantify and measure everything, it's simply not possible in reality. If someone could devise a better means of measurement than current standardized tests like the SAT and ACT, I would happily welcome them.
But one thing is pretty clear and certain: the SAT is a far better measure of mathematical aptitude that high school grades, and until better measures can be found and implemented I fully support continuing to use it for college admissions and college math placement.
>But we apparently agree that "somehow found a way to describe this as an unfair advantage for White students" is actually accurate on their part?
I agree that Whites also got an unfair advantage over Asians in college admissions, yes (I haven't kept up with the state of things since some recentish supreme court decisions so I don't know if this is actually still the case).
>Then we shouldn't use it as such.
It isn't used as such. It's used to measure a student's current aptitude in math and English, hence the discontinuation of its use in California leading to the poor math outcomes for students described in the article this entire thread is about.
> Equity proponents argue that brick-on-head should be given advantages over no-brick-on-head to make them obtain substantially similar educational outcomes.
The problem is that the solution that they're proposing is to force _everyone_ to have that brick-on-head. With maybe two or three bricks for especially "advantaged" categories.
> Sure, but the reality is that such conditions do interfere with the potential of academic success, as much as proponents of equity like to argue otherwise.
This is a bizarre claim in the second clause. Proponents of equity do recognize that various conditions impact academic potential; otherwise, they wouldn’t attempt to ameliorate them.
You even quoted, “Equity recognizes this uneven playing field. . .” so where did “. . . as much as proponents of equity like to argue otherwise,” even come from?
The person I was replying to quoted the article saying "conditions should not interfere", my point was that they do interfere, and will continue to interfere, in spite of all the efforts and hands on the scale and discrimination that equity proponents try to implement. Equity fundamentally arises from a more or less "blank-slatist" view of humans, which is why it leads to such insane outcomes when it comes into contact with reality.
> The person I was replying to quoted the article saying "conditions should not interfere", my point was that they do interfere, and will continue to interfere, in spite of all the efforts and hands on the scale and discrimination that equity proponents try to implement.
So? Name a social intervention that did achieve all its goals.
> Equity fundamentally arises from a more or less "blank-slatist" view of humans
Digging up a straw man from the 17th century is not particularly persuasive.
>So? Name a social intervention that did achieve all its goals.
That's not my argument though? In any case, I believe that many of the ideas that have been proposed (and actually implemented) by proponents of equity aren't just failing to meet their goals, I believe they are actively harmful to them (and to the health of society as a whole).
>Digging up a straw man from the 17th century is not particularly persuasive.
Blank slatism in one form or another goes all the way back to the Greeks. In any case, belief in blank slatism is effectively a prerequisite for believing in one of the primary standards used by equity proponents to judge if a system is equitable or not: disparate impact. You can't a priori assume that disparate impact is proof of discrimination unless you also discount inherent differences in human capability and performance.
> So? Name a social intervention that did achieve all its goals.
This is a complete non-sequitur.
> Digging up a straw man from the 17th century is not particularly persuasive.
It makes no sense whatsoever to refer to a strawman. Locke's conception (presumably this is what you mean if you say "from the 17th century") is obviously not what's being argued against here, since in fact the opposition to these "equity" policies generally comes from classical liberals. Rather, this is about ascribing the much more recent view of thinkers such as Michael Howe to the "equity" proponents, and rejecting it in favour of what actual scientific research demonstrates (qv. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_rasa#Psychology_and_neu...).
That is to say: the claim presented is that equal opportunity will lead to equal outcome due to an inherently equal starting point, and that is simply false. Genetic propensities to all sorts of things are readily proven (and so is the heritability of those propensities); but even identical twins could end up with unequal outcomes through differences in individual psychology (motivations, interests, etc.) or even just sheer luck.
It is absolutely not a strawman that "equity proponents" assert this obviously false claim. We know this because of quotes like the one starting off the discussion. Again:
> Equity recognizes this uneven playing field and aims to take extra measures by giving those in need more than those who are not. Equity aims to achieve equal outcomes for groups, also called substantive equality. Equity aims to ensure that everyone's lifestyle is equal, even if that requires unequal distribution of access and goods.
If you aim to achieve equal outcomes, and you understand that equal opportunities do not and cannot produce equal outcomes, then you cannot logically claim to endorse equal opportunities. The pursuit of your goals, and your measurement of success, will necessarily entail abandonment of equal opportunity.
The claim behind
> Equity aims to ensure that everyone's lifestyle is equal, even if that requires unequal distribution of access and goods.
is "Unequal distribution of access and goods is justified by a result of equal lifestyles".
The reason there is an argument is because of the assertion:
> > the public believe that we should push for equal outcomes ("equity") over equal opportunity (usually referred to as simply "equality")
> This is the direct inverse of what's actually asserted by people talking about equity.
In other words: "Actually, people talking about equity believe that we should push for equal opportunity over equal outcomes".
The only logical way to not recognize the immediate and obvious contradiction is to suppose that these are not actually separate goals. But the equity proponents also have no excuse for such an obviously false supposition.
That's exactly the point. Top schools are looking for outlier intellectual talent, but the egalitarian approach (high school grade inflation plus weakening of standardized testing) smooths the differences and makes it harder for them to admit the right people.
The visible result has been the weakening of these institutions. Do also observe that this is recursive — as these institutions have lowered their standards over decades, the people who go through them and end up leading them are weaker, too.
We're talking about the California state education system here. They do not have the option to restrict the provision of their services to a tiny elite. The concerns of "top schools" absorbs altogether too much oxygen.
IMHO, California state higher education is setup to be tiered. UC > CSU > Community Colleges. If UC is getting a lot of STEM students that need remedial math, I think something has gone wrong. Those students might be better served by getting their math needs met at a community college and transfering to UC later.
For one, why pay UC prices for remedial math? For two, community college has a lot more sections of remedial math and more experience teaching it.
If you're in a degree that doesn't need much math, taking remedial math at UC is probably fine; but all the STEM degrees want at least the full calculus series (afaik).
Remedial math for STEM students at CSU is probably in the middle. You still don't really want a lot of students in that group, when they could be better served at community college ... but CSU should also be more prepared for it.
Agreed. Professional sports are the closest institution that society has to a meritocracy. Highly competitive, public, obsessively measured and analyzed. A tenth of a second faster sprint time might be more valuable than even a top-tier socioeconomic background.
Sure, those are some good counterexamples: both sons of professional athletes. And there are plenty of others.
On the other hand, we have: Allen Iverson, Larry Bird, Shaquille O'Neal, Carmelo Anthony, Michael Vick, Bo Jackson, Jackie Robinson, Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Fernando Valenzuela, Albert Pujols, Jim Thorpe, ...
Oh, and LeBron James himself!
So my view is that people of both rich and poor upbringings have a good chance in the sports world these days, at least for those sports where the necessary gear is relatively cheap.
Perhaps I should have instead said "is that still happening at meaningful rates".
LeBron James is an interesting example. Per wiki:
> Realizing that her son would be better off in a more stable family environment, Gloria allowed him to move in with the family of Frank Walker, a local youth football coach who introduced James to basketball when he was nine years old.
and then later he went to a fancy private high school (whose wikipedia page has many notable alumni, all athletes).
So while "from poverty" may be technically accurate, I don't know if I'd count it given all his opportunities later in childhood.
Times have changed. Due to the rise of expensive youth travel club sports leagues I suspect we will see fewer poor children turn professional. There will always be a few outliers but if you don't have access to top coaching and extra competitive playing time prior to college then you're really at a disadvantage.
In most modern societies, we regulate all sorts of things that people would otherwise willingly do to their own detriment. We ban drugs; we have labor laws; we have usury laws; we require seatbelts; we have securities regulations; etc. (Notably, until very recently, this included most forms of gambling.)
So the mere fact that losers are voluntary does not, IMO, make the situation good.
all of those things you mentioned have damages sustained on third parties that did not have consent. And tbh, my opinion is that the banning of drugs have done more harm than not banning it (but instead, allow it to be sold safely and cheaply).
Gambling to me, is like that. Banning it doesn't stop it, and it has barely any harm other than to the person who over-indulge. Regulating it is a good idea - where regulating means there's oversight on cheating, on the platform's governance etc.
Gambling addiction has impacts beyond the person gambling, because we live in a society. They might gamble away their kid's college fund, lose their house, or resort to stealing money from family members. When they take out loans that they default on, it impacts the balls and raises costs for everyone else.
All of these are very similar to secondary and societal effects of hard drug addiction. It should at the very least be regulated. And most being is worthless from an information standpoint, so isn't providing any societal upside - a man doesn't hurt us. The world was strictly better before we had rampant gambling everywhere.
> all of those things you mentioned have damages sustained on third parties that did not have consent.
The family that suddenly finds themselves homeless because one parent decided to go deep into debt to fuel their gambling addiction sure seems to have "damages sustained on third parties that did not have consent."
> It used to be that they only had to say no to more junior engineers’ handwritten PRs, but now they have to say no to a barrage of AI-generated code, some of it generated by managers and VPs who are politically difficult to say no to.
Holy cow. I worked at a big tech firm but left the industry prior to the emergence of InstructGPT et al., so I haven't experienced LLM code generation from the inside. Is this really happening -- upper managers and VPs proposing code changes they generated with LLMs? I don't think I'd survive.
Yes, this is happening. A friend of mine was telling me about a 25k LoC PR that was submitted by a product manager that he had to content with. And the politics are real - you can't just be like "no", but it's pretty tough to meaningfully review a 25k line PR, let alone from someone who knows fuck all about what they're doing and can't answer questions you might have.
I skimmed that PR briefly and it appears a) not to be slop and b) to be very reviewable as its structured as a series of small commits that each make one small change. This is far from the sort of management PR I'd fear.
Facebook, Discord, and Twitter may sell "your data", but when they do, it's likely by selling distillations of their internal databases. (Or, of course, through vulnerabilities like the one the Cambridge Analytica Facebook app used.)
Small-ball Web sites like KGO, on the other hand, just get proposals from data aggregators to plop a snippet of HTML/JS on their site, and they get money for it. There's no control on the number of quality of them.
Big sites can't do that because they'd risk introducing serious vulnerabilities that would compromise accounts. No one has a KGO "account" to compromise. And the amount of revenue they'd provide is likely peanuts to someone like Facebook.
You can do that with iPhone, too, using the (poorly named) "USB Camera Adapter", which splits out a USB type-A jack. (I assume you need a similar adapter on most Android phones, too, since I've never seen one with a type-A jack built in.)
I don't think so. I think usb-c based phones don't need any type of active adapter.
For example, on usb-c iphones, I can plug my camera with a c-to-c cable in mass storage mode and it shows up. So I expect a dumb a-to-c adapter would work. On my lightning-based iphone, a c-to-lightning cable doesn't work.
I'd assume it's the same for androids and keyboards.
reminds me the time i had an iPhone SE (1° gen) and i could play 1-3 minutes of garageband with my Korg keyboard using it and then it stopped saying my (adapter) wasn't offcial :) the official gadget in Brazil was > 10 times more expensive than the cheap copies
TRUMP: "When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best -- they're not sending you [points at unidentified people off-camera] -- they're not sending you -- they're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs; they're bringing crime; they're rapists and some, I assume, are good people."
There is no apparent indication in that video that the people he's pointing at are Mexican.
Among other issues, countries are not generally 'sending people' to immigrate to other countries. Most countries are in general keen to avoid emigration.
>There is no apparent indication in that video that the people he's pointing at are Mexican.
But it seems like the most natural interpretation.
The most obvious, good-faith interpretation of this quote is that Mexico has a mix of good and bad people, like every country, and the ones immigrating illegally tend to be bad. The fact that the media didn't even consider this common-sense interpretation contributed a lot to Trump's popularity.
TRUMP: "They're all crooks. The Somalians are -- what they've done to Minnesota -- the Somalians. They're crooked as hell. Ilhan Omar. Crooked as hell. They're all crooks. And we got 'em."
I wonder if that type of article would exist if they had made good brewery decisions before launching the commercials. I mean they aren't great commercials, but I don't know I'd compare them to the unabomber or call it the brand killer. The brand was already killed, the commercials just weren't great.
If the brand had taken off and recovered the advertisers would claim "daring and powerful commercials that saved the brand" - the one thing they can't admit is that advertising isn't terribly effective.
> Equity is equality of outcome for all subgroups in society.
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