Tarnstellung
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User ID: 553
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
Numbered lists don't seem to work in quotes:
- We
- Love
- Zorba
Strangely, it works in the preview when editing or first posting, but not when it's actually posted.
Edit:
- We
- Love
- Zorba
Same with bulleted lists. It works in the preview when editing or first posting, but not when it's actually posted.
I had a good discussion regarding the case of Sam Brinton, buried deep in last week's thread. I am reposting here so that more people can see it and possibly participate. I hope this is appropriate and doesn't constitute self-promotion.
I wrote:
What would even constitute evidence that Brinton was hired based solely or primarily on his identity? He has a master's degree in the relevant field (from MIT, though other comments are telling me that doesn't really matter) and has co-authored several research papers. To me it looks like he's about as qualified as anyone.
@Astranagant replied:
Well this is the problem with identity hiring, isn't it? How does anyone know you didn't get the edge over your competitors because of that? Unless he was literally the only applicant for the job, I'd find it hard to swallow that the topic of his... presentation... never came up. Meaning the department most likely consciously chose him, and whether this is in spite of or because of his affectations would largely come down to whether he was wildly head-and-shoulders better than his competition. Employers will overlook some affectation for a genuine rockstar employee, but there's a limit proportionate to how irreplaceable you are.
So either Brinton is hyper-competent and got the job in spite of his affectations, which according to the rest of the thread -- and your own comment "as qualified as anyone" -- his education history and performance on the job doesn't bear out. So if it's not that, can we then assume that the affectations served the purpose of the administration somehow? This is a government job, it's impossible... alright, improbable to believe they didn't do their due diligence.
To which I replied:
If the employer has whittled down the list of applicants to a group of people with similar qualifications, and more detailed information that might help the decision is impossible or infeasible to attain, then the choice of whom to hire will be arbitrary. In this case, I don't see how hiring Brinton because of his unusual presentation is any worse than rolling a die or flipping a coin to make the final choice.
To me, the phrase "hired for your identity" implies that standards have been lowered and the candidate was picked over someone more qualified but with a less-favoured identity. As far as I can tell, this is not true in Brinton's case.
One form of affirmative action that I've heard about is that, when two or more candidates appear to be equally qualified, and one belongs to a historically marginalized group, that candidate should be chosen. As I said above, when it comes down to this kind of decision, the choice is arbitrary, and I don't see any harm in the affirmative action method. Indeed, if the group to which the candidate belongs really does face some kind of disadvantage, picking them is the rational choice for the self-interested employer, as it indicates that the candidate has achieved the same qualifications despite more difficult circumstances. Of course, simply considering a few categories such as race and gender can never provide the full picture: for example, among two candidates there may be a woman from a rich family and a man whose family was poor growing up; overall, the man had it worse, but an application generally includes gender but not family circumstances, so applying the method here would lead to the wrong choice. It is just a heuristic, and no heuristic is perfect, but as I said, at some point acquiring more information about the candidates becomes impossible or infeasible; except for some very specific positions, an employer won't hire a personal investigator to carefully investigate the candidate's past: this is where heuristics come in.
The above method is very different from lowered standards for different groups, or straight-up quotas, both of which I vehemently oppose. Finally, it must be noted that:
- In the real world, "historically marginalized" groups have been granted various advantages, which might reduce the method's accuracy.
- Situations where several candidates are, in fact, equally qualified, and only one belongs to a historically marginalized group, are not actually that common.
- The heuristic requires that the candidates' identity not be considered until the final choice: a woman must be just as good as a man, without considering the fact that she is a woman. Otherwise, we would be adjusting for identity twice, which would result in a lower standard for women.
If the employer has whittled down the list of applicants to a group of people with similar qualifications, and more detailed information that might help the decision is impossible or infeasible to attain, then the choice of whom to hire will be arbitrary. In this case, I don't see how hiring Brinton because of his unusual presentation is any worse than rolling a die or flipping a coin to make the final choice.
To me, the phrase "hired for your identity" implies that standards have been lowered and the candidate was picked over someone more qualified but with a less-favoured identity. As far as I can tell, this is not true in Brinton's case.
One form of affirmative action that I've heard about is that, when two or more candidates appear to be equally qualified, and one belongs to a historically marginalized group, that candidate should be chosen. As I said above, when it comes down to this kind of decision, the choice is arbitrary, and I don't see any harm in the affirmative action method. Indeed, if the group to which the candidate belongs really does face some kind of disadvantage, picking them is the rational choice for the self-interested employer, as it indicates that the candidate has achieved the same qualifications despite more difficult circumstances. Of course, simply considering a few categories such as race and gender can never provide the full picture: for example, among two candidates there may be a woman from a rich family and a man whose family was poor growing up; overall, the man had it worse, but an application generally includes gender but not family circumstances, so applying the method here would lead to the wrong choice. It is just a heuristic, and no heuristic is perfect, but as I said, at some point acquiring more information about the candidates becomes impossible or infeasible; except for some very specific positions, an employer won't hire a personal investigator to carefully investigate the candidate's past: this is where heuristics come in.
The above method is very different from lowered standards for different groups, or straight-up quotas, both of which I vehemently oppose. Finally, it must be noted that:
-
In the real world, "historically marginalized" groups have been granted various advantages, which might reduce the method's accuracy.
-
Situations where several candidates are, in fact, equally qualified, and only one belongs to a historically marginalized group, are not actually that common.
-
The heuristic requires that the candidates' identity not be considered until the final choice: a woman must be just as good as a man, without considering the fact that she is a woman. Otherwise, we would be adjusting for identity twice, which would result in a lower standard for women.
Edit: Sorry for the off-topic wall of text. I have reposted the comment in this week's culture war thread so that more people can see it. If you want to reply, perhaps it would be better to do it there.
>phoneposting
Edit: Oops, just noticed you said there are non-mobile OLED displays. My bad. Anyway, would it be too much to have a "dark", renamed from "reddit", and "OLED" or "superdark" or something, renamed from "dark"? Or perhaps rename "reddit" to "light dark"? Again, I am very biased, but "reddit" is the most popular non-default theme.
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
I am one of the people using "reddit". It actually doesn't resemble Reddit very much; it's just a nice theme: dark, but not too dark like the actual "dark" theme. (The background on "dark" is apparently literally #000000, which no one ever does!) It seems "midnight" is basically just "reddit" but worse (the contrast is terrible), so if you combine the two, "reddit" is the de facto dark theme and therefore it should, in my totally unbiased opinion, become the official dark theme.
The "transparent" theme has something to do with custom backgrounds, which are non-functional, so I think you can just remove it completely. I can't even get it to work, no idea how that one person did it.
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
What would even constitute evidence that Brinton was hired based solely or primarily on his identity? He has a master's degree in the relevant field (from MIT, though other comments are telling me that doesn't really matter) and has co-authored several research papers. To me it looks like he's about as qualified as anyone.
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
So that your predilections may not have been accepted in the past gives the information that something in you is broken from that equilibrium, and it might not have a monotonic effect, i.e., the biological, DNA, hormonal,etc or cultural, etc driver that is the root cause of the downstream behavioural manifestation may do other things too that we can't see. Or it is posisble that the non conventional behavior has second or higher order negative consequences in our environment thst wr are unaware of. All we know is that it is at best 50/50 beneficial to you, and might be actually very bad for us.
Or it is possible – and should be the default assumption unless you're some kind of ultra-reactionary who thinks the world has only got worse since the 18th century – that people in the past had irrational, unfounded, capricious prejudices, the elimination of which has resulted in a better society for everyone. With this corrected prior, you would have arrived at a very different probability from 50/50.
Yes, sometimes the fence is there for a good reason, but in many cases it's only there because if anyone suggests removing it, he'll get laughed at or ostracized or "all citizens [will] unite to kill that person".
I really don't understand this impulse, apparently relatively common on TheMotte, whenever someone suggests that some widespread belief or practice is irrational and arbitrary, to try to find a brain-genius-tier explanation for why it actually makes perfect sense. OK, fine, maybe religion is so universal because, as atheists fail to understand, it keeps society stable and is a good mechanism to promote pro-social norms and strengthen communal ties, and so forth; but why must a mammal both chew cud and have cloven hooves to be edible? Why is music haram? Why is a beaver a fish during Lent?
Sorry, but sometimes something that seems silly at first glance is still silly after a careful analysis that considers the possibility of higher-order effects and the broader historical and social context.
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
You seem very certain about a claim for which no evidence exists. In fact, no evidence can exist, because if it did, it would mean the offences had come to light.
Edit: Nor can the claim be falsified, since it's always possible that something did happen and it's being covered up.
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
Are you familiar with the CDC's history regarding gun violence research, going back to the 90's? That was the "decades of history", and you don't seem to be aware of it at all.
Are you suggesting that the CDC has a history of political bias on this topic? It is my understanding that, between 1996 and 2018, the CDC was effectively banned from doing any gun violence research at all.
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
Has anyone tried using AI to fight e-mail scammers, by keeping them occupied and wasting their time? Anyone anywhere on the internet, I mean, not just people here.
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
In terms of leaving a legacy, spreading your memes is better than spreading your genes. Is Andrew Carnegie remembered for his children or for the various universities, charities and other organizations he founded?
But if the goal is to spread your genes, a billionaire today could easily have hundreds of children using IVF. Though I imagine he wouldn't be a very good parent.
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
Would people pay for the right to suspend people they don’t like?
I think rdrama.net has a feature along those lines. See also: Reddit Mold.
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
Do you have a link to the paper? I want to know if they controlled for population density, which I imagine would be a major confounder.
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
You'd have to rewire the parts of the brain that do sexual pleasure so you're not hooking up a vagina to the penis-pleasure part of the brain. There'd probably still be some male part of you that wants to penetrate women, you'd have to change that too.
Do all (cisgender) men want to penetrate women?
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
I would be worried about violence if I got into an altercation with Buck Angel.
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
A large part of the anti-trans side, such as the religious people you mentioned, wouldn't accept Jane as a woman even if we had magical-level medical technology.
As for those who do accept that medical technology currently cannot make Jane "actually a woman", but it might be able to do so in the future – and I am assuming you belong to this group – I have to ask: what is a woman? What medical procedure would Jane need to "actually" become a woman?
Is it about external appearance? In that case, Jane can already easily get very convincing breasts, and it is my understanding that a convincing neovagina can also be created, though this is more complicated than breasts. The neovagina wouldn't be able to provide lubrication for sex, but we're talking about appearance.
Is it about reproduction? Medicine isn't very close to allowing trans women to get pregnant, but if this is needed for a woman to be "actually a woman", then plenty of cisgender women who are unable to get pregnant would also be excluded.
Is it about genetics and chromosomes? Now we get into various intersex conditions, and again we risk excluding cisgender women, or even including cisgender men.
P.S. Note the complete absence of trans men in your comment, and their near-total absence in the broader debate. To me this indicates that concerns about trans women are not fundamentally rational, but that they are the result of some sort of deep-seated emotional concern about purity, or about women's safety (the latter indicative of a misandrist view that men are inherently dangerous). If there are people here who believe trans men aren't actually men, I kindly ask that they also provide the criteria for distinguishing men from non-men.
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
Jails exist for criminals.
So do fines. And lethal injections.
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
Would someone who steals a couple of suitcases generally receive a prison sentence?
Should someone who steals a couple of suitcases – in general – receive a prison sentence? Maybe if it was a repeat offence, but for the first conviction, it seems excessive.
In a previous comment, you asserted that Manning leaked the documents because she wanted to "flee from" or "subvert" her "true identity". The comment initially claimed Manning had fled to Russia; when someone pointed out that this was false, that it was in fact Edward Snowden (a cis-het man, it may be worth pointing out) who had moved to Russia, you removed the claim from your comment, but apparently did not update your overall theory. A comment of mine citing Manning's testimony regarding her motivation for spying, which contradicted your theory, was likewise ignored.
This entire theory of trans people doing something bad because they want to "transgress their identity" is based on a handful of cherrypicked examples. I could just as easily pick a bunch of convicted spies to make the exact opposite argument. Consider Jonathan Pollard, one of the most notorious cases of espionage in US history. He was a Jewish-American, who, by supplying classified information to Israel, was staying true to his Jewish identity and refusing to sell out and assimilate. Or Steven John Lalas, a Greek-American who supplied classified information to Greece. Even after being convicted, both were proud of what they did, which was standing up for people belonging to their identity group.
All three of your examples, far from being "beyond reasonable doubt", are in fact based entirely on unfounded speculation and cherrrypicking.
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
I didn't know W was woke. Was the dot-com bubble also the fault of the federal government?
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
The point is that it's not zero-sum. If the Chinese had never come to Malaysia, the Malays wouldn't have been any better off.
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
Do doctors in Germany have "customers"?
Tarnstellung
2yr ago
As a sidebar, one of the things that fans of immigration might need to come to grips with is that the modern world of cheap air travel, global telecommunications and electronic banking makes it much, much easier for immigrants to avoid assimilating into their new country and put down roots there. They can still talk to their friends and family back home every day, travel back home once a year at least, and send them whatever is left of their income after covering their living expenses, invalidating my claim in the first paragraph about immigrants being invested in and benefiting their new country of residence. This is radically different from the immigration of the 1800s that American history textbooks look back upon so favorably.
The second and later generations tend to assimilate much more.
I was going to say that candidate 2's poor hygiene makes him less qualified, in the broad sense, but then you did it for me! Our disagreement here seems to be on how bad not bathing is as compared to wearing unconventional clothing.
I think the convention that men mustn't wear dresses is arbitrary and pointless and a man should be allowed to wear a dress if he so wishes. Very dress-like garments have been normal for men to wear in many cultures, so there is nothing inherently wrong with it. Even if you consider it ugly, that's just a personal preference; I consider leather jackets ugly, yet I don't think this justifies discrimination against people who like wearing them. Brinton is only inconveniencing people if they let themselves be inconvenienced, like a wokeist who chooses to be offended at everything.
Poor hygiene, however, should not be socially accepted, in my opinion. Of course that depends on what "poor hygiene" is: someone may say that, yes, poor hygiene should be unacceptable but only bathing once a month isn't poor hygiene. For the purpose of this discussion, I am using "poor hygiene" to refer specifically to what candidate 2 is doing.
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