Hey! First time poster here. Please be critical.
I saw this article last week and am not sure how to think about it. https://www.wsj.com/articles/to-increase-equity-school-districts-eliminate-honors-classes-d5985dee
The TL;DR is that honors classes in this subset of all honors classes had a clear bias in terms of racial makeup relative to baseline. So they stopped offering honors classes.
On the one hand this seems super effective— with a strategy like this maybe in a generation or so when they start offering honors classes again there might be less bias.
On the other hand my intuition says that in general it’s okay to allow students to self-select (or students and whoever is telling them what to do) and decide how much schoolwork they want to do.
It seems relevant to the school-flavor culture war stuff.
Any links to previous threads on similar topics would be appreciated.
Curious to know more.
Edit: not bait, genuine curiosity. Got some good criticism about low-effort top-level-posting, would appreciate suggestions/pointers to excellent top-level posts.
Continued edit: Also curious what about this post codes it as bait? A few people saw it that way.
prof_xi_o
1yr ago
I am not in a good position to offer advice, I am in a moral quandary of a similar flavor myself. Some ideas come to mind:
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pronouns is easy (for me at least) just use the pronouns people prefer to avoid conflict and rationalize it after the fact however you want (poe, mask, being kind, sjw)
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Avoiding politics in your work setting seems like a great idea. Stick to the motte and work to build a community outside of work where you can talk politics
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get tenure, then disregard 1 and 2
prof_xi_o
1yr ago
On its face, and from my comfy armchair, consuming my western news, the invasion of Ukraine seems like such a colossal waste of human lives and military power.
When I think about other recent conflicts, the ones that come to mind were also incredibly wasteful, but they make sense to me in a way that the Ukraine war does not (maybe because I'm not russian?). The recent examples that come to mind are the American invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and the American defense of South Vietnam. These were arguably also very wasteful but maybe not on the scale of the Ukraine war. Are these good analogies for the war in Ukraine?
My initial ideas relate to the idea that Russia had a lot of military power that was sitting around unused and a bunch of petro income that made any sanctions less meaningful. Maybe the invasion/war hasn't actually been costly? Perhaps Russian leaders (and the hawks among them) saw nationalist fracturing of the tech supply chain coming anyways and this just accelerates it?
What does Russia get for the tremendous expenditure of resources in the invasion and following conflict? Is there some piece of context that helps the invasion make sense to a westerner?
prof_xi_o
1yr ago
Back in 2019 Alex Byrne wrote one of my favorite essays on the incoherence of gender identity and as far as I can tell no one has managed to offer a solid refutation.
I love the part of this essay where he goes through the various definitions of gender identity. That is fascinating, and to me illustrates that they are indeed kind of incoherent (or minimally useful outside their specific context, like political/social activism, clinical care, etc). I'd be curious what those definitions are now (it's been a few years)-- perhaps they have evolved as the cultural battle lines shift.
Instead of using these shaky definitions as a basis for a half-assed mathematical (philosophical?) proof he should have gone on to look at formal definitions of male, female, man, and woman with the same rigor. I'd imagine that they are also riddled with inconsistency or context-specific bias. Humans are complicated and muddy (especially at the margins), and any comprehensive "truth" needs to reflect that reality.
Personally I think that some are threatened by the idea of trans people because their existence suggests that our closely-held ideas about what it means to be a man or a woman might be too simple. In the future, when the gender identity people have won (because reality is in fact complicated), we'll probably have more creative (or straightforward?) ways to signal "I can provide semen" or "I can bear a child" or "I can provide you your desired sexual experience."
In that future it wouldn't surprise me if we came to accept that people's "switches," as Byrne puts it, are often innate but also at times flexible and subject to change on a biological basis, whim, trauma, or desire. It's just that the current political/social climate can't accommodate that reality, and current medical technology can't support wearing a different gender to work every day of the week.
prof_xi_o
1yr ago
Step 1: be best human chess player ever born
Step 2: retire and have fun
It’s easy, we should all do it!
In all seriousness have you considered the possibility that Anish was playing up the drama because he’s commentating? It is possible (some would say likely) that Ding was just unable to find a continuation that wouldn’t lose him the game anyways.
prof_xi_o
1yr ago
Seems reasonable to dismiss Aella’s experience as an outlier and criticize her surveys as less than rigorous (As an aside, if they are in fact rigorous I’d love to see some sort of review, I’ve been wondering about this).
Meghan loses a few points for refusing to answer the “what would change your mind” tactic, but I think if it was a boxing match she would have scored more points. It felt a little bit like a boxing match.
prof_xi_o
1yr ago
I've been seeing media reports (1) about ISPs asking for companies (especially companies that use a lot of bandwidth like Netflix) to pay for network infrastructure. A quick google led me to a number of articles (2,3,{1}) that read something like:
"Large corporate bandwidth user resists efforts by ISPs or governments to make them pay for bandwidth use" (this is a little bit flippant, but isn't all that far from the truth).
My intuitive response is that users of bandwidth should pay for it, including large companies. This seems fairly straightforward, right?
Another article (4) mentioned that "net neutrality" is the idea that prevents ISPs from charging their customers. How is this defensible?
Another quick google leads me to this article (5) which mentions that one advantage of net neutrality is freedom of speech (which the modal mottizen might be inclined to support), but this goes against the straightforward argument that customers (e.g., Netflix) of a service (network infra providers) should pay for it. What gives?
Sources:
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This week (mar-2023): https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/03/netflix-fights-attempt-to-make-streaming-firms-pay-for-isp-network-upgrades/
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More than a year ago (sep-2022): https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/09/google-fights-latest-attempt-to-have-big-tech-pay-for-isps-network-upgrades/
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More than 10 years ago (feb-2011): https://www.osnews.com/story/24357/internet-infrastructure-who-should-pay/
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https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/who-pays-internet-infrastructure-simon-dillsworth/
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https://www.itpro.com/strategy/28115/the-pros-and-cons-of-net-neutrality
prof_xi_o
1yr ago
I have some trans friends (who I love dearly) and they are offended by some of J.K. Rowling's remarks and beliefs. When they see Harry Potter content (including streams and clips of the new Harry Potter game), it can be offensive and threatening for them.
Growing up, I had a fondness for Harry Potter. I read all the books, watched all the movies, and to this day I have a deep nostalgic attachment to the franchise. I don't personally have an issue with Harry Potter, and all I have seen in terms of criticism of J.K. Rowling was Dave Chapelle's stand-up special (not particularly critical) and a blog post about an inflammatory tweet J.K. Rowling made about a male rapist transitioning and asking for internment in a women's prison (this seems like the edgiest of all edge cases and only useful as an inflammatory wedge).
I believe that my trans friends should be able to browse the internet without seeing content they deem hateful/disturbing (like harry potter content). But I also sympathize with people who want to play the new Harry Potter game or watch their favorite streamer play the new game.
Furthermore, there's an issue where if a streamer has trans viewers (I'd imagine most of the top 100 streamers have at least a couple, and the top 10 streamers in any channel have many trans viewers), by playing the new Harry Potter game the streamer is knowingly streaming content that will offend (some of) those trans viewers (admittedly not all trans people will be offended by the Harry Potter stuff).
My current position is that I hope the hubbub and streamer playthroughs of the game will subside in a week or two and we can just forget the whole thing. But I think this kind of tension will come up a lot. Like the next time Dave Chappelle releases a special. I will want to watch it.
How can I support my trans friends while also being okay with people enjoying the new Harry Potter game?
How should I feel about streamers who choose to play the new Harry Potter game on stream? In some sense they have disregarded my friends' feelings and excluded them from their community!
Any response is much appreciated.
Is there some irony that we're talking about burdensome Australian swimming pool regulation in a gun-control thread?
Edit: the joke being that (so I hear) Australian gun control regulation is also burdensome
prof_xi_o
1yr ago
In principle this sounds nice, but in reality pro players need to kick ass on the field/ice and also not piss off all the people that buy jerseys. And they need to say inane boring shit during press conferences even if they don’t feel like it. If the guy on the bench can play 90-95% as skillfully and will also do the other parts of the job then he should definitely play over the brand risk who is slightly better.
prof_xi_o
1yr ago
Interesting series on the Falklands War, thanks for that. One of the comments on the glossary mentions a book with the approximate title “A Citizen’s Guide to Stupid Wars” which sounds about like what I’m looking for.
It seems like what you’re suggesting is that:
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The expected result of the invasion for Russia was a short conflict (days or weeks) followed by the installation of a pro-Russian regime (Belarus II?), somewhat like the US invasion of Iraq
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This turned out to be wrong, and the question for Russia became “What now?”
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The new reality has become an attritional conflict to maintain control of the captured territory in the east while the Russian government figures out how to unfuck everything?
I guess the next question is what does Russia do now? It’s more isolated from the global economy than before (and my understanding is that it was already isolated). Does Russia just fade into obscurity as its economy and power wither?
Edit: @rov_scam said essentially the same thing here with additional context about the expected behavior of the west/Germany
prof_xi_o
1yr ago
Oooh, nice-- are there some examples of badness that stand out to you? Or do you have a link to a critique? I would not be surprised if there are some critiques out there, but I'm also wary of the elitist "she's not an academic so she can't do anything of value." On the other hand it seems like the number of responses she gets are sometimes huge, so presumably there are some tricks you can do with a big dataset?
To be fair, she has a unique perspective and is really weird. That on its own is enough to be interesting, but she's also (arguably) hot and talks about sex things, which I imagine is what you're referring to.
prof_xi_o
1yr ago
Here's the quote from the article, it seems like you're misrepresenting it (or being flippant, maybe I am misunderstanding?):
Culver City English teachers presented data at a board meeting last year showing Latino students made up 13% of those in 12th-grade Advanced Placement English, compared with 37% of the student body. Asian students were 34% of the advanced class, compared with 10% of students. Black students represented 14% of AP English, versus 15% of the student body.
If you're quibbling with the word choice of "bias" that's fine, what I meant to say was:
There was a clear disparity in the racial makeup of honors classes relative to baseline (student body) (according to the article)
prof_xi_o
1yr ago
Interesting, @netstack expressed a similar sentiment below.
That makes sense to me (that the invasion was a miscalculation), but why continue the conflict now? If that were truly the case why wouldn’t Russia seek to de-escalate and extricate itself to rejoin the global economy?
Also, my recollection is that after 2014 Russia began saving up a rainy day fund of a few hundred billion dollars in foreign currency, which when combined with ongoing income from exporting natural resources meant they could withstand sanctions for a few years. Wouldn’t that indicate that they believed a prolonged sanctions regime was possible before they invaded?
prof_xi_o
1yr ago
I’ve never seen a black person treated worse than an equivalent white person.
My brother and 3 of his friends/roommates got pulled over for a traffic violation a couple years ago. It was a major interstate in the U.S. about an hour from a large metro area. There was a white guy driving and a white guy in the passenger seat and two black guys in the back seat. Culturally, they were all middle-class college kids. The cop/trooper asked for the driver’s ID and the ID of the two black guys, not the white passenger.
I’m cherry-picking a bit of your post that’s beside the point you’re trying to make, but it’s fair to say that sometimes people (including law enforcement) let stereotypes drive their actions.
prof_xi_o
1yr ago
First of all, I hope this poster has read https://www.themotte.org/post/195/what-to-do-when-you-get
Ah, cool, thanks for that-- I hadn't read it. There is some good advice in there.
Second of all, I'd like to express my disappointment in nearly every response I've seen them receive. The fact that their question, which appears to have been made in total good faith, is still getting dogpiled and drive by downvotes is vicariously embarrassing. This isn't a culture war issue.
Hearing this feels really good, and I can see how you feel that way. The replies were arguably kind of harsh. I am fine with the response I got, although in my ideal timeline the responses would have given me more intellectual ammunition, terms/ideas to google, and examples/stories of how to disagree with your friends.
Before posting I did, for a brief moment, wonder if I should post in the culture war thread instead of wellness wednesday but went ahead because it was clearly framed as a personal issue, and I was basically genuine.
One possible reading of my initial post (and some of the replies) is that I was trying to steel-man my friend's position (without knowing exactly what it was because I had avoided the subject), but in all honesty my views and position on the matter initially weren't all that well-defined beyond some misgivings, and I've refined my position a lot since then.
An uncharitable read might see some of the responses from prof xi o as sealioning.
Hadn't heard of this, I can see how it might fit some of my replies.
apparently this justifies an accusation of trolling, to the tune of a 45 [edit: 30, my back of the skull hangover sums aren't great] updoot difference
I did eventually notice the downvotes (maybe they don't show up on mobile or something? for some reason in some views I didn't see them) and my initial thought was, "that's odd, I should ignore that and consider it a sign of engagement with the content, I shouldn't let it discourage me from posting." I was more excited that I got some high-effort responses.
I also noticed that downvotes don't show up on people's profiles (comments do), and I think comments are a better signal of quality engagement (probably)
One problem with the downvotes is that it's not totally clear what they're about, here's my predictions about what they mean:
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30% Your position is stupid, I'm not going to argue, just downvote, go do some research
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30% I don't like trans people bossing around the internet
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20% This should have been in the culture war thread
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20% this is clearly a troll
P.S. I will be appropriately embarrassed if the OP turns out to be another d*rwin, until that point try leaving the internet at the door and treating everyone as if they are, in fact, sincere.
If my goal as a poster is to drive engagement with my post that aligns pretty well with the goals of a troll, is there an important distinction? I guess I also am interested in learning rather than just driving engagement/outrage, so that might be detectable.
I want to hear the d*rwin story
prof_xi_o
1yr ago
This is cool, I will keep it in mind and recommend it if the opportunity arises. Thanks!
prof_xi_o
1yr ago
Small scale, huh?
Fair point, I looked it up, and the Vietnam war is much bigger in scale (so far).
If I recall correctly, NATO estimates casualties in the hundreds of thousands for either side in the Ukraine war (to be fair these claims aren’t necessarily accurate because there is an ongoing conflict)
On the other hand, the sum total of the American casualties for the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan (including 1991) are far lower than for either side in Ukraine.
Seems like materiel losses in those conflicts (excluding Vietnam) are similarly much lower. This indicates to me that whatever benefits were gleaned from those conflicts had a lower cost than whatever Russia will get out of invading Ukraine.
(Civilian casualties are another matter, I’m mostly interested in the military cost/benefit here)
I used this resource to estimate American casualties in all of the Middle East conflicts: https://dcas.dmdc.osd.mil/dcas/app/conflictCasualties
prof_xi_o
1yr ago
This does relate to story I told though. You could argue that because black people in the U.S. are statistically more likely to be criminals or have been convicted of a crime the extra scrutiny was warranted. While that may be true, that wasn't relevant in this case, and I believe that none of the passengers should have received extra scrutiny.
Can you provide examples of stereotypes that are "more reflective of reality than individual bias?" I'm especially interested in stereotypes that are accurate enough that individuals should be treated differently based on the stereotype.
Like one stereotype that comes to mind is "Tiger moms" or asian parents that are super invested in their kids' success. It's a good stereotype to make jokes about, but should communities/governments make specific policies around it other than just enforcing existing child-welfare policies?
prof_xi_o
1yr ago
You can notice my absence there; I've estimated that the expected marginal value of my input is below the cost of adding to the apparent dogpile, distressing OP and probably diminishing his willingness to read the already provided object-level advice charitably.
I don't blame you for not jumping on the dogpile, but it would be a shame if your views on the matter differ substantially from the other posters (or if you have ideas that haven't been expressed already). Please don't let your estimation of my feelings keep you from being critical in this case, though I can understand how a bias towards caution is warranted.
Loyalty, in my opinion, is among the greatest virtues a human can hold, and I personally feel it acts as something like the metaphysical cousin to a sacrament the more irrational and unconditional it becomes. I believe that a person's relationship with his friends and family regardless of who they are should be treated as unimpeachable. The person in question may be in fact quite impeachable, as a matter of law or what have you, but the actual relationship itself should be held as sacrosanct. We, as a species, are way too messed up in the head to be able to either afford or justify easy dismissal of one another. Glass houses, and such.
I do worry a little bit about outing my friend(s) to this community, as in some sense I used our shared experience as fodder for internet clout. Hopefully I can make it up to them by having a great conversation about J.K. Rowling/Harry Potter.
Edit: plurality
prof_xi_o
1yr ago
What it isn't however is "threatening". Just stop abusing language this way. Existence of Harry Potter games is not "threatening" anybody, and being upset is not the same as being attacked. At best, it's self-harmful, since living in constant panic over things that aren't threatening you is bad for you mental health. At worst, it is a cynical manipulation, trying to weaponize everybody's sense of fairness and protectiveness to aim it at attacking somebody you disagree with.
I'm okay if you read my use of the word "threatening" as "upsetting," that gets my point across, even though it's not quite the same. You could argue that I'm a rhetorical charlatan for using the word and I would see how you got there. But it's fair to assume that someone who feels vulnerable about their trans identity could feel threatened by some of the stuff J.K. Rowling says, and be reminded of it when they get served Harry Potter content on the internet, thereby feeling threatened. But I'd be willing to compromise and use the word "upsetting" if you're okay with that, either one serves to help illustrate the problem I'm having.
why you are so upset by a prospect of somebody encountering a mention of a game and not upset at all and in fact completely dismissive of a prospect of somebody being raped.
This is getting off track-- I made this post because I didn't come clean to my friend about my feelings and beliefs, and I want to be sensitive to their feelings and beliefs. I am seeking advice for how to handle the issue. What's a contentious issue between you and your friends? How would you handle it if it came up in conversation? Would you avoid it?
I am dismissive of the rapist tweet because:
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Most trans people don't become trans because they want to rape people (I believe the numbers of fradulent trans people are on the order of 1 per 1 million, but even if it's 1 per 1000 how many fraudulent trans people are also rapists?).
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The tiny minority of fraudulent trans people (like, for example, rapists who want to go to a women's prison) will get extra scrutiny and be dealt with accordingly.
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If the rapist who became trans wants to rape people, they shouldn't be allowed to do so in any prison, let alone a women's prison.
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It's a tweet, and it's ridiculous
Try to explain to them that people have different opinions
I think the argument that people have different opinions (and that sometimes their opinions are dumb and/or offensive, or in the case of J.K. Rowling driven by their life experiences) is a good one to use. I may incorporate this into how I handle the topic if it comes up in conversation again.
Why is ridicule an appropriate reaction in this case and not civil discourse? (this is an earnest question, not rhetorical. Would you lay out the case for this approach?)
Edit: clarify earnest-ness
prof_xi_o
1yr ago
J.K. Rowling appears to be as trans-positive as it is possible to be without accepting outright falsehoods or social policies that literally and demonstrably endanger women.
This seems like a stretch, can you elaborate here? Like the thing about a rapist asking to be imprisoned with women is hardly evidence that women in general are in danger (I'll admit maybe I'm just ignorant here). It's a cherry-picked example of an extreme edge case that's easily handled on a case-by-case basis.
If they're really your friends, it won't hurt them that you enjoy Hogwarts Legacy; they have no reason to think it will hurt you.
This seems disingenuous (although it's poetic), I don't think anyone's under the illusion that it will hurt me-- isn't it about politics or something?
I do my best to function as a moral exemplar to them, and I like to think they are doing their best to do the same for me. Our disagreement does not preclude any of that.
How do you address topics with your friends that you know you disagree on? Can you give an example? Especially when they come up organically, in the course of regular conversation? This happened to me today, and I avoided the subject.
In no plausible sense have they disregarded your friends' feelings (how could they even be aware of your specific individual feelings?)
This isn't quite correct-- literally no one was surprised (that's hyperbole, sorry, but you get the point) that there was a boycott of the game and loud pushback.
But you've absolutely no reason at all to fault others for playing Hogwarts Legacy or streaming it. And if your trans friends think less of you for being insufficiently enraged by their own pet neurosis, well, then they are not very good friends.
So to go back to the specific example that prompted my post, the friend I was talking with today didn't behave that way-- when the issue came up in conversation and I kind of side-stepped, she did as well and we didn't speak of it again. I didn't feel good about it for a few reasons, one of which was I wasn't totally sure how I felt about the issue. I'm hoping to get some more clarity and then either destroy her with facts and logic or live and let live (or maybe a wild third option I hadn't considered yet).
The chinese individuals I've met (and the descendants of chinese individuals I've met) seem to adopt western culture easily. If there was some genetic basis for chinese culture wouldn't you expect the opposite? (admittedly this is totally anecdata)
Furthermore aren't there examples of chinese-american celebrities adopting western culture? Jackie Chan? Bruce Lee?
It seems like you've cherry-picked some ideas and woven them into a nice narrative-- and while the narrative is coherent, it doesn't really do a good job of modeling reality.
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