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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   26639 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 1, 2024

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I'm not really seeing the argument here.

Are you baiting to have it be cited here, to make BAP look better? Okay, you win. That «recent tweet» is half a year old. The actual argument he makes is this one.

Why are there meritocratic admissions in the first place? How did it happen? The reason the universities were opened up in the 1950's was specifically because cases like Feynman's. It was felt unjust that he shouldn't have had entry into school of choice, etc., because of quotas (at that time capping Jewish students) and Columbia eg felt dumb for having rejected him. The feeling was that schools should be opened up to students like him, WITH THE EXPECTATION that they would do great things with their degrees. Maybe not be Feynman or make great discoveries, but at least use that opportunity to try to, or to have notable achievements in other fields, or at least to become very rich, and so on.

The concrete reward for this opening up of universities was eventually expected to be ....money. Whether legacies, or students allowed in on purely merit, alumni who were or became rich donated to these skrewls. For those who became famous or notable in their fields wihout being rich, this also added to skrewl's reputation, bringing in more money or grants or so on by other avenues. In other words, the universities got or maintained something concrete from opened-up admissions, and the easiest measure of that was donations.

Azn alumni and especially Han don't donate. Thus although they were let in initially in high % because of grades, test scores, etc., it was eventually noted they don't donate. But even worse, they become notable or famous at rates far less than others.

Whereas the expectation was ideally a Feynman, what you got in the Han case was use of the degree to become an ophthalmologist in upstate NY etc.; obviously not always; just as in other groups not all came out Feynmans. But the tendency, pattern became very clear. In the vast majority of cases the degree was used for nothing but a comfortable middle class life and the feeling of status. No fame, no reputation coming to the skrewl, and no donations.

Thus you had a population that presented very good scores, grades, conscientiousness, etc., and so if allowed in purely on "merit" would make up a huge % of undergraduate class; but out the other end, they didn't deliver on the whole, and especially...didn't deliver money. [an aside about objective merits of science done by Chinese people. I think the issue of lower effective creativity and irrational lust for busywork are absolutely clear. But, arguably, we are in the regime where Galaxy Brained Ideas both comprehensible for humans and useful in practice have all been had, so East Asian mindset is in fact more valuable].

To this can be added the behavior of Han students in classrooms. It was noticed they are taciturn and in general add nothing to class discussion. In campus social and intellectual life, they seemed absent or kept to themselves etc.; again you may have personal anecdotes to the contrary, I do also. I had very good Chynese students who I was glad to talk to, who were brilliant and got all A's (deserved in their case) and I have Chynese frends, etc. etc.; it matters nothing. As a group universities noticed these very clear patterns in the majority if not vast majority of cases. [an aside about cheating]

…It was, again, a population that, if you applied simple "merit" in admissions, would end up forming maybe even a majority of the student body, but that produced nothing that was expected from holders of these degrees, most notably no donations, but also, no fame, no risk, no contributions, and during skrewltime, another lifeless parody of "study," memorization, cheating, sullen apartness.

For all these reasons universities felt justified in discriminating against azn and Chynese students for admissions--and they were probably justified. But once they started to do this, libtarded professors and admissions committees felt it was necessary to discard almost entirely whatever was left of meritocracy. "This Johnny Cheung has very good test scores and grades and I'm discriminating against him...it's only fair that I don't pay attention to the fact that Johnny Walters also has good test scores and grades. Merit doesn't matter anymore, we had to get rid of it, so...let me invite this nice POC out of feelings of social justice, etc." Thus in a move similar to what justified grade inflation, merit-based admissions was also mostly discarded. I don't know the status of things at moment exactly now after Floyd, but even by 2015 or mid second term Obama's racial demagoguery and BLM craze, it was already starting to be very bad. Even by early 2010's maybe it was accelerating. Obviously there are still very good students who can get in, but it's much harder now.

For what it's worth, I (as a person inclined to be somewhat positive with regard to East Asians and utterly pessimistic about any political proposal of BAPsphere) think this is his strongest thesis in ages. He actually enumerates plausible (and I think true, but of course one can protest and demand statistics to back up the inflammatory etc. etc.) factual premises and delivers his conclusion, he does not indulge in masturbatory stylistic flourish, and he mostly speaks like a real person with a sane, if objectionable, reason to dislike test-based meritocracy, rather than a flamboyant auto-caricature.

And of course you would not see «civilization-ending» outcomes. China itself is not ending, and the Chinese clearly contribute a lot to American prosperity. It's only the particular forms of that civilization that can be disrupted by immigration; this is both known and desired. It is not absurd that the Irish have destroyed a certain America (as @2rafa often argues) – but now that the Irish are Americans too, they get to weigh in whether it was a good or a bad thing, and they're not going anywhere anyway.

You see, culture is fragile, human practices are fragile, valuable conventions are easy to ruin and hard to restore. Consider the following bizarre analogy. Add a random homeless person off the street to your household, have him eat and sleep together with your family (assuming you have one) – it will probably be ruined (some idealistic people have tested this approach). Add a random well-behaved stranger – nothing outwardly catastrophic will happen, you might become friends even! And splitting domestic chores, and paying rent – think of it! But your family will change, will become something pretty nonsensical. Maybe Bryan Caplan would argue that your household income will increase, that your children will be more likely to prosper, thus it is moral and proper to make this choice? The philosophy that BAP subscribes to detests and rejects this sort of crude economic reasoning, deems it subhumanly utilitarian. I suppose a real American must call BAP a sentimental fool then.

I was going to say: I see him making lots of assertions, but not backing them up with external sources. Something like a table of donations by race could have helped.

I idly wondered if he was just making up this whole explanation. Thanks for fact checking.

But did he check? What, in those sources, proves BAP wrong? Why did you believe him that he did check? The first paper is some inconclusive exploratory study. But it has interesting sections:

Challenges for incorporating Asian American donors

Engaging Asian American alumni as part of university communities is a major challenge for development officers. Several interviews revealed Asian Americans’ disconnections with their university. In the words of one development officer:

Alumni of color generally tended not to be as engaged and connected to the university. I think there tends to be a little more skepticism about the university’s commitment to issues of diversity ... so I think there are some hurdles that you have to get over with regard to trust and making sure that they understand the importance of being involved. (Personal communication, 23 February 2009)

In fact, many Asian American alumni form reunions solely within their own ethnic communities. Revisiting a previous conversation with Asian American donors, one development officer said,

‘a prospective Asian American donor, who is also an alumnus and his family have never attended [university’s reunion] ... it’s not that they weren’t invited – they get mailings just like everyone else – but they didn’t think the annual event contained anything meaningful for them’. However, a number of this alum’s Asian American colleagues, who graduated with him – whether they came from Mainland, or Taiwan, continue to get together and have their own annual celebration; they have no negative feelings about the university; but, their attachment is to each other and not to the university as an institution’ (personal communication, 3 March 2009).

Another challenge is soliciting monetary support from Asian American donors. This is in addition to traditional donations of time and personal efforts to support voluntary causes. As documented in previous research, Asian American donors possessed a strong desire to dedicate their personal time, volunteering for the Asian American organizations or serving as the Board members (Deeney, 2002). In contrast, financial supports have primarily benefited their family and ethnic groups (Ho, 2004).

One respondent explained:

Asian Americans are accustomed to giving in terms of their time – they are very involved in the community and/or serve on various committees, etc; but, they feel that that should be the limit of their giving. They don’t see giving in terms of dollars. It just isn’t part of their tradition. Giving money has always been about giving to a family and giving to a mainstream university is a relatively a new concept ... it is not a practice in which they’ve been involved throughout the generations. It’s not that they are withholding, or that they are parsimonious, it’s just that financial contributions to an organization are not part of their psyche. (Personal communication, 3 March 2009)

Working with donors in international settings, unavoidable obstacles are distance and communication. One development officer mentioned, ‘You [development officer] are not in front of them on a regular basis, and you might lose the momentum’ (personal communication, 26 March 2009).

In order to overcome these difficulties, development officers employ meaningful e-mail and telephone communications, and frequently travel to Asian countries to meet with the prospective donors.»

There's some hope about 2nd+ generations:

Previous research has revealed that first generation Asian Americans are more likely to give back to their home countries or give specifically to Asian American-related causes, while giving by second and beyond generations tend to be directed more toward mainstream organizations (Chao, 1999; Ho, 2004). One development officer responded, younger Asian American alum tend to ‘give more closely to their non-alumni of color counterparts, so they tend to give more generally to the university because they feel more connected to the class than the past generations have’ (personal communication, 23 February 2009).

I'll also note that the paper was authored by one Kozue Tsunoda, who, being obviously Japanese, is very much not a modal example of an Asian alumni in the current year, and who with characteristic Japanese tact avoids sharp angles of facts, such as «how much less do Han Chinese alumni donate». Ime this is typical for Japanese sociology (mealy-mouthed garbage even by Western standards).

I allow that with the rising proportion of 2nd gen Asian Americans and some other changes like greater motivation of the Chinese HNWI to show loyalty to the US, the situation must be changing to the better (for schools). However, in no way can this disprove BAP's argument about the schools' already baked-in, historical reason to engage in anti-meritocratic discrimination against Asians and also Whites.

Actually, were TheMotte in a better shape to try and impose new standards, I'd have petitioned to make «disingenuous citations that don't prove your point» a bannable offense. It's such a disgusting redditbrain intimidation tactic. And this user is generally acting with an agenda.

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