US Politics Mega-thread - Page 2183

On August 10 2015 04:55 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Same with your 'how to treat transgenderism' - this is not considered an important subject to study because treatment is not considered desirable - acceptance and tolerance is. Same with studies of how males and females differ- they're not important to study because if findings are made, they are made with the purpose of limiting behavior favored by individuals within either gender. (Findings that showcase women as superior caretakers make it harder for men to be caring parents, just the way findings that showcase men as superior 'workers' (in whatever capacity) make it harder for women to choose favoring career over family.)

On August 10 2015 04:55 Liquid`Drone wrote:
But then, I really have a problem with some of your examples. I operate under the assumption that you are opposed to political correctness within academia because you feel that society would benefit from the knowledge we could establish if not for the crutch of PC holding us back, right? The most glaring one is your mention of the Bell Curve as something that is under-researched.

Firstly, I really disagree with the notion that it's under-researched. My impression is that it's one of the most thoroughly discredited books ever written, and that spending more time doing so is extremely wasteful. But secondly, why would the establishment of different IQ's for different races and IQ being the prime determiner of future societal success be a positive? This type of thinking would, historically, be nothing but an enabler for the continued or increased discrimination based on race/ethnicity and an enabler for increased societal stratification (if social structures are the reason for societal stratification they can be changed, if IQ is the prime issue then not so much). I guess I can get the 'but if IQ is the prime issue then changing societal structures in an attempt to alleviate societal stratification is a futile endeavor' argument - however that still doesn't factor in how the (important) racial component of the book. My honest impression is that those who like this book are entirely dishonest in their reasons for doing so, and when I hear it mentioned in non-pejorative ways, it's an instant huge red flag.

Basically, it's really hard for me to not sound annoyingly politically correct when I'm calling you out on this, because my honest impression is that you have selected these issues as under-researched because they all fit into the mold of either hindering further progress or reverting made progress within the fields of making minorities and women considered fully abled individuals rather than limited by their ethnicity or gender.

On August 10 2015 05:06 Liquid`Drone wrote:
And I mean, I'm not really arguing for deliberate ignorance, even though I can see how my second to last paragraph would make it seem that way. (But I don't feel like editing that post now as someone might be in the process of answering it for all I know ) It's just that I feel like within social sciences, as they are such interpretive sciences (and for most social science subjects attempting to establish objective knowledge is futile to start with), it's possible to interpret or select data in such a way that you can back up many different points of view, and then I don't think we should actively be trying to interpret or select data in such a way that we enable more discrimination and less options for the individual.

On August 10 2015 06:08 YoureFired wrote:


Boooooom.

One reason there have been less studies differentiating between different races/genders is that, for the vast majority of human diversity, most of the diversity happens within groups rather than between them. You can identify and differentiate certain ethnoracial characteristics, just as there are biological differences between males and females, but there's no reason to study it if the assumptions that made such information relevant no longer operate within intellectual discourse.

On August 10 2015 06:39 Ghostcom wrote:


I hope I'm misunderstanding you, but you what you are writing is that we shouldn't do research unless we reach the "correct" conclusions - i.e. those which does not enable more discrimination or gives less options to the individual? I find it very hard to read it any other way, but that is quite possibly because of my personal bias - I always get very nervous when people try to impose limits on scientific studies outside of protection of participants.

On August 10 2015 04:55 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Same with studies of how males and females differ- they're not important to study because if findings are made, they are made with the purpose of limiting behavior favored by individuals within either gender. (Findings that showcase women as superior caretakers make it harder for men to be caring parents, just the way findings that showcase men as superior 'workers' (in whatever capacity) make it harder for women to choose favoring career over family.)

On August 10 2015 07:34 Nyxisto wrote:
I think what LiquidDrone is saying that social sciences are simply ideological in principle and that empirical research isn't going to do a lot of good besides provoking fallacious appeals to nature.

For example should we prove hypothetically that male brains are more capable of doing math, we shouldn't draw the conclusion that only males should be pursuing mathematical careers in the same way we don't try to give males cancer just because they have a lower tolerance to radiation.

Simple biological facts don't create normative values. There's no reason to believe that some biological fact is supporting a policy any more that we're supposed to fight it, it's irrelevant.

Simple biological facts don't create normative values. There's no reason to believe that some biological fact is supporting a policy any more that we're supposed to fight it, it's irrelevant.

On August 10 2015 08:08 MoltkeWarding wrote:


Pardon for blatantly channeling Aristotle, but are you so certain that the attributes present in the subject do not in some degree predict his destiny? Are the soldier's virtues the virtues of the priest, and are the teacher's virtues the virtues of the pupil? Should it be wise policy to assign the meek to war, or the impetuous to preach? And should those who seek to assign the strongest instrument to the corresponding task of life be called ideological? Is it not more true to say that the name of ideology belongs to those who would outweed human nature from their roots, expel everyone from the incidental facts of life, and secure them into some simpler arrangement perfected within the individual intellect?

On August 10 2015 07:34 Nyxisto wrote:
I think what LiquidDrone is saying that social sciences are simply ideological in principle and that empirical research isn't going to do a lot of good besides provoking fallacious appeals to nature.

For example should we prove hypothetically that male brains are more capable of doing math, we shouldn't draw the conclusion that only males should be pursuing mathematical careers in the same way we don't try to give males cancer just because they have a lower tolerance to radiation.

Simple biological facts don't create normative values. There's no reason to believe that some biological fact is supporting a policy any more than that we're supposed to fight it, it's irrelevant.

I'm not a very teleological man, especially not if it's used as an excuse to have the wife prepare the dinner or to send the black man to do the farm work. I'm also not saying that we need to root up every inequality just for the sake of it or that traditional lifestyles are somehow worse if someone chooses to live that way, but at least everybody in the discussion should be conscious that just pointing your finger at nature is ideology itself.

On August 10 2015 07:52 Nyxisto wrote:
It has a lot to do with the accusation of political correctness, because especially in the gender and race debate the conservative side often argues that the social sciences are "ignoring" biological research or evidence, while the choice to base social policy on biological research in itself is a pretty questionable and ideological practice in the first place.

On August 10 2015 09:13 cLutZ wrote:

The problem with this is that there are already social engineering government policies in place. For instance, in your math example. It is basically taken as a given that White/Asian males are "disproportionately" (in a bad way) represented in STEM fields, so the government is attempting to intervene to change that. If there is a biological difference, the government isn't fixing anything, they are just making the world, as a whole, worse off.

On August 10 2015 09:31 MoltkeWarding wrote:
At best, we may say that we will support them should they strive, against the prohibitions of nature, to overreaching aspirations and dreams. For the majority of people however, the feeling of happiness in doing something useful is more commonly satisfied when they align their goals with the tendencies of nature, rather than in opposition to them.

On August 10 2015 06:37 GreenHorizons wrote:



At least someone gets it. Now you just have to get the rest of the white liberals to get it also. Otherwise we're all buggered.

WASHINGTON, Aug 9 (Reuters) - In her 2008 bid for the White House, Hillary Clinton cast herself as a blue-collar Democrat who was unabashedly pro-coal, a stance that helped her beat opponent Barack Obama easily in primaries in states that produced or were reliant on coal.

Eight years later, a Reuters review of her recent campaign speeches and policy announcements shows that the great-granddaughter of a Welsh coal miner is now talking about the coal industry in the past tense.

The little-noticed shift in rhetoric speaks volumes about how the United States' energy landscape has changed since Clinton last campaigned in 2008: oil and gas fracking have exploded and cheap natural gas has taken a huge bite out of coal.

In the intervening years the Obama administration has also proposed aggressive measures to tamp down greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels like coal, while once-powerful coal companies like Arch Coal, which declared bankruptcy last week, have lost their political clout.

The shift by Clinton is not without significant political risk. She will have to walk a fine line in trying to please the progressive activists she needs to win her party's nomination and working-class "swing" voters whose support will be crucial for the general election in November 2016. Ohio and Pennsylvania, in particular, have a lot of electoral votes, which are key to electing a new president.

Mindful of that, Clinton has been careful to pay tribute to the contribution coal miners have made to the American economy, but she has also made clear that they should be helped to find new jobs, and a new way of life.

Ed Rendell, former Democratic governor of Pennsylvania and Clinton ally, said an economic case for addressing climate change could resonate in his state, where the coal industry employs more than 36,000 directly and indirectly, according to the Pennsylvania Coal Alliance.

On August 10 2015 09:31 Plansix wrote:

The problem with the argument that there is overwhelming evidence that lack of diversity in the work place leads to passive racism and all the problems associated with with that. Furthermore, every argument about "biological disposition to specific career paths" has been employed before when people were fighting racism/sexism in the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s. None of these arguments are new and all of them have been employed by the group that benefits form the status quo. And companies are trying to change this, like Intel. And of course the people whining about Intel's push for diversity are men who do not stand to benefit form it. But they will happily benefit from sexism if it exists and assume they got where they are 100% on their own merits.

Take your argument about women not being in Stem. It wasn't because the didn't want to get involved. They used to be heavily involved, before it became a profitable career path.

http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-women-stopped-coding

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/when-computer-programming-was-womens-work/2011/08/24/gIQAdixGgJ_story.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/16/business/16digi.html?_r=0

http://www.engadget.com/2014/10/20/what-happened-to-all-of-the-women-coders-in-1984/

The simple fact of the matter is that STEM careers don't welcome women on all fronts. Just like back in the day when women were told to be a nurse, teacher or secretary. Pretending that sexism is this thing we beat in the 80s and 90s is just an excuse. Same with racism.

Most states report that less than 30 percent of all teachers are male, with the average coming in around 25 percent. The survey revealed that Arkansas had the least amount of male teachers at 17 percent while Kansas led the pack with more than 30 percent.

To go a step further, male educators make up 2.3 percent of the overall pre-K and kindergarten teachers, while male elementary and middle school teachers constitute 18.3 percent of the teaching population. It evens out a little more at the high school level with men representing about 42 percent of the teachers overall.

Take your argument about women not being in Stem. It wasn't because the didn't want to get involved. They used to be heavily involved, before it became a profitable career path.