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Post by Amadan on Aug 9, 2017 14:13:49 GMT -5
Whatever the Trump admin has or hasn't done pales in comparison to the failures of previous admins (simply because Trump hasn't had years to solve the problem yet; three years from now, he may be in the same boat). And I don't think Trump's rhetoric is going to be effective at accomplishing anything. I also don't think it's particularly damaging. North Korea is still operating in a different world. "But Clinton..."
If you think rhetoric about launching nukes is just rhetoric, sure, it doesn't matter what Trump and Dear Leader tweet at each other.
Where North Kore is concerned, however, words sometimes do mean things.
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Post by Amadan on Aug 9, 2017 13:35:52 GMT -5
For those of you who think our military spending should be decreased rather than increased, aren't you a teeeeeensy bit grateful the Trump administration has been spending $$ to improve our readiness for this problem? I know I am. Be specific - in what way has the Trump administration improved our readiness for this problem? Extra bonus points: answer my question without using Google.
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Post by Amadan on Aug 9, 2017 11:03:02 GMT -5
It's easy to rail against diversity as a bad thing because a White man think its unfair or unnecessary---to him. But even as Damore protests he's not against diversity, his memo has been picked up by and embraced by the anti-diversity crowd. "See! Here's a logical, statistical, fact-based and logical argument against the pernicious practice of enforced gender and racial diversity." Sure, people who actually are against diversity will pick up on any controversy like this. But Damore did not argue against diversity. Most people defending him are not arguing against diversity. Damore himself basically argued that diversity is a net good, but that the way Google is trying to achieve it is ineffective and counter-productive. This got dishonestly condensed (by his detractors and the anti-diversity crowd alike) to "Diversity is ineffective and counter-productive." And so here we are. The Josh Barro article you quoted is reasonable but has some logical fallacies. That was rather Damore's point. Let's say the theoretical "correct" representation of women would be 20%, or 35%, or whatever, allowing for the existence of gender-based disparities. It is clear that Google's policies (and those pushing for more diversity-based policies) will not be satisfied with anything less than 50%, and will not acknowledge that gender-based disparities might exist. So it's not about complaining that 20% is too much, it's about complaining that seeking a probably-unattainable 50% is.... unfair, divisive, and bad for business. Of course if you insist that gender differences are all cultural and that a gender-blind society would produce a 50% female workforce, then this is an unacceptable argument. And so here we are.
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Post by Amadan on Aug 8, 2017 20:41:28 GMT -5
My opinion: it's not about "biological sex differences," and yeah, that raises my hackles. Always has, always will. This guy was, in part, trying to make an argument that women are different than (and yes, in this instance, inferior to) men in a way that has proven not to be the case in other fields (medical, legal, journalistic, etc.), as Amadan mentioned in those bits he quoted. Thank you. For actually reading, and responding to, his actual words. You're right. He makes a number of risibile arguments in his manifesto. "Men and women are biologically different" is a fact. "Men and women have biological differences that affect their behavior and attitudes and possibly outcomes" is, perhaps, not a 100% proven fact, but a hypothesis with a strong degree of scientific support behind it. "Men and women differ in these specific ways, and it's biologically determined" is, at best, speculation, and he made some strong claims that are far from established fact. That, among other places (like his harping on "violent leftists") is where he kind of went off the rails. But his fundamental arguments were not particularly outrageous, and while there is certainly a whiff of "Girls are just emotional, them's facts and we have to deal with it!" in his piece, he did go out of his way to avoid asserting that, for example, women can't be good engineers or software developers or Google employees. That said - You do know this is anecdotal evidence, right? I mean, I totally believe you. But even the strongest proponents of biological determinism will not usually claim that " All men have trait X and all women have trait Y." It's usually posited as more like something on a bell curve, with the width, height, and apex of the curve varying according to the trait. That's a rather harsh dismissal. I mean, obviously monkeys are not humans and not all primate behavior can be assumed identical, but people who study this stuff are aware of it. It's not like "Oh, we see apes doing this so obviously it totally applies to people too!" You're kind of writing off an entire field because pop magazine articles are so terrible about describing some of the more sensational implications. I think that's a common and understandable sentiment, but wrong, IMO. We humans really like to think we have absolute free will, and that none of our behavior is dictated by hormones or millions of years of evolution. And what does separate us from animals is that we do have the capacity to act contrary to all those hardwired instincts. But that doesn't mean there isn't hardwiring in there that dictates our behavior more often than we might think, or want to believe.
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Post by Amadan on Aug 8, 2017 20:29:11 GMT -5
Tell me something, Amadan. Do you get some sort of weird pleasure out of saying stuff you know nothing about? You know it really makes you look as though you don't know what the hell you're talking about, right? Who do you imagine you are convincing here? Is there some invisible audience you think you're playing to? I did. But everything you've posted since has cast extreme doubt on the idea that you actually read and understood it. Your mistake is thinking I'm upset because a couple of individuals who have poor critical reading skills "reached different conclusions." You don't upset me (except inasmuch as you keep baiting and taunting people here on TCG, in an effort to provoke a ban-worthy retort - that game is very obvious and annoying). But the fact that so many other people genuinely and sincerely believe the sorts of things you're saying here - based on the same sort of faulty reason and lack of close (or in most cases, any reading) and has real-world effects on discourse, yes, that upsets me a bit. If you actually read the manifesto, if you actually have the convictions you claim, you'd be able to explain, as you've been asked to, where exactly he displays this attitude you keep describing about "Coloreds and Chicks." Instead your response is, as usual, to duck, weave, evade, and turn it personal. This is not even 101-level trolling - "Hahaha, I put you on ignooooooooooore!!!! Look at me ignooooooooooring you! Hahahaha!" Sure you did.
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Post by Amadan on Aug 8, 2017 16:47:40 GMT -5
I'm pretty satisfied with Google's response and I'm laughing my ass off at the "anti-diversity" snowflakes whining and weeping over this doofus getting booted for being a pompous and sexist pig who thinks he's better than the women and people of color who still work at Google. You didn't read it, did you? It's pretty clear the "former Google employee" you cited didn't either. S/he just assumed, as you do, that anyone who questions the value or extent of programs ostensibly to increase diversity, or who suggests that biological differences exist, is a misogynistic white supremacist. No need to actually read his words - you can read a few cherry-picked quotes and conclude he hates women and minorities and thinks none of them should work at Google. Which of course is nothing at all like what he actually wrote. But you don't need to know what the people you're calling down hellfire upon have actually said, just what people who you agree with say about what they said.
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Post by Amadan on Aug 8, 2017 13:27:00 GMT -5
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Post by Amadan on Aug 8, 2017 9:00:57 GMT -5
For those of us still interested in writing The Toxic Drama on YA TwitterI fnd it ironic that on my FB feed, some of the same friends celebrating James Damore's firing at Google are saying "Wow, these YA authors are mean and crazy!" It's really the same phenomenon, though - a self-appointed cabal of SJ advocates has become powerful enough to go after anyone suspected of badthink, to the point that now, one book blogger who read a passage about a racist character saying racist things has started a crusade against a book that appears to actually be an anti-racist story, with the entire YA twitterverse screaming not just at the author and publisher, demanding the book be pulled before it "hurts teens," but even blasting anyone who posts a review or even admits to reading the book. It's easy to laugh this off because it's mostly a bunch of teenage girls flipping out over a YA fantasy novel, but it is very easy to see them going from Twitter dogpiles to knitting at the guillotines. This is what our social media sphere looks like today - how much would it take to tilt it towards real-world violence?
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Post by Amadan on Aug 8, 2017 8:50:55 GMT -5
If he didn't know what he was doing to himself, or that he would be outed, he wasn't as smart as he thinks.
That said, I'm pretty disgusted by Google's response and the "pro diversity" jihadists dancing and whooping around the bonfire they created. Yes, I know, Google a legal right to fire him, and given the media outcry it was inevitable they would, but they've made it very clear what sort of discussion and opinions are and are not allowed there.
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Post by Amadan on Aug 7, 2017 8:27:36 GMT -5
I submit if racial and gender diversity on the job is so upsetting for conservatives and it makes them feel they cannot express themselves, they should consider finding another job where there is no "open hostility." I can assure the author, employees who are or a different race and/or gender also deal with open hostility on the job. But he's not worried about their problems. He didn't say anything about catering to people who find racial and gender diversity on the job upsetting, "Conservative" is not synonymous with "Racist." I think it's more like being more accepting of people who vote Republican (I know, you probably think it's peachy to ostracize and blacklist anyone who votes Republican, but that's not really a good strategy for an entire industry), or who are religious, or who say things like "the Left tends to deny science concerning biological differences between people (e.g., IQ[8] and sex differences)." Acknowledging observable differences (which are a fact, and not something you can argue with, except in the sense that you can argue with gravity) is not the same as subscribing to racist or sexist conclusions. It is true that people who edge into those discussions are often reaching or sending up a trial balloon for biological determinism, but your reaction is exactly what the author of the manifesto is talking about - you can't even say "Hey, this is a thing we can actually observe, maybe it's worth studying" without being shut down hard by people who don't even want the questions asked.
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Post by Amadan on Aug 6, 2017 18:34:01 GMT -5
I've read the document, and the responses to it.
The funny thing, it's not really "anti-diversity." It's "Anti-Huge Institutional Efforts to Prioritize Diversity Above All Else."
The author went to some trouble to emphasize that he thinks diversity is good, sexism is real, let's all not be racists, etc., before trying to put across his thesis. This was not some Red Pill/MRA manifesto or an Alt-Right screed against feminists and minorities.
But it is politically incorrect in its arguments, which in the current climate makes it as toxic as if the author had just proposed we repeal the 13th and 19th Amendments.
I am sure a lot of people at Google agree with much or all of the document's contents, but will stay very quiet about it.
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Post by Amadan on Aug 6, 2017 11:01:14 GMT -5
It's not that you're Supporting Trump (though by your own admission you follow him on Twitter which seems odd for someone Opposing Trump, but I digress) I suspect a lot of people who hate Trump follow him on Twitter. As for this leaking thing - Rob, you're just doing that thing again. That thing where you totally don't support Trump and agree that he's just an ever-so-unpleasant fellow, but gollygoshdarnit, why do Trump-haters have to be so hysterical and irrational and mean and nasty when the proper way to register disapprobation of Presidential shenanigans is calmly writing genteel op-eds about how they are disappointed by Trump's ungentlemanly conduct, and might wish for a slightly greater degree of specificity in his policy proposals. Therefore, Trump opponents are every bit as much to blame for the deteriorating state of Americans politics as he is. A pox, thou sayest, a pox on both their houses! Sniff.
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Post by Amadan on Aug 5, 2017 10:03:30 GMT -5
No conspiracy necessary. Just as religionists preach original sin and intelligent design because it's a natural fit to their storyline, the political class has a vested interest in selling the belief that an economy can be planned, just as they have a vested interest in selling the belief in an all-encompassing social contract. Not surprising at all, really, when you consider they are the ones with the hubris to believe they can do the planning and the lust for the power to attempt it. I'm sure many of those who promote the system are as sincere in their belief as are many religionists who believe in intelligent design. And just as many religionists are actually not creationists or believers in original sin, many of the "political class" are also not central planners and lusters after power. Seriously, do you believe everyone who goes into politics or government is an apparatchik? I really wish you could see the world in shades of gray instead of your Manichean worldview in which there are pro-freedom libertarians and everyone else. You are like so many libertarians, who have some good ideas and say a great deal that's worthwhile, but completely lose me because you can't conceive of anyone being as smart and as educated and as knowledgeable and as sincere as you and yet coming to different conclusions. You have identified certain ideologies that poison political and economic reform in the country, but your ideology has poisoned health care reform because the very idea of a single payer system elicits not a rational criticism of its flaws but a religious aversion to the concept. And while most people in the US are not libertarians, you and conservatives have convinced a substantial number of people that anything socialized at all is full-blown Marxism, bread lines, and the imminent onset of a Stalinist dictatorship. Personally, I'm on the fence with single payer - I have severe misgivings about it (and other forms of social welfare). Yet looking at the account books, it is hard to argue against the fact that countries with socialized medicine are doing much better than the US in terms of what they get for what they pay. The usual rebuttal is "A true free market system would be even better and more efficient!" but to me, that sounds like a refrain of all the true believers in communism who insisted that while the Soviet Union and China and Cuba and other Marxist countries weren't quite there yet, True Communism was just around the corner.
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Post by Amadan on Aug 4, 2017 20:22:35 GMT -5
The state of economic education is abysmal. I'm pretty much convinced that's not an accident. Here's a perfect example. The education system has no trouble getting across the concept of unsustainable ecology. They should be capable of explaining the same concept in the economics classroom. Seriously, Don, this is a non-rhetorical question - you keep implying that there are dark forces at work conspiring to make sure people don't "understand" economics. Who are these people? Do you genuinely believe that the Department of Education, under the direction of (Congress? Bankers? The Gnomes of Zurich?) plans a nationwide classroom curriculum that deliberately stunts economic understanding so that people will be too uneducated to make intelligent decisions and vote accordingly? Because I really want to know how that works.
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Post by Amadan on Jul 30, 2017 21:01:25 GMT -5
It makes perfectly logical sense if you approach this from the perspective that women are property and rape is a property crime.
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