ARTICLE for Boomzilla about SOCIAL JUSTICE!



  • Since I know he's SUCH A FAN.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    He may have already seen that via http://ace.mu.nu/archives/357104.php, like I did.



  • TL;DR: people are fucking pansies these days.



  • That was actually pretty interesting. I find myself in similar circumstances often, but it's not the "liberals" or whatever who get butt hurt. It's mostly everybody -- the "normal" people who absolutely insist on emotionally charged readings of even the driest technical subject matter, and yell "I DISAGREE!!!!!!!ONEONE" again and again. SJWs and libertardians both do this, all the time. Telling these people that I'm using the basic definitions of a field only makes them more emotionally invested, since it highlights their ignorance.

    It takes a certain kind of boredom/tenacity to keep repeating the same argument in different words until they find one that makes sense to them. I would hate to be a college professor, where that is apparently not even a possibility.



  • Linked from that article, is this one.

    I love this quote:

    JESUS FUCK, LIKE SERIOUSLY FUCK, I SEE MORE WHITE BINDERS POLICING WOC AND DEMANDING TO BE EDUCATED/UNEDUCATED AS IF IT’S A FUCKING NOBLE MISSION RATHER THAN I DUNNO SPEND TIME SHUTTING DOWN AND SHITTING ON RACIST DOUCHE CANOE BEHAVIOUR; WHAT ARE YOU GAINING BY THIS? WHAT ARE YOU DETRACTING? YOU NEED SCREENCAPS OF BURNING CROSSES TO BELIEVE RACIST SHIT IS HAPPENING? THIS THREAD IS PAINFUL. HUGS TO ALL THE WOC DURING THIS THREAD



  • Yah, we have this shit over here as well. There was a huge article in our newspapers where some students anonymously complained that a certain professor (a luminary in his specialist field) was using politically incorrect, sexist or militaristic terms or was talking derogatively about certain ethnic groups. The lecture amounted to Politics 101, so you can guess as to how much real-world experience those students actually had.

    They did this via an anonymous blog - because, and I quote: "If we did this publicly we wouldn't be able to find a job afterwards!"

    Curiously, they were unable to provide actual transcripts, audio logs or anything really which would have actually corroborated their story.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    I love this quote

    Of course you would, it's in all caps and full of swearing.

    And again - people of today, cis, trans, white, black, female, male, non-binary, transcending the social divisions of mere mortals, whatever - just need to grow some fucking balls already. Welcome to Real World, people. Not everyone gives a shit about your feelings here.



  • @Maciejasjmj said:

    And again - people of today, cis, trans, white, black, female, male, non-binary, transcending the social divisions of mere mortals, whatever - just need to grow some fucking balls already. Welcome to Real World, people. Not everyone gives a shit about your feelings here.

    I'm so glad that I'm teaching Physics and Chemistry and tenured. If someone were offended by Newton's Axioms I can simply point to the syllabus.

    Granted, some political issues are covered - I'm also teaching nuclear physics as well as methods of energy production - I'll tell them that almost anything and everything has drawbacks. And that no energy production method has only positives.



  • @Rhywden said:

    And that no energy production method has only positives.

    But... but... the ad said I can have free energy with this one easy step...



  • @Maciejasjmj said:

    But... but... the ad said I can have free energy with this one easy step...

    I actually had to convince one of my younger brothers that he fell for a scam on this one. "Crystal energy" and all that shit.

    "But it works!" he complained. "Yeah," I said, "because you built a Daniell Cell, you genius."



  • @Rhywden said:

    Daniell Cell

    Well, it is energy. And if you already own salt, water and aluminium foil, it's also free.



  • @Rhywden said:

    has only positives

    Well duh, how would the electricity flow?



  • @swayde said:

    Well duh, how would the electricity flow?

    It's like magic, you know. It just flows, and there's no positive or negative or anything; it just goes from one place to another like magic. 😇



  • @Rhywden said:

    And that no energy production method has only positives.

    That's what BIG ENERGY wants people to BELIEVE. Good work SHILL. Hope you get paid some big bucks to TEACH LIES TO OUR CHILDREN at least.

    Also, you have no right to impose your WHITE MEN SCIENCE to people of other cultures.



  • I was mostly in agreement with the author, up to this point:

    If we subscribe to the belief that ideas can be judged within a vacuum, uninfluenced by the social weight of their proponents, we perpetuate a system in which arbitrary markers like race and gender influence the perceived correctness of ideas. We can't overcome prejudice by pretending it doesn't exist. Focusing on identity allows us to interrogate the process through which white males have their opinions taken at face value, while women, people of color, and non-normatively gendered people struggle to have their voices heard.

    I disagree. Ideas should be judged on their own merits, regardless of "the social weight of their proponents." If, indeed, "white males have their opinions taken at face value" and others "struggle to have their voices heard," this is a problem that needs to be fixed. But it should be done by judging the idea, not the source of the idea. "Focusing on identity" perpetuates a "process" in which "identity" is falsely considered relevant to the importance of an idea.

    One aspect of the identity of an idea's source is potentially relevant. If an idea or opinion is put forth by someone with years of experience in the field on which they are offering an opinion, and another is put forth by a random dude(ette) on the Internet, the former's idea is more likely to have merit than the latter's, and IMHO this can be an appropriate filter to use in deciding where to use limited resources for further evaluation. However, the "identity" (in the buzzword sense) of either source is irrelevant to the merits of the ideas, and should be regarded as such; ideally, IMHO, it wouldn't even be known to those evaluating the ideas.



  • @Maciejasjmj said:

    people are fucking pansies

    If flowers float your boat, I guess ...



  • The real problem: a simplistic, unworkable, and ultimately stifling conception of social justice

    Which is pretty much what we've all been saying here since forever.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @Captain said:

    Telling these people that I'm using the basic definitions of a field only makes them more emotionally invested, since it highlights their ignorance.

    :rolleyes:

    For some reason, you still haven't noticed what I was talking about.



  • @HardwareGeek said:

    I disagree. Ideas should be judged on their own merits, regardless of "the social weight of their proponents."

    Most arguments in this vein presuppose a social hierarchy that's a mirror image of the one decried by SJWs; that one's credibility is proportional to the amount of oppression one endures. Aside from being a shameless ad hominem, there's some beautiful irony at work there.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @blakeyrat said:

    I SEE MORE WHITE BINDERS POLICING WOC

    lolwut



  • @HardwareGeek said:

    I disagree. Ideas should be judged on their own merits, regardless of "the social weight of their proponents." If, indeed, "white males have their opinions taken at face value" and others "struggle to have their voices heard," this is a problem that needs to be fixed. But it should be done by judging the idea, not the source of the idea.
    Read again. He's not saying judge the idea by the source of the idea. He's saying we need to look at what got us into the state ("interrogate the process through which") where that isn't happening.

    @HardwareGeek said:

    One aspect of the identity of an idea's source is potentially relevant
    There's a second, which is conflicts of interest/ulterior motives/etc.



  • @HardwareGeek said:

    > If we subscribe to the belief that ideas can be judged within a vacuum, uninfluenced by the social weight of their proponents, we perpetuate a system in which arbitrary markers like race and gender influence the perceived correctness of ideas. We can't overcome prejudice by pretending it doesn't exist. Focusing on identity allows us to interrogate the process through which white males have their opinions taken at face value, while women, people of color, and non-normatively gendered people struggle to have their voices heard.

    I disagree.

    @Groaner said:

    Most arguments in this vein presuppose a social hierarchy that's a mirror image of the one decried by SJWs; that one's credibility is proportional to the amount of oppression one endures. Aside from being a shameless ad hominem, there's some beautiful irony at work there.

    I believe both of you have read his statement exactly backward of what he's saying (It is badly worded.) A clearer expression:

    If we assume that ideas are judged without regard to the social value of the proponent of that idea, we perpetuate the current system.

    Essentially, he's saying that if we assume the words spoken by a black wearing a hoodie have the same value as a white male CEO, then there is no way to overcome prejudice. In this, a poor black person may complain that, "I suffer," but his complaint is ignored as having no value, overwhelmed by the perceived value of the white CEO's statement that, "Everything is fine just the way it is."

    The opposite allows us to weigh each statement as having merit or not, and to reach a conclusion based on the relative merits. It does not evaluate ideas based on "who is more important."

    Bottom line, arguments should not be won by social fiat.



  • @CoyneTheDup said:

    Essentially, he's saying that if we assume the words spoken by a black wearing a hoodie have the same value as a white male CEO, then there is no way to overcome prejudice.

    Huh? If their voices are treated with equal value, isn't that the opposite of prejudice?

    @CoyneTheDup said:

    In this, a poor black person may complain that, "I suffer," but his complaint is ignored as having no value, overwhelmed by the perceived value of the white CEO's statement that, "Everything is fine just the way it is."

    "The latest survey results show that 50% of the population is happy and the other 50% is suffering. Next time, we should probably have a bigger sample than n=2 to draw any meaningful conclusions."



  • @Groaner said:

    Huh? If their voices are treated with equal value, isn't that the opposite of prejudice?
    Whether or not you believe him, he's saying that "if their voices are treated with equal value" is counterfactual, and we can't get to the point where it is actually true if we pretend that that goal is already reality.



  • @EvanED said:

    There's a second, which is conflicts of interest/ulterior motives/etc.

    Good point. However, the idea should still be judged on its merits. Just because someone promoting an idea has an ulterior motive does not necessarily mean the idea is bad. Subject the idea to heightened scrutiny when evaluating it, but don't reject it out of hand.

    @EvanED said:

    He's saying we need to look at what got us into the state ("interrogate the process through which") where that isn't happening.

    I can agree with that. Yes, fix the process. I disagree with his stated method to do that.

    If we subscribe to the belief that ideas can be judged within a vacuum, uninfluenced by the social weight of their proponents, we perpetuate a system in which arbitrary markers like race and gender influence the perceived correctness of ideas.

    I agree that perpetuating a "system in which arbitrary markers like race and gender influence the perceived correctness of ideas" is bad. However, I believe that the way to avoid that is to do exactly what the first part of the sentence claims will cause it: Do judge ideas on their own merits, in "a vacuum, uninfluenced by the social weight of their proponents."

    One problem arises because people with certain "identities" will promulgate ideas and opinions that are tightly coupled to their "identities." Even if those ideas are judged strictly on their merits, without regard to the "identities" (which may be very difficult or impossible to achieve) and found wanting, the people with those "identities" and the SJWs that support them will almost certainly complain that the rejection was based on the "identity" rather than their idea being bad. There may or may not be any basis for the claim, but the claim will be made anyway. People don't like being told their ideas are stupid; seeing oneself as a victim of bias is a lot more palatable that seeing oneself as wrong.



  • @EvanED said:

    Whether or not you believe him, he's saying that "if their voices are treated with equal value" is counterfactual, and we can't get to the point where it is actually true if we pretend that that goal is already reality.

    If that is, in fact, what he's saying, I agree. However, that is not the message that the words he wrote convey to me.



  • @Groaner said:

    @CoyneTheDup said:
    Essentially, he's saying that if we assume the words spoken by a black wearing a hoodie have the same value as a white male CEO, then there is no way to overcome prejudice.

    Huh? If their voices are treated with equal value, isn't that the opposite of prejudice?

    Don't confuse the idea with the prejudice. Prejudice is still widespread, in so many ways it's like a forest. Then we sit down to talk about the forest, and that discussion consists of ideas. If only the ideas of the people who are "superior" are considered--if the ideas from those who are "inferior" are ignored--what will change?

    @Groaner said:

    @CoyneTheDup said:
    In this, a poor black person may complain that, "I suffer," but his complaint is ignored as having no value, overwhelmed by the perceived value of the white CEO's statement that, "Everything is fine just the way it is."

    "The latest survey results show that 50% of the population is happy and the other 50% is suffering. Next time, we should probably have a bigger sample than n=2 to draw any meaningful conclusions."

    That is like a discussion of fair that I saw: We can try to make life more fair. Or we can just say, "Life is unfair," and tell ourselves because that is so, nothing needs done.

    And therein lies your statistical argument: Half are overfed and half are starving to death: that's good enough, congratulate ourselves for a job well done. Who cares about those starving 50% anyway?



  • @CoyneTheDup said:

    That is like a discussion of fair that I saw: We can try to make life more fair. Or we can just say, "Life is unfair," and tell ourselves because that is so, nothing needs done.

    Life is, and will always be, unfair. Try to make it more fair, as fair as we can. Keep trying, but don't be whiny crybabies about the parts we can't fix. And definitely don't be whiny crybabies about the consequences of your own choices; those aren't (necessarily) unfair, and don't (necessarily) need to be fixed. Example: A certain forum participant who whines about the consequences of refusal to fully participate in certain aspects of the forum.



  • @CoyneTheDup said:

    If only the ideas of the people who are "superior" are considered--if the ideas from those who are "inferior" are ignored--what will change?

    As compared to treating the ideas equally? I think we're in agreement that the status quo is skewed and undesirable.

    @CoyneTheDup said:

    That is like a discussion of fair that I saw: We can try to make life more fair. Or we can just say, "Life is unfair," and tell ourselves because that is so, nothing needs done.

    Individuals are rarely able to wave a magic wand that upsets the status quo on a macroscopic scale. We can do our best to be open to ideas from everywhere, but we can't make everyone share our worldview.

    @CoyneTheDup said:

    And therein lies your statistical argument: Half are overfed and half are starving to death: that's good enough, congratulate ourselves for a job well done. Who cares about those starving 50% anyway?

    My statistical argument shows what happens when voices are weighted equally. The fact that 50% are starving should be seen as problem enough when elections require a majority.

    What I'm getting out of your argument is that to counter the status quo (which is admittedly unfair and full of prejudice), we need to have prejudice in the opposite direction. I'm having difficulty seeing why more prejudice is the best prescription for prejudice, or why it's a better solution than an egalitarian approach.



  • @Maciejasjmj said:

    Not everyone No one gives a shit about your feelings here.

    FTFY

    We already knew millennials were a bunch of pussies. Just wait until they leave college and are confronted with their boss who grew up watching Beavis and Butthead.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @CoyneTheDup said:

    >If we assume that ideas are judged without regard to the social value of the proponent of that idea, we perpetuate the current system.

    Essentially, he's saying that if we assume the words spoken by a black wearing a hoodie have the same value as a white male CEO, then there is no way to overcome prejudice. In this, a poor black person may complain that, "I suffer," but his complaint is ignored as having no value, overwhelmed by the perceived value of the white CEO's statement that, "Everything is fine just the way it is."

    But doing that is ignoring the merit of the ideas. If we treat each of their voices equally and we hear a contradiction, then we'll need to investigate the issue more deeply to resolve the contradiction. If the current system is judging ideas based on ideas and not their proponents, then the current system is pretty damned good and we should perpetuate it.


  • BINNED

    @HardwareGeek said:

    "white males have their opinions taken at face value" and others "struggle to have their voices heard,"

    I'm not a white male and I don't struggle to have my voice heard. Am I Doing It Wrong™?


  • kills Dumbledore

    @Eldelshell said:

    We already knew millennials were a bunch of pussies. Just wait until they leave college and are confronted with their boss who grew up watching Beavis and Butthead

    Leaving college? I'm pretty sure I count as a Millenial, and I'm 30 this year. Generations aren't particularly well defined


  • ♿ (Parody)

    When was the last time you looted a CVS?


  • BINNED

    Dammit, I knew I was forgetting something!



  • @Groaner said:

    What I'm getting out of your argument is that to counter the status quo (which is admittedly unfair and full of prejudice), we need to have prejudice in the opposite direction. I'm having difficulty seeing why more prejudice is the best prescription for prejudice, or why it's a better solution than an egalitarian approach.

    No, we need to stop being prejudiced while pretending we aren't. We need to recognize that prejudice so we can remove it from the decision making process.

    @boomzilla said:

    But doing that is ignoring the merit of the ideas. If we treat each of their voices equally and we hear a contradiction, then we'll need to investigate the issue more deeply to resolve the contradiction. If the current system is judging ideas based on ideas and not their proponents, then the current system is pretty damned good and we should perpetuate it.

    If it is based upon ideas and not on their proponents, it is good. It is quite clear however that many decisions are selectively made based upon who their proponents are, as opposed to the merit of the ideas themselves.

    I'm not just talking about government ideas, either. For example, I wore hooded shirts as a kid because I worked outside a lot (farm kid). If you work outside, it wouldn't surprise me if you wear one now, or at least from time-to-time.

    What then made a hoodie worn by a black man, evidence of criminality? Who signed off on that idea...do we really think that was something that the black community proposed and approved? Or is it more likely that this idea was promoted by someone white and male...and accepted as righteous gospel by everyone who bows and scrapes before him? Such that the idea can't be reconsidered even in the face of contrary evidence?


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @CoyneTheDup said:

    If it is based upon ideas and not on their proponents, it is good. It is quite clear however that many decisions are selectively made based upon who their proponents are, as opposed to the merit of the ideas themselves.

    I agree. But while I have read the full article, your summary of this indicates to me that the author just wants to change whose opinion we value.

    @CoyneTheDup said:

    What then made a hoodie worn by a black man, evidence of criminality?

    I don't think anyone believes that it's evidence, per se, it's just something that has become associated with it.

    @CoyneTheDup said:

    Or is it more likely that this idea was promoted by someone white and male...and accepted as righteous gospel by everyone who bows and scrapes before him? Such that the idea can't be reconsidered even in the face of contrary evidence?

    I think that's crazytalk. Does anyone really believe that?



  • How many complaints will it take before chairs and administrators begin to worry that I'm not giving our customers — er, students, pardon me — the positive experience they're paying for?

    That students-as-customers thing, rather than the way people express opinions on social justice, seems to be the crux of the problem to me.

    Not sure what things were like elsewhere, but it was in about the mid-Eighties that something called Economic Rationalism started taking hold in public policy in Australia. It roughly coincided with the rise of "scientific" management and the tendency for policymakers to speak largely in empty business jargon here.

    One of the central Con Rat ideas I recall finding repugnant at the time - and still do to this day - is that everybody I do something for becomes thereby my "customer". This strictly transactional view of interpersonal relationships effectively declares human motivations like generosity, tradition, loyalty, love, wisdom, duty, service and the public good to be unimportant, old-fashioned and/or misguided, and over the years it has become ever more entrenched in policy and assumed as the only reasonable basis for discussion.

    Students are now considered a university's customers, with the unstated assumption that the qualifications they go to uni to seek are a product they can just go out and buy as if it were a car or a vacuum cleaner. Don't like the product? Then you're perfectly within your rights to complain about it and get it altered. Academic standards? Fuck 'em if they make the coursework harder.

    I don't blame students for having this attitude. Most of them have spent their entire lives soaking up a culture whose every institution now seems to be telling them it's perfectly normal.

    But it fucking well shouldn't be, regardless of the fantasies of the Taylorist weenies who operate their insane megacorporations on the basis that workers are mere interchangeable industrial parts and society merely a parts supplier.



  • The only real interaction I've had with "SJW"s or whatever we're calling them is a forum where rule was that if you were offended, the offended party was allowed to break every forum rule possible without punishment.

    So... if they followed this "rule" to its logical extent, the entire forum would have been nothing but racial slurs just flying back and forth. I can't even remember why I got into the argument in the first place, but it was something really stupid. I think it was over the word "ableist".

    Anyway my solution was to just get the fuck out of dodge.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @flabdablet said:

    Students are now considered a university's customers, with the unstated assumption that the qualifications they go to uni to seek are a product they can just go out and buy as if it were a car or a vacuum cleaner

    Part of the problem with colleges is that we've gone so far overboard with credentialism. Degrees are required for ludicrous things. I remember when my wife got a job as a receptionist nearly 20 years ago, they wanted someone with a bachelor's degree. :wtf:

    And so sending so many kids through college, we simply don't have enough who are really qualified for the sort of learning that used to be done there. But they still need their sheepskins.

    This is all problematic, but really a separate concern from the SJW issues raised in the article. It's perversely fun to watch folks like the author reap what they have sown for so long.



  • @boomzilla said:

    we've gone so far overboard with credentialism. Degrees are required for ludicrous things.

    Again, I see this as part and parcel of "economically rational" managerialism. Workers are no longer treated primarily as people, but as "human resources" available with a range of nicely quantifiable attributes.

    I remember the first time I heard somebody say "human resources". I thought they were making a sardonic joke.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @flabdablet said:

    Again, I see this as part and parcel of "economically rational" managerialism.

    OK, I certainly don't have a firm grasp of your idea of that concept. Credentialism has never struck me as particularly rational.

    I also think there's some supply side causality. Going to college has become more and more subsidized (either directly or through subsidized loans) leading to more people going. Those people eventually get out into the world and want to value what they got out of college, which was mainly a piece of paper. Not to mention the proliferation of bullshit curricula required to find something to do with the influx of students.



  • @boomzilla said:

    Credentialism has never struck me as particularly rational.

    Neither has the school of thought that its proponents here (Australia) describe as "economic rationalism", which basically amounts to making important decisions on the basis of crude metrics that sweep aside vast swathes of irritating social complexity as if they were of no consequence whatsoever.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    I'll take your word for that.



  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99s19HBs-6A


  • ♿ (Parody)

    Uh huh.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @boomzilla said:

    I remember when my wife got a job as a receptionist nearly 20 years ago, they wanted someone with a bachelor's degree.

    Same time frame, part-time pet adoption "counselor" at an animal shelter.


  • Banned

    Can someone explain to me what social justice is? If it's simply justice, why it's "social" and not just "justice"? And if it's not justice, why should we pursue it?


  • ♿ (Parody)

    It's whatever anyone wants it to be:

    https://youtu.be/rtBvQj2k6xo



  • Yes, that's a good example. I made a dry statement of fact, and you immediately jumped to calling me a SJW ("politics of envy") because you disagreed. And then, when I provided the textbook definitions, you shifted the scope to an irrelevant topic (public goods). Hint: public goods are provisioned according to rent seeking and lobbying (the willingness to pay criterion).

    I also made no claim that a business shouldn't use all of the resources that is available to it, but that businesses extracts rents (unearned income) by doing so. A mere statement of fact arouses ire.


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