[worry]

This is really interesting, and pretty nuanced stuff (conceptual replication vs. direct replication, lab vs. real world replications, the undeniable failures of certain replications, confirmation bias, etc.). Also Claude Steele sounds like a young Jonathan Banks.

[rant]

Azath Vitr (D, on 27 November 2018 - 06:59 PM, said:

worry, on 21 November 2018 - 11:42 PM, said:

Itwæs Nom, on 21 November 2018 - 08:48 PM, said:

The banning of Mexican costumes for example, it doesn't change anything about how mexicans are viewed by people does it?

I know this is phrased as a question, but it seems at least somewhat like it's making an argument, so I'll just say it seems like a pretty big assumption is being made there. For one thing, 'stereotype threat' is a real phenomenon that affects people's health and performance. For another, reinforcing stereotypes does in turn reinforce various prejudices and even oppression. Here's a quick rundown on costumes in particular: http://www.lspirg.org/costumes/

In terms of whether you "should" or "shouldn't" be offended by something, that's up to you to decide for you. But it's not up to you to decide for others, especially those who are living through oppression and violence as we speak, let alone historically. And I will also say that something that doesn't overtly promote hate or violence can still contribute and reinforce hate and violence, even if it's in a death by a thousand cuts kind of way. And to be frank, conceptions of violence solely as acts of physical harm are limited and inadequate. Erasure, dehumanization, exclusion, and other nebulous phenomena can all be very violent.

The research on stereotype threat has failed to replicate in larger and more rigorous studies. There's a discussion of it here:

https://www.wnycstud...ry/stereothreat

That's not to deny that it may sometimes have effects, for particular individuals or particular situations. (Some psychology professors claim they know it's real because they can 'prove' it in a classroom demonstration... of their own professorial ability to influence students.) But it doesn't appear to be a significant factor in group differences in performance on tests, which is what the theory was initially proposed to explain.

So reading the transcript for that podcast, it appears as though stereotype threat actually hasn't failed to be replicated in larger studies--rather it hasn't yet been tested in one of the larger studies. That said, with the on-going replication crisis in psychology, I think like...half?.... of the phenomenon turn out to be spurious--so it could certainly ultimately be the case. Though (imo) in that podcast its proponents make a strong case for it due to the external validity they've demonstrated by testing it outside of psych 101 students.

TBH I find making this an empirical question rather than a moral one kind of strange. What does it matter if stereotypes dont affect the test scores of a minority group if an individual from that minority group asks you not to perpetuate stereotypes because it hurts them.

If someone asks for help, you help them. You don't tell them they're wrong and don't need help lol.

[Studlock]

rant, on 27 November 2018 - 12:41 PM, said:

Studlock, on 27 November 2018 - 04:53 AM, said:

Also the word 'designed' is very much against what evolution is. Evolution doesn't 'design', it doesn't have a will, its a population adapting to evolutionary stressors, which again in the context of your argument, is nearly zero. No one is evolutionary primed to be a philosopher professor in a late capitalist economy. No one is evolutionary primed to be a nurse in a environment that is dominated not by survival, but by mundanity.

I agree that the link between gene and profession will always be tenuous at best. I'm just spitballing here cuz you got me thinking.

I don't think that we (being humans living in WEIRD countries) are free of the effects of natural selection. Fitness and intra-population competition still exist. We're just in this super strange & novel place where we partially control the environment which ultimately defines our stressors. So in fact, due to sexual selection (instead of natural) I think a gendered society such as we have now could theoretically lead to true biological differences (this is obviously on an evolutionary scale, not in the next 15 years lol). If everyone buys into the patriarchal dichotomy of men as breadwinners, and women as child rearers, and start REALLY working to optimize that dichotomy, differences could arise. I'm not sure what differences, as I'm not clear on what specific traits would actually be associated with those two archetypes.

Maybe not even super slowly--isn't the disappearance of lactose intolerance an example of rapid & adaptive human evolution? That happened on a relatively speedy scale evolutionarily speaking.

Humans are absolutely still evolving, and are subjected to evolutionary mechanics (natural selection being one, with genetic drift, and gene flow being the other two big ones--I'll get into this is a minute actually), including natural selection which includes sexual selection. However, I believe the correct, or at least the most correct, theory of evolution we currently have is the neutral theory, in which natural selection plays a much smaller role in the transformation of our genetic material. The random chance of genetic drift, and the migratory combination of populations through gene flow are much more important. Really only two things have be considered major factors when it comes to natural selection--phenotype, and obvious advantageous (or disadvantageous) traits. Phenotype has the most pressure because it is in large part how we decide to reproduce, but at the same time we can obviously tell how sociology and cultural play a large part in that process. A poor man might have poor teeth because he can't afford to go the dentist which makes him a less attractive mate, which means he's less like to pass on his genetic material, which means he's been 'naturally' selected against. Because, really, that's all natural selection is about--the passing on of genetic material. I've actively chosen not to have children, my 'genes' were selected against, but I didn't do that because of biological issues, but rather social ones.

The topic of lactose intolerance is actually a very interesting one, and a demonstrative one, and from what I remember the going theory, at least in Europe, is that the trait to better process sugars in cow milk was rapid because it happened during a time of famine in North Western Europe, and those who couldn't process it properly quickly died of dehydration--basically shitting themselves to death--while those who could lived through the famine and that fundamentally transformed the genetic pool of the area (this is the non-neutral part--mutations with obvious advantages are generally rapidly integrated into the population, while those of the opposite trait die out). That, however, also has a cultural component. Famines like that can only really happen in agricultural societies, because the lack of alternative subsistence strategies, larger population density, relatively centralized foodstuffs and so on--we can see how our social environment created the conditions in which a population selected for being able to drink milk.

So back to your point: I think we need to asks ourselves some questions. One, is that generally only phenotype has a heavy selection pressure, so we need ask how complex social behaviors like being a breadwinner or caretaker is actually being selected for. And, if such a biological change existed could survive other evolutionary mechanics such as gene flow and genetic drift? What you bring up is something I'm actually personally concerned about in the context of class and poverty, because there seems to genuine biological disadvantages that created by poverty (usually seen in epigenetics rather than a actual transformation of genetic material--anxiety related disorders have been correlated with mothers having anxiety riddled pregnancy, for more common for poor and working mothers), but I don't see how it could play out in terms of gender.

That all being said, I don't you're wrong, just that I'm not sure myself.

[worry]

I don't know how well this translates outside the U.S., but this article:

and this thread:

do a good job of dissecting the racism inherent in that WASP-y American "we" -- via Ross Douthat's latest column -- and the relegating of "identity politics" as the domain of non-white people, and all the erasures and subtle violence that come with that. Douthat's mindset is so representative of a certain widespread, dominant American nostalgia that's at the heart of conservative identity (including the struggles therein), but also imo informs the pathological American insistence on bipartisanship, centrist 'solutions', and kneejerk bemoaning over "polarization" that poisons so much of our politics and serves the cynical right.

[Primateus]

For those not in the know, WASP = White Anglo Saxon Protestant

[Aptorian]

Actually that's a misunderstanding. The real reason why they're called WASPs is because the GOP Hivequeens lay their eggs inside wealthy potential Republican's like a wasp. When the eggs hatch the victims are taken over and made to vote Republican, play tennis with a sweater tied around their shoulders and have sex with their pool boy.

This post has been edited by Alternative Goose: 06 December 2018 - 06:35 PM

[D'rek]

Those last two sound nice

[Aptorian]

Gobble, gobble.

[worry]

Alternative Goose, on 06 December 2018 - 04:28 PM, said:

Actually that's a misunderstanding. The real reason why they're called WASPs is because the GOP Hivequeens lay their eggs inside wealthy potential Republican's like a wasp. When the eggs hatch the victims are taken over and made to vote Republican, play tennis with a sweater tied around their shoulders and have sex with their pool boy.

[worry]

On not falling for it: https://www.currenta...is-a-better-way

[Tsundoku]

It's like a critical mass of stupid. All seeking the holy grail of Perfect Victimhood, so that everyone else will defer to them.
A sort of reverse Mean Girls, without making them nice ...

Long-ish article, but worth it IMHO. Captures a lot of why I facepalm over people's attitudes toward that petty shit. YMMV though, and that's OK.

https://www.theatlan...01/jaws/577039/

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 19 January 2019 - 02:50 PM

[worry]

On the one hand, there's a neverending line of comfortable white men concern-trolling more vulnerable people about the ways they respond to their own lived experiences, their own oppression. On the other hand, there's this...


I'm gonna suggest, respectfully -- take it or leave it -- that Conor Friedersdorf, a libertarian scold who built his career under the tutelage of white supremacist Andrew Sullivan and who spends much of his time now on the "college campuses are hostile to conservatives and thus are killing free speech" beat, isn't the perspective I'd rely on when adjudicating true vs. false 'victimhood.' For one thing, why does he divorce psychology from sociology? Isn't that oversimplifying things, to suggest being offended by the language that supports systems of oppression is merely a matter of hurt feelings? Seems like projection, among other things. As with complaints about "political correctness" in general, people with privilege pretend the problem is that others are being too sensitive about "just words." The problem is other people's emotionality, never their own discomfort from being confronted about assumptions and behaviors. So they paint other people's legitimate concerns as whining, and their own whining as reasonable complaints. At best, it's a pathological defense mechanism for those who can't genuinely engage with people who are unlike themselves on any terms they can't control.

[Tsundoku]

Fair enough, but if we never say anything for fear that someone, somewhere may be a little bit miffed ... well, that's just silly.

Sure we should all be a bit more careful about what we say, but by the same token we should also stop being so easily offended. So it's somewhere in the middle.

Did you read the list of complaints? My goodness, but I'd be tempted to send them all Butthurt Forms. So trivial and a waste of people's time, compared with what they were supposed to be doing at that meeting.

We need to stop making hurt feelings the standard for disciplinary action and shift it to provable intent. I can't control how you feel, only how I act. And if I'm paralysed trying to think of a way to tell you something which may or may not hurt your feelings, then what's the point? There goes 'constructive feedback' for a start.

Obviously there's a big difference between those shitty MAGA kids (I saw that in that twitter thread also btw), or calling someone the n-word at one end of the scale, and at the other end there's some of the childish shit that came out of that JAWS meeting or the mostly inconsequential piss on college campuses. We need to keep a sense of proportion and act accordingly. Just because someone's feelings got hurt doesn't necessarily mean there's an actual offence and people need to receive disciplinary action or sensitivity training.

There's simply too much reward for playing the victim and it's like a competition nowadays as to how petty people can be. It's like a race to the bottom where everyone loses.

Rape victim = genuine victim. Being called an "old white woman", or "Jazmin #2" because there are two people named Jazmin = not a victim. Just stop.

And yeah, I get that some of CF's stuff comes across a bit that way, but one thing I constantly see in his writing is a call for more personal responsibility and greater balance. Or as it used to be called - "common sense".

I would never call someone the n-word, but also if some twit said I couldn't use the term 'futbol' because I'm not Latino and that's cultural appropriation, I'll politely ignore them. How things go after that depends on them.

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 20 January 2019 - 12:34 AM

[worry]

A few people out of every group are cheats, or want to take advantage of systems or want to domineer. That's a different phenomenon than what is meant by identity politics though, which is a matter of recognizing social hierarchies (in the modern age, those especially rooted in white supremacy, patriarchy, capitalism, & colonialism) that benefit some groups over others. You can't equate that to like Russian dash cams catching people pretending to get hit by cars, or frivolous lawsuits, or what have you.


I mean, do you really think by and large that people of color are 'making it up' to gain special rewards, when they describe demeaning experiences? Or that women are 'making it up'? Or disabled people, or gay people, etc.? Cuz the only conclusion one can draw from focusing so much time, energy, and page space on the 'problem' of political correctness is that things are basically neutral with the occasional unfortunate outlier, and that most testimonial along these lines is fraudulent. Which strikes me as placing a comfortably distanced, white-straight-cis-male hunch above the experiences of millions and millions of people, about their own real lives. It's a position that suggests, for instance, that black people misdiagnose racism at staggeringly higher rates than white people. Does that honestly seem likely to you? Like, what is it going to take for non-white straight male people to be believed?

I don't even know what "personal responsibility", balance, or common sense mean. What era of the past was there balance? Who defined common sense? And how are people to practice personal responsibility in a society that denies their agency at every turn? Should black women (in the US) take 'personal responsibility' for the fact that they die during childbirth at 3 times the rate of white women, regardless of education, income, lifestyle, etc.? Or should we take that as a hint that their perceptions -- of being routinely disbelieved and mistrusted, of being treated as physically more resilient, of having a predilection for exaggerating (for all those rewards) -- actually align with reality more than is comfortable? How do you suggest even going about taking personal responsibility for phenomena that aren't on the individual level? How do you take personal responsibility for your family and your people being redlined out of home ownership and entrepreneurship for generations?

This post has been edited by worry: 20 January 2019 - 02:24 AM

[Tsundoku]

Seems to me you're saying every complaint is valid, whereas I'm saying sure, a lot of it is. But the petty shit as I have said above, is not.

I'm not saying people are making these incidents up at all, I'm saying that they should be aware of what is actually demeaning or a directed insult, versus them being overly sensitive, especially in the environment described in the article where it seems it was just one big circle of offence. And this is just from me reading the excerpts where the incidents are described.

I'm not talking about the entire thing, I'm talking about when it's taken too far, over petty matters. Otherwise are you saying that EVERY time EVERY person says they are offended by any matter at all, it should be taken as gospel and whomever the complaint is made against made aware of this and punished? Lawyers are going to love you.

Me, I believe in context. And proportion. The examples you give above about birth mortality rates and redlining are important of course, and I'm not at all trying to defend them. Had no idea about that 'black superman/resilience' thing at all, never even heard of it so please don't ascribe that to me.

By personal responsibility I mean ... exactly what it says. Being responsible for your - and only your - actions. Unless of course you have kids under 18 or are a fully licenced driver guiding an L plater, etc etc. You know what I mean.

By balance I mean neither lunatic fringe is right on this, the best place is somewhere in the big middle part of the bell curve. Probably slightly left-of-centre rather than the other way but that's just a gut thing.

By common sense ... yeah well, you got me there. Never really was that common in the first place. Should we use the 'reasonable person' instead? Sometimes also called the 'pub test'? Because if we can't rely on individual's sense, then we fall back on laws (of course). And when the acceptable standard becomes someone's hurt feelings ... geez ...
Again, may I state I'm not talking about the big stuff - bullying, harassment, etc. Demonstrated patterns of behaviour, or a single big incident where intent is easy to prove. Blind Freddy stuff. I'm talking about examples like in the article. Petty shit which is a waste of everyone's time and an insult to intelligence. What the courts call frivolous or vexatious (thankyou wikipedia).

I debated whether to put this here or the PC gone mad thread, and of course I made the wrong choice. My bad. Can some kind mod please shift posts #71 - 75 to the PC thread? Thanks.
The initial reason btw was because the tit for tat complaints were based on perceived offence to their demographic, hence Identity.

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 20 January 2019 - 05:05 AM

[worry]

Well I'm not trying to direct where or what you post! And I'm not ascribing all of this to you! Just discussing it, in light of the article. But on the other hand, think of having all of this indeed being ascribed to you by someone, and how it would make you feel. You know yourself, you know what's true and what's false, and you deny it. Yet the other person insists otherwise. Imagine being called a liar, when you know you're telling the truth. Perhaps the person calling you a liar has more standing, and people believe them more than you, and you get branded a liar. And imagine that 5 out of every 10 white men you meet, every day of your life, believe it in their bones. A few more aren't sure. Whenever you say something, they roll their eyes. You know why they're rolling their eyes, but nothing you say or do changes that. And maybe 1 of the few people who don't believe it happens to roll their eyes at you at some point. Couldn't you be forgiven for feeling the same feeling as you do with the people who've branded you a liar? And for not being quite sure what their motivation was? Most of the microaggressions you pick up on are real, and a few are false flags. Are those false flags really so damnable?


We don't have to keep going back and forth, if you think you know where we overlap and where we don't. But to be clear: I'm not saying "every claim is valid", only that suspicion as default is incredibly invalid, since the bulk of history, the bulk of evidence, the bulk of experience, and the bulk of testimony over millions and millions of people over decades and decades suggest that the facts fall with the oppressed and not the oppressor. They are, by and large: telling the truth; perceiving reality accurately; not reaping rewards (where are these rewards??); and rarely if ever are they even seeking justice or restoration. Mostly just blowing off steam.


So like, you mention proportion: proportionally speaking, what suggests to you that (for example) black people have been wrong about the way police treat them, or potential employers, or nonblack salespeople, or professionals? I'd actually bet nothing, and that you do believe they're right and truthful about it overall. I mean you've expressed your horror pretty often, so I'm not ascribing that to you. But then what's the point of focusing so much on the very rare instances when they do perceive things incorrectly, or overreact to a less glaring circumstance, or what have? And who cares if some rando tells you not to say 'futbol'? Proportionally, the preponderance of complaints, or critiques, or requests, or (most often) simple observations and anecdotes, are perfectly legitimate. So just ask yourself if it's possible that the people who benefit from the status quo, who get paid handsomely to defend it in magazines and op-ed pages and on cable news, might be the ones distorting, overstating, cherrypicking, and overreacting to 'PC culture.' And if they're doing so deliberately (which imo most are), what agenda does that serve?

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Tsundoku, on 20 January 2019 - 05:01 AM, said:

Seems to me you're saying every complaint is valid, whereas I'm saying sure, a lot of it is. But the petty shit as I have said above, is not.

I'm not saying people are making these incidents up at all, I'm saying that they should be aware of what is actually demeaning or a directed insult, versus them being overly sensitive, especially in the environment described in the article where it seems it was just one big circle of offence. And this is just from me reading the excerpts where the incidents are described.

I'm not talking about the entire thing, I'm talking about when it's taken too far, over petty matters. Otherwise are you saying that EVERY time EVERY person says they are offended by any matter at all, it should be taken as gospel and whomever the complaint is made against made aware of this and punished? Lawyers are going to love you.

Me, I believe in context. And proportion. The examples you give above about birth mortality rates and redlining are important of course, and I'm not at all trying to defend them. Had no idea about that 'black superman/resilience' thing at all, never even heard of it so please don't ascribe that to me.

By personal responsibility I mean ... exactly what it says. Being responsible for your - and only your - actions. Unless of course you have kids under 18 or are a fully licenced driver guiding an L plater, etc etc. You know what I mean.

By balance I mean neither lunatic fringe is right on this, the best place is somewhere in the big middle part of the bell curve. Probably slightly left-of-centre rather than the other way but that's just a gut thing.

By common sense ... yeah well, you got me there. Never really was that common in the first place. Should we use the 'reasonable person' instead? Sometimes also called the 'pub test'? Because if we can't rely on individual's sense, then we fall back on laws (of course). And when the acceptable standard becomes someone's hurt feelings ... geez ...
Again, may I state I'm not talking about the big stuff - bullying, harassment, etc. Demonstrated patterns of behaviour, or a single big incident where intent is easy to prove. Blind Freddy stuff. I'm talking about examples like in the article. Petty shit which is a waste of everyone's time and an insult to intelligence. What the courts call frivolous or vexatious (thankyou wikipedia).

I debated whether to put this here or the PC gone mad thread, and of course I made the wrong choice. My bad. Can some kind mod please shift posts #71 - 75 to the PC thread? Thanks.
The initial reason btw was because the tit for tat complaints were based on perceived offence to their demographic, hence Identity.

6:19 in (Staceyann Chin at the 2019 Women's March):


https://twitter.com/...719123017609217

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 20 January 2019 - 07:29 PM

[worry]

Wowsa. Imagine thinking people of color in the U.S. are overreacting to racism.

[Messremb]

worry, on 07 February 2019 - 12:29 AM, said:

Wowsa. Imagine thinking people of color in the U.S. are overreacting to racism.

The story link is geo-IP blocked.

[worry]

Sorry, here's the pertinent stuff (the McCain referenced is Cindy McCain):

Quote

I came in from a trip I’d been on and I spotted—it looked odd—it was a woman of a different ethnicity than the child, this little toddler she had, and something didn’t click with me,” McCain said in the radio interview. “I went over to the police and told them what I saw, and they went over and questioned her, and, by God, she was trafficking that kid.”

McCain went on to say that she discovered the woman was waiting for the man who bought the child to arrive from his flight.


Phoenix police said Wednesday that while officers did respond to the Jan. 30 call, at McCain’s request, they were able to determine “there was no evidence of criminal conduct or child endangerment.”