8 ms·

>Once you admit the possibility that men and women might not be blank slates, many of the patterns that appear to be "sexist" suddenly make sense. I don't know

>Once you admit the possibility that men and women might not be blank slates, many of the patterns that appear to be "sexist" suddenly make sense. I don't know of many people who assert that people are blank slates, they just take equality as the null-hypothesis until they see evidence to the contrary. And I'm not sure what you mean by "suddenly make sense". Differences caused by discrimination also "make sense", the question is which is the better assumption. I think it's unhelpful to assume innate differences, because that assumption encourages discriminatory differences, and so confounds observation. >Let's say I want O and you want O + O'. People don't necessarily want the Civil Rights Act, they just think it's necessary to kick us out of the local maxima of self-reinforcing bias. Ideally, all the protected classes get their chance, and over time people come to realise they're actually equally good at most things, and then the act is no longer necessary. >Has the Civil Rights Act of 1964 brought racial and gender harmony? It seems to me that in many ways things are worse than ever. Cultural change is a slow process, but everything I've seen suggests that things are definitely far better now than they were in 1964. Do you have any evidence to the contrary? >Believers in O' would rather wreck college athletics with Title IX, Personally I don't think women's leagues are an ideal solution, and I'd prefer a tiered unisex system that encourages competition at every skill level. >or wreck the black community with welfare, than admit that O' doesn't achieve its stated goals. Poverty traps are caused by economic policy, not anti-discrimination policy. >Efforts to fight it will (a) cause massive collateral damage while (b) not working. Do you have any other examples of this "massive collateral damage", because I'm not finding your examples particularly compelling.

lmm 11y ago
> I don't know of many people who assert that people are blank slates, they just take equality as the null-hypothesis until they see evidence to the contrary. You've not been paying attention to the media then. But even a "null hypothesis" of equality is indefensible given the facts. Everything heritable is correlated to a lesser or greater extent, that's just how genetics works. Pretty much anything you can think of a measure for - height, weight, IQ, myers-briggs personality traits, religiosity... - will have different averages for different sexes. It would take an extraordinary coincidence for job performance at some particular job to be uncorrelated with sex. > And I'm not sure what you mean by "suddenly make sense". Differences caused by discrimination also "make sense", the question is which is the better assumption. I think there are cases where people will tie themselves in epicycle-like knots where innate differences offer a much simpler explanation - see e.g. http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/01/24/perceptions-of-required-ability-act-as-a-proxy-for-actual-required-ability-in-explaining-the-gender-gap/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/01/24/perceptions-of-required... > I think it's unhelpful to assume innate differences, because that assumption encourages discriminatory differences, and so confounds observation. Assuming that any difference is evidence of discrimination is equally unhelpful. If you want the truth you can't assume one way or the other; you need to consider all the possibilities. > Poverty traps are caused by economic policy, not anti-discrimination policy. It can be both. Some anti-discrimination policies (e.g. having black students taught by black teachers) have made things worse for those they were trying to help. And I think those mistakes largely happened because the people involved were unwilling to even consider the possibility of innate differences. > Do you have any other examples of this "massive collateral damage", because I'm not finding your examples particularly compelling. Compelling (at least to me), relevant-to-here example: it's illegal in the US, and possibly elsewhere, to use an IQ or similar test in hiring (without doing an expensive study that large organizations may be able to afford but startups generally aren't). This is foolish; it damages the ability of companies to hire the best person for the job, dragging down the whole economy.

lmm 11y ago

> I don't know of many people who assert that people are blank slates, they just take equality as the null-hypothesis until they see evidence to the contrary. You've not been paying attention to the media then. But even a "null hypothesis" of equality is indefensible given the facts. Everything heritable is correlated to a lesser or greater extent, that's just how genetics works. Pretty much anything you can think of a measure for - height, weight, IQ, myers-briggs personality traits, religiosity... - will have different averages for different sexes. It would take an extraordinary coincidence for job performance at some particular job to be uncorrelated with sex. > And I'm not sure what you mean by "suddenly make sense". Differences caused by discrimination also "make sense", the question is which is the better assumption. I think there are cases where people will tie themselves in epicycle-like knots where innate differences offer a much simpler explanation - see e.g. http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/01/24/perceptions-of-required-ability-act-as-a-proxy-for-actual-required-ability-in-explaining-the-gender-gap/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/01/24/perceptions-of-required... > I think it's unhelpful to assume innate differences, because that assumption encourages discriminatory differences, and so confounds observation. Assuming that any difference is evidence of discrimination is equally unhelpful. If you want the truth you can't assume one way or the other; you need to consider all the possibilities. > Poverty traps are caused by economic policy, not anti-discrimination policy. It can be both. Some anti-discrimination policies (e.g. having black students taught by black teachers) have made things worse for those they were trying to help. And I think those mistakes largely happened because the people involved were unwilling to even consider the possibility of innate differences. > Do you have any other examples of this "massive collateral damage", because I'm not finding your examples particularly compelling. Compelling (at least to me), relevant-to-here example: it's illegal in the US, and possibly elsewhere, to use an IQ or similar test in hiring (without doing an expensive study that large organizations may be able to afford but startups generally aren't). This is foolish; it damages the ability of companies to hire the best person for the job, dragging down the whole economy.