3 ms·

Which doesn't discredit the equivalence, it discredits social scientists, since any layman can look at the two statements and see that they are facially the sam

by 794CD01 10y ago

Which doesn't discredit the equivalence, it discredits social scientists, since any layman can look at the two statements and see that they are facially the same.

pron 10y ago
And the layman would be wrong, because to judge the significance of a statement -- in sociology as in math -- context is crucial.
- 794CD01 10y ago
  Right, but it doesn't matter whether their belief is right or not, what matters is that they believe it.
  - pron 10y ago
    That's a purely ethical perspective (although even in that perspective ethics, I don't think your conclusion is clear-cut at all), but Twitter's decision may be based on social damage rather than just ethics. The damage done by someone who represents power when attacking those with less power is greater than the other way around, regardless of the beliefs of the speakers. This, BTW, is why I'm so frustrated when people understand these things to be about someone taking offense. When society approves (or approves by ignoring) marginalizing actions and speech, there is actual damage being done through social signaling regardless of whether anyone present has been personally offended or not.
- kofejnik 10y ago
  So now we have a privileged caste of self-appointed social 'scientists' who get to decide what constitutes racism and who gets their life ruined. this is gold, seriously
  - pron 10y ago
    I'm not sure understand what you're asking. Researchers in every field are always a "self appointed caste" and, yes, they tend to be privileged. Racism as an academic term is defined by the academic discipline that studies it, just as physicists get to decide what constitutes energy under the academic definition of energy, even though the word had existed thousands of years earlier, and with a different meaning. I don't think academics often get to decide who gets their life ruined, but social researchers do study the process of what ruins life in society. Have I addressed your questions?
    - kofejnik 10y ago
      No, because without repeatability and predictability, an academic is usually just a charlatan
      - pron 10y ago
        Why do you say "without repeatability and predictability"? Social studies must be reproducible. When they are not, they are discredited (where are you getting your information about social science?) As we speak, there are academic organizations being formed to do exactly that: to reproduce more social science results. Prediction, as I explained, is generally impossible, just as it is impossible in computer science and biology in the general case, but in simplified situations, it exists and it is expected. Not only that, it is being used as a technology. Many manipulation techniques employed by large websites employ social science results to great effect. I think you're attacking a strawman image of social science that's been constructed by people who really have no clue. That's not to say that the social sciences aren't plagued by many methodological problems, but we actually do know quite a lot.

by 794CD01 10y ago

Which doesn't discredit the equivalence, it discredits social scientists, since any layman can look at the two statements and see that they are facially the same.

pron 10y ago

And the layman would be wrong, because to judge the significance of a statement -- in sociology as in math -- context is crucial.

794CD01 10y ago
Right, but it doesn't matter whether their belief is right or not, what matters is that they believe it.
- pron 10y ago
  That's a purely ethical perspective (although even in that perspective ethics, I don't think your conclusion is clear-cut at all), but Twitter's decision may be based on social damage rather than just ethics. The damage done by someone who represents power when attacking those with less power is greater than the other way around, regardless of the beliefs of the speakers. This, BTW, is why I'm so frustrated when people understand these things to be about someone taking offense. When society approves (or approves by ignoring) marginalizing actions and speech, there is actual damage being done through social signaling regardless of whether anyone present has been personally offended or not.
kofejnik 10y ago
So now we have a privileged caste of self-appointed social 'scientists' who get to decide what constitutes racism and who gets their life ruined. this is gold, seriously
- pron 10y ago
  I'm not sure understand what you're asking. Researchers in every field are always a "self appointed caste" and, yes, they tend to be privileged. Racism as an academic term is defined by the academic discipline that studies it, just as physicists get to decide what constitutes energy under the academic definition of energy, even though the word had existed thousands of years earlier, and with a different meaning. I don't think academics often get to decide who gets their life ruined, but social researchers do study the process of what ruins life in society. Have I addressed your questions?
  - kofejnik 10y ago
    No, because without repeatability and predictability, an academic is usually just a charlatan
    - pron 10y ago
      Why do you say "without repeatability and predictability"? Social studies must be reproducible. When they are not, they are discredited (where are you getting your information about social science?) As we speak, there are academic organizations being formed to do exactly that: to reproduce more social science results. Prediction, as I explained, is generally impossible, just as it is impossible in computer science and biology in the general case, but in simplified situations, it exists and it is expected. Not only that, it is being used as a technology. Many manipulation techniques employed by large websites employ social science results to great effect. I think you're attacking a strawman image of social science that's been constructed by people who really have no clue. That's not to say that the social sciences aren't plagued by many methodological problems, but we actually do know quite a lot.