4 ms·

If you read his essay he absolutely did not conflate group and individual variability.

by abnry 9y ago

throwanem 9y ago
I'll put my hand up to not having read the whole thing; this is a fairly busy week for me, and I don't expect to find the time soon. That's totally on me; on the other hand, I'm getting the basis of my prior statement via Frederik deBoer, whom I've found to be very meticulous in such matters, and so I've been willing to assume its accuracy despite unfamiliarity with the primary source. It sounds like you have read the whole thing, though. Would you mind calling out some relevant quotes, so that I can get a better sense of his points on the subject, and retract my earlier statement should it prove unfactual? Thanks!
- abnry 9y ago
  Check out part of his conclusion here: https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/894768062682980353 https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/894768062682980353
  - throwanem 9y ago
    I fear I may have done the man a disservice.
    - abnry 9y ago
      Unfortunately, as long as you have a bit of an open mind, it's not your fault. The media deliberately misrepresented what he wrote.
      - throwanem 9y ago
        Yeah, but the point I'm making is that on the one hand, I know to account for that, and on the other, I expected better of deBoer. That by me is the really galling part - despite that he's still deeply committed to the progressive ideology, he's struck me as a generally accurate observer and honest reporter until now. I'm both surprised and disappointed to discover he is not reliably so, and that I'll henceforth have to source and backcheck him with the same care I'm accustomed to using everywhere else. Which is fine, but...I don't know. I suppose I have a hope or two pinned on the guy possibly being open to the kind of good-faith-on-both-sides reconciliation that's going to have to start somewhere if there's to be a chance of resolving the current political polarization in a marginally civilized way. In particular, his recent comments on the subject of academic ostracism of political dissent, and how that's a terrible idea both ethically and pragmatically, have given me a strongly favorable impression - and since he's a lecturer at CUNY, that he should say such things seems to me to count for a considerable deal more than when a mouthy unlettered redneck such as myself, for example, does so. I don't know. Maybe he just slipped, too - he's on vacation this week, so perhaps he just didn't look into the matter as closely as he should've, same as I didn't. But it's a little discouraging all the same.
- Smutte 9y ago
  Your previous comment is a good example of the larger issue at hand. Your comment, the Google incident but honestly current western society as a whole. It is actually quite interesting to try to understand... What brings a person to make a statement such as yours, without having read the material in question..? Would the same person (you) also comment on how much he/she likes or dislikes food before having tried it? It seems to me this is not about having a "busy week" but a completely different view of truth, what is "right" and honestly when to talk and when to listen. I dont mean to continue bashing you, but your comment was such a clear and ironic example/display of what I think is a very big challenge for western society these days.
  - throwanem 9y ago
    > What brings a person to make a statement such as yours, without having read the material in question Can't speak for any other person or any other case. But, here, I relied on a secondary source who has built a reputation with me for veracity even on contentious topics such as these, despite that he and I disagree on just about every prior in the world when it comes to matters of this sort. Unfortunately, he has disappointed me here, and I've thus made a factual error in an earlier comment which I have since acknowledged in a sibling thread to this one. I'm not sure what effect that's likely to have on the whole larger point about Western society that you're trying to draw here. Seems like a lot of stew from one very small oyster, especially considering you're coming with this at a gay man who spent an entire day's worth of HN participation, a few months back, arguing that gay marriage is a bad idea both for the individuals involved and for the state. Came out net karma positive on it, too, which I found surprising. But I think there's a great deal in my prior commentary here that would surprise you, had you but bothered to look before you went running off on whatever this tangent is about how I'm an example of everything that's wrong with Western society, or I'm privileging my individual opinion of how things must be over the facts of the matter, or whatever. If you want to talk about irony, how about the irony that inheres in making exactly the same mistake against which you inveigh when you see me make it, having incidentally failed to notice that, by the time you got around to trying to set me up as some kind of example of a failure in society as a whole, I'd already seen the error called out as such, requested substantiation of the counterclaim, received same, and clearly recognized that I'd erred? That seems pretty ironic to me!
- devotedtoneu 9y ago
  I can be read in under ten minutes. No doubt a similar time sink as checking the discussion on 3-4 pages on HN.
  - throwanem 9y ago
    So I gather. Not gonna lie, I heard "manifesto" and immediately thought back to Industrial Society and its Future, which is a much more substantial document; I would not have time for something of similar heft just now. I should've taken a closer look straight away. But as I said before, it's been a busy week. Having now read it, I can immediately conclude that James Damore is very new at this, approached it under the assumption that the social and political context around the matter was susceptible to mere reasoned discourse, and really had no idea of the minefield into which he so blithely strolled. Someone a bit more seasoned, for example, would not have included the "Possible non-bias causes..." section at all. On the one hand, it's not as well supported as it might be and "evolutionary psychology" in particular is a great big pile of unfalsifiable hypotheses. On the other and much larger hand, that section is just chock-full of material for the kind of tendentious, misrepresentative quote-mining that's a go-to tactic for those who so believe in the righteousness of themselves and their cause that they find no dishonesty too mean to deploy against someone with the temerity to dissent. I can also immediately conclude that I did indeed perpetuate a misrepresentation from a secondary source, and I greatly appreciate 'abnry and 'beaconstudios bringing my attention to the error. In future I'll try not to make the same mistake again.

If you read his essay he absolutely did not conflate group and individual variability.

by abnry 9y ago

If you read his essay he absolutely did not conflate group and individual variability.

I'll put my hand up to not having read the whole thing; this is a fairly busy week for me, and I don't expect to find the time soon. That's totally on me; on the other hand, I'm getting the basis of my prior statement via Frederik deBoer, whom I've found to be very meticulous in such matters, and so I've been willing to assume its accuracy despite unfamiliarity with the primary source. It sounds like you have read the whole thing, though. Would you mind calling out some relevant quotes, so that I can get a better sense of his points on the subject, and retract my earlier statement should it prove unfactual? Thanks!

abnry 9y ago
Check out part of his conclusion here: https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/894768062682980353 https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/894768062682980353
- throwanem 9y ago
  I fear I may have done the man a disservice.
  - abnry 9y ago
    Unfortunately, as long as you have a bit of an open mind, it's not your fault. The media deliberately misrepresented what he wrote.
    - throwanem 9y ago
      Yeah, but the point I'm making is that on the one hand, I know to account for that, and on the other, I expected better of deBoer. That by me is the really galling part - despite that he's still deeply committed to the progressive ideology, he's struck me as a generally accurate observer and honest reporter until now. I'm both surprised and disappointed to discover he is not reliably so, and that I'll henceforth have to source and backcheck him with the same care I'm accustomed to using everywhere else. Which is fine, but...I don't know. I suppose I have a hope or two pinned on the guy possibly being open to the kind of good-faith-on-both-sides reconciliation that's going to have to start somewhere if there's to be a chance of resolving the current political polarization in a marginally civilized way. In particular, his recent comments on the subject of academic ostracism of political dissent, and how that's a terrible idea both ethically and pragmatically, have given me a strongly favorable impression - and since he's a lecturer at CUNY, that he should say such things seems to me to count for a considerable deal more than when a mouthy unlettered redneck such as myself, for example, does so. I don't know. Maybe he just slipped, too - he's on vacation this week, so perhaps he just didn't look into the matter as closely as he should've, same as I didn't. But it's a little discouraging all the same.
Smutte 9y ago
Your previous comment is a good example of the larger issue at hand. Your comment, the Google incident but honestly current western society as a whole. It is actually quite interesting to try to understand... What brings a person to make a statement such as yours, without having read the material in question..? Would the same person (you) also comment on how much he/she likes or dislikes food before having tried it? It seems to me this is not about having a "busy week" but a completely different view of truth, what is "right" and honestly when to talk and when to listen. I dont mean to continue bashing you, but your comment was such a clear and ironic example/display of what I think is a very big challenge for western society these days.
- throwanem 9y ago
  > What brings a person to make a statement such as yours, without having read the material in question Can't speak for any other person or any other case. But, here, I relied on a secondary source who has built a reputation with me for veracity even on contentious topics such as these, despite that he and I disagree on just about every prior in the world when it comes to matters of this sort. Unfortunately, he has disappointed me here, and I've thus made a factual error in an earlier comment which I have since acknowledged in a sibling thread to this one. I'm not sure what effect that's likely to have on the whole larger point about Western society that you're trying to draw here. Seems like a lot of stew from one very small oyster, especially considering you're coming with this at a gay man who spent an entire day's worth of HN participation, a few months back, arguing that gay marriage is a bad idea both for the individuals involved and for the state. Came out net karma positive on it, too, which I found surprising. But I think there's a great deal in my prior commentary here that would surprise you, had you but bothered to look before you went running off on whatever this tangent is about how I'm an example of everything that's wrong with Western society, or I'm privileging my individual opinion of how things must be over the facts of the matter, or whatever. If you want to talk about irony, how about the irony that inheres in making exactly the same mistake against which you inveigh when you see me make it, having incidentally failed to notice that, by the time you got around to trying to set me up as some kind of example of a failure in society as a whole, I'd already seen the error called out as such, requested substantiation of the counterclaim, received same, and clearly recognized that I'd erred? That seems pretty ironic to me!
devotedtoneu 9y ago
I can be read in under ten minutes. No doubt a similar time sink as checking the discussion on 3-4 pages on HN.
- throwanem 9y ago
  So I gather. Not gonna lie, I heard "manifesto" and immediately thought back to Industrial Society and its Future, which is a much more substantial document; I would not have time for something of similar heft just now. I should've taken a closer look straight away. But as I said before, it's been a busy week. Having now read it, I can immediately conclude that James Damore is very new at this, approached it under the assumption that the social and political context around the matter was susceptible to mere reasoned discourse, and really had no idea of the minefield into which he so blithely strolled. Someone a bit more seasoned, for example, would not have included the "Possible non-bias causes..." section at all. On the one hand, it's not as well supported as it might be and "evolutionary psychology" in particular is a great big pile of unfalsifiable hypotheses. On the other and much larger hand, that section is just chock-full of material for the kind of tendentious, misrepresentative quote-mining that's a go-to tactic for those who so believe in the righteousness of themselves and their cause that they find no dishonesty too mean to deploy against someone with the temerity to dissent. I can also immediately conclude that I did indeed perpetuate a misrepresentation from a secondary source, and I greatly appreciate 'abnry and 'beaconstudios bringing my attention to the error. In future I'll try not to make the same mistake again.