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I'd like to think HN is a place where people can have debate without resorting to saying things like "very stupid point" ;) You're absolutely right that free m

by ajiang 8y ago

I'd like to think HN is a place where people can have debate without resorting to saying things like "very stupid point" ;) You're absolutely right that free market doesn't mean your choices are exempt from criticism. That isn't my point, nor where I applied 'Free Market'. My point was: If you're going to argue against this donation, saying that it fuels the trend of reverse racism / sexism that makes the free market more distorted, I would argue that this donation is very much a part of the free market. Private donations to private organizations for private causes.

zimablue 8y ago
Yeah I comment a lot and pretty much never insult people. No-one is arguing that this is wrong because it's a government market distortion, they're arguing against it because it's injust, and proceeding from incorrect principles. So you invented an argument that's invalid by it's own definition as a straw man to rebut. It's stupid, there's no other word for it.
- dang 8y ago
  There are plenty of other words, and you're breaking the site guidelines. Please read them, especially the one about calling names: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
AnthonyMouse 8y ago
> My point was: If you're going to argue against this donation, saying that it fuels the trend of reverse racism / sexism that makes the free market more distorted, I would argue that this donation is very much a part of the free market. Private donations to private organizations for private causes. This is trying to eat your cake and still have it though. If you ask a staunch free market person whether we should have laws restricting private activity or freedom of association, they say no. If you want to have a private organization and only invite women or only invite men then have at it. But if you're going to have a law against that, over their objection, then it should at least be enforced consistently against everyone. Objecting to the lack of consistency is different than objecting to the original principle.
- ajiang 8y ago
  That's a very intriguing point! Can you help me understand it better? Are you saying that it is currently against the law for @jl to donate to Lambda School to sponsor 40 men to attend for free? I don't think that is your point, but I'm having trouble interpreting it any other way.
  - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
    I'm not going to pretend to know the specific details of every law in every jurisdiction regarding what organizational purpose or member threshold or funding source or the like is required before sex discrimination is unlawful, but I'm fairly confident there are a number of laws to that effect on the books. Maybe none of them apply in this case. But given the complexity and somewhat arbitrary nature of the requirements, that seems more like happenstance than some reasoned choice to have this specific type of thing excluded as opposed to the others, and we probably ought to be more consistent one way or the other. For example, if MIT (a private university) wanted to have a program like this, should it be allowed in this case but not in their case just because their institution does some unrelated publicly funded research or whatever the restriction is? But then you're also opening them up to being an entirely or almost-entirely gender segregated school if they want to be. So which one is it?

by ajiang 8y ago

zimablue 8y ago

Yeah I comment a lot and pretty much never insult people. No-one is arguing that this is wrong because it's a government market distortion, they're arguing against it because it's injust, and proceeding from incorrect principles. So you invented an argument that's invalid by it's own definition as a straw man to rebut. It's stupid, there's no other word for it.

dang 8y ago
There are plenty of other words, and you're breaking the site guidelines. Please read them, especially the one about calling names: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

AnthonyMouse 8y ago

> My point was: If you're going to argue against this donation, saying that it fuels the trend of reverse racism / sexism that makes the free market more distorted, I would argue that this donation is very much a part of the free market. Private donations to private organizations for private causes. This is trying to eat your cake and still have it though. If you ask a staunch free market person whether we should have laws restricting private activity or freedom of association, they say no. If you want to have a private organization and only invite women or only invite men then have at it. But if you're going to have a law against that, over their objection, then it should at least be enforced consistently against everyone. Objecting to the lack of consistency is different than objecting to the original principle.

ajiang 8y ago
That's a very intriguing point! Can you help me understand it better? Are you saying that it is currently against the law for @jl to donate to Lambda School to sponsor 40 men to attend for free? I don't think that is your point, but I'm having trouble interpreting it any other way.
- AnthonyMouse 8y ago
  I'm not going to pretend to know the specific details of every law in every jurisdiction regarding what organizational purpose or member threshold or funding source or the like is required before sex discrimination is unlawful, but I'm fairly confident there are a number of laws to that effect on the books. Maybe none of them apply in this case. But given the complexity and somewhat arbitrary nature of the requirements, that seems more like happenstance than some reasoned choice to have this specific type of thing excluded as opposed to the others, and we probably ought to be more consistent one way or the other. For example, if MIT (a private university) wanted to have a program like this, should it be allowed in this case but not in their case just because their institution does some unrelated publicly funded research or whatever the restriction is? But then you're also opening them up to being an entirely or almost-entirely gender segregated school if they want to be. So which one is it?