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It's generally easier to play the role of the Very Reasonable Person Who's Just Asking Questions when you're defending the status quo; any change you stymie by

It's generally easier to play the role of the Very Reasonable Person Who's Just Asking Questions when you're defending the status quo; any change you stymie by undercutting people's emotional energy or by slowing things down works to your advantage.

woofie11 6y ago
Not always. I've used the "Very Reasonable Person Who's Just Asking Questions" to ask some very, very uncomfortable questions. Here's one you can try in the current political climate: "Why don't you have ANY [insert minority] employees working in your organization?"
- skinkestek 6y ago
  To give an example of someone a large subset of HN would like to sh*t on with that question, a company I have worked for: In our case (we have some minorities but not as many as HN would like). Why: because they aren't available. We have KPIs for HR and managers that strongly encourage it, but there just aren't more qualified women/black/etc coders. Which, in our case, translates to less than 5 (but awesome, and highly regarded) black persons[0], about 30% women. [0]: Note however that the demographic is quite different here in Norway. I know people here who never saw black people except on holiday until they were far beyond 20 years old. In their defense though: 1.) Part of why there are so few black peopøe here seems to be that keeping slaves hasn't been popular here for hundreds of years. 2.) Norwegians have accepted a lot of people from other countries over the years: Pakistani, Chilean etc, so I don't think it is about xenophobia.
  - woofie11 6y ago
    Why do you believe [insert minority] coders aren't qualified?
    - spoopyskelly 6y ago
      Why do you believe racist quotas should be inserted into everything?
      - woofie11 6y ago
        I think you lost the thread of conversation somewhere. The original question was: "It's generally easier to play the role of the Very Reasonable Person Who's Just Asking Questions when you're defending the status quo; any change you stymie by undercutting people's emotional energy or by slowing things down works to your advantage." I gave a counterexample. That said, in most cases, good equity policies have nothing to do with racist quotas, and everything to do with cultures which are accepting of diverse patterns of communication, cultures, and behavioral styles, and with identifying talent wherever it may be found, rather than using surface indicators like school someone went to, clothing, or similar.
    - JAlexoid 6y ago
      Long term poverty in certain areas; Leading to poorer education systems; Resulting in less than stellar academic attainment; Resulting is lack of experience. If I put out a simple coding test and some people cannot crack it - I'm not going to check if my 2+2 test is unfairly biased towards people with red hair. Did you know, for example, that even fairly wealthy black American families are less able to educate their kids to the same level as white American families? Because access to proper education and parental education levels matter a lot. Because kids growing up in poor areas will get lower levels of attainment. Because long term poverty matters. Breaking that education barrier takes more than one generation. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280232788_Race_Poverty_and_SAT_Scores_Modeling_the_Influences_of_Family_Income_on_Black_and_White_High_School_Students'_SAT_Performance https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280232788_Race_Pove...
      - woofie11 6y ago
        "Gosh. Do you think that /REALLY/ accounts for having just two African American employees in our labor force of 300, one working as an admin, and one who grew up outside of an African American community? There's definitely an effect, but 12% of the US population is African American. You'd expect 36 African Americans. I can see a paper like that justifying 15, but you can do the math here as well as anyone. I certainly wouldn't expect you to hire someone unqualified, but it seems like there might be something else going on than your 2+2 test, but where are you looking for people? And how are you screening for 'culture fit?'" Just to give context, since I got crapped on this another place, the thread is: "How does one create change by asking reasonable questions?" I am giving an example of such a thread which would work in the current political climate. I am neither claiming agreement or disagreement with either the questions or answers. To avoid that impression, I'm putting questions in quotes. I could just as easily take a far-right view for this exercise, or one from a non-US culture. I picked this one since I thought it would resonate with the current political climate and with reddit. But keep on answering, and I'll keep asking "reasonable questions" until hopefully I'll have backed you into a corner. :) It's not a bad exercise, or an ineffective change strategy.
zanny 6y ago
Its enlightened centrism and a place of profound privilege to be comfortable in the world as it exists thinking all of those "extremists" advocating for change are just being too emotional and partisan. Centrism is de-facto the status quo. Which, in current times, means support for the police as it exists, supports for business regulation as it exists, supports greenhouse gases and military conduct as it exists, supports the behavior and election processes of politicians as they exist, etc. Its simply the privilege of the majority to be the "moderate" ones. To be radical is not to be good or bad, it just to be outside the norm. And it makes sense that those in the norm find those outside it dangerous and threatening, because... they want to be. Thats the whole point. Their time is wasted if the goal is not to become the new moderate, the new normal, the new center.
- shirakawasuna 6y ago
  In addition, this "centrism" isn't actually "center", ideologies don't actually fall neatly along a single dimension. These are just handy ways to reference and group ideologies. The "center" people are referring to here is a United States-centric form of liberalism. It's not any less "extreme" than communism, it's just the dominant political force and, as you say, has the privilege of positioning itself as the comfortable default. In reality, it's a fairly extreme commitment to a different set of principles.
  - natechols 6y ago
    How is the US style of center-liberalism extreme, as compared to an ideology that demands total control over the economy and its citizens? Or do you think concepts such as "rule of law" are extremist?
    - shirakawasuna 6y ago
      - Extreme individualism. - Heavy militarism. - Strong national chauvinism that is exploited by all major parties. - A commitment to policing / hegemony, destroying, destabilizing countries while convincing themselves that it's "for democracy", etc. The bar for destroying another country is very low and usually based on lies, but the forces leading to it are never questioned. - A 90% commitment to laissez-faire economics with token controls thrown in to prevent the economic system from destroying itself every ten years. - The moralization of poverty: the poor deserve it in some sense. - A conviction that problems are solved through the "marketplace of ideas", not class conflict or a return to former glory, tradition, etc. - A hard ideological divide between civil liberties and economic inequities. - The equation of laissez-faire with freedom. - The cultural acceptance of white supremacy as the norm, even to the extent that it's frequently unnoticed. etc etc

woofie11 6y ago

Not always. I've used the "Very Reasonable Person Who's Just Asking Questions" to ask some very, very uncomfortable questions. Here's one you can try in the current political climate: "Why don't you have ANY [insert minority] employees working in your organization?"

skinkestek 6y ago
To give an example of someone a large subset of HN would like to sh*t on with that question, a company I have worked for: In our case (we have some minorities but not as many as HN would like). Why: because they aren't available. We have KPIs for HR and managers that strongly encourage it, but there just aren't more qualified women/black/etc coders. Which, in our case, translates to less than 5 (but awesome, and highly regarded) black persons[0], about 30% women. [0]: Note however that the demographic is quite different here in Norway. I know people here who never saw black people except on holiday until they were far beyond 20 years old. In their defense though: 1.) Part of why there are so few black peopøe here seems to be that keeping slaves hasn't been popular here for hundreds of years. 2.) Norwegians have accepted a lot of people from other countries over the years: Pakistani, Chilean etc, so I don't think it is about xenophobia.
- woofie11 6y ago
  Why do you believe [insert minority] coders aren't qualified?
  - spoopyskelly 6y ago
    Why do you believe racist quotas should be inserted into everything?
    - woofie11 6y ago
      I think you lost the thread of conversation somewhere. The original question was: "It's generally easier to play the role of the Very Reasonable Person Who's Just Asking Questions when you're defending the status quo; any change you stymie by undercutting people's emotional energy or by slowing things down works to your advantage." I gave a counterexample. That said, in most cases, good equity policies have nothing to do with racist quotas, and everything to do with cultures which are accepting of diverse patterns of communication, cultures, and behavioral styles, and with identifying talent wherever it may be found, rather than using surface indicators like school someone went to, clothing, or similar.
  - JAlexoid 6y ago
    Long term poverty in certain areas; Leading to poorer education systems; Resulting in less than stellar academic attainment; Resulting is lack of experience. If I put out a simple coding test and some people cannot crack it - I'm not going to check if my 2+2 test is unfairly biased towards people with red hair. Did you know, for example, that even fairly wealthy black American families are less able to educate their kids to the same level as white American families? Because access to proper education and parental education levels matter a lot. Because kids growing up in poor areas will get lower levels of attainment. Because long term poverty matters. Breaking that education barrier takes more than one generation. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280232788_Race_Poverty_and_SAT_Scores_Modeling_the_Influences_of_Family_Income_on_Black_and_White_High_School_Students'_SAT_Performance https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280232788_Race_Pove...
    - woofie11 6y ago
      "Gosh. Do you think that /REALLY/ accounts for having just two African American employees in our labor force of 300, one working as an admin, and one who grew up outside of an African American community? There's definitely an effect, but 12% of the US population is African American. You'd expect 36 African Americans. I can see a paper like that justifying 15, but you can do the math here as well as anyone. I certainly wouldn't expect you to hire someone unqualified, but it seems like there might be something else going on than your 2+2 test, but where are you looking for people? And how are you screening for 'culture fit?'" Just to give context, since I got crapped on this another place, the thread is: "How does one create change by asking reasonable questions?" I am giving an example of such a thread which would work in the current political climate. I am neither claiming agreement or disagreement with either the questions or answers. To avoid that impression, I'm putting questions in quotes. I could just as easily take a far-right view for this exercise, or one from a non-US culture. I picked this one since I thought it would resonate with the current political climate and with reddit. But keep on answering, and I'll keep asking "reasonable questions" until hopefully I'll have backed you into a corner. :) It's not a bad exercise, or an ineffective change strategy.

zanny 6y ago

Its enlightened centrism and a place of profound privilege to be comfortable in the world as it exists thinking all of those "extremists" advocating for change are just being too emotional and partisan. Centrism is de-facto the status quo. Which, in current times, means support for the police as it exists, supports for business regulation as it exists, supports greenhouse gases and military conduct as it exists, supports the behavior and election processes of politicians as they exist, etc. Its simply the privilege of the majority to be the "moderate" ones. To be radical is not to be good or bad, it just to be outside the norm. And it makes sense that those in the norm find those outside it dangerous and threatening, because... they want to be. Thats the whole point. Their time is wasted if the goal is not to become the new moderate, the new normal, the new center.

shirakawasuna 6y ago
In addition, this "centrism" isn't actually "center", ideologies don't actually fall neatly along a single dimension. These are just handy ways to reference and group ideologies. The "center" people are referring to here is a United States-centric form of liberalism. It's not any less "extreme" than communism, it's just the dominant political force and, as you say, has the privilege of positioning itself as the comfortable default. In reality, it's a fairly extreme commitment to a different set of principles.
- natechols 6y ago
  How is the US style of center-liberalism extreme, as compared to an ideology that demands total control over the economy and its citizens? Or do you think concepts such as "rule of law" are extremist?
  - shirakawasuna 6y ago
    - Extreme individualism. - Heavy militarism. - Strong national chauvinism that is exploited by all major parties. - A commitment to policing / hegemony, destroying, destabilizing countries while convincing themselves that it's "for democracy", etc. The bar for destroying another country is very low and usually based on lies, but the forces leading to it are never questioned. - A 90% commitment to laissez-faire economics with token controls thrown in to prevent the economic system from destroying itself every ten years. - The moralization of poverty: the poor deserve it in some sense. - A conviction that problems are solved through the "marketplace of ideas", not class conflict or a return to former glory, tradition, etc. - A hard ideological divide between civil liberties and economic inequities. - The equation of laissez-faire with freedom. - The cultural acceptance of white supremacy as the norm, even to the extent that it's frequently unnoticed. etc etc