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It reminds me a bit what my parents told me about the soviet union. So basically it was kind of the same. Too much jews in the universities, so lets discriminat
by MichaelRazum 6y ago
It reminds me a bit what my parents told me about the soviet union. So basically it was kind of the same. Too much jews in the universities, so lets discriminate them. The same is going on here, as far as race plays any role.
Kind of sad to see this kind of decision making around the globe.
- jpxw 6y agoIt reminds you of the Soviet Union because the underlying philosophy is the same. Equality at all costs.
- claudiawerner 6y agoWas that really the philosophy of the USSR? Marx argued against the abstract notion of equality to begin with (and more concretely, the idea of equality between people) and Lenin explicitly rebuked the notion that equality means anything more than class equality for socialists. The whole phrase "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" is precisely against equality - it recognizes that people have different abilities, talents, capabilities, and things happening in the course of life, and it recognizes that people have different needs, wishes, and desires. Unless you're saying that the USSR's underlying philosophy comes from somewhere other than Marx or Lenin, in which case I'm curious as to what philosophy, and originated by whom, you're talking about.
- pandaman 6y ago>Was that really the philosophy of the USSR? It was. There was affirmative action for "ethnic minorities" too. Source: born and raised in the USSR.
- eganist 6y ago> It was. There was affirmative action for "ethnic minorities" too. Source: born and raised in the USSR. Can you please link an authoritative source for this? Edit: found an authoritative source, no air quotes. https://blogs.cuit.columbia.edu/rightsviews/2017/11/07/soviet-affirmative-action-and-contemporary-inclusion-of-minorities/ https://blogs.cuit.columbia.edu/rightsviews/2017/11/07/sovie...
- pandaman 6y agoI actually meant AA similar to the American one, for the school admissions. I don't believe the US has reached the USSR level of D&I to set quotas of minority representatives in governments of various levels (yet). And sorry, there is no source for this - even Yale does not publish their minority quotas or even admits they exist, what do you expect from the USSR Ministry of Education?
- a9h74j 6y agoThis short video[1] seems instructive in terms of norms in the former Soviet Union. These are named as bad things in that context: "career builder", "initiative at work", some specific Russian noun for "different thinker". Then punishments for "non-conformity". Consider the phrase also said to have been popular in the USSR, "Everything Marx said about Capitalism was correct, but everything he said about Communism was wrong." [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0g_Pqp7HoA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0g_Pqp7HoA
- claudiawerner 6y agoInteresting, thanks.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- unishark 6y ago> The whole phrase "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" is precisely against equality - it recognizes that people have different abilities, talents, capabilities, and things happening in the course of life, and it recognizes that people have different needs, wishes, and desires. This is not the kind of equality the poster was talking about. Forcing equality at government level does not mean forcing everyone to have equal IQ and work ethic. It means ignoring those differences and forcing everyone to get the same benefit in life even though some are less productive than others ("to each according to his need"). "Equality of outcomes" as another poster put it.
- collyw 6y agoSomeone is going to need to decide needs and abilities in that example, no? Would that not fall onto government in a communist state?
- chii 6y ago> Would that not fall onto government in a communist state? and this is why communism fails, because an external entity cannot possibly know the true needs of the individual, and cannot act in the best interest of every individual. Unless somehow they are a benevolent god.
- claudiawerner 6y agoNowhere does Marx or any other 'communist' author claim that the state knows or pretends to know the needs and desires of the populace, or even an aggregation of their individual abilities. In fact, later 'communist' authors specifically say that it's up to the individual to sort out their needs and abilities, and to cultivate them.
- collyw 6y agoThen you get back to the problem that I presented - who decides the needs and abilities? At least with a free market we can be honest about trying to do as little as possible in return for as much as possible, and let the market decide what your abilities are worth.
- golergka 6y agoPhilosophy of the USSR changed significantly over it's history, and it's actual philosophy, as applied in thinking and decision-making, was at times very different from the public image and propaganda. You're talking about Marx and Lenin, but one of the first deep changes in USSR history was Stalin's raise to power - and with him, complete rejection of the "world revolution" and nationalistic "socialism in one country", up to re-establishement of orthodox church in the 40s. Sovient Union was a completely different country with every decade of it's existence. In a dogmatic system it was not openly articulated, and leaders continued to pay lip service to "Marx and Lenin", but their real economic and political decisions were often in complete odds with the original values.
- sul_tasto 6y agoThe buzzword now is “equity.” The left now seeks equality of outcome rather than equality of opportunity. All such initiatives are oppressive should be rejected outright.
- gameswithgo 6y agoThe Left here, checking in. No we don't. In the same way that the The Right, are not literally Nazis.
- radegast 6y agoOh okay. I thought those people in the streets were shouting something about reparations for slavery and what not. My bad.
- concordDance 6y agoA tiny vocal minority.
- 7sigma 6y agoIts not just slavery, its jim crow, segregation, black people being systematically disadvantaged through racist policies like getting higher rates on loans despite having the same risk. Also: - the New Deal excluded black people - The GI Bill excluded black people etc... Slaves built a huge part of the economy for free and americans benefit from that work for which they were not compensated, so yes there absolutely should be reparations. I think this should be done in several ways: - monetarily: by funding scholarships and other projects to remedy the injustices perpetrated and help black americans accumulate some of the generational wealth they have been denied. Although at the end of the day, no amount of money will ever compensate for the hurt, death and atrocities, its a start. - education: teaching kids at school what slavery was really like, instead of what some of the schoolbooks teach (that slavery wasn't that bad for example). Teaching kids about systemic racism that persists to this day. - policing, housing, prisons: watch 13th documentary (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krfcq5pF8u8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krfcq5pF8u8) its free on netflix (edit: spelling and formatting)
- ed25519FUUU 6y ago“Equality” at all costs.
- Upvoter33 6y agoThis seems like a disingenuous comment at best. For example, Harvard's incoming class was something like 25% Asian-American, which I think is probably the highest it's been (compared to Asian-American's probably being like 5% of the population). Whatever the policy is, it is not trying for "equality", nor is it really anything close to what happened in the Soviet Union. My grandparents lived there; some relatives were killed in the middle of the night because of their ethnicity. Nowadays, someone gets turned down by Yale, and these BS comparisons start up. Come on.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- lopmotr 6y agoYou can't expect them to be in proportion to the population. Asians are more intelligent than most other races so a top university selecting for the most intelligent people will disproportionately choose Asians. Perhaps the natural amount is greater than 25% but discrimination is holding them back.
- baybal2 6y ago> It reminds you of the Soviet Union because the underlying philosophy is the same. Equality at all costs. Cannot laugh more at that. The Union has never been, or at least not the union my father's memory, about that. It was strongly regimented, rigid, very hierarchical, caste society. The communist fraternity has been a model aristocracy, with its primary imperative being maintenance of party member's status, and privilege.
- tsimionescu 6y agoAnti-Jewish philosophy in the Soviet Union was not 'equality at all costs' it was 'jews are thieves' and other horrible racist beliefs, same as in most of Western Europe before.
- pps43 6y agoIf that were the case, universities would not accept them at all. But they did, with a quota.
- mc32 6y agoI’ve heard the same thing regarding the SU. If you were the wrong ethnicity even if you got the right answer and showed all your work the professor could say, “yes, but you used the wrong solution” and other such nonsense.
- dmch-1 6y agoRussian empire had the same policy. They justified it by the fact that unversities were financed by public money, and it would be unfair if most of the student, who this money would go to, turned out jews due to "this group's propensity" to education.
- MichaelRazum 6y agoOf course that is the point. Also in yale. They want diversity. Even so, in such case the decision is based on race or let say gender and that alone is discriminating. It reminds me of an other story of my parents. As Lenin came into power they took all the land from rich farmers and killed a lot of them. Since they were privileged and all the prosperity belongs to the people. The result was that bad skilled farmers took over and that led to more poverty.
- take_a_breath 6y ago==Even so, in such case the decision is based on race or let say gender and that alone is discriminating.== Is it discrimination if the decision is based on intelligence alone?
- an_opabinia 6y agoThese are loathsome comparisons. The experience of Jews in the Soviet Union in 1991 and before are not comparable to the experience of east Asians in America in 2020. For every similarity you might imagine there are 1,000 more important dissimilarities. Surely if you are sincere about reducing discrimination "around the globe" you wouldn't be doing this kind of stylized generalization.
- techie128 6y agoBeing a minority in America is tougher than you think.
- rscho 6y agoIt's always rough for minorities under authoritarian regimes. Whether the dictatorial flavour is communist or fascist makes little difference indeed.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- buran77 6y ago> Yale uses race as a factor in multiple steps of the admissions process and that Yale “racially balances its classes.” The situation of Jews in the Soviet Union's does not apply too well here because the real vs. stated reasoning behind it were very different. But I see a lot of parallels with the gender and racial discrimination in the workplace in current times. So there is precedent on legally using race or gender in a selection process. When it comes to fixing past discrimination in the workplace it is already considered legally acceptable to have quotas until the situation is brought back to balance. Such a quota all but guarantees that at some point some candidates will have to be rejected based on gender or race even if they would be otherwise accepted. The split was set around the actual gender/race split of the population. For example California's gender or racial diversity bills proposed that at least at Board of Directors level although I don't know if they were ever passed into law. Needless to say, with or without such a law companies all over the world publicly advertise their equality focused hiring targets so I must assume they're not just outing themselves as breaking the law. Is this the case here? The article doesn't really provide that many concrete details and I can imagine a lot of implications coming out of this. Is Yale doing this to have a balance of races based on the split in the population? Are they just arbitrarily picking a ratio for this? What impact will a decision here to eliminate any race criteria from the admission have on already established measure to explicitly consider race or gender as part of the process? What happens if one group ends up naturally being over-represented? We'll have to start paying more attention to equality of opportunity vs. equality of outcome. And whatever is decided at some point we'll also have to start being consistent, not just chase conflicting targets based on what each administration sees as a priority at the time.
- playing_colours 6y agoYou can find here https://arxiv.org/abs/1110.1556 https://arxiv.org/abs/1110.1556 infamous "Jewish Problems" that were given to select applicants during entrance exams to the math department of Moscow State University. They were designed to prevent Jews from getting a passing grade.
- boruto 6y agoIndia also has this in the form of reservation system. f.e., for the prestigious IITs Less than 14.5% of the total seats are available for the general category students. The total category wise distribution in the IIT’s for academic year 2019–20 is as follows * OBC-NCL – 27% * Scheduled Caste (SC) – 15% * Scheduled Tribe (ST) – 7.5% * Persons with disability (PwD)- 5% in each category (namely OPEN, GEN-EWS, OBC-NCL, SC and ST) * 2 seats in each institute for ‘Defense service candidates’ Foreign nationals- up to 10% (supernumerary) * Female candidates- 17% (supernumerary) * Economically weaker section- 4% currently(It will go up to 10% in a couple of years) Total percentage of reserved seats - 85.5% This quota system is present in all govt funded and public sector jobs and colleges.
- gregvab 6y agothats quite good actually
- Y_Y 6y agoHow does "Scheduled Caste" work? Generally matters of caste are mysterious in the west, since they're rarely (in my experience) discussed with non-Indians.
- muststopmyths 6y agoit's a legal term. I think "Scheduled" in this context means recognized on some government list. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheduled_Castes_and_Scheduled_Tribes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheduled_Castes_and_Scheduled...
- twic 6y agoWhere that chunky "OBC-NCL" is "Other Backward Class - Non-Creamy Layer": https://nvshq.org/article/obc-non-creamy-layer-income-limit-eligibility/ https://nvshq.org/article/obc-non-creamy-layer-income-limit-... A lovely piece of divergence between the Indian and British Englishes!
- kyuudou 6y ago
- pps43 6y agoOn the bright side, we now have collections of "coffins" [1] - problems that have a simple solution that is difficult to find. Those were given to undesirable applicants to justify weeding them out. [1] http://www.tanyakhovanova.com/coffins.html http://www.tanyakhovanova.com/coffins.html
- Y_Y 6y agoOne unintended upside is that (mathematically) the problems they came up with are very interesting.
- golergka 6y agoThey used to present applying Jews with special problems: https://arxiv.org/abs/1110.1556 https://arxiv.org/abs/1110.1556 This practice was supposed to end with sovient union — but my school, which always had a fair share of jews that applied to math department in MSU, taught those in 00s, and athough discriminiation wasn't as blatant then, I'm not sure that it completely went away.