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> Try to teach someone mathematics where every time they get the wrong answer, they get shocked. Not a good learning environment. The problem with the analogy

> Try to teach someone mathematics where every time they get the wrong answer, they get shocked. Not a good learning environment. The problem with the analogy is that the underlying assumption is that the people learning math want to know the truth and are acting in good faith even when they get the wrong answer. On the other hand, there are people, powerful people, who push ideas that don't care about the truth. Here is a specific example. As the Republican nominee in 2016, Donald Trump tweeted that 81% of white murder victims were killed by black people. This is *wildly* wrong. When he was corrected, he didn't send out a correction, he didn't even remove the old tweet. The point is he was sending a message to his target audience that made them feel a certain way, and that was his goal ... not communicating the truth. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2015/nov/23/donald-trump/trump-tweet-blacks-white-homicide-victims/ https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2015/nov/23/donald-tru...

btilly 5y ago
Yes. The scariest thing about Trump is not that he lied like crazy. It is that he really had an audience, and that audience is reasonably close to half the country. If you're a progressive, it is worth spending some time thinking about how to reach out to and get support from that half of the country. Because attempting to govern without them is a guaranteed disaster.
- rootusrootus 5y ago
  That ship has sailed. The progressives have been playing the strategy 'if we just follow the rules of the game, eventually they will play along'. But the populists completely threw out the rulebook a number of years ago, they no longer want to play the same game. And now there is a new breed of younger progressives coming into power who recognize that and also want to throw out the rulebook. Interesting times coming.
  - btilly 5y ago
    Yes, and if you read https://www.amazon.com/How-Democracies-Die-Steven-Levitsky/dp/1524762938 https://www.amazon.com/How-Democracies-Die-Steven-Levitsky/d... you'll realize that once democratic norms have broken down on both sides of the aisle, the next thing that happens is the replacement of democracy by a totalitarian state.
chmod600 5y ago
Politicians who are crafting policy are certainly a different category. Many well-intentioned people do get stuff wrong when it comes to racism or sexism. It's a complex topic with shifting definitions and evolving standards. 100 years ago, academia was at the forefront of racism due to some flawed philosophies and bad science. Should we really expect the average layperson to be ahead of those scholars just because some time has passed and they hear "racism is bad" a thousand times? No. The education needs to happen, and being wrong is a starting place. There's also been a general failure by academia to explain modern racial concepts. Many people don't understand why it's OK to discriminate against asians in college admissions, for instance.
- shkkmo 5y ago
  > Many people don't understand why it's OK to discriminate against asians in college admissions, for instance. I don't understand that either.
  - esyir 5y ago
    It requires you to go with a very different axiom of equity over equality, basically. Asians do well at exams for some reason, therefore to ensure that there is an equitable distribution, we then sacrifice the level playing ground of equality in favour of the outcome driven goal of equity.
    - Hitton 5y ago
      And then one day, for no reason at all, we end up living in Harrison Bergeron-like dystopia.
    - shkkmo 5y ago
      Wouldn't equity require not descriminating against Asians?
      - esyir 5y ago
        No. Equality focuses on normalizing the distribution of resources, while equity distributes resources to normalize the outcome. Equality, given a group of people, would aim to put them on a level playing ground by allocating the same level of resources to each. Equity however, would allocate resources to try and achieve similar outcomes across the people. People performing worse would thus get more resources in equity, but would receive the same amount. The two are thus mutually incompatible. To a certain extent, some games can be played with the definition, such as what to include under the "level playing field". An example here would be the inclusion of natural talent and propensity for work that is generally considered innate. Should this be

btilly 5y ago

Yes. The scariest thing about Trump is not that he lied like crazy. It is that he really had an audience, and that audience is reasonably close to half the country. If you're a progressive, it is worth spending some time thinking about how to reach out to and get support from that half of the country. Because attempting to govern without them is a guaranteed disaster.

rootusrootus 5y ago
That ship has sailed. The progressives have been playing the strategy 'if we just follow the rules of the game, eventually they will play along'. But the populists completely threw out the rulebook a number of years ago, they no longer want to play the same game. And now there is a new breed of younger progressives coming into power who recognize that and also want to throw out the rulebook. Interesting times coming.
- btilly 5y ago
  Yes, and if you read https://www.amazon.com/How-Democracies-Die-Steven-Levitsky/dp/1524762938 https://www.amazon.com/How-Democracies-Die-Steven-Levitsky/d... you'll realize that once democratic norms have broken down on both sides of the aisle, the next thing that happens is the replacement of democracy by a totalitarian state.

chmod600 5y ago

Politicians who are crafting policy are certainly a different category. Many well-intentioned people do get stuff wrong when it comes to racism or sexism. It's a complex topic with shifting definitions and evolving standards. 100 years ago, academia was at the forefront of racism due to some flawed philosophies and bad science. Should we really expect the average layperson to be ahead of those scholars just because some time has passed and they hear "racism is bad" a thousand times? No. The education needs to happen, and being wrong is a starting place. There's also been a general failure by academia to explain modern racial concepts. Many people don't understand why it's OK to discriminate against asians in college admissions, for instance.

shkkmo 5y ago
> Many people don't understand why it's OK to discriminate against asians in college admissions, for instance. I don't understand that either.
- esyir 5y ago
  It requires you to go with a very different axiom of equity over equality, basically. Asians do well at exams for some reason, therefore to ensure that there is an equitable distribution, we then sacrifice the level playing ground of equality in favour of the outcome driven goal of equity.
  - Hitton 5y ago
    And then one day, for no reason at all, we end up living in Harrison Bergeron-like dystopia.
  - shkkmo 5y ago
    Wouldn't equity require not descriminating against Asians?
    - esyir 5y ago
      No. Equality focuses on normalizing the distribution of resources, while equity distributes resources to normalize the outcome. Equality, given a group of people, would aim to put them on a level playing ground by allocating the same level of resources to each. Equity however, would allocate resources to try and achieve similar outcomes across the people. People performing worse would thus get more resources in equity, but would receive the same amount. The two are thus mutually incompatible. To a certain extent, some games can be played with the definition, such as what to include under the "level playing field". An example here would be the inclusion of natural talent and propensity for work that is generally considered innate. Should this be