4 ms·

> but it's good for society I feel like you've taken this position as a fact without having any evidence supporting it.

by friedman23 5y ago

markdown 5y ago
[flagged]
- zo1 5y ago
  And if I follow your premises, I come to a different conclusion entirely. You're essentially advocating for society to perpetuate this "tropical, laid-back paradise" for the group, absolving them as a group to grow and better themselves (also implying that they can't grow on their own, absent discrimination). At the same time, you forget that this reverse-discrimination is usually justified under the guise of "perpetual" repression by the other group. It's a mess all-around and we're just adding additional layers of complexity and blame to go around. I.e. now you're punishing completely innocent people and breeding resentment, whilst telling the other group that they have essentially a repressive enemy. That is Not good for society. I honestly don't know how we convinced ourselves that this entire thing is good. We will be judged by our future generations.
  - markdown 5y ago
    > You're essentially advocating for society to perpetuate this "tropical, laid-back paradise" for the group, absolving them as a group to grow and better themselves They're in a wonderful place. Your argument seems to be that the "rat race" is the optimal human condition. I disagree. Better themselves? That implies that there's something wrong with them in the first place. > now you're punishing completely innocent people and breeding resentment, whilst telling the other group that they have essentially a repressive enemy. That is Not good for society. Nobody is being punished. Student of X culture has to work hard to get a scholarship. He is competing with everyone else in X culture. Student of Y culture has to work hard to get a scholarship. He is competing with everyone else in Y culture. Everyone gets a chance, and if they fall short they have nobody to blame but themselves.
- verve_rat 5y ago
  I'm guessing... Fiji? I don't think ignoring the impact of the British being in charge and how that advantage flowed on to the Indian population, that they imported into Fiji to work for the British, is helpful at all. The British turned up, imported a bunch of Indians, and fucked up the local social structure.
- tqi 5y ago
  Wait... is your belief that the "indigenous population" can't get ahead because their culture doesn't value education / hard work?? I think you have grossly misunderstood both the reasoning behind Affirmative Action and the root causes of inequality.
- civilized 5y ago
  I'm guessing you live in Malaysia. Well, one difference between America and Malaysia is that majorities of every American racial group oppose racial preferences [1]. There is support for affirmative action in the sense of removing barriers and leveling playing fields, but racial preferences are quite unpopular. Even supermajorities of Democrats oppose them. They are only popular among Democratic elites. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/02/25/most-americans-say-colleges-should-not-consider-race-or-ethnicity-in-admissions/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/02/25/most-americ...
- throaway425119 5y ago
  I grew up in a society where 3 major races make up 60%, 26% and 10% respectively. The 26% and 10% have a culture of striving, and they typically aspire towards business and/or the professions. The 60% (the majority) are indigenous and had civilization that stretches back centuries. However, they did not (and do not) have a achievement-oriented culture and therefore are not given to striving (at least in comparison to the former groups). For the longest time, the 26% and the elite among the 10% controlled the economy. This all came to a head when racial riots broke out, after which the government introduced affirmative action favoring the 60%, for exactly the reasons you outlined -- to create racial harmony and to quell the racial resentment. In a sense, it worked. For decades racial strife was low, at the expense of marginalizing the capable 26% and 10%. The problem is that once you introduce affirmative action, it becomes a political tool for staying in power, and no government can ever remove it without risking losing an election. Affirmative action is a short term band-aid. If you keep it on for too long, people depend on it and the entire system degrades, especially when it applies to a large enough number of people. People lose the incentive to strive to do better, and the standards go down to accommodate the lowest common denominator. Affirmative action in my country has led to an overall decline in competency in many fields, and a brain drain of the people who are marginalized to neighboring countries and beyond. With every passing year, my country is surpassed by other countries in the region. The feedback loop of stomping on meritocracy (where ascribed qualities like skin color or race are elevated over competence) is self-reinforcing. Our politics has gotten worse, we're getting less and less competitive by the day, and competitive forces are eating our lunch. We may have a more equal pie, but we got there by pulling everybody down so our pie is smaller. The society feels stagnant and continues to degrade. This is my lived experience. The country next to us has also achieved low racial strife, but they adopted much more directed and -- I dare to say -- more social darwinist policies. They are economically much more successful than we are, and much more dynamic than we are, even though we both started out with similar initial conditions. I do think we need to have a society where everyone has an equal shot at social mobility. However I also believe that affirmative action is too blunt an instrument for achieve that and it is one that creates vicious feedback loops that are politically difficult to get out of even when it's clear its usefulness is over. So no, I'm not a big fan of affirmative action as it is conceived here in this article. To achieve a more equal society you cannot merely force equality by tweaking the gates, because (1) there's irreducible variance among humans that you quell at your own peril, (2) some of those gates are important -- remember Chesterton's fence. It's clear to me that a more thoughtful approach than affirmative action (or even a more thoughtful kind of affirmative action) is needed.

> but it's good for society I feel like you've taken this position as a fact without having any evidence supporting it.

markdown 5y ago

[flagged]

zo1 5y ago
And if I follow your premises, I come to a different conclusion entirely. You're essentially advocating for society to perpetuate this "tropical, laid-back paradise" for the group, absolving them as a group to grow and better themselves (also implying that they can't grow on their own, absent discrimination). At the same time, you forget that this reverse-discrimination is usually justified under the guise of "perpetual" repression by the other group. It's a mess all-around and we're just adding additional layers of complexity and blame to go around. I.e. now you're punishing completely innocent people and breeding resentment, whilst telling the other group that they have essentially a repressive enemy. That is Not good for society. I honestly don't know how we convinced ourselves that this entire thing is good. We will be judged by our future generations.
- markdown 5y ago
  > You're essentially advocating for society to perpetuate this "tropical, laid-back paradise" for the group, absolving them as a group to grow and better themselves They're in a wonderful place. Your argument seems to be that the "rat race" is the optimal human condition. I disagree. Better themselves? That implies that there's something wrong with them in the first place. > now you're punishing completely innocent people and breeding resentment, whilst telling the other group that they have essentially a repressive enemy. That is Not good for society. Nobody is being punished. Student of X culture has to work hard to get a scholarship. He is competing with everyone else in X culture. Student of Y culture has to work hard to get a scholarship. He is competing with everyone else in Y culture. Everyone gets a chance, and if they fall short they have nobody to blame but themselves.
verve_rat 5y ago
I'm guessing... Fiji? I don't think ignoring the impact of the British being in charge and how that advantage flowed on to the Indian population, that they imported into Fiji to work for the British, is helpful at all. The British turned up, imported a bunch of Indians, and fucked up the local social structure.
tqi 5y ago
Wait... is your belief that the "indigenous population" can't get ahead because their culture doesn't value education / hard work?? I think you have grossly misunderstood both the reasoning behind Affirmative Action and the root causes of inequality.
civilized 5y ago
I'm guessing you live in Malaysia. Well, one difference between America and Malaysia is that majorities of every American racial group oppose racial preferences [1]. There is support for affirmative action in the sense of removing barriers and leveling playing fields, but racial preferences are quite unpopular. Even supermajorities of Democrats oppose them. They are only popular among Democratic elites. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/02/25/most-americans-say-colleges-should-not-consider-race-or-ethnicity-in-admissions/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/02/25/most-americ...
throaway425119 5y ago
I grew up in a society where 3 major races make up 60%, 26% and 10% respectively. The 26% and 10% have a culture of striving, and they typically aspire towards business and/or the professions. The 60% (the majority) are indigenous and had civilization that stretches back centuries. However, they did not (and do not) have a achievement-oriented culture and therefore are not given to striving (at least in comparison to the former groups). For the longest time, the 26% and the elite among the 10% controlled the economy. This all came to a head when racial riots broke out, after which the government introduced affirmative action favoring the 60%, for exactly the reasons you outlined -- to create racial harmony and to quell the racial resentment. In a sense, it worked. For decades racial strife was low, at the expense of marginalizing the capable 26% and 10%. The problem is that once you introduce affirmative action, it becomes a political tool for staying in power, and no government can ever remove it without risking losing an election. Affirmative action is a short term band-aid. If you keep it on for too long, people depend on it and the entire system degrades, especially when it applies to a large enough number of people. People lose the incentive to strive to do better, and the standards go down to accommodate the lowest common denominator. Affirmative action in my country has led to an overall decline in competency in many fields, and a brain drain of the people who are marginalized to neighboring countries and beyond. With every passing year, my country is surpassed by other countries in the region. The feedback loop of stomping on meritocracy (where ascribed qualities like skin color or race are elevated over competence) is self-reinforcing. Our politics has gotten worse, we're getting less and less competitive by the day, and competitive forces are eating our lunch. We may have a more equal pie, but we got there by pulling everybody down so our pie is smaller. The society feels stagnant and continues to degrade. This is my lived experience. The country next to us has also achieved low racial strife, but they adopted much more directed and -- I dare to say -- more social darwinist policies. They are economically much more successful than we are, and much more dynamic than we are, even though we both started out with similar initial conditions. I do think we need to have a society where everyone has an equal shot at social mobility. However I also believe that affirmative action is too blunt an instrument for achieve that and it is one that creates vicious feedback loops that are politically difficult to get out of even when it's clear its usefulness is over. So no, I'm not a big fan of affirmative action as it is conceived here in this article. To achieve a more equal society you cannot merely force equality by tweaking the gates, because (1) there's irreducible variance among humans that you quell at your own peril, (2) some of those gates are important -- remember Chesterton's fence. It's clear to me that a more thoughtful approach than affirmative action (or even a more thoughtful kind of affirmative action) is needed.