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Who could have seen that coming? The whole point of ditching quantitative tests is to empower the bureaucrats who want to make qualitative judgements based on
by MichaelCollins 4y ago
Who could have seen that coming? The whole point of ditching quantitative tests is to empower the bureaucrats who want to make qualitative judgements based on their personal whims and biases. "Holistic" my ass.
- tsunamifury 4y agoIt’s really disappointing that many recent attempts of progressivism have just turned into new sexism and racism but defended as “the correct” versions of those. It erodes the intellectual validity of these institutions.
- nerdponx 4y agoFortunately I feel convinced that it's a passing fad. I just hope that the pendulum does not swing too far the other way.
- FredPret 4y agoMaybe I'm in a bubble, but every anecdote I read online in the past year or two is someone royally fed up with liberal politics. On Twitter, Reddit, and real life, the majority of people keep complaining about crime, drugs, homelessness. Sounds like a perfect environment for a generation of conservatives to get elected. Hopefully they stay close to the center for a long time.
- JadeNB 4y ago> Sounds like a perfect environment for a generation of conservatives to get elected. Hopefully they stay close to the center for a long time. The conservative groundswell is because generations of conservatives have already been getting elected, especially in less flashy positions that wield influence. Conservatives have really played the long game, at least since the New Deal.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- D13Fd 4y agoI think people’s need to frame seemingly every issue and even their entire worldview as liberal vs conservative is the biggest problem in politics.
- MichaelCollins 4y agoI agree, I think it blinds people to the sort of problem that user macrolocal mentions in a nearby comment, rising illiberalism among both 'liberals' (more accurately called progressives, but this terminology is all twisted in America..) and conservatives. I'm concerned that both use the other to justify or rationalize their own declining liberalism.
- thegrimmest 4y agoI think many things can be framed as "change things" or "leave them".
- MichaelCollins 4y ago"change things" vs "change things but ostensibly back to the way they were before". For instance, ruling against Roe v. Wade. Regardless of what you think of that, it, such a ruling was a deviation from the status quo. It was "changing things" as surely as the original ruling changed things.
- thegrimmest 4y agoSure, or "we made a mistake changing things, let's put them back". It just depends on the timescales you consider when determining the status quo.
- MichaelCollins 4y agoPutting things back where they were depends on our recollection of the past, which is imperfect and subject to various biases and confusion with myth. But even ignoring that, the circumstances of the present are different than the circumstances of the past so past laws won't work the same in the present as they did in the past. Even if you could perfectly replicate past laws in the present, you couldn't get the same effect out of those laws because the inputs (the state of society) have changed. Nobody can roll back the clock. What conservatives actually do in fact is propose ways to change things going into the future.
- defterGoose 4y agoMaybe those with countervailing opinions are too busy working for a living instead of commenting on the internet.
- paulcole 4y ago> On Twitter, Reddit, and real life, the majority of people keep complaining about crime, drugs, homelessness. Maybe I’m misunderstanding your comment but in the US, these issues are the result of conservative politics.
- wincy 4y agoWhich is why there’s so much violent crime in conservative bastions like Philadelphia, Chicago, New York, and Baltimore.
- paulcole 4y agoThink of it like climate change. The weather today is the result of poor decision making 30, 40, 50+ years ago. Additionally, politics and policies exist at the national level as well and can influence what happens in even liberal cities.
- thegrimmest 4y agoI'm not sure that's true at all. There have been many demonstrably effective short-term crime reduction strategies. Broken window theory being the most famous example. Shockingly, arresting and confining violent antisocial people reduces violence in society.
- paulcole 4y agoWell as long as you’re not sure that’s good enough for me. I retract what I said.
- themitigating 4y agohttps://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/22/nypd-fewer-arrests-reduce-crime-new-york https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/22/nypd-fewer-a... The ‘clearances paradox’: could less policing actually reduce gun violence in New York? Your over simplifying the complex reasons behind crime.
- hotpotamus 4y agoWhat solutions are the conservatives offering to crime, drugs, and homelessness?
- orangecat 4y agoAs a representative example, maybe arrest somebody when they assault a woman and kill her dog (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/07/nyregion/dog-attack-park-slope-brooklyn.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/07/nyregion/dog-attack-park-...).
- themitigating 4y agoWho is responsible for arresting people?
- overrun11 4y agoPromoting strong family structures and communities. Supporting social norms that dissuade destructive behavior.
- hotpotamus 4y agoI wonder - which Conservative would you look to as a good example to model such behavior and lead the nation?
- themitigating 4y agoReally? promote or force? Can you name any policies or bills that Republicans have to make this happen? Can you prove that social norms have an effect on crime or homelessness? Are you claiming gay people are more likely to be criminals because they don't? Homeless: "Research shows that, compared to homeless families, homeless single adults have higher rates of serious mental illness, addiction disorders, and other severe health problems." How would social norms fix that? If an adult has a mental illness and can't afford care are you willing to have universal health care? You don't think if they had family that could take them in and they were willing they would do that? https://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/basic-facts-about-homelessness-new-york-city/ https://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/basic-facts-about-ho... ------------------------------------------------------ Here's some GOP news about social norms 1.https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/29/cawthorn-orgies-freedom-caucus- https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/29/cawthorn-orgies-fre... 00021548 2.https://people.com/politics/madison-cawthorn-wife-cristina-divorce-after-less-than-8-months-marriage-our-lives-changed/ https://people.com/politics/madison-cawthorn-wife-cristina-d... 3.https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2022/09/29/marjorie-taylor-greene-husband-files-divorce/10459286002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2022/09/29/marj... 4.https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/07/jd-vance-violent-marriages https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/07/jd-vance-violent-mar... "GOP SENATE CANDIDATE J.D. VANCE: IF PEOPLE LOVE THEIR KIDS, THEY’LL STAY IN VIOLENT MARRIAGES" 5.https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/23/matt-gaetz-sex-trafficking-probe-prosecutors-recommend-against-charges.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/23/matt-gaetz-sex-trafficking-p... and you damn well I know go on
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- LawTalkingGuy 4y ago> Hopefully they stay close to the center for a long time. I feel like the "the left" is undergoing a purity spiral whereas other parties are scooping up everyone pushed out.
- OrangeMonkey 4y agoThats not exactly how pendulums swing. Think about how far we have swung in one direction. Its going the same distance in the other. May god help us.
- themitigating 4y agoI'm angry about the loss of abortion rights federally, the rise of Christian nationalism, politicians lying about election fraud, people calling their enemies pedophiles and communists, politicans not knowing what those words mean, and facism What is this center you think we are going back to because all I see are far right politicans and the end of American democracy
- MichaelCollins 4y ago> the end of American democracy Granting all the problems you've cited, things have still been much worse in the past than they are today. Maybe not in the recent past, the 90s and 00s look quite rosy today in some (not all) respects, but think a bit further back. America has gone through civil war, anti-communist witch trials, frequent politically motivated bombings and assassinations, etc. Throughout all of that, people have remained hopeful that things could get better. The greatest threat facing America today is demoralization. The belief that demise is inevitable and cannot be prevented could do America more permanent harm than anything else.
- themitigating 4y agoSo people don't trust the government and the election system. Could that is why they think demise will occur? That's the doing of the republican party. Trump is constantly saying America is a failed state. A democracy fails because people don't believe it works. All of this is republican
- pseudo0 4y agoIt's weird how the "Christian nationalism" meme has been pushed by the usual suspects when US church attendance is at an all-time low, and religious influence on politics is a shadow of its former self. My guess is it's a mixture of obsession with The Handmaid's Tale, and the need for an alternative pejorative term that can be applied to black and Hispanic conservatives.
- themitigating 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- kelnos 4y ago> Sounds like a perfect environment for a generation of conservatives to get elected. Hopefully they stay close to the center for a long time. The problem is that conservatives (at least in the US, though this is happening in Europe too) have been swinging even farther to the right than most liberals have been swinging left. I think we're in for some bad times if the leftists don't stop stepping all over their own feet, causing a backlash (that we're already seeing to some degree) that puts the autocrats in power irrevocably.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- macrolocal 4y agoI worry about illiberalism becoming more prominent on the left and right.
- LawTalkingGuy 4y agoLiberal has been somewhat taken over by a cross of libertine and anarchist, who say basically that liberalism is liberal it can't be exclusionary and therefore they're as valid a liberal as Locke. They've then used "liberal" as a rallying cry and a shield while they push a lot of illiberal policies. Actual liberals need to field a bit of a defense against this encroachment, and in language the public can understand. "No, XYZ is not [a liberal action] because ..." I fear this more than a backlash because it speaks in our name. Our usual political opponents reacting to us at least openly enact their own policies and messages and leave our voices and our message unmolested.
- macrolocal 4y agoI'd guess people are rejecting neoliberalism more than Locke. But if so, it's curious that the vocal left had shifted their attention from the disparity between people living in huts and palaces, to making sure that the people living in palaces are appropriately representative. That's a surprisingly conservative project (for better or worse).
- tenpies 4y ago
- themitigating 4y agoWhat does this have to do with being woke? You said "countries that go to woke" then listed a bunch of horrible things. The definition of woke is "alert to injustice in society, especially racism."
- cdot2 4y agoI'm not sure that wasn't the original intention for many if not most of the people advocating those positions.
- jeff-davis 4y agoLess-powerful people tend to appeal to principles more, because principles tend to align with their benefit. You don't know whether the principles really exist until you see currently-powerful people hold themselves to the principles. I suspect nearly all people would fail this test, execpt those who've been on both sides (at least in small ways) enough times.
- tsunamifury 4y agoVery insightful. This gets to the root of power and how different moral truths are advocated by different positions with both saying how they are universal. I wish we could admit that as progressives and have a better conversation around the motivations of certain policies.
- inglor_cz 4y agoIt is not just neo-racism and neo-sexism. It is also a weird kind of neo-feudalism, excluding outsiders that cannot or won't fit the expected mold. In the court of Versailles, you had to behave according to a certain stiff etiquette. If the same is required in institutions of higher learning, how many really creative people will be willing to put up with it?
- chitowneats 4y agoThey won't. Can't wait for all the great music in the next few decades.
- ethbr0 4y agoFair point. The 60s wouldn't have happened without the 50s. The 90s without the 80s. Artistic creativity brews strongest when there's an omnipresent dogma to reject, and the current pastiche of thoughtlessly-implemented progressivism is fertile ground. It's been bubbling up in standup comedy for a while, but that tends to be the quickest turnaround on cultural commentary. No nuanced good idea ever survives contact with a brainless bureaucracy.
- jimmaswell 4y ago> If the same is required in institutions of higher learning Can you give an example? At my colleges there were no rules about "stiff etiquette"
- tsunamifury 4y agoTech companies have crazy stiff etiquette and at its worse point hr people were butting into meetings on demand and correcting behavior in real time. It was … creepy.
- 0x445442 4y ago[flagged]
- kenjackson 4y agoAs a society we got ourselves into a situation where ignoring race now I promotes inequality as it helps those that have benefited from racism in the past. And doing ANYTHING proactive now is racism not. The question is just — what type of injustice do you prefer?
- brigandish 4y ago> ignoring race now I promotes inequality as it helps those that have benefited from racism in the past Does it?
- hhmc 4y agoI think the argument goes something like: if racial groups and socioeconomic outcomes are correlated due to previous inequalities, and social mobility is limited, then doing nothing further entrenches the inequalities.
- tjs8rj 4y agoThen discriminate on the socioeconomic inequalities. A poor white person and a poor black person should get aid. Obama’s daughter (black, but rich and powerful) doesn’t need any aid or discrimination in her favor. Discriminating on the basis of race for these programs is so stupid. Ask why and people say “because socioeconomic status”, but then why don’t you discriminate on that? I think people know this but it’s a political move (black people vote for democrats for the vast majority, so making it means tested instead wouldn’t be popular with them).
- hhmc 4y agoSure, just do _anything_ that's a directional improvement. I think a lot of bad faith prevarication prevents any improvement (such as the question I was replying to).
- brigandish 4y ago
- petilon 4y agoAbsolutely agree. In the US, "holistic" admissions were introduced to deny admission to students suspected of being Jewish [1]. [1] https://www.economist.com/united-states/2018/06/23/a-lawsuit-reveals-how-peculiar-harvards-definition-of-merit-is https://www.economist.com/united-states/2018/06/23/a-lawsuit...
- MichaelCollins 4y agoShaping the ethnic demographic of the school is a big component of the modern intent as well. Particularly, these "holistic" admission standards are designed to facilitate discrimination against Asian Americans. This is justified with transparently racist bullshit claims about Asian American students being too focused on academic performance, not "well rounded" whatever the hell that is supposed to mean. They reduce Asian American students to the stereotype of dull people with no personality because they spent too much time doing homework and learning piano, and use this stereotype to justify discriminating against them. Flagrantly racist.
- nerdponx 4y agoA more charitable interpretation is that a student body made up of too much of any one thing is not good. Part of the value proposition for going away to university for four years is to spend that time surrounded by diverse and interesting people. That doesn't excuse the actual racism that we've seen in admissions, of course.
- inglor_cz 4y agoIn that case, maybe some universities could specialize on having racially diverse student bodies, and others on other attributes (say, political diversity, or something completely different). This way, everyone could choose their preferred institution according to their wishes and values.
- rayiner 4y ago> A more charitable interpretation is that a student body made up of too much of any one thing is not good. So what would you say is “not good” about a “student body made up of too [many]” Indians? Or Jews? Or Chinese people? Are schools in India or China or Israel inherently worse than those in America because those schools have “too much” of a single race?
- xfitm3 4y agoAffirmative action is racist. It must stop, along with hiring biases.
- mschuster91 4y agoThe problem with "quantitative" tests is that they are not without their own bias - they select for students that had the luck (or the right parentage) to go to either a private school or to a public school in a well-funded school district. The result is that the student base will be overwhelmingly white rich kids, which is pretty problematic (see e.g. [1], fresh out of the press). Additionally, at least when one goes by the original purpose of academia - that is, to provide education and research opportunities to the actually gifted instead of yet another way for employers to bypass ADA and other anti discrimination regulations - it should be the way that qualitative judgements by humans prefer the academically gifted and interested! [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-03251-0 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-03251-0
- blep_ 4y ago> they select for students that had the luck (or the right parentage) to go to either a private school or to a public school in a well-funded school district You're not wrong, but I interpret this as evidence that the problem is earlier in the pipeline and trying to fix it here is a hack.
- mindslight 4y agoFamilies with more resources are going to be able to use those resources to game anything. The question is then, which metrics have the most resistance to gaming? Testing would seem more resistant to gaming than extracurricular activities or how well "you" write essays.
- ethbr0 4y agoOr, to crib the aphorism, 'Standardized testing is the worst method of ranking students... except for all the other ones.'
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- overrun11 4y ago> they select for students that had the luck (or the right parentage) to go to either a private school or to a public school in a well-funded school district. They select for math ability, it just so happens that students with access to great resources get better at math than those without them. > The result is that the student base will be overwhelmingly white rich kids, which is pretty problematic Pretty clearly not true. It is overwhelmingly asian kids and while wealth plays a factor, poor asians still do exceptionally well (IIRC poor asians do better than rich whites). This can never be acknowledged because it makes people less sympathetic to your point. > purpose of academia - that is, to provide education and research opportunities to the actually gifted instead A students innate ability is irrelevant for college admissions. What matters is what are your actual capabilities. Are you capable doing mathematics at the highest level or are you not? An innately talented student who is bad at math due to life circumstances out of their control is still bad at math.
- JadeNB 4y ago> The whole point of ditching quantitative tests is to empower the bureaucrats who want to make qualitative judgements based on their personal whims and biases. I can completely believe that this is the result, but I find it very hard to believe that it is (at least in all cases) the point. At my university, the decision to stop considering some standardized tests came from the department and college level, where we don't even make the decisions, not from the admissions department. While it is easy for me to believe that there were unintended consequences, I can say for sure that what you describe was not our goal.
- revlolz 4y ago>We used racism, to fight racism. Only fascists subscribe to meritocracy. -years later- OH no, we're taking the pr hits for our disgustingly discriminative and biggoted admissions processes.