4 ms·

So how do you propose to make things better? White men dominate the power and wealth structures in the US. A long history of crushing racism has left a massive

by deeg 2y ago

So how do you propose to make things better? White men dominate the power and wealth structures in the US. A long history of crushing racism has left a massive gap between white men and minorities. How do we make sure that minorities and women get the same fair chance at NSF grants as white men, when white men are making most of the decisions? How do we make sure we're funding science that helps everyone, not just those who make the highest decisions?

UltraSane 2y ago
The real struggle in the US is with the rich hogging all the money and money is power as we see with Trump's billionaire cabinet and Musk. The rich have stolen tens of trillions of dollars from everyone else over the last 40 years by causing wages to grow slower than productivity and hogging all the gains from equity. I propose we have a national dividend were some percentage of all company profit and or revenue is equally distributed to all citizens and an estate tax of 100% of anything over $10 million with this indexed to inflation with half the proceeds equally distributed amongst all citizens who didn't pay the tax and the other half going to the federal government. Taxing people after they are dead is the fairest possible time to tax them. Minimum wage would be set at some percentage of the GDP per hour of labor, which is about $82/hour for the US. 20% to 30% would be reasonable.
- deeg 2y ago
  While your heart is in the right place your proposal is massive, unworkable, and a complete nonstarter. It could never be passed. DEI initiatives are reasonable way to increase the likelihood that a minority is considered for a job and not passed over by endemic racism.
  - UltraSane 2y ago
    "DEI initiatives are reasonable " Are they though? Racism is still wrong even when you use it for what you consider worthy goals.
    - deeg 2y ago
      You are mistaken that DEI is racist, unless you consider any attempt to correct for racism is itself racist.
      - UltraSane 2y ago
        In your words how does DEI "correct" for racism?
        deeg 2y ago
        Thanks for listening. The topic of racism and DEI is broad so I'll try to focus on a small part: I believe that black people have a harder time finding a job than white people with similar skills. This appears to be supported by some research [0]. DEI is trying to apply a corrective lens to racism; it says (I'm paraphrasing) to make a conscious effort to include more black people in your search for employees. If you have two equal candidates, maybe consider hiring the black person as a correction for the times they don't get hired. I'll give what I consider to be a positive experience with DEI. A while back my company was hiring an engineer and a woman candidate did poorly on her phone screen. Normally we didn't bring in candidates who did poorly but the hiring manager decided that we didn't have enough woman engineers and brought in the candidate for interviews anyway. I was one of the interviewers and the woman was one of the best interviews I ever conducted. We eventually hired her and she was one of the smartest coworkers I ever had. In retrospect she did poorly on the phone screen because English was her third language. Was it unfair that she got a second chance when a male candidate wouldn't? Maybe, but the entire field of software engineering is unfair against women and this was one action to help level it. We can all hope for a day we don't need DEI to give everyone an equal chance but that is not this day. [0] - https://www.npr.org/2024/04/11/1243713272/resume-bias-study-white-names-black-names https://www.npr.org/2024/04/11/1243713272/resume-bias-study-...
        UltraSane 2y ago
        DEI becomes racism when it causes someone to choose a less qualified candidate over a more qualified candidate. But it is fine if you have two equally good candidates and DEI causes you to choose the minority.

by deeg 2y ago

UltraSane 2y ago

The real struggle in the US is with the rich hogging all the money and money is power as we see with Trump's billionaire cabinet and Musk. The rich have stolen tens of trillions of dollars from everyone else over the last 40 years by causing wages to grow slower than productivity and hogging all the gains from equity. I propose we have a national dividend were some percentage of all company profit and or revenue is equally distributed to all citizens and an estate tax of 100% of anything over $10 million with this indexed to inflation with half the proceeds equally distributed amongst all citizens who didn't pay the tax and the other half going to the federal government. Taxing people after they are dead is the fairest possible time to tax them. Minimum wage would be set at some percentage of the GDP per hour of labor, which is about $82/hour for the US. 20% to 30% would be reasonable.

deeg 2y ago
While your heart is in the right place your proposal is massive, unworkable, and a complete nonstarter. It could never be passed. DEI initiatives are reasonable way to increase the likelihood that a minority is considered for a job and not passed over by endemic racism.
- UltraSane 2y ago
  "DEI initiatives are reasonable " Are they though? Racism is still wrong even when you use it for what you consider worthy goals.
  - deeg 2y ago
    You are mistaken that DEI is racist, unless you consider any attempt to correct for racism is itself racist.
    - UltraSane 2y ago
      In your words how does DEI "correct" for racism?
      - deeg 2y ago
        Thanks for listening. The topic of racism and DEI is broad so I'll try to focus on a small part: I believe that black people have a harder time finding a job than white people with similar skills. This appears to be supported by some research [0]. DEI is trying to apply a corrective lens to racism; it says (I'm paraphrasing) to make a conscious effort to include more black people in your search for employees. If you have two equal candidates, maybe consider hiring the black person as a correction for the times they don't get hired. I'll give what I consider to be a positive experience with DEI. A while back my company was hiring an engineer and a woman candidate did poorly on her phone screen. Normally we didn't bring in candidates who did poorly but the hiring manager decided that we didn't have enough woman engineers and brought in the candidate for interviews anyway. I was one of the interviewers and the woman was one of the best interviews I ever conducted. We eventually hired her and she was one of the smartest coworkers I ever had. In retrospect she did poorly on the phone screen because English was her third language. Was it unfair that she got a second chance when a male candidate wouldn't? Maybe, but the entire field of software engineering is unfair against women and this was one action to help level it. We can all hope for a day we don't need DEI to give everyone an equal chance but that is not this day. [0] - https://www.npr.org/2024/04/11/1243713272/resume-bias-study-white-names-black-names https://www.npr.org/2024/04/11/1243713272/resume-bias-study-...
        UltraSane 2y ago
        DEI becomes racism when it causes someone to choose a less qualified candidate over a more qualified candidate. But it is fine if you have two equally good candidates and DEI causes you to choose the minority.