4 ms·

Nope, I've pointed out that the way you are using 'merit' overlaps with the way social scientists use the term 'privilege'. Change the word 'privilege' for 'bo

by sago 12y ago

Nope, I've pointed out that the way you are using 'merit' overlaps with the way social scientists use the term 'privilege'. Change the word 'privilege' for 'boondoggle', it doesn't matter, the point still stands. But as I pointed out, the use of the word 'privilege' is often such anathema that it prevents certain groups of people listening to the point, instead having them focus on the word.

yummyfajitas 12y ago
To demonstrate that it's not a tautology, can you describe a world in which a group is overrepresented but not privileged? If you can't construct such a scenario, then by definition it is a tautology.
- sago 12y ago
  Why are you so exorcised by the word privilege? My point was nothing to do with what you seem to have a problem with. My point was that what is seen as 'merit' is a function of a whole bunch of other factors, which means it isn't somehow a racists discussion stopping thing to point out that Asian men have higher levels of 'merit' (when merit is defined in the way I understood it to be in the post I was responding to). My point in using 'privilege' is to say that the idea of 'merit' overlaps with 'privilege' in the ways I described, and that the people the OP might thing of as wanting to 'stop' the discussion, do, in fact, have this discussion a lot, though they'd use 'privilege' instead to mean those things, because that is the term of art. You seem to have a problem with a word. Call it 'probabilistic causes of non-equal representation', then. Point out there are many such causes, and some of them are hardly things we could easily change (there are very few people with very low IQ in top tech jobs, so higher IQ is a 'privilege'). Your reaction to the word, rather than the point, seems rather ideological. Tautology is not a synonym for synonym. And the equation you accuse me of making is a strawman, my point was to unpack merit, not to define privilege. I'm sorry if it was unclear.
  - yummyfajitas 12y ago
    I don't know why you think I'm "exorcised" by a word. I'm simply pointing out that you are using a completely different definition of it than myself and hackeruser, and as a result your posts are completely missing the point. If privilege means "probabilistic causes of non-equal representation", then that's a very broad definition and every non-deterministic unequal representation is caused by privilege. But you were responding to a discussion where we were using "privilege" to mean something along the lines of "social biases unfairly favoring one group". By definition, Asian males have 8x the "probabilistic causes of non-equal representation". It seems highly unlikely that they have 8x the "social biases unfairly favoring one group", which is what hackeruser and myself were actually discussing. You also don't seem to be using this definition consistently. For example, if I take this comment of yours and substitute this definition in, it makes no sense: "When you find achievement highly correlated with a cultural group, however, it is pretty likely to be a function of probabilistic causes of non-equal representation. The alternative hypothesis is that, for example, Jews are just innately better at science." I'm beginning to think you are attempting a Motte and Bailey: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/03/all-in-all-another-brick-in-the-motte/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/03/all-in-all-another-bric...
    - swatow 12y ago
      Nice link on the "Motte and Bailey" article. I might link to this in my blog since I independently came up with the same argument. In this case, I think one version of "privilege" is the idea that our society involves unipolar power relations where one group/ideology is privileged and enjoys special advantages. Individual people might in some ways align with this group/ideologies, and in other ways not (this is called "intersectionality"). But when they do align with this group/ideology they receive some of its benefits. Sago's version is that privilege is just another word for any group having any advantage for any reason. I.e. "privilege" stripped of its underlying assumptions about societies power structure. It's unfortunate that Sago feel so strongly that they represent sociological research, when I think that almost all sociologists use the other definition. Sago says that Asians might be privileged simply because their culture [0]. The orthodox view would be that Asians only receive White privilege, by their willingness to accept both the White lifestyle, working under a capitalist system, and adopt White views on Black/White race relations. To the extend that Asians also study harder, that would be an accident of history, and probably something an orthodox sociologist would try to downplay (e.g. by looking at Nth generation Asians). [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9126189 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9126189
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

by sago 12y ago

yummyfajitas 12y ago

To demonstrate that it's not a tautology, can you describe a world in which a group is overrepresented but not privileged? If you can't construct such a scenario, then by definition it is a tautology.

sago 12y ago
Why are you so exorcised by the word privilege? My point was nothing to do with what you seem to have a problem with. My point was that what is seen as 'merit' is a function of a whole bunch of other factors, which means it isn't somehow a racists discussion stopping thing to point out that Asian men have higher levels of 'merit' (when merit is defined in the way I understood it to be in the post I was responding to). My point in using 'privilege' is to say that the idea of 'merit' overlaps with 'privilege' in the ways I described, and that the people the OP might thing of as wanting to 'stop' the discussion, do, in fact, have this discussion a lot, though they'd use 'privilege' instead to mean those things, because that is the term of art. You seem to have a problem with a word. Call it 'probabilistic causes of non-equal representation', then. Point out there are many such causes, and some of them are hardly things we could easily change (there are very few people with very low IQ in top tech jobs, so higher IQ is a 'privilege'). Your reaction to the word, rather than the point, seems rather ideological. Tautology is not a synonym for synonym. And the equation you accuse me of making is a strawman, my point was to unpack merit, not to define privilege. I'm sorry if it was unclear.
- yummyfajitas 12y ago
  I don't know why you think I'm "exorcised" by a word. I'm simply pointing out that you are using a completely different definition of it than myself and hackeruser, and as a result your posts are completely missing the point. If privilege means "probabilistic causes of non-equal representation", then that's a very broad definition and every non-deterministic unequal representation is caused by privilege. But you were responding to a discussion where we were using "privilege" to mean something along the lines of "social biases unfairly favoring one group". By definition, Asian males have 8x the "probabilistic causes of non-equal representation". It seems highly unlikely that they have 8x the "social biases unfairly favoring one group", which is what hackeruser and myself were actually discussing. You also don't seem to be using this definition consistently. For example, if I take this comment of yours and substitute this definition in, it makes no sense: "When you find achievement highly correlated with a cultural group, however, it is pretty likely to be a function of probabilistic causes of non-equal representation. The alternative hypothesis is that, for example, Jews are just innately better at science." I'm beginning to think you are attempting a Motte and Bailey: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/03/all-in-all-another-brick-in-the-motte/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/03/all-in-all-another-bric...
  - swatow 12y ago
    Nice link on the "Motte and Bailey" article. I might link to this in my blog since I independently came up with the same argument. In this case, I think one version of "privilege" is the idea that our society involves unipolar power relations where one group/ideology is privileged and enjoys special advantages. Individual people might in some ways align with this group/ideologies, and in other ways not (this is called "intersectionality"). But when they do align with this group/ideology they receive some of its benefits. Sago's version is that privilege is just another word for any group having any advantage for any reason. I.e. "privilege" stripped of its underlying assumptions about societies power structure. It's unfortunate that Sago feel so strongly that they represent sociological research, when I think that almost all sociologists use the other definition. Sago says that Asians might be privileged simply because their culture [0]. The orthodox view would be that Asians only receive White privilege, by their willingness to accept both the White lifestyle, working under a capitalist system, and adopt White views on Black/White race relations. To the extend that Asians also study harder, that would be an accident of history, and probably something an orthodox sociologist would try to downplay (e.g. by looking at Nth generation Asians). [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9126189 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9126189

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]