4 ms·

You really check all the doesn't-want-to-understand boxes with this post. It's like a textbook in attempting to discredit through non sequitur. Have you ever

by zorpner 11y ago

You really check all the doesn't-want-to-understand boxes with this post. It's like a textbook in attempting to discredit through non sequitur. Have you ever thought you might just look lost and people are trying to help out? Why do you immediately think everyone is somehow racist by asking you this question? Second-guessing lived experience (it turns out that people subject to racism are actually quite good at telling when it's happening to them), check. It's because the classes are difficult. Seriously, think for even one second about the implication you're making here. Why don't you just say African-american students. Asians and Hispanics are also minorities. "All lives matter!" It's not the author's responsibility to tackle the perfect at the expense of the good. They were never treated any differently in class. You have no idea how they were treated. They do. Let them speak.

tzs 11y ago
>> It's because the classes are difficult. > Seriously, think for even one second about the implication you're making here. Seriously, read the article before commenting. The author said that the class in question is Stanford's CS "weed out" class. A "weed out" class is a class designed to be (1) difficult, and (2) come early in a major. The idea is that if you can get through the weed out class, you should be able to get through the rest of the classes in that major. The theory is that by putting one of the hardest classes first, you avoid students ending up in the terrible position of spending 3 or 4 years majoring in one field and then have to give up and either drop out or switch majors when they hit a difficult required class that they just cannot get through.
- zorpner 11y ago
  Despite your numerous edits, you've missed the point entirely, which is that the GP posited that the reason the class tends towards homogeneity is its difficulty. The implication is that minorities are not as smart. I really didn't feel like I had to spell this out, but here we are.
  - waterlesscloud 11y ago
    Say you have a class that starts out with 30 students. 18 white, 10 asian, 2 black. Say the course is very hard and it cuts 2/3rds of the total students. If the cuts were proportional by race, we now have 6 white, 4 asian, and 0 blacks. There was no racism involved in the class, the fact that no blacks remain is a result of the class brutally weeding out 2/3rds of the students and that the initial number of blacks was very low. You can quibble over numbers, but the basic idea remains that large percentage cuts in an unbalanced population can make it tend more toward homogeneity.
    - ectoplasm 11y ago
      That's a good numerical analysis. However, you also have to account for the fact that, on average, black children in the US get a poorer education. There are studies and statistics and on and on. Is it controversial to think that somebody might be less smart because they got a worse education? And then is it so surprising that when they get into Stanford due to affirmative action, they can't handle the course load? The whole system is a mess.
    - flippinburgers 11y ago
      It looks like people are downvoting this which is hilarious because it is accurate. If you assume proportionality this will happen.
    - flippinburgers 11y ago
      It looks like people are downvoting this which is hilarious because it is accurate. If you assume proportionality this will happen.
  - tbrownaw 11y ago
    The implication is that minorities are not as smart. Or that they have some other reason to have not learned as much (say, worse primary schools? differing cultural values?). It is very well known that affirmative action tends to take the form of lowering standards for the groups being favored. If this is in fact true, running into a non-biased filter would tend to undo some of its effects. As noted towards the end of the post you're calling offensive (We also need to remember that many universities have quotas for minorities and give extra points on the SAT for just checking a box.). If this is not true... a weed-out class would not be observed to change the class demographics.
kentrado 11y ago
This is an idiotic way of thinking that shut off any potential for discussion.
andrepd 11y ago
You may not like the implication, but it's there. It's a fact. Even when brought in via affirmative action, minorities are consistently weeded out at higher rates than, say, whites or men. No implications needs to be made because the statistics are there for everyone to see. And this is a bad thing, but not like you think. This is where I mainly take issue with the contemporary SJW/PC types. The fact that some minorities (for the sake of argument let's take white men v black women) are underrepresented in the number of, say, CS graduates is a bad thing, a problem that needs solving. The way to go about this, in my view, is not, and I repeat, not, by just admitting/hiring more black women to universities/companies despite being lower qualified than white men. We could do this, and pat ourselves in the back for a job well done and leave with our outstanding moral fibre confirmed, and be very politically correct. But that changes nothing. The fact is that to solve this complex issue we need to look into the root causes of the problem that causes black people to perform statistically worse in tests, or women to be less likely to enroll in a CS degree. And that takes a whole hell lot more effort than superficially sweeping the issue under the rug with affirmative action et al. It would be a massive undertaking that would involve shakeups at the core of our society. Naturally the champions of the politically correct aren't so inclined, and prefer to simply sit and be outraged by, and offering as only solution to simply "cheat" until the statistics seem agreeable. And that, I stress, alters none of the core societal problems that caused those twisted statistics in the first place. I don't know about you, but I would prefer to see these problems rectified and true equality of opportunity be established rather than just shrugging it off and twisting the statistics until they are "good enough".
- tbrownaw 11y ago
  It would be a massive undertaking that would involve shakeups at the core of our society. Maybe. If the main issue is cultural attitudes (either of the people in question, or of the people running the schools), sure. But if it's mostly about access to resources (as suggested in another post here, time-at-keyboard), that's merely a large undertaking and doesn't need to be coordinated as well. In this case, the greatest requires resource would probably be patience.
  - codygman 11y ago
cpncrunch 11y ago
>it turns out that people subject to racism are actually quite good at telling when it's happening to them Not always. Just have a look at the Ellen Pao trial, and the github "sexism" episode. (Sexism rather than racism in both these cases). Sometimes people just infer a nefarious motive or bias that doesn't actually exist.

by zorpner 11y ago

tzs 11y ago

>> It's because the classes are difficult. > Seriously, think for even one second about the implication you're making here. Seriously, read the article before commenting. The author said that the class in question is Stanford's CS "weed out" class. A "weed out" class is a class designed to be (1) difficult, and (2) come early in a major. The idea is that if you can get through the weed out class, you should be able to get through the rest of the classes in that major. The theory is that by putting one of the hardest classes first, you avoid students ending up in the terrible position of spending 3 or 4 years majoring in one field and then have to give up and either drop out or switch majors when they hit a difficult required class that they just cannot get through.

zorpner 11y ago
Despite your numerous edits, you've missed the point entirely, which is that the GP posited that the reason the class tends towards homogeneity is its difficulty. The implication is that minorities are not as smart. I really didn't feel like I had to spell this out, but here we are.
- waterlesscloud 11y ago
  Say you have a class that starts out with 30 students. 18 white, 10 asian, 2 black. Say the course is very hard and it cuts 2/3rds of the total students. If the cuts were proportional by race, we now have 6 white, 4 asian, and 0 blacks. There was no racism involved in the class, the fact that no blacks remain is a result of the class brutally weeding out 2/3rds of the students and that the initial number of blacks was very low. You can quibble over numbers, but the basic idea remains that large percentage cuts in an unbalanced population can make it tend more toward homogeneity.
  - ectoplasm 11y ago
    That's a good numerical analysis. However, you also have to account for the fact that, on average, black children in the US get a poorer education. There are studies and statistics and on and on. Is it controversial to think that somebody might be less smart because they got a worse education? And then is it so surprising that when they get into Stanford due to affirmative action, they can't handle the course load? The whole system is a mess.
  - flippinburgers 11y ago
    It looks like people are downvoting this which is hilarious because it is accurate. If you assume proportionality this will happen.
  - flippinburgers 11y ago
    It looks like people are downvoting this which is hilarious because it is accurate. If you assume proportionality this will happen.
- tbrownaw 11y ago
  The implication is that minorities are not as smart. Or that they have some other reason to have not learned as much (say, worse primary schools? differing cultural values?). It is very well known that affirmative action tends to take the form of lowering standards for the groups being favored. If this is in fact true, running into a non-biased filter would tend to undo some of its effects. As noted towards the end of the post you're calling offensive (We also need to remember that many universities have quotas for minorities and give extra points on the SAT for just checking a box.). If this is not true... a weed-out class would not be observed to change the class demographics.

kentrado 11y ago

This is an idiotic way of thinking that shut off any potential for discussion.

andrepd 11y ago

You may not like the implication, but it's there. It's a fact. Even when brought in via affirmative action, minorities are consistently weeded out at higher rates than, say, whites or men. No implications needs to be made because the statistics are there for everyone to see. And this is a bad thing, but not like you think. This is where I mainly take issue with the contemporary SJW/PC types. The fact that some minorities (for the sake of argument let's take white men v black women) are underrepresented in the number of, say, CS graduates is a bad thing, a problem that needs solving. The way to go about this, in my view, is not, and I repeat, not, by just admitting/hiring more black women to universities/companies despite being lower qualified than white men. We could do this, and pat ourselves in the back for a job well done and leave with our outstanding moral fibre confirmed, and be very politically correct. But that changes nothing. The fact is that to solve this complex issue we need to look into the root causes of the problem that causes black people to perform statistically worse in tests, or women to be less likely to enroll in a CS degree. And that takes a whole hell lot more effort than superficially sweeping the issue under the rug with affirmative action et al. It would be a massive undertaking that would involve shakeups at the core of our society. Naturally the champions of the politically correct aren't so inclined, and prefer to simply sit and be outraged by, and offering as only solution to simply "cheat" until the statistics seem agreeable. And that, I stress, alters none of the core societal problems that caused those twisted statistics in the first place. I don't know about you, but I would prefer to see these problems rectified and true equality of opportunity be established rather than just shrugging it off and twisting the statistics until they are "good enough".

tbrownaw 11y ago
It would be a massive undertaking that would involve shakeups at the core of our society. Maybe. If the main issue is cultural attitudes (either of the people in question, or of the people running the schools), sure. But if it's mostly about access to resources (as suggested in another post here, time-at-keyboard), that's merely a large undertaking and doesn't need to be coordinated as well. In this case, the greatest requires resource would probably be patience.
- codygman 11y ago

cpncrunch 11y ago

>it turns out that people subject to racism are actually quite good at telling when it's happening to them Not always. Just have a look at the Ellen Pao trial, and the github "sexism" episode. (Sexism rather than racism in both these cases). Sometimes people just infer a nefarious motive or bias that doesn't actually exist.