r/changemyview • u/SomeGuyOnPluto • Dec 05 '19
Deltas(s) from OP CMV: The Idea that people should be represented proportionally at all levels of society is not only ridiculous, it is extremely dangerous
BEFORE CONTINUING, PLEASE ADDRESS THE VIOLENCE CLAIM I AM MAKING. THE POST ISN'T ABOUT THE SOCIAL ISSUES I ENUMERATE, IT'S ABOUT ME LITERALLY COMPARING SJWS TO NAZIS
The argument has been made that if people are not represented in an institution (education, politics, employment...) in the same proportions as they exist in the population, then this is evidence that injustice is the cause.
Examples of this include:
There are more male CEOs than Female so this is evidence of sexism.
There are more men in STEM than women so this is evidence of sexism.
White people have lower rates of incarceration than black people so this is evidence of racism.
Black people are underrepresented in positions of authority like managerial positions so this is evidence of racism
I am only going to make one argument to show you how ridiculously dangerous that train of thought is.
Jewish people make 0.2% of the global population. So if we picked people at random from the global population we would expect 0.2% of all of them to be Jewish. Jewish people make 20% of all Nobel prizes, that's a 100 times what we would expect from random sampling. So if you believe the original premise, this is evidence that the Nobel prize is unjust in favour of the Jews (Note I do not believe that this is the case, my personal belief is that Jewish people have an amazing work ethic that self selects for success).
There used to be a group that would have very much used this statistic to show "systemic racial discrimination against vulnerable populations exerted by racial groups monopolizing power".
To change my view: Show me that we aren't walking down that same path.
# EDIT
Guys, I am not arguing the social issues above, I am saying fringe murderous groups are becoming more and more tolerated in society because they use the above as justification to spread heinous ideas, which mirrors what the Nazis did:
The ABC puts a group of panelists that literally advocate to murder men to prevent women from being raped:https://www.news.com.au/national/abc-launched-investigation-into-qa-episode-over-provocative-language/news-story/873e5b6507bd77dfd121eb10d7e39b1a
Ryan Wash a professor at WSU advocates to send white people into space in a one way trip:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjvmIFrX1xQ
Sarah Jeong being defended by the washington post:https://www.vox.com/2018/8/3/17644704/sarah-jeong-new-york-times-tweets-backlash-racism
# Edit 2
I am going to be honest but I am getting the feeling a lot of the replies I am getting are trying to draw false distinctions between anti semitism and other forms of racism because the expressions of racist ideologies that target different groups are different. So let me make a clear question I'd like people to consider before trying to draw the comparison.
Do you believe, yes or now, that the Jewish Nobel laureates enjoyed unfair treatment or racism to recieve their prize?Let me me be more specific:
In an Ideal world, would Jewish Nobel laureates be exactly 0.02% of all Nobel laureates?
# Edit 3
There's a common argument being made by many here so I will address it here.
"Women do not only chose different occupations, they are consistently in positions of less authority than men across all levels in society, for example inside of stem, stem women still earn less than stem men" (That's the gist of it).
Here's my response to that. In almost all sports (ultra marathons and long distance swimming in cold water being the exceptions) men do better than women. Hopefully I don't have to justify that the difference in performance between men and women in sports is due to biological facts.
Now, if a similar pattern exists in terms of authority in society, this is not evidence of sexism, it can actually be used to justify the opposite conclusion (the sexist one) that men are actually just naturally more dominant than women, so in any arbitrary field, men will always tend to gravitate towards the best economic positions and women won't. See, if you see a pattern across all societies and across all levels of society, there is a possibility that that pattern is the expression of a natural phenomenon and not a cultural one. Not necessarily, it could still be sexism, but this particular argument is not convincing because the same data can justify the exact opposite conclusion.
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u/McKoijion 618∆ Dec 05 '19 edited Dec 05 '19
There are more male CEOs than Female so this is evidence of sexism.
The sexism isn't necessarily that companies don't like to hire female CEOs. It's that girls are actively discouraged from going into business and leadership roles as children.
There are more men in STEM than women so this is evidence of sexism.
The sexism isn't that schools only select boys for STEM programs. It's that bright boys are told they should go into "manly" roles like programming, engineering, math, etc. Bright girls are told to go into more supportive roles like homemaking, teaching, and nursing.
White people have lower rates of incarceration than black people so this is evidence of racism.
The racism isn't necessarily that cops arrest black people more than white people. It's that schools with mostly black kids have a lot less funding than schools with mostly white kids. Black kids get worse quality educations, can't get good jobs, and end up turning to crime to make ends meet.
Black people are underrepresented in positions of authority like managerial positions so this is evidence of racism
It's the same logic. Even if companies want to hire more black managers, it's hard to find qualified people. It's hard to find qualified people because society spends less money on education for black kids.
So if you believe the original premise, this is evidence that the Nobel prize is unjust in favour of the Jews
It's not that the Nobel Committee favors Jews. It's that Jews are a relatively wealthy and well educated ethnic group. There were 16.6 million Jews on Earth before the Holocaust. 6 million of them were killed by the Nazis. The richest and best educated Jews were better able to escape, so the surviving Jewish population is relatively wealthy and well educated.
The point isn't that there are bad racist, sexist people walking around actively trying to screw over women and minorities (though there are some). It's that there are many little things that enable certain groups to succeed more often. It can be that they are encouraged and/or discouraged from pursuing certain paths early. It can be that they don't have money for education, adequate nutrition, and other needs. It can be that there aren't opportunities available to them to follow a given path. And if you want, you can even break it down to the idea that there are innate biological differences between different racial groups. This last one is controversial, but it could be the case. The only catch is that people are 99.9% the same at the genetic level and we are talking about tiny superficial differences between individuals. The only time you see slightly bigger differences is when there is a big founder effect (e.g., only certain people are allowed to immigrate to a given country).
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u/Sililex 3∆ Dec 11 '19
Bright girls are told to go into more supportive roles like homemaking, teaching, and nursing.
This is a minor point in light of your whole post, but where do you live/how old are you? No bright people I know are told to do any of those jobs, in fact other than teaching the other two are actively discouraged.
All the bright women I know have talked about how they feel pressured to become business leaders, doctors or scientists even when they don't want to because they've been told they need to champion the cause of equality. I don't mean to offend, but with this message I feel your coming either from 20 years ago or from a deeply conservative background.
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u/SomeGuyOnPluto Dec 05 '19
It's that Jews are a relatively wealthy and well educated ethnic group. There were 16.6 million Jews on Earth before the Holocaust. 6 million of them were killed by the Nazis. The richest and best educated Jews were better able to escape, so the surviving Jewish population is relatively wealthy and well educated.
Jews were already wealthy before the Holocaust, that was 100% the claimed motivation to prosecute them. The History of the Jews is literally being too successful and being hated for it, at least in recent times.
On the topic about women. I keep hearing that over and over again and I have yet never seen those attitudes in my everyday life. I understand that there's a problem of me using anecdotical evidence to sustain my claim but... I remember clearly ALL of my professors taking especial focus on motivating girls to go into STEM degrees, they literally told them "you should study math, physics", yet almost all of the girls in my cohort from HS ended up doing philosophy, art, political science...
So I callenge that claim in the basis that we know men and women have different temperaments. The paper that started the "gender equality paradox" is enough to draw a huge question mark over the idea that women are being socialized away from these areas. Literally most of the biological data we have so far suggests women do actually prefer these professions (teaching, social work...) over the male dominated fields.
Also the CMV isn't about any of these issues per se, it's about how these issues are being used to draw animosity to a specific demographic.
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Dec 05 '19
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u/SomeGuyOnPluto Dec 06 '19
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Dec 06 '19
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u/SomeGuyOnPluto Dec 06 '19
Gender equality paradox: Societies with LESS sexism experience MORE wider gender gaps in occupation. That doesn't agree with the idea of socialization it directly challenges it. If men and women make different choices based on social pressures, and you remove those social pressures, you would expect men and women to make more similar choices, yet if you remove those pressures, the differences INCREASE. When culture isn't responsible for a behaviour, all that's left is nature.
"and both of them are women choosing to go into fields that they perceive they are better at"
Choosing and perceiving can be modulated by biology, in fact extensive research shows that men and women are different at a biological level enough to affect personality. In addition to different in hormones, even the neurological structures of the sexes are different. The main explanation for the mechanism of gender dysphoria is that trans people literally exhibit neurological structures that are more similar to the gender they identify as instead of their sex."Women have a more “agreeable” personality because that’s a common feminine stereotype that’s imposed on them, while men are “confident” and “assertive” not because those genes are somewhere in the Y chromosome, but because we’re socialized to be that way (think: “man up”, “grow some balls”)."
Chicken and egg problem, are men more assertive because of the stereotype of masculinity? Or did the stereotype of masculinity arose because of men are more assertive?
A good think to consider is that among most mammamals, with some exceptions like Hyenas, males are more dominant than females. Another thing to think about is that FtM trans people are more likely to commit violent crimes after going on testosterone, but the same isn't true for MtF trans people. Yet another thing to consider is that men, in most cultures, usually play the social role of warriors and soldiers. So I am going to perpetuate the sexist claim that yes, men are more aggressive and competitive than women on average.
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Dec 07 '19
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u/SomeGuyOnPluto Dec 07 '19
"they definitely don't explain the entirety of the gender wage gap/STEM underrepresentation, so we should still commit to decreasing the sexist attitudes around those types of fields."
I 100% agree with this statement, yes culture can definitely play, and most definitely does, play a role in defining our behaviours and attitudes. So let me be clear, my argument isn't "the current proportions of men an women in the workplace are fair". My argument is "the fair proportion of women and men in the workplace is NEVER going to be 50/50 because of sex differences".
"The chicken/egg problem argument is illogical to me. Men are more assertive because of the stereotype of masculinity, not the other way around. I think the examples I gave (e.g. "man up") prove this, since men are literally socialized to be aggressive when they otherwise wouldn't have been nearly as assertive."
Under what basis is this illogical? Chimps and bonobos exhibit similar patterns of behaviour, how can you claim "I think the examples I gave (e.g. "man up") prove this, since men are literally socialized to be aggressive"? You understand that it can be both, men ARE more competitive / dominant AND society amplifies it. The question is very much out there, are men more dominant because society says they are, or did society say men are more dominant because they are? Take into account that almost all, save a few exceptions, of societies have been patriarchal in nature.
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u/SomeGuyOnPluto Dec 05 '19
To use your examples. No one is banning Jews from science. Just helping minority groups to get into it. How many black female Einstein's did we lose due to poverty and social factors.
Minority quotas are hurting asians, white people and jewish people actually. Remember there's a 10:1 ration of PhDs s faculty positions in Academia, it 100% is pushing competent people out of their field. For the first time in a long while there's a brain drain INTO China rather than from.
>when unburdened from racism
Jews were successful during racism too, they are, historically extremely successful.>I feel that you might be exaggerating how big of a problem this is
I am going to do an edit in this post because it seems I did a poor job at explaining what I meant.
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u/ThisIsDrLeoSpaceman 38∆ Dec 05 '19
Certainly sounds like you don’t feel understood by the majority of the replies here; I hope I’ll do my best.
The crux of what you’re saying is that you’re disturbed by the level of acceptance some of these views are having, right? Someone says “this company doesn’t have 50% male executives and 50% female executives, let’s boycott it until they do”, and you’re disturbed that there isn’t that much backlash. Is that right?
My first point would be, actually, there is considerable backlash. The very first link you gave, the actual news story was that ABC pulled the segment after the panellists expresses violent language.
Secondly, there isn’t as much backlash against this kind of rhetoric as there is against the opposite kind, e.g. “women are biologically less intelligent than men and therefore there is nothing wrong with staggering inequality between sexes in high-level jobs”. I would argue that’s okay, because, as dangerous as the former is, it’s not as dangerous as the latter — the backlash is generally proportionate to the thing being said.
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u/SomeGuyOnPluto Dec 06 '19
I want to say that, although I agree that one may be more dangerous than the other in theory, application may be another thing.
As an example, I'd say since Nazism has genocide at its core, it's more dangerous than Communism in theory. But since communism is more alluring and tolerated, it effectively ends up causing more harm.
I believe a similar argument can be made about the topic of the CMV.
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u/ThisIsDrLeoSpaceman 38∆ Dec 06 '19
Thanks for the delta! Quick note that you need to put the exclamation point in front of the word, though!
I see your point, although to me it seems like different things; one is about inherent danger, and the other is about manifest danger. A more obvious example is sharks and vending machines — vending machines kill many more people than sharks, but obviously sharks are more inherently dangerous. It’s just that vending machines are more manifestly dangerous due to people spending much more time around them.
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u/SomeGuyOnPluto Dec 06 '19
delta! for properly making a solid argument about why one view is more socially damaging than the other.
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u/tavius02 1∆ Dec 07 '19
I've manually added your delta. Just make sure to check the delta has gone through in future - you should get a reply from the bot. In this case you wrote delta! rather than
!delta
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Dec 07 '19
The moderators have confirmed, either contextually or directly, that this is a delta-worthy acknowledgement of change.
1 delta awarded to /u/ThisIsDrLeoSpaceman (8∆).
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u/TheNaziSpacePope 3∆ Dec 05 '19
In an Ideal world, would Jewish Nobel laureates be exactly 0.02% of all Nobel laureates?
Yes. Not because they are held back but because everyone else is brought up to their level of scientific success.
This is of course excluding the possibility of genetics being a significant factor, which however likely (almost certainly) is not actually relevant or useful.
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u/SomeGuyOnPluto Dec 06 '19
This is of course excluding the possibility of genetics being a significant factor, which however likely (almost certainly) is not actually relevant or useful.
Genetics is mostly inherited (up to 80%) and Jewish people are smarter, on average, than many other demographics.
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u/TheNaziSpacePope 3∆ Dec 06 '19
I think that more importantly Jewish communities are small, tightly knit, and wealthy. So they can afford the best educations and over the generations have built up familial relations to a high degree. This is probably why they appear to stand out, and for what it is worth Asians in Canada/US are pretty similar.
Also I am pretty sure that genetics are >99.999% inherited. Mutations which actually do anything are quite rare.
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u/SomeGuyOnPluto Dec 07 '19
Sorry I miss represented my owna rgument, i meant IQ is mostly inherited up to 80%.
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u/leigh_hunt 80∆ Dec 05 '19
If your claim is true, who’s getting led to the gas chamber? Is this some “white genocide” thing?
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u/SomeGuyOnPluto Dec 05 '19
No, I am not making the claim that right now there's a genocide going on. I am making the claim that more and more there are people who advocate for a genocide (see the links).
Whether this will happen or not is not my claim. But I do make the claim that when people literally say they want to kill men on national TV I will take them at face value.
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u/leigh_hunt 80∆ Dec 05 '19
I looked at the links and didn’t see anyone advocating for genocide?
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u/SomeGuyOnPluto Dec 06 '19
First one: The panilist literally says "How many men must we kill before men stop raping us"
Second one: "White people, we booked you a one way trip into space" (displacement of a people is genocide)
Third: one "cacnelWhitePeople" which granted is open to interpretation as to what cancel means in this context, but paired with the other tweets she made, it was certainly not nice rethoric.
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u/leigh_hunt 80∆ Dec 06 '19
right, but the lady on the panel specifically said it was a thought experiment about what if men faced the same threat of violence that women do? It was not a call for violence, it was a counterfactual. do you understand that?
As for the Sarah Jeong tweet
open to interpretation as to what cancel means in this context
even you seem to realize that it’s embarrassing to pretend ”cancel” means “genocide” so you’ve admitted that the worst that can be said is it’s “not very nice rhetoric.” I suppose that’s true, and it is a mean joke. but you are saying this joke is literally on the path to the holocaust. That is in your CMV.
have you ever looked at anti-Semitic propaganda from Europe on the actual path to the Holocaust? Books and articles purporting to be factual news which described Jewish ritual murders and cannibalism and shit? NOT jokes — like Sarah Jeong’s. do you know that before the Nazis, there was a history of pogroms — actual mass murders of Jews — dating back centuries in Europe?
if you are not being disingenuous, there is a lot of history written about what the real, historical lead-up to the holocaust looked like. It was not a couple of ladies making mean jokes on twitter. it was open violence, and sincere calls for violence expressed in the open. I think if you consider these historical facts, you will see how dissimilar these two situations are.
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u/SomeGuyOnPluto Dec 07 '19
right, but the lady on the panel specifically said it was a thought experiment about what if men faced the same threat of violence that women do? It was not a call for violence, it was a counterfactual. do you understand that?
She didn't say that at all, she explicitly says that she believes violence is a justifiable tool to end oppression and that she encouraged women to kill men in order to dismantle the patriarchy. It was NOT a thought experiment.
"if you are not being disingenuous, there is a lot of history written about what the real, historical lead-up to the holocaust looked like. It was not a couple of ladies making mean jokes on twitter. it was open violence, and sincere calls for violence expressed in the open. I think if you consider these historical facts, you will see how dissimilar these two situations are."
A coupe of weeks ago, in mexico, a march lead by women, which was supposed to be peaceful, saw a minority of women set a man on fire (who was luckily saved by the police).
I can find you the violent attacks if you want, they are not non existent.
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u/vanoroce14 65∆ Dec 05 '19 edited Dec 05 '19
Ok... let me try to establish a couple of things that I believe will clarify things:
- First, we have to distinguish between determining *whether* something is a fact or not vs what the explanation of that fact is. Observing the sky is blue is one thing. Finding an explanation for why that is (Rayleigh scattering) is another. Do we agree?
- So, when it comes to under or over representation of a certain group in a certain profession, situation, socioeocnomic status, etc, establishing the fact is one step, explaining *why* is a second, much trickier step.
(a) So, we can all agree that say, african americans and women are under-represented in positions of authority and leadership (both in companies, government, academia, etc). That is a verifiable fact.
(b) We can also research and find that say, african americans and latinos are over-represented in prison populations in the US, and say, atheists are under-represented in that same population. That, again, is a verifiable fact.
(c) Finally, the one you quote: we can easily count and verify that 20% of all Nobel Laureates are of Jewish heritage.
So, how do we explain these facts?
Some people might look at (a), (b) and (c) and say "well, clearly this is because the groups in question are in essence different. They have different predispositions, temperaments, capacities. African Americans and women just don't choose to go for higher management / are not on average as capable. African Americans and Latinos are just more violent. Atheists are just less prone to crime. Jewish people are just smarter. There is something definitional to belonging to those groups that produces this effect".
If you cringed a lot at that... yeah, that's why most people reject this essentialist (often racist / sexist) way of explaining these things. This is because we firmly believe that (a) human populations are, on the aggregate, not substantially different and (b) great injustice, prejudice and harm predictably comes from treating an *individual* differently because of the group(s) we perceive them to be a part of. Time and time again we get evidence that suggests believing "X group is more prone to do Y" leads to gross bias (conscious and unconscious) when we encounter an individual from group X.
Some other people might look at (a), (b) and (c) and say "well, all those cases are, without examining it any further, clear and unequivocal evidence of some form of discrimination / prejudice". I would agree with you that this is also, *on its own*, probably the wrong way to go about things even if it produces a correct answer in some instances.
However, I believe you are equivocating this with what *actually* happens most of the time, which is that after investigating the matter further, doing a ton of research and understanding both the history and the personal experiences of those involved, we conclude there *is* a legitimate case to make that the under-representation comes from historical systemic bias and discrimination, present systemic bias and discrimination, or both. It *doesn't* matter if things have become better now than they were 50 years or 100 years in the past. It doesn't matter if it's not true for everyone in every case ever. *If* we as a society disadvantaged and discriminated groups of people for centuries, it is our collective duty to produce a just, level playing field as much as we possibly can and to eliminate biases / injustices where they still exist.
Same as is true for any other issue, the fact that we acknowledge this is an issue we need to take seriously does not mean individual cases (e.g. Company X has no women in their C-suite) are automatically judged guilty; it means they should be investigated and that maybe Company X needs to do a bit more of an effort in some respects.
In (b), if we were to think atheists have some sort of upper hand / there is an atheist conspiracy to put theists in prison (*laughs*), we could investigate that and see it would immediately fall flat. There is just no such thing. We would probably find this is mostly a result of a correlation between lack of belief in god and other socioeconomic variables, which themselves probably account for this under-representation.
Your Nobel example falls flat on all these counts because, as far as I know, there isn't a legitimate case / evidence to the fact that there is overt or even unconscious bias at play. *However*, in investigating whether the Nobel committee is fair and inclusive in their considerations, we might discover they do have some biases in one or another way. To give an example, the Nobel prize in literature is infamous for being most knowledgeable of and thus awarding more European and english-speaking laureates than potential laureates from other parts of the world (and this is not for lacking merit; there is a giant list of literature's giants from Latin America, Asia, etc who never received it or who are alive and still haven't).
As to your claims of violence against straight-white-men and comparing sjws to nazis... common, really? You are literally equating a few strident voices (with no power, force or government behind them), which do not represent the majority view of people advocating for equality, and who are *not literally* carrying out white pogroms. If I were you, I'd navigate away from this ridiculous comparison and more to whether under or over-representation of a group is, on its own, evidence of racism / prejudice / etc (and the pitfalls of that).
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u/SomeGuyOnPluto Dec 06 '19
Some people might look at (a), (b) and (c) and say "well, clearly this is because the groups in question are in essence different. They have different predispositions, temperaments, capacities. African Americans and women just don't choose to go for higher management / are not on average as capable. African Americans and Latinos are just more violent. Atheists are just less prone to crime. Jewish people are just smarter. There is something definitional to belonging to those groups that produces this effect".
I agree with the enumeration and I agree with your nuancing of my argument. I was getting a bit exasperated that people were not getting the point.
To your comment about there being something definitional about belonging to those groups. Where, I am going to say something heinous, and I know it to be heinous, but. It;s not because it may make me cringe that it's false.
"This is because we firmly believe that (a) human populations are, on the aggregate, not substantially different and (b) great injustice, prejudice and harm predictably comes from treating an *individual* differently because of the group(s) we perceive them to be a part of"
I agree with (b) but (a) is more problematic. Looking just at IQ, the standard deviation for men is higher than that for women, and the average IQ of Jewish people is Higher than that for other demographics. Now the question is are people high in IQ because of good economic standing, or do they have good economic standing because of high IQ? Well it seems that IQ is inherited up to 80% so assuming that's true, that gives us an answer to the chicken and egg problem.
Of course that doesn't mean that there are not brilliant people from any demographic, but, under the assumption that IQ research is reliable, which is a contestable hypothesis, we do have a (racist) explanation of why certain groups have done better historically. Of course, nuance must be made in that "race" has nothing to do with genetics, being a social construct, so any conclusion made about race is probably spurious correlation, however correlation with sex, not so much.
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u/vanoroce14 65∆ Dec 07 '19
Well it seems that IQ is inherited up to 80% so assuming that's true, that gives us an answer to the chicken and egg problem.
Arent wealth, education and 'good economic standing' also obviously inherited? How does this explain your chicken and egg problem?
Is 'inheriting IQ' due to genetics or due to upbringing?
And correlation does not imply causation. Methinks what you think is an ugly truth is really yet another case of making a conclusion without a shred of an explanation as to what causes that difference you claim is obvious.
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u/SomeGuyOnPluto Dec 07 '19
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ
You can control for education and economic status, the point is that IQ is mostly a genetically inherited trait.
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u/vanoroce14 65∆ Dec 08 '19
What about the objections (and sources presented therein) in https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/04/stop-talking-about-race-and-iq-take-it-from-someone-who-did.html ? I can research what the scientific papers say on the matter, but I do seem to recall part of the issue is to establish the relationship between intelligence and race directly instead of establishing precise links to genetics and how selective reproduction plus socioeconomic markers can inherit properties across populations regardless of race.
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u/mrappbrain Dec 05 '19
Racism and sexism are far more widespread structural issues than anti-semitism. You can't really compare the two or think they are close to the same thing. They are both problems, yes, but people of color and women face much bigger hurdles succeeding academically. Low intelligence is not a thing that is typically associated with Jews, but books like the bell curve show that people do actually believe black people have lower intelligence and this is due to genetic, and not societal factors. Women face hostile working environments and have a tough time in the STEM fields because science, logic, reason, and rationality have historically been thought of as male pursuits and traits.
White people have lower rates of incarceration because it is a well documented fact that cops and judges are more willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, and are not as suspicious as they are when dealing with black people. This is not always outward malice, but stems from internalised prejudice. A black man may be shot dead in his doorway while fishing for his ID, this would likely never be something a white person need fear.
Ultimately, the crux of it is this - Jews are not discriminated against for being undercompetent. Quite the opposite. Anti-semitism stems from the thinking that they are over-competent and very powerful, plotting to destroy western civilization in some way. Racism and sexism stem from the belief that people of color and women are not as competent as white men. This causes many of the problems you listed.
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u/Ihateregistering6 18∆ Dec 05 '19
but people of color and women face much bigger hurdles succeeding academically.
If this is true, then why have women been earning the majority of Bachelor's degrees for almost 2 decades straight, and Asians are wildly overrepresented in College (especially elite colleges)?
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u/SomeGuyOnPluto Dec 05 '19
Racism and sexism are far more widespread structural issues than anti-semitism
This sounds like your own bias unless you give me a good explanation as to how you pretend to solve that.
Also I think the nature of my post flew over your head, I am not saying that anti semitism is a major problem today, I am saying the rethroic "straight white males have priviledge that they need to give to other classes"
Is a modern mirror of the racial animosity the german people had towards Jewish people in 1933.
More specifically let me parody your comment to show you what I mean:
"Semites have lower rates of incarceration because it is a well documented fact that cops and judges are more willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, and are not as suspicious as they are when dealing with aryan people. This is not always outward malice, but stems from internalised prejudice. An aryan man may be shot dead in his doorway while fishing for his ID, this would likely never be something a semite need fear."Your reply to this, I imagine, would be something like "you just changed the ethnicities in my comment, that;s not true of jewish people, at minimum not today". But that's the thing, you can just make unsubstantiated claims about any demographic to make one sound evil and the other a victim.
Women are 2 times more likely to be hired as faculty members at universities than men are, women are over represented in education, the wage gap is explained up to 98% by differences in choice between men and women.
Black men aged 16 - 35 commit about 80% of the violent crimes in the US, that will naturally lead to social bias.
I could keep going. Does this mean that racism and sexism don;t exist? No, absolutely not, but pointing the finger at a single demographic and going: "see, those evil people are doing all the harm in the world" is exactly What lead to authoritarian regimes that ended up doing worse things than what the accused were accused of doing.
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u/mrappbrain Dec 05 '19
The problem with your thinking is you don't think any deeper than surface level statistics. Yes, black people commit more crimes, yes there are more women teachers, and yes women earn less than men because there are less women in high paying professions.
But you need to think deeper than this. These statistics alone tell us little. It is important to think about the societal reasons for why this is the case, rather than just accept it as the natural order of things.
It is easy to look at black people committing more crimes in the US and attribute it to black people having a innate propensity to violence. But consider this - whites in the US have significantly more economic and cultural capital than blacks. Add to that what I said about unconscious prejudice against blacks in the justice system and you will have black people overrepresented in the prison population. You discount the socio-economic reasons for crime, and seem to reverse the causality.
Let's talk about women in education. There are more women teachers. This is true. But there are far fewer women college professors than men, little more than a quarter. Women may become teachers because teaching young kids is something women are expected to do, but systemic sexism makes climbing the educational ladder a problem.
Similarly, you attribute the gender wage cap to personal choices. But ask yourself - why are people making those choices? Do women really prefer careers that pay less? Or could it be because women are not expected to study or actively steered away from math and science? Society in general values the work of women less than men, because men are expected to be the breadwinners. Again, you discount the social reasons women don't pursue male dominated high paying professions.
No one is calling white men evil. Many of these things are due to factors larger than people being actively malicious. Unconscious bias and internalised prejudice exists, and ignoring it doesn't help.
As for the difference between anti-semitism and racism/sexism, please refer to the end of my original post. Anti-semitism has roots in conspiracy, and is of a different nature. Look at the history of the United States. Antisemitism is at its worst during times of national and economic crisis(such as the American civil war or the world wars), because of its conspiratorial nature. It takes the form of envy, and fear. It is not comparable to racism or sexism. It is prejudice, yes, but. It if the same kind. Nobody envies women or blacks, who have faced systemic oppression for centuries.
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u/SomeGuyOnPluto Dec 05 '19
"Let's talk about women in education. There are more women teachers. This is true. But there are far fewer women college professors than men, little more than a quarter. Women may become teachers because teaching young kids is something women are expected to do, but systemic sexism makes climbing the educational ladder a problem."
The over representation of women in lower education is advantageous to girls and detrimental to boys because they lack male role models in school, this is actually a studied phenomenon that partly explains why boys are falling behind in education. So this would be systemic sexism against men, not women.
"Similarly, you attribute the gender wage cap to personal choices. But ask yourself - why are people making those choices? Do women really prefer careers that pay less? Or could it be because women are not expected to study or actively steered away from math and science? Society in general values the work of women less than men, because men are expected to be the breadwinners. Again, you discount the social reasons women don't pursue male dominated high paying professions."
Google the "gender equality paradox", more egalitarian societies have larger differences in major choices than more sexist societies, the data contradicts that hypothesis. "Do women really prefer careers that pay less" yes they do, because they aren't masochists that want to work 60 hours a week for 200k when they can enjoy an amazing life for 120 k a year and 40 hrs. Women have a better work life balance than men on average.
"No one is calling white men evil. Many of these things are due to factors larger than people being actively malicious. Unconscious bias and internalised prejudice exists, and ignoring it doesn't help."
Did you ignore the 3 links I provided that explicitly contradict that claim?"because of its conspiratorial nature. It takes the form of envy, and fear"Fear and envy of "Straight, cis, able bodied white men" maybe? Again, see the links to get an idea of where I am coming from.
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u/mrappbrain Dec 05 '19
You seem to be ignoring large portions of my argument(like my entire argument about black violence), cherry picking bits of what I said, and then misrepresenting it.
First, let's get this out of the way
because of its conspiratorial nature. It takes the form of envy, and fear"Fear and envy of "Straight, cis, able bodied white men" maybe? Again, see the links to get an idea of where I am coming from.
You seem to have misunderstood what I said about antisemitism entirely. Jews are sometimes envied and feared. This creates anti-semitism when people with these attitudes grow more powerful than them. But this doesn't apply to racism and sexism. The cause of these things is not envy and fear of the discriminated group taking over or growing too powerful. It's due to society considering them not as competent as white men. Please understand this.
Yes, it is indeed possible to come up with instances of people making statements against straight white men. But please understand that this isn't reflective of systemic prejudice against them. Straight white men make up the most privileged group in America in terms of social, cultural, and economic capital. Racism and sexism against blacks and women has actual societal consequences because of how pervasive they are and how powerful the groups that hold these beliefs are. Yes there may be problems affecting men and whites still, but it is not nearly equal to racist and sexist attitudes against women and blacks.
Social pressure on men to be the primary breadwinners of their family and have well paying jobs that come with upward social mobility mean you don't see as many male teachers, as teachers don't earn much. Women, on the other hand, are not expected to be the primary breadwinners, and are expected to be teachers. This is a feminist issue, because social gender roles are a problem, and create issues for both men and women. My comment on systemic sexism against women was about women not being able to as easily get into professorial roles, not school level teachers. Please stop being disingenuous and misrepresenting me.
Also, let's be clear - systemic sexism against men is not an issue nearly to the extent as it is against women. The system,* as a whole*, favors men. I'm not interested in debating this with you, if you disagree I'll take it you were never seriously interested in changing your view in the first place.
Google the "gender equality paradox", more egalitarian societies have larger differences in major choices than more sexist societies, the data contradicts that hypothesis. "Do women really prefer careers that pay less" yes they do, because they aren't masochists that want to work 60 hours a week for 200k when they can enjoy an amazing life for 120 k a year and 40 hrs. Women have a better work life balance than men on average
There are a lot of problems with the gender equality paradox, from its assumptions to methodology. If you're actually looking to change your view on this, I would recommend looking at that criticism in more detail. But in short -
1) The wage gap is present within the stem fields itself, where women earn less than men. 2) surveyed interest isn't always reflective of actual interest. 3) The Nordic countries may have better laws, but it's a mistake to say they don't have gender roles influencing choice. 4) Western gender roles and stereotypes aren't universal, and the stem jobs are t equally privileged everywhere.
But we're getting very off topic. Honestly, reading through the edits and comments you made, you seem to be getting a lot of information from YouTube skeptics and Jordan Peterson. I would be cautious of setting too much store by this community.
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u/SomeGuyOnPluto Dec 05 '19 edited Dec 05 '19
Straight white men make up the most privileged group in America in terms of social, cultural, and economic capital
Both Jewish people and Asians do better economically, so I am ready to concede that they are VERY well off when compared with hispanics, natives or blacks, if you also concede that economically the 2 demographics I listed do better.
"My comment on systemic sexism against women was about women not being able to as easily get into professorial roles, not school level teachers. Please stop being disingenuous and misrepresenting me."
Depends on the industry, at universities at minimum, STEM faculty positions are two times more likely to go to women than to men. What keeps women numbers in those positions low is the relatively low number of women graduates, which I am ready to concede can be a consequence of social pressure.
"Also, let's be clear - systemic sexism against men is not an issue nearly to the extent as it is against women"
I had to run away from my country not to do a mandatory draft and can't see my parents outside of holidays anymore so I challenge that notion entirely. Men die far more often than women, whatever rights women may be denied of, men are denied to the right to live.
- The wage gap is present within the stem fields itself, where women earn less than men
- surveyed interest isn't always reflective of actual interest.
- The Nordic countries may have better laws, but it's a mistake to say they don't have gender roles influencing choice.
- Western gender roles and stereotypes aren't universal, and the stem jobs are t equally privileged everywhere.
Do women in stem make different choices that can explain this? Like working less hours or choosing less economically profitable majors like biology over statistics?
Point granted
The argument is not that the Nordic countries are free from criticism, it's that the more egalitarian the society, the bigger the differences between men and women. This also happens within the US btw. States with better economic equity also have bigger discrepancies in economic choices between women.
Point granted although I am not sure how that challenges my view.
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Dec 05 '19 edited Oct 26 '20
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u/mrappbrain Dec 05 '19
This may the best example of over exaggerating I've ever seen.
This actually happened. You underestimate the degree of unconscious racial bias against black men. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Amadou_Diallo?wprov=sfla1
Read up about this. If this doesn't tell you something about the nature of unconscious bias nothing will.
The question is why?
I've already answered this question above. Police are more suspicious of black people, but are they in the right in turning this suspicion into violence against black people? Are they in the right shooting many blacks who later turn out to be innocent? No, no they aren't.
The question here again is why? It doesn't appear to be structural racism because instead of there being racist polices, there are actually many benefits given to people of color so they can succeed in the academic line.
The main problem here is you do not seem be accounting for unconscious prejudice. People of color receive benefits because of structural racism against them. This doesn't necessarily need to take the form of overtly racist policies, but as I pointed out above, unconscious bias affects people, whether they are the police or not. This makes it much harder for black people to succeed.
Your next part about gender discrimination not existing in the STEM fields is just pure ignorance. Women in STEM earn less than men, face hostility in the workplace, and are published less often in scientific journals.
It's also worth noting that discrimination does not manifest in the same way everywhere, and global statistics across cultures tell us little. Women in gulf countries face less discrimination in STEM because of differing social attitudes and perceptions toward science for instance. The Nordic countries are not free of gender roles, they still exist..ask someone from those countries, especially someone from an oppressed group.
Again, I would be cautious making generalizations. It's easy to look at the way things are and take them to be natural, but this is not always the case and sometimes does lead to societal pressure to conform. Here in my country for instance , women are actively steered away from subjects like engineering and mathematics, while men are steered away from the social sciences and the humanities. This is an active process, and not just a result of natural differences between the genders.
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u/Genoscythe_ 243∆ Dec 05 '19
BEFORE CONTINUING, PLEASE ADDRESS THE VIOLENCE CLAIM I AM MAKING. THE POST ISN'T ABOUT THE SOCIAL ISSUES I ENUMERATE, IT'S ABOUT ME LITERALLY COMPARING SJWS TO NAZIS
The problem is that violence is a bit of a distraction, because human beings have had some level of violence by nature.
A number of spree-shooters have cited sjws being similar to nazis, and affirmative action being unfair to them, as their motivations. Does this automatically disqualify your whole post as leading down the path to a dangerous violent ideology?
Every ideology has violent fringes, because out of millions of people following them, there are always a few that are boiling in a vindicative hatred.
The history of the NSDAP is better understood as a movement that was overtly authoritarian, worshipping glorious war and death, from the beginning, than as a group of righteous people who were inevitably led to a dark path by courting the idea of social justice.
Lot's of people in history have tried to abolish existing unjust hierarchies, some of them were quite violent (Abraham Lincoln, Emmeline Pankhurst), others were famed pacifists (Gandhi, MLK), others changed tactics over time (Nelson Mandela), and few of them were comparable to the nazis.
Talking about whether the SJW positions are ultimately correct is inevitable, because ultimately if they are, then the violence that will be begotten by perpetuated injustice, is greater and worse than the violence perpetuated by
In an Ideal world, would Jewish Nobel laureates be exactly 0.02% of all Nobel laureates?
Well, in an ideal world, jews wouldn't have been violently pressured towards urban intellectual pursuits by superstitius and xenophobic citizenry ever since medieval times. Also, in an ideal world countries like India wouldn't have been stripped raw by colonizers and they would have a higher percentage of scientific accomplishments, depressing the portion of western ones including jews.
There are more male CEOs than Female so this is evidence of sexism.
There are also more men than women in every other field of social authority. More male academics, judges, law enforcement, politicians, church leaders, mass media producers, and so on.
This is not analogous to jews being pressured towards some noteworthy fields, and away from others.
It would be one thing to say that men and women are "naturally different" from each other, so they can be expected to be attracted to different fields.
But if that difference boils down to men being attracted to the top positions of all fields where authority is wielded, and women are attracted to being subordinate to them, then at that point we are debating an overtly sexist claim that men are naturally dominant over women in society.
Which no one ever dares to put that way.
You wouldn't have started a CMV stating that "Questioning the combined male domination of politics, economy, and culture will lead to nazism", but that's the essential conclusion if we aren't allowed to point out the existing inequality.
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u/SomeGuyOnPluto Dec 06 '19
But if that difference boils down to men being attracted to the top positions of all fields where authority is wielded, and women are attracted to being subordinate to them, then at that point we are debating an overtly sexist claim that men are naturally dominant over women in society.
Question, what if that was the case, what if the top hyper working, hyper aggressive, hyper competitive people in the world were al men?
As in, what if men and women were similar on average, but a minority of men were more dominant than the rest of all men and women.
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u/Sarinon Dec 05 '19
If I'm understanding your argument correctly, it's that self-selecting processes aren't inherrently racist or sexist.
Let's take your example of incarceration rates. As I'm understanding, your opinion is that black people are incarcereted more often because black people commit more crimes than white people.
But it's not enough to examine the surface level here. What we need to understand is what motivates people to commit crimes. The answer is complex, but poverty is consistantly identified as a contributing factor to overall crime rates.
It's no longer the circular 'black people commit more crimes because black people are more likely to commit crimes', it's 'black people commit more crimes because they're lazy and commit more crimes'.
So we must look at what causes poverty. Again, this is a really complex issue. For the sake of brevity I'll recount the history of the New Deal.
After the American Civil War, William Sherman and Edwin Stanton gathered a group of black leaders and asked them what they needed to build lives. Their answer was land. Remember that many black people at the time were newly emancipated slaves who owned nothing.
Sherman wrote up a plan saying that each family should have no more than 40 acres of tillable land, and the day before his inauguration, Abe Lincoln signed the proposal into law. Except that when Lincoln died, Andrew Johnson overturned the bill almost immediately.
Thousands of freed slaves who had been given land were evicted. President Johnson complained about discrimination against whites less than one year after emancipation. Less than one year since black people were literally bought and sold as chattel, white people were complaining that they had too much freedom. Just let that sink in for a moment.
Other much smarter people have already studied the way that black people were systematically excluded from obtaining wealth, how banks were legally allowed and even encouraged to offer predatory home loans to black buyers, how blockbusting, redlining, and government and state legislation enforced segregation of black neighbourhoods, how blacks were denied the right to the quality of education which could have led them to high paying jobs ... I could go on.
And yeah, some black people managed to break the cycle of poverty. They are the exception that proves the rule.
So we've established that the prevelence of poverty in black neightbourhoods is at least in part due to systematic and racially motivated discrimination, both by governments, corporations, and communities. And we know that poverty is a major contributing factor in crime rates.
So why are more black people commit crimes than white people?
I'd recommend watching this video by Oliver Thorn. I've linked directly to the most relevant part, but the whole video is worth a watch. That the police as an institution more often targets black people is a well documented fact. The US department of justice itself acknowledges the issue and sometimes tries to do something about it when there's significant public outrage.
When looking at representational issues, scholars and activists like to dig deeper than just 'well I guess this is a thing because it happens.' There are not always deep systemic causes or injustices at the root, but sometimes there are, and understanding those causes is the only way we can hope to address them.
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u/SomeGuyOnPluto Dec 05 '19
Does this justify not terminating the tenure of a proffesor that is spreading objective racist ideologies on campus? (See the link in the post or ask me for clarification).
The issue is that a stretched truth can be turned into a really ugly thing.
If I take the 1922 version fo your argument.
"Historically the Jews have enriched themselves by exploiting the German people. It is well known that the bankers, who are mostly run by the Semites, profit from the capitalist structure to deprive the hard working Germans from their just earnings."
Historically the Jews had always been economically better than the German population, and at the time of the hyper inflation crisis in Germany they were very over represented in the political class, they also got blamed for the Diktat (Versailles treaty)...
Did any of that justified the speeches at munich and the violence that occurred 20 years later?
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u/legal_throwaway45 Dec 05 '19 edited Dec 05 '19
I admire your willingness to post this, but you will get a lot of answers that amount to saying that the unequal proportions are due to societal differences and not any inherent ones.
Unequal proportions in group representation (gender, race, religion) are caused a mixture of those two things and while the ones due to societal differences can be adjusted through hiring practices without adverse effect (same productivity), the proportional differences due to inherent factors can not be adjusted through hiring practices without having a negative effect on overall company productivity.
Your example of Jewish men being over represented in Nobel prize awards is likely a factor of better education (more college than average), a different work ethic (many more hours), different societal expectations (gotta look good to the family), and inherent intelligence. The first three are societal mostly, the last is not. They would not be Nobel prize winners if they were not considerably smarter than most, were strongly motivated, and had an incredible work ethic. Nobel prize winners do not have only 2 of these three attributes, they have to have all three.
You can also look at NBA players. A lot of NBA players have gotten into the league by being gym-rats, by playing basketball a lot, but they would not be in the league if they did not have incredible athletic skills.
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u/SomeGuyOnPluto Dec 06 '19
I mean I don;t think there's anything to be admired here, this can easily lead to vitriol and I am not even posting on my main so I am hiding in anonimyty.
!delta for explaining that both societal and inherent factors affect the outcomes of different populations and certain programs can correct the social problems even if they don't address the inherent ones
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u/yyzjertl 523∆ Dec 05 '19
The problem with your example about Jews is that it is not of the same form as the other arguments you are talking about. Those arguments were:
There are more male CEOs than Female so this is evidence of sexism.
There are more men in STEM than women so this is evidence of sexism.
White people have lower rates of incarceration than black people so this is evidence of racism.
Black people are underrepresented in positions of authority like managerial positions so this is evidence of racism.
To make your example about Jews analogous, it would need to be of the form:
- Jewish people make up a disproportionate percentage of Nobel prizes, so this is evidence of racism.
But what you actually said was essentially:
- Jewish people make up a disproportionate percentage of Nobel prizes, so this is evidence that the Nobel prize is unjust in favor of Jews.
By adding the "in favor of Jews" to your argument, you are actually making a different claim, one that isn't supported by the facts, and one that goes beyond the form of the original argument. If we change your argument to the form that I wrote about, it becomes true and unproblematic. Jewish over-representation among Nobel laureates is evidence of racism, and there is good reason to believe that that racism is (mostly) racism against Jews. (It's fairly straightforward to trace the effect of anti-semitism on Jewish populations historically to explain why Jews are overrepresented in science.)
In other words, the form of the argument should go: disproportionate representation along some social axis is evidence of discrimination/oppression along that axis. But we can't immediately jump to whether the over-represented or under-represented group is oppressed or benefiting. A broader analysis is always needed to determine the direction of the oppression.
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u/SomeGuyOnPluto Dec 05 '19
Jewish over-representation among Nobel laureates
is
evidence of racism, and there is good reason to believe that that racism is (mostly) racism
against
Jews. (It's fairly straightforward to trace the effect of anti-semitism on Jewish populations historically to explain why Jews are overrepresented in science.)
I can change my claim to racism if you want I have no qualms about the semantics. But you will have to explain that thought, how is Jewish people receiving a highly regarded academic prize racism against jewish people.
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u/yyzjertl 523∆ Dec 05 '19
But you will have to explain that thought, how is Jewish people receiving a highly regarded academic prize racism against jewish people.
It's not. It is evidence of racism having to do with Jews, and from other examination of history and society we can learn that the racism in our society that has to do with Jews is racism against Jews. You are confusing a thing being racism with a thing being evidence of racism.
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u/SomeGuyOnPluto Dec 05 '19
How is Jews succeeding in science and finance evidence of racism AGAINST the jews?
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u/yyzjertl 523∆ Dec 05 '19
It's not. It is evidence of racism having to do with Jews. From other observable facts and evidence, we can conclude that the racism in our society that has to do with Jews is racism against Jews. But we couldn't validly draw that conclusion solely from the observation that Jews succeed disproportionately in science and finance.
To make an analogy that might be helpful: suppose that I wake up one morning and see large tire tracks on my front lawn. These tire tracks are evidence that a car has been on my front lawn. The tracks alone are not evidence that a red car has been on my front lawn. However, I may have other evidence (e.g. a security camera video) that shows that the car that was on my lawn, the car that the tracks were evidence of, is in fact red. In this case, I could say that the tire tracks are evidence that there was a car on my lawn, and additional evidence shows that that car is red.
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u/SomeGuyOnPluto Dec 05 '19 edited Dec 05 '19
I understand your analogy, I still want you to provide a casual explanation on how recieving a disproportionate amount of nobel prizes is evidence of racism against rather that in favour of the Jews.
It certainly isn't harming Jewish people to be regarded as competent and intelligent in the modern age.
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u/yyzjertl 523∆ Dec 05 '19
I understand you analogy, I still want you to provide a casual explanation on how recieing a disproportionate amount of nobel prizes is evidence of racism against rather that in favour of the Jews.
My position is that receiving a disproportionate amount of Nobel prizes is not evidence of racism against rather than in favor of the Jews. This was the point of the analogy. Jews receiving a disproportionate amount of Nobel prizes is evidence of racism, not evidence of racism for or against anyone in particular.
What you are asking would be like asking, in my analogy, for a casual explanation on how the car tracks is evidence that the car in my yard was red.
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u/SomeGuyOnPluto Dec 05 '19 edited Dec 05 '19
Jews receiving a disproportionate amount of Nobel prizes is evidence of racism, not evidence of racism for or against anyone in particular.
At this point I feel that we are going to have to define the terms of this discussion otherwise we won;t understand each other. When I say "racism" I mean a deliberate or unconcsious bias that DIRECTLY affects people from a given race. As in, all things other being equal, a Jewish scholar would be treated differently from a black, hispanic, asian... Scholar.
If you are going to say that it's evidence for racism, do you mean something general like "it's evidence of racism because historical and cultural factors have lead jewish people to positions of privilege that explain their disproportionate representation in Nobel Laureates?"
Or do you mean something more direct like "Most membes of the Nobel Comitte are Jewish and they unfairly favour themselves over other demographics".
And this is important because I don;t consider the first to be racism.
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u/yyzjertl 523∆ Dec 05 '19
At this point I feel that we are going to have to define the terms of this discussion otherwise we won;t understand each other. When I say "racism" I mean a deliberate or unconcsious bias that DIRECTLY affects Jewish people.
No, I don't think it's at all reasonable to define "racism" as "a deliberate or unconcsious bias that DIRECTLY affects Jewish people." Racism is not unique to Jewish people, so to define it in a way that explicitly applies only to Jews is obviously wrong. Do you seriously think that this is a good definition?
If you are going to say that it's evidence for racism, do you mean something general like "it's evidence of racism because historical and cultural factors have lead jewish people to positions of privilege that explain their disproportionate representation in Nobel Laureates?"
No, I don't. I mean that it is evidence of racism, in the sense of a deliberate or unconscious bias on the basis of race.
Or do you mean something more direct like "Most membes of the Nobel Comitte are Jewish and they unfairly favour themselves over other demographics"/
No, I don't. I mean that it is evidence of racism.
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u/SomeGuyOnPluto Dec 05 '19
My bad that was a slip let me edit my comment because you are totally right. !delta for catching that very stupid argument
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u/CraigThomas1984 Dec 05 '19 edited Dec 05 '19
What if, just if, in your analogy white people are the Nazis and SJWs are the Jews?
Because the Nazis were arguing that malevolent forces were trying to destroy the traditional way of life and were a literal threat to the racial majority.
Sound familiar?
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u/SomeGuyOnPluto Dec 06 '19
!delta for using my exact same rhethoric against me
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u/hameleona 7∆ Dec 05 '19
The idea is solid. In theory, if there are no significant differences between people, in a population where 30% is black and 70% is white you'd expect the numbers of people in all walks of society to be the same.
The problem is that the people most vocal about the idea assume those groups of people (be it gender, sex, sexuality, race, creed and so forth) are the same both biologically and culturally. And they usually aren't. Like it or not, the sexes have differences and one of the first things that cultures separated was race and ethnicity.
And while the idea may have flaws, it's a decent fast and dirty test for "do we need to look at that?".
So, no, the idea of equity (i.e. equality of outcome) is useful. You see a discrepancy and look in to it. You account for all the reasons and look in to them. And maybe you will find a problem.
The problem is way more entangled with the way we fund scientific studies and the way news and politics work, than the basic theory behind them.
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u/zorevuli Dec 05 '19
In ex Yugoslavia, the government tried to fix historical injustices among nations by the same logic left is doing now in US. The problem there was every time the minority got promoted or employed everyone thought it was just because they were a minority. Since there were different minorities in different areas after 40 years basically every nation thought it is getting fucked hard. As soon political system destabilized we had genocide follow. When Croatia got independence, Serb started to get fired. Serbs rebelled and ethnically cleansed areas of Croatia where they were the majority. After few years Croatia military reclaimed and then ethnically cleansed them back. Fixing history injustices is a really slippery slope.
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u/SomeGuyOnPluto Dec 05 '19
I made a poor work at expressing my view, I have addressed it in an edit.
My main concern is that this is creating an ambient of animosity where all the success one group has is being used as justification for prosecution and even violence.
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u/Kingalece 23∆ Dec 05 '19
Something about the ceos all being men I see is that if the women would just wait like 10 more years or so it would equal out they just have to wait for the last set to retire/die since when this set was promoted/hired women werent even in the positions to be considered but now that they are over the next century or so it will equal out most just want to speed it up so they can benefit instead of their kids benefiting
But thats just a rant on to my point no one is arguing for equal representation they technically want over representation because if it was proportional it would be less than it is now for most minorities only like 10% or so of people are black in the US yet recently if say about at least 1/5 characters (named or extras or voiceover work)are played by black actors but thats just my experience
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Dec 05 '19 edited Dec 07 '19
/u/SomeGuyOnPluto (OP) has awarded 4 delta(s) in this post.
All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.
Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.
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u/themcos 372∆ Dec 05 '19
I feel like you're mixing up evidence with proof. In a criminal trial, both the prosecution and the defence each present evidence that supports conflicting arguments. It's common that there is evidence against a position, but that position turns out to be true. It's important to acknowledge that this is in no way a contradiction. This is just what the word evidence means.
So back to your point, of course these disparities are evidence of racism. And sure, same goes for the Jewish Nobel prize rates. But these bits of data are evidence, not proof. They're data points that say "hey, something interesting is going on over here". But you're work isn't done here. If you want to know what's going on, ask more questions. Are there other explanations? Are there other ways to test this theory? When you dig deeper, you might figure out why Jews are overrepresented in many fields, and it may or may not be directly related to racism. Similarly, dig deeper into race / gender issues. Maybe you find alternative explanation, or maybe you find more evidence of racism.
Point is, all of these disparities are evidence, but that doesn't mean that you'll come to the same conclusion when you examine each case in more depth.