I disagree with the tone with which yummyfajitas is discussing this, but I absolutely think he should have the right to voice his opinion. Aren't downvotes punishment enough? I wonder if he had been more cautious in his phrasing if his comments would still be dead-ed for picking the "wrong" side of an issue.
I see the direction that hacker news is going. Whether by mod or by algorithm, it ain't pretty.
I just want to say that I'm deeply uncomfortable with how quickly hacker news mods have moved to kill comments they disagree with since the new "professional" management came in. Is yummyfajitas hell-banned now? He had nearly 7 years of history. All his comments here are dead-ed.
For the record, this is what the grandparent said that got him hell-banned:
"According to the article, the author received one unwanted message every 50 days. How is it "cognitive dissonance" or "denial" to describe pressing delete every 50 days as a minor problem?
Note that in a typical 2 week period, I probably get more than 36 recruiter spams. Could you concretely explain what you feel is being denied?"
You might disagree with it, but it's hard to see how it is beyond the pale of polite discourse.
We do more good for more people when our beliefs reflect reality, rather than what we wish were true. If it turns out that the cognitive science research showing that some people are smarter than others is correct we might decide that merely educating poor people will not convince them to act like less-poor people.
Not all expats are created equal. For example, Mexicans living in the US tend not to do so well in education or the economy, dragging a lot of US national statistics down. This is because a lot of Mexican-Americans come from lower class backgrounds and not Mexico's educated elites.
Chinese and Germans in the United States also do very well in the economy. Maybe there's some third factor that we're missing.
These kind of articles make the implicit assumption that countries are the same except for being located in different locations, and that successful institutions from one can be transplanted to another. But each is an organic entity, with different histories and cultures
He might describe himself that way, but he advocates for socially conservative values more often than libertarians do (see "Coming Apart"). He's at least a borderline case, like a Ron Paul. AEI is a right-wing think tank.
Asians and Jews beat vanilla whites at I.Q. tests, but also any other test that measures cognitive/academic ability - PISA, GRE, MCAT, LSAT, ASVAB - they're all correlated.
It is truly miraculous that racist white people managed to come up with so many tests that confirm the black/white cognitive gap while simultaneously screwing them all up and biasing them in favor of east Asians.
Nietzsche has interesting things about our need to tear down people who have great, unique accomplishments over common weaknesses - calling this the "slave morality". The weak need to feel superior to the great, so we redefine greatness to mean other things.
I don't understand how this happens. The tech industry is pretty much the only economic game in town. How does it fail so hard at politics, losing out to a relatively small amount of middle-aged homeowners?
Culture is capital. The degree of social trust and respect for property needed to create a wealthy society is an historical anomaly. If we didn't have borders, the whole world would be the third world.
If a business owner raises wages, he solves his labor problem but spends more money and reduces profit.
If instead he complains about a labor shortage, then maybe politicians will pass a law allowing more immigration and he will be able to lower his wages and increase his profit.
It's beneficial for business owners for there to be a general belief in a labor shortage but it is not beneficial for people to believe they are stingy.
Could you point out for me where Sam talks about diversity of perspectives? All I see him talking about is what the OP mentions - gonads and skin color.
I see the direction that hacker news is going. Whether by mod or by algorithm, it ain't pretty.