Elsewhere (243)
Further to this, Glenn Reynolds on the Google memo saga:
The Damore firing, and [CEO, Sundar] Pichai’s disgraceful handling of it, represents colossal damage to Google’s brand. In essence, it’s an announcement — by a company that has access to everyone’s data — that it endorses the notion of thought-crime.
Heather Mac Donald on divining phantom prejudice:
The attempt to find systemic police bias has come to this: the difference between an officer saying “uh” and saying “that, that’s.” According to Stanford University researchers, police officers in Oakland, California, use one of those verbal tics more often with white drivers and the other more often with black drivers. If you can guess which tic conveys “respect” and which “disrespect,” you may have a career ahead of you in the exploding field of bias psychology.
Howard Husock on the fallout of “affirmative action”:
Liberals should ponder the implications of what we’ve learned to date about Harvard admissions. Blacks can score 400 points lower than Asians on the SAT, and almost as much less than whites, and still get admitted. In an earlier time, blacks were told that they must be “twice as good” as whites to get into school or make partner at a law firm; they are now being told that they need only be half as good… Why work hard when less effort will be rewarded in the same way? Inevitably, this logic means that those African-Americans whose work really is twice as good are nonetheless suspected of being sub-par — a dispiriting fate. Who would ever want to be viewed as having been hired (or retained) for reasons other than one’s capabilities — say, fear of litigation?
Jackson Richman on the same:
Chunyan Li, a board member of the Asian American Coalition for Education, said: “Who is to say Obama’s daughters should have preference over a Chinatown cook’s son?”
Oh, and according to the founder of Vox and Daily Kos, you’re all Nazis now.
Feel free to share your own links and snippets, on any subject, in the comments.
Oh, and according to the founder of Vox and Daily Kos, you’re all Nazis now.
All conservatives…
All Muslims…
All black people…
Oh wait.
Oh, and according to the founder of Vox and Daily Kos, you’re all Nazis now.
Er… isn’t Kos funded by an actual Nazi collaborator?
“Who is to say Obama’s daughters should have preference over a Chinatown cook’s son?”
Why are progressives so racist against Asian people? 🙂
Why are progressives so racist against Asian people? 🙂
Presumably, people from China, Japan and South Korea are classified as honorary White Devils, and therefore in need of punishment. By people who want us to know that they really aren’t racist.
you’re all Nazis now.
(via Orwell & Goode)
“White Devil” status is rather fluid actually. Remember, if an Asian is in the business of selling sushi and the wrong sort of person has a hankering for that Yokohama classic, the “California Roll,” then s/he immediately is transformed to “victim of cultural appropriation.” Ditto for those times the wrong people have the audacity to substitute a ciabatta roll for a baguette in authentic Vietnamese Bánh mì.
“You look like a white supremacist,” she said, confidently.
Jump to 7 minutes in to behold the full, self-satisfied morony. And do note how the “protestors” are prepared to seize on anything at all, and lie, to make you the enemy, and themselves righteous and heroic.
“You look like a white supremacist,” she said, confidently.
He’s wearing a shirt that’s been ironed! #HateCrime
He’s wearing a shirt that’s been ironed! #HateCrime
Heh. Quite. And tidy hair. It’s ludicrous. But note the dynamic, as the suspicion (or low-level hysteria) spreads, and others want to poke at the outsider and establish their own anti-fascist credentials, until things turn just a little sinister.
It reminds me of an incident – I think around the time of the Milo protests – in which ‘protestors’ singled out some random man with very short hair and started harassing him, until he explained, with documentation, that he wasn’t in fact a white supremacist or a Nazi or a monster from the id, but was actually recovering from chemotherapy.
Meanwhile, speaking of whiteness, in The Great White North, Canada has clearly cracked the code on important issues in trade deals.
Yes, because without mandated quotas economic growth is impossible.
The Charlottesville march has irked even others in the, uh, alt-right, far-right, reactionary, nazoid, whateversphere. Excerpts:
Bold mine, because I don’t think I’ve heard that particular insult before. I shall want to make a note of it.
couldn’t successfully run a whorehouse during a gold rush,
It does rather trump the old “piss-up in a brewery.”
The mentality with which we contend.
The mentality with which we contend Part 2: This is what democracy looks like.
This is what democracy looks like.
So much woke. So much cowbell.
Speaking of Richard Spencer, I would like to reminisce on the last debacle around him and the aforementioned NPI conference, when a couple of commenters noted that BronyCon had drawn vastly more attendants.
Now, for those of us here unfamiliar with Kids These Days, I shall have to digress a little for a background explanation of just what BronyCon is and how embarassing Spencer ought to find this.
There is a popular children’s show about cartoon ponies and other equimorphs such as zebras, unicorns and pegasuses, called My Little Pony. Originally a doll series from 1982, discontinued 1995, relaunched as an animated series, full title My Little Pony:Friendship Is Magic, in 2010. It follows the adventures of ponies in the land of Equestria, where everything is named with terrible pony puns like Canterlot, Manehattan and Whinnyappolis. Borrowing Wikipedia’s illustration to help you imagine what it looks like:
This show also has a significant adult fanbase, who call themselves “Bronies”. (Derived from “Brother” + “Ponies”. Sometimes contrasted with distaff counterpart “Pegasisters”.) When you consider the sort of adult who not only watches pink and purple punster ponies with dedication, but adopts an identity and goes to conventions about it, you may perhaps find the phrase “Not that there’s anything wrong with that” coming to mind, followed by an urge to sidle out of the room because you just remembered that you left the dog on.
—
Spencer’s NPI conference had an attendance of about 200.
To add insult to injury, Spencer’s attendance figure included everyone present, meaning it also counted the reporters and suchlike – and boooooy, do reporters love Spencer, because nothing grabs headlines like being able to claim you saw a neo-nazi rally. Subtract reporters and also subtract undercover FBI agents, which I’m sure there were quite a few of in his crowd, and it strikes me as entirely plausible that the turnout for Richard Spencer, The Neo-Nazi Scourge, Premier White Nationalist Of Our Day, Leader Of A Growing Far-Right Movement, and many other dread media-granted titles besides, was less than one hundred actual followers.
And what of BronyCon? It passed 10 000.
Spencer could scarcely muster one measly percent of the interest that adult men had for cartoon ponies. Look at him. Look at him and laugh. Punching is too good for this clown.
This sort of thing didn’t work out so well the last time they tried it.
Now for your daily BFO:
Yes, likely.
Spencer could scarcely muster one measly percent of the interest that adult men had for cartoon ponies.
A sentence to treasure.
“Why are progressives so racist against Asian people? :-)”
Because Asian people (in the not not-deflecting-attention-from-Islam sense) tend to fit in and excel in western countries with barely a moan and without insisting that Shinto or Buddhism be given special treatment.
Their success moreover suggests that whatever problems other people have fitting in may not be so much to do with not being white.
From the New York Times:
Apparently, ‘Diversity’ simply means ‘No White People’.
It’s Basketball, but hey.
With the promotion of Steve Mills to team president from general manager last month and the hiring of Scott Perry to replace Mills, the Knicks have the only African-American president-and-general-manager tandem in the league. While 80 percent of the league’s players are of color, the most prized executive positions in basketball have been stubbornly and overwhelmingly white.
Those poor, underpaid, star athletes simply can’t catch a break.
That rings familiar to what was said in the fall of 1979, when the Knicks crossed another racial threshold. Coming out of training camp, Coach Red Holzman cut his remaining white players and began the season with the first all-black Knicks team — which was soon to play Detroit in the first N.B.A. game without a white player.
This is the future Bigots!
(via Steve Sailer)
“Treat ‘micro-aggressions’ as assaults”, which means “removing the burden from the victim” to presumably justify feeling offended. Rather, the offense is taken as a given without regard to whether it is reasonable.
One can only imagine how this will play out in real life. If one segment of students knows its “feelz” will not be questioned and if another rightfully believes that an accusation will result in an automatic denunciation, then the malevolent will take advantage of their new power and the rest will simply retreat into silence to avoid violating some taboo which they have no way of discovering beforehand. And this is championed by “educators” in Theater! And that doesn’t even deal with the conflation of innocent conversation with an actual physical attack.
then the malevolent will take advantage of their new power
That this detail is so often and so oddly – one might say carefully – overlooked does rather hint at the kinds of people who expect to benefit from it.
This seems to be an interesting case of outrage v misunderstanding.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-40936334
It involves Jews, God help me, but as this is a site of sanity I’m sure I can talk about it rationally.
So signs were put out, outrage ensued. So far, so usual.
What seems unusual here is that the ‘perpetrator’ was allowed to explain, and thereby (it seems to me) resolves a non-story.
So Jews were told to shower before the pool, because they a have a large Jewish clientele who were swimming with clothes, and not showering beforehand. Now, I am assuming non-Jews weren’t doing this (seems a bit of a stretch maybe, but I’ll give the benefit of the doubt) but it would mean that the sign was cloth-eared and clumsy rather than malevolent.
And the fridge thing was actually a favour to the Jews to store kosher food – presumably they were given time-slots to minimise disruption of staff time.
So actually (gasp!) a fairly even-handed BBC report. I just can’t shake the nagging feeling that if, oh let’s say, a different religion was involved, it wouldn’t be quite so.
If anyone has trouble with comments not appearing, email me and I’ll sweet-talk the spam filter.
Hanlon’s razor strikes again. “Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity.”
This seems to be an interesting case of outrage v misunderstanding.
I’m surprised any Jews even go to Switzerland considering the Swiss are all such hate-filled bigots:
The Swiss Alps Seem Quaint Until You Learn the Truth About Their Residents
It turns out that the more pastoral a place looks, the more it’s swarming with racists and nationalists
The other thing that’s been nagging me about that article.
Imagine the ‘aggrieved’ party had been black, or female, or any other Designated Victim Group. Would it have looked the same?
Or would there be a great deal more editorialising, much more steering towards rightthought, more epithets describing people as ‘controversial’ and suchlike, more allusions towards other instances of ‘abuse’, a few quotes from community ‘leaders’, a comment or two after the alleged perpetrator has given an explanation, to give some ‘context’?
… and I’ll sweet-talk the spam filter.
Should I assume the “sweet-talk” involves the Scold-O-Mat 9000 and a cudgel?
“It’s time to treat Google, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter like public utilities.”
Because others are prohibited by law from competing with them? Because building a better mouse trap is a “monopoly”? Because people are not free to choose not to deal with them? Because More Government Regulation is a conservative notion?
“Er… isn’t Kos funded by an actual Nazi collaborator?”
And weren’t the Nazis strongly in favour of public disarmament (for rather obvious reasons)? The man’s an absolute moron.
“Look at him. Look at him and laugh. Punching is too good for this clown.”
Never has this quote been more appropriate:
Should I assume the “sweet-talk” involves the Scold-O-Mat 9000 and a cudgel?
She’s a capricious deity and requires regular offerings. I keep a bag of puppies on hot standby.
So Glenn Reynolds is managing your comment section now?
Because government is about hurting your enemies and rewarding your friends, duh.
The Black Shorts bit in Wodehouse was an excellent bit of satire. Even funnier, Spode later became Lord Sidcup, and had to re-arrange his views slightly.
Of course, later Bertie called him Lord Spodecup while in the throes of a misunderstanding and kerfuffle, because that’s what Berties do.
If I were to be slightly more charitable, I might argue by dropping the words “monopoly” and “utility” and instead proceeding on the basis of the legal precedents established about BAKE MY CAKE, ATTEND MY WEDDING.
The new magic phrases here are “public accommodation” and “protected class”; declare political views to be the latter and faceborg to be the former.
“Treat ‘micro-aggressions’ as assaults”
Better to be hanged for a sheep than a lamb. If “micro-aggressions” and “assaults” are indistinguishable, then why be moderate? Punch a Leftist!
Meanwhile, the necessary level of Gell-Man amnesia to maintain any kind of lingering respect for the legacy media goes up and up…
In the Washington Post:
Via Instapundit.
Open direct felonius incitement to violence in a Paper of Record ™.
When you consider the sort of adult who not only watches pink and purple punster ponies with dedication
I’ve seen a very interesting essay by a reporter who went to a Bronycon expecting to laugh at the whole thing and came away saying “it turns out the simple socialization messages in the show, and by extension the fandom community, are serving a valuable purpose for the large proportion of Bronies who suffer from autism spectrum disorder or social anxiety disorder”. Food for thought. Although I think a lot of ASD is just misdiagnosed.
I might argue by dropping the words “monopoly” and “utility” and instead proceeding on the basis of the legal precedents established about BAKE MY CAKE, ATTEND MY WEDDING.
I’ve withdrawn from a couple of conservative fora after seeing the intensity with which people are baying for GoogBookTer’s blood on this rationale. The solution to the BAKE MY CAKE problem was to draw the line in the sand and defend it all the way to the Supreme Court on the basis of the 1st Amendment. We didn’t want to defend that principle, and now we’re reduced to using the same torches the left has been burning our institutions with.
This state subsidised deviancy will not end well – at least not for the public purse:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-4786350/Britain-s-gender-fluid-family.html
New 18% Tax For Being The Wrong Gender
The solution to the BAKE MY CAKE problem was to draw the line in the sand and defend it all the way to the Supreme Court on the basis of the 1st Amendment.
Let us not forget the 13th Amendment. Apparently, being declared a “public accommodation” by an anti-discrimination law is tantamount to being duly convicted of a crime.
Oh, entirely completely almost non story, for the article particularly notes;
Reports say the hotel often has guests from Israel, some of whom are Orthodox Jews.
Right. Because the Orthodox Jews are the ones where the teenage girls can indeed be seen wearing relatively short skirts—where those relatively short skirts will be worn over foot length blue jeans—foot, not calf, no hipsters here— . . . after all, the point of wearing the relatively short skirt is to show off the skirt.
Now, female or male, apply the same Orthodox mindset to going swimmming in a probably quite public pool—while a Speedo is indeed a bog standard swimsuit, the wise and very orthodox rabbi of Chelm might probably also be wearing his hat, boots, and everything in between.
So could oxytocin be used to change some European’s attitudes and encourage them to accept their new neighbours?
Heaven forbid that they’d consider trying it on the immigrants first, although that would be more useful (if it were a legitimate policy, which it isn’t).
Treat ‘micro-aggressions’ as assaults
Treat every molehill as if it were a mountain.
Bring your microscopes so you can find them.
“Right. Because the Orthodox Jews are the ones where the teenage girls can indeed be seen wearing relatively short skirts—where those relatively short skirts will be worn over foot length blue jeans—foot, not calf, no hipsters here— . . . after all, the point of wearing the relatively short skirt is to show off the skirt.”
I’m mildly shocked that you didn’t post your variation of “Let me google that for you” links to buttress your point(s).
“Fanny Hill, the first ever erotic novel written in English, has been dropped from the University of London curriculum for fear of offending students… Following the students’ request, the rest of the reading list for the course now comes with a “trigger warning”, explaining that Restoration and 18th-century texts “sometimes reflect the unpleasant prejudices of their time, just as they sometimes work to complicate or challenge those attitudes.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2017/08/14/university-drops-worlds-oldest-erotic-novel-written-english/
then the malevolent will take advantage of their new power
Somewhat related: “Sorry about that,” says Slappy-Grabby Man. “That was an accident.”
“Social justice” psychology 101.
[ Added: ]
See also Smugglypuff.
Or the baseball-bat-wielding clowns at Evergreen State College.
And don’t forget this young lady of the left, the one chanting “Love trumps hate” seconds before setting a woman’s hair on fire.
I know. We could do this all day.
From the Heather McDonald article
“..hear a phrase from the bottom 10 percent of the disrespect scale is entirely accounted for by the “hands on the wheel” phrase,”
Hands on the wheel is considered “disrespectful”
In my opinion they haven’t properly captured all of the sinister bias, redo this study but include disrespectful phrases like “Drop the weapon!” and “Officer down!”
Re affirmative action – I had no idea the race cheat was that big. Shameless.
Re affirmative action – I had no idea the race cheat was that big. Shameless.
And it’s defended in the name of “equality.” Of course some of the beneficiaries of such racial gerrymandering will forge quasi-careers as activists, declaring how oppressed they are by the institutions that favour them, and cosset them, and which indulge their delinquency.
Good question.
Seen on the tweets:
Why aren’t communists stigmatized just as much as Confederates and neo-Nazis are?
Because they’re such caring, compassionate beings? As demonstrated Here.
Because they’re such caring, compassionate beings?
I sometimes catch myself using words like degenerate and wonder if it makes me sound older and more curmudgeonly than I actually am.
And then I remember why it’s both fitting and necessary.
I sometimes catch myself using words like degenerate and wonder if it makes me sound older and more curmudgeonly than I actually am.
TBH, in about 5 years, I see you leading a road war against ugliness and degeneracy:
Prove me wrong!
Heh. In fairness, I can’t rule it out.
This is what democracy looks like.
Yep. Liberals voted out of power and now having a hissy-fit on the sidelines, where they belong.
Looks good to me!
Let’s have a demonstration to publicly demonstrate things but if someone turns up to broadcast it we will basically threaten to hurt him. Yep that’s logical.
“The Swiss Alps Seem Quaint Until You Learn the Truth About Their Residents
It turns out that the more pastoral a place looks, the more it’s swarming with racists and nationalists”
But if you read the article it’s about a small village that minds its own business and doesn’t want anything to do with the EU or Bern. There isn’t any particular animosity to any group apart from that.
Maybe this should be on the Thread That Will Not Die, but I’m seeing something that reminds me of the Damore reactions. Commenters have noted the oddity that people, legacy media etc, told blatant lies about what his memo said at the same time people could read the memo (and see that it had citations) and see that they were simply not true.
Something similar is happening with Trump’s further remarks on Charlottesville. I heard a BBC new radio guy saying a headline to the effect that ‘Trump appears to walk back previous remarks/condemnation.’ But you can listen to his actual remarks, where he *explicity* condemns White Nationalists and Neo-Nazis.
Of course, the underlying terror for the MSM narrative here is *gasp* nuance. That most of the marchers were not Nazis, and that they had followed the rules and had a permit (until it was withdrawn at the last minute), whereas their protesters did not, and that both sides were violent. How dare he call out the alt-left and point out their violence! They are the good guys (see also, Mitt Romney’s tweet, and tedious virtue signalling from Conservatives here).
Tim Newman on polyamory.
There isn’t any particular animosity to any group apart from that.
But the Swiss don’t seem to want hundreds of thousands of immigrants and refugees coming to Switzerland; which naturally means they’re Nazis.
On the risks of a universal basic income:
This is my shocked face.
I’m mildly shocked that you didn’t post your variation of “Let me google that for you” links to buttress your point(s).
Ehn, a subtle bit of Googlemancy could possibly turn up something, but given the level of obscurity, I suspect there’d have to be nearly an essay to tie all together that way.
In my case, I was at a dinner some while back, and someone at the table commented on his extreme amusement at the attempts of HollywoodIsh television to portray Beverly Hills as being, so to speak, effectively an all out white supremacist nirvana of some sort. Paraphrasing only slightly, from memory, his rather damaging critique was;
Once everyone stopped snickering, someone else chimed in with her example of equally clueless goyim, where I don’t remember if she had been on that trip she was telling of, or had just heard about it very close hand.
It seems there was an overnight outing of some sort of a bunch of Haredi teens from Beverly Hills. Also in the area and possibly taking part were rather a number of other teens, with the particular details rather indicating the others were rather a number of goys—something about mebbe a multi high school trip of some sort comes to mind as mebbe what was going on. Mebbe.
And thus in the afternoon of one day, many noticed the Haredi teenage girls climbing about, where apparently there were large rocks of interest, mebbe climbable trees, and quite a few of all of the teens were all taking part in this assorted climbing. In the case of the Haredi, being Haredi, they weren’t going to be wearing shorts, or some combination of skirts and bicycle shorts. Therefore, what they were wearing for this climbing was their combination of a relatively short skirt with the standard foot length blue jeans underneath.
And then the next day, there was rather a bit of notice as quite a number of all of the teenage girls were going about in relatively short skirts with foot length—or whatever they’d packed—blue jeans underneath.
And the cause for all of the after the fact snickering wasn’t that there had been some sort of mass conversion and all of the goyim decided that they were suddenly going to take up Judaism. Instead, what assorted found out, and the dinner guest reported, is that the other teens had learned where those girls were from, where thus clearly the skirt and blue jeans combination was what all the teenagers wore when from Beverly Hills . . . .
Sigh … Universal Basic Income; it’s been tried, it failed …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome
Cheers
Tim Newman again, on polyamory and children.
Tim Newman again, on polyamory and children.
I’ll be wanting my own category soon.
I’ll be wanting my own category soon.
You wish. 🙂
Today’s word is irony.
Why, it’s almost as though the organizers anticipated the reaction to their event, and the administration’s reaction to the reaction, when they gave their event its title.
One hopes that the organizers will continue their toying with the perpetually aggrieved. Perhaps they’ll organize a “Micro-apologies” tour next.
“We” are defending that principle: On June 26 2017, The Supreme Court granted certiorari in MASTERPIECE CAKESHOP, ET AL. V. CO CIVIL RIGHTS COMM’N, ET AL. (No. 16-111).
Finally, a not-obviously-stupid response to Damore’s memo:
https://www.economist.com/news/international/21726276-last-week-newspaper-said-alphabets-boss-should-write-detailed-ringing-rebuttal
I’ve only read it quickly once, and have not dug into any of the linked items, but it at least appears to be substantive.
‘Course, it appears to be missing a few words at the end, something like “Regardless of the fact that there actually appears to be substance to be discussed in this topic, you’re fired.”
but it at least appears to be substantive.
It still blatantly misrepresents the memo, by outright claiming that Damore said “ability” when he clearly said, over and over, “interest and choices”.
Actually, they outright admit they’re doing this:
“Then you make a giant leap from group differences between men and women on such measures as interest in people rather than things, or systematising versus empathising, to differences in men’s and women’s ability to code. At least that’s what you seem to be doing; you don’t quite say so.”
I’m not a witch, I’m not a witch! And this isn’t my nose, it’s a false one!
Further to the link upthread, Larry Elder talks with Heather Mac Donald.
“Not-obviously-stupid” seems about right.
It’s still stupid. Damore has a list of specific suggestions for how to close the gender gap and recruit more women in tech, and the Economist dismisses this as the equivalent of “I’m not racist but”. Then it progsplains his own point back to him about how recruiting more women in tech doesn’t have to be discriminatory against men.
RTFM, as they say.