Elsewhere (297)
Heather Mac Donald on post-watershed facts:
YouTube’s age-restriction policy lists vulgar language, violence and disturbing imagery, nudity and sexually suggestive content, and portrayal of harmful or dangerous activities as factors that could lead to an age restriction. None of those categories has any bearing on my talk. I used federal data to show that the claim that police are wantonly killing black men is a product of selective coverage by a politicised press and an elite establishment dedicated to the idea that racism is America’s defining trait. There was nothing racy or incendiary about the talk — unless you find criminological research titillating — unlike the soft-pornographic and anarchist videos that YouTube allows on its site without age restriction.
Ms Mac Donald’s apparently scandalous video – which was promptly deleted by YouTube and only restored, for consenting adults, following appeals by the talk’s organisers – can be viewed in full here. As Larry Elder adds,
Not only does [your evidence] give perspective, it’s uplifting. Isn’t it good to know that whatever is going on is nothing to do with “institutional, systemic, structural” racism? Isn’t that good news?
And not entirely unrelated, Coleman Hughes on the life and work of Thomas Sowell:
Sowell has encountered countless smears, though the usual avenues of attack—accusations of racism, privilege, and all the rest—have not been available. Someone should have told Aidan Byrne, who reviewed one of Sowell’s books for the London School of Economics blog. Doubtless convinced that he was delivering a devastating blow, Byrne quipped: “easy for a rich white man to say.” It’s hard not to laugh at this hapless reviewer’s expense, but many mainstream commentators differ from Byrne only in that they usually remember to check Google Images before launching their ad hominems. The prevailing notion today is that your skin colour, your chromosomes, your sexual orientation, and other markers of identity determine how you think. And it is generally those who see themselves as the most freethinking—“woke,” while the rest of us are asleep—who apply the strictest and most backward formulas.
A selection of videos featuring Dr Sowell can be found here, here, here, and here.
As usual, feel free to share your own links and snippets, on any subject, in the comments.
Just 19% said they would like to see police spend less time in their community
How many of that 19% are criminals?
How many of that 19% are criminals?
Well if 1/3 of black men have felony convictions…?
https://www.sentencingproject.org/news/5593/
He specialises in masculinity in interwar Welsh and political fiction…
I guess he has a lot of spare time in that case.
http://www.sentencingproject.org/news/5593/
Very carefully avoiding any mention of crime statistics by race
Clap for the NHS!
https://twitter.com/_AndreaUrbanFoX/status/1291381944434008064
By not applying her ludicrous ideas to her own affairs – it’s a given she doesn’t apply her arithmetic theories to, say, her pay packet.
Our betters pontificate. Firebombing a police car is apparently an accidental “moment of madness”:
https://twitter.com/Richard_Spoor/status/1290976662721527809
Firebombing a police car is apparently an accidental “moment of madness”
But hush, we mustn’t judge. Who here among us hasn’t chosen to join a racist rioting mob, bent on terrorising entire neighbourhoods, while, quite coincidentally, carrying a Molotov cocktail, and with more Molotov cocktails stashed in your car?
The Mao-Maoing of another campus.
Very carefully avoiding any mention of crime statistics by race.
Never mind that the statistics don’t support much of anything, beyond the government’s tendency to make *everything* a felony. From the article:
The researchers found that the percentage of black men with a felony conviction increased from 13% in 1980 to 33% in 2010 (compared to 5% and 13% for all adult men during these periods, respectively).
So black men had a felony rate 158% higher than the baseline in 1980, but racist policing since then meant that by 2010, black men had a felony rate 153% higher than the baseline.
That’s a hell of a trend they’ve stumbled on!
Heh…I just grabbed that link as a random reference in regard to pst314’s question How many of that 19% are criminals?. Meh…Call it confirmation bias if it fits…either way, in the ballpark. Whatever the “justifications” or excuses.
How many of that 19% are criminals?
Allow me to change my question to “are criminals or are related to criminals or have friends who are criminals?” 🙂
“are criminals or are related to criminals or have friends who are criminals?”
Well….depending on one’s situation, having “friends” or relatives who are criminals might put police in even more demand. YMMV, as they say. I mean…just look around THIS place…
I mean…just look around THIS place…
Er, I’ll have you know this is a respectable establishment, all shipshape and above board.
[ From the cellar, sounds of exertion, as if something heavy were being dragged across the floor. A muffled scream. ]
A muffled scream. ]
Keep it down. The Gimp’s sleeping. You don’t wanna wake him up now, do ya?
I jump in and out of the word “engineer” as appropriate
Around here whether you’re allowed to call yourself a software engineer depends entirely on whether the Professional Engineering licensing body feels like being pissy that day.
I have a theory, too, and it is mine.
Does it involve a brontosaurus?
Supposedly, research has shown that poor people are generally unhappy, and they get happier as they earn more money. Up to a certain level.
Oh, yes, this is quite well known. A friend of mine does organizational psych. When it comes to employee motivating factors, there are two kinds: motivating factors (the more X you have, the more motivated) and hygiene factors (a lack of X is demotivating, but once enough X is present, more X doesn’t make a difference).
It turns out that for most people salary is a hygiene factor. Underpaying someone will demotivate them, but once they feel they’re being paid “enough”, paying them more won’t increasingly motivate them.
So what do you do if you lack skills, talent, and work ethic, but still have a healthy sense of ambition and a hungry ego?
Politics. I mean, isn’t it obvious?
On exercise and appetite: yes,it’s been studied.
On exercise and appetite: yes,it’s been studied.
Well my point wasn’t about exercise itself, it is the combination of brain cycles and exercise. In fact, my personal experience was that previously I was doing too much exercise. A dozen years ago, maybe more, when I was first struggling with weigh gain and discussing this with my doctor he asked how much exercise I was getting. At the time I was working out, swimming mostly, usually twice a day. I’d get in about 2500 yards swimming in the morning before work, then put in another 2500-3000 yards at lunch. He said it was no wonder that I was hungry all the time because I was “excercizing more than the cave man”. Now not that I believed that literally and I kind of put it aside, though I did lighten up a bit to just one workout per day because I did believe it wasn’t helping in regard to appetite. So again, now that I’m using my brain more in proportion to my body in a historical evolutionary physiological context, I find my ravenous appetite is much more under control. I’m currently eating about the same, maybe a little bit more but the hunger cravings are nowhere near what they used to be sitting at a desk all day, getting increasingly hungry as 11:00 AM or 5:00 PM rolled around.
Around here whether you’re allowed to call yourself a software engineer depends entirely on whether the Professional Engineering licensing body feels like being pissy that day.
Not that I blame them entirely, but it is more than a bit pissy, true. Mostly because the ones making the biggest stink are likely crappy engineers who never actually developed anything, just stood around complaining how this or that “isn’t right”. But I digress…My thing is…so my father was a civil engineer from just after the war until the late 1960’s. Even when he went into real estate he did it always with the mind of an engineer (along with the mind of a combat infantry veteran). After he retired and I was in the thick of my SW career we would discuss how the two disciplines differed yet were the same. Until the day he died, I never considered myself an engineer. That only came after I went to work for a “major government defense contractor” where everyone used the term. When I thought of “software engineering” I mostly did so in the context of systems engineering. I used to say software is never truly “engineered”, it is developed over cycles. This was also a good bit before Agile became a thing. In fact, I advocated for Agile style development for years before I ever heard of it. I used to call it “circular” or “Spirograph” (if your familiar with the childhood…mmm…toy?) process. Sigh…but did anyone listen? Nooooo…..C’est la vie as the Frenchies say.
but once they feel they’re being paid “enough”, paying them more won’t increasingly motivate them.
Tend to agree with this but only in a psychology lab or similar (think government) context. I think there is another factor in real-world terms. If/when people do get paid more than they expect, this is usually a factor of a very successful project or company that excites people to be more productive. But I think that’s a factor of success and morale not pay. If the company or project is doing shitty and you try to keep people around by paying them too much, I do think it is counter productive. At least among true professionals. And I do include hard-working blue collar people with some control/input in how they do their jobs in the context of “true professionals”.