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So this story is based off the CNN documentary "Black in America: Silicon Valley." I haven't seen the actual show, but CNN has been pushing it a lot the past week and showing clips from it.

One really interesting clip that I saw had an Indian who had experience with VCs and start-ups and was also a professor somewhere giving a talk to the African American entrepreneurs.

Now Asians in general, and Indians specifically I don't think are as rare in Silicon Valley and are found amongst high level executives. Additionally, this particular individual was well spoken and articulate, capable of creative thinking, didn't have a strong accent, and in other ways didn't fit the stereotype of an Indian caricature.

However the ONE thing that he said was to get a good looking white guy to be your front man when going to VCs. He said that when we wanted to get funding, he got a (admittedly very capable and accomplished) white guy to be his partner. He said that's just how things work in the Valley. The African American audience he was speaking to was very shocked by this.

The point made was that VCs look for what works. And if they see a bunch of "successful" start-up companies run by young white guys, that's what they look to fund. Plus add in the inherent bias towards good looking white guys in business who fit the common archetype (with as Dilbert says good hair).

While we're on the topic, what about women (white or otherwise)? Are VCs more likely to discount a company being led by women as they're not thought to be "techy"?

So, any thoughts form people with experience here, either for or against this argument. Do all races (not just African Americans) need Caucasian male partners to improve their chances for success.

Actually its the complete opposite. The telephone companies are desperate to fibre-up the working class estates in order to cut into Sky's satellite TV revenues. In my town I hear you can get fast fibre internet north of the river, but not on the more middle-class south side. There's no money to be made in infrastructure unless you can sell 260 channels of endless crap to unemployed chavs sitting on their butts all day. Slight caricature.

Generally, people use the term "capitalism" to refer to free market economics, not the caricature of the economic system existing at the time that Marx described as capitalism. When people are defending capitalism, they are almost uniformly referring to a free market similar to the economic theories of Adam Smith.
This of course is why many discussions of economics come apart, because people use differing definitions of words fundamental to the discussion.

For someone in aid and development it is then obvious that Negroponte does not focus on actually improving things for the kids. Like many caricatured IT developers, he is focused on the product, not the user.

Oh, it's worse than that. From the very start, the OLPC laptop has been designed primarily to comply with Negroponte's political IT views. The poor of the world are just a means to that end.

How so?

For someone in aid and development it is then obvious that Negroponte does not focus on actually improving things for the kids. Like many caricatured IT developers, he is focused on the product, not the user.

Oh, it's worse than that. From the very start, the OLPC laptop has been designed primarily to comply with Negroponte's political IT views. The poor of the world are just a means to that end.

Are you talking about the same debate that is at issue here? Because your comment seems to be responding to some overly caricatured picture of a creationist/evolutionist debate. It seems to me that the idea of such a debate must be lurking in your head, and when any story that is even loosely connected to it pops up, you immediately cram it into that conception.

The debate was about science and theology, despite your inclination is to just reduce it to something like evolution vs creation. This is lazy thinking and it is intellectually and morally dishonest. Not only that, you present an overly simplified version of your imagined creation/evolution debate. Then on the basis of that overly simplified version you say we should close the debate?

And to top it all, the sloppy procedure you demonstrate somehow gives us a case when we can bypass the principle that "dialog is good"?

Negroponte tried a "PC in the wall" experiment in a poor district some years ago. This is being used as an argument for the airdrop strategy, but the experiment was in fact not successfull. The kids in the neighbourhood did learn to use the PC, but to little or no use. They played games but did not learn marketable skills or otherwise improve their quality of life.

In aid and development, To airdrop aid is the very image of a failed strategy. You bring in a celebrity and a tv-team, you throw money at the village, build a well or a lavatory, then write a report and pull out. Your funders want to see results quickly, but development doesn't work that way.
For someone in aid and development it is then obvious that Negroponte does not focus on actually improving things for the kids. Like many caricatured IT developers, he is focused on the product, not the user. He wants to prove that the user interface is so intuitive that you don't have to teach the kids to use it. He wants to show that the laptop is very robust and water proof so he drops it from a helicopter. He is using one of the vilest tricks in the IT-salesman's repertoire: That if you just buy my hardware, everything will be up and running with no extra cost. No running costs on training people to use it, no need to organize the use or for teachers to follow this up. No need to have anything centralized and government-like working for these villages to reap the benefits of IT.

It is a vile mix of PR stunts, naive IT optimism sold to supposedly uninformed savages and an appeal to prevailing ideologies among the western funders. All combined just to sell hardware.

And yet, it is now a part of the canon of science, in spite of that. I'm still wondering when major religions will not just stop questioning, but actually declare a part of their religion, things like evolution and quantum mechanics. It seems the closest they can get is dragged by public outcry into making some sort of declaration not to talk about it anymore.

Exactly. Which is why we need to give the progressive theologians, which John Haught is a representative of, have their say. It's not a full attempt at declaring all science as part of his religion, but is certainly getting there much faster than the laughable ad hominem attempts of Coyne. (really, I saw what he has to say, and it's all very unconstructive at best, and he's a pitifully and hopelessly biased representative of true atheism at worst)

Which is all fine and good, but that doesn't give them the right to attempt to dictate what is science, should it offend them at some point. I am aware of churches that are quite admittedly progressive, but thank you, I'll still take the word of actual scientists on matters of science.

From what I gather from the debate, no attempt was made by Haught to dictate what science really is. All it is is an attempt to unify current understanding of science with religion, which you are in favor of. Coyne took a LOT of his statements out of context, somehow put them together to paint a caricature of Haught as an ultra-conservative that deserves flogging for even attempting to unify his beliefs, then appealed to the Slashdot crowd by misrepresenting his blatant attack as 'the scientific way'.

"When is John McCarthy day?"

Most people aren't sure if he's the caricature with the hand up his butt from the 1950s or the congressman from the 1950s.

Oh wait. I repeat myself.

Seriously, though a number of the pioneers of computing are leaving us or soon will be.

That's because, like the Tea Partiers, OWS are "angry". Unfortunately, due to their increasingly well known suspicion of authority (sending the cops to beat them kinda does that), they are less likely to accept someone or some group focusing them on the corporations. What is more likely is that said group will take it over and bastardize it into a caricature of itself, leading to the moderate OWS that suddenly focuses on women's wombs or something. Hate always sells. And it's easier to hate those groups than the ones in power who might give you another crumb. After all, that one more crumb might make a difference in your survival, which conveniently sets one against the very groups and social networks that would change that. Economics is power. And the 1% know that very, very well.

You have a PHD in being a complete and utter moronic caricature of yourself.

Can you recall the exact moment you morphed into a caricature from an 80s comedy movie, or did it happen gradually?

Can you remember the exact moment you forgot what a "joke" was?

Can you recall the exact moment you morphed into a caricature from an 80s comedy movie, or did it happen gradually?

There are terrific similarities between the two groups. They are both angry about the bank bailouts, but one focuses its rage on the government for providing the bailout and the other focuses its rage on Wall Street for taking it. In fact, the biggest difference between the two may be their demographic: Tea Party is mostly older and OWS mostly younger, making this a conflict of generations rather than classes. The problem is the manipulators are hard at work keeping people from finding any common ground by demonizing the other side instead of addressing their grievances.

The Tea Party got this treatment from the Huffington Post, who focused on the most racist signs from the protesters. Now we're seeing the same thing, with Andrew "we have the guns" Breitbart's photographer blatantly staging a photo of a protester supposedly defecating on a police car. Brietbart's previous credits include videos edited to make USDA employee Shirley Sherrod look like a racist and ACORN employees look like they were giving tax evasion advice on running child prostitution rings.

I sympathized with the early Tea Party. Now I sympathize with these protesters, and this constant demonization of them is so heartbreaking. For the first time in my life I'm confronting these people on Facebook, forcing them to support their statements with references or showing them how they are being manipulated (90% of the time by a story I can trace back to Breitbart). For a week they fought back, but then they toned down their attacks... Unfortunately, watching the new Facebook Ticker, I can see that they have merely taken their hatred to where they think I can't see it. Wonderful social experiment that new Facebook Ticker, see what you're "Friends" are saying about you behind your back and there's no way to turn it off.

All we can do is try to get people to see the human beings behind the villainous caricatures. When they try to connect the movement to the "sinister machinations of George Soros," I point out that Soros is a prolific philanthropist and humanitarian. When they call the protesters scum, slackers, and anarchists, I point them to the We are the 99% blog and ask them to justify their position with references from that site.

People in the Tea Party should be doing the same thing, putting a human face on their movement. We should be finding common ground. Keeping us fighting each other is exactly what the powers that be need to prevent any significant change.

If your goal is to caricature working solutions into thin parodies of themselves, of course you can find holes in those strawmen. Understanding of complex systems -- and human behavior is certainly such a topic -- is not going to happen within a few paragraphs of text. When I speak of a gift economy, I speak of something that I've seen working in practice over more than a decade, and with items (and effort) of substantial economic value passed around. Claims that one cannot work in practice (given appropriate conditions -- which may include either restriction to non-zero-sum goods or a cap on number of individuals involved) are thus faulty on their face.

As for individuals with no repute being unable to "get their foot in the door" -- acquiring repute is as simple as displaying respect, kindness, utility and selflessness to those who already play. Moreover, repute is not zero-sum in nature -- giving repute to a person who turns out to be deserving is an act which gains one *more* repute, rather than losing it -- making the comparison to conventional currency questionable in nature. Thus, the first issue you posit -- that deserving individuals cannot inject themselves -- does not occur.

As for individuals with high repute having increased influence... well, if these are individuals who got there by demonstrating selflessness to others, where exactly is the problem?

Is "he" suggesting? No, I think the world's climate scientists are suggesting. The only refutations to that consensus is that either the evidence is terribly misleading, or there is a huge scientific conspiracy. You seem to be suggesting both (correct me if I'm wrong), but I don't find either criticism plausible. It's fine if you do find them plausible, I simply think you're wrong, as you do me. Or rather, I simply think my caricature of you is wrong, but my caricature could be wrong.

I remember when Evelle J. Younger was running against Brown in the late 70s. It was the first election I could vote in, anyway he had a funny commercial of Jerry Brown caricature and an old washing machine. The ad had the repeating lines of "Indecisive, Wishy-Washy" about how Brown had flip flopped on issues and was basically a hypocrite. Of course all politicians are hypocrites but it still was one of the funniest political ads I can remember.

I think the Malathion he drank has affected his brain because NFW would I allow a cop to rummage through my phone. Hopefully the marketplace will answer with some intrusion/wipe detection apps.

We do have a right to privacy and must defend it always. I understand the need to protect the public from criminal activity but there should be a barrier to prohibit privacy barriers from being circumvented as well. I guess this falls into the category of going through the glove box in your car when you get pulled over or going through your trunk so I presume there has to be probable cause established for this but undoubtedly the courts will have to decide this. In 1928, In Olmstead v. United States Justice Brandeis in dissent

"Subtler and more far-reaching means of invading privacy have become available to the Government. Discovery and invention have made it possible for the Government, by means far more effective than stretching upon the rack, to obtain disclosure in court of what is whispered in the closet. "

This was about the first case brought before the court about wire tapping and after this case, it set off a rash of other rulings that brought the idea that technology could be used to intrude on privacy. Although the evidence in the case were transcripts, the information in the transcripts were used to arrest other people who were importing and distributing liquor. Eventually laws were put into place that meant that wiretaps had to be authorized by a judge and evidence of probable cause produced.

We always have to protect our privacy just like we protect anything else we value otherwise there will be someone in our government trying to take it away.

From an outside perspective, I think the message from Nader is just great. That inspired me a lot but it would be considered mainstream common sense in Europe while its a fringe view in the United States. I think it was a good idea to finally confront Wall St. The United States citizens are brainwashed to believe that a free market means excessive control of mega-corporations over the political process while at the same time corporations have to be shielded against regulatory interference. Quite the opposite, from an Austrian Economics perspective the role of a government it to set the rules under which competition in the market takes place. Law and order. The US views correspond to a leninist caricature of global capitalism which he called "imperialism". Americans have to rebuild their political system and have to get a modern contitution without cruft. What is special about the Us protests is the lack of education and direction of protesters, a lack of methodologies in political advocacy and a lack of access to media. The Spanish camps were better organised and more result oriented. Given the size of New York, it should normally not be a problem to get 300 000 protesters, you even get that in smaller nations. I found the Leipzig Monday protests in Oct 1989 very inspiring which finally lead to the collapse of the Berlin wall, Nov 9. So how about Wall St? In the Leipzig demonstrations churches were instrumental to make the state socialist regime collapse. For Americans reform is quite easy, they just have to follow the Swedish governance model.

How do you know if a candidate is "liked" or "+1" because they'll vote for them in the election, or because they'll be easy to beat?

The Dali Lama has "recently" joined G+ and I've circled and +1'd him, because he is one of the very few "world leaders" I actually respect. That is an entirely different relationship from me +1'ing Palin because I think she is the most easy to beat out of the R field; +1 for being a humorous caricature in her field.

I suppose you could analyze my other +1s to figure out I don't want to throw my vote away on a D or R, and I'm gonna vote straight LP (unless RP is somehow on the ballot for the R in which case I'd hold my nose only a little tiny bit and vote for him). So maybe that data would show LP supporters think the best way for the R to lose is to put up Palin (or her cronies), or if they want LP supporters maybe they need a party plank that if they win RP will be the next (last?) chairman of the Fed. That might be actionable data, might not.

I think it's important to understand why conservatives are rejecting certain scientific facts. People like me on the left often make fun of them as being ignorant or anti-intellectual, but the reality is that it's very difficult for anyone to accept a fact that conflicts with your worldview. For example, history has turned the lawyer William Jennings Bryan from the famous "Monkey Trial" into a caricature of ignorance of foolishness in the face of scientific fact, but that belittles his motivation for fighting against the teaching of evolution: the textbook in question was pro eugenics and used the theory of evolution to argue that society should breed people the way we breed dogs. The Theory of Evolution was a fact, but the public policies people were proposing from it were an anathema to our human values. The theory of evolution has never recovered from the damage the eugenics movement did to it in the early 1900s.

The same thing is happening now with Global Warming. Whether conservatives know it or not, they are not resisting the Theory of Global Warming, they are resisting the policies that many conclude from it. Publicly accepting the theory and taking a more nuanced position about what we should do about, if we should do anything about it at all, isn't as straightforward as simply running a campaign against the theory itself using the same tactics the Tobacco industry used as recently as 15 years ago to defend smoking against its link to cancer (Yes, 15 years ago. I recently listened to a 1996 Larry King interview with Presidential candidate Bob Dole where they argued about whether smoking was safe or not).

It's a natural human reaction to reject facts that conflict with our vision of the world. That's why I love the term "Inconvenient Truth" to describe an empirical fact that generates cognitive dissonance. Just today I was reminded of one such truth as the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to the discovery that our Universe is expanding at an accelerating rate, a fact I resisted for a decade because it paints such an incredibly bleak picture of our Cosmos where the galaxies will eventually vanish from the night sky as they fly away from us and the Universe eventually freezes at absolute zero. But you have to accept the fact and adapt your worldview to it.

Liberals have their own anti-science views: resistance to GMO Foods goes pretty far into unscientific scaremongering ("Frankenfoods" and anti-corporatism), the idea that smaller classes sizes are the only way to improve student performance (teacher accountability does demonstrate equal results for less money), and anti-vaccination scares come mostly from the left (mostly). The science behind these issues are inconvenient to certain aspects of liberal ideology, so it's easier to go off the anti-science deep end rather than refine their positions. The problem is that we the media finds nuanced debate and finely articulated positions inconvenient to ratings.