The only statistical point that I was trying to make was that his argument (roughly summarized, that any subgroup will have different averages than the larger population) is exactly the opposite of the case.
Incidentally, since Asians make up such a tiny percentage of the country, and since there do exist Asians with the letter 'S' in their names (I have a friend named Soumendra, and one whose last name is Subramanian), I imagine that effect wouldn't be substantial, and you'd find that there would be no significant correlation between 'S' and IQ. And, more importantly, if you did, that would not imply causation.
The poster didn't make me angry, just made me feel the strong need to point out that he or she had a misconception as to what liberal thinkers think- a misconception that I think you might share. That people are all identical with respect to ability- that every single person has the same abilities as every other person- is obviously false. If you're born with no arms you clearly got a worse deal than your two-armed brothers and sisters. I am a fairly liberal guy (where "fairly liberal" means that I'm the sort of person Rush Limbaugh would want to burn at the stake), and I've heard a lot of liberal intellectuals argue, and I've never heard anyone seriously argue that all children are born identical with respect to abilities. What I have heard many times is that there's a very strong social component to success that often gets ignored by people who benefit from unfair social systems. It is easier to imagine, as The Bell Curve did, that black people are inferior as a race than to imagine that there could be a big invisible system that all of us participate in that is reflected even in IQ tests. But being easier to imagine doesn't make it true- for a plausible and very interesting alternative, read this article by a noted psychologist (I've posted the same link elsewhere on this topic, but it's really interesting and therefore worth repeating).
"If the average IQ (or whatever measure you wish) of a certain group is different from that of another group, that should come as no surprise (in fact, mathematical equality would be an amazing fluke)." Bzzt! Sorry, but wrong. Let's say that the "certain group" I pick is the set of all people in the United States with the letter S in their names, and the "another group" I pick is the set of all people in the United States without the letter S in their names. If it happened that I found that my chosen group did better than my other group, that would be amazing, and would certainly cause a sudden rise in the popularity of "Samson" and "Silas" as baby names for boys. The point is that far from being an amazing fluke if the IQs of the groups were the same, it would actually be an amazing fluke if the numbers were different. The reason why is that it seems utterly implausible that a person's name (specifically, whether or not it has an S in it) could have anything to do with his or her IQ. So the claim, unconditioned, that the average IQ of blacks must be different from the average IQ of whites actually means "there is some relationship between race and performance on an IQ test." It is an easy mistake, and one that the Bell Curve authors encouraged their readers to make, to say then that a person's race must affect his or her IQ, and then further that the IQ differences must be biological. Any decent book on statistics will point out the error inherent in those statements- in fine, it's that correlation is not causation.
Now that we've established some basic laws of statistics, maybe you're in a better position to understand the "liberal equality fantasy." I have never heard anyone argue intelligently that we should assume that all groups are identical. That would not be liberal, it would be stupid. (Yes, there is a difference.) I have heard many liberals argue that many differences between groups, and many great inequalities, exist not because they have to but because of social patterns that favor one group and disfavor another arbitrarily (with respect to ability). Unfortunately, many social illnesses behave like fixed points- that is, the problems cause effects that in turn perpetuate the problems- which makes many people think, "Well, that's just the way it is." Such an attitude is understandable but wrong. That isn't just the way it is, and won't be unless people let it be. From my perspective, then, there isn't a "left-wing equality fantasy" but rather a "right-wing inequality fantasy."
Oh, and since I seem to be the font of rhetoric today, I'll dispense another tip, this one for you: describing liberals as "ranting, raving, and foaming at the mouth [...] fanatics" is about one step above calling them poopy-heads. It is a rhetorical device that is quite unlikely to convince anyone of your point.
I went to a panel discussion in which six or so scientists eviscerated the book from several different angles, so I think it's safe at least to say that the book's science is controversial. One of the major arguments against Herrnstein & Murray's findings was that you can find the same statistical variances that they found between blacks and whites by comparing many different oppressed ethnic groups to their respective oppressing social groups- evidence that strongly suggests that social forces, not biology, are the real culprit.
A rhetorical tip for you: citing The Bell Curve as support for your argument is not likely to win you many adherents. That book is one of the most reviled and debunked books in recent memory.
I don't think there's much purpose to a line-by-line of your analysis, because I have a feeling we're saying the same thing but using opposite terms ("gender gap" and "glass ceiling" vs. "not gender gap" and "not glass ceiling"). The person who first explained those ideas to me in an academic feminist setting called upon the idea that social forces conspire to make them true: wage gap owes partially to the fact that women are not in as high-level positions as men, glass ceiling owes partially to lower academic achievement in business-related fields. And to respond to your point about how "the problem isn't as current as I think," perhaps you should read the title bar on your browser and remind yourself of the topic we're posting under. If you subscribe, as I do, to the theory that our economy is shifting dramatically towards information and data analysis, the fact that there are virtually no women in computer science curricula around the country is a serious problem. Much of modern feminism addresses the problem in that form.
As for your comments about citation: okay, I was tired when I wrote that and I can see that I didn't explain myself too well. Mea culpa. I certainly should have provided citations for the arguments that I gave, and would have given my books and articles. My early experience with formal argumentation, though, all came from philosophy, and in philosophy (particularly ethical philosophy) there are a startling number of people who will ignore any philosophical argument at all, no matter how well-reasoned, unless it goes along with something that Kant or Mill or Bentham or somebody like that said- the more citation the better. It sickens and frustrates me- how often did Mill cite other philosophers in his most famous works? (Hint: rhymes with "not boften.") So anyway, that's where that idea comes from. In matters of science, of course one should support one's arguments with fact, and unless one conducts all of one's own studies, citing other people's studies is the best way to do that. But in matters of argumentation, the idea that "a good argument is one that quotes a lot of famous people" is a dangerous religion.
Other than the fact that I sprinkled the phrase "dumb women" throughout my post, I just about repeated your post back to you. I'm not quite sure where the "heavy-handed lie" comes in. Perhaps you think that I'm lying by suggesting that you made sexist remarks? I tend to think that you suggested that one yourself.
And besides, parody is a rather fun and expressive way to make one's point, often cutting to the quick quite a bit more effectively than other rhetorical devices. In fact, I like it so much I think I'll use it again: "If you want to posit a systematic conspiracy against blacks everywhere but in our schools, that's your privilege. It is up to the intelligent reader to decide which environment is likelier to be bias-prone -- the world of the standardized test, the great wide world of events, or the cloistered, black-sympathizer-dominated world of school. While you're at it, you can hypothesize about black helicopters and New World Orders. Thinking adults are unlikely to join you in your fantasies." In fact, I certainly do not think that there is a conspiracy against women that extends to all of society except our schools- I think there is a conspiracy against women that extends to all of society including our schools. Let me remind you of the topic under which we are posting- amazingly, we find that virtually no women are learning science, even though the modern economy is driven very largely by technology. Does this add up to economic empowerment for women? I'd say no.
And as for those links you provided, "disproving" the glass ceiling and wage gap arguments: the arguments they present seem to me to miss the point entirely. Notice how both articles say "we need to control for qualified applicants"? Why do you think there aren't as many qualified applicants? Is it because women are stupid? From everything I can figure, that is what you think, and it's why I put those words in your mouth. I don't like that answer, though: I think it's because of what you might call "institutionalized sexism" in which women are systematically marginalized, so they don't really have a fighting chance at being society's leaders.
As for why I didn't provide citations: one, I am currently on vacation and away from my books and articles, and unfortunately most gender research is published only on dead trees. Two, I find the citation game to be rather stupid. I would rather have people read and respond thoughtfully to my thoughts than go about providing ten million references and then yelling "You didn't read article X, Y, and Z!" just to cut them off from making what otherwise might be a legitimate criticism. Put another way: I find that most people hide behind citation to conceal the fact that they don't have any of their own thoughts, and I don't like that.
Men are discouraged and encouraged; women are just plain discouraged. Sure, you might get called a dork and perhaps you'll even get beaten up for liking science and being smart- on the other hand, though, Albert Einstein was the person of the century. How's that for a positive role-model? And there are tons of them- I'd reckon (I'm from the South, so I reckon quite frequently by national standards) that by far the majority of "great" scientists, i.e. science role models, that you (or I) can name are men.
For women, the cultural message is much more monotonic- "science is not for you." There aren't many sciency role models for women, and there's still the stigma of being a dork or a geek if you like science or computers. So the fact that men are discouraged from being scientists is cancelled out by the fact that women are also discouraged the same way, and that leaves the fact that men do have some encouragement whereas women usually do not.
Of course I can't quote you as saying "women are dumb"- that's why my post is a parody of yours rather than a quotation of it. My point in parodying you was to to illustrate that the thinking behind your post was tacitly sexist.
To address your objection to my post- you say that I want you to "[go] along with the claim that women are at a disadvantage in education," but I think you'll find if you reread my posting that I made no such suggestion. All I did was point out the claim that you yourself made that women were unfairly being helped in academia- specifically that their grades were being boosted. In your words: "I suspect that the reason women do better in academia while men do better at standardized tests and in real-world jobs is that it's easier to rig the academic system to favor a preferred sex."
Incidentally, there are many reasons why one might believe that rather than the academic system being unfairly stacked towards women, standardized tests and the work force are unfairly stacked towards men (though I'm sure that you know that, considering that you are such an expert on feminism). For an idea of how standardized tests like the SAT might be stacked against a particular group, read this article which appeared in Atlantic Monthly a while back- a rather famous stereotype psychologist's discussion of that issue, explaining why white students do better than black students in higher education (hint: he takes a different stance than The Bell Curve did). As for jobs- that women hold nearly none of the uppermost positions in business (despite, as you point out, their educational levels) is widely known. Reasons? Amply documented. Women are promoted less often than men of the same ability levels, are frequently kept out of the social groups that form upper-level power networks ("good old boys' networks"), have to do "two jobs" (housework, which is still done mostly by women, even though those same women work the same hours that their husbands do), and are in general thought of as less competent than their male counterparts.
Sociologists, the people who study this sort of thing, have a more considered opinion. People in societies often do things because they want to, but their desires can stem from controllable culturally-constructed forces. For example, you probably wear clothes at school, and it's probably because you want to. But why do you want to? Partly for the physical reasons, but more because of stigma against nudity. There exist societies in which that stigma doesn't exist.
To apply the same reasoning to the discussion at hand, feminist sociologists would argue that while it is indeed true that women don't learn to program because they don't want to, the reason they don't want to is far from inherent to women, and is in fact rooted in culture. Furthermore, the fact that there aren't very many girls involved in computer-related fields means that tomorrow's women will be at a severe economic disadvantage- because of cultural patterns that we could do something about.
I know. But then, I am one of those weird people who think that "rabid feminazis" are a mostly fictitious category of feminists that mostly serve as straw-men (or straw-wimmin, I suppose, in this case) for people who are trying to make sexist anti-feminism arguments.
"Those goddamn sexist women. Getting all uppity about how 'things aren't fair for us.' They don't have any skills and can't teach (despite the fact that many forms of feminism are academic movements by college professors- see my next point).
"I hate how the whole academic system is a conspiracy against men- all those dumb women who get special favors on their report cards piss me off. Clearly they're stupid- I mean, after all, they don't do as well as us men on standardized tests, and they aren't as successful in business, so they must be just idiots.
"The great majority of feminist activism is so dumb, those stupid women. I did an exhaustive study of feminist literature and concluded that the great majority of it is just arguing that men are stupid- I can't believe those stupid women would be so stupid! (By the way, my 1000-page rigorous study of the field is being published in March- here's a web link to it.)
"I hate sexist people."
Moderators- before you mark this post 'flamebait,' reread the post I'm responding to. Thanks.
Notice how often stupid people post stupid crap on Slashdot? I'd say it's the stupid people of the world trying to push their agenda on legitimate society.
I was setting out to write a long response to this message, but then I realized that it was just some anonymous troller trying to get my goat. Well, you can't have it. =p
Even on small systems like that, how could Y2K be a problem? Computers store numbers in binary, not decimal, and with the number of bits required to store two BCD digits (that is, 8) you could also store any number between 0 and 255 in a straight binary representation, which would put the Y2K threat on New Year's Day 2156. So why is it that the problem would have happened yesterday?
I'm not sure how being on the cover of Time equals being "ignored by the media." Truman Show was hyped through the roof, if you'll recall, and while I thought it was pretty good, Carrey's acting honestly just proved that he didn't have to be Ace Ventura all the time. He didn't really do much special other than that. Man on the Moon, IMHO, is the first time that Carrey has actually proven that he can actually act, and therefore it's the first movie that he actually deserves an Oscar nomination for.
Could somebody moderate cow's... err... intelligent post down, please? I haven't got any moderator points today, but posts like that don't deserve to stay at 0.
so, yes the Protesters aren?t violating the constitutional rights of the WTO, because the protesters are not a part of the government.
I'm not sure I'm parsing your comment correctly... that was my point. I was responding to the previous poster who had claimed that the protesters were infringing on the WTO delegates' freedom of assembly.
I agree that violent protest usually doesn't raise people's opinion of you. (But that's not universally true...) However, most of the protest was not violent- see some of the other posts here, and read some of the news stories and you'll see what I mean. It certainly wasn't a bunch of people who just got together and decided to break stuff to protest WTO.
Any organization that can afford slick television ads (I just saw one, from www.adbusters.org, telling people to go to Seattle) Probably doesn?t really have your best interests in mind, IMO
Yeah. Though that pretty much applies to everyone in the whole mess equally. I'd study the issue, make up my own mind, and stay away from either side's propaganda.
Yes I have. It reads like this: "Congress shall make no law... abridging... the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
George W. has me shaking in my boots. Here's a guy that everybody seems to love, and yet he has shown time and again that he has no idea what RIGHTS are about (*cough* flag-burning *cough*). I don't know about y'all, but for me no amount of overstating one's importance in the creation of the Internet oughtweighs the willingness to take away my right to free speech.
Slashdot Mirror
The only statistical point that I was trying to make was that his argument (roughly summarized, that any subgroup will have different averages than the larger population) is exactly the opposite of the case.
Incidentally, since Asians make up such a tiny percentage of the country, and since there do exist Asians with the letter 'S' in their names (I have a friend named Soumendra, and one whose last name is Subramanian), I imagine that effect wouldn't be substantial, and you'd find that there would be no significant correlation between 'S' and IQ. And, more importantly, if you did, that would not imply causation.
The poster didn't make me angry, just made me feel the strong need to point out that he or she had a misconception as to what liberal thinkers think- a misconception that I think you might share. That people are all identical with respect to ability- that every single person has the same abilities as every other person- is obviously false. If you're born with no arms you clearly got a worse deal than your two-armed brothers and sisters. I am a fairly liberal guy (where "fairly liberal" means that I'm the sort of person Rush Limbaugh would want to burn at the stake), and I've heard a lot of liberal intellectuals argue, and I've never heard anyone seriously argue that all children are born identical with respect to abilities. What I have heard many times is that there's a very strong social component to success that often gets ignored by people who benefit from unfair social systems. It is easier to imagine, as The Bell Curve did, that black people are inferior as a race than to imagine that there could be a big invisible system that all of us participate in that is reflected even in IQ tests. But being easier to imagine doesn't make it true- for a plausible and very interesting alternative, read this article by a noted psychologist (I've posted the same link elsewhere on this topic, but it's really interesting and therefore worth repeating).
Amen, sistah! =)
"If the average IQ (or whatever measure you wish) of a certain group is different from that of another group, that should come as no surprise (in fact, mathematical equality would be an amazing fluke)." Bzzt! Sorry, but wrong. Let's say that the "certain group" I pick is the set of all people in the United States with the letter S in their names, and the "another group" I pick is the set of all people in the United States without the letter S in their names. If it happened that I found that my chosen group did better than my other group, that would be amazing, and would certainly cause a sudden rise in the popularity of "Samson" and "Silas" as baby names for boys. The point is that far from being an amazing fluke if the IQs of the groups were the same, it would actually be an amazing fluke if the numbers were different. The reason why is that it seems utterly implausible that a person's name (specifically, whether or not it has an S in it) could have anything to do with his or her IQ. So the claim, unconditioned, that the average IQ of blacks must be different from the average IQ of whites actually means "there is some relationship between race and performance on an IQ test." It is an easy mistake, and one that the Bell Curve authors encouraged their readers to make, to say then that a person's race must affect his or her IQ, and then further that the IQ differences must be biological. Any decent book on statistics will point out the error inherent in those statements- in fine, it's that correlation is not causation.
Now that we've established some basic laws of statistics, maybe you're in a better position to understand the "liberal equality fantasy." I have never heard anyone argue intelligently that we should assume that all groups are identical. That would not be liberal, it would be stupid. (Yes, there is a difference.) I have heard many liberals argue that many differences between groups, and many great inequalities, exist not because they have to but because of social patterns that favor one group and disfavor another arbitrarily (with respect to ability). Unfortunately, many social illnesses behave like fixed points- that is, the problems cause effects that in turn perpetuate the problems- which makes many people think, "Well, that's just the way it is." Such an attitude is understandable but wrong. That isn't just the way it is, and won't be unless people let it be. From my perspective, then, there isn't a "left-wing equality fantasy" but rather a "right-wing inequality fantasy."
Oh, and since I seem to be the font of rhetoric today, I'll dispense another tip, this one for you: describing liberals as "ranting, raving, and foaming at the mouth [...] fanatics" is about one step above calling them poopy-heads. It is a rhetorical device that is quite unlikely to convince anyone of your point.
I went to a panel discussion in which six or so scientists eviscerated the book from several different angles, so I think it's safe at least to say that the book's science is controversial. One of the major arguments against Herrnstein & Murray's findings was that you can find the same statistical variances that they found between blacks and whites by comparing many different oppressed ethnic groups to their respective oppressing social groups- evidence that strongly suggests that social forces, not biology, are the real culprit.
A rhetorical tip for you: citing The Bell Curve as support for your argument is not likely to win you many adherents. That book is one of the most reviled and debunked books in recent memory.
I don't think there's much purpose to a line-by-line of your analysis, because I have a feeling we're saying the same thing but using opposite terms ("gender gap" and "glass ceiling" vs. "not gender gap" and "not glass ceiling"). The person who first explained those ideas to me in an academic feminist setting called upon the idea that social forces conspire to make them true: wage gap owes partially to the fact that women are not in as high-level positions as men, glass ceiling owes partially to lower academic achievement in business-related fields. And to respond to your point about how "the problem isn't as current as I think," perhaps you should read the title bar on your browser and remind yourself of the topic we're posting under. If you subscribe, as I do, to the theory that our economy is shifting dramatically towards information and data analysis, the fact that there are virtually no women in computer science curricula around the country is a serious problem. Much of modern feminism addresses the problem in that form.
As for your comments about citation: okay, I was tired when I wrote that and I can see that I didn't explain myself too well. Mea culpa. I certainly should have provided citations for the arguments that I gave, and would have given my books and articles. My early experience with formal argumentation, though, all came from philosophy, and in philosophy (particularly ethical philosophy) there are a startling number of people who will ignore any philosophical argument at all, no matter how well-reasoned, unless it goes along with something that Kant or Mill or Bentham or somebody like that said- the more citation the better. It sickens and frustrates me- how often did Mill cite other philosophers in his most famous works? (Hint: rhymes with "not boften.") So anyway, that's where that idea comes from. In matters of science, of course one should support one's arguments with fact, and unless one conducts all of one's own studies, citing other people's studies is the best way to do that. But in matters of argumentation, the idea that "a good argument is one that quotes a lot of famous people" is a dangerous religion.
Other than the fact that I sprinkled the phrase "dumb women" throughout my post, I just about repeated your post back to you. I'm not quite sure where the "heavy-handed lie" comes in. Perhaps you think that I'm lying by suggesting that you made sexist remarks? I tend to think that you suggested that one yourself.
And besides, parody is a rather fun and expressive way to make one's point, often cutting to the quick quite a bit more effectively than other rhetorical devices. In fact, I like it so much I think I'll use it again: "If you want to posit a systematic conspiracy against blacks everywhere but in our schools, that's your privilege. It is up to the intelligent reader to decide which environment is likelier to be bias-prone -- the world of the standardized test, the great wide world of events, or the cloistered, black-sympathizer-dominated world of school. While you're at it, you can hypothesize about black helicopters and New World Orders. Thinking adults are unlikely to join you in your fantasies." In fact, I certainly do not think that there is a conspiracy against women that extends to all of society except our schools- I think there is a conspiracy against women that extends to all of society including our schools. Let me remind you of the topic under which we are posting- amazingly, we find that virtually no women are learning science, even though the modern economy is driven very largely by technology. Does this add up to economic empowerment for women? I'd say no.
And as for those links you provided, "disproving" the glass ceiling and wage gap arguments: the arguments they present seem to me to miss the point entirely. Notice how both articles say "we need to control for qualified applicants"? Why do you think there aren't as many qualified applicants? Is it because women are stupid? From everything I can figure, that is what you think, and it's why I put those words in your mouth. I don't like that answer, though: I think it's because of what you might call "institutionalized sexism" in which women are systematically marginalized, so they don't really have a fighting chance at being society's leaders.
As for why I didn't provide citations: one, I am currently on vacation and away from my books and articles, and unfortunately most gender research is published only on dead trees. Two, I find the citation game to be rather stupid. I would rather have people read and respond thoughtfully to my thoughts than go about providing ten million references and then yelling "You didn't read article X, Y, and Z!" just to cut them off from making what otherwise might be a legitimate criticism. Put another way: I find that most people hide behind citation to conceal the fact that they don't have any of their own thoughts, and I don't like that.
Men are discouraged and encouraged; women are just plain discouraged. Sure, you might get called a dork and perhaps you'll even get beaten up for liking science and being smart- on the other hand, though, Albert Einstein was the person of the century. How's that for a positive role-model? And there are tons of them- I'd reckon (I'm from the South, so I reckon quite frequently by national standards) that by far the majority of "great" scientists, i.e. science role models, that you (or I) can name are men.
For women, the cultural message is much more monotonic- "science is not for you." There aren't many sciency role models for women, and there's still the stigma of being a dork or a geek if you like science or computers. So the fact that men are discouraged from being scientists is cancelled out by the fact that women are also discouraged the same way, and that leaves the fact that men do have some encouragement whereas women usually do not.
Of course I can't quote you as saying "women are dumb"- that's why my post is a parody of yours rather than a quotation of it. My point in parodying you was to to illustrate that the thinking behind your post was tacitly sexist.
To address your objection to my post- you say that I want you to "[go] along with the claim that women are at a disadvantage in education," but I think you'll find if you reread my posting that I made no such suggestion. All I did was point out the claim that you yourself made that women were unfairly being helped in academia- specifically that their grades were being boosted. In your words: "I suspect that the reason women do better in academia while men do better at standardized tests and in real-world jobs is that it's easier to rig the academic system to favor a preferred sex."
Incidentally, there are many reasons why one might believe that rather than the academic system being unfairly stacked towards women, standardized tests and the work force are unfairly stacked towards men (though I'm sure that you know that, considering that you are such an expert on feminism). For an idea of how standardized tests like the SAT might be stacked against a particular group, read this article which appeared in Atlantic Monthly a while back- a rather famous stereotype psychologist's discussion of that issue, explaining why white students do better than black students in higher education (hint: he takes a different stance than The Bell Curve did). As for jobs- that women hold nearly none of the uppermost positions in business (despite, as you point out, their educational levels) is widely known. Reasons? Amply documented. Women are promoted less often than men of the same ability levels, are frequently kept out of the social groups that form upper-level power networks ("good old boys' networks"), have to do "two jobs" (housework, which is still done mostly by women, even though those same women work the same hours that their husbands do), and are in general thought of as less competent than their male counterparts.
Sociologists, the people who study this sort of thing, have a more considered opinion. People in societies often do things because they want to, but their desires can stem from controllable culturally-constructed forces. For example, you probably wear clothes at school, and it's probably because you want to. But why do you want to? Partly for the physical reasons, but more because of stigma against nudity. There exist societies in which that stigma doesn't exist.
To apply the same reasoning to the discussion at hand, feminist sociologists would argue that while it is indeed true that women don't learn to program because they don't want to, the reason they don't want to is far from inherent to women, and is in fact rooted in culture. Furthermore, the fact that there aren't very many girls involved in computer-related fields means that tomorrow's women will be at a severe economic disadvantage- because of cultural patterns that we could do something about.
I know. But then, I am one of those weird people who think that "rabid feminazis" are a mostly fictitious category of feminists that mostly serve as straw-men (or straw-wimmin, I suppose, in this case) for people who are trying to make sexist anti-feminism arguments.
A translation:
"Those goddamn sexist women. Getting all uppity about how 'things aren't fair for us.' They don't have any skills and can't teach (despite the fact that many forms of feminism are academic movements by college professors- see my next point).
"I hate how the whole academic system is a conspiracy against men- all those dumb women who get special favors on their report cards piss me off. Clearly they're stupid- I mean, after all, they don't do as well as us men on standardized tests, and they aren't as successful in business, so they must be just idiots.
"The great majority of feminist activism is so dumb, those stupid women. I did an exhaustive study of feminist literature and concluded that the great majority of it is just arguing that men are stupid- I can't believe those stupid women would be so stupid! (By the way, my 1000-page rigorous study of the field is being published in March- here's a web link to it.)
"I hate sexist people."
Moderators- before you mark this post 'flamebait,' reread the post I'm responding to. Thanks.
ROFL myself- SFBA is about as representative of America's social climate as Neptune is.
Notice how often stupid people post stupid crap on Slashdot? I'd say it's the stupid people of the world trying to push their agenda on legitimate society.
I was setting out to write a long response to this message, but then I realized that it was just some anonymous troller trying to get my goat. Well, you can't have it. =p
Dude, if they made Slackware Linux beer I'd buy two cases.
=)
(Not an attack- I'm genuinely curious:)
Even on small systems like that, how could Y2K be a problem? Computers store numbers in binary, not decimal, and with the number of bits required to store two BCD digits (that is, 8) you could also store any number between 0 and 255 in a straight binary representation, which would put the Y2K threat on New Year's Day 2156. So why is it that the problem would have happened yesterday?
I'm not sure how being on the cover of Time equals being "ignored by the media." Truman Show was hyped through the roof, if you'll recall, and while I thought it was pretty good, Carrey's acting honestly just proved that he didn't have to be Ace Ventura all the time. He didn't really do much special other than that. Man on the Moon, IMHO, is the first time that Carrey has actually proven that he can actually act, and therefore it's the first movie that he actually deserves an Oscar nomination for.
Could somebody moderate cow's... err... intelligent post down, please? I haven't got any moderator points today, but posts like that don't deserve to stay at 0.
so, yes the Protesters aren?t violating the constitutional rights of the WTO, because the protesters are not a part of the government.
I'm not sure I'm parsing your comment correctly... that was my point. I was responding to the previous poster who had claimed that the protesters were infringing on the WTO delegates' freedom of assembly.
I agree that violent protest usually doesn't raise people's opinion of you. (But that's not universally true...) However, most of the protest was not violent- see some of the other posts here, and read some of the news stories and you'll see what I mean. It certainly wasn't a bunch of people who just got together and decided to break stuff to protest WTO.
Any organization that can afford slick television ads (I just saw one, from www.adbusters.org, telling people to go to Seattle) Probably doesn?t really have your best interests in mind, IMO
Yeah. Though that pretty much applies to everyone in the whole mess equally. I'd study the issue, make up my own mind, and stay away from either side's propaganda.
Yes I have. It reads like this: "Congress shall make no law ... abridging ... the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Think about it.
...unless you happen to think that civil rights, ends to oppressive regimes, and ending intolerable working conditions are "constructive."
The cnn link listed in the article is broken. The correct link is here.
George W. has me shaking in my boots. Here's a guy that everybody seems to love, and yet he has shown time and again that he has no idea what RIGHTS are about (*cough* flag-burning *cough*). I don't know about y'all, but for me no amount of overstating one's importance in the creation of the Internet oughtweighs the willingness to take away my right to free speech.