I'd defend them there - it's pretty easy for a name to be something silly, offensive or amusing in another language, you won't be able to cover them all so why try too hard?
I'd defend them there - it's pretty easy for a name to be something silly, offensive or amusing in another language, you won't be able to cover them all so why try too hard?
I'd defend them there - it's pretty easy for a name to be something silly, offensive or amusing in another language, you won't be able to cover them all so why try too hard?
Because these things are really important to a company’s brand - and if you’re an $800bn company, you can afford to do the job properly.
Why should one expect every profession to reflect the make up of society at large?
When they are making laws for society at large, frankly or even serving them coffee, then I think they absolutely should do.
You were an army officer. Should the army operate on the basis that 51% of its officer class must be be female, 15% from ethnic minorities, 93% from State schools etc.?
I struggle to see how the army would be worse if so. The entry requirements are the entry requirements.
And I've got to believe that we are close to that for those last two (ethnic minorities and state schools, although it probably repays some googling).
Edit: 12.9% ethnic minorities in the army it seems from Google.
And had you been turned down, because your particular social group had reached its quota for that year, would you consider that fair?
Edit: I do note that in 2019 49% of officer cadets came from private schools, compared to 7% of the population.
Where did you get that figure from? It is misleading at best: 7% of the school age population are at private schools, but as many mix and match the proportion that spend some time at a private school is over double: 18% of sixth-formers are at an independent school according to wiki.
Fair point. Btu, certainly, the army officer class is disproportionately drawn from the privately educated.
How many state schools have CCF contingents (and I know some do from direct experience: in most schools seeing some of your pupils with weapons would lead to a panicked call to the Head or even the police, in that one you just thought “must be Thursday” and moved on).
Mine does.
Not that some of them need an excuse to carry weapons, tbf.
I'd defend them there - it's pretty easy for a name to be something silly, offensive or amusing in another language, you won't be able to cover them all so why try too hard?
For a small company, fair enough.
But you'd think a trillion dollar company like Facebook would be able to afford some people to do market research in what their proposed name would translate to in different languages to avoid any pratfalls.
Will the Labour membership vote for a woman? Every single woman who has stood for a membership vote for leader, has been beaten by every man in the contest.
Finally an admission from the right that status quo/traditional selection processes dont automatically pick the best person for the job. Hope that will be remembered for the next positive discrimination discussions, the Labour Party is a great example to use.
If the prior processes are not picking the right person for the job then the solution is to tackle the discrimination so that going forwards the best person is chosen.
"Positive discrimination" is still discrimination, it doesn't do that.
Yes of course, if you could magically get rid of all the discriminatory biases and processes in the real world that would be fantastic. Also magical, it ain't gonna happen. Human brains are built on using bias and pattern recognition very heavily, more than we use rationality.
No need for magic, just tackling the real issues.
"Positive discrimination" is no better at finding the right person for the job, if you're still discriminating against the people you were discriminating against then the 'right person' still suffers because they're being discriminated against. Promoting someone else from the same group because "they all look the same" to you isn't a fix.
What if the organisation has never had a minority C-level executive. And it interviews two candidates for one such role and they are exactly equal and one is from the minority whose inequality you want to address and one is from the prevailing majority.
Mermaids gets everywhere, doesn't it?
On @TOPPING’s question, there is a few problems that can arise from his scenario:
1. The losing candidate says “they only got it because they were x” causing resentment towards x
Damn didn’t finish
2. If you have a positive discrimination policy, there is always the question of “did they only get the job because they were x?”.
I’m Topping’s scenario, it would be much better just to toss a coin.
Not at all. Change needs to happen. Once in the job people can prove themselves. And no one has given a tuppenny fuck historically if someone in the job who is not a minority only got the job on that basis.
Actually a lot of us have given a fuck historically about that and that's why we oppose such discrimination.
Simply saying "bad things happened in the past" isn't a good reason to do what you know to be bad today though either.
Either you believe sexism and racism is bad, or you don't.
You are drawing the line once the discrimination has happened. You are saying the minorities have suffered but now we must treat everyone fairly.
You are ignoring history and proceeding from the premise of inequality, thus baking it in for the future.
Yes I am unabashedly drawing the line. We must treat everyone fairly.
If there's issues with inequality then that should be tackled based upon need, not based upon discrimination. I don't think Sunak's kids will need discrimination in their favour because of "baked in" discrimination, do you? But other's might do regardless of race. If support is needed give it to whoever needs it, for whatever reason they need it.
I think this is the crucial point.
Let's look at America. Does anyone think that the Obamas' children will face as severe challenges as the children of white unemployed opium addicts living in small town West Virginia?
Your chances in life are determined by more than just your race, sex or sexual orientation.
With that being said, there are very real problems of racism in the United States. White police departments and black neighbourhoods stink of foreign occupation. I have little doubt that - no matter how talented they were - a talented black man would be effectively barred from rising to the top of a police department in much of the South.
As the police are the most visible arm of the State for most people, and have the legal monopoly on violence, this is - I would submit - a B.F.D, that does far more to hammer the life chances of African Americans than anything else.
Edit to add: I heard a story about a black lawyer in New York from a (lawyer) friend of mine here. Said black lawyer was arrested on suspicion of being someone else. The case got all the way to court with the police refusing to believe he was who he said he was, and it was only when the Prosecutor got up and said "Judge, I was at Harvard Law School with the Defendent, and he is not who the police say he is" that the case was dropped. It was a genuinely shocking story.
I wholeheartedly agree with every word of this.
The racism in the US is endemic and I think both sides wanting to make everything about race doesn't help - its something I do not want to see imported to this side of the Pond.
The thing is that if you offer educational etc support to those who need it, whether they be poor black kids in Detroit, or poor white ones in trailer parks, then since the poorest black populace disproportionately needs the help they will disproportionately get the help. Which is perfectly fine, they'll get what they need - and so will other kids.
But instead it seems both sides want to make it all about race, and nobody gets helped.
I'd agree with you both. But I would note that at least some federal aid is based on non-racial metrics along the lines you suggest. I used to have a house on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, where (apart from the land owners of the large farms) the rural population both white and black (and now increasingly Hispanic) is dirt poor. The county receives plenty of grants that nationally tend to go to heavily black neighbourhoods, based on the econometrics, not race.
Just to add to my bits of positive discrimination, I think academic admissions should concentrate on potential, not just on grades to date.
My daughter goes to a very pushy private school here in Los Angeles. I have absolutely no doubt that she will ace her SATs for college. But then so she should - she'll have been very intensively coached for them in a highly competitive environment. She will be achieving 99% of her best possible result.
For someone from a cash starved school (all the public money is going on historic pensions), and where parents didn't go to college, and just getting kids to graduate is the major goal of the teachers, then kids aren't going to be performing at 99% of their potential. Academic admissions should reflect that.
Why should one expect every profession to reflect the make up of society at large?
When they are making laws for society at large, frankly or even serving them coffee, then I think they absolutely should do.
You were an army officer. Should the army operate on the basis that 51% of its officer class must be be female, 15% from ethnic minorities, 93% from State schools etc.?
I struggle to see how the army would be worse if so. The entry requirements are the entry requirements.
And I've got to believe that we are close to that for those last two (ethnic minorities and state schools, although it probably repays some googling).
Edit: 12.9% ethnic minorities in the army it seems from Google.
And had you been turned down, because your particular social group had reached its quota for that year, would you consider that fair?
Edit: I do note that in 2019 49% of officer cadets came from private schools, compared to 7% of the population.
Where did you get that figure from? It is misleading at best: 7% of the school age population are at private schools, but as many mix and match the proportion that spend some time at a private school is over double: 18% of sixth-formers are at an independent school according to wiki.
Fair point. Btu, certainly, the army officer class is disproportionately drawn from the privately educated.
How many state schools have CCF contingents (and I know some do from direct experience: in most schools seeing some of your pupils with weapons would lead to a panicked call to the Head or even the police, in that one you just thought “must be Thursday” and moved on).
Mine does.
Not that some of them need an excuse to carry weapons, tbf.
Could Afghanistan cause an upset here against the championship favourites?
146/6 wasn’t what the Pakistan bowlers had in mind, when they were down 76/6 in the 13th over.
Remarkable that they had 7 free hits and only scored four runs in total off those 7 free hits.
That's really poor bowling by Pakistan to concede so many no ball free hits - and really poor conversion of those free hits by Afghanistan.
That’s a good stat which I’d missed. I think Pakistan will probably get the runs (it’s half a dozen fewer than India had them chase last Sunday on the same ground) but should be a good chase.
I'd defend them there - it's pretty easy for a name to be something silly, offensive or amusing in another language, you won't be able to cover them all so why try too hard?
Because these things are really important to a company’s brand - and if you’re an $800bn company, you can afford to do the job properly.
Just give it a different name in Hebrew, doesn't seem a big deal for a convoluted company. And on a numbers game there are worse languages to sound silly in.
Mr. kinabalu, apologies, I missed your reply before.
I'm not in favour of limiting recruitment by sex. Because of the particular nature of primary school teachers (often providing parental figures for those either lacking one or both parents or as a better version if said parents are rather bad examples) and the heavily slanted sex composition of schoolteachers I would like to see a recruitment drive for male teachers to increase the numbers. I would not advocate either all-male shortlists or some sort of quota, however.
Well that would be positive discrimination - and I think I'd agree with it too. So, ok, you bridle at "quotas" and the like, but you can get behind positive discrimination where you see a real problem. Therefore it's a matter of where you see these real problems. Maybe that's restricted to 'too few men in primary teaching' but I'd be surprised if this were the case. I mean, there's so many high status arenas where women and/or certain minorities and/or working class people are underrepresented. There really is no doubt about that. It's simply a matter of do we wish to address it and if so how. My suspicion is that the answers are (i) not really and (ii) n/a. I think we're oddly attached to privilege in this country. We quite like it, including many of those who don't have it. We find it a comfortable notion.
Just to add to my bits of positive discrimination, I think academic admissions should concentrate on potential, not just on grades to date.
My daughter goes to a very pushy private school here in Los Angeles. I have absolutely no doubt that she will ace her SATs for college. But then so she should - she'll have been very intensively coached for them in a highly competitive environment. She will be achieving 99% of her best possible result.
For someone from a cash starved school (all the public money is going on historic pensions), and where parents didn't go to college, and just getting kids to graduate is the major goal of the teachers, then kids aren't going to be performing at 99% of their potential. Academic admissions should reflect that.
How would that go down with all the pushy LA parents, when their little boys and girls don’t make the Ivy League?
Maybe we need a thread on who her successor will be?
BTW, the main problem for Andy Burnham is not him being out of the Commons (problem though that it is). It's his sex (or is that gender?) Inconceivable that Labour will select another white male with plausible women (is that the right word?) alternatives available.
Why should one expect every profession to reflect the make up of society at large?
When they are making laws for society at large, frankly or even serving them coffee, then I think they absolutely should do.
You were an army officer. Should the army operate on the basis that 51% of its officer class must be be female, 15% from ethnic minorities, 93% from State schools etc.?
I struggle to see how the army would be worse if so. The entry requirements are the entry requirements.
And I've got to believe that we are close to that for those last two (ethnic minorities and state schools, although it probably repays some googling).
Edit: 12.9% ethnic minorities in the army it seems from Google.
And had you been turned down, because your particular social group had reached its quota for that year, would you consider that fair?
Edit: I do note that in 2019 49% of officer cadets came from private schools, compared to 7% of the population.
Where did you get that figure from? It is misleading at best: 7% of the school age population are at private schools, but as many mix and match the proportion that spend some time at a private school is over double: 18% of sixth-formers are at an independent school according to wiki.
Fair point. Btu, certainly, the army officer class is disproportionately drawn from the privately educated.
How many state schools have CCF contingents (and I know some do from direct experience: in most schools seeing some of your pupils with weapons would lead to a panicked call to the Head or even the police, in that one you just thought “must be Thursday” and moved on).
Mine does.
Not that some of them need an excuse to carry weapons, tbf.
I once confiscated a sword...
Never been that far. A kukri is the best one I've had to deal with.
We have lost control, when is the Government going to get a grip
Given we haven't seen a massive increase in hospital admissions I would agree with PT and say that is really good news
Yes. It's like back in the early stages of the pandemic when we didn't know what the prevalence of infection was.
With the difference that in the early days we had even giving up testing the symptomatic and we had very little idea indeed about what was going on.
Whereas now we are testing both the symptomatic and the asymptomatic in all sorts of ways, and we have statistics about infection rates coming out of our ears.
Will the Labour membership vote for a woman? Every single woman who has stood for a membership vote for leader, has been beaten by every man in the contest.
Finally an admission from the right that status quo/traditional selection processes dont automatically pick the best person for the job. Hope that will be remembered for the next positive discrimination discussions, the Labour Party is a great example to use.
If the prior processes are not picking the right person for the job then the solution is to tackle the discrimination so that going forwards the best person is chosen.
"Positive discrimination" is still discrimination, it doesn't do that.
Yes of course, if you could magically get rid of all the discriminatory biases and processes in the real world that would be fantastic. Also magical, it ain't gonna happen. Human brains are built on using bias and pattern recognition very heavily, more than we use rationality.
No need for magic, just tackling the real issues.
"Positive discrimination" is no better at finding the right person for the job, if you're still discriminating against the people you were discriminating against then the 'right person' still suffers because they're being discriminated against. Promoting someone else from the same group because "they all look the same" to you isn't a fix.
What if the organisation has never had a minority C-level executive. And it interviews two candidates for one such role and they are exactly equal and one is from the minority whose inequality you want to address and one is from the prevailing majority.
Mermaids gets everywhere, doesn't it?
On @TOPPING’s question, there is a few problems that can arise from his scenario:
1. The losing candidate says “they only got it because they were x” causing resentment towards x
Damn didn’t finish
2. If you have a positive discrimination policy, there is always the question of “did they only get the job because they were x?”.
I’m Topping’s scenario, it would be much better just to toss a coin.
Not at all. Change needs to happen. Once in the job people can prove themselves. And no one has given a tuppenny fuck historically if someone in the job who is not a minority only got the job on that basis.
Actually a lot of us have given a fuck historically about that and that's why we oppose such discrimination.
Simply saying "bad things happened in the past" isn't a good reason to do what you know to be bad today though either.
Either you believe sexism and racism is bad, or you don't.
You are drawing the line once the discrimination has happened. You are saying the minorities have suffered but now we must treat everyone fairly.
You are ignoring history and proceeding from the premise of inequality, thus baking it in for the future.
Yes I am unabashedly drawing the line. We must treat everyone fairly.
If there's issues with inequality then that should be tackled based upon need, not based upon discrimination. I don't think Sunak's kids will need discrimination in their favour because of "baked in" discrimination, do you? But other's might do regardless of race. If support is needed give it to whoever needs it, for whatever reason they need it.
I think this is the crucial point.
Let's look at America. Does anyone think that the Obamas' children will face as severe challenges as the children of white unemployed opium addicts living in small town West Virginia?
Your chances in life are determined by more than just your race, sex or sexual orientation.
With that being said, there are very real problems of racism in the United States. White police departments and black neighbourhoods stink of foreign occupation. I have little doubt that - no matter how talented they were - a talented black man would be effectively barred from rising to the top of a police department in much of the South.
As the police are the most visible arm of the State for most people, and have the legal monopoly on violence, this is - I would submit - a B.F.D, that does far more to hammer the life chances of African Americans than anything else.
Edit to add: I heard a story about a black lawyer in New York from a (lawyer) friend of mine here. Said black lawyer was arrested on suspicion of being someone else. The case got all the way to court with the police refusing to believe he was who he said he was, and it was only when the Prosecutor got up and said "Judge, I was at Harvard Law School with the Defendent, and he is not who the police say he is" that the case was dropped. It was a genuinely shocking story.
One of the most disturbing features of US policing is that you have David Grossman (and others) training policemen to think of themselves as members of an army of occupation.
Did you read the New Yorker article about the former CIA agent who became a police officer?
Summarising - in the CIA you're taught everything about guns and shooting. But you're also taught that you never pull your gun, except as an absolutely last resort. It's a hell of a lot easier to deescalate a situation if you're not waving a gun around.
In the police he was taught that he should never go into a situation without his gun drawn, resulting in far more bloody outcomes.
The Metaverse was a communal VR environment started by by hackers, but largely owned by corporate interests
Zuckerberg is probably L. Bob Rife.
I doubt he will listen to Reason.
I've read that one Too!
I'd assume more people will be familiar with Ready Player One.
I always wanted to order pizza from the Mafia. I wonder about their policy on pineapple toppings?
You have fish with it.
That is, after getting your order they drop you in the sea.
That's why having a thermonuclear bomb wired to a heart rate monitor in the sidecar of your motorbike is actually a good idea. You can order whatever pizza you want, and everyone is polite.
Mr. kinabalu, apologies, I missed your reply before.
I'm not in favour of limiting recruitment by sex. Because of the particular nature of primary school teachers (often providing parental figures for those either lacking one or both parents or as a better version if said parents are rather bad examples) and the heavily slanted sex composition of schoolteachers I would like to see a recruitment drive for male teachers to increase the numbers. I would not advocate either all-male shortlists or some sort of quota, however.
Well that would be positive discrimination - and I think I'd agree with it too. So, ok, you bridle at "quotas" and the like, but you can get behind positive discrimination where you see a real problem. Therefore it's a matter of where you see these real problems. Maybe that's restricted to 'too few men in primary teaching' but I'd be surprised if this were the case. I mean, there's so many high status arenas where women and/or certain minorities and/or working class people are underrepresented. There really is no doubt about that. It's simply a matter of do we wish to address it and if so how. My suspicion is that the answers are (i) not really and (ii) n/a. I think we're oddly attached to privilege in this country. We quite like it, including many of those who don't have it. We find it a comfortable notion.
If by positive discrimination all you mean is adverts targeted at a group that don’t normally apply for a particular job persuading them to give it a try, then I don’t think anyone would have a problem with it.
Mr. kinabalu, apologies, I missed your reply before.
I'm not in favour of limiting recruitment by sex. Because of the particular nature of primary school teachers (often providing parental figures for those either lacking one or both parents or as a better version if said parents are rather bad examples) and the heavily slanted sex composition of schoolteachers I would like to see a recruitment drive for male teachers to increase the numbers. I would not advocate either all-male shortlists or some sort of quota, however.
Well that would be positive discrimination - and I think I'd agree with it too. So, ok, you bridle at "quotas" and the like, but you can get behind positive discrimination where you see a real problem. Therefore it's a matter of where you see these real problems. Maybe that's restricted to 'too few men in primary teaching' but I'd be surprised if this were the case. I mean, there's so many high status arenas where women and/or certain minorities and/or working class people are underrepresented. There really is no doubt about that. It's simply a matter of do we wish to address it and if so how. My suspicion is that the answers are (i) not really and (ii) n/a. I think we're oddly attached to privilege in this country. We quite like it, including many of those who don't have it. We find it a comfortable notion.
We are attached to privilege but not just in this country.
When we gain a coveted position, most of us take the view that "God has given us the Papacy, let us enjoy it."
Will the Labour membership vote for a woman? Every single woman who has stood for a membership vote for leader, has been beaten by every man in the contest.
Finally an admission from the right that status quo/traditional selection processes dont automatically pick the best person for the job. Hope that will be remembered for the next positive discrimination discussions, the Labour Party is a great example to use.
If the prior processes are not picking the right person for the job then the solution is to tackle the discrimination so that going forwards the best person is chosen.
"Positive discrimination" is still discrimination, it doesn't do that.
Yes of course, if you could magically get rid of all the discriminatory biases and processes in the real world that would be fantastic. Also magical, it ain't gonna happen. Human brains are built on using bias and pattern recognition very heavily, more than we use rationality.
No need for magic, just tackling the real issues.
"Positive discrimination" is no better at finding the right person for the job, if you're still discriminating against the people you were discriminating against then the 'right person' still suffers because they're being discriminated against. Promoting someone else from the same group because "they all look the same" to you isn't a fix.
What if the organisation has never had a minority C-level executive. And it interviews two candidates for one such role and they are exactly equal and one is from the minority whose inequality you want to address and one is from the prevailing majority.
Mermaids gets everywhere, doesn't it?
On @TOPPING’s question, there is a few problems that can arise from his scenario:
1. The losing candidate says “they only got it because they were x” causing resentment towards x
Damn didn’t finish
2. If you have a positive discrimination policy, there is always the question of “did they only get the job because they were x?”.
I’m Topping’s scenario, it would be much better just to toss a coin.
Not at all. Change needs to happen. Once in the job people can prove themselves. And no one has given a tuppenny fuck historically if someone in the job who is not a minority only got the job on that basis.
Actually a lot of us have given a fuck historically about that and that's why we oppose such discrimination.
Simply saying "bad things happened in the past" isn't a good reason to do what you know to be bad today though either.
Either you believe sexism and racism is bad, or you don't.
You are drawing the line once the discrimination has happened. You are saying the minorities have suffered but now we must treat everyone fairly.
You are ignoring history and proceeding from the premise of inequality, thus baking it in for the future.
Yes I am unabashedly drawing the line. We must treat everyone fairly.
If there's issues with inequality then that should be tackled based upon need, not based upon discrimination. I don't think Sunak's kids will need discrimination in their favour because of "baked in" discrimination, do you? But other's might do regardless of race. If support is needed give it to whoever needs it, for whatever reason they need it.
I think this is the crucial point.
Let's look at America. Does anyone think that the Obamas' children will face as severe challenges as the children of white unemployed opium addicts living in small town West Virginia?
Your chances in life are determined by more than just your race, sex or sexual orientation.
With that being said, there are very real problems of racism in the United States. White police departments and black neighbourhoods stink of foreign occupation. I have little doubt that - no matter how talented they were - a talented black man would be effectively barred from rising to the top of a police department in much of the South.
As the police are the most visible arm of the State for most people, and have the legal monopoly on violence, this is - I would submit - a B.F.D, that does far more to hammer the life chances of African Americans than anything else.
Edit to add: I heard a story about a black lawyer in New York from a (lawyer) friend of mine here. Said black lawyer was arrested on suspicion of being someone else. The case got all the way to court with the police refusing to believe he was who he said he was, and it was only when the Prosecutor got up and said "Judge, I was at Harvard Law School with the Defendent, and he is not who the police say he is" that the case was dropped. It was a genuinely shocking story.
One of the most disturbing features of US policing is that you have David Grossman (and others) training policemen to think of themselves as members of an army of occupation.
Did you read the New Yorker article about the former CIA agent who became a police officer?
Summarising - in the CIA you're taught everything about guns and shooting. But you're also taught that you never pull your gun, except as an absolutely last resort. It's a hell of a lot easier to deescalate a situation if you're not waving a gun around.
In the police he was taught that he should never go into a situation without his gun drawn, resulting in far more bloody outcomes.
I didn't read the article, but I remember Mike Ehrmentraut making exactly that point in Better Call Saul.
I'd defend them there - it's pretty easy for a name to be something silly, offensive or amusing in another language, you won't be able to cover them all so why try too hard?
Because these things are really important to a company’s brand - and if you’re an $800bn company, you can afford to do the job properly.
My favorite along these lines was when Air France first started operating in Egypt, they did not bother to translate the name into Arabic (al khutuut aj-jawiya al faransiya), but simply transliterated it into the Arabic script and placed it as a huge neon light on top of a tall building at a major intersection downtown.
The trouble is that "indefinite noun+ definite noun/Proper noun" in Arabic equates to the possessive, "the a of b". And in colloquial Cairene, 'ayr' is 'penis'. So their big bright lights sign read "The penis of France".
If you're ill and you travel I do consider you inconsiderate now, assuming you have a choice to WFH.
I will WFH if I am ill as I did just recently but I will wear a mask going forwards to protect those around me incase I am not showing symptoms. To me that seems like a kind thing to do.
Of course I also just follow the rules but others don't, which is sad.
It rather depends on the circumstances. I've travelled cross-country by train twice while ill.
The first time was when I fell ill during the weekend while taking my daughter to visit her mother, my ex. It was not possible for me to stay in that city. I travelled home.
The second time was when I was ill while in London at a hotel for work. I travelled home at the end of my hotel booking.
If I had to do the same again I would now wear a mask to protect others. But that's different to wearing a mask all the time when the chances of being infectious are remote.
Why should one expect every profession to reflect the make up of society at large?
When they are making laws for society at large, frankly or even serving them coffee, then I think they absolutely should do.
You were an army officer. Should the army operate on the basis that 51% of its officer class must be be female, 15% from ethnic minorities, 93% from State schools etc.?
I struggle to see how the army would be worse if so. The entry requirements are the entry requirements.
And I've got to believe that we are close to that for those last two (ethnic minorities and state schools, although it probably repays some googling).
Edit: 12.9% ethnic minorities in the army it seems from Google.
And had you been turned down, because your particular social group had reached its quota for that year, would you consider that fair?
Edit: I do note that in 2019 49% of officer cadets came from private schools, compared to 7% of the population.
Where did you get that figure from? It is misleading at best: 7% of the school age population are at private schools, but as many mix and match the proportion that spend some time at a private school is over double: 18% of sixth-formers are at an independent school according to wiki.
Fair point. Btu, certainly, the army officer class is disproportionately drawn from the privately educated.
How many state schools have CCF contingents (and I know some do from direct experience: in most schools seeing some of your pupils with weapons would lead to a panicked call to the Head or even the police, in that one you just thought “must be Thursday” and moved on).
Mine does.
Not that some of them need an excuse to carry weapons, tbf.
I once confiscated a sword...
Never been that far. A kukri is the best one I've had to deal with.
The sword was not a big deal: I just returned it to the teacher in charge of fencing from whom he had “borrowed” it.
Will the Labour membership vote for a woman? Every single woman who has stood for a membership vote for leader, has been beaten by every man in the contest.
Finally an admission from the right that status quo/traditional selection processes dont automatically pick the best person for the job. Hope that will be remembered for the next positive discrimination discussions, the Labour Party is a great example to use.
If the prior processes are not picking the right person for the job then the solution is to tackle the discrimination so that going forwards the best person is chosen.
"Positive discrimination" is still discrimination, it doesn't do that.
Yes of course, if you could magically get rid of all the discriminatory biases and processes in the real world that would be fantastic. Also magical, it ain't gonna happen. Human brains are built on using bias and pattern recognition very heavily, more than we use rationality.
No need for magic, just tackling the real issues.
"Positive discrimination" is no better at finding the right person for the job, if you're still discriminating against the people you were discriminating against then the 'right person' still suffers because they're being discriminated against. Promoting someone else from the same group because "they all look the same" to you isn't a fix.
What if the organisation has never had a minority C-level executive. And it interviews two candidates for one such role and they are exactly equal and one is from the minority whose inequality you want to address and one is from the prevailing majority.
Mermaids gets everywhere, doesn't it?
On @TOPPING’s question, there is a few problems that can arise from his scenario:
1. The losing candidate says “they only got it because they were x” causing resentment towards x
Damn didn’t finish
2. If you have a positive discrimination policy, there is always the question of “did they only get the job because they were x?”.
I’m Topping’s scenario, it would be much better just to toss a coin.
Not at all. Change needs to happen. Once in the job people can prove themselves. And no one has given a tuppenny fuck historically if someone in the job who is not a minority only got the job on that basis.
Actually a lot of us have given a fuck historically about that and that's why we oppose such discrimination.
Simply saying "bad things happened in the past" isn't a good reason to do what you know to be bad today though either.
Either you believe sexism and racism is bad, or you don't.
You are drawing the line once the discrimination has happened. You are saying the minorities have suffered but now we must treat everyone fairly.
You are ignoring history and proceeding from the premise of inequality, thus baking it in for the future.
Yes I am unabashedly drawing the line. We must treat everyone fairly.
If there's issues with inequality then that should be tackled based upon need, not based upon discrimination. I don't think Sunak's kids will need discrimination in their favour because of "baked in" discrimination, do you? But other's might do regardless of race. If support is needed give it to whoever needs it, for whatever reason they need it.
I think this is the crucial point.
Let's look at America. Does anyone think that the Obamas' children will face as severe challenges as the children of white unemployed opium addicts living in small town West Virginia?
Your chances in life are determined by more than just your race, sex or sexual orientation.
With that being said, there are very real problems of racism in the United States. White police departments and black neighbourhoods stink of foreign occupation. I have little doubt that - no matter how talented they were - a talented black man would be effectively barred from rising to the top of a police department in much of the South.
As the police are the most visible arm of the State for most people, and have the legal monopoly on violence, this is - I would submit - a B.F.D, that does far more to hammer the life chances of African Americans than anything else.
Edit to add: I heard a story about a black lawyer in New York from a (lawyer) friend of mine here. Said black lawyer was arrested on suspicion of being someone else. The case got all the way to court with the police refusing to believe he was who he said he was, and it was only when the Prosecutor got up and said "Judge, I was at Harvard Law School with the Defendent, and he is not who the police say he is" that the case was dropped. It was a genuinely shocking story.
One of the most disturbing features of US policing is that you have David Grossman (and others) training policemen to think of themselves as members of an army of occupation.
Did you read the New Yorker article about the former CIA agent who became a police officer?
Summarising - in the CIA you're taught everything about guns and shooting. But you're also taught that you never pull your gun, except as an absolutely last resort. It's a hell of a lot easier to deescalate a situation if you're not waving a gun around.
In the police he was taught that he should never go into a situation without his gun drawn, resulting in far more bloody outcomes.
It was a great article. Should be required reading at every police academy
Will the Labour membership vote for a woman? Every single woman who has stood for a membership vote for leader, has been beaten by every man in the contest.
Finally an admission from the right that status quo/traditional selection processes dont automatically pick the best person for the job. Hope that will be remembered for the next positive discrimination discussions, the Labour Party is a great example to use.
If the prior processes are not picking the right person for the job then the solution is to tackle the discrimination so that going forwards the best person is chosen.
"Positive discrimination" is still discrimination, it doesn't do that.
Yes of course, if you could magically get rid of all the discriminatory biases and processes in the real world that would be fantastic. Also magical, it ain't gonna happen. Human brains are built on using bias and pattern recognition very heavily, more than we use rationality.
No need for magic, just tackling the real issues.
"Positive discrimination" is no better at finding the right person for the job, if you're still discriminating against the people you were discriminating against then the 'right person' still suffers because they're being discriminated against. Promoting someone else from the same group because "they all look the same" to you isn't a fix.
What if the organisation has never had a minority C-level executive. And it interviews two candidates for one such role and they are exactly equal and one is from the minority whose inequality you want to address and one is from the prevailing majority.
Mermaids gets everywhere, doesn't it?
On @TOPPING’s question, there is a few problems that can arise from his scenario:
1. The losing candidate says “they only got it because they were x” causing resentment towards x
Damn didn’t finish
2. If you have a positive discrimination policy, there is always the question of “did they only get the job because they were x?”.
I’m Topping’s scenario, it would be much better just to toss a coin.
Not at all. Change needs to happen. Once in the job people can prove themselves. And no one has given a tuppenny fuck historically if someone in the job who is not a minority only got the job on that basis.
Actually a lot of us have given a fuck historically about that and that's why we oppose such discrimination.
Simply saying "bad things happened in the past" isn't a good reason to do what you know to be bad today though either.
Either you believe sexism and racism is bad, or you don't.
You are drawing the line once the discrimination has happened. You are saying the minorities have suffered but now we must treat everyone fairly.
You are ignoring history and proceeding from the premise of inequality, thus baking it in for the future.
Yes I am unabashedly drawing the line. We must treat everyone fairly.
If there's issues with inequality then that should be tackled based upon need, not based upon discrimination. I don't think Sunak's kids will need discrimination in their favour because of "baked in" discrimination, do you? But other's might do regardless of race. If support is needed give it to whoever needs it, for whatever reason they need it.
I think this is the crucial point.
Let's look at America. Does anyone think that the Obamas' children will face as severe challenges as the children of white unemployed opium addicts living in small town West Virginia?
Your chances in life are determined by more than just your race, sex or sexual orientation.
With that being said, there are very real problems of racism in the United States. White police departments and black neighbourhoods stink of foreign occupation. I have little doubt that - no matter how talented they were - a talented black man would be effectively barred from rising to the top of a police department in much of the South.
As the police are the most visible arm of the State for most people, and have the legal monopoly on violence, this is - I would submit - a B.F.D, that does far more to hammer the life chances of African Americans than anything else.
Edit to add: I heard a story about a black lawyer in New York from a (lawyer) friend of mine here. Said black lawyer was arrested on suspicion of being someone else. The case got all the way to court with the police refusing to believe he was who he said he was, and it was only when the Prosecutor got up and said "Judge, I was at Harvard Law School with the Defendent, and he is not who the police say he is" that the case was dropped. It was a genuinely shocking story.
One of the most disturbing features of US policing is that you have David Grossman (and others) training policemen to think of themselves as members of an army of occupation.
Did you read the New Yorker article about the former CIA agent who became a police officer?
Summarising - in the CIA you're taught everything about guns and shooting. But you're also taught that you never pull your gun, except as an absolutely last resort. It's a hell of a lot easier to deescalate a situation if you're not waving a gun around.
In the police he was taught that he should never go into a situation without his gun drawn, resulting in far more bloody outcomes.
I didn't read the article, but I remember Mike Ehrmentraut making exactly that point in Better Call Saul.
I thought it was a Special Forces guy who'd done some CIAish stuff then became a police officer.
And yes, he was totally into de-escalation and getting to know the "street people" on a friendly basis.
The Metaverse was a communal VR environment started by by hackers, but largely owned by corporate interests
Zuckerberg is probably L. Bob Rife.
I doubt he will listen to Reason.
I've read that one Too!
I'd assume more people will be familiar with Ready Player One.
I always wanted to order pizza from the Mafia. I wonder about their policy on pineapple toppings?
You have fish with it.
That is, after getting your order they drop you in the sea.
That's why having a thermonuclear bomb wired to a heart rate monitor in the sidecar of your motorbike is actually a good idea. You can order whatever pizza you want, and everyone is polite.
I’d be thinking “must make sure this is nice and healthy: are you sure you want a pizza?”
I'd defend them there - it's pretty easy for a name to be something silly, offensive or amusing in another language, you won't be able to cover them all so why try too hard?
Because these things are really important to a company’s brand - and if you’re an $800bn company, you can afford to do the job properly.
My favorite along these lines was when Air France first started operating in Egypt, they did not bother to translate the name into Arabic (al khutuut aj-jawiya al faransiya), but simply transliterated it into the Arabic script and placed it as a huge neon light on top of a tall building at a major intersection downtown.
The trouble is that "indefinite noun+ definite noun/Proper noun" in Arabic equates to the possessive, "the a of b". And in colloquial Cairene, 'ayr' is 'penis'. So their big bright lights sign read "The penis of France".
The perils of not having a proper local presence in a country, who would have spotted a silly colloquial metaphor before the company made dicks of themselves in neon lights!
I await to see the male-only shortlists for primary school teachers.
Would you like to see that?
Personally, no (you can’t say one form of positive discrimination is wrong and another is right) but something needs to be done in that area.
Why can't one discriminate between different types of discrimination? I gave an example earlier.
Top uni has 100 places and 20,000 applicants all expecting to get the AAA criteria and with school reports saying they'd do great on the courses offered. The applicants are split 50/50 state v private school but the uni wants to favour state applicants and so splits its offers 75/25.
That's a world away from (eg) a merchant bank going, "We need a new CFO, let's get a black woman with a gammy leg, tick 3 boxes in one go, what?"
Exaggerating to make the point there obviously. But the point is surely right. You CAN be in favour of one form of positive discrimination but not another. Course you can.
If there's 20,000 applicants all getting AAA and only 100 places, that's a failure of the letter system that we use. Not all A's will be the same, but they're all treated the same.
In Victoria, Australia when I lived there the locals did a system called the VCE which ranked people based upon percentile. The top people in the state would get 99.95, the next would get 99.9, then 99.85 etc down in 0.05 increments down to a bottom percentile of 30 (since 30% wouldn't sit the VCE or wouldn't pass).
That way there'd only be about 4 or 5 people statewide getting the same grade, instead of letters and everyone getting an A. Plus grade inflation is impossible in a percentile ranking.
Universities then could set the cut-off for applications at an exact percentile to fill the spots rather than sifting through tens of thousands on the "same" grade.
Sounds good. Very very discriminating, as it were. But the issue doesn't go away.
I get 99.95 from a top school. You get 99.9 from one in Special Measures.
You've beaten me, really, haven't you? (just for once)
If there's one place going at BEST UNI that we both want, they should go with you, right? Or at least to go with you wouldn't be utterly outrageous and a violation of all that's good and true in this world, would it?
For the last 4 days regarded as broadly complete (up to Sunday 24th), number of cases by sample date ÷ number of cases by sample date the previous week =
Just to add to my bits of positive discrimination, I think academic admissions should concentrate on potential, not just on grades to date.
My daughter goes to a very pushy private school here in Los Angeles. I have absolutely no doubt that she will ace her SATs for college. But then so she should - she'll have been very intensively coached for them in a highly competitive environment. She will be achieving 99% of her best possible result.
For someone from a cash starved school (all the public money is going on historic pensions), and where parents didn't go to college, and just getting kids to graduate is the major goal of the teachers, then kids aren't going to be performing at 99% of their potential. Academic admissions should reflect that.
Yes. If you were a Cambridge admissions tutor for history, who has the most potential? The candidate with an A* from Eton, or the w/c candidate with an A* from Bootle comprehensive? Hard to tell, but I know which is the greater achievement. This gets more tricky if the same two candidates had, respectively, say A*A*A*,and A*AA. Would it be legitimate to positively discriminate in favour of the latter? On the grounds of potential, I'd suggest yes.
I'd defend them there - it's pretty easy for a name to be something silly, offensive or amusing in another language, you won't be able to cover them all so why try too hard?
Because these things are really important to a company’s brand - and if you’re an $800bn company, you can afford to do the job properly.
My favorite along these lines was when Air France first started operating in Egypt, they did not bother to translate the name into Arabic (al khutuut aj-jawiya al faransiya), but simply transliterated it into the Arabic script and placed it as a huge neon light on top of a tall building at a major intersection downtown.
The trouble is that "indefinite noun+ definite noun/Proper noun" in Arabic equates to the possessive, "the a of b". And in colloquial Cairene, 'ayr' is 'penis'. So their big bright lights sign read "The penis of France".
Can anyone who has flown with them say if this was an accurate description?
Well, the Orcadians wouldn't like it if you dug up a large part of western Mainland for the necessary ore. (Which was mooted for a time in the 1970s, as I recall.)
Just to add to my bits of positive discrimination, I think academic admissions should concentrate on potential, not just on grades to date.
My daughter goes to a very pushy private school here in Los Angeles. I have absolutely no doubt that she will ace her SATs for college. But then so she should - she'll have been very intensively coached for them in a highly competitive environment. She will be achieving 99% of her best possible result.
For someone from a cash starved school (all the public money is going on historic pensions), and where parents didn't go to college, and just getting kids to graduate is the major goal of the teachers, then kids aren't going to be performing at 99% of their potential. Academic admissions should reflect that.
Yes. If you were a Cambridge admissions tutor for history, who has the most potential? The candidate with an A* from Eton, or the w/c candidate with an A* from Bootle comprehensive? Hard to tell, but I know which is the greater achievement. This gets more tricky if the same two candidates had, respectively, say A*A*A*,and A*AA. Would it be legitimate to positively discriminate in favour of the latter? On the grounds of potential, I'd suggest yes.
What more could the first candidate have done?
In theory this is where the interview comes in, though I know they can be gamed as well.
Plan B now. In a few weeks I think we will regret not taking action now.
Basically agree, but plan B has a mix of stuff in there, some of which I'm not sure about.
We should definitely do all the low/no-cost stuff: bring back facemasks for public spaces/transit/buildings, encourage WFH. We should also be doing better ventilation in schools, workplaces. We could update the symptom guidelines which are out of date. We could be sorting out sick pay for people isolating.
Basically throw everything cheap and easy at this. Then hope it's enough.
Just to add to my bits of positive discrimination, I think academic admissions should concentrate on potential, not just on grades to date.
My daughter goes to a very pushy private school here in Los Angeles. I have absolutely no doubt that she will ace her SATs for college. But then so she should - she'll have been very intensively coached for them in a highly competitive environment. She will be achieving 99% of her best possible result.
For someone from a cash starved school (all the public money is going on historic pensions), and where parents didn't go to college, and just getting kids to graduate is the major goal of the teachers, then kids aren't going to be performing at 99% of their potential. Academic admissions should reflect that.
Yes. If you were a Cambridge admissions tutor for history, who has the most potential? The candidate with an A* from Eton, or the w/c candidate with an A* from Bootle comprehensive? Hard to tell, but I know which is the greater achievement. This gets more tricky if the same two candidates had, respectively, say A*A*A*,and A*AA. Would it be legitimate to positively discriminate in favour of the latter? On the grounds of potential, I'd suggest yes.
Here's an idea - How about having more than two universities in the UK?
Just to add to my bits of positive discrimination, I think academic admissions should concentrate on potential, not just on grades to date.
My daughter goes to a very pushy private school here in Los Angeles. I have absolutely no doubt that she will ace her SATs for college. But then so she should - she'll have been very intensively coached for them in a highly competitive environment. She will be achieving 99% of her best possible result.
For someone from a cash starved school (all the public money is going on historic pensions), and where parents didn't go to college, and just getting kids to graduate is the major goal of the teachers, then kids aren't going to be performing at 99% of their potential. Academic admissions should reflect that.
Yes. If you were a Cambridge admissions tutor for history, who has the most potential? The candidate with an A* from Eton, or the w/c candidate with an A* from Bootle comprehensive? Hard to tell, but I know which is the greater achievement. This gets more tricky if the same two candidates had, respectively, say A*A*A*,and A*AA. Would it be legitimate to positively discriminate in favour of the latter? On the grounds of potential, I'd suggest yes.
What more could the first candidate have done?
In theory this is where the interview comes in, though I know they can be gamed as well.
They might have also been someone from a disadvantaged background that got a scholarship to go to Eton.
I'd defend them there - it's pretty easy for a name to be something silly, offensive or amusing in another language, you won't be able to cover them all so why try too hard?
Because these things are really important to a company’s brand - and if you’re an $800bn company, you can afford to do the job properly.
My favorite along these lines was when Air France first started operating in Egypt, they did not bother to translate the name into Arabic (al khutuut aj-jawiya al faransiya), but simply transliterated it into the Arabic script and placed it as a huge neon light on top of a tall building at a major intersection downtown.
The trouble is that "indefinite noun+ definite noun/Proper noun" in Arabic equates to the possessive, "the a of b". And in colloquial Cairene, 'ayr' is 'penis'. So their big bright lights sign read "The penis of France".
Can anyone who has flown with them say if this was an accurate description?
Air France once upgraded me. I spent days getting the perfume smell off me from the unnecessarily scented hot towel. Perhaps I now know why the perfume was needed.
Plan B now. In a few weeks I think we will regret not taking action now.
Basically agree, but plan B has a mix of stuff in there, some of which I'm not sure about.
We should definitely do all the low/no-cost stuff: bring back facemasks for public spaces/transit/buildings, encourage WFH. We should also be doing better ventilation in schools, workplaces. We could update the symptom guidelines which are out of date. We could be sorting out sick pay for people isolating.
Basically throw everything cheap and easy at this. Then hope it's enough.
Your daily reminder that mandating masks in public spaces is not no cost.
Why should one expect every profession to reflect the make up of society at large?
When they are making laws for society at large, frankly or even serving them coffee, then I think they absolutely should do.
You were an army officer. Should the army operate on the basis that 51% of its officer class must be be female, 15% from ethnic minorities, 93% from State schools etc.?
I struggle to see how the army would be worse if so. The entry requirements are the entry requirements.
And I've got to believe that we are close to that for those last two (ethnic minorities and state schools, although it probably repays some googling).
Edit: 12.9% ethnic minorities in the army it seems from Google.
And had you been turned down, because your particular social group had reached its quota for that year, would you consider that fair?
Edit: I do note that in 2019 49% of officer cadets came from private schools, compared to 7% of the population.
Yes we both saw that BBC article which I edited my post to reflect.
It is what it is. If they had said no more people from my social group then first I wouldn't have known and secondly the army would have come to represent far more closely society at large earlier. I can't see how that is a bad thing but neither can I go back in time to assess my reaction.
IMHO, it would be unfair for you to be prevented from pursuing a profession to which you were well-suited because you were deemed to come from a group which was, in aggregate, more privileged than the average. That takes into account neither your abilities, nor your individual circumstances.
In the hierarchy of unfairnesses that this world habitually metes out such an entry would be towards the bottom, I'd suggest. To put it in your compact sardonic style, "worst things happen at sea."
And if it leads to a rather greater reduction in a different and more unfair unfairness, it's surely worth considering. By which I mean let's not rule all this sort of thing out just because it sounds 'woke' or something. Making progress towards Levelling Up - in a meaningful non-noddy, non-Johnson sense - is hard enough without throwing away the tool of positive discrimination.
"Worse things happen at sea" could be applied to the vast majority of issues that we get worked up about in the modern UK. I think still that setting quotas for entry to professions would be an unreasonable degree of interference in peoples' lives by the government.
See, for me that is being more doctrinaire than supporting positive discrimination in certain limited circumstances (eg where there's a big lack of diversity issue and it might work to kick-start change). You're blanket ruling it out for ideological reasons.
Just to add to my bits of positive discrimination, I think academic admissions should concentrate on potential, not just on grades to date.
My daughter goes to a very pushy private school here in Los Angeles. I have absolutely no doubt that she will ace her SATs for college. But then so she should - she'll have been very intensively coached for them in a highly competitive environment. She will be achieving 99% of her best possible result.
For someone from a cash starved school (all the public money is going on historic pensions), and where parents didn't go to college, and just getting kids to graduate is the major goal of the teachers, then kids aren't going to be performing at 99% of their potential. Academic admissions should reflect that.
Yes. If you were a Cambridge admissions tutor for history, who has the most potential? The candidate with an A* from Eton, or the w/c candidate with an A* from Bootle comprehensive? Hard to tell, but I know which is the greater achievement. This gets more tricky if the same two candidates had, respectively, say A*A*A*,and A*AA. Would it be legitimate to positively discriminate in favour of the latter? On the grounds of potential, I'd suggest yes.
Here's an idea - How about having more than two universities in the UK?
Why? Do you think we really need more than just Cambridge and Edinburgh?
Just to add to my bits of positive discrimination, I think academic admissions should concentrate on potential, not just on grades to date.
My daughter goes to a very pushy private school here in Los Angeles. I have absolutely no doubt that she will ace her SATs for college. But then so she should - she'll have been very intensively coached for them in a highly competitive environment. She will be achieving 99% of her best possible result.
For someone from a cash starved school (all the public money is going on historic pensions), and where parents didn't go to college, and just getting kids to graduate is the major goal of the teachers, then kids aren't going to be performing at 99% of their potential. Academic admissions should reflect that.
Yes. If you were a Cambridge admissions tutor for history, who has the most potential? The candidate with an A* from Eton, or the w/c candidate with an A* from Bootle comprehensive? Hard to tell, but I know which is the greater achievement. This gets more tricky if the same two candidates had, respectively, say A*A*A*,and A*AA. Would it be legitimate to positively discriminate in favour of the latter? On the grounds of potential, I'd suggest yes.
What more could the first candidate have done?
In theory this is where the interview comes in, though I know they can be gamed as well.
They might have also been someone from a disadvantaged background that got a scholarship to go to Eton.
Plan B now. In a few weeks I think we will regret not taking action now.
Basically agree, but plan B has a mix of stuff in there, some of which I'm not sure about.
We should definitely do all the low/no-cost stuff: bring back facemasks for public spaces/transit/buildings, encourage WFH. We should also be doing better ventilation in schools, workplaces. We could update the symptom guidelines which are out of date. We could be sorting out sick pay for people isolating.
Basically throw everything cheap and easy at this. Then hope it's enough.
Your daily reminder that mandating masks in public spaces is not no cost.
+ it doesn't even work cf Scotland and England Covid rates during the Summer/Autumn.
Plan B now. In a few weeks I think we will regret not taking action now.
Basically agree, but plan B has a mix of stuff in there, some of which I'm not sure about.
We should definitely do all the low/no-cost stuff: bring back facemasks for public spaces/transit/buildings, encourage WFH. We should also be doing better ventilation in schools, workplaces. We could update the symptom guidelines which are out of date. We could be sorting out sick pay for people isolating.
Basically throw everything cheap and easy at this. Then hope it's enough.
Your daily reminder that mandating masks in public spaces is not no cost.
I've been trying very hard to get myself out of my shell while I've been in Ireland, now that I'm double-vaccinated. Dealing with the fear generated by mandatory masks everywhere is the greatest impediment I am facing.
Plan B now. In a few weeks I think we will regret not taking action now.
Basically agree, but plan B has a mix of stuff in there, some of which I'm not sure about.
We should definitely do all the low/no-cost stuff: bring back facemasks for public spaces/transit/buildings, encourage WFH. We should also be doing better ventilation in schools, workplaces. We could update the symptom guidelines which are out of date. We could be sorting out sick pay for people isolating.
Basically throw everything cheap and easy at this. Then hope it's enough.
Your daily reminder that mandating masks in public spaces is not no cost.
+ it doesn't even work cf Scotland and England Covid rates during the Summer/Autumn.
I'm going to copy and paste this as often as is needed:
I've been thinking about how to best explain why the "Wales / England, masks / maskless" comparisons don't work. It's a car analogy.
Person A: "Using winter tyres in the summer uses more petrol, so it's better to shift to summer tyres when it's warm." Person B: "Ah-ha, but I'm using winter tyres here in Norfolk and you're using summer tyres there in Braemar, and my fuel efficiency is the same as yours! Therefore it makes no difference!" Person A: "Yes, because I'm forever driving up steep hills, and you're not. It would be worse again for me if I was using winter tyres"
Obviously, this vignette also proves nothing, but try to keep it in mind when you think about bulk comparisons between two different places implementing different policies.
The claim is that masks lower infection rates compared to not using them. The claim is NOT that masks make your infection rates lower than unmasked places.
It's a subtlety that can easily be lost in a debate, but it's a vital one for any system where multiple independent variables control a dependent variable (which is say basically everything in the real world).
To be honest, an all woman shortlist might be the only way Labour elects a female leader. And even then I'm not convinced that they wouldn't mess it up!
Would physically-male-candidates-who-self-identify-as-women* be allowed to stand
* genuine question - am so confused by the right words now… there must be a snappier way of describing someone like that?
Transwomen.
Sorry to hear about the confusion over words. I'm sure it's nothing. Did you get your 8 hours last night?
I start from the position of not wishing to inadvertently cause offence. As the topic is so fast moving and controversial and I don’t really care enough to follow it in detail I didn’t want to make a mistake
Plan B now. In a few weeks I think we will regret not taking action now.
Basically agree, but plan B has a mix of stuff in there, some of which I'm not sure about.
We should definitely do all the low/no-cost stuff: bring back facemasks for public spaces/transit/buildings, encourage WFH. We should also be doing better ventilation in schools, workplaces. We could update the symptom guidelines which are out of date. We could be sorting out sick pay for people isolating.
Basically throw everything cheap and easy at this. Then hope it's enough.
Your daily reminder that mandating masks in public spaces is not no cost.
+ it doesn't even work cf Scotland and England Covid rates during the Summer/Autumn.
I'm going to copy and paste this as often as is needed:
I've been thinking about how to best explain why the "Wales / England, masks / maskless" comparisons don't work. It's a car analogy.
Person A: "Using winter tyres in the summer uses more petrol, so it's better to shift to summer tyres when it's warm." Person B: "Ah-ha, but I'm using winter tyres here in Norfolk and you're using summer tyres there in Braemar, and my fuel efficiency is the same as yours! Therefore it makes no difference!" Person A: "Yes, because I'm forever driving up steep hills, and you're not. It would be worse again for me if I was using winter tyres"
Obviously, this vignette also proves nothing, but try to keep it in mind when you think about bulk comparisons between two different places implementing different policies.
The claim is that masks lower infection rates compared to not using them. The claim is NOT that masks make your infection rates lower than unmasked places.
It's a subtlety that can easily be lost in a debate, but it's a vital one for any system where multiple independent variables control a dependent variable (which is say basically everything in the real world).
I'm too drunk too understand the nuances in your argument. But I wear my mask in the local shop when most people don't seem to.
Just to add to my bits of positive discrimination, I think academic admissions should concentrate on potential, not just on grades to date.
My daughter goes to a very pushy private school here in Los Angeles. I have absolutely no doubt that she will ace her SATs for college. But then so she should - she'll have been very intensively coached for them in a highly competitive environment. She will be achieving 99% of her best possible result.
For someone from a cash starved school (all the public money is going on historic pensions), and where parents didn't go to college, and just getting kids to graduate is the major goal of the teachers, then kids aren't going to be performing at 99% of their potential. Academic admissions should reflect that.
Yes. If you were a Cambridge admissions tutor for history, who has the most potential? The candidate with an A* from Eton, or the w/c candidate with an A* from Bootle comprehensive? Hard to tell, but I know which is the greater achievement. This gets more tricky if the same two candidates had, respectively, say A*A*A*,and A*AA. Would it be legitimate to positively discriminate in favour of the latter? On the grounds of potential, I'd suggest yes.
What more could the first candidate have done?
In theory this is where the interview comes in, though I know they can be gamed as well.
For the last 4 days regarded as broadly complete (up to Sunday 24th), number of cases by sample date ÷ number of cases by sample date the previous week =
0.97, 0.93, 0.92, 0.81.
Hospital admissions:
Number of admissions by admission date ÷ number of admissions by admission date the previous week (up to Mon 25/10).
Plan B now. In a few weeks I think we will regret not taking action now.
Basically agree, but plan B has a mix of stuff in there, some of which I'm not sure about.
We should definitely do all the low/no-cost stuff: bring back facemasks for public spaces/transit/buildings, encourage WFH. We should also be doing better ventilation in schools, workplaces. We could update the symptom guidelines which are out of date. We could be sorting out sick pay for people isolating.
Basically throw everything cheap and easy at this. Then hope it's enough.
Your daily reminder that mandating masks in public spaces is not no cost.
+ it doesn't even work cf Scotland and England Covid rates during the Summer/Autumn.
I'm going to copy and paste this as often as is needed:
I've been thinking about how to best explain why the "Wales / England, masks / maskless" comparisons don't work. It's a car analogy.
Person A: "Using winter tyres in the summer uses more petrol, so it's better to shift to summer tyres when it's warm." Person B: "Ah-ha, but I'm using winter tyres here in Norfolk and you're using summer tyres there in Braemar, and my fuel efficiency is the same as yours! Therefore it makes no difference!" Person A: "Yes, because I'm forever driving up steep hills, and you're not. It would be worse again for me if I was using winter tyres"
Obviously, this vignette also proves nothing, but try to keep it in mind when you think about bulk comparisons between two different places implementing different policies.
The claim is that masks lower infection rates compared to not using them. The claim is NOT that masks make your infection rates lower than unmasked places.
It's a subtlety that can easily be lost in a debate, but it's a vital one for any system where multiple independent variables control a dependent variable (which is say basically everything in the real world).
I'm too drunk too understand the nuances in your argument. But I wear my mask in the local shop when most people don't seem to.
Then I'll simplify it: you might well be saving their lives, so well done.
Plan B now. In a few weeks I think we will regret not taking action now.
Basically agree, but plan B has a mix of stuff in there, some of which I'm not sure about.
We should definitely do all the low/no-cost stuff: bring back facemasks for public spaces/transit/buildings, encourage WFH. We should also be doing better ventilation in schools, workplaces. We could update the symptom guidelines which are out of date. We could be sorting out sick pay for people isolating.
Basically throw everything cheap and easy at this. Then hope it's enough.
Your daily reminder that mandating masks in public spaces is not no cost.
+ it doesn't even work cf Scotland and England Covid rates during the Summer/Autumn.
I'm going to copy and paste this as often as is needed:
I've been thinking about how to best explain why the "Wales / England, masks / maskless" comparisons don't work. It's a car analogy.
Person A: "Using winter tyres in the summer uses more petrol, so it's better to shift to summer tyres when it's warm." Person B: "Ah-ha, but I'm using winter tyres here in Norfolk and you're using summer tyres there in Braemar, and my fuel efficiency is the same as yours! Therefore it makes no difference!" Person A: "Yes, because I'm forever driving up steep hills, and you're not. It would be worse again for me if I was using winter tyres"
Obviously, this vignette also proves nothing, but try to keep it in mind when you think about bulk comparisons between two different places implementing different policies.
The claim is that masks lower infection rates compared to not using them. The claim is NOT that masks make your infection rates lower than unmasked places.
It's a subtlety that can easily be lost in a debate, but it's a vital one for any system where multiple independent variables control a dependent variable (which is say basically everything in the real world).
I'm too drunk too understand the nuances in your argument. But I wear my mask in the local shop when most people don't seem to.
Then I'll simplify it: you might well be saving their lives, so well done.
I understood your point on re-reading. I don't really agree but I do wear my mask so a happy compromise.
To be honest, an all woman shortlist might be the only way Labour elects a female leader. And even then I'm not convinced that they wouldn't mess it up!
Would physically-male-candidates-who-self-identify-as-women* be allowed to stand
* genuine question - am so confused by the right words now… there must be a snappier way of describing someone like that?
Transwomen.
Sorry to hear about the confusion over words. I'm sure it's nothing. Did you get your 8 hours last night?
I start from the position of not wishing to inadvertently cause offence. As the topic is so fast moving and controversial and I don’t really care enough to follow it in detail I didn’t want to make a mistake
The Metaverse was a communal VR environment started by by hackers, but largely owned by corporate interests
Zuckerberg is probably L. Bob Rife.
I doubt he will listen to Reason.
I've read that one Too!
I'd assume more people will be familiar with Ready Player One.
I always wanted to order pizza from the Mafia. I wonder about their policy on pineapple toppings?
You have fish with it.
That is, after getting your order they drop you in the sea.
That's why having a thermonuclear bomb wired to a heart rate monitor in the sidecar of your motorbike is actually a good idea. You can order whatever pizza you want, and everyone is polite.
I'll have to take your word for that, never having tried it...
Why should one expect every profession to reflect the make up of society at large?
When they are making laws for society at large, frankly or even serving them coffee, then I think they absolutely should do.
You were an army officer. Should the army operate on the basis that 51% of its officer class must be be female, 15% from ethnic minorities, 93% from State schools etc.?
I struggle to see how the army would be worse if so. The entry requirements are the entry requirements.
And I've got to believe that we are close to that for those last two (ethnic minorities and state schools, although it probably repays some googling).
Edit: 12.9% ethnic minorities in the army it seems from Google.
And had you been turned down, because your particular social group had reached its quota for that year, would you consider that fair?
Edit: I do note that in 2019 49% of officer cadets came from private schools, compared to 7% of the population.
Where did you get that figure from? It is misleading at best: 7% of the school age population are at private schools, but as many mix and match the proportion that spend some time at a private school is over double: 18% of sixth-formers are at an independent school according to wiki.
Fair point. Btu, certainly, the army officer class is disproportionately drawn from the privately educated.
How many state schools have CCF contingents (and I know some do from direct experience: in most schools seeing some of your pupils with weapons would lead to a panicked call to the Head or even the police, in that one you just thought “must be Thursday” and moved on).
Mine does.
Not that some of them need an excuse to carry weapons, tbf.
I once confiscated a sword...
Never been that far. A kukri is the best one I've had to deal with.
The sword was not a big deal: I just returned it to the teacher in charge of fencing from whom he had “borrowed” it.
The kukri, on the other hand, led to a visit from the police who led the individual in question away in handcuffs.
Why should one expect every profession to reflect the make up of society at large?
I think the default expectation is that it should do, because that's what would happen in the absence of any cultural biases.
If there are cultural biases then they're likely preventing people who would be good at something from doing that thing, and we therefore have inefficient allocation of people to professions on a grand scale.
So it would be better for everyone if such biases were removed or corrected for.
Why?
People don't always want to do what the stereotypers say.
That's exactly the same issue as the current Gender Pay Gap stats.
Women are naturally attracted to low status, low paid jobs?
Not everyone is attracted by pay and status. Jobs can also be attractive if they are convenient, easy or low pressure.
Of course. However I don't think the lack of women in the rooms where the big decisions affecting human society have been taken can be put down to this. It's not so pronounced as it used to be - or as pronounced as in some other parts of the planet - but still, "It's a Man's World" remains more true than false.
Plan B now. In a few weeks I think we will regret not taking action now.
Basically agree, but plan B has a mix of stuff in there, some of which I'm not sure about.
We should definitely do all the low/no-cost stuff: bring back facemasks for public spaces/transit/buildings, encourage WFH. We should also be doing better ventilation in schools, workplaces. We could update the symptom guidelines which are out of date. We could be sorting out sick pay for people isolating.
Basically throw everything cheap and easy at this. Then hope it's enough.
Your daily reminder that mandating masks in public spaces is not no cost.
+ it doesn't even work cf Scotland and England Covid rates during the Summer/Autumn.
I'm going to copy and paste this as often as is needed:
I've been thinking about how to best explain why the "Wales / England, masks / maskless" comparisons don't work. It's a car analogy.
Person A: "Using winter tyres in the summer uses more petrol, so it's better to shift to summer tyres when it's warm." Person B: "Ah-ha, but I'm using winter tyres here in Norfolk and you're using summer tyres there in Braemar, and my fuel efficiency is the same as yours! Therefore it makes no difference!" Person A: "Yes, because I'm forever driving up steep hills, and you're not. It would be worse again for me if I was using winter tyres"
Obviously, this vignette also proves nothing, but try to keep it in mind when you think about bulk comparisons between two different places implementing different policies.
The claim is that masks lower infection rates compared to not using them. The claim is NOT that masks make your infection rates lower than unmasked places.
It's a subtlety that can easily be lost in a debate, but it's a vital one for any system where multiple independent variables control a dependent variable (which is say basically everything in the real world).
I'm too drunk too understand the nuances in your argument. But I wear my mask in the local shop when most people don't seem to.
Then I'll simplify it: you might well be saving their lives, so well done.
I understood your point on re-reading. I don't really agree but I do wear my mask so a happy compromise.
You don't really need to agree for me to be right. I won't tread on your opinion but on a point of scientific fact, masks work.
Just to add to my bits of positive discrimination, I think academic admissions should concentrate on potential, not just on grades to date.
My daughter goes to a very pushy private school here in Los Angeles. I have absolutely no doubt that she will ace her SATs for college. But then so she should - she'll have been very intensively coached for them in a highly competitive environment. She will be achieving 99% of her best possible result.
For someone from a cash starved school (all the public money is going on historic pensions), and where parents didn't go to college, and just getting kids to graduate is the major goal of the teachers, then kids aren't going to be performing at 99% of their potential. Academic admissions should reflect that.
Yes. If you were a Cambridge admissions tutor for history, who has the most potential? The candidate with an A* from Eton, or the w/c candidate with an A* from Bootle comprehensive? Hard to tell, but I know which is the greater achievement. This gets more tricky if the same two candidates had, respectively, say A*A*A*,and A*AA. Would it be legitimate to positively discriminate in favour of the latter? On the grounds of potential, I'd suggest yes.
If you've interviewed both the candidates and formed a view based on that, then you would be simply discriminating in the positive sense of the word.
Just to add to my bits of positive discrimination, I think academic admissions should concentrate on potential, not just on grades to date.
My daughter goes to a very pushy private school here in Los Angeles. I have absolutely no doubt that she will ace her SATs for college. But then so she should - she'll have been very intensively coached for them in a highly competitive environment. She will be achieving 99% of her best possible result.
For someone from a cash starved school (all the public money is going on historic pensions), and where parents didn't go to college, and just getting kids to graduate is the major goal of the teachers, then kids aren't going to be performing at 99% of their potential. Academic admissions should reflect that.
Yes. If you were a Cambridge admissions tutor for history, who has the most potential? The candidate with an A* from Eton, or the w/c candidate with an A* from Bootle comprehensive? Hard to tell, but I know which is the greater achievement. This gets more tricky if the same two candidates had, respectively, say A*A*A*,and A*AA. Would it be legitimate to positively discriminate in favour of the latter? On the grounds of potential, I'd suggest yes.
What more could the first candidate have done?
In theory this is where the interview comes in, though I know they can be gamed as well.
Yes - I think A*A*A* is a poor example.
It's not really. So many candidates in private schools now get A*A*A* that if Oxbridge wanted to fill all their places with them then they could easily do so. But would that be selecting those with the most potential? Obviously some candidates at state schools also get these grades, and many more get a bit short of them. So yes, interviews are one way forward, though the cultural capital acquired by the private school boffins benefits them in these too. As levelling up is all the rage, I'm keen for that to happen between the private and state sectors.
Plan B now. In a few weeks I think we will regret not taking action now.
Basically agree, but plan B has a mix of stuff in there, some of which I'm not sure about.
We should definitely do all the low/no-cost stuff: bring back facemasks for public spaces/transit/buildings, encourage WFH. We should also be doing better ventilation in schools, workplaces. We could update the symptom guidelines which are out of date. We could be sorting out sick pay for people isolating.
Basically throw everything cheap and easy at this. Then hope it's enough.
Your daily reminder that mandating masks in public spaces is not no cost.
+ it doesn't even work cf Scotland and England Covid rates during the Summer/Autumn.
I'm going to copy and paste this as often as is needed:
I've been thinking about how to best explain why the "Wales / England, masks / maskless" comparisons don't work. It's a car analogy.
Person A: "Using winter tyres in the summer uses more petrol, so it's better to shift to summer tyres when it's warm." Person B: "Ah-ha, but I'm using winter tyres here in Norfolk and you're using summer tyres there in Braemar, and my fuel efficiency is the same as yours! Therefore it makes no difference!" Person A: "Yes, because I'm forever driving up steep hills, and you're not. It would be worse again for me if I was using winter tyres"
Obviously, this vignette also proves nothing, but try to keep it in mind when you think about bulk comparisons between two different places implementing different policies.
The claim is that masks lower infection rates compared to not using them. The claim is NOT that masks make your infection rates lower than unmasked places.
It's a subtlety that can easily be lost in a debate, but it's a vital one for any system where multiple independent variables control a dependent variable (which is say basically everything in the real world).
I'm too drunk too understand the nuances in your argument. But I wear my mask in the local shop when most people don't seem to.
Then I'll simplify it: you might well be saving their lives, so well done.
I understood your point on re-reading. I don't really agree but I do wear my mask so a happy compromise.
You don't really need to agree for me to be right. I won't tread on your opinion but on a point of scientific fact, masks work.
If masks work then why the disparity in the Scotland and England Covid rates over the summer/autumn?
Plan B now. In a few weeks I think we will regret not taking action now.
Basically agree, but plan B has a mix of stuff in there, some of which I'm not sure about.
We should definitely do all the low/no-cost stuff: bring back facemasks for public spaces/transit/buildings, encourage WFH. We should also be doing better ventilation in schools, workplaces. We could update the symptom guidelines which are out of date. We could be sorting out sick pay for people isolating.
Basically throw everything cheap and easy at this. Then hope it's enough.
Your daily reminder that mandating masks in public spaces is not no cost.
+ it doesn't even work cf Scotland and England Covid rates during the Summer/Autumn.
I'm going to copy and paste this as often as is needed:
I've been thinking about how to best explain why the "Wales / England, masks / maskless" comparisons don't work. It's a car analogy.
Person A: "Using winter tyres in the summer uses more petrol, so it's better to shift to summer tyres when it's warm." Person B: "Ah-ha, but I'm using winter tyres here in Norfolk and you're using summer tyres there in Braemar, and my fuel efficiency is the same as yours! Therefore it makes no difference!" Person A: "Yes, because I'm forever driving up steep hills, and you're not. It would be worse again for me if I was using winter tyres"
Obviously, this vignette also proves nothing, but try to keep it in mind when you think about bulk comparisons between two different places implementing different policies.
The claim is that masks lower infection rates compared to not using them. The claim is NOT that masks make your infection rates lower than unmasked places.
It's a subtlety that can easily be lost in a debate, but it's a vital one for any system where multiple independent variables control a dependent variable (which is say basically everything in the real world).
I'm too drunk too understand the nuances in your argument. But I wear my mask in the local shop when most people don't seem to.
Then I'll simplify it: you might well be saving their lives, so well done.
I understood your point on re-reading. I don't really agree but I do wear my mask so a happy compromise.
You don't really need to agree for me to be right. I won't tread on your opinion but on a point of scientific fact, masks work.
If masks work then why the disparity in the Scotland and England Covid rates over the summer/autumn?
I'm going to copy and paste this as often as is needed:
I've been thinking about how to best explain why the "Wales / England, masks / maskless" comparisons don't work. It's a car analogy.
Person A: "Using winter tyres in the summer uses more petrol, so it's better to shift to summer tyres when it's warm." Person B: "Ah-ha, but I'm using winter tyres here in Norfolk and you're using summer tyres there in Braemar, and my fuel efficiency is the same as yours! Therefore it makes no difference!" Person A: "Yes, because I'm forever driving up steep hills, and you're not. It would be worse again for me if I was using winter tyres"
Obviously, this vignette also proves nothing, but try to keep it in mind when you think about bulk comparisons between two different places implementing different policies.
The claim is that masks lower infection rates compared to not using them. The claim is NOT that masks make your infection rates lower than unmasked places.
It's a subtlety that can easily be lost in a debate, but it's a vital one for any system where multiple independent variables control a dependent variable (which is say basically everything in the real world).
Plan B now. In a few weeks I think we will regret not taking action now.
Basically agree, but plan B has a mix of stuff in there, some of which I'm not sure about.
We should definitely do all the low/no-cost stuff: bring back facemasks for public spaces/transit/buildings, encourage WFH. We should also be doing better ventilation in schools, workplaces. We could update the symptom guidelines which are out of date. We could be sorting out sick pay for people isolating.
Basically throw everything cheap and easy at this. Then hope it's enough.
Your daily reminder that mandating masks in public spaces is not no cost.
+ it doesn't even work cf Scotland and England Covid rates during the Summer/Autumn.
I'm going to copy and paste this as often as is needed:
I've been thinking about how to best explain why the "Wales / England, masks / maskless" comparisons don't work. It's a car analogy.
Person A: "Using winter tyres in the summer uses more petrol, so it's better to shift to summer tyres when it's warm." Person B: "Ah-ha, but I'm using winter tyres here in Norfolk and you're using summer tyres there in Braemar, and my fuel efficiency is the same as yours! Therefore it makes no difference!" Person A: "Yes, because I'm forever driving up steep hills, and you're not. It would be worse again for me if I was using winter tyres"
Obviously, this vignette also proves nothing, but try to keep it in mind when you think about bulk comparisons between two different places implementing different policies.
The claim is that masks lower infection rates compared to not using them. The claim is NOT that masks make your infection rates lower than unmasked places.
It's a subtlety that can easily be lost in a debate, but it's a vital one for any system where multiple independent variables control a dependent variable (which is say basically everything in the real world).
I'm too drunk too understand the nuances in your argument. But I wear my mask in the local shop when most people don't seem to.
Then I'll simplify it: you might well be saving their lives, so well done.
I understood your point on re-reading. I don't really agree but I do wear my mask so a happy compromise.
You don't really need to agree for me to be right. I won't tread on your opinion but on a point of scientific fact, masks work.
If masks work then why the disparity in the Scotland and England Covid rates over the summer/autumn?
I'm going to copy and paste this as often as is needed:
I've been thinking about how to best explain why the "Wales / England, masks / maskless" comparisons don't work. It's a car analogy.
Person A: "Using winter tyres in the summer uses more petrol, so it's better to shift to summer tyres when it's warm." Person B: "Ah-ha, but I'm using winter tyres here in Norfolk and you're using summer tyres there in Braemar, and my fuel efficiency is the same as yours! Therefore it makes no difference!" Person A: "Yes, because I'm forever driving up steep hills, and you're not. It would be worse again for me if I was using winter tyres"
Obviously, this vignette also proves nothing, but try to keep it in mind when you think about bulk comparisons between two different places implementing different policies.
The claim is that masks lower infection rates compared to not using them. The claim is NOT that masks make your infection rates lower than unmasked places.
It's a subtlety that can easily be lost in a debate, but it's a vital one for any system where multiple independent variables control a dependent variable (which is say basically everything in the real world).
Yeah - I expected you might do that. Anyway I wear my mask - do no harm and all that.
Will the Labour membership vote for a woman? Every single woman who has stood for a membership vote for leader, has been beaten by every man in the contest.
Finally an admission from the right that status quo/traditional selection processes dont automatically pick the best person for the job. Hope that will be remembered for the next positive discrimination discussions, the Labour Party is a great example to use.
If the prior processes are not picking the right person for the job then the solution is to tackle the discrimination so that going forwards the best person is chosen.
"Positive discrimination" is still discrimination, it doesn't do that.
Yes of course, if you could magically get rid of all the discriminatory biases and processes in the real world that would be fantastic. Also magical, it ain't gonna happen. Human brains are built on using bias and pattern recognition very heavily, more than we use rationality.
No need for magic, just tackling the real issues.
"Positive discrimination" is no better at finding the right person for the job, if you're still discriminating against the people you were discriminating against then the 'right person' still suffers because they're being discriminated against. Promoting someone else from the same group because "they all look the same" to you isn't a fix.
What if the organisation has never had a minority C-level executive. And it interviews two candidates for one such role and they are exactly equal and one is from the minority whose inequality you want to address and one is from the prevailing majority.
Mermaids gets everywhere, doesn't it?
On @TOPPING’s question, there is a few problems that can arise from his scenario:
1. The losing candidate says “they only got it because they were x” causing resentment towards x
Damn didn’t finish
2. If you have a positive discrimination policy, there is always the question of “did they only get the job because they were x?”.
I’m Topping’s scenario, it would be much better just to toss a coin.
Not at all. Change needs to happen. Once in the job people can prove themselves. And no one has given a tuppenny fuck historically if someone in the job who is not a minority only got the job on that basis.
Just as a question, which categories would you say change needs to happen?
Certainly, when I worked in Banking, there were many - and probably disproportionately so - from South Asian heritages.
As for women, there were certainly no shortage. The real difference always came when women went off to have kids and, more often than not, wanted to work 4 day weeks.
Now, it’s true that weren’t that many Black candidates but even that is skewed. Again, there were a fair few Black African-descent colleagues. The gap was in Black Caribbean descent individuals, at least in the front office.
We have had a role open half a year. Quite niche, difficult to find candidates. Interviewed two today that interviewed really well and both suitably qualified. But the hiring manager says with a sigh, “a shame as it will be hard to get either signed off as they are both white males”.
I mean what the fucking buggery is the world coming to.
That’s the issue. No one wants to be the one saying “let’s hire the white male.” In many organisations, it’s tantamount to career suicide (at least at non-senior levels - when it comes to the top posts, funnily enough they don’t care that much).
If you want to see where this leads to, look at the current crop of TV adverts. I’d say well over half feature Black actors and probably not far off two thirds. You can see what’s happening. The advertiser has told its agency “find me some black people!” so they can look socially aware. The agency has scurried off and found them. Individually, it makes sense. In totally, it means that the TV adverts are completely out of whack with the make up of the country.
Is that a source of huge concern to you?
As I have related previously, I am among those PB-ers who has done a stint at McDonalds for a holiday job. When I first started I had been working there for a couple of weeks (in Wembley) before I realised that I was the only white guy there. I remain untraumatised.
I've noticed the trend in advertising, it is almost comical now and I do not think that you are making an valid comparison. If I go to work somewhere where I am the only white person it is normally just a reflection of where the job is located. Adverts bear some kind of relationship to the demographics of society as a whole (if they are aimed at a broad target audience). If they are very out of kilter on ethnicity then it is noticeable. I suspect this is a temporary situation caused by everyone leaping on the same bandwagon. Over compensation to perceived historical prejudice for job appointments is potentially dangerous I think (as well as immoral).
What about exactly the right amount of compensation for actual current prejudice in job appointments?
Comments
Edit: I wonder if there is a link to the Latin “mortem”? (For maut, not shalom).
That's really poor bowling by Pakistan to concede so many no ball free hits - and really poor conversion of those free hits by Afghanistan.
In https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash
The Metaverse was a communal VR environment started by by hackers, but largely owned by corporate interests
Zuckerberg is probably L. Bob Rife.
I doubt he will listen to Reason.
Not that some of them need an excuse to carry weapons, tbf.
I'd assume more people will be familiar with Ready Player One.
But you'd think a trillion dollar company like Facebook would be able to afford some people to do market research in what their proposed name would translate to in different languages to avoid any pratfalls.
My daughter goes to a very pushy private school here in Los Angeles. I have absolutely no doubt that she will ace her SATs for college. But then so she should - she'll have been very intensively coached for them in a highly competitive environment. She will be achieving 99% of her best possible result.
For someone from a cash starved school (all the public money is going on historic pensions), and where parents didn't go to college, and just getting kids to graduate is the major goal of the teachers, then kids aren't going to be performing at 99% of their potential. Academic admissions should reflect that.
Suffice it to say that I don't take kindly to you calling me lazy and a liar, and I'm disappointed at your narrow-mindedness and lack of empathy.
That is, after getting your order they drop you in the sea.
https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/19681897.sturgeon-considering-becoming-foster-parent-politics/
Meanwhile No maintains its lead in the IndyRef stakes:
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/scottish-independence-poll-shows-views-25328335
Maybe we need a thread on who her successor will be?
BTW, the main problem for Andy Burnham is not him being out of the Commons (problem though that it is). It's his sex (or is that gender?) Inconceivable that Labour will select another white male with plausible women (is that the right word?) alternatives available.
Snow Crash is quite simple and direct by comparison. Also Diamond Age....
Amazing how normal the internet, google and wikipedia access on our mobiles seems now.
Whereas now we are testing both the symptomatic and the asymptomatic in all sorts of ways, and we have statistics about infection rates coming out of our ears.
Summarising - in the CIA you're taught everything about guns and shooting. But you're also taught that you never pull your gun, except as an absolutely last resort. It's a hell of a lot easier to deescalate a situation if you're not waving a gun around.
In the police he was taught that he should never go into a situation without his gun drawn, resulting in far more bloody outcomes.
I have just checked the dashboard expecting to find a reversal of the recent falls.
Yet I have in fact found a continuation of the recent falls.
Am I missing something?
The Diamond Age had - if anything - an even worse ending than Snowcrash.
Seveneves had a great first two thirds, and then you could have skipped the last third.
*That said* I always look forward to his books. Because they are books about ideas, and he has a wonderful mind.
When we gain a coveted position, most of us take the view that "God has given us the Papacy, let us enjoy it."
Plan B now.
The trouble is that "indefinite noun+ definite noun/Proper noun" in Arabic equates to the possessive, "the a of b". And in colloquial Cairene, 'ayr' is 'penis'. So their big bright lights sign read "The penis of France".
The first time was when I fell ill during the weekend while taking my daughter to visit her mother, my ex. It was not possible for me to stay in that city. I travelled home.
The second time was when I was ill while in London at a hotel for work. I travelled home at the end of my hotel booking.
If I had to do the same again I would now wear a mask to protect others. But that's different to wearing a mask all the time when the chances of being infectious are remote.
And yes, he was totally into de-escalation and getting to know the "street people" on a friendly basis.
I’d be thinking “must make sure this is nice and healthy: are you sure you want a pizza?”
I get 99.95 from a top school. You get 99.9 from one in Special Measures.
You've beaten me, really, haven't you? (just for once)
If there's one place going at BEST UNI that we both want, they should go with you, right? Or at least to go with you wouldn't be utterly outrageous and a violation of all that's good and true in this world, would it?
But that's not an excuse for "Plan B" or restrictions.
People getting sick isn't a reason to lock the country down, its the reason we have hospitals in the first place.
For the last 4 days regarded as broadly complete (up to Sunday 24th), number of cases by sample date ÷ number of cases by sample date the previous week =
0.97, 0.93, 0.92, 0.81.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/prepare-to-import-relevant-nuclear-materials-from-the-eu-after-brexit-licensing-requirements
This gets more tricky if the same two candidates had, respectively, say A*A*A*,and A*AA. Would it be legitimate to positively discriminate in favour of the latter? On the grounds of potential, I'd suggest yes.
In theory this is where the interview comes in, though I know they can be gamed as well.
We should definitely do all the low/no-cost stuff: bring back facemasks for public spaces/transit/buildings, encourage WFH. We should also be doing better ventilation in schools, workplaces. We could update the symptom guidelines which are out of date. We could be sorting out sick pay for people isolating.
Basically throw everything cheap and easy at this. Then hope it's enough.
I've been thinking about how to best explain why the "Wales / England, masks / maskless" comparisons don't work. It's a car analogy.
Person A: "Using winter tyres in the summer uses more petrol, so it's better to shift to summer tyres when it's warm."
Person B: "Ah-ha, but I'm using winter tyres here in Norfolk and you're using summer tyres there in Braemar, and my fuel efficiency is the same as yours! Therefore it makes no difference!"
Person A: "Yes, because I'm forever driving up steep hills, and you're not. It would be worse again for me if I was using winter tyres"
Obviously, this vignette also proves nothing, but try to keep it in mind when you think about bulk comparisons between two different places implementing different policies.
The claim is that masks lower infection rates compared to not using them.
The claim is NOT that masks make your infection rates lower than unmasked places.
It's a subtlety that can easily be lost in a debate, but it's a vital one for any system where multiple independent variables control a dependent variable (which is say basically everything in the real world).
Number of admissions by admission date ÷ number of admissions by admission date the previous week (up to Mon 25/10).
1.18, 1.19, 1.07, 0.99, 1.02, 1.00, 0.97
you might well be saving their lives, so well done.
Budget is falling apart
I've been thinking about how to best explain why the "Wales / England, masks / maskless" comparisons don't work. It's a car analogy.
Person A: "Using winter tyres in the summer uses more petrol, so it's better to shift to summer tyres when it's warm."
Person B: "Ah-ha, but I'm using winter tyres here in Norfolk and you're using summer tyres there in Braemar, and my fuel efficiency is the same as yours! Therefore it makes no difference!"
Person A: "Yes, because I'm forever driving up steep hills, and you're not. It would be worse again for me if I was using winter tyres"
Obviously, this vignette also proves nothing, but try to keep it in mind when you think about bulk comparisons between two different places implementing different policies.
The claim is that masks lower infection rates compared to not using them.
The claim is NOT that masks make your infection rates lower than unmasked places.
It's a subtlety that can easily be lost in a debate, but it's a vital one for any system where multiple independent variables control a dependent variable (which is say basically everything in the real world).