yeah I got news for you about most Europeans there also.
The crux of the issue/problem. Distribution is non-uniform and very chunky. At this point I am convinced that if there exists natural 'types' of mindset and behavior, they cross cut (far less intrinsic) ethnic and cultural boundaries.
A more cynical person might say they’ve injected a red herring into the thread, wasting others’ time.
>The framework recommends eight times that teachers use a troubling document, “A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction: Dismantling Racism in Mathematics Instruction.” This manual claims that teachers addressing students’ mistakes forthrightly is a form of white supremacy. It sets forth indicators of “white supremacy culture in the mathematics classroom,” including a focus on “getting the right answer,” teaching math in a “linear fashion,” requiring students to “show their work” and grading them on demonstrated knowledge of the subject matter. “The concept of mathematics being purely objective is unequivocally false,” the manual explains. “Upholding the idea that there are always right and wrong answers perpetuates ‘objectivity.’ ” Apparently, that’s also racist.
It's funny how every single conversation about this stuff spends most of its time debating whether its really happening and almost no time on the actual content of the ideology being pushed.
It's just a (somewhat stereotypical - "bland is best," really?) list of the aspects of Western culture which the author believes derive from "white culture." It doesn't even present these points as negative.
Which makes it all the more incredible, that the "host" operating system culture of the melting pot is attacked and a attempt is made to "regulate" cultural blending. Its a majority vote system, without a need for regulation. The good thing goes in ("Yoga" as a sport, meditation system), the bad stays out (insane cults, backwards religous practices that are abanduned in all religions). Nobody needed to facilitate or control that, but a sparse, neutral stove and a pot.
The people vote, with there feet, there wallets and there actions. Unemployed commisars, race-warriors and revolutionarys are free to form a line for unemployment checks.
Yes, a lot of progress has been made in regards to cultural integration in the US, but that progress has been due to attempts to "regulate" cultural blending, rather than in spite of it. The US has had to be forced time and again - often with persistent struggle and at times violence - to live up to its stated ideals.
If you believe the anglo-saxon majority no longer holds the majority of the political power in the US, ouf.
This is simply not true. The natives embraced a lot of aspects of European culture. Nearly all developed métis cultures and deep commercial trade. Most of the initial treaties were ones of friendship and alliances.
Go visit a native museum, they want to preserve their culture, not expunge it from European influence. They hate wokeness and mass immigration too, by the way.
If mathematics and the recognition of cause-and-effect are white supremacy, then maybe they're right. /s
Seriously, this new "dei" or "crt" rhetoric needs to get shut down hard or it will undo all the progress that has been achieved.
Therefore the idea of the existence of objective truth (2+2=4) must destroyed and subverted in order for the "goodfact" to be swallowed.
I just finished The Road to Serfdom by F. A. Hayek, and he lays this out fairly well as a strategy of totalitarian regimes, or groups with totalitarian impulses. (Chapter 11, I believe)
Even beyond the natural sciences, this seems to have been somewhat the case. I remember my uncle, who is as unabashedly anti-communist as it gets, once showing me a grammar of some minority language written in the GDR and commenting, almost with admiration, that "back then, they invested a lot of resources on things like that".
That can't be, unless one subscribes to a highly racist view of the world. Concepts like "objective, rational linear thinking" are not anything to do with "whiteness" and to even suggest it is, is really quite profoundly insulting to everyone who isn't white.
Yes. As I spent several short paragraphs saying exactly just that, and in agreement with that premise. "The constructs of white culture" to which I referred do not refer to the specific items of that list, which I explicitly disclaimed and criticized in my comment.
I probably should have been more specific, precise and exact in my wording and not assumed that people would have put forth more than the minimum effort for a comment that goes against the HN zeitgeist, but I suspect I could have posted an entire essay and no one here would have bothered to actually read all the words. Mea culpa.
Like im white and canadian, which is basically the same culture as america, but like a quarter of these seem specificly american to me.
And a bunch seem rediculous to apply as "white culture". Like that your intent matters when it comes to morality. I can appreciate that different cultures fall differently on the spectrum between outcome vs intention, but i highly highly doubt that white people are the only ones who give primacy to intention.
The white people value rationality part seems straight up racist.
Similar for communists. Don’t bother asking them for a historical track record of that idea.
see, e.g., "Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture" docs around 50-60 pages into the document dump at https://www.scribd.com/document/501975490/Government-of-Cana...
American doc: logical thinking is a part of white culture (with the implication it is not a part of other cultures)
Canadian doc: white supremists are often defensive and hoard power.
https://thefederalist.com/2020/07/15/smithsonian-pushes-raci...
For example, when and if you refer to people by their first name or more formally with full titles for example. Whether working long into the night means you're dedicated or inefficient.
These are not right or wrong as such, they're just culture, but if you blunder into the situation assuming that everyone has the same culture, then someone bluntly telling you what's wrong with an idea can seem intentionally aggressive and rude, or someone trying to politely say no might seem vague, or worse, be taken as tacit agreement.
Ultimately, if we’re gonna ask what norms are good we should have some cost function we are trying to optimize and ask for norms that encourage it to go up. Totally reasonable for different people to have different ideas of the good life and get different norms following that.
>The framework recommends eight times that teachers use a troubling document, “A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction: Dismantling Racism in Mathematics Instruction.” This manual claims that teachers addressing students’ mistakes forthrightly is a form of white supremacy. It sets forth indicators of “white supremacy culture in the mathematics classroom,” including a focus on “getting the right answer,” teaching math in a “linear fashion,” requiring students to “show their work” and grading them on demonstrated knowledge of the subject matter. “The concept of mathematics being purely objective is unequivocally false,” the manual explains. “Upholding the idea that there are always right and wrong answers perpetuates ‘objectivity.’ ” Apparently, that’s also racist.
I can’t see anything whatsoever indicating they teach the existence of a non physical life force. What I do see is some use of te reo Māori which I expect, like any language, will influence the way that students learn chemistry. That doesn’t necessarily sound like a bad thing to me, especially given it’s one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s official languages.
Edit: forgot to link the doc: https://ncea.education.govt.nz/science/chemistry-and-biology...
It has become a common belief that it is the duty of New Zealand schools under the Treaty of Waitangi to integrate Maori culture into students' learning. This belief is talked about in this article, which is a very informative article about the current state of Tikanga Maori in New Zealand: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/447962/the-schools-walki.... It is clear that Tikanga Maori is being implemented in many of the science class rooms of New Zealand.
Reminds me of the time when I had a software tutorial Google-translated from Farsi to English and it sounded like a magical incantation.
There was one who said unto me that the universe was going to cause me to tremble,
That I am not the sharpest cutting implement in the storehouse.
She had the appearance unto me as a stupid one,
With her finger and her thumb
In the frame of a Greek gamma upon her forehead.
Behold, the years begin coming, and do not cease from coming.
Fed unto the axioms, and I fell upon the earth and ran.
It was not acceptable if not to live for the sake of pleasurable things.
Your brain increases its wisdom, but your heart increases its stupidity.
A great amount to do, a great amount to see,
Therefore, there is no difficult problem if we take the streets of the backside.
You will not know if you do not go.
You will not shine if you do not glow.
Behold currently! You are entirely a star child! Begin your power! Go! Laugh!
Behold currently! You are a master of the music! Begin your singing! Acquire your wages!
All that sparkles is gold!
Comets alone shatter the frame!>The framework recommends eight times that teachers use a troubling document, “A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction: Dismantling Racism in Mathematics Instruction.” This manual claims that teachers addressing students’ mistakes forthrightly is a form of white supremacy. It sets forth indicators of “white supremacy culture in the mathematics classroom,” including a focus on “getting the right answer,” teaching math in a “linear fashion,” requiring students to “show their work” and grading them on demonstrated knowledge of the subject matter. “The concept of mathematics being purely objective is unequivocally false,” the manual explains. “Upholding the idea that there are always right and wrong answers perpetuates ‘objectivity.’ ” Apparently, that’s also racist.
Stop. Right. There.
Where do they get this "unequivocally false"? That sounds like they think they have something "purely objective" in... sociology, maybe? They're using their "purely objective" sociology to judge the objectivity of math, and finding math to be non-objective.
That's insane. These people should be barred from math and sociology.
In sociology, you got the replicability crisis (aka, it's mostly bulkshit).
The Sociologists want to bring that to mathematics so that the marginalized of the world don't feel inferior.
See also: https://www.quetzalec.com/
relevant sample:
"While some mathematical skills and concepts build off each other, the forced construct of linear teaching reinforces objectivity. A prime example is how matrices is considered a precalculus standard, even though the only math skill needed as a prerequisite is arithmetic. This is highly detrimental to students because they are systematically deprived of knowledge they could access due to false constructs. Math teachers have internalized the sequences that have been predetermined by standards and textbooks, rather than sequencing learning based on (pre)requisite knowledge. In general, teachers teach math like a ladder rather than a web."
Uh, last I checked, Euro-centric biology or chemistry didn't involve talking about Wille zum Leben or élan vital. Why does 'decolonized' science need to get involved with this totally unscientific woo?
We didn't learn alchemy. We learned about alchemy.
Materials science follows in the footsteps of the alchemists, keeping alive the grand tradition of mixing random stuff together to see what happens. They too are frequently mixing things together in the hope of getting specific outcomes - usually it doesn't work.
Science is about how people deal with evidence. There wasn't any reason to think that gold couldn't be produced by mixing stuff together in the days when alchemy was popular. After all, a bunch of other substances could be made by mixing things, and it is obviously possible to mix liquids and get solids.
Sometimes surprising and interesting things happen when you experiment. Maybe goat piss with hair of a virgin seems weird, but burying shit in your backyard for awhile, digging it up, and mixing it with burnt wood seems pretty odd too when you think about it.
If memory serves, one of the big reasons for Britain’s naval supremacy for a long time was their discovery and exploitation of large deposits high-quality of saltpeter in India. Before that, they had “saltpeter plantations” with rows of organic waste soaked with human an animal urine and left to dry in the sun. Before that, it was groups of the King’s men going around the countryside and scraping the stone foundations of buildings and cemetery monuments.
Or maybe not. I suspend judgement until I hear both sides.
To be fair there’s something to this. My dad told me a story of meeting a Danish person in Bangladesh (where we’re from) who observed that, given my dad’s fastidiousness about punctuality and standing in line “he probably didn’t fit in [there].” I tell my kids we got kicked out of our home country because “your grandpa couldn’t stand people showing up late to everything.”
(to the degree that “race” is a definable thing to begin with…)
I was born and raised in a Southern US state, and moved to the East Coast for a job in my 20s. On my first day I showed up at 7am because I wasn’t given a start time. The next person arrived at 9:20am. I was later told “we start at 9”.
Where I’m from, showing up twenty minutes after the “start time” for a job without excuse or apology would have a decent chance of getting you fired on the spot.
Both places could definitely be described as “white” - and for that matter, it’s even more pronounced now that I’m working mostly for California companies. Working hours are at best a suggestion.
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2022/11/01/richard-dawkins-is...
Compared to Chinese, some people in the western worlds really do not know how to respect the great civilization pioneered by the west.
[1] I was talking about the official message. Large number of Chinese people still believed in Chinese medicine
I can honestly say that I do see a “spiritual dimension” to a lot of things that are accepted science. I can’t imagine trying to get that into a textbook.
Science is about objective reality. Belief is by definition subjective, so it can’t be “science”. If it’s not science, it shouldn’t be in a science textbook.
If you want to teach it, teach it in world religions, theology, anthropology, or philosophy. If you have to, make an essay on the topic part of “language arts”. Just don’t try to dress it up as “science”, because it’s not.
What other ways? Can we all agree that there is only science or no science? What possibly can I learn from "other ways"? Case in point, what can I possibly learn from aboriginal maths, as advocated by the Seattle school board? Do they offer insights that I can understand category theories better? Do they offer insights so I can speed up my matrix multiplication? Do they offer insights so that modern mathematics can be easier to understand to undergrads? On the other hand, we didn't admire Ramanujan because he came from an "oppressed country" but because of his ingenuity in developing amazing math insights. Is that so hard to understand to the left?
Can we just make peace that western culture was incredibly lucky and admirable that they invented modern science, and other cultures should catch up? What's wrong with admitting that some culture contributed more to civilization and some culture could only play cargo-cult science?
This reminds me of that "racial sensitivity guide" that told employees punctuality and logical objectivity were "white expectations" not to be applied to persons of color.
In New Zealand the school chemistry and biology syllabus has been decolonised and now invokes the concept of mauri, or life force, to give the atomic theory a new spiritual dimension.
I went to high school and college so deep in the bible belt you could put an empty Coke can to your ear and hear banjo music and our textbooks still didn't have anything like that bullshit.