> Two wrongs don’t make a right.

This is nonsense, in any moral framework worth its salt.

Consider a simple situation:

1. Lying is wrong.

2. Someone's running from a mob that wants to kill them. They went right.

3. The mob stops, and asks you if the person in question went right.

4. Two wrongs don't make a right, so you tell the truth. Or don't say anything, and let the mob go off in the correct direction and chase that person down.

Your example is backwards. Lying is the right, and truth is the wrong in your example.

So in arguing for two wrongs are OK, you are suggesting you'd direct the mob to the person running away (maybe they were a person you didn't like, or were of privilege you resent).

> Lying is the right, and truth is the wrong in your example.

Lying is wrong! Except, according to you, when it leads to good outcomes!

It sounds like outcome-driven morality is what you're pushing for..? Then what's the problem with AA? Not using it to compensate for structural disadvantages is being in the wrong in its case...

"Lying is wrong" is a non-sequitur - like West is to the left. It is morality for 5 year olds or Sam Harris.

>Then what's the problem with AA? Not using it to compensate for structural disadvantages is being in the wrong in its case...

AA fails on that criteria as well. It isn't compensating the people who were wronged and the burden falls on people didn't do the wrong. Poor asian immigrant gets kicked out so Harvard can virtue signal and put a black face on their web page and course catalog. Never mind that kid is a wealthy immigrant from Kenya.

And to make it even worse, the AA admits do worse, drop out at higher rates, and drop down to lesser majors because many aren't academically competitive. They would have done better if they were matched on merit to schools.

Do you have data to back up the implicit claim you're making that dropping affirmative action will, all else equal, result in a larger number of lower-income people attending schools, and that affirmative action policies weren't aiding non-immigrant Blacks?

On the contrary, when California enacted a ban on AA in university admissions in 1996, enrollment of minorities plummeted. Sure, maybe some of them would have dropped out, and some may have changed majors, but at least they would have had the opportunity, and certainly some would have been able to take advantage of it.

It seems that the only demographics that plummeted were whites and Native Americans per https://edsource.org/2020/freshmen-enrollment-csu-and-uc-by-...

It varies by school. https://www.npr.org/2023/06/27/1184461214/examining-the-impa...

> Berkeley and UCLA, the most selective public universities in the state, saw a declines in Black and Hispanic enrollment of about 40% immediately the year after the Proposition was implemented. There was no net change in black and Hispanic enrollment at less selective California universities because while some black and Hispanic students lost access to those schools because affirmative action ended, they also gained Black and Hispanic students from more selective schools like Berkeley and UCLA that those students could no longer get into.

> seems like these very selective public universities in California just provided greater value to relatively disadvantaged Black and Hispanic students who came from lower-income neighborhoods, had poorer job networks, relatively less access to otherwise successful peers, and who were thus able to better take advantage of the resources provided by these super selective universities than the white and Asian students who took their places.

Certainly, specific demographics can vary by school. But the OP said that enrollment of MINORITIES plummeted. Asians are minorities.

Moreover, we can examine the data directly and realize that the only demographic that has “plummeted” long term is whites. Immediate enrollment percentages may have dropped but it has recovered and it seems like Berkeley has been able to somehow return to their highly consistent proportion of Latino and Black students. It’s almost uncanny how the racial percentages at top schools stay so consistent over the years.

https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/about-us/information-...

Fine. You think lying isn't always wrong. I don't care, it's not important, it's just an example.

Pick literally any other action that you think is always wrong. I'll give you a counterexample where failing to do it is wrong.

"Two wrongs don't make a right" is the 5-year old-level morality platitude that you should be turning your ire against. Because, as you're demonstrating, "Wrong" is entirely contextual. A 'wrong' that mitigates another wrong can make a right.

Here's an interesting defense of racial preferences a mutual acquaintance wrote on HN some years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4758529

> It has to do with correcting specific and massive historical wrongs in which our government was complicit, not lifting up disadvantaged people generally.

And I tuned out. I’m not paying for the sins of our fathers.

You’re definitely happily collecting the proceeds of those sins, though, I’m sure.

being a veteran who swore they’re life, lol no. not a chance.

We can say that for just about everyone though.

* * *

The Chicago suburb that I live in right now was debating a quota system to prevent Black families from moving here within my own lifetime, and was until the late 1990s spending tax dollars to subsidize apartments being held vacant for white families. The harm these programs attempt to correct wasn't in the distant past.

* * *

I can answer this, but first I want to understand better why it matters. It's deliberate, de jure harm inflicted on Black families regardless of the purported and actual benefits to white homeowners.

Because the original statement was that white people are gaining advantage because of the sins of our fathers. Most of us remember our lives and know this is not true, unless you think growing up poor with parents that couldn’t even afford school for their kids is an advantage.

Aside from my thoughts on discrimination in general, which I'm willing to concede isn't a strong argument here, I think describing affirmative action as necessary is naive. Ensuring that disadvantaged groups grow up with quality schooling, healthcare, and whatnot should be the top priority. Creating/improving colleges (because Ivy Leagues aren't the end all be all, even if the social networking is better), reducing tuitions, perhaps providing money on the basis of poverty (which is, I daresay, objective more correct than the basis of race) in the communities and for college are secondary measures. Affirmative action is comparatively simple, convenient, and utterly propagandized policy. If money is the bottleneck, I daresay it's more due to the lack of political will to distribute money cough massive wealth disparity cough.

If only we could track down the author of this take and ask what they think about it.

How would the current thoughts of someone commenting about the same topic a few years ago be particularly relevant to our conversation today?

As far as I see, the argumentation isn't particularly novel or unusual either. It's a pragmatist take, discounting methodological concerns in favour of expected outcomes.

I think that take probably summarizes a quarter of the current debate.

The take is relevant because it's being quoted in answer to its own author.

Oooh, I see. Thanks for highlighting that!

I guess this is an example of how little personal brand visibility HN provides next to the comments people write.

I do wonder to what extent Bangladeshis were impacted by these policies.

A decade sure does change a person, especially when their kids start to demand college money in lieu of merit scholarships.

Remember, graduates of these institutions go on to run everything else, and take these ideas with them. Including bizarre conventions such as the people of color hierarchy, where Kenyans and Ghanaians are higher on the totem poll than equally poor Bangladeshis or Indians. All of us “people of color” have to live within this paradigm.

What pushed me over the edge was facing these policies from the receiving end. I now routinely have to explain my “diversity” to white decision makers in a business context. And my kids—I’ve had three since I wrote that post—are being encouraged to identify as “people of color.” So they can spend the rest of their lives writing diversity essays and trying to persuade white people to pick them.

College racial preferences aren’t the only problem here, but I’m convinced that—given how influential higher education is in American society—they’re the root of the problem.

A decade later, turns out I was wrong. Ironically, it’s because the racial identity politics of the last decade made me realize I’m not white, and that race is such a pernicious concept that even the good white people can’t be trusted with it.

That's fine , but you can't reasonably adopt a tone that there are obvious answers to this, or feign surprise that people disagree with you, when you yourself argued the exact opposite --- and when your reason for changing your mind is so idiosyncratic. I assure you that most people do not arrive at their opinion on racial preferences based on a realization that they aren't white. If that's the reason racial preferences are wrong, it's incumbent on you to disclose that up front.

It’s not idiosyncratic in the least. I simply got to understand how that system works from the perspective of a minority, rather than the perspective of a (effectively) white person.

You can think it's idiosyncratic, but I can assure you (both as an Asian and as someone who knows quite a few Asians) that many (maybe the majority of) Asians whose views on race-based treatment/preferences have changed were driven by the eventual recognition that they exist in the racial in-between. They get almost none of the "privilege" that white people do while getting none of the "protections" that other minorities do. And, at the same time, they are often penalized for being Asian.

It's not surprising or idiosyncratic that an Asian's viewpoint on race has evolved as they've spent more time being exposed to America's racial hypocrisy and experienced more and more of this in-betweenness.

I think we’re making a similar point, but I’d frame it slightly differently. For Asians, racialization is situational. Growing up, I rarely thought about race. Outside of dating and sports, physical differences never came up.

And now, Asians are racialized from both sides. And on the left, it’s this pernicious sort of racialization where we’re “people of color” when they’re trying to show how big their coalition is, but expected to “check our privilege” like white people and defer to the interests of black people and Latinos.

I agree we are making a similar point. My original post had a long rant about Asians only being minorities when it benefits someone's argument (on the left or right) but I deleted it before posting. Suffice to say that there is a long history of marginalizing racism against Asians in America (recall that the Chinese Exclusion Act or some form of it was in effect until the World War 2) and the fight that the left has put up to try to excuse or hide the clear facts that affirmative action policies have (had?) an adverse impact on Asians is the latest example of that.

My reason isn’t idiosyncratic at all: racial preferences necessarily racialize people, which is unpleasant. I don’t like it for the same reason I imagine the majority of non-white people oppose racial preferences. They don’t want to be treated like that, don’t think it’s fair, etc.

Growing up as someone who wasn’t racialized and then becoming racialized as an adult is something most people don’t experience. That is idiosyncratic, sure, but that’s the reason my view on racial preferences changed, not the reason I oppose them now.

I'm not saying that you're making a risible argument, though I disagree with it. I'm simply saying that you're making a non-obvious argument, and the evidence that I offer for my claim is that you yourself didn't believe it just a few years ago, despite being one of the "token conservatives" in your law school class. It couldn't have too much to do with how you grew up, because you came by it lately.

Make whichever argument you like. I'll only object to your use of the rhetorical frame that implies surprise that someone else would disagree with you. You disagreed with you until recently, as I do now.

You’re mixing up two separate issues.

The argument I’m making about why a system of racial preferences is bad is the standard conservative argument against racial preferences. It reinforces the racialization society and perpetuates it to the next generation. “The only way to stop discriminating on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”

But the question you asked me above was different: why my view changed. The reason for that may be idiosyncratic and non-obvious—I didn’t appreciate color blindness as a social norm until it wasn’t my reality anymore—but that’s a different issue than the first point.

It’s like if someone is a pro-taxes and regulation Democrat and then changes his view because he inherits his dad’s small business when he passes unexpectedly. The reason for the change in view might be idiosyncratic, but the reason for opposing taxes and regulation is standard.

Yes. Once again: I'm not saying that your argument is invalid because you've changed your mind. I'm saying that because you've deeply held both positions on the issue, it is disingenuous to pretend that one of those positions is obviously false. Perhaps you know something new, as the metaphorical inheritor of the family business. It's incumbent on you to share that, rather than posturing as if you knew it all along.

(Again, I agree with Rayiner Classic on this point, and not with New Rayiner, but that's neither here nor there.)

>turns out I was wrong

>race is such a pernicious concept

>even the good white people

...