You didn't look it up very well.
>In 1911, Fisher became founding Chairman of the University of Cambridge Eugenics Society, whose other founding members included John Maynard Keynes, R. C. Punnett, and Horace Darwin. After members of the Cambridge Society – including Fisher – stewarded the First International Eugenics Congress in London in summer 1912, a link was forged with the Eugenics Society (UK).[122] He saw eugenics as addressing pressing social and scientific issues that encompassed and drove his interest in both genetics and statistics. During World War I Fisher started writing book reviews for The Eugenics Review and volunteered to undertake all such reviews for the journal, being hired for a part-time position.
I think that if you:
1. are the founding chairman of the University of Cambridge Eugenics Society,
2. stewarded the First International Eugenics Congress in London in summer 1912,
3. saw eugenics as addressing pressing social and scientific issues, and
4. started writing book reviews for The Eugenics Review and volunteered to undertake all such reviews for the journal
..you are a eugenicist.
My research consisted of clicking on, and reading, the link you yourself posted.
Is it possible to say “were a eugenicist”? Your info is about him decades before the equal rights quote from the GP. It’s possible he changed his mind over the prevailing four decades (I hope)
There's far less justification for inventing a conversion out of whole cloth.
I have no idea about Fisher specifically. I hadn't really heard of him until this was posted. Eugenics was popular among a lot of academics in the early 20th century however.
The question here is about whether there is any shred of evidence that it did happen.
imo if you told me the NSA was aggregating data about everyone's daily movements, made corrections for wealth, upbringing, network as well as other factors maybe would be a good start
but even then there will be coefficients the rich kids running the clusters will be like "wealth isn't paying for tuition it's flying to europe for vacation" or "having two cars did not contribute in any shape way or form to my learning how to drive I did it because I'm inherently chosen" or "your family beating you anytime you socialized couldn't form socially crippling neural pathways so if you can't network it's because you aren't chosen" so they set the coefficient to that now some poor schmuck who couldn't afford any of those things and had the worst upbringing gets euthanized in the name of science
eugenics to be even remotely ethical would need so much data we just don't have. maybe in a thousand years but who knows how the rich kids will be like then one thing I've learned the world is not for the poor
Keynes was the leading economist of the 20th century. He has some ideas I think are dubious, and his followers have doubled down (I still can't believe people believe in fiscal multipliers greater than 1). Nevertheless, it would be an incredible cheap shot to label Keynes a "eugenicist" when criticizing his economic theories.
Tossing in swipes like "You didn't look it up very well", or snark twisters like "My research consisted of clicking on, and reading, the link you yourself posted", is bad for many reasons, including that (1) it degrades the forum; (2) it evokes worse from others; and (3) it discredits your viewpoint, which is particularly bad if it happens to be true.
I’m genuinely confused because his comment was valuable to me.
OP had either made an error or was attempting to mislead the audience by downplaying critical facts in his argument and patent highlighted it, which I appreciate because no one has the time to digest all the references.
Cherry picking or skippping over critical context is unhelpful at best or deceptive st worst.
In general responding with a statement that assigns a quality to someone's work and effort is not appropriate. You can say "That information is not correct" if you want to be assertive but saying "You have not researched or read the correct information" is doing more then correcting information and becomes personal.
I've seen a lot of people, myself included have trouble with this distinction. But I have found it to be an important part of being "considerate" of others and being charismatic to them. People really react differently to the smallest of nuance in tone and wording regardless if they are adults. (I'd actually wager adults react much more strongly to that nuance due to having more experience to tell the nuances apart)
The whole domain of interpersonal relations at scale is vastly understudied.
Yet it derails topics, it leads to bad feelings, it brings out the worst in us. Better to stop it at the root. The guidelines are simple. Dang tends to ask nicely rather than ban people. Mostly it works.
I don’t see this as hypersensitivity. I mean, there are plenty of places online where you can insult people however you please and it flows like water. I, for one, enjoy a place that tries to be the opposite.
Sadly not. I'm tempted to say "most adults aren't adults", but the actual dynamics are more what dmos62 described.
Let's say most of us are adults most of the time, but that gap between "most" and "all" is, given a large-enough population, more than enough to ruin every thread if care isn't taken to avoid this.
Edit: one factor that often goes unappreciated is the size of the community. Small, cohesive communities can support more robust (or even aggressive) styles of interaction—especially when people have other things in common that unite them. In the past I've often compared this to rugby teams [1] that beat the crap out of each other and then go to the pub together; or literary or comedy communities where the art of insulting each other is part of the fun. These dynamics break down completely in a context like HN, where the group size is orders of magnitude larger and the bonds holding people together are super weak, if they exist at all.
It's not that those other styles of communication are bad or wrong—they're great! in contexts where they don't cause people to come to blows—but they're not good here, because the context can't support them. In the current context—the large, anonymous, public internet forum—the cost of keeping the community going is a certain blandness [2] of communication. I'm not fond of that either, but one can't wish these tradeoffs away.
[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
[2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
dang has admitted he doesn't always get it perfect, and you may not agree with his decisions, but I think we can all understand the principles behind them, and people may not know how fortunate and rare that is.
I cannot.
edit: to clarify, not with apologists.
If you see a post that ought to have been moderated but hasn't been, the likeliest explanation is that we didn't see it. You can help by flagging it or emailing us at [email protected].
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
would be cool to read alternative history fiction where poor people came up with belief systems
https://ccnmtl.columbia.edu/projects/mmt/mxp/speeches/mxt14....
https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2016/06/10/481414008...
Frequently expressed across the colonial Commonwealth, Canada to Australia, South Africa and elsewhere.
eg Daisy Bates (sometime wife of Breaker Morant) wrote in the state newspaper in regard of Australian Aborigines:
Aboriginal civil-rights leader, William Harris, wrote an article in response and said bi-racial Aboriginal people could be of value to Australian society. Bates replied, "as to the half-castes, however early they may be taken and trained, with very few exceptions, the only good half-caste is a dead one."
Miscegenation Laws regarding mixing of races remained in force in Bates part of the world until the 1960s, as did others enforcing the separation of mixed children from their families.
It seems less "a solution to racism" and more an excuse to enforce racist ideas aand attitudes.
Pizza delivery hasn't led me to time machines yet :(
unlike David Ricardo my wants are not infinite lol
Not just a solution to racism, but also a defense against genocide. Forced interracial "marriages", rape, etc were used as a genocidal tool against the natives along with murder. Natives who refused to mix with whites were derogatorily called racists by the white settlers.
Miscegenation was actually supported by natives, blacks, asians, etc in order preserve their cultures/races in a white dominated nation. Racism ( by all sides ) actually preserved diversity in the US for centuries. Otherwise, everyone would be white due to demographic realities of the nation.
He was wrong about smoking, but the more you read about him the less you’ll believe it had much to do with money. He was used to being right about so many things, and in this area he was blind.
The article also throws shade at him as a “eugenicist.” I looked it up, and again, the truth is more complex. He wrote this in the 50s:
“I am sorry that there should be propaganda in favour of miscegenation in North America as I am sure it can do nothing but harm. Is it beyond human endeavour to give and justly administer equal rights to all citizens without fooling ourselves that these are equivalent items?”
So first — even using the word “miscegenation” puts you in a bad camp, and there’s no defending his attitude against interracial marriage. OTOH he seemed honestly to believe in the “equal rights” part, too. Too much of the old British “white man’s burden” bullshit, I believe.