Jump to content

Recommended Posts

Posted
1 minute ago, Dahobbs said:

 

I have no idea why you derisively dismissed this post

Sure you do, you hit the nail on the head that it's personal for him. He was acting out like a baby and wanted people to indulge his tantrum.

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted
2 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

manufacturing jobs

Este.

Nothing more perfectly encapsulates this naive fetishization of those jobs than Mike Rowe, the QVC host who realized that he could "look the part" of a blue collar guy and get paid a lot of dark money to push an anti-intellectual agenda.

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted
1 minute ago, chainsaw said:

Nothing more perfectly encapsulates this naive fetishization of those jobs than Mike Rowe, the QVC host who realized that he could "look the part" of a blue collar guy and get paid a lot of dark money to push an anti-intellectual agenda.

 

It's funny you bring him up as I was just thinking about how his shit is basically blue collar porn for suburbanites.

  • Haha 1
Posted
30 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Good post. 

 

29 minutes ago, G650 said:

I don't think anyone has denied that, I think we are debating what it means.

The best analogy I can come up with is that these white guys had been prepping to play golf in a tournament where the straight lowest score determined placing. Then at their tee time, it changed to using handicaps. 
 

Handicaps aren’t unfair. It’s a legit way of scoring golf and it means that more people can play and compete. But for that group who had the change drop, it’s totally unreasonable not to expect some pushback. 

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted
6 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

 

The best analogy I can come up with is that these white guys had been prepping to play golf in a tournament where the straight lowest score determined placing. Then at their tee time, it changed to using handicaps. 
 

Handicaps aren’t unfair. It’s a legit way of scoring golf and it means that more people can play and compete. But for that group who had the change drop, it’s totally unreasonable not to expect some pushback. 

I am not sure how many times I can say we aren't disagreeing. I really didn't need another analogy.

Posted
6 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

 

The best analogy I can come up with is that these white guys had been prepping to play golf in a tournament where the straight lowest score determined placing. Then at their tee time, it changed to using handicaps. 
 

Handicaps aren’t unfair. It’s a legit way of scoring golf and it means that more people can play and compete. But for that group who had the change drop, it’s totally unreasonable not to expect some pushback. 

That's a great analogy.

Posted (edited)
35 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

You've definitely said that. The question is whether the evidence actually shows it. I'm sure it has happened in particular companies and maybe even in particular industries. And that sucks. As I said in my first posts in this thread, a rush to change can also lead to an outsized and immediate impact. I think poorly implemented policies or ones that had a goal of making significant changes to the diversity of a company in short time frame (e.g., a couple of years) had negative impact on certain groups of workers. But the primary driver of the resentment in the original article appears to be the belief that prior to DEI policies becoming mainstream, the workplace was more fair and meritocracy based. That isn't a call for fair treatment. It is a call for the return of treatment that more favored white males. What is true is that the ones who lost some of the privileges attached with being a white male weren't those that most benefitted from them. And from a certain angle that can be seen as an unfair punishment. It would be fairer to take from those that reaped the awards of privileged, and I've repeatedly advocated that in this thread (despite your insistence that I don't care and want to abandon these people). 

Good post. Two things

1) In the bolded above you’re saying they “lost privilege.” I don’t think they had it to lose, but were denied opportunities. It’s a narrow but important distinction, but we agree that the most privileged people did not lose much if anything when efforts were made to establish a level of parity.

2)We haven’t really talked about this, but my own observations of the period was that the people who did benefit were themselves almost always enjoying other forms of privilege - affluent, well connected, etc. To the extent that “greater diversity” was achieved, it came at a cost of making class and power structures even more rigid and impenetrable. 

Edited by Bozo_Casanova
Posted
7 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

 

The best analogy I can come up with is that these white guys had been prepping to play golf in a tournament where the straight lowest score determined placing. Then at their tee time, it changed to using handicaps. 
 

Handicaps aren’t unfair. It’s a legit way of scoring golf and it means that more people can play and compete. But for that group who had the change drop, it’s totally unreasonable not to expect some pushback. 

 

1 minute ago, Vegas64 said:

That's a great analogy.

Is it? The suggestion is that the initial framework before was entirely skill/merit based. Since we know that isn't true, the analogy is flawed. It's more like they were playing a game of golf where the white guys had a few strokes handicap or maybe got to skip the first few holes. They also may have had better clubs, a caddy, and have played the course previously. The rules changed to remove the handicap and give everyone else slightly more comparable equipment. 

  • Hook 'Em 2
Posted

If there's one thing I love it's torturing analogies. So here's my take. 

That analogy is really good if we stipulate that the white guys had received golf lessons since they were 6 thanks to their affluent upbringing while the rest of the entrants had not received any lessons and had only played enough golf to register an official handicap. So they thought they were entering a "fair" competition where they could pretend that everyone had an even shot and ignore their tremendous structural advantage. Now that the playing field is leveled they are aggrieved. 

There, that enough torture? 

  • Hook 'Em 3
  • Fuck Around and Find Out 1
Posted
4 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

 

Is it? The suggestion is that the initial framework before was entirely skill/merit based. Since we know that isn't true, the analogy is flawed. It's more like they were playing a game of golf where the white guys had a few strokes handicap or maybe got to skip the first few holes. They also may have had better clubs, a caddy, and have played the course previously. The rules changed to remove the handicap and give everyone else slightly more comparable equipment. 

No, I think by 2014 my analogy is better. I will say that the white guys had been coached all their lives, had families who loved the sport and helped them learn to play, and had given them great equipment and lots of tee times. The others had recently begun playing, didn’t have coaching, etc. 
 

The actual structure handicaps in favor of white guys and “skipping holes” had been eliminated by then. That is the difference between “inequality” and “inequity”. 

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, G650 said:

That is true, but the bigger challenge almost all humans face is getting over the fact that life, itself, is not fair.

it's also not UNfair. it just HAPPENS.

over the years i've explained that to a number of young people in my life, when they've faced challenges and obstacles and wanted to claim victimhood...

life is NOT out to 'get you' and it is not inherently unfair or unjust...it just IS. a lot of shit just happens and it's up to the individual to assess and respond accordingly - that's where the responsibility lies. life really doesn't give a shit one way or another. 

maybe i need to talk to these millennial white boys 🤔😄

Edited by mchookem
  • Hook 'Em 1
  • Like 1
  • Fuck Around and Find Out 1
Posted
5 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

No, I think by 2014 my analogy is better. I will say that the white guys had been coached all their lives, had families who loved the sport and helped them learn to play, and had given them great equipment and lots of tee times. The others had recently begun playing, didn’t have coaching, etc. 
 

The actual structure handicaps in favor of white guys and “skipping holes” had been eliminated by then. That is the difference between “inequality” and “inequity”. 

We know that isn't true. Plenty of studies show that if you put two applicants with the same qualifications, one with a black sounding name and one with a white sounding name, the one with the black sounding will get rejected more often. 

  • Hook 'Em 3
Posted
16 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

We know that isn't true. Plenty of studies show that if you put two applicants with the same qualifications, one with a black sounding name and one with a white sounding name, the one with the black sounding will get rejected more often. 

At this point you’re doing the lawyer thing and torturing the analogy while also not registering counter-examples (for example, grad and professional school admissions stats based on GPA and test scores). And of course, a name is an individual marker, even if some of those individual markers are often linked to group markers. 

To torture the analogy further, the golfers all get assigned a handicap based on the average handicap for other members of their gender/ethnic group in the tournament. instead of their own registered handicap. Which to @Bozo_Casanova’s has the explicit impact of greatly favoring the skilled, practiced, and elite players across all groups and tremendously disadvantaging people who really need a  handicap.

Posted
1 hour ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Again, do you not understand that the consistent theme of what I've posted, including the post you repsonded to is that GenX and Boomer white males did not give up anything or lose any advantage?

Yep.  And the term you are looking for is - unironically - called "grandfathering."

If tomorrow, the City of Austin passes a regulation that as of 1/1/26 no new single-family home can be over 1-story tall, then any house that is not already over 1-story or has not applied for a permit under the current rules, cannot be more than 1-story tall.  That is a legal framework that presently exists, is enforced nationwide, and does not result in any taking of property or other actionable harm to anyone.

If, on the other hand, the City of Austin passed that same regulation, but followed it with "and we're going to have to tear down 10% of the current 2-story houses," every owner of such a house picked for destruction would have a lay-down taking claim.

To bring the metaphor back home, actually firing or demoting people to make room for someone else would curl your hair and everyone else's, and for good reason.  Changing the rules going forward, while it might FEEL unfair relatively speaking, is generally considered fair.  Changing them retroactively, and actively taking away rights/things you have?  Those are universally regarded as wrong and unfair.  And as you seem to be hung up on the fact that Gen Z white males are pissed not because the playing field going forward doesn't favor them as much, but because those who played before aren't being penalized, then . . . yeah.  My sympathy/empathy is low.  That's just our monkey-banana brain at work.  "No matter how many bananas I get, if some other monkey got more, I'm pissed." 

But, again, y'all are missing the punch line that obliterates this conversation: white male grievance has WON.  There will never be a better time to be a white male than in this new era.  It is official US policy that they are the most favored demographic, and any time any white male loses at anything it is per se evidence of racial/gender discrimination and non-merit-based hiring etc.  I have little sympathy for people who have captured all the levers of power, and are actively and proudly using them to favor one small group at the expense of literally everyone else.....and then bitch about how they haven't been able to....what, eliminate all non-white male competition from earth entirely? THEY'VE FUCKING WON.  TAKE THE FUCKING W AND SHUT THE FUCK UP.

Posted
3 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

At this point you’re doing the lawyer thing and torturing the analogy while also not registering counter-examples (for example, grad and professional school admissions stats based on GPA and test scores). And of course, a name is an individual marker, even if some of those individual markers are often linked to group markers. 

To torture the analogy further, the golfers all get assigned a handicap based on the average handicap for other members of their gender/ethnic group in the tournament. instead of their own registered handicap. Which to @Bozo_Casanova’s has the explicit impact of greatly favoring the skilled, practiced, and elite players across all groups and tremendously disadvantaging people who really need a  handicap.

Your analogy had a built-in assumption that the prior system was merit based. It's the same flaw in the original article. My only intention was to bring it out for discussion. The truth is neither system is a pure merit-based system. The question is whether one is more desirable than the other for society in general.

Further, there is an error here in conflating all methods of improving equity as operating in the same manner. Some of them may operate by modifying the scoring (e.g., your testing scores example). Others may operate by providing equipment or training. I think the former are going to seem inherently more unfair to other competitors and are more likely to generate resentment. 

Posted
56 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

We know that isn't true. Plenty of studies show that if you put two applicants with the same qualifications, one with a black sounding name and one with a white sounding name, the one with the black sounding will get rejected more often. 

My buddy in grad school told me about applying for jobs after he got out of the army and finishing up his undergrad degree. When he applied as José... crickets. When he changed his resume to show Jason... callbacks. On his first day I think at EY, his colleagues kept calling him Jason and he practically ignored them because he forgot that was his cover name.



×
×
  • Create New...