Public school in Minnesota requires English course aimed at eradicating white privilege

a reply to: JoshuaCox

Agreed. The state taking peoples money and property simply because they die is a non-starter.

originally posted by: Aazadan
Sure I can, it's like this. Lets say the base rate is a 5% chance to become upper middle class or better. If you're white, that chance moves to 8%, if you're black it moves to 2%. Sure, anyone can succeed but statistically you're less likely to as a black person (or hispanic for that matter).

Not accurate. The change is equal, even if the actual success rates are not. Skin color isn't the factor there.

That's fine, that just means they don't desire success. Which is all the more reason they shouldn't try to get in the way of others succeeding.

No, that means they don't all define "success" the same way that you define it. Success means different things to different people. Nor is anything they do, or anything they leave to their children, "standing in the way" of the success of someone else.

Popular opinions are popular because people see truth in them.

No, they are popular because people behave like sheep. Popular isn't the same as truthful.

The project takes an arbitrary pool of Magic the Gathering cards (anything from a couple cards to every card in the game), and attempts to figure out optimal deck configurations. I've tried an AI based approach that simulates enough games to build statistics based models, but that doesn't work well because certain cards require too many decisions, and as such have to be excluded from the pool, it also requires programming every individual card which is challenging (and time consuming with approximately 150 new cards made each month). It also requires rating cards against other cards, which is context sensitive. Though my rating system from the AI is being reused in my current approach, with a few tweaks.

The AI system failed because it was too labor intensive, of the decks it was able to play it actually was successfully able to identify new cards and optimal deck construction, but adding new cards proved to be too much work for me to be able to handle, and the inability to play many high impact, high decision tree cards basically doomed the project.

That's a lot of variables, and does sound like a real programming challenge. My dad would have liked to take on something like that.

My current approach is to build a language processing system that can take a database of card text that can be batch updated, parse the words on the text for card actions, and then build a matrix rating each card against each other card based on the card text actions and the strategy you want to approach the game with (typically, the aggressor or the defender) and ignore simulations entirely.

Then take the resulting matrix and perform social network analysis on it to make groups of cards that naturally play well together. From there, I can take those groups as pseudo decks, rate the number of cards they have favored against other groups, make predictions at meta composition, and determine the optimal deck at any given time.

It's still a work in progress. You mentioned what gamers can tell you. I'm a gamer too, though I spend more time solving and/or developing games than actually playing them. Again, most people figure this all out intuitively and make their game decisions, I'm simply incapable of doing that.

It's a different sort of thought process. One isn't better than the other, and both have their uses.

I didn't earn anything, I just sat through the classes. Some classes have been extremely difficult (more than once I've been brought to tears over having to accept that I'm too stupid to complete an assignment), other classes were easy... it varies by the major and the professor. Also 5 degrees is an exaggeration. 3 are Associates Degrees (web development, computer graphics, interactive digital technology) so they don't count, 1 was an easy Bachelors degree (computer science) so it barely counts, though it offers good job prospects. Then the other is the Bachelors I'm working on (game development), which is extremely difficult (it has a 4% graduation rate). So really, I say 5 but the true number is closer to 1 with a few other random distractions thrown in.

Yet you have passed the classes. That's more than many can do, and you do deserve credit for that. You didn't pass for being white; you passed for learning the material. For me, computer science would be a real chore, and not something that fits my skills, and I am well above average in intelligence. You see that as an easy course. Clearly, more number skills than I have. My thinking is more abstract. While most of my peers in school liked algebra, and hated geometry, I was the reverse. Geometry as so easy for me, and they struggled; the same students who whizzed through algebra, which I detest to this day. Again, we all have different skills.

Physical advantages are easier to build than mental ones, they're also less subtle. Anyone can develop a talent for a sport by playing it and exercising. Someone might not physically develop as much without access to a good personal trainer and a proper gym regimen but the talent can easily be developed and scouts see that. Basically, the physical aspect is secondary.

That's only true to a point. There are people who can never, ever, be as strong, tall, fast, as some of the athletes, who were simply born that way. I can build muscle really easily, but I can't run for crap. I don't have the wind for it, and never will. Someone with a smaller frame won't me as tough as someone with a larger one. Those that have the superior strength and speed do have an advantage, and that's alright. Using it to their advantage, in a sport, isn't holding someone else back, any more than using a mental, financial, or any other sort of advantage.

The issue with a mental advantage is that access to schools and teachers plays a big part. There's no barrier to entry on developing your ability to play ball, there's a big artificial barrier to entry in academics.

Of course there is a barrier for both! Someone with no athletic ability isn't going to win a place on a pro sports team, nor should they. Likewise, someone with less intelligence shouldn't be attending a top-notch college, when they won't be able to succeed there. It's not an artificial barrier, in that case, but a practical one. Now, financial barriers are different, and I do have issues with how expensive it can be to obtain a college degree. That's a separate issue, though.

I'll likely be single my whole life too, so I doubt adoption is in my future since it's very rare for single parents to be allowed to adopt.

Well, not everyone needs to have kids. Not everyone is even equipped to do so. At least you know your own limitations, and that's more than can be said for some. I have a houseful, and love it, but that's not for everyone, either. Some are happy with one or two. Some with none. We are all different, and that's how we are supposed to be.

a reply to: JoshuaCox

hang on a minute , I'd heard that even if adolf hitler was alive today he wouldnt be held accountable for his actions in WW2 as so much time has passed since the war, so why then are individuals / companies, if traceable held accountable for slavery if hitler gets off with mass genocide why dont slavers get off with slavery

not that i condone the actions in any way but how can people who commit genocide escape punishment but not escape the long arm of the law for slaving!

Anyways im not that into materialism id ask someone to give me back property stolen from my family 1000 years ago.

a reply to: sapien82

BWAHAHAHA

now that is funny..

You mean Adolfo hitler , butt of all jokes, easy go to representative of evil, guy if you at all sympathize with inpublic you might get fired?!?!

You are flipping crazy...


If they found hitler in South America tomorrow, he is jailed for SURE but has a 50/50 of being executed..

Wasn’t a few Nazi’s officers discovered on the late 80’s and prosecutes?!??

a reply to: JoshuaCox

Id read online somewhere , someone had said about hitler not being tried for war crimes, as he'd be 130 years old by now


Anyways I thought that if you were still alive then you could be tried for any crime against humanity.

I may be crazy but at least I know I may be crazy

Yeh there were masss nazi hunts in the 80's

originally posted by: JoshuaCox
Honestly I think absolutes are almost always bad.. and the government confiscating ALL inheritances is an absolute.

They should prob start taxing inheritances over X amount though.

That's a fine compromise position. The truth about inheritance though is that if you're wealthy it rarely comes after someone dies. Because of estate taxes, and the simple fact that it's better to give the money sooner, most large inheritances come while the giver is still alive. Situations like mine are rare among the large inheritance crowd. It's much more common for money and other assets to be given over a period of 10 to 20 years while still alive so simple estate taxes rarely take their share.

Legislating a way to tax it gets really tricky as a result and would most likely require a tax lawyer for every passing of assets between family members. I don't think that's a good thing because that effectively only bans it for the middle class but not the wealthy.

originally posted by: LadyGreenEyes
Not accurate. The change is equal, even if the actual success rates are not. Skin color isn't the factor there.

Socioeconomic status is the biggest factor, but SES is largely broken up by race, which in turn means the existing policy is racist in nature.

No, that means they don't all define "success" the same way that you define it. Success means different things to different people. Nor is anything they do, or anything they leave to their children, "standing in the way" of the success of someone else.

Just because most people confuse success with mediocrity doesn't make it so.

No, they are popular because people behave like sheep. Popular isn't the same as truthful.

In a way it is. Lets take gun control, there's one right answer to that particular issue. What society ultimately deems right is the result of opinion. When your opinion is unpopular, you are automatically wrong.

That's a lot of variables, and does sound like a real programming challenge. My dad would have liked to take on something like that.

Not really. Building it is within the talents of any second semester Computer Science student. Which is more proof that I should have figured the system out (and if it would work or not) years ago.

I'll give another example. At work we have a system to build computer animations. After working there for 3 months I came up with a process to streamline it which reduced the work it took to build a set of animations from 3 months to 2 weeks. This is another monument to my ignorance. If I was capable, I would have seen the problem and made the new system right away. Instead it took me 12 weeks to get the idea. That's 10 weeks of company time (worth about $100,000) that I wasted by not coming up with something better, sooner, as anyone who is actually competent would have been able to do.

Yet you have passed the classes. That's more than many can do, and you do deserve credit for that. You didn't pass for being white; you passed for learning the material.

Anyone can learn the material and pass. Our low graduation rate isn't because of the difficulty of the material for most. It's because of the workload. Very few have the types of extreme difficulty with the material that I have, their issues are in scheduling time to complete the work. I've worked with plenty of my classmates over the years, I can figure out the steps to solve a problem, but cannot for the life of me write the code. They're the opposite, which means there's something wrong with me that I've failed to learn what they learned.

Yet, despite that failure on my part I wound up with a nice job, that I in no way merit. That is why I say the system is screwed up. If you've got the right background (and race is part of that), then regardless of merit, competence, or effort, you're likely to be on easy street.

Of course there is a barrier for both! Someone with no athletic ability isn't going to win a place on a pro sports team, nor should they. Likewise, someone with less intelligence shouldn't be attending a top-notch college, when they won't be able to succeed there. It's not an artificial barrier, in that case, but a practical one. Now, financial barriers are different, and I do have issues with how expensive it can be to obtain a college degree. That's a separate issue, though.

Someone without athletic ability can develop it. It costs little to no money to exercise, or to play sports. College not only has financial costs, but there's additional costs too such as what majors students are advised to look into. If you make a poor choice of major, which is more likely by having parents who don't know any better, or bad schools that aren't equipped to advise students. Then they're being set up for failure by external circumstances.

originally posted by: Aazadan
Socioeconomic status is the biggest factor, but SES is largely broken up by race, which in turn means the existing policy is racist in nature.

I disagree. Just because a certain racial group is less financially successful, that doesn't mean racism is the cause.

Just because most people confuse success with mediocrity doesn't make it so.

I agree.

In a way it is. Lets take gun control, there's one right answer to that particular issue. What society ultimately deems right is the result of opinion. When your opinion is unpopular, you are automatically wrong.

In that case, it's more what the facts state, than opinion, I'd say. The data shows that when or people own and carry guns, crime rates drop, and vice versa. Politics and alarmist claims can affect what people believe, but they won't change the facts.

Not really. Building it is within the talents of any second semester Computer Science student. Which is more proof that I should have figured the system out (and if it would work or not) years ago.

Well, to be fair, my dad could probably have done that in not too much time. Not my skill set, though!

I'll give another example. At work we have a system to build computer animations. After working there for 3 months I came up with a process to streamline it which reduced the work it took to build a set of animations from 3 months to 2 weeks. This is another monument to my ignorance. If I was capable, I would have seen the problem and made the new system right away. Instead it took me 12 weeks to get the idea. That's 10 weeks of company time (worth about $100,000) that I wasted by not coming up with something better, sooner, as anyone who is actually competent would have been able to do.

Solutions always see obvious once we see them, when they weren't necessarily obvious at first.

Anyone can learn the material and pass. Our low graduation rate isn't because of the difficulty of the material for most. It's because of the workload. Very few have the types of extreme difficulty with the material that I have, their issues are in scheduling time to complete the work. I've worked with plenty of my classmates over the years, I can figure out the steps to solve a problem, but cannot for the life of me write the code. They're the opposite, which means there's something wrong with me that I've failed to learn what they learned.

Perhaps coding just isn't your skill? And, yes, time constraints can be a real problem for classes.

Yet, despite that failure on my part I wound up with a nice job, that I in no way merit. That is why I say the system is screwed up. If you've got the right background (and race is part of that), then regardless of merit, competence, or effort, you're likely to be on easy street.

That's background, though, not race. There are plenty of people of all races who have succeeded, and whose children thus have more than do others.

Someone without athletic ability can develop it. It costs little to no money to exercise, or to play sports. College not only has financial costs, but there's additional costs too such as what majors students are advised to look into. If you make a poor choice of major, which is more likely by having parents who don't know any better, or bad schools that aren't equipped to advise students. Then they're being set up for failure by external circumstances.

Maybe, and maybe not. Not everyone can learn athletics. Plus, strength and speed are, to some degree, genetic, and there are limits to how much one can improve.

Some majors....well, some simply shouldn't even exist, and some that do have some small niche are not useful for most.

originally posted by: LadyGreenEyes
I disagree. Just because a certain racial group is less financially successful, that doesn't mean racism is the cause.

If race weren't a contributing factor, then you wouldn't be able to accurately break SES down by race.

Solutions always see obvious once we see them, when they weren't necessarily obvious at first.

Sometimes solutions don't appear because necessary information is missing. When you have all of the information from the beginning, if a solution isn't obvious it's because you're not up to the task of solving it.

Perhaps coding just isn't your skill? And, yes, time constraints can be a real problem for classes.

Perhaps. I'm 35 now though, and I've been doing it since I was 14. So that's about 21 years experience with 3 of that professionally and 12 academically. If I'm not at least average at it by now (and I'm not), then that simply means there's something wrong with me... hence being a dunce.

Edit: Expanding on this. I consider myself to be a very good problem solver. Like I said, I'm a gamer and have reverse engineered every game I've played in the last 20 years. To the point that the companies actually hired me since they liked what I could figure out. My current game MTG is a tough one to do this with, so it has taken longer. But I will get it... my only point is that more talented people could do it in a fraction of the time. But, where does that leave me? For a person who wants to genuinely solve the worlds problems, I struggle with trivial ones... not even problems of substance. Hence, I'm bad at what I do.

a reply to: LadyGreenEyes

That's only true to a point. There are people who can never, ever, be as strong, tall, fast, as some of the athletes, who were simply born that way. I can build muscle really easily, but I can't run for crap. I don't have the wind for it, and never will. Someone with a smaller frame won't me as tough as someone with a larger one. Those that have the superior strength and speed do have an advantage, and that's alright. Using it to their advantage, in a sport, isn't holding someone else back, any more than using a mental, financial, or any other sort of advantage.

Thank you for pointing this out.

Of all the kids in the population who start out with a sport, only about 2% will attain elite college status, just like only about 2% on average will be intellectually gifted.

There is a real difference in base ability.

You an I and Aazadan could implement the same training regimen that Michael Jordan followed and work it for a year, for 5 years, for a decade, and we still, none of us, would be anywhere near as good at basketball as he was at that point in his career ... because he was a gifted athlete.

Practice will take a hardworking amateur over a talented lazy kid, but only until the talented kid wakes up and starts working hard for it.

originally posted by: ketsuko
You an I and Aazadan could implement the same training regimen that Michael Jordan followed and work it for a year, for 5 years, for a decade, and we still, none of us, would be anywhere near as good at basketball as he was at that point in his career ... because he was a gifted athlete.

Then that's all the more reason to take care of people who achieve less, because only a small percent are capable of actually doing well.

originally posted by: Aazadan
If race weren't a contributing factor, then you wouldn't be able to accurately break SES down by race.

Ridiculous. You can break down anything by race. That doesn't make race a factor, necessarily, in whatever it is.

Perhaps coding just isn't your skill? And, yes, time constraints can be a real problem for classes.

Perhaps. I'm 35 now though, and I've been doing it since I was 14. So that's about 21 years experience with 3 of that professionally and 12 academically. If I'm not at least average at it by now (and I'm not), then that simply means there's something wrong with me... hence being a dunce.

Edit: Expanding on this. I consider myself to be a very good problem solver. Like I said, I'm a gamer and have reverse engineered every game I've played in the last 20 years. To the point that the companies actually hired me since they liked what I could figure out. My current game MTG is a tough one to do this with, so it has taken longer. But I will get it... my only point is that more talented people could do it in a fraction of the time. But, where does that leave me? For a person who wants to genuinely solve the worlds problems, I struggle with trivial ones... not even problems of substance. Hence, I'm bad at what I do.

So you do have some skills. Meaning, you do merit a job.

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: LadyGreenEyes

That's only true to a point. There are people who can never, ever, be as strong, tall, fast, as some of the athletes, who were simply born that way. I can build muscle really easily, but I can't run for crap. I don't have the wind for it, and never will. Someone with a smaller frame won't me as tough as someone with a larger one. Those that have the superior strength and speed do have an advantage, and that's alright. Using it to their advantage, in a sport, isn't holding someone else back, any more than using a mental, financial, or any other sort of advantage.

Thank you for pointing this out.

Of all the kids in the population who start out with a sport, only about 2% will attain elite college status, just like only about 2% on average will be intellectually gifted.

There is a real difference in base ability.

You an I and Aazadan could implement the same training regimen that Michael Jordan followed and work it for a year, for 5 years, for a decade, and we still, none of us, would be anywhere near as good at basketball as he was at that point in his career ... because he was a gifted athlete.

Practice will take a hardworking amateur over a talented lazy kid, but only until the talented kid wakes up and starts working hard for it.

Exactly! Yet no one states that we should penalize athletes, for their abilities, and make it so some average Joe can earn the same massive salary. Yet people will claim that race is somehow something that demands compensation, and adjustment. It's madness!

originally posted by: LadyGreenEyes
So you do have some skills. Meaning, you do merit a job.

Why does that merit a job? People who merit employment are actually good at what they do. I am not. I do have a job, and a rather nice one at that, but that's only because my boss didn't know any better. If I were my boss, I can say flat out that I would not have hired me.

originally posted by: seasonal
a reply to: blackadder01

And the teachers in the class would respond that the America you grew up in was full of White privilege (a racist term) and lamenting and wishing for the good old days means you are by de-facto a racist.


.

The world has gone MAD.