Links - 15th March 2018 (1)

When Intersectionality Silences Women - "“People call you a bigot and a Nazi. To your face. People who actually like you tell you that it is dangerous to speak about those things. That you could lose everything very fast. They plead with you to shut up. Not actively expressing one’s views isn’t enough anymore, though. There is a new thing: Some students are no longer happy with people completely avoiding issues. They raise tricky topics indirectly and expect you to virtue signal back. If you stay neutral they become visibly upset and keep virtue signalling until they realise that you will not signal back. Then, they start whispering among themselves: ‘She is a Nazi.’”
“I’ve already been shunned from most of my old friends after they found out I was no longer into social justice. On my campus, kids with similar views to mine have been slandered by Antifa, they’ve had threatening posters made with their faces/full names on them. I’m afraid that if word spreads about my views, it could happen to me as well.”..
A German physicist and engineer reported finding her work constrained by an expectation that she must relate to STEM as a woman rather than as a scientist.
“The university often has special ‘women only’ seminars, scholarships, support services, etc, which I find completely abhorrent, collectivist, and counterproductive to the scientific work I’m involved in. I feel like I’m not valued as an individual, but as a particular set of genitals.”...
A German psychologist said that she could not include controversial findings in her work even though these could be addressed without prejudiced assumptions:
“Difficult findings must be talked about: A recent study with a very large sample (around 11,000 children) found that children who grow up in same-sex parent households have a significantly higher risk of mental health problems, among other things. I am pro same sex partnerships but if children are being negatively affected that must be addressed. If I spoke about those findings I would be ostracized for being a bigot. Data on migrants (crime, illiteracy, infectious diseases, costs to the tax payer) must not ever be mentioned. But we cannot plan ahead or fix issues if we don’t speak about them.”
Another social scientist found she was unable to look at gender and economics because of objections to the division by gender. ...
Five women reported being shouted at or facing verbal abuse and hostility for their views"
Modern feminism silences women who don't agree with it

The Next Wave of Extremists Will Be Green – Foreign Policy - "Radicals of all types share certain characteristics. According to Peter Neumann, the director of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence (ICSR) and author of Der Terror ist unter uns (“The Terror Is Among Us”), people who become radicalized typically have a “sense of grievance” — sometimes real, sometimes perceived — and a belief that legitimate channels for redress are shut off, inaccessible, or ineffective. There is also usually a social element, in the form of a charismatic preacher or ideology, that spurs people to seek emotional fulfillment through otherwise forbidden methods for redemption... A recent report from the Department of Homeland Security warned of attacks from eco-terrorists who “believe violence is justified”"

Communicating in a foreign language takes emotion out of decision-making - "“We discovered that people using a foreign language were not any more concerned with maximizing the greater good,” said lead author Sayuri Hayakawa, a UChicago doctoral student in psychology. “But rather, were less averse to violating the taboos that can interfere with making utility-maximizing choices.” The researchers, including Albert Costa and Joanna Corey from Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, propose that using a foreign language gives people some emotional distance and that allowed them to take the more utilitarian action.""

What College Graduates Regret - "a third of college graduates who majored in social science, liberal arts or education regretted their decision. (In comparison, 24 percent of people with science and engineering degrees wish they'd studied something else.) But overall, when asked what they wish they'd done differently in college, "choosing a different major" wasn't the top answer. The most popular answer, given by half of all respondents, was "gaining more work experience." Choosing a different major was the fourth most popular response, after "studying harder" and "looking for work sooner.""
For all the eloquent defences of why you should take a humanities education, the numbers are interesting. If broken down by major they would likely be even more interesting

The Doom Loop of Liberalism - "Rich countries tend to redistribute wealth from the rich few to the less-rich multitude. But when that multitude suddenly includes minorities who are seen as outsiders, the white majority can turn resentful and take back their egalitarian promises. Take, for example, the Twin Cities of Minnesota. They were once revered for their liberal local policies—like corporate-tax redistribution from rich areas to poor neighborhoods and low-income housing construction near business districts. But since the 1980s, as the metro area attracted more nonwhite immigrants, the metro has become deeply segregated by income and race and affordable-housing construction has backtracked. Or take Finland, that renowned “Santa Claus State” of cradle-to-grave social services, where the welfare state is being “systematically dismantled.” The far right has emerged in the last few decades, just as foreign-born population has suddenly grown... cultural heterogeneity and egalitarianism often cut against each other. Pluralist social democracy is stuck in a finger trap of math and bigotry, where to pull on one end (support for diversity) seems to naturally strain the other (support for equality)."

A Million First Dates - "“You could say online dating allows people to get into relationships, learn things, and ultimately make a better selection,” says Gonzaga. “But you could also easily see a world in which online dating leads to people leaving relationships the moment they’re not working—an overall weakening of commitment.”... subjects who selected a chocolate from an array of six options believed it tasted better than those who selected the same chocolate from an array of 30."

Why Education is a Limited Determinant of Mobility - "increasing skills and educational attainment are often insufficient for disrupting economic trajectories"

Why It Was Easier to Be Skinny in the 1980s - "it’s harder for adults today to maintain the same weight as those 20 to 30 years ago did, even at the same levels of food intake and exercise... The fact that the body weights of Americans today are influenced by factors beyond their control is a sign, Kuk says, that society should be kinder to people of all body types."

Why I Hope to Die at 75 - "living too long is also a loss. It renders many of us, if not disabled, then faltering and declining, a state that may not be worse than death but is nonetheless deprived. It robs us of our creativity and ability to contribute to work, society, the world. It transforms how people experience us, relate to us, and, most important, remember us. We are no longer remembered as vibrant and engaged but as feeble, ineffectual, even pathetic... over recent decades, increases in longevity seem to have been accompanied by increases in disability—not decreases... There was an “increase in the life expectancy with disease and a decrease in the years without disease. The same is true for functioning loss, an increase in expected years unable to function”... creativity rises rapidly as a career commences, peaks about 20 years into the career, at about age 40 or 45, and then enters a slow, age-related decline. There are some, but not huge, variations among disciplines. Currently, the average age at which Nobel Prize–winning physicists make their discovery—not get the prize—is 48. Theoretical chemists and physicists make their major contribution slightly earlier than empirical researchers do. Similarly, poets tend to peak earlier than novelists do. Simonton’s own study of classical composers shows that the typical composer writes his first major work at age 26, peaks at about age 40 with both his best work and maximum output, and then declines, writing his last significant musical composition at 52"

The Medieval Knight With a Chinese Sword, Who Was Once A Bridge

A Graphic Guide to Cemetery Symbolism

Twitter just doubled the character limit for tweets to 280 - "About 9 percent of all tweets today are exactly 140 characters, Twitter says. It’s tough to do that on accident, suggesting that users frequently have to edit their initial thoughts to get them under the limit..The average length of a tweet in Japanese is 15 characters, and only 0.4 percent of tweets hit the 140-character limit"

When Did The Star Wars Prequels Become Cool? - "Nostalgia belongs to those with the defining culture voice. On the internet, that voice is fractured and twisted but typically comes from those aged 25-35. Today, on the lower extremity of that, you have those who were children when the prequels came out and possibly first experienced the galaxy far, far away with Anakin, rather than Luke. So, just as ten years ago the likes of Ghostbusters and Back to the Future – films that in 2017 are still universally accepted as greats but not readily raised touchstones – were the peak of throwback culture, now it’s shifting to The Matrix and, yes, Star Wars... They introduce a completely opposed galactic backdrop – a crumbling, corrupted Republic instead of a binary civil war – have a litany of fresh, sleek designs (before slowly evolving into the ships and planets we know), and for all the narrative parallels (as George famously said “it’s like poetry, they rhyme”) they’re telling a fresh story. Above all, they’re tonally separate. Anakin’s fall is a dark companion to Luke’s arc, yet it comes alongside Palpatine’s Machiavellian rise and dogmatic politics."

Palm Springs Council now entirely made up of LGBT members
Does this mean they're no longer "diverse"?

Married Pakistani doctor molested Muslim student nurse - "'Shortly afterwards Miss A was in the ward kitchen when he entered the room and closed the door behind him. He asked whether she had a thyroid problem before feeling her neck. 'She was backed into the corner when the registrant touched her chest at the top where her breasts start. She said he put his fingers there for a few seconds before she pushed them away. 'Miss A says she held her hand up to signal for him to move away and told him he was a disgrace. He asked for a hug and she refused but he did it anyway. 'Then he grabbed her right breast for a few seconds. Miss A said he was laughing and trying to make light if the situation and then became aggressive and said that friends do what he was trying to do.'... Qureshi was sentenced at Manchester's Minshull Street Crown Court to a 12-month community order with 20 days rehabilitation activity requirement after he was convicted by a jury of sexual assault."
Looks like the UK doesn't punish molest like Singapore does

NHS appeal for black blood donors 'drops straight knowledge' - "Using a string of references from Sinbad, to Ellen DeGeneres, to Bill Nye, the GiveBlood social media team explained the universality of blood, the exceptional need for different blood groups, and the prevalence of different groups in different races. Particularly, black people are more likely to have the rare Ro blood subtype, which only one in 50 people have, and which is used in the management of sickle cell disesase."
I thought race didn't exist

A black student wrote those racist messages that shook the Air Force Academy, school says - The Washington Post - "The person responsible for the racist messages, the academy said, was, in fact, one of the cadet candidates who reported being targeted by them... The announcement thrust the Air Force Academy Preparatory School onto a growing list of recent “hate crime hoaxes” — instances in which acts of racism or anti-Semitism were later found to be committed by someone in the targeted minority group. On Monday, police in Riley County, Kansas, revealed that a 21-year-old black man, Dauntarius Williams, admitted to defacing his car with racist graffiti as a “Halloween prank that got out of hand.” Scrawled in washable paint were racist messages telling blacks to “Go Home,” “Date your own kind,” and “Die.”... Officials decided not to file criminal charges against Williams for filing a false report, saying it “would not be in the best interests” of citizens of the Manhattan, Kan., community... There is even a website — fakehatecrimes.org — committed to listing hate crime hoaxes... BuzzFeed News found 154 total incidents of hate speech at more than 120 college campuses nationwide... authorities caught fewer than 5 percent of perpetrators in cases of vandalism or threats. In at least three instances, college officials determined the incident was a hoax"
Assuming hoaxers are equally likely to get caught, this means that at least half of reported hate crimes are hoaxes

Remember When Eastern Michigan University Erupted In Protest Over Racist Graffiti? It Was A Hoax. - "Eastern Michigan University erupted in protests after racist graffiti — red, white, and blue spray-painted "KKK" and "leave n*****s" — was discovered on school property on three different occasions. According to university police, the racist incidents appear to have been a hoax, allegedly perpetrated by a 29-year-old black man named Eddie Curlin... Protests instantly erupted over the incidents, gaining national attention and building a post-Trump racism-in-America narrative... "EMU even created a website to track updates regarding the vandalism. Those updates included holding a day-long teach-on on racism, diversity, and inclusion; creating the President’s Commission on Diversity and Inclusion; another day-long teach-in called 'Know Justice, Know Peace'; promoting a campus-wide unity rally; providing psychological and counseling services to students affected by the vandalism and more.""

Working at Google seemed like a dream job. The reality has been a tedious, pointless nightmare. - The Washington Post - "In some ways, my experience is not so different than that of other twenty-somethings in corporate America. Yet Google’s low-level HR employees are barraged by higher-ups about Passion! and how we are Changing People’s Lives!... I began to wonder if I was crazy, eating alone in the cafeteria and wearing ear plugs so I wouldn’t have to overhear one more random Googler claim, without irony or visible self-consciousness, to have held “a mini-pow-wow on 360 wellness,” or to be “a product expert across a myriad of domains hoping to sync and gain best practices.” I can’t tell who believes themselves and who is just acting, because everyone participates. Every email has an exclamation mark, or ten. Google HR is a special type of hell ruled by the tyranny of positivity. It’s a privileged hell, for sure, but it’s hell, and its primary trait is hollowness."

The blue state depression - "Of the 10 blue states that Hillary Clinton won by the largest percentage margins — California, Massachusetts, Vermont, Hawaii, Maryland, New York, Illinois, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Connecticut — every single one of them lost domestic migration (excluding immigration) over the last 10 years (2004-14). Nearly 2.75 million more Americans left California and New York than entered these states. They are the loser states. They are all progressive. High taxes rates. High welfare benefits. Heavy regulation. Environmental extremism. Super minimum wages. Most outlaw energy drilling. The whole left-wing playbook is on display in the Hillary states. And people are leaving in droves. Day after day, they are being bled to death. So much for liberalism creating a worker’s paradise... pretty much the same pattern holds true for jobs"

Subjective Well‐Being and Income: Is There Any Evidence of Satiation? - "Deaton (2008) and Stevenson and Wolfers (2008) find that the well-being–income relationship is roughly a linear-log relationship, such that, while each additional dollar of income yields a greater increment to measured happiness for the poor than for the rich, there is no satiation point... we find no evidence of a satiation point. The income–well-being link that one finds when examining only the poor, is similar to that found when examining only the rich. We show that this finding is robust across a variety of datasets, for various measures of subjective well-being, at various thresholds, and that it holds in roughly equal measure when making cross-national comparisons between rich and poor countries as when making comparisons between rich and poor people within a country."
Data complicating the Easterlin Paradox