This is really neat, although it does not look slick enough to replace my own hacky word-around:
What I have been doing is creating a separate Chrome application launcher for my different life contexts -- http://lifehacker.com/5611711/create-application-shortcuts-i... I have one for anonymous browsing, one for work, one for personal-real-name, and one for pseudonymous browsing. I renamed the application so I can launch by typing "WorkChrome" or "PersonalChrome" in spotlight search. Each Chrome app then runs with a separate profile, separate cookies, etc. I have a different icon and colored theme for each one, so that I never make a mistake with regards to which I am browsing in. I can have multiple open at the same time and tab switch between them.
There is a problem with how parents are involved with their kids education.
This is being too harsh on parents. My parents were very much involved with my own brother's education. They tutored him, got him extra help, set up incentives, etc, etc. But he still did far worse than me. Meanwhile they had to pull me away from the books. I never got help with math homework because I never had any trouble with it. School just came naturally to me. I was just born much smarter than my brother. My parents never had to pressure me to learn programming, I picked it up because it was fun and I was good at it. Heck, I taught myself calculus because I found the problem solving fun.
And I see this observation over and over again. If a person is naturally good at cognitive work, sooner or later they will go whole hog on learning some economically useful cognitive skills. If a person is just naturally a bit slower, it will always be an uphill battle.
You're looking on the wrong end of the spectrum. The thought is that kids with uninvolved parents tend to have external distractions, behavioral problems, an unwillingness to do homework, underage pregnancies, etc.
Wasn't my intent to be harsh on parents. I am simply saying that involved parents on average means more involved children who will then learn more.
Of course there are kids who just learn naturally but they aren't a part of the problem the article is discussing and there are parents who aren't involved in their childrens education.
The existence of people like Jessica is not just something the mainstream media needs to learn to acknowledge, but something feminists need to learn to acknowledge as well. There are successful women who don't like to fight.
There is another lesson here for feminists that PG does not fully articulate. In my experience, most women are similar to Jessica in that they do not fit naturally into an alphadog founder type role. The time-honored tradition for such women to be part of accomplishing great things, is to partner with an alphadog mate. Unfortunately, modern feminism is all about turning women into men, rather than guiding women to fit in as complements and partners to a strong man.
If Jessica was so important to YC, why don't more people realize it? Partly because I'm a writer, and writers always get disproportionate attention.
Only .7% of those in prison are there for marijuana possession as their only crime - https://www.ncjrs.gov/ondcppubs/publications/pdf/whos_in_pri... And among those possession could mean as much as 100 pounds. The idea that our prisons are full of people who were just smoking pot in their own homes is ludicrous. Whatever our views on whether it is sane to make marijuana illegal, locking up pot smokers is not the cause of mass incarceration.
I don't understand how no one talks about the systemic, generational poverty that a large proportion of the US black population lives in. It's just incomprehensible to me how people can't see how this leads to crime.
Because there are lots of instances of people living in deep poverty without killing each other at ridiculously high rates. Most people in China or India are more materially deprived than those living in the American inner-city, yet the neighborhoods there are much, much safer. Philadelphia in 1890 was much poorer, and much more unequal, yet the homicide rates were 10X lower. Also Edwardian England is a compelling counter-example. Read "The Classic Slum" by Robert Roberts. British society around 1900 was massively unequal and lots of people were desperately poor. But their homicide rates were 100X lower than the rates seen in the contemporary ghetto. The poor working class areas of England during that period had intact families, schools that provided discipline, strict policing, and strong institutions.
We are a savage species and crime is the default. What prevents crime is civilization. What you see in the black inner-cities is an utter void of civilization.
Um, from taking walks a few blocks from my apartment and doing volunteering in such communities. Also just reading the local news. Also reading lots of ethnographies. Go read American Millstone (http://www.amazon.com/American-Millstone-Examination-Permane...) or Ghettoside and maybe you will rethink those scare quotes. I'm not sure how "void of civilization" is an unfair label for what is described in those books.
There were white (mostly Irish) inner city areas with a complete void of civilization, such as old southie, but those areas are less prevalent these days. That said there is lots of degeneracy among the white population in some areas too. I'd call those areas more of a partial void of civilization rather than an utter void of civilization.
They aren't scare quotes, they are merely direct quotation marks. "Black inner-cities" is fine as an observation. But, it's hard for me to read your post above and not come away thinking that your implication is 'being black makes one more prone to crime and uncivilized behavior.' Could you clarify to what extent you think race (as opposed to poverty from birth) contributes to one's predilection for "civilized" behavior?
There is a saying that every generation is invaded by a horde of savages -- they're called children. Humans are savage by default, civilization is not natural. It took generations to build the institutions, the social mores, the web of reinforcing family and peer influences, the culture, the churches/schools, etc, that make civilization possible. The existence of these elements vary by people, vary by ethnicity (ethnicity being a combination of tribe and culture and institutions). If you look at the worst inner-city, ethnically African-American neighborhoods, those elements are all missing. Kids are raised from the cradle to the jail-cell without civilizing influences of parental discipline, good peer influences, and peer role models. Again, read American Millstone, or The Corner or Ghettoside. That is what I mean by a void of civilization.
You've described the scene: poor and predominantly African-American neighborhoods oftentimes lack stabilizing social networks. I mostly agree with this description. I might not call it a "void of civilization," but I will agree that there's a difference between West Oakland and Berkeley.
I am asking a different question. To be blunt, which contributes more to the current lack of "civilizing influences" in inner-cities: that the actors involved are black, or that the actors involved were born into the same lack of "civilizing influences" 20 years earlier?
I didn't answer your question because it was not germane to the discussion. Whether or not there is are innate differences in tendency, behavior is quite malleable via the proper culture, institutions, and law enforcement. But if you really want an answer I will try to humor you.
"I am asking a different question. To be blunt, which contributes more to the current lack of "civilizing influences" in inner-cities: that the actors involved are black, or that the actors involved were born into the same lack of "civilizing influences" 20 years earlier?"
To be even more blunt, I take it you asking whether black genes matter more or whether the environmental conditions matter more? It is not really possible to answer that question along a comparative axis of "more or less." With most human traits, genes determine both the slope of the improvement curve and where the improvement curve plateaus. Environment determines where one is along that curve. I cannot throw a javelin 80 meters. Which matters more, genes or the fact that I have never trained to throw the javelin? That's not really a well put question. I'm sure with training I could throw it 40 meters, I highly doubt I have the genes to ever be able to throw it a world-class 80 meters.
Similarly with African-American neighborhoods -- I think they have the genes to have peaceful, orderly neighborhoods because such neighborhoods have existed in the African-American population before. I am pessimistic that there will ever be an African or African-American Pudong or Silicon Valley, because I don't think the concentration of genes are there. I would love to be proven wrong, but I think more evidence backs that view than not ( https://jaymans.wordpress.com/jaymans-race-inheritance-and-i...https://liberalbiorealism.wordpress.com/2009/10/07/the-likel... )
Most likely, there are statistical differences in gene frequency that make average behavioral traits differ between the races, all things being equal. I say that, because the world looks exactly like you would expect, were that hypothesis to be true. When you compare races, such as the Han Chinese, the Irish, and Africans, the Chinese tend to be the most orderly, regardless of where they live (China, Singapore, Taiwan, the American Chinatowns, etc) whereas those of African descent tend to have higher rates of crime and disorder, no matter whether it be Johannesburg, Belize, Rio, Liberia, Jamaica, Haiti, or Madison, Wisconsin. Worldwide, race predicts crime better than anything else.
But given the right conditions, Chinese can be quite disorderly. And we have proven cases in the past of black communities being quite disorderly. So regardless of the genetic tendencies, the outcomes are malleable.
I feel like you're ignoring a whole host of variables with a reductionist statement like "they commit more crimes proportionally". First of all, how do you compare what "more crimes" is proportionally? Different countries have vastly different definitions of what constitutes a crime, and further, different penalties for those crimes.
Robbery and homicide are the two most clearly defined and well reported crimes. Robbery because the victim can see the offender, and has an incentive to report it to get the goods back. Homicide because it is very hard for the police to ignore a body.
* A kid at a local school was gang beaten by other students, had teeth knocked out, and was concussed. He was beaten because of a "mistaken identity" Here is a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjC7yd1OaAk
So what should be done in the case of these offenders? If not jail, then what? Clearly these perpetrators are too dangerous to coexist in civilized society. So there has to be some form of punishment, and some form of separation. I would be ok with sending them to work on a farm instead of prison, but I'm pretty sure that others would describe that as being "forced labor camps" and would rail against that too.
Well my first question would be (and this doesn't seem to be the first question that "justice" systems ask), what situations are these kids in?
I'm not saying that the situation completely excuses a severe punishment but when you looked at stories like these, did you even wonder:
- Maybe this kind of robbery has happened to them, or to their friends, family or neighbors. It's not hard to imagine someone turning cold after seeing bad things happen to loved ones.
- Maybe they know something that the store owner did and it was a kind of "mob justice". (I'm not justifying them shooting the guy. Yet, based solely on the knowledge that the owner was begging for his life, you don't know enough about the situation to understand why the kids shot him.)
- Are these things happening because of other factors? Economics are frequently a reason. I can imagine giving a lot less of a crap about society if I was dirt poor and I couldn't see any way to make it better.
I think the first solution they should consider is if they can make the perpetrator's life better. Prison makes it undeniably worse; ironically, if being poor got them into prison, they'll probably be even worse off after prison (what with people refusing to hire convicts and such).
Honest question: how familiar are you with the actual history of these problems, and the actual situation on the ground? Have you read anything beyond standard zeitgeist sources (sociology classes, NYTimes, Economist), etc?
The dominant social policy of the last 65 years has been that crime and disorder can be cured by addressing "root causes" which means material deprivation, lack of school funding, lack of housing, a school curriculum that was not culturally attuned, etc.
So first in the 50s, 60s and 70s they built public housing, upped welfare spending, eliminated corporal punishment in the schools, and greatly reduced punishment and police enforcement. Here is a poster from the time: http://www.newyork.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/a...
This was a disaster. The welfare spending incentivized women to not get married and to stay on the dole, because you would lose benefits if you got married or got a job. The public housing was not policed at all and was destroyed by the rougher element in the population. Crime skyrocketed. Youths would commit muggings at gun point and end up back on the streets with nothing more than probation.
Then there was a ham-fisted backlash starting in the mid-1970s but really coming into effect in the 80s and 90s. Unfortunately, rather than emphasis consistent discipline and enforcement from the get go, the backlash was more about "three strikes" and using drug offenses as proxy crimes. Even in schools, getting tough meant suspensions, which is not much of a punishment to a roguish street urchin.
So if you look at the situation now, you have kids growing up in homes which are violent and where they don't get punished if they roam the streets and bully other kids. Then you have those kids go to schools that are full of disorder, and where if they cause trouble they just sent to the principals office and then go right back into the classroom. Or maybe they get suspended for a few days. Big whoop, that is only a punishment if you care about school. Gangs are allowed to openly sell drugs on the street. So by age 15 your role models are gang members, you have never been subject to real discipline, you have been fighting others or being assaulted your whole life. And then they commit some heinous crime. At that point, the 15-year-old cannot be permitted to coexist in normal society. Giving them money or something is not going to magically make them civilized when they have spent their live growing up in a barbarous environment. It's not the 15-year-old-murderers fault in the cosmic sense that he was born into such a wild environment. But the fact remains that he his too dangerous to be permitted to roam the streets freely.
But of course I absolutely agree that the problem needs to be addressed earlier. We need to figure out a way that these kids are an environment with order, that is with safety, security, and discipline from the day they are born.
should have never been a male/female differentiator.
Sorry, you'll have to take up that one with the big guy upstairs. The truth is, if you cry, women will be less attracted to you. They will think you are nice and sweet and they will laud your ability to show your emotions. But they will not want to f--k you. Women are attracted to strength and command.
Crying is in fact a symptom of weakness. Your brain only sends you the crying signal for things that are outside your control - a death, a failed harvest, getting fired, getting dumped, etc. Crying is the programmed tactic for woman and children who can only get what they want by convincing someone stronger than them to help them out.
I agree that TV/Movies are a terrible way to learn how to be a man. The worst for me were the sweet-nerd-guy-gets-the-hot-girl-by-being-sweet movies of the 90's (Can't Hardly Wait, Ten Things I Hate About You, etc). That never happens in real life and messed me up. The genetics of attraction have not changed in the past few hundred years, so it makes no sense to keep changing the messaging.
>The worst for me were the sweet-nerd-guy-gets-the-hot-girl-by-being-sweet movies of the 90's
I thought those movies were "sweet nerd girl gets the hot guy by being secretly hot"?
You seem to have some very absolute beliefs (eg. Women are attracted to strength and command; crying is in fact a symptom of weakness, etc. etc). How do you justify them?
I thought those movies were "sweet nerd girl gets the hot guy by being secretly hot"?
There were those too, there were both types of movies.
You seem to have some very absolute beliefs (eg. Women are attracted to strength and command; crying is in fact a symtom of weakness, etc. etc). How do you justify them?
A bunch of life experience; trading stories and confessions with male and female friends over drinks; reading lots of books, ranging from bios and famous literature to books by dating coaches to books on the science of genes and evolution. My statements were slightly blunt and simplified. But I think that as broad generalizations, they are pretty bloody obvious if you just pay attention in life.
"Sorry, you'll have to take up that one with the big guy upstairs. The truth is, if you cry, women will be less attracted to you. They will think you are nice and sweet and they will laud your ability to show your emotions. But they will not want to f--k you. Women are attracted to strength and command."
Forgive me for the harsh response, but what absolutely sexist bs.
I am sure there exist some women are exactly how you described. But saying "women are" attracted to one thing or another is just as stupid as describing all men as slobbering idiots who only like blondes or all italians as plumbers obsessed with hopping on goombas.
As an American, I've sometimes been bothered by the use of thank you. It is fine as a pleasantry at a restaurant. But it always felt odd coming from a boss or from the company CEO. I think to myself, "I didn't do this piece of work as a favor to you, I didn't because you are paying me and you told me to do it." It is interesting to read that this view is more common in other cultures. I also dislike putting "thank you" in an email, before they have agreed to do the favor or task. It feels very presumptuous. Am I crazy or do other people feel the same way.
> a modern boss is tolerant, he behaves like a colleague of ours, sharing dirty jokes, inviting us for a drink, openly displaying his weaknesses, admitting that he is “merely human like us”. He is deeply offended if we remind him that he is our boss – however, it is this very rejection of explicit authority that guarantees his de facto power.
> This is why the first gesture of liberation is to force the master to act as one: our only defence is to reject his “warm human” approach and to insist that he should treat us with cold distance. We live in weird times in which we are compelled to behave as if we are free, so that the unsayable is not our freedom but the very fact of our servitude.
I had a manager who made a practice of thanking people when they did things he had asked them to. I hadn't seen it done that assiduously before, and I rather got to like it. I try to do the same now, when appropriate.
I agree, though, that pre-thanking someone before they've done what you ask is presumptuous.
Thanking is not used to acknowledge a favor, thanking expresses gratitude. It means your boss appreciates your effort, that he doesn't consider you a robot who does work solely for the money. Maybe he thinks you put a little bit of yourself into the work.
Imagine the distance thanking someone for sex would put between you. Like the scenario you gave, it implies the other person was doing you a favor- which also implies the act wasn't totally genuine.
I grew up in North America. But I rarely thank anyone. I think I've thanked people in a work setting maybe twice in my entire career- and only because the other party was doing me a favour.
It's nice to find a higher purpose in your work. If you are paid $10 and work worth $15, you're giving of yourself for others. Work is such a big part of life, it is good to go the extra mile and serve others while you're there. Sure, you're paid for it, but your motivation can become "I'm doing this because I want my boss and the customer to have a better life."
> I also dislike putting "thank you" in an email, before they have agreed to do the favor or task. It feels very presumptuous.
You're thanking someone for taking the time to read your email, not for completing some other task. You can say "thank you for your time" or "thank you for your consideration" if that makes more sense.
The single best compliment I had from a senior manager after emailing the findings of quite an arduous 2-month project early in my career was a one word email:
"Good."
Put me on cloud nine.
I think it depends on who's doing the talking. Saying thanks more bring inflation to the term, leading to making up more terms when we really mean thanks.
What I have been doing is creating a separate Chrome application launcher for my different life contexts -- http://lifehacker.com/5611711/create-application-shortcuts-i... I have one for anonymous browsing, one for work, one for personal-real-name, and one for pseudonymous browsing. I renamed the application so I can launch by typing "WorkChrome" or "PersonalChrome" in spotlight search. Each Chrome app then runs with a separate profile, separate cookies, etc. I have a different icon and colored theme for each one, so that I never make a mistake with regards to which I am browsing in. I can have multiple open at the same time and tab switch between them.