Comment on When engineers take philosophy by Ben Augustine

One place where engineering and philosophy are currently intersecting in a very important way is in “friendly AI”–thinking about how to develop artificial intelligence that wouldn’t end up working against the interest of human kind or even wiping us out completely. Creating a superintelligence that would care about our well being. Another place engineering and philosophy are intersecting is in driverless cars. Driverless cars will have to make moral decisions and we program in the morality. We’ll have driverless car trolley problems. What should the car do if it is headed towards two kids and cant stop in time, but can swerve and hit another kid?

Comment on Smarter, Dumber, or Lazier? by Ben Augustine

Personally, I think technology and google specifically has made me far more productive, especially in my role as an interdisciplinary researcher in an increasingly collaborative scientific community. I can focus my attention on bringing together disparate sources of information or analytical techniques rather than trying to store everything into my brain. Of course, I don’t get to see the contrapositive–how productive would I be in a world without Google, etc. But I find it hard to believe I could accomplish as much in that world.

Comment on Bank balance by Ben Augustine

I share your educational experience that does not match what Freire describes. It seems to me much more applicable to other countries, or the US decades ago. Sure there are still ways people in power can perpetuate narratives, but I don’t think the bank model of education is not the status quo in the US, certainly not at the collegiate level. I also share your concern for the complete lack of data. But this is postmodernism, truth is relative so you don’t need data!

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Comment on On eggshells by Ben Augustine

Interesting post, Cody. I think part of the explanation is that social justice is largely a Left movement and so the categories they care most about are the ones given the most weight. Critics of those who argue over who is the most oppressed group call this the “Oppression Olympics” and I just found that Gawker actually put this concept in practice as a joke.

http://www.critical-theory.com/gawker-literally-hosting-oppression-olympics/

Regarding diversity, I argue in my post that one of the dimensions on which academia is the least diverse is viewpoint diversity. I’m a liberal, but I really think we need more conservatives in academia.

http://righteousmind.com/viewpoint-diversity/

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Comment on On eggshells by Ben Augustine

Interesting post, Cody. I think part of the explanation is that social justice is largely a Left movement and so the categories they care most about are the ones given the most weight. Critics of those who argue over who is the most oppressed group call this the “Oppression Olympics” and I just found that Gawker actually put this concept in practice as a joke.

http://www.critical-theory.com/gawker-literally-hosting-oppression-olympics/

Regarding diversity, I argue in my post that one of the dimensions on which academia is the least diverse is viewpoint diversity. I’m a liberal, but I really think we need more conservatives in academia.

http://righteousmind.com/viewpoint-diversity/

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Comment on The numbers say I am racist by Ben Augustine

Thanks for the post. While taking the test myself, I was skeptical of its relation to actual bias. E.g. can this test really predict who is more racist or less racist in their actions. I took the religions test and was reassured that my bias range was in the middle 50% quantile, but does this mean anything? So after reading your post, I went to the literature. Obviously, I’m not an expert on this, but I found a recent meta-analysis that shows that the implicit racism test correlates with actual racist actions very poorly. r=0.1-0.2. So I wouldn’t worry too much about your test score-it is unlikely to be a very unreliable measure of how you unconsciously treat people.

http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/105/2/171.pdf

Comment on Placid vs. Pandering Pedagogy by Ben Augustine

Fellow white male here. I’m finding it hard to walk the line of agreeing with the intentions and many of the goals of social justice activists while pushing back when some of them use deplorable tactics to push their agenda or make demands like 47% of post-docs must be African American. Also, to what extent should we cater to the sensitivities of students vs. challenge them and strengthen them. Personally, I would prefer a university that didn’t cater to my sensitivities, but it’s easy for me to say that because I don’t really have any. Jonathan Haidt makes this point in his Coddle U vs. Strengthen U comparison. I want to go to Strengthen U. He has predicted elsewhere that American universities are going to diverge in these directions with the very liberal schools such as Yale and Dartmouth going in the Coddle U route and the more politically diverse (but not really *that* diverse) advertising to parents that their Strengthen U model is better.

http://righteousmind.com/coddle-u-vs-strengthen-u/

Regarding why students are so sensitive, I think the arguments proposing that there is a new “victimhood culture” are compelling. And over-accommodating university administrators are fueling the trend.

http://righteousmind.com/where-microaggressions-really-come-from/