Comment by Cthulhu_ | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Cthulhu_ | Hacker News Reader

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It's one step towards gender equality; if you use quotas to award different population groups equally, it will on the one hand normalize them for everyone else, and may inspire others to try on the other hand.

If the top of whatever Nobel prizes are handed out for remains white men, nobody that doesn't fit that category will feel like they have a chance.

Anyway, it's one strategy; the other, and IMO more important one, is to give everybody equal access to education and the sciences. This is a governmental issue, who should be paying for everyone's education, transport to said education, and if need be, housing near said education. And of course strict anti-discrimination and anti-elitism laws. Breaking up concepts of 'class' should also be a thing, since right now, working class people will be less inclined to go to university for example.

I've been lucky in that regard; grew up 'working class', but thanks to the at the time government policies of giving out stipends for education I got college educated and a career in software development, moving up to middle class. It's a great example of social mobility, and I think everyone should have that opportunity.

But after my education, the government pulled up the ladder behind me. First by changing the scholarship rules so that after a certain age you are no longer entitled, making it harder for people to go from college to university for example. Then they changed it so it's 100% a loan, which on the one hand makes people less inclined to start a higher level education, and on the other it starts their career with tens of thousands of debt, making it harder to e.g. buy a house and start a family alongside their career.

I mean there's voices going up to undo those changes now, but it's been years under this shitty system and damage has already been done.

It's stupid as well, because it's a relatively small cost at great benefit - it doesn't make financial sense. Say an education costs the government 50.000 per person. That is repaid in income taxes alone within 3-5 years.

edit: well this comment meandered a bit.

> nobody that doesn't fit that category will feel like they have a chance

Well, that's certainly true for people who are sexist (think that just because someone is a different sex, they are fundamentally different and cannot be a role model) and know no history (Marie Curie is the most distinguished Nobel prize winner).

>remains white men, nobody that doesn't fit that category will feel like they have a chance.

Ah yeah...let's test your borderline racist expression:

-David Jay -> US

-Ardem Patapoutian -> Libanon

-Syukuro Manabe -> Japan

-Klaus Hasselmann -> Germany

-Giorgio Parisi -> Italy

-Abdulrazak Gurnah -> Zanzibar

-Maria Ressa -> Philippines

-Dmitry Muratov -> Russia

And so on....i don't see the "only white men can win the price" here.

Short analysis;

3 out of those 8 are non-white (note: Lebanese are white).

One is however Japanese, who are maybe not in any context considered discriminated against, rather they are revered.

So you're left with Abdulrazak Gurnah and Maria Ressa as "ethnic minorities" for which AA sometimes makes sense.

Still, 2 out of 8 is actually pretty good. It shows that you don't have to force this issue. IMHO 25% is solid.

A bigger concern is maybe that there are so few women.

"(note: Lebanese are white)."

Based on what? Is there an official colour palette you know about? Or is it based on their skull measurements?

It's quite amazing how fast we're walking back to all the racist theories for the 18th and 19th century ... but somehow this time for Good?

This american obsession about race would be less insufferable if it at least didn't seem crafted by a four years old. There's white, black, brown, and yellow. People from a colour are all the same. Somehow that's the basis to explain everything.

I mean, at least the horoscope has twelve signs, that's three times as much nuance ...

Thank you very much for that comment, it's exactly what i try to express, the focus on skin-color is as racist as it can get.

Abdulrazak Gurnah and Maria Ressa

Neither of whom won science or economics prizes, which is what is being discussed in the article.

Do we just forget Syukuro Manabe (physics)? Or has he just not the right hue to count as diverse?

Or Ardem Patapoutian (also physics) not black enough for being a north African?

With your logic there is no Asian who won the Literature price...whats even the point here?

I think you're replying to the wrong person. My argument is that holding up the fact that a black person and a woman won the 'not-science' prizes cannot be used as proof of diversity among the science prizes.

And my argument is that a Japanese and an African won the "science" prices, are they not diverse enough because of skin-color?

Are they not diverse enough because of skin-color?

Again, that was the argument the person I was replying to was making, not in any way the argument I was making.

The goal is the result recognized by the prize, not the prize itself.

> the other, and IMO more important one, is to give everybody equal access to education and the sciences.

That might be another part of it, but not the only other one and possibly not the most important. For example, this paper looked at problems with the confidence of women and how it seems correlated to the pay gap in STEM: https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/117/48/30303.full.pdf So even if everyone has equal access to education, the stereotype threat (and other social factors) doesn't necessarily go away. I think, as the parent comment said, enforcing quotas might help with some of these cultural factors, or might make some of them worse. But I don't have data to support those claims.

> If the top of whatever Nobel prizes are handed out for remains white men nobody that doesn't fit that category will feel like they have a chance.

Wow, this is incredibly racist. So you imply you know about the motivation of all non-white non-male people on earth? And you assume they are all so chicken that looking at past winners will immediately kill all their motivation to do similar or even better? Do you actually realize what you are saying here, or are you just echoing the latest sentiment of your circles?

To be fair, the use of "nobody" in that sentence is a bit over-generalizing but isn't the sentiment of the sentence quite clear? If a group is a very homogeneous, outsiders might think that they're not welcome/ have lower chances of getting in.

I don't have any scientific proof to back up that claim but I can certainly relate from personal experience without belonging to any minority.

I think calling that "incredibly racist" and implying Cthulhu_ is just "echoing" something from their circles is quite out of line. In the future maybe you could just point out what you think is wrong with the wording instead of attacking OP personally.

Also: There are things in this world which are "incredibly racist", which is beyond horrible. But do Cthulhu_'s remarks really belong into that category?

I have some experience with outsiderisms. I am an outsider almost my whole life, being a person with a disability.

I always had to find my place in groups where I was the outsider. If I felt like people like you seemt o imply all the time, I would have ended up in total social isolation. And no, I never felt like me being different was a reason to not interact with these groups. Quite to the contrary. If you are an outsider, you learn quite early that this sort of thinking is masochistic. And I find it extremely problematic that these days, certain people seem to feed this false belief of not belonging. So no, I cant agree with your simple analysis, and no, I cant see the sentence I replied to as innocent either.

Do you think that turning what somebody said into a ridiculously exaggerated straw man will win you a nobel prize?

I need no nobel prize, thank you. That is reserved for great peace makers like Kissinger and Obama.

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