Warren Buffett figured out that hiring women was all-win long before most. Kudos to him.
And what does this have to do with the posted topic?
Edit:
I'm finding it hard reconciling what you said below [0] with what you said above.
0. Yep - I am not a big Dawkins fan. He does a lot of damage to the image of non-religious people, because he's such a jerk to the people he disagrees with.
I've had intelligent religious folks suggest to me that they are shocked I'm not a jerk, because so many of the prominent atheists in popular culture are jerks. Dawkins is a primary offender: he has a hard time answering any question without sounding smug and superior.
This is a problem for me because I believe that he's mostly correct in his assertions.
However: people don't remember what you say, they remember how they felt after you said it.
This is a great and wise observation.
People will forget what you said, People will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
- Maya Angelou
He was more of a "celebratory" alcoholic and smoker.
Essentially I was trying to make the point that as a non-religious individual, it's always wild to me how people can find the time to ponder whether a woman would have the audacity to start a family while building a company, but nobody questions a founder that worships a paranormal creator entity. Lots of people do both, yet somehow it's becoming a mother that is considered crazy.
And, I was trying to say it without being an asshole myself.
1. http://gawker.com/5818993/richard-dawkins-torn-limb-from-lim...
2. http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/not-your...
At least Bill Maher is usually legitimately hilarious in his asshole-ness. Dawkins isn't charming, which distracts from all of the truth in what he's saying.
I wish he'd stick to writing stuff down.
I'd say it's a bigger impact on women, because they need to give birth to the child. If I was invested in a new company, and the founder (male or female) said they're going to be a new parent, I'd be concerned. I think having children is one of the biggest impacts someone can have on their life, both financially and mentally. How is this going to affect the business? Will they have less time to be involved in the project? Are they going to be adverse to risk with the business and prefer to focus on a stable income? Is one parent free to look after the newborn, or is there a chance the founder is going to step down for a while?
The statement from the investor was rude, but I have no problem with the viewpoint, and I'd be wary of investing in soon to be parents as well.
Religion seems to have a smaller impact, I don't care if you believe in God, the same way I don't care if you like apples or oranges. If it doesn't get in the way of your work, and you seem mentally stable, why should I be concerned? If you suddenly said you have a change in religious beliefs, and you need to exercise a call to prayer every morning for 3 hours, and take the last week of every month off, I'd start to worry. Not because of the beliefs, but because I didn't anticipate this change in your life, and I'm unaware of how you'll handle it along with work.
I don't remember ever believing in anything supernatural (not even santa claus or the tooth fairy), so I can't know whether it's really possible.
I find the vast majority of "religious" people aren't really religious, but rather quite agnostic if you question them.
Surely you didn't mean to say "genuine", assuming you understand the meaning of the word. You may have meant "sincere". But "genuine" implies that the belief is true, which is a property not necessary for a belief to be sincerely held, and that contradicts the meaning of "belief" as a view held without regard for the evidence.
> My phrasing matches standard English usage.
So does saying "literally" when you mean figuratively -- all the dictionaries now list this perversion, but it's still inadvisable and still sows confusion among educated readers.
It's one thing to argue that a usage is accepted by lexicographers, but quite another to try to engage in effective communications.
No, that's not advisable. Just like I'm using "genuine" correctly (it has meant "authentic" at least as far back as the 17th century), "literally" can also be correctly used to mean "figuratively." Simply put: you are not the authoritative body of the English language.
Yes, you did use it correctly, but in a context that leads the reader to wonder whether you're referring to the belief itself, or to its holder's sincerity in holding it.
> Simply put: you are not the authoritative body of the English language.
Point to any of my words that give you that idea. Can't do that? My point is not correct usage, it is effective communication. With respect to that, there are no authorities except the outcome.
That's been my point this entire time. You appear to be the only reader who was confused, and it seems to be due to some rather bizarre ideas you have about the English language. I am confident that my original comment would serve as effective communication to the overwhelming majority of native English speakers. The intended audience of my comment did not include advocates of prescriptive linguistics, which is fine, because vanishingly few of those exist, and the ones who do spend most of their time attempting to argue that everyone else doesn't know how to effectively communicate.
> That's been my point this entire time.
Yes, I know, and rather than take the advice of someone with six decades of English writing experience, you chose to defend a questionable word choice as thought it was self-evident.
> You appear to be the only reader who was confused ...
How very scientific. Has it occurred to you that I am also the only reader? In any case, this is easily resolved by polling common usage:
Google: "Sincere belief": 207,000 uses, "Genuine belief": 137,000 uses.
And looking more carefully, one finds that many of the "genuine belief" citations are meant to refer to a belief in something thought to be true. Example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtBCrMLBCPw, in which this remark appears in the comments: "How could a belief that contradicts available information be a genuine belief?"
> and the ones who do spend most of their time attempting to argue that everyone else doesn't know how to effectively communicate.
To the degree that I do this at all, I reserve my efforts for examples in which ... wait for it ... someone clearly doesn't know how to effectively communicate.
I don't care how much writing experience you have or claim to have. You're wrong in this case. All the evidence is against you, and frankly I'm confused why you persist in your argument.
Your use of Google results of as suppose evidence is extremely damning to your own position and to your grasp of the English language. So my usage is 66% as common as yours? That's pretty good evidence that both are very common and well-accepted. You're also implying that only the most common way to phrase an idea should be used, which is ludicrous, especially coming from someone who claims to have writing experience. "Cat" has 447 million results, while "feline" has a mere 11.2 million, so according to your logic, "feline" is a misuse of the English language.
> And looking more carefully, one finds that many of the "genuine belief" citations are meant to refer to a belief in something thought to be true.
In something thought to be true? That's what the word "believe" means. Have you been reading my comments closely? My entire point is that a "genuine belief" is a belief which is sincerely held by someone, regardless of whether the thing believed is itself real. The Google results for "genuine belief" support my usage. I checked literally every result in the first two pages, and every single one supports my usage. A few examples:
"As rape is sexual intercourse without consent, a man who has a genuine belief that the woman was consenting cannot be convicted of rape even where she did not in fact consent." http://www.hkclic.org/en/topics/sexual_offences/I_Non-consen...
"Four billion people say they believe in God, but few genuinely believe. If people believed in God, they would live every minute of their lives in support of that belief, people would give their lives in support of that belief." http://www.mydd.com/users/gary-boatwright/posts/the-man-the-...
"How do you know when your child has genuine belief and should be baptized?" http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2012/01/how-do-you-know-when-y...
"The well known case of British Homes Stores v Burchell (EAT 1980 ICR 303) provides that where an employer dismisses on suspicion of misconduct they must establish (i) that they held a genuine belief the employee was guilty of the alleged misconduct, (ii) that the genuine belief is based on reasonable grounds, and (iii) the grounds for holding that belief were established after an investigation that was reasonable in all the circumstances of the case. The Tribunal does not necessarily have to agree with the employer’s view or consider whether their conclusion was objectively correct or justified." http://www.allanmcdougall.co.uk/employment_law/unfair_dismis...
"Liverpool are heading into the final 13 games of the Barclays Premier League campaign harbouring a genuine belief they can clinch a top-four finish, according to Mike Marsh." http://www.liverpoolfc.com/news/latest-news/we-have-genuine-...
To me, religion is a branch of philosophy. There are a lot of useful ideas developed there over the centuries. Atheists often talk about the evil created religion, but evil will use whatever tool is available—we sit in this forum worshiping startups, yet capitalism has done just as much evil as religion (or at least, it's on its way to). The other thing atheist fundamentalists do (as peterforde does above) is set up a strawman to be argued from a scientific perspective. If you say that god is a bearded man sitting in the sky then of course it sounds ridiculous, but that's ignoring the fact that it's a millenia-old imagery created for pre-scientific people. As much as we get angry over evolution-deniers and creationists, it's equally ridiculous to cherry-pick some age old metaphor, state as a falsifiable hypothesis and then demonstrate its ridiculousness on scientific grounds.
Atheists often claim rationality on their side, but how rational is it to invoke religious beliefs in a thread about sexist asshole talk? It's an utter non-sequitur and what it demonstrates is an irrational axe to grind.
> "To me, hardcore atheists are almost as bad as religious fundamentalists in their own way"
This is ridiculous, religious fundamentalists kill people in the name of their religion. What atheist has ever done that?
> "capitalism has done just as much evil as religion"
You're comparing apples with oranges. This is just as much of a non-sequitor as bringing up atheism in a discussion about sexism (like you mentioned below).
> "Atheists often claim rationality on their side, but how rational is it to invoke religious beliefs in a thread about sexist asshole talk? It's an utter non-sequitur and what it demonstrates is an irrational axe to grind."
Agreed, not sure what peterforde was trying to accomplish here.
Good point, I was narrow in my thinking and didn't mean with regard to real violence, I was speaking more to the endless debates seen on the internet and generally in western society.
Of course, following your definition, the absence of belief makes it hard to attribute anything specifically to atheism. My point is not to condemn atheism in general, but rather the militant variety that is not to content to judge people on their actions and deeds, but must attack their beliefs. Attacking someone who has beliefs you do not share is certainly not unique to atheists (it's fundamental human nature I suppose), but there is a certain hypocrisy about it that I find very distasteful.
A "militant" atheist may be distasteful, but his/her "attacks" don't physically hurt people and harm society.
Does this really surprise you? I'm not saying it's necessarily justified to question either group's abilities to build a company, but if I had to choose one group where problems would be more likely, I would choose the group that routinely becomes pregnant and raises children, both of which (rightfully so) require a very large portion of the parents' time and attention.
What group does that anymore? Other than maybe the aamish, some groups in the middle east and a few mormon sects (in other words, extremely religious and archaic communities).
"Is more likely to become .. " or "more commonly becomes" would make more sense. Nonetheless, what you are getting at (treating individuals as members of a group) is precisely the problem. Treat people as individuals, even if you believe expecting mothers to be a bad investment, don't assume every woman is more likely to become pregnant.
If not that, what exactly are you saying?
I am speaking very clearly. Pregnancies are common and normal, plain and simple. Use whatever word you like. Regular, normal, usual, routine, etc.
> I have no idea where you're getting that idea
from here:
> if I had to choose one group where problems would be more likely, I would choose the group that routinely becomes pregnant and raises children
I'm in good company:
Only a 3rd grader thinks its ok to trot out their thesaurus and willy nilly replace words.
(also, from reading this thread, I don't seem to be the only one who thinks your english leaves something to be desired)
How is that comparison at all valid?
Being a mother is obviously going to take up a lot of your time and energy. Startups require a lot of time and energy. Doing both is difficult (although not impossible). Belief in a god is something most people do for an hour on the weekend. It's unlikely to impact the startup at all.
Yet here you are. Debating.