What does "systemic" mean? How can I determine whether an issue is or is not "systemic"?
Other classes of issues include "budgetary", "political", "legal", and "personnel". The way you approach each class is different.
Although most issues that cross a public official's desk are not systemic, the most publicly debated ones are. That may explain your semantic fatigue around the word.
I do this in all sorts of discussions when I don't understand the terms. "We want to increase engagement." "How do you define engagement?" "We want the estimator to be robust." "How do you define robust?"
You can call a request for clarification of terms "derailing" (or just flag me and call me racist, as many people do), but that makes it look like you simply want to avoid clarity. Asking for clear statements of claims and definitions of terms isn't derailing - it's simply good practice if your goal is understanding.
In contrast, using the word "vibrations" or "fred" instead of "sound" doesn't change the physical behavior of the air. That's why disputing definitions is pointless.
You just used all those words, and I would like you to educate me.
Your comments are no different from someone going to a graduate physics symposium and telling people, "Why are you using all this jargon? Tunneling? That means digging a tunnel through rock! And why are you using 'spin' and 'color' wrong? Please, I just want to understand!"
Well, just like Quantum Physics can't be explained in full in a HN comment, so can't history, economy, social work. So please. Either learn a little bit more about the subject, understand that the explanations you are given here are just small snippets of a much larger field of study (and reality), accept that you might not fully understand the terms, or stop making these juvenile comments over and over.
If you're trying to get people to believe things about society you're propagating an ideology, implicit or explicit. You should expect to get pushback on that all the time unless you're preaching to the converted.
Systemic is like privileged; there's a real, defensible academic sociological meaning. when used outside of that narrow context it's used as a stick to beat one's opponent with, to proclaim moral superiority and display tribal membership.
You should not expect people not already of your political persuasion to be persuaded by jargon you don't care to explain. It's like a Catholic theologian expecting to convert a Muslim one by argument.
"It all totally makes sense once you read this bookshelf."
But while I often discuss the realities of our world with those who are intentionally ignorant, I find the kind of "pushback" you see here to be the most interesting and entertaining. The "unconverted" in this case, uses what he (and it is almost invariable a he, and a young he in most cases) considers science (or scientific thinking) to fight against other sciences, and chooses to ignore the fact that in the realms of intractable math, definitions are often open to debate, or at least discussion, and that does not make them any less valid.
For instance, did you know that even in biology (which yummyfajitas might or might not consider a science, I don't know), one of the most basic definitions -- at the very core of the science -- is not so clear-cut, and, in fact, stands in complete contradiction to other well-established facts concerning itself and even to its own definition? And yet, scientists involved in the field are able to look past such things, as they know physics-level rigorous definitions won't help their science in this case. I am talking, of course, about the term "species". While there is a sorta/kinda definition of a species, it is an undisputed fact that any organism belongs to the same species as its direct ancestor(s) -- hence an immediate contradiction. Yet, biologists understand this fuzzy notion of species and go about their business. The reason is that in the intractable sciences (biology, sociology, and even climate), it is often useful to describe a present state, even if the process that originated it is not fully understood. Thus is the nature of intractability.
And, after all, we're not debating ideas here -- we're debating facts. And when facts are debated, I tend to believe those who have actually studied them rather than those who haven't and just wish they weren't true.
A little learning is a dangerous thing;
drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
and drinking largely sobers us again.
In contrast, consider "structural". Structural and non-structural oppression is treated differently. For example: http://www.newstatesman.com/laurie-penny/on-nerd-entitlement...
I'm also not sure what facts you feel we are debating, or why you feel I "pushed back". I don't even know which facts lsiebert is attempting to assert, which is why I asked.
And the analogy you make to physics or other technical topics is a bit silly. Consider alternate technical topics which have critics - consider HFT. Go read kasey_junk or tptacek's comments on the topic - they don't don't appeal to unstated authorities, refuse to define their terms and attack anyone who asks questions. Strangely, they tend to be far more precise than the critics.
You call this "appeal to authority", but it's nothing than an appeal to science. I am really sorry about your frustration -- you can go on believing what you like, but know that your beliefs are in opposition to thousands and thousands of studies conducted in the past 40 years or so in many countries. Nerd discrimination makes sense to you? Great, go study it in earnest. You know what, if you publish a serious paper citing, say 20 of the top 200 papers done on racial and sexual discrimination, comparing them to anti-nerd sentiments, I will be an enthusiastic supporter of your findings. In fact, I'll be especially interested in the section on nerd disenfranchisement.
But the thing is, that some people spend their careers studying these things. They are called experts, but if you don't like the "appeal to authority" just look at their findings! But of course, you won't, because you're one of those people who keep saying "we haven't found the missing links" over and over, even though the fossil record is right in front of them.
Now HFT is a much, much, much simpler topic than racial marginalization in the United States. And trust me, the evidence on the nature of racism and sexism is a lot more convincing than tptacek opinions on HFT. Like an evolution denier, you just insist on not looking at the facts, going over your mantras again and again.
EDIT: Oh, and I just remembered how when I succumbed to your pleas for education and gave you the actual definition of sexism -- a new word invented by feminists in the 60s -- you still insisted that the people who invented the term use it wrong!
EDIT2: BTW, you and the writer of that infamous comment about nerd privilege both seem to think that what we're discussing is a lot less objective, and more subjective than it actually is. For example, you confuse misogyny (which is subjective and carries judgement) with sexism (which is simply an objective description of the state of affairs). Scott Aaronson confuses suffering (which is subjective) with disenfranchisement which is objective. Because you resent what you perceive as judgment (which may, indeed, be there) you try as hard as you can to misunderstand what is being said, which is no more than fact.
Unfortunately, we never get that far in this discussion because you want to argue about what words to use (and now throw ad hominems at me) rather than the real world.
And trust me, the evidence...
Not citing evidence and merely disputing definitions does not inspire trust.
Could you clearly state what positive claims you think I'm "denying"? Or is asking what you are talking about also somehow equivalent to creationism?
That racism in the US is the primary cause of segregation and marginalization of black people, and that that racism is systemic, i.e. cultural as well as bureaucratic (and so not directly related to personal xenophobia).
Further, I compare it to tribally informed consumption choices of extremely non-xenophobic people, such as my girlfriend's consumption of African American comedy.
Then somehow you conclude that I don't think racism/tribalism is the primary cause of segregation/separation? Or that I don't think it's cultural rather than bureaucratic, and not directly related to personal xenophobia?
Um, ok. Clearly I'm just a big racist nerd and you have excellent reading comprehension skills. And you are right that I definitely did bring up the topic of causes of marginalization in the auras and penumbras of my comments.
You see, if you asked something like, "well, teenaged nerds are in fewer romantic relationships, which are a source of social status and hence power, isn't that like racism", then at least you'll be in the ballpark. But as long as power is missing from your discussion of what you think racism (or sexism) is, then you're missing the issue altogether.
Why do you deny my claim that water is wet?
Seriously dude - get a grip. Read the post before dropping a gigantic wall of text on an unrelated tangent. And please read an article by uncited experts showing that disputing definitions is pointless.
Just kidding, here it is: http://lesswrong.com/lw/np/disputing_definitions/
Second, my definition of racism might be different from common usage, but so is that of spin or color in QM (as is that for energy), and I'm not going to start a debate on the use of the word color, when discussing a QM paper. What matters here isn't the common usage, but usage by the people quoted in the article. They use the definition(s) common in academic circles, or among those who study or care about the issue. Reading the introduction for the Wikipedia article on racism should suffice to at least know what kinds of definitions are commonly used in academia. And, in fact, the dictionary definition is much closer to the usage in academia than to your tribalism.
And that segregation in the US is a result of racism is, indeed, a near tautology, yet you were saying it's a result of tribalism, which is simply factually wrong.
As to Less Wrong, that blog and the people behind it are the subjects of a recent, brilliant Harper's article which I'll be happy to email you, if you want.
Does this mean that more definitions of "systemic" are floating around?
I'd bet the arguments you're seeing are not disputing whether what's happening to nerds is systemic; they're disputing whether it's oppression.
I meant systemic in the sense of our society being a system.