@MattE.Эллен Of course not: I am saying I would prefer for people to be made aware of possible bias ("are you sure you're giving people from unusual background x a fair chance?"), but for them to ultimately decide irrespective of (irrelevant) background, rather than preferring people from one background or another.

Justice, as I see it.

@Mitch Certainly, but I feel that does not justify introducing new mass injustice.

@Robusto You still have family in the Boston area?

@tchrist My son is a scientist, works in Cambridge. Why?

Oh. Well, he is keeping safe. Really tired of it, too.

@RegDwigнt As we had talked before and you replied to me with such an indecent message, I assume you’re one of those people in this world who always whacked. Now, use your moderation’s power and suspend me, I have seen many guys like you.

@Mitch Ey! How you doing?

I’m curious, why is that in double quotes?

@RegDwigнt I was trying to be quick and missed some “not”, so in the first sentence it “As we had never talked before” and in between it is “who always get whacked”

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Username similar to website in answer (63): "Massager" vs "masseuse" ✏️ by sstmassage on english.SE

@Mitch Oh. I thought maybe you meant many low-caste people. But I guess you wouldn't know whether they were.

@M.A.R. I assume this is meant facetiously.

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Blacklisted website in body, potentially bad ns for domain in body (100): Where To Get Your Folding Boxes wholesale: by michel jigg on english.SE

I'm unable to find a right word for someone who works at high posts in some scientific sector

Do we call them intelligent, if someone works at NASA or at CERN?

@Knight pal, you have to try to understand that this chatroom is NOT at all like the Physics or Math rooms; note, what is clearly stated in the room description:

Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Not for the faint of heart or those easily triggered by English in the raw

english-in-the-raw

not the lawyer-english used by sir bro :-)

@FaheemMitha Yep

@CowperKettle Haha this one was good

@Cerberus So according to Wikipedia, nine out of 225 thousand people had this privilege to be 'free women'. Isn't that sorta cherry picking?

@Cerberus right, but what I'm saying is that ALL other things being equal, i.e. there is no other differentiating factor, make the diverse hire.

@Knight like a director?

Half of families in Sverdlovsk Oblast (my region) have only enough money to buy food and clothes. 27.2% of families earn enough to buy durable consumer goods (fridges, stoves, washing machines). 19.1% of families have trouble earning enough to pay the utilities bill znak.com/2020-10-27/…

4.6% of famillites have enough money to buy a flat (using a mortgage) or a car, down from 7.9% a year ago.

A huge proportion of families in Russia are the "working poor", with both parents working full-time, drinking no alcohol, using no illegal drugs, but having just enough money to survive.

Wow

My friend works as construction specialist full time, yet went a year in her newly-mortgaged apartment without a refrigerator, because after paying the mortgage she had only enough money to buy food.

I wonder what the numbers look like for Iran

Probably worse

She has a diploma, and works full time, and often works on Saturdays.

Yes she has zero savings.

A couple of years ago she had a cold and still went to work, in order to have some money. She ended up coughing for 6 months. The cold ended in the spring, but she was still occasionally coughing in September.

@M.A.R. Do they publish similar statistical research in Iranian newspapers?

@M.A.R. Definitely worse for India, depending on location.

The definition of Indian middle class is, or used to be, being able to afford a fridge.

@CowperKettle Probably not as honestly or extensively

What the state TV often reports is a bald-faced lie reported by some arsehole in Rouhani's cabinet

Often the only stats where international reports agree with internal reports are absolutely innocuous ones like population

@Robusto Follow the link and you'll see.

@tchrist Yeah, I didn't see the link at first because I was on my phone.

blog.revolutionanalytics.com/2017/08/…

I can't believe I wanted to be a God a few years ago. Thank mod that bullet was dodged.

@Knight Quotes mean that here is an example sentence - it is being mentioned. Without quotes, you're saying and meaning it - it is a use. I didn't want you to think that I'm accusing you of kicking puppies and have either stopped or not stopped. Either way it is a counterexample to your claim. In both instances, it seems impolite even when preceded by "I'm curiosity...". And the following examples are also nominally polite ways,of saying things, but end up not being particularly palatable.

@CowperKettle Nice. This is my rejoinder to all the 'vote to close' as opinionated votes for ELU questions. Vagueness != opinion.

@FaheemMitha I'd have no idea what caste anybody is from unless they said it outright. I have no idea which last names or other tells go with which caste. And it just doesn't seem like it's something you'd ask about in a work situation (I've heard recently though that it is illegal in India to ask). I'd kinda guess that you'd need money to study in the US, and that'd be more likely the higher up you are.

@M.A.R. I thought most (all?) government officials were religiously trained. Or is it mostly just the most visible and higher up? But I suppose Ahmedinejad wasn't. I can't keep track of -everything-!

@CowperKettle - I love that infographic. Strange to me, the blips. For "Almost certainly", a bump at 20-30%? Probably not, a blip at 80% or so? People either didn't understand the question or were just messing around.

@Cerberus That's a very common perception by the proportion that is in power. Any hint of fairness, proportional representation, is seen as an attack. Do you prefer government representation that is proportional? Why not also in work?

@JTP-ApologisetoMonica There's a lot of room for context. Also, I bet the numbers used isn't that large. I mean... look at that really low bump for 'I doubt' that is pretty high. I think that is explainable by one person thinking of a situation were it means 'mostly certain, but I don't want to say it is totally certain'.

and I guess like under 40 people filled out the questionnaire

I see. I don't know why this really grabbed my attention. I'd love to see this done with a larger population. It would make a great high school stats project.

@Mitch What does religiously trained mean? Mullah training? Definitely not. But every Iranian kid has a lot more theology in his school curriculum

We don't have the equivalent of Sunday schools. It's just all incorporated into our normal studies, alongside biology and physics and math.

@Mitch So you think I am in power?

And you think I see any hint of fairness as an attack?

Government representation should be proportional because that's exactly their job: To represent.

Government or parliament?

Parliament should have proportional representation. But of what?

A black programmer is not representing the African-American community, and the company they would be working in does not represent all companies or all programmers or what.

@M.A.R. What did you mean here?

So if only 20 percent (I dunno the stats, I made this up) of professional programmers are female there's no reason to push the company to have more female programmers just because. I know sexist people develop the misconception that "women just can't code" or something like that, but to combat that is not to do the opposite

@M.A.R. higher education in a religious school?

@MattE.Эллен But I do not think ALL other things being equal is realistic. In reality, no two candidates are ever equally suited; conversely, in practice, usually it cannot be determined objectively who among a large group of suitable candidates is better or worse than the others. Organisations just pick someone at some stage.

@Cerberus A cursory search tells me only 9 out of 225 thousand inhabitants of Sparta were citizens. So, assuming a 50:50 m:f ratio, saying 4500 women enjoyed more freedom in Sparta to varying degrees doesn't seem exceptional

I had thought that being a mullah (going through religious university in Qom) was a requirement for at least some government positions. Which is pretty unique for the world (I can't think of anywhere else).

@Mitch No, but again, we have more religious stuff in our higher education curricula, in every field.

(And I'd expect it to be more in humanities)

@M.A.R. Exceptional? To what? I don't know what point you're trying to make.

@Cerberus but that was the premise I was given.

@MattE.Эллен OK, well, I do not believe that premise is realistic. But, even if it were, the proposed rule would introduce new mass injustice.

To the extent that it would have any effect at all: those who want to, can easily avoid it.

it would not, though due to the current imbalance

@M.A.R. sure. different countries around the world expect more and some less religiosity (outward forms like attending worship or 'belonging' to a religious group. But I cna't think of anytwhere that requires having gone to seminary school or talmusic school or whatever

@MattE.Эллен What if you were this one person who happened to be always rejected because if this rule?

@Cerberus The Wikipedia link TCh provided said Athenian women were essentially called "property" or something like that, and covered themselves much, but Spartan citizens were really 'free' and wore short dresses and controlled property and what-not. If these female Spartan citizens are only 4500 out of 122500 females, it doesn't seem surprising or exceptional as an example of 'women rights' in ancient times

It could happen.

@Cerberus that wouldn't happen. that's the point. we're talking about minorities. most of the time you would not be up against a person from a minority

@M.A.R. Right, that was also my point, then: the Spartan women named as examples of people with lots of property and influence were among a small élite.

like I can count the number of black software engineers I've worked with on the fingers of 1 hand

@Mitch And there's no such requirement for government officials except those position mostly contrived by the mullahs' interpretation of Sharia law (i.e. they interpret some law to state position X should exist in the government and often these religious positions are held by mullahs.)

Nevertheless, I do believe this was more easily attainable for an élite Spartan woman compared to an Athenian one, as Tchrist suggested.

I can count the number of female software engineers I've worked with on the same number of hands

There's no requirement for mullah-ness on other sectors but occasionally they're mullahs too

I'm up against people like me.

@MattE.Эллен That's cheating, your alien body has 100 limbs or something

:D

@MattE.Эллен Why not? In Amsterdam, for example, about half the population are non-Western immigrants. And up to 40% of the inner city are gay. 55% are women. Then there are 1001 other groups who need extra support. Chances are you will almost always be up against at least one person from those groups in the sub-field you're applying in.

Maybe there are only 10 new positions in that field available every year, each attracting 500 candidates (this is not uncommon in Amsterdam).

@Mitch You know, that's just, like, your opinion, man.

@Cerberus then you've got to take into account the field you're employing into. Midwives and nurses have a lot of women, so there your divers hire would be male

@MattE.Эллен But I don't want to be a midwife. I want to work at the department of urban planning in my own city, for example. How does the midwife thing help me?

@Cerberus ?

I am using a made-up, but realistic example of someone who would suffer from this policy.

@Cerberus if women working in urban planning is low in number, then really, suck it up.

@MattE.Эллен But what about me?

What am I do with with my life?

@Cerberus you will benefit in the end when the urban plans are better because they come from a more divers mindset

Meh.

@Cerberus you will find a job somewhere else

I just want a job in my field.

start your own urban planning consultancy

Because of your policy, I cannot find a job.

or learn to cook

get in the kitchen and make me a sandwich

You think that just treatment of me? I have done nothing wrong. I have adopted two orphans.

it's as just as the current treatment of people you think you're better than

@MattE.Эллен I think I am better than those women and gays? Can you explain that?

@Cerberus then live off child support!

@Cerberus you think that you deserve to continue benefiting from the prejudices that people not like you are suffering from

I don't want to benefit: I just want equal treatment.

well you're not getting it now

you're getting preferential treatment

It sounds like you are punishing me, an innocent individual, for the misdeeds of others.

you're punishing me by hoarding all the orphans

@MattE.Эллен Wait, you're an orphan collector too? We should have a swap meet sometime. I still have some gaps in my collection.

I did not choose for some employers to refuse to hire gays. That's not my fault, and it may not even be happening in my field. I'm just living my life trying to be a good person. I do not deserve to be rejected in favour of others. I'm a human being just like them.

It's a bit like collective punishment.

@Cerberus If it is better for society to increase diversity in organisations, which I believe it is because it allows things that are produced to be more inclusive, then a more divers hire should be picked over you. It's not punishment, you're just not good enough

@MattE.Эллен I support the end, but I am not sure it justifies these means.

I would much rather try to do two things:

1. Improve the positions of certain groups, by providing them with extra education, supporting emancipation, etc.

2. Try to reduce the bias existing among employers, by whichever means is effective.

sure, but you don't want to admit picking divers hires is most effective. The more divers people you are exposed to the more divers people you will expose yourself to. Mono cultures exist in business because owners pick from their own gene pool

metaphorical genepool

I believe that.

Although I doubt whether this policy would be effective: if you don't want to hire someone, you can always find a reason.

true

I also think perhaps it would be a good idea to think not just about programming.

That is a booming field with tons of jobs everywhere.

It's so easy to get a job.

IKR

So the injustice introduced would be minor.

But it can be a whole nother thing in fields where jobs are scare.

Could also be a local thing, if they are scare locally.

although don't tell CS graduates that, they still have the "need 5 years experience, can't get a job to get experience" paradox

In the arts and large sectors of academia, jobs are always extremely scarce here. Everyone is suffering, working 80 hours a week for little money. Getting a job is extremely hard in many of those fields.

@MattE.Эллен Everyone has that.

But even I make money programming.

Without any effort in promoting myself, and without any education.

It's just so easy.

you're so uneducated, and it shows

Yes.

;)

But educated enough to program what they need.

So I wouldn't need to wave my gay deaf etc. cards to get a job in that field.

Nor will my black colleague-friend.

It is conceivable that our chances are slightly lower.

going off topic a bit, there is an argument to make programming a more rigorous profession to get into, like structural engineering or nursing, because mistakes can cost a lot and nobody is held accountable

Ohh I could be an illegal programmer.

Wear a hat and cape.

we'd all be illegal to start with :D

I'm sure you have papers to show!

@Cerberus I would say "gay" is difficult to discriminate against if it doesn't come up, but skin colour is right there

@MattE.Эллен Why?

@Cerberus not really. maybe my masters would count

@Cerberus if you walk into an interview, do people know you are gay?

Many gays are even abused in the street justing walking around on their own.

@MattE.Эллен I'm sure some would think so.

@Cerberus but all would know a black person is black

If you're not a bit macho, plenty of people might dislike you whether or not you're even gay.

@MattE.Эллен Yes, but that is only one group.

The group that has it worst are Muslims here, I think.

I can imagine

They can be indistinguishable.

But for their names.

Cerberus is a very gay name

Although many will have an accent, and many others a headscarf.

@MattE.Эллен Why?

I'm kidding

It just means "Spot".

@MattE.Эллен Oh, really. I had no idea.

no sarcasm markup

Could we have mark-up for any underlying thoughts?

@Cerberus You could try a thought balloon. That's what they do in the comics.

@Robusto That's nice, but it's not markup!

But maybe it oughta be?

💭

I just want markup for e.g. saying "hello" while I'm feeling somewhat depressed today but at least I have a nice cabbage dish in the fridge.

unicode looks more like a fart

💭this is my underlying thought💭

Some thoughts are like farts.

Nice.

:D

@RegDwigнt ^

time travelling?

Ha, I didn't see that at first. I remembered it from somewhere, thought it was just something I'd passed over in my YouTube feed.

But ... and my point for @RegDwigнt ... his piano seems to be voiced very, very bright, almost to the point of plangency. I'd have preferred something a bit softer for Mozart.

And even bad Mozart is better than just about anybody else.

@MattE.Эллен That's tautological, or some nuance I'm missing: "diversity is good because then we would be diverse"?

Minus 2 degrees C and a lot of ice on the ground

@CowperKettle We're getting snow here, believe it or not.

About 4 inches (10 cm) on the ground now and more falling.

@M.A.R. diversity is good because if your products are more inclusive, then more people can use them, e.g. remembering to add alt attributes to your images for screen readers, and you will be more holistic in your thinking, so you will be able to appeal to broader audiences.

so, from a business perspective, you'll reach a broader market

That's very hard to disagree with because it's so vague and general

which can only be a good thing

@Robusto Wow!

@MattE.Эллен If that is true, why do marketers keep trying to target more narrowly to find the consumers who are more likely to buy their product?

@MattE.Эллен Sure I do. My whole point is we can fight existing prejudices and be diverse without hurting normal people's (in the majority) chances.

@CowperKettle I actually had to shovel my driveway this morning in order to get the trash barrels out for pickup.

If a job is so men-only that only two percent of workers in that job are female, is that oppressive?

It might be a symptom of oppression, but it's not necessarily.

@Robusto I guess not everyone wants specific products. if you don't have a hedge you don't want a hedge trimmer

Maybe women just don't want that job. Why would different demographics be equal in their preferences for jobs?

@MattE.Эллен Not all products are targeted at "anyone with a neck."

@Robusto yeah, but some products are not targetting people they could be because they don't realise they would be interested.

@M.A.R. then you have to ask why. what is causing women to not want to work in that sector? is it because women have been historically excluded?

if you're told "women can't be football players" by all the football scouts, then maybe you listen

maybe you don't try

@MattE.Эллен I will never be interested in products intended for trimming male pubic hair, even though 1) I am a man, 2) I have pubic hair, and 3) Google keeps putting things like that in my feed.

if a company is 80% men, maybe it has a bad reputation with women

My view is, it's good to fight prejudice because there is potential for growth in oppressed people. If, hypothetically, biochemistry was a field only men studied and women were prejudiced against, this untapped potential, when no longer prejudiced against, would help the field of biochemistry advance further.

@Robusto well, pobody's nerfect

@M.A.R. OK, but that's the hoary old argument that has kept women down forever. I think if a woman can do the job and wants to, she should maybe be encouraged to try. Women are not as likely as men to tough out a bad situation just for spite as perhaps men are.

@MattE.Эллен Well, are we going to assume that's the only definite conclusion there is? It's one of the possible answers, sure, but would it definitely be true?

@Robusto Sure, that's also what I think

@M.A.R. yes, one of the possible answers. but that's why you have to ask. if you just say "I don't want to have to ask, so I will continue to make choices like I always have" then prejudice never goes away

@MattE.Эллен I never said that. But it occurs to me no one ever considers the possibility that it might not be true, whatever the field.

Whoever's asked already seemed to presuppose the answer.

@M.A.R. it is kind of an extraordinary claim that 50% of the population won't be interested in something that the other 50% is for no other reason than gneder

@MattE.Эллен It's IMHO equally extraordinary to claim that males and females would have the same preferences all the time.

Not a question of can't, the people that want to should try and they can. But a question of won't.

Is it though? it seems like a cultural bias, rather than anything else. you tell people what they like based on gender (as a society) and then people follow suit. as soon as you say "actually, women can play football" you usually find there are plenty who want to

So if I'm 'forcing' my company to meet a specific quota of underrepresented people, to the degree that their chances of being hired are considerably higher, rather than almost equal, to the majority, what extra talent am I exploiting?

you're exploiting the talent of people with a different perspective to the majority.

@Robusto as chance would have it, just last night I watched a documentary on Gould that went into quite some detail on how he picked his instruments. Which if I understood correctly, he did anew before every single public performance.

The scenes in the piano shop are very illuminating. And very funny.

@RegDwigнt And are they at the same level of plangency?

@MattE.Эллен That's again vague and hard to agree or disagree with. Hurting any group's chances would make it harder for members of that group to provide talent.

Whether they're in the majority, or the minority.

@RegDwigнt I will watch it.

@Robusto Basically the executive summary is, he seemed to prefer instruments that came close to what the piano never sounded like but the clavichord did. They actually explain as much quite overtly at one point in the video, though they are talking about Bach at that point.

If many companies do the same as the super-inclusive company, then the reverse would be happening to the majority, being prejudiced against. Except they shouldn't complain because . . . ?

@RegDwigнt Yeah, and I hear him with a much softer piano sound in other things.

For example.

That said, he also plays Webern in that video, on the same instrument, and that doesn't seem to bother him much. Though to be fair he's at home at that point where he just doesn't have the selection of a piano shop.

Perhaps the Mozart video was done in a studio where he couldn't have his own piano. Or else he simply wanted it to sound raucous?

@M.A.R. but my point is you're not hurting the majority's chances because they're already there. Their voices are being heard, the perspectives represented, their needs met.

@M.A.R. but that wouldn't be possible. they're the majority because there is most of them. eventually there won't be enough minorities to hire so you'll be back to hiring from the majority

@Robusto Hard to tell really. The whole essay seems very well prepared. Obviously scripted, and with parts of the script having to have been filmed earlier. If he put that kind of effort into just the narrative, I don't see how he would agree to a mediocre instrument. Especially what with him basically never giving public performances at all by that age.

@MattE.Эллен So a number of companies should be super-inclusive, and the others continue on as normal?

> Perhaps it all comes down to this: within every creative person there is an inventor at odds with a museum curator.

@RegDwigнt: ^ This is the best quote so far in that video.

Yeah that got my attention as well. At that time I was already trying to decide whether to fall asleep instead, but then sat in bed and watched the whole thing with much interest.

@Cerberus With respect to race, I think you are a member of the group that is in power. Does that mean you are wielding that power explicitly to the detriment of those outside your group? Most likely not, but you are getting the benefits of it.

I totally get the difficulty with scarce jobs (or any job really) where you're trying super hard to get it, and then you add on top of that 'oh now some new people get easier access to the job, so you'll have an extra hurdle to get past'

but those new people...they already had that hard part, that extra hurdle all along and it was a bigger hurdle because the were a minority (if it was a majority that was new, then yes it would be bad for the minority group in power who now had it harder.

@RegDwigнt It's interesting, but in the final piece the piano doesn't sound brazen at all. So perhaps it's not the voicing, but his contempt for "bad" Mozart that comes through his fingers. The piano still sounds a hard and bright to me (for Mozart) but now it's not brazen.

Then again it could all be the microphone.

Well you're the sound engineer here, so you be the judge. For me it all is very muddled, except in the obviousest of places, by the fact that at the time it was not only filmed on a potato, but the sounds were recorded using one as well.

Uh, very very late jinx.

I remember an audio engineer who got out an old Neumann tube mic to record the flute, and had to let it warm up for like half an hour, because he said it would produce a fatter, sweeter recording. And he was right.

@Mitch that is, ironically, a very black-and-white way of summing it up. The summary will be very different in different places, of which Cerberus is an inhabitant of one.

Plus there was no shortage of people kidnapping and enslaving people of their own skin color, only then selling them off to people of different skin color arriving on ships from overseas. It was an entire industry, on site, for centuries.

You might as well argue that both colors must be punished equally, or indeed that the one color on site must be punished more for doing such a despicable thing as enslaving their own race to sell it off to strangers.

Wow, those Neumann tube mics are going for $5,000 or more nowadays.

At any rate, it's one thing to overcompensate you for the privileges that you never had, and a different thing entirely to overcompensate you for whatever happened to your great-great-granddad.

Which of the two, or what in-between, is the case in each particular case, depends on each particular case.

My granddad was injured four times fighting back the Nazis. I am not asking for compensation, not from the Germans of then, and only less from the Germans that are younger than myself by thirty years.

@Robusto a couple days ago I started getting a ten-minute ad for some German headphone manufacturer. I even watched it once, in full, with great curiousity. Now I can't even ask you what you think of the brand because I don't remember the name.

@RegDwigнt Sennheiser?

Something like that but not that. I would remember that.

BTW, can you change "tub" to "tube" in my previous post?

There was an EI in there. And I think a G. And it was comparably long.

Instructions unclear, changed to bathtub.

I thank you.

I welcome you.

@Mitch I also have no idea what anyone's caste is, and I could also not care less. The Indian caste system is a very nasty thing which may have been functional in prehistory, but in the 21st century just makes humans look bad. And it makes the British class system, a very nasty thing in its own right, look positively benign.

Isn't it stupid that if you want to see a headphone ad and look for it, they don't give it to you.

@RegDwigнt It is the perversity of the world that such things are the norm.

@Mitch It might be illegal to ask about it in India, but the law doesn't mean much here. People ignore the law here all the time, and nothing happens to them. And yes, lower caste people have less money, and are less likely to make it out of India. Assuming that's where they want to go.

@Robusto I think it is Beyerdynamic. But still looking for the exact video.

Historically the lower castes are very poor, and in practice they tend to stay that way. In theory it's possible to work ones way up, but in practice India is viciously intolerant to people trying to improve themselves.

@RegDwigнt Sure, it's difficult because many things are happening at once and things aren't so black and white. maybe there's a white woman and a black man going for the same job.

There you go. This one.

@Mitch yes exactly. But any movement or party or thinktank is bound to abstract.

@RegDwigнt I don't recall that brand. Maybe they're new, or at least new to the States? For listening to my digital piano I use the Sennheiser HD 380 Pro, which are quite good.

Well they made it sound like they were venerable and well-established, worldwide.

Like, this is for their new range and they touch on a bunch of popular ranges from previous decades, from what I understood.

But yeah no never heard the name before last week.

Probably they are. But there are so very many pieces of equipment in any recording studio.

Then again I'm not an engineer.

Well anyway. I must leave you now to practice some Bach.

Maybe the KV333 as well. We'll see about that.

Lators-gators.

Have fun.

I thank you.

@M.A.R. Religious studies as part of a normal curriculum? Horrors.

@FaheemMitha Nah just incredibly boring. The contents are rarely contentious, just some incomplete ideological prattle that leaves too many questions to be answered. An incredibly antiquated approach that doesn't reproach, condemn, or support any group or idea much.

@MattE.Эллен Shouldn't that be "diverse"?

The adjective "divers" means something like various. I've seen it used by people like Wodehouse. But it was old-fashioned even then.

In the 21st century it probably qualifies as archaic.

@M.A.R. Sounds pointless. Probably better replaced by computer programming.

@FaheemMitha Oh, very

My school sucked. Have I mentioned that?

It doesn't further anyone's agenda. No one would read the school theology textbooks and be convinced either way.

History that wasn't history. Civics that didn't resemble reality. Though probably religious studies would have made it worse.

It's as equally useless for a critic as it is for a religious practitioner.

@FaheemMitha Ooh our history textbooks are pretty onesided

We had to sing hymns in morning assembly. That was fairly excruciating. Though I've mostly blotted that out.

Unmistakable bias

@M.A.R. I bet. Ours weren't so much propaganda as just rubbish.

I actually find history compellingly interesting, but I didn't learn that at school.

@FaheemMitha Heh, we sang the national anthem enthusiastically up until like the third grade.

@M.A.R. Iran has a national anthem?

Then woosh. Forgotten

@M.A.R. Lots of stuff about the Great Satan?

@FaheemMitha Uh what. That question strikes me as really odd.

@FaheemMitha The great who? Oh, haha

@M.A.R. Sorry, I didn't mean it to be. I think India has one, but I can't remember what it is.

Well, the Great Satan wasn't really important in our history up until the coup

I'm not exactly nationalistic. I think the idea of a nation state is an unfortunate European concept that really should be buried. But nobody cares what I think.

@M.A.R. Well yes, but that was a long time ago.

The Russians and the British have done the most harm to us in the past few centuries.

@M.A.R. Oh. I didn't know about the Russians. So there's stuff about them in there?

Oh lots!

Backstabbing mofos (no offense @Cowp)

And the British too, I bet.

I dunno if it could be said we were colonized, but there were great power struggles over our resources and land as well

So I suppose if you want to learn Russian as a second language, that's right out?

Well it's just not offered as an option I think, but there's no animosity. It's an enemy of my enemy thing, our officials love to lick Putin's boots.

And Russian is probably difficult, but I'll try to learn it in a few years

@M.A.R. Hmm. Well, in my school, I had to learn Hindi, which I didn't want to. The non-Indians could learn French, but I didn't have that option. I would have much preferred French. Not that I would have used it much.

Though none of this has much to do with anything...

After Britain and Russia, France, Portugal and Spain have also done some evil stuff here, but this is 200 years ago or what.

@FaheemMitha Here, Arabic is compulsory, and one other foreign language which can be English, French, or probably Spanish

@M.A.R. Wow, that's a lot of countries. Here we mostly just had the British.

@M.A.R. Does Urdu get used or taught at all?

Either way the language learning system is so antiquated (and I've ranted about this before) that it really is just memorizing vocab and grammar

@M.A.R. Do people ever learn anything?

Nope.

I can't have a coherent conversation in Arabic, and I studied it at school for SIX years.

I can read and interpret plenty though

English learners struggle quite a bit unless they attend classes at private language institutions

And not even then can most of them satisfactorily communicate in English.

@M.A.R. I failed every exam in took in Hindi till the last one. And I only passed that because I was given the exam in advance.

I've mentioned that here earlier. I don't do well when forced to learn things.

Well I certainly didn't lack in interest

But yeah, forcing it and the fact that it sucked so very much

@M.A.R. Didn't lack in interest for...?

Learning Arabic

But the grammar taught was exasperatingly traditional, the structure of the lessons was so formulaic. We didn't have a single listening exercise.

@M.A.R. Bummer. You couldn't just learn it yourself?

I've spent a lifetime learning things. It's actually not that hard, if you just ignore everything that the schools tell you to do. Because they don't know anything, and just want to destroy the joy of learning. Actually, I think that's their real function.

@FaheemMitha Yeah working on it. I'm only recently done with all the nonsense of pre-uni school, and getting myself to enjoying learning once more

@M.A.R. Good for you. I learned to read Urdu script once. But I didn't really have any use for it, so forgot again.

So Urdu yes/no?

I don't honestly know. Maybe there is a more visible need for it in the Eastern parts of Iran, but here, people would have no use for Urdu

Your English is really good, so you're obviously good at learning languages. Unless your parents are professors of English literature or something.

@M.A.R. Ok.

If anything, I'm considered to be an Azeri Turk, so Azerbaijani Turkish is very appropriate to be in my curriculum, but isn't probably because they're afraid of separatist movements.

@FaheemMitha My entire family is pharmacists :)

Both mom and dad

@M.A.R. Huh, that's kinda weird.

I wish their English was better

So, you just read a lot?

Shrug I guess, but my own opinion is I don't read a lot

Hmm.

I used to read a lot, into my late 20s or so. But not now, really. It gradually tailed off.

@FaheemMitha That is hardly their stated goal, even though in many (most?) cases that may be the outcome. You can't really ascribe intentionality to it.

When I saw my children's 5th-grade US history book for the first time it was so terrible I absolutely wanted to burn it.

Chock full of names of presidents, generals, battles, and tagged chock-a-block with dates, it was like some pressed food from which all the nutrients had been sweated out.

@Robusto I'm a big fan of intentionality. It makes the world seem more meaningful. It's somehow better to imagine people are torturing you on purpose than by accident.

@Robusto I can imagine.

@FaheemMitha I subscribe more to the paradigm of an indifferent universe.

@Robusto Indifferent universe, sure. Indifferent society, not so much.

> Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

Ah, "pays" means "countries" in French.

Yes.

@Mitch That may not apply to the individual. It is injustice towards the individual that I am concerned about. And why does "race" suddenly count as more important than 1001 other groups? I'm in several minorities, as are many people.

@CowperKettle It's where the word "peasant" comes from.

@Cerberus Probably because those represent the most common and obvious forms of discrimination.