[233] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: What can we do?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Ray Jones)
Fri Apr 27 11:14:57 2001
To: "Richard J. Barbalace" <rjbarbal@MIT.EDU>
Cc: golem@MIT.EDU, mit-talk@MIT.EDU, ifc-talk@MIT.EDU
From: Ray Jones <rjones@pobox.com>
In-Reply-To: "Richard J. Barbalace"'s message of "Fri, 27 Apr 2001 10:52:15 -0400"
Date: 27 Apr 2001 11:14:36 -0400
Message-ID: <ppwy9sme5nn.fsf@PIXIE.MIT.EDU>
"Richard J. Barbalace" <rjbarbal@MIT.EDU> writes:
> ... From illegally stealing mailing addresses...
Not true, from what I was able to find out from tech archives. They
were given the mailing addresses by people at some FSILG(s).
> Recognizing subtle racism and sexism requires considering the intent
> of such words. Engineers and scientists dislike evaluating intent;
> instead they focus on the straight "facts" of what was said and give
> the offenders the benefit of doubt. Thus they easily play into the
> hands of those who manufacture the "facts" to sound less biased.
There's a good reason for taking this approach. Intent is a fuzzy
concept, hard to evaluate without becoming emotionally attached to a
particular view. Observing actions is a better indicator of
philosophy, usually, since it filters out those that are just talk.
> MIT is already good at combatting overt prejudice and violence.
> Dealing with subtle bias and discrimination is what needs focus.
I agree that bias and prejudice are problems that should be dealt with
in areas such as hiring faculty and other official aspects of MIT, but
I wonder what more you think should be done about student groups like
the Extropians. The outcry about their mailing, with all the
discussion opposing their viewpoint seemed to be as effective a
solution as one could hope for.
It seems like they pretty much dealt with themselves; by expressing
unpopular ideas without sufficiently compelling evidence, they doomed
themselves to philosophical obscurity.
Ray Jones
