[272] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: Affirmative Action
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Michael E Rolish)
Sat Apr 28 03:40:00 2001
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Date: Sat, 28 Apr 2001 03:39:27 -0400
From: Michael E Rolish <merolish@MIT.EDU>
Victoria:
My mistake about the committees.
What I don't understand is why we need to do any sort of
"diversity engineering." In accepting 1000 top students,
I don't see how you could not get a diverse class in any
of the ways you mention. I also don't see how skin color
or cultural perspective is relevant to science and
engineering, which is why at least I came here.
Nnennia:
If I remember correctly, you had a letter published in
the Tech accusing same of sexism for endorsing a Rao/
Devereaux ticket. Honestly, I think you should relax.
There will always be jerks who have problems with
women/blacks/whoever for various dumbass reasons. But,
unlike what leftist agitators like Aimee Smith would
like you to believe, this is the exception, not the rule.
I have lived in diverse communities my whole life, and I
for one have not noticed any problems beyond the harmless
actions of individual idiots.
As long as the gov't isn't sponsoring racism, and is
otherwise protecting individual rights, one should feel
free to carry on with his/her life without worrying about
the irrationality of others.
As for affirmative action:
As far as I can tell, the primary argument here is some
variant of two wrongs making a right. I also don't see how
AA helps anybody because a) it doesn't make racists any less
racist, b) it creates this suspicion about "deserving to be
here," and c) there's no clear line between who's
"disadvantaged" and who isn't.
I'm a white male, and I can say for sure that there are plenty
of women and underrepresented minority students here who are
either/both a) smarter than me and/or b) came from more affluent
families and received better educations than myself. But I have
no problem with that. Trying to make life perfectly fair is
impossible; the best we can do is let people live their lives
without interference.
Yes, gov't interference:
Let's take the hypothetical example of a corporation (or, as
MIT's neo-Marxists would call it, a "tyrannical corporate
hierarchy") run by racists. Since it's not forcing anyone to
work for it, and no one has the intrinsic right to employment
at another's expense, this company's policy hurts only itself
and does not in fact violate anyone else's rights. Forcing
hiring procedures on such a company would violate the rights
of its owners, racist as they may be. Besides, why would any
rational person want to work for such a company in the first
place? In the long run it would lose out to a counterpart that
hired based on merit and thus maximized profit. (Unless, of
course, government taxes, subsidies, and regulations made life
easier for the former; another reason why these should be
eliminated.)
Of course, I support laissez-faire (www.capitalism.org). In
this case, capitalism works because it makes racism
irrelevant. Attempting to force people to be rational, on
the other hand, is morally wrong and, as the Drug War has
shown, doesn't work.
As for MIT, I would only hope that it keeps scholarship first
among its criteria for admission and consistently applies
this principle.
Responses, public or private, are welcome with the exception
of Wally telling me to fuck off...
-Mike Rolish
--
Michael E. Rolish, MIT '04
Course VI-3 - Computer Science
Course VII - Biology
merolish@mit.edu
"Serenity comes from the ability to say 'Yes' to existence.
Courage comes from the ability to say 'No' to the wrong
choices made by others."
-Ayn Rand, "The Metaphysical Versus the Man-Made"
