Debating Affirmative Action I Glenn Loury and Sam Harris

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[GlennLouryclips]

What are your opinions on affirmative action? Let me know in the comments below.

[SamKGrove]

In his book, Inside American Education, Thomas Sowell illustrates how affirmative action has resulted in the substitution of activism for accomplishment.

[craigbarton]

The accomplished, obviously high-level gentlemen like Glen are hurt the are hurt the most by affirmative action. I can Stereotype and make my choices with the understanding. Glen has to live it and he is such a breath of fresh air.

[bobd]

You're a legend Glen. An important voice. Thanks!

[mikelogan]

Why can't we have affirmative action in professional sports it's not nearly as important as brain surgery

[garydavidson]

as a liberal, i am glad affirmative action has been struck down by the Supreme Court!

[SleekDiamond]

As Thomas Sowell said (paraphrasing): how can we expect people of differing groups to perform the same, when a single person doesn’t perform the same as *himself* from one day to the next?

[pjtill]

We should be selecting based on merit, qualifications, and experience. There are many jobs that are way too important to select based on skin color: pilot, doctor, Vice President of the United States, nuclear reactor operator, etc..

[SleekDiamond]

Remember when civil rights was about equal treatment under the law, rather than unequal treatment to produce equal outcomes?

[Ahmedkhan]

The fundamental and essential mechanism of affirmative action is racism. It requires, at the point of selection, a negative response to this critical question: In the absence of race as a criterion, would this candidate be selected. In recent decades affirmative action has evolved into a cynical ploy, a numbers game, in many institutions, far removed from its original goal of providing employment and educational opportunities to groups that were denied those opportunities for reasons any decent society would hold as morally repugnant. I agree with former UC Berkeley regent Ward Connerly, that we have used affirmative action to prop up a system of artificial diversity while neglecting the heavy lifting to bring about real equality in our society.

[Hegelmaus]

Accepting sound criticism without defensiveness is the first step towards any kind of improvement. If that criticism is precluded on grounds of embodiment, then a terrible price will be paid by those whose embodiment is taken to constitute a unique right to refuse even to learn how they might improve.

[dragonore]

I've said this before. I got a Batchelor's degree in computer science. Getting that degree required an array of courses obviously computer related, but also in Calculus, advanced Calculus, discrete mathematics, physics and other difficult courses. Now, I am not particularly intelligent or anything. I struggled in those courses, I had to really really really study, give up time to do fun things, to study and pass the course. I say all of that to say this. I did not see very many blck folks in those classes, I just didn't. I saw a few, and the ones I did see often where overseas black students, from Kenya or Nigeria, places like that, not too many American blcks. I don't know if my experience is particularly unique in the lack of blck students in those course, but if it isn't, then of course we should expect not to see many blck folks in certain careers. I don't know what the solution is, to encourage blck folks to take those courses.

[RMJTOOLS]

In my opinion the single greatest negative impact of affirmative action is the establishment of grifter orgs that profit off constant strife over this like the NAACP.

[NM-]

The issue isn’t what affirmative action does to the cache of its beneficiaries. The problems is the anti-meritocratic and zero sum nature of advantaging candidates based on any criteria outside performance. If a x race person is admitted to a job/program having lower assessment scores than a y race person the x race person benefits AND the y race person is discriminated against.

This creates not only doubts or lower cache towards beneficiaries but anime in those higher performers that are swept aside in the pursuit of unachievable equity.

Making hiring or selection decisions based on immutable characteristics is bigotry in the same way making value judgements is.

Government used to be in the business of picking winners and losers. The answer to that isn’t to change who it picks, the answer is to stop picking winners and losers instead correcting barriers of access to tools or practices that improve performance.

[litcrit]

If one accepts the idea that it is illogical or unwarranted to expect every group to be represented proportionally in every desirable walk of life, let's hear Glenn take seriously how extreme he is willing to let these disparities grow -- or how much he is willing to invest to shrink these disparities.

[Sandra_D.]

Full thing where is it? I just went through the whole list of uploads most recent ones and it’s not there so what’s happening??

[dandybufo]

Always like to hear conversations between these guys

[brozbro]

I can't imagine being a well-qualified Black person living with the stigma of somehow being educated against lower standards when I met the highest standards.

[petermathieson]

Sam's like a boxer taking hit after hit, conceding where he must, deflecting where he can, always on the defensive, hoping to escape the battle with his cherished (and misguided) beliefs battered but still intact.

[HeavyK.]

Sam called me and 75 million of my friends RACISTS. So, I don't watch to listen to him.