> She should be ashamed: she appears to have violated immigration, pension and tax laws.
She is an illegal immigrant, and a shameless criminal, but why should she be ashamed? Braking a law does not necessarily imply anything shameful, and sometimes it is shameful to obey unjust laws. I hope everyone can think of some laws (at least from history) that you'd be proud to break.
I would question the claim that Americans are bad drivers in general. Compared to driving I've seen in other countries (particularly India, China), even the worst drivers I've seen in America aren't so bad. And the worst drivers in America I know personally are not actually Americans but internationals.
Maybe we are generally worse compared to other western countries but my experience suggests the prevalence of driving in America puts our skills among the best. If someone has data which suggests otherwise please share.
I'd definitely say American drivers, as a whole, are less prepared for and take too lightly the responsibility of driving a car. It is far too easy to get a license in this country: My test consisted of me, at sixteen years old, going around a suburban block with very little traffic at about 35 miles an hour, followed by a brief parallel parking test (a test I consider far less relevant than, say, being able to merge on a busy freeway at high speed). To qualify for this test, I only had to purchase an online driving course and fill out forms claiming that my parents had been me with me while I drove - none of which required time with a trained instructor.
Contrast this with China - one of the countries that you listed as an example of having bad drivers - where to obtain a license you need to pay the equivalent of a few thousand USD for a rigorous driving course in an isolated area (you can't even drive on the road before you have your license; learner's licenses do not permit you to drive on public roads). After this, you are still under some limitations until a year after you've obtained the license.
In addition to this, the more aggressive driving culture of China involves many more vehicles jostling for smaller spaces than would be the case in America. The skill and spatial awareness of the vehicle necessary to cope with this sort of environment is far greater than that needed to deal with even the most demanding driving environments of America.
We are definitely more laid-back and polite in driving than China (and I would prefer that any day) but more skillful? I highly doubt that.
The skill and spatial awareness of the vehicle necessary to cope with this sort of environment is far greater than that needed to deal with even the most demanding driving environments of America.
One day, I lucked out and found street parking near the convention center in Houston. I had to drive forwards then back into the unmarked space, which was obscured from view by the angle. I make sure to leave a good three feet of space from the car behind, and observe that there's space behind that car too. A few hours later, we come back to the car, and there's a woman in the car behind on the phone complaining about being "parked in."
(What's more, if you cranked up the stereotype dial when you imagine the scene, you'd be pretty accurate. No pickup truck, though. It was one of those Chrysler 300 style cars.) [heavy sigh]
EDIT: Contrast the above with what I observed in Sligo, Ireland, taking the bus to see some archaeological site. At this one bus stop on those twisty little roads, the mother and her child getting off the bus had to back up and flatten against the wall while the driver maneuvered out of this one bend in the road. If the driver had been wrong by a foot and a half -- and mind you, this is a full sized city bus -- he would've crushed them against the wall. Apparently, this was a regular occurrence!
True, this certainly skews my impression of driving in other countries. However, some of the examples I recall can not possibly be good driving in any culture (like making a ten point U-turn when there is ample room to make a single turn, or failing to park in a large spot after several attempts).
I think that it is not that Americans are worse drivers, but bad drivers have more chances of having a car in America. In other places you have more alternatives, and bad drivers usually prefer these other alternatives. In the US, you must drive if you want to move.
Saying whether one country's drivers are better or worse is baseless and pointless. But the rules and customs of driving do tend to be more strict in some of the countries you mentioned.
i.e. in China, if you're 60 years or older, you need to pass yearly medical exam to show that you're fit to drive.
I'm helping teach a math education course at an elite university. We should be teaching how to teach, but we actually teach elementary school math to education majors who struggle with the material. It blows my mind how difficult this course has been for the students. It seems that every week we are lowering our standards a little more. We have no real hope of finishing a significant amount of material in one semester (but that is all they will probably take). I doubt we would be able to just fail the whole class and keep our jobs. Our goal is to teach them one single concept, so they know what it feels like to really understand something, and then maybe they will chase that feeling later.
The author mentions that education students are generally chattier and less respectful during lectures. This is also true for our class, and we have had ridiculous problems getting students to arrive for scheduled meetings and stay on top of their responsibilities. On the plus side, most of them are highly energetic and charismatic, which are great for teachers.
I knew about these problems before this class, but I could have never possibly imagined they are as dire as I've seen.
While I'm sure your knowledge is aggregated over many sources, are there any particularly excellent sources (books, documentaries, etc) on the history of military tactics?
The Harrison Bergeron-ing all things is a terrible path and we should definitely encourage people to rise to the challenges of their environment, and celebrate those who do.
But that doesn't have to be the end of the story. Some of the challenges that women face in the workplace can't be solved simply by those women. I think that was a major point of the article. There are common subconscious biases that businesses would be well served to address. That doesn't have to mean that businesses treat anyone like victims. It means they aren't necessarily maximizing the value of their human resources. I don't think there's a single optimum strategy for running business meetings, but we should certainly better understand the advantages and disadvantages of different approaches.
A nice explanation of privilege. I'm not super fond of the term, since I hear too many people use it as an attack instead of a conversation starter. Its hard to convince someone they're wrong, that has to be a delicate conversation.
Maybe: Do your best to treat everyone equally, and be aware of just how insanely hard this is for ANY human being to do.
I would go with "Try to 'overcompensate' when it comes to repressed groups; only then will you trick your brain into more genuinely equitable behavior."
It's similar to how, as a rule of thumb, we would do well to "over-document" our code. We're so close to the source that things that we consider "obvious" (due to constant exposure) are absolute headscratchers for people reading the code for the first time.
I put "overcompensate" in quotes because our brains are poorly equipped to judge equity objectively. We have to use hacks like "You cut the cake, and I'll choose which half is mine" for that reason.
It seems the topic of privilege often arises to promote empathy in some roundabout way. I just think empathy is a good concept that stands without the help of privilege. It's possible that pointing out the disparity in privilege can guilt empathetic emotions into some -- but this message then becomes unfairly reserved for those deemed as "privileged". Empathy is good for everyone. Privileged or not.
Nobody's arguing against empathy. And simply saying that privilege is "unfairly reserved" (without any qualifiers) begs the question.
We're saying that privileged people are often blind to their own privilege and others' disadvantages. To them (and I'm in this group), and thanks to things like hedonic adaption, a position of privilege feels like their "natural" state. To have some of that privilege taken away feels like a loss, even though it was nothing they earned on their own in the first place. To illustrate: How often do people hear heterosexuality applied as a pejorative label?
> And simply saying that privilege is "unfairly reserved"
I meant the promotion of empathy is being unfairly reserved. Empathy is a universally virtuous principle. To preach it at cis white males excludes others from the joys of this enlightenment.
> To them (and I'm in this group)
This is what confuses me. Why is privilege seen as a membership of a group rather than a behavioral fact about human existence? If you took someone you considered "under privileged" and gave them "excess privilege", surely they too would employ "hedonic adaption". Point being, it seems privilege can be reasoned about in principle without employing group mentality.
> To illustrate: How often do people hear heterosexuality applied as a pejorative label?
On the surface we can reason that pejoratives are bad. Beneath that we can reason that some people are victimized for being different. And beneath that we can reason that empathizing with others helps us act in more caring ways.
I think the promotion of kind language is valid and good, but I feel like it's less useful than the promotion of empathy, because the result of empathizing most likely encompasses the benefits of kind language and much more.
I like this article, but I wish it would do more to point out that high-education low-wage workers, like adjunct university teachers, are usually in their low-wage jobs by choice, and their education gives them a lot more opportunities even if they don't take them. They are in a way very financially secure, since they could easily give up on academics and move into high-wage industry jobs (at least in the applicable fields). There are a lot of people who really want academic jobs anyway, so schools are happy to pay low.
Note: I'm an academic and I have a second job to supplement my income. I have often considered moving into industry where I would make 5-10x my teaching income.
The article says the hackers "can inject themselves seamlessly into email threads". Its hard to judge that without reading the specific conversation but I doubt they'll become public. The hackers may have simply spent some good time studying up on the industry, but having a banking background seems like a reasonable guess.
She is an illegal immigrant, and a shameless criminal, but why should she be ashamed? Braking a law does not necessarily imply anything shameful, and sometimes it is shameful to obey unjust laws. I hope everyone can think of some laws (at least from history) that you'd be proud to break.