Icosian Reflections

…a tendency to systematize and a keen sense

that we live in a broken world.

IN  WHICH Ross Rheingans-Yoo—a sometime quantitative trader, economist, expat, EA, artist, educator, and game developer—writes on topics of int­erest.

If I Ran the Zoo
changing minds, social justice, harvard

content warning: Brief anecdote about inadvertent and nonmalicious -- but repeated -- misgendering. Discussion of moral-obligation-heavy social justice messaging.

While we were on finals-induced break...
(if you wish, skip over this news review)

College-Distributed Advice on Race Discussions Divides Students

At the close of a semester that saw a surge in racial tensions on college campuses nationwide, Harvard outfitted a number of dining halls with laminated guides printed with what purports to be advice for students discussing issues related to race and diversity with family members, but that some undergraduates decried as telling them what to think politically.

Adapted from a similar guide [link mine] published by an activist group called Showing Up for Racial Justice, the placemats address controversial topics including student activism about race at Yale and other colleges, the debate over whether the U.S. should welcome Syrian refugees, and Harvard’s recent decision to change the title of its "House master" position. (...)

Says Jasmine M. Waddell, resident dean for Elm Yard, as reported in the Crimson article:

"This is a way to say, 'You've been exposed to a lot of different ideas, and particularly in this moment when there’s a lot of discussion about various topics, you’re going to go home and you may or may not be able to speak the same language,'" Waddell said. "It's not that you have to believe in what's on the placemat, but it gives you some tools to be able to have productive conversations."

Waddell added that the Freshman Dean's Office decided against emailing the placemats directly to students, instead installing them in Annenberg without comment as a piece of "

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As Allies
changing minds, social justice, allyship

content warning: political call to action.

(1)

Say you are deeply, morally opposed to capitalism on principle, but nevertheless some inconsiderate person walks up to you, presses a dollar bill into your hand, and walks away. You already have more dollars than you need, and you certainly don't want to take part in the system you despise by spending it.

But then what do you do? Hide it away in order to level down inequity? Burn it in protest of the capitalist system that distributes luxuries to the rich instead of welfare to the starving?

Writes Scott Alexander:

If, as I’ve postulated, the reason we can’t solve world poverty and disease and so on is...the capture of our financial resources by the undirected dance of incentives, then what better way to fight back than by saying "Thanks but no thanks, I'm taking this abstract representation of my resources and using it exactly how I think it should most be used"? (...)

I suggest that you give it to someone who needs medicine. Or food. Or whatever else a dollar can buy. You don't seek to destroy unearned wealth if you can dispatch it to do immediate, tangible good. That's just selfish.

Writes Jeff Kaufman:

If you think of privilege as something you have that makes you a bad person, if you know the word and know it applies to you but you try to hide and dismiss your privilege, to find axes along which you have less of it, that's only marginally more helpful than if you were to deny your privilege entirely and insist

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