My first internet presence was on YouTube. At some point in late 2006 or early 2007, I created a YouTube account with the Jets-inspired name MoLewis57 in order to make a comment on a video about Tom Brady. Over time I became a fan of a few prominent YouTube vloggers of the day, and I was eventually inspired to make YouTube videos of my own. I wound up making well over 100 videos, the vast majority of which were posted between September 2007 and February 2009. Back then, I resolved to get myself a YouTube following without relying on family or friends at all ( I eventually did gain a modest audience - by the time I stopped making regular videos I had about 250 subscribers about 50 of which would comment on videos on a semi-regular basis ). So, I didn't share my channel with the vast majority of my family and friends ( I didn't share it with any family/friends at all until I felt I had built up a decent audience on my own ), and I never used my real last name in any video or video comment. I was also worried that the videos I was making might be in violation of my company's social media policy and I didn't want to risk getting in trouble at work.
So, I had resolved to be anonymous on the internet, and as my internet presence grew to include Twitter, Blogger, and facebook, I kept using the anonymous "MoLewis57" name, and restricted my internet friends/followers to people I didn't know in real life ( There were eventually a handful of exceptions to this, but they were people who were generally not friends ( internet or real-life ) with most of the people I had befriended at Stuyvesant/Cornell ).
About 5 and a half years ago, my wife got her own facebook account. She really had no intention of participating in social media , but she wanted to look at her friend's facebook pages to see stuff like baby pictures and the like ( Note: She's actually quite apprehensive about posting pictures of our own kids online, though I did convince her lately to post family photos from our recent Vegas trip to her facebook page ( Conversely, my "MoLewis" facebook page consists of almost nothing but posts/photos of our kids )).
Over the years, lots of my wife's friends and my friends have become part of the same social circles, so it wasn't long before my wife's list of facebook friends included most of my friends as well. For a long time, I was content just to follow my friends' post on my wife's facebook page, but lately I've been participating a bit on my wife's page - participating so much that I've seriously considered switching my "MoLewis" facebook account over to my real name, and facebook-friending most of my real friends ( Advantage: I wouldn't have to put "From Rich" every time I post to my friends from my wife's facebook account. Disadvantage: Candy Crush stuff, Farmville updates and all the other facebook game crap I couldn't care less about. ).
My recent participation in my wife's facebook page is primarily due to my interaction with two people: Johnny and Jerry.
Johnny is a friend of mine from Cornell ( we actually both went to Stuyvesant as well, but I didn't meet him until we got to Cornell ). We roomed together during our sophomore year at Cornell, played quite a bit of pool together, and had a quite a few adventures ( including my first trip outside the good old USA ) that I won't go into here. We both have our own lives and families these days, and I see him about as much as I see my other Cornell friends ( which is almost never, considering that I'm far too lazy make an effort to keep in touch with people these days - I've just been relying on weddings and kids birthday parties to do the "keeping in touch" work for me ). However, while I don't see him much these days, he's one of the people that made college fun for me, and I still consider him to be a friend and an upstanding guy ( despite that fact that he's a Yankees fan and jumped-ship to become a Giants fan after the Jets lost the January 1983 AFC Championship game ).
Jerry also went to Stuyvesant and Cornell. We didn't know each other at Stuy, and I don't think we exchanged any words between us at Cornell other than greetings in the presence of mutual friends. However, we had enough mutual friends that I did hear some stories about him during our Cornell days and he very well may have heard some stories about me ( Let's face, it if you leave college without leaving behind some embarrassing stories about yourself, then you weren't really trying. ). In any case, I think Jerry and my wife became facebook friends primarily because his sister and Ruth's sister are really good friends.
Over the years, I found myself reading's Jerry's post more often than the posts of any of my wife's other facebook friends, because Jerry I an occupy the same part of the political spectrum ( The part of the spectrum to the left of most politicians in the Democratic party ). I agreed with most of his posts, and I enjoyed reading the arguments he would have with those on the Right who disagreed with him. I never felt a need to participate in these discussions ( after all, this was my wife's facebook account, not mine ), but that started to change when Johnny started commenting on Jerry's posts.
Johnny's certainly to the right of me on the political spectrum, but I would not consider him to be Far Right. In fact, I'd be very surprised to find out that he hasn't voted for both Democrats and Republicans over the years. However, Johnny's political views are the kind of views that might be more likely to incite facebook vitriol from Liberals than the political views of the Far Right. I've got a feeling that some Liberals consider those on the Far Right to be a lost cause not worth worrying about, but they may be more incensed by moderates who help Republicans get elected by being "willfully ignorant" ( I'm pretty sure that's a direct quote from one of the facebook quotes directed at Johnny. ).
In any case, some of the facebook arguments between Johnny and Jerry were not pretty, and it made me want to get involved. While I agreed with the substance of most of Jerry's political statements, let's just say that we have different ideas about the best way to engage those on the other side of a political issue. Also, while I can't read Jerry's mind, I believe that I'm probably more cynical about politics than he is, and that cynicism extends to both Democratic politicians and Liberal media outlets. So, when Johnny would comment that Obama was being dishonest or that MSNBC is biased, Jerry would be more likely to defend Obama or MSNBC, while my response would be something along the lines of "Of course Obama is being less than honest - that's what any successful politician needs to do" or "Yeah, MSNBC is hard on the Right and takes it easy on the Left - what else is new? Even so, it's still a helluva lot more 'Fair and Balanced' than Fox".
Back in February, I got engaged in a facebook discussion about a post Jerry made about Ron Paul and the MLK holiday. I made the following comment about Libertarians and Civil Rights ...
Me: All that being said, if somebody did intentionally leave out the "pro-communist philanderer" part in an attempt to make Paul look racist, then they are being deceptive and missing the real insidiousness of the types of policies Libertarians like Paul support. Libertarians like Paul are against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ( Rand Paul has openly stated he's against it - I'll admit that I'm taking an educated guess that his dad feels the same way ) because they feel that government shouldn't be able to tell a private business what to do. I believe that most Libertarians are sincerely non-racist when it comes to interpersonal relations, but they also sincerely feel that if an owner of a private business wants to run his business in a racist way, the government should not be able to force him to do otherwise. They feel that people would have eventually started to shun racist businesses like "Whites Only" restaurants and that basic market forces would have eventually eliminated such racists businesses. However, in a place like the Deep South, that might have taken 1000 years to happen, and as they say, "Justice delayed is justice denied". This type of Libertarian philosophy is insidious because it allows people to support racists policies without feeling racist. That's more dangerous than straight-up in-your-face racism.
( BTW, I few weeks after a made the post above, I saw a news story which illustrates exactly the kind of Libertarian thinking I was talking about. See this article, particularly the following quote from a GOP lawmaker:
'"If someone was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, and they were running a little bakery for instance, the majority of us would find it detestable that they refuse to serve blacks, and guess what? In a matter of weeks or so that business would shut down because no one is going to patronize them,” Jensen told the Journal, advocating for the free market's role in promoting civil rights.' )
... and then Johnny and I had the exchange below ...
Johnny: Rich, interesting view on the Libertarians. I don't know much about them other than the basics. I had not thought of taking such views to that extreme. I think the govt SHOULD protect its citizens against things like racism. But it should do so equally, and the lefties seem to see racism from only one side. the righties? They probably do too, but they aren't even allowed to talk about racism except in code words. LOL
Me: I don't think the racial justice policies of the government can be color-blind until economic and political power is distributed more evenly among the racial groups in this country. A black business owner who wants to institute a "Blacks Only" hiring policy is just as racist as a white business owner who want to institute a "Whites Only" hiring policy, but racist white business owners have the potential to inflict far greater harm on society than racists black business owners, simply because whites have so much more economic power than blacks in this country. I'm not suggesting that laws should ignore racism against whites ( or any race ), but considering that all governments have limited resources, I think it makes make sense for laws and policies to be designed with a focus on racism-by-whites rather than racism-against-whites. This is why I don't have a problem with non-color-blind policies like affirmative action ( though I do think such policies need to be employed more intelligently to keep them from sometimes hurting the people they are trying to help. Malcolm Gladwell's take on this in "David and Goliath" is quite fascinating ) in today's USA. However, in tomorrow's USA, today's affirmative action laws would be silly. As most of us know, more than half the babies been born in the USA are non-white, so in a 100 years or so, whites will no-longer have the vast majority of economic power in the USA. I'll admit that phasing out obsolete affirmative action policies will be a challenge in the future, but I still think it is better to have such policies today than not have them.
Johnny: But Rich, isn't that similar to the Libertarian stance of wait it out, society will correct the wrongs? I believe in equal opportunity and meritocracy. Lowering standards to let a particular group pass the exam is wrong. Forcing a somewhat arbitrary percentage of new hires to be from a certain background is wrong. Further, I would say such practices promote the concept that the groups being "helped" are somehow inferior and in need of special rules to succeed.
Me: Actually Johnny, I don't think I'm making anything close to a Libertarian argument. A Libertarian might argue that we don't need Affirmative Action policies because demographic changes will eventually make Affirmative Action policies obsolete. I'm acknowledging that demographic changes will eventually make Affirmative Action policies obsolete, but I think we still need them now. However, I will admit that my feelings about Affirmative Action are conflicted and quite complicated - too complicated to sum up in a facebook post. All I'll say for now is that Affirmation Actions acts as a rather flimsy band-aid on a gaping wound in our society. I might have more to say later, but if I do, I'll write it a blog post and link to it.
Anyway, after more than a month, I've finally found the time to make that blog post.
As I implied above, I'm not an unadulterated fan of Affirmative Action. There are all sorts of problems with Affirmative Action and I think there are better ways to create a more level playing field between racial and socioeconomic groups ( For example, as I mentioned in my "Occupy Wall Street, the 1%, and the Lucky Coin" post, I think that public school funding needs to be made more equitable between rich neighborhoods and poor neighborhoods ).
However, as Bill Clinton once said, I'm definitely in the "Mend it, don't end it" camp when it comes to Affirmative Action.
Before I get into why we should not "end it", I'd like to give an example of why we do need to "mend it".
A few months ago I read Malcom Gladwell's new book "David and Goliath". One of the chapters in that book made me reconsider some of my ideas about Affirmative Action.
Malcolm Gladwell is a hell of a writer, but he's also the King of drawing broad conclusions based on anecdotal evidence. That being said, I think there is some real substance behind the information he presents in the "Caroline Sacks" chapter in his new book ( and in pages 284-287 in the "Notes" section of the book ).
( Gladwell cites the academic articles below ...
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10648-008-9075-6
http://www.dartblog.com/documents/Elliott%20and%20Strenta.pdf
http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ798217
http://ideas.repec.org/p/van/wpaper/vuecon-sub-13-00009.html
... plus research from the book below:
http://www.amazon.com/Mismatch-Affirmative-Students-Intended-Universities/dp/0465029965
One of the authors of the book above recently participated in an NPR debate about this premise of his book. I've provided a link to that debate below:
http://www.npr.org/2014/03/26/293767851/debate-does-affirmative-action-on-campus-do-more-harm-than-good
)
The primary conclusion of all the research above can be summarized as follows:
Consider two students ( student A and student B ) with equal academic credentials. Let's say that Student A decides to attend a college in which he or she is among the least academically qualified of the entering freshman ( let's say the bottom 20% ). Meanwhile, student "B" decides to attend a school at which he or she has academic qualifications in line with the average incoming freshman. On average, student B will have a much more successfully academic career and post-academic career than student A. If student A and B are both STEM majors ( Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics ), student B is more likely to remain a STEM major, and if Student A and B both wind up in the same post-college profession, student B is likely to have a more successful career. If student A and B are law students, student B is more likely to pass the bar exam on the first try.
The same type of pattern holds ( though to a lesser extent ) if student A enters a school at which he/she has average academic credentials ( relative to his or her peers at the school ) and student B enters a school at which his/her academic credential are better than 80% than his/her peers.
Basically, doing poorly academic is bad for long-term success ( even at elite schools ) and doing great academically is great for long-term success ( even at average schools ).
Of course, not everyone will fit the "average" profile of the studies above ( There are a small percentage of people who will always rise to the challenge when placed in a difficult academic environment, and who will "play down to the competition" when then are placed in a non-challenging environment. Those sorts of people should clearly always go to the most challenging school they are accepted to, but the studies above show that these types of people are the exception rather than the rule. ), but the results of these studies have obvious implications for Affirmative Action.
It seems like we need to re-think how Affirmative Action is implemented in higher education. The whole point of Affirmative Action is to help people. It's a good thing to acknowledge the economic hardships, dangerous neighborhoods, family instability ( Ex: The absence of a father ), and sub-par public schools experienced by a disproportionate percentage of young people in the black community make it harder for the average black high school student to be as prepared for college as the average student of other races. However, it's not a good thing to place these unprepared students into the very situations they are unprepared for. We shouldn't just say "Well, you're not really prepared to handle the academic demands of Harvard. Anyway, we'd like you to attend Harvard. Good Luck!". For Affirmative Action to really work in higher education we need to take to ...
1) Reduce the amount of preference given when admitting students under affirmative action ( Ex: If the average combined Math/Verbal SAT score of a student admitted to a college is 1400, and the average student admitted via Affirmative Action is has an SAT score of 1200, change the Affirmative Action criteria so that the average SAT score of an Affirmative Action student admitted in 1300 ).
2) Institute as many programs as possible to help Affirmative Actions students boost their credentials between the time they are admitted to the school and when freshman year begins. I'm sure that a lot of elite schools already have programs like this, but more schools should have them, and even schools that already have them should try to do more. If an institution is really committed to "diversity" ( rather than just paying it lip service ), then making sure you have diversity in your incoming freshmen class is not enough. You should do what you can to help prepare any person you decided to admit to your school with less-than adequate academic qualifications ( even if that means offering optional free summer prep-classes after Freshmen/Sophomore/Junior years for any Affirmative Action students who are struggling. ). If the Affirmative Actions students who are making your school "diverse" are dropping out of school at a higher rate than other students ( which certainly must be happening today, considering the studies above show that Affirmative Action students get lower grades than other students ), then you won't have the "diversity" you claim to care about in your graduating class.
Of course, some might say we shouldn't bother trying "to mend" broken Affirmative Action policies at all. Many conservatives ( and a fair number of moderates ) feel that Affirmative Action is "reverse discrimination" which should be eliminated altogether. Well, If you're a person who feels this way, consider the following scenario:
Pretend that you are married and have a 2-month-old child. Pretend that some all-powerful being ( God, Aliens, Google, Nate Silver, or whatever great power you might choose to believe in ) tells you that you and your spouse will both die tomorrow, but that you will be given some input on the fate of your baby. You are told that your child will be placed in the care of a random American family, and your child's appearance will be magically changed to match the race of the host family ( yes, if a mixed race couple is randomly chosen, your child will be mixed-race ). The host family will accept the child as their own - the memory of the parent(s) will be magically altered so they'll believe that the child is their biological child. However, the family will be chosen completely at random - the family could be a wealthy couple who lives in a mansion or a homeless single mother. The all-powerful being gives you only one say in the matter. You are given the opportunity to eliminate all families of one race from the pool of families before the random choice is made. Given such a choice, which race do you eliminate from consideration as the host family for your child ( The all-powerful being insists that you make a choice. He's says he'll kill your baby too if you don't make a choice - he's a bit of an Old Testament all-powerful being. )?
So, which race do you "vote off the island", so to speak? Which race gives your child the least chance to be successful in America? Well, if you truly believe that Affirmative Action is "reverse discrimination" which gives black people an unfair advantage over all other races, then the last type of family you'd eliminate from consideration would be a black family. In fact, if you really thought "reverse discrimination" was real, you'd tell that all-powerful being to make sure your child didn't grow up as a white person in a white family, because all that "reverse discrimination" makes it too hard for a white person to succeed in American society.
Well, I've written far to much to want to waste another paragraph stating the obvious, so I'll let you draw your own conclusions. I'll let you decide if we really live in society where black people have all sorts of advantages over other races thanks to the "reverse discrimination" of Affirmative Action.
Rich
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Hi dood
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