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Sowell: The Dumbest Idea
Creators Syndicate ^ | July 19, 2016 | Thomas Sowell

Posted on 07/18/2016 12:40:08 PM PDT by jazusamo

If there were a contest for the most stupid idea in politics, my choice would be the assumption that people would be evenly or randomly distributed in incomes, institutions, occupations or awards, in the absence of somebody doing somebody wrong.

Political crusades, bureaucratic empires and lucrative personal careers as grievance mongers have been built on the foundation of that assumption, which is almost never tested against any facts.

A recent article in the New York Times saw as a problem the fact that females are greatly under-represented among the highest rated chess players. Innumerable articles, TV stories and political outcries have been based on an "under-representation" of women in Silicon Valley, seen as a problem that needs to be solved.

Are there girls out there dying to play chess, who find the doors slammed shut in their faces? Are there women with Ph.D.s in computer science from M.I.T. and Cal Tech who get turned away when they apply for jobs in Silicon Valley?

Are girls and boys not allowed to have different interests? If girls had the same interest in chess as boys had, but were banned from chess clubs, that would be something very different from their not choosing to play chess as often as boys do. As for chess ratings, that is not subjective. It is based on which players, with which ratings, you have won against and lost to.

Are women and men not to be allowed to make different decisions as to how they choose to spend their time and live their lives?

(Excerpt) Read more at creators.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: chess; discrimination; siliconvalley; sowell; thomassowell
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To: jazusamo

Men are highly underrepresented as knitters, babysitters, flight attendants, secretaries and nurses. Among other things.

Do we need national government programs and ngo social groups along with celebrity awareness commercials to right these wrongs too?


21 posted on 07/18/2016 1:37:29 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man (Gone Galt; Not averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: Vigilanteman

It works in the last man on earth scenario. Or near to.

But that is about it.


22 posted on 07/18/2016 1:38:55 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man (Gone Galt; Not averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: piytar

Was it that hot russian gal who plays chess?


23 posted on 07/18/2016 1:39:32 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man (Gone Galt; Not averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: Red Badger

All men are created equal, but your benevolent omnipotent government stepped in and has now corrected all that.

And women, they are a special protected class with more equality than men. All the perks of equality and none of the responsibilities that go along with it. Even special laws that give them protections and entitlements no man has, because he’s just a man.

It’s just marvelous.


24 posted on 07/18/2016 1:42:59 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man (Gone Galt; Not averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: jazusamo

I was in a chess club in junior high. We would have fallen on our knees and worshipped any girl that wanted to join.


25 posted on 07/18/2016 1:45:06 PM PDT by Ronin (Blackface or bolt-ons, it's the same fraud. - Norm Lenhart)
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To: Sans-Culotte
So many commercials now feature the intelligent black people and the dumb white people (like the investment commercial where the black people are calmly reviewing their portfolios while the white people across the street do a lot crazy stupid, hysterical things to keep from reviewing theirs)

It isn't just the commercials. How many TV shows have some black in the role of a scientist or other type of intellectual leader? Medical shows are particularly given to this type of presentation.

26 posted on 07/18/2016 1:52:06 PM PDT by Robwin
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To: cyclotic
For one, he doesn’t recognize and of the girls and secondly, there are less than a dozen females students on campus.

Someone who was an engineering major once told me that the "PRG" (pretty girl ratio) drastically declines the higher up you go in that field.

27 posted on 07/18/2016 1:53:16 PM PDT by MoochPooch (I'm a compassionate cynic.)
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To: Travis T. OJustice

In January 1973, Norwich allowed Special Forces A-Teams from the 10th Special Forces Group at Fort Devens, MA to use their Ski Slopes for Ski Training, and I went almost directly from the jungles of Vietnam to the frozen ski slopes of Norwich University for a winter experience I’ll never forget.


28 posted on 07/18/2016 1:55:41 PM PDT by DJ Taylor (Once again our country is at war, and once again the Democrats have sided with our enemy.)
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To: Vigilanteman
Women are way over-represented in the field of Prostitution as well......
29 posted on 07/18/2016 1:59:58 PM PDT by M-cubed
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To: Sans-Culotte
I am sure black orchestra conductors exist, but they have to be extremely rare.

Yes. I was fortunate to have played in music groups with Calvin Simmons while in high school in San Francisco in the 1960s. Calvin was black and extremely musically gifted, so much so that our band teacher allowed Calvin to student conduct the orchestra, band and jazz band. After graduation, Calvin got a prestigious scholarship to the finest academies, became assistant conductor at the Los Angeles Philharmonic, then the musical director of the Oakland Symphony Orchestra, all by the time he was 28. Became the youngest conductor of a large city orchestra in the nation, as well as being the first black. Unfortunately he drowned at the age of 32. I happen to own a vinyl record we cut when our high school jazz band scored tops in a California music competition (CMEA), with Calvin both conducting or soloing on the piano. He was a genius at playing several instruments.

30 posted on 07/18/2016 2:08:49 PM PDT by roadcat
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To: piytar
I picked the top four women in the world and found their best picture each with a chess board, among the first four rows on an image search:


Hou, Yifan - rating 2653


Ju, Wenjun - rating 2578


Koneru, Humpy - rating 2575


Kosteniuk, Alexandra - rating 2549

I cannot imagine which player you might be thinking of.

31 posted on 07/18/2016 2:17:00 PM PDT by Pollster1 (Somebody who agrees with me 80% of the time is a friend and ally, not a 20% traitor. - Ronald Reagan)
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To: Sans-Culotte
I am sure black orchestra conductors exist, but they have to be extremely rare.

How old are you? You really need to talk to your grandfather or an older relative about Count Basie, Duke Ellington and his Orchestra and scores of others which were popular from the 1920s to 1960s. Most of them never existed, according to today's libtards, because they were Republicans!

32 posted on 07/18/2016 2:20:17 PM PDT by Vigilanteman (ObaMao: Fake America, Fake Messiah, Fake Black man. How many fakes can you fit into one Zer0?)
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To: roadcat
Yes. I was fortunate to have played in music groups with Calvin Simmons while in high school in San Francisco in the 1960s.

Too bad there is little interest in classical music in the black community. Hell, there's little interest in most communities. About the only time I see blacks today in classical music is in opera. There are some very fine black opera singers.

33 posted on 07/18/2016 2:23:37 PM PDT by Sans-Culotte ('''Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small''~ Theodore Dallrymple)
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To: Vigilanteman
How old are you? You really need to talk to your grandfather or an older relative about Count Basie, Duke Ellington and his Orchestra and scores of others which were popular from the 1920s to 1960s.

I'm talking about symphony orchesras, dude! Ever hear of Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms? Hell yes, I know who Count Basie and Duke Ellington are (were-they're dead now). They were great musicians, but they were jazz/pop musicians.

34 posted on 07/18/2016 2:27:53 PM PDT by Sans-Culotte ('''Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small''~ Theodore Dallrymple)
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To: Sans-Culotte

rarest athlete.......

Black Orchestra conductor who skis


35 posted on 07/18/2016 2:29:23 PM PDT by Thibodeaux (leading from behind is following)
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To: jazusamo

True. Very true.

But I didn’t cut her any slack. Had taken her apart about 9 times before. She was good so that was fun.

However, that game she just flat out beat me because I made a minor mistake that she expertly exploited. Frankly, that was fun too.


36 posted on 07/18/2016 2:40:04 PM PDT by piytar (http://www.truthrevolt.org/videos/bill-whittle-number-one-bullet)
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To: Pollster1

Dang. My informal rating is about 2200. They’d all kick my butt.

PS Would like to try with Alexandra! Wow, beauty and brains!!!


37 posted on 07/18/2016 2:44:47 PM PDT by piytar (http://www.truthrevolt.org/videos/bill-whittle-number-one-bullet)
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To: Secret Agent Man

Nope. Just a local Texan.


38 posted on 07/18/2016 2:46:29 PM PDT by piytar (http://www.truthrevolt.org/videos/bill-whittle-number-one-bullet)
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To: Sans-Culotte
Too bad there is little interest in classical music in the black community.

I was very fortunate to have attended Balboa High School in San Francisco in the mid-1960s. Balboa was a mixed-race school, perhaps 30 percent black. The music teacher, Sid Walker was about the coolest hippest teacher I ever had. He worked extremely well in introducing not only jazz but classical music to all of us. He would often set up a fine stereo sound system in our Little Theater and have us just listen to different records, jazz to classical to rock. Half the members of the orchestra, jazz band and regular band were black, and many became very talented under Sid Walker. Calvin was equally proficient at jazz as he was at classical music. Here's a link to an article by a friend Wayne Wallace (well-known black jazz trombonist) who played alongside myself in the jazz band, where he mentions Sid Walker and Calvin Simmons (a few paragraphs down):

http://www.chipboaz.com/blog/2011/01/27/latin-jazz-conversations-wayne-wallace-part-2/

Wayne also makes mention that some of the members of "Malo" and "Sly and the Family Stone" had attended Balboa at the time. I happened to belong to several rock bands, one with members that formed Malo shortly after I left the music scene to concentrate on other things. There were lots of blacks engaged in the music scene, including classical, back then in the 1960s and 1970s. Not so much now.

39 posted on 07/18/2016 2:47:08 PM PDT by roadcat
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To: Vigilanteman

Actually, yes. More in fact.

You can make million$ playing chess.

But you have to be very very very good. I’m good, but not nearly that good.


40 posted on 07/18/2016 2:48:24 PM PDT by piytar (http://www.truthrevolt.org/videos/bill-whittle-number-one-bullet)
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