Affirmative Action and Poker: an allegory

I grew up a military brat and so it wasn't unusual to find myself living in bizarre places. When I was 10 I lived in Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas- the home of one of the largest prisons in the US- while my dad attended CGSC for the military (command general staff college.) I remember getting my haircut by inmates because it was only 5 bucks, and how when a prisoner had escaped there'd be these alerts that asked people in the area to lock their doors and turn their lights off until the person was apprehended. One of my fondest and most vivid memories at the time though, was when my dad came home and told me about a presentation on Affirmative Action given by the battalion commander, General Archipov (who was white.)*

As should surprise no one at all, the military is a conservative institution. In Ft. Leavenworth there was noticeable resentment for some of the black officers who were seen as having attained their status unfairly. Because of this, Archipov decided to present to the students (including my dad) a vivid and illuminating presentation to explain affirmative action. I have no doubt that nearly everyone who was a part of this (and hopefully this is still ongoing) never saw affirmative action in the same light.

The students walked into the class and were told they'd be playing poker for fun. 4 students sat at the table with one superior officer who was the all-time dealer. It was a normal game of 5 card draw poker for chips that could be exchanged for real-money, and all of the students were given $100 in chips. There were only two special rules:

1. The dealer could request to see your cards and you had to comply, but you could not see his.
   
2. The dealer could decide which hand won and which hand lost as he saw fit.

With that, the superior officers and Archipov left the room. The officers were not permitted to speak, and being military officers with plenty of experience under their belt they knew how to deal with total horseshit and say nothing about it. So what happened next is exactly as you think; the dealers won every single hand and their pile of chips was dramatically increasing. After a while the superiors walk back in the room, feigning surprise over how badly the dealers are winning. Archipov, in his best serious voice, says "Can anyone explain to me what's going on?" All of the students raise their hands and he calls on one Staff Sergent Michaels.

Staff Sergent Michaels: "Well sir, the dealer is simply allowed to decide who wins and who loses! And, further..."

General Archipov: "Woah, hold it right there soldier. That's clearly unfair. From now on we'll use the standard ranking of hands in poker, with no deviations allowed."

And with that, the commanding officers left the room and the poker playing resumed.


"They were an unsuited two pair, hoping to catch a new life on the flop, and find happiness on river."

So the playing continues, not as bad as before, but the Dealer still winning the vast majority of the hands (since he can see all of the cards.) His pile steadily gets bigger, and while a few guys get lucky and cut their losses a bit, a general feeling of frustration permeates (remember, they have no idea what this is about.) Archipov and the commanding officers walk back in, and the hands go right up. When Archipov simply looks in Sgt. Michaels direction, he starts in:

Michaels: General Archipov, sir, the dealer can see all of our cards but we aren't allowed to see his!

Archipov: Why that's ridiculous! That's not a fair way to play the game. The dealer's not allowed to ask to see your cards from now on, nor should you see his. There's still a little time left; play on.


"He was the ace of diamonds and she was the queen of hearts, but love is the biggest big blind of all."

So, it's been 2 hours and most people are down if not out, but they're finally playing by the real rules. The dealers play tight, and hang close to the $400 dollars or so they all have while the other players scrounge to catch up with their meager chip standings. Archipov walks back after only a few minutes to ask how things are going and things are as restless and tense as they were an hour ago. "What's the matter?" Archipov asks. "What could you possibly have to complain about? You didn't like the first rule so I changed it. You thought the second rule was unfair, so i changed it too. I've given you everything you wanted and now you're playing by rules that we all agree are perfectly fair. What in the hell are you complaining about?"

Michaels is the first to pipe up: "Sure, we're playing by rules that are fair now- but the dealers got to play with unfair rules for two hours! They've got all the chips!"

Archipov repeats this for effect:
"They've got all the chips. Gentlemen, what you're feeling right now is all you need to know about why we need Affirmative Action."






"We seek not just freedom but opportunity - not just legal equity but human ability - not just equality as a right and a theory, but equality as a fact and a result."
-Lyndon Johnson

Statistics on the average annual earnings (i.e. the wage gap) as broken down by race and gender here.


*I made up the name because I didn't remember it but I'm sure he was white. Anyone should be extremely proud to have the name Archipov though as a google search will show- I'll blog about it in the future anyway,

Sam Harris pt.1, Terrorism and Dogs who adopt monkeys

Let's clear a few things out of the way shall we? This video is of a dog who's best friends with a monkey. There was a flood in Mozambique and somewhere along the line this dog teamed up with this monkey and this video is just the best thing I've ever seen. They're best friends!

If you don't understand the picture at the top of this post, trying stepping back about 4 feet and then looking again.

Has there ever been a more perfect stereotype of the California* elitist view than Sam Harris? Harries decries all those southern redneck idiots for believing in the bible, but then asks us to take it easy on the "spooky stories" of reincarnation because those come from the mysterious and exotic east. That's not a joke; someone questioned Harris' interest in reincarnation at the Beyondbelief conference (which is available by video via that link and is thoroughly awesome) and he said "Well there are all of these spooky stories." I'm not sure how to describe the odd sound that filled the conference room afterward but it somehow gave voice to my own thoughts/emotions (ha, good joke/ oh my god he's not joking/ holy shit you've got to be kidding me, etc.) and is well worth hearing.

Let's break it down:

• Sam Harris on the great scientific conspiracy to ignore psychics: "There seems to be a body of data attesting to the reality of psychic phenomena, much of which have been ignored by mainstream science"
• On Uniting with Christian fundamentalists to oppose the great "horde" of brown muslim people who hate our freedom: "Nonbelievers like myself stand beside you, dumbstruck by the Muslim hordes who chant death to whole nations of the living."
• Coming out in support of the biggest weapon of propoganda that the right has: "my correspondence with liberals has convinced me that liberalism has grown dangerously out of touch with the realities of our world ['On questions of national security']"

Sam Harris is a wolf in sheep's clothing, a man who's joined up with one of the world's premier secular rationalists (Richard Dawkins, who I'm sadly becoming disillusioned with as he emphatically supports Harris) ostensibly to support reason. Yet we find in Harris' view of the world a profound commitment to unreason. As Scott Atran points out at the aforementioned BeyondBelief conference, every example Harris cites is an "n of 1"; an example he's randomly chosen from the vast pool of real historical cases. References to actual studies about Religion, its effect on violence, and corresponding studies about secular rationalists are sorely lacking (in fact, nonexistent from what I've read.) Harris' world is one in which we drastically increase the threat of terror with a war (which Harris initially supported) and then blame Islam for the millions who become fundamentalists. One in which Israel illegally acquires swaths of land, militarily occupying a civilian population and largely ignoring the secular representatives of said population (the PLO) but then we act like suicide bombing happens in a Vacuum. As an audience member said to Sam Harris at the BeyondBelief conference "Isn't suicide bombing simply an immoral act of desperation by the weak? Wouldn't these groups simply be invoking the military might of the west if they had the means?" Of course they would rather have an Air Force.



One more Harris quote before we go:
"...such religious extremism is not as fringe a phenomenon as we might hope. Numerous studies have found that the most radicalized Muslims tend to have better-than-average educations and economic opportunities."

Any atheist who reads this (much less writes it) without doubling over, convulsing with laughter must be more dogmatic and faith-full than any Christian I know. Things are only "fringe" if poor people engage in them? Again with the elitism, my god. If you have an idea about what inequality statistics show in these countries, showing that something exists in the wealthy educated sectors actually goes further to showing that it's fringe phenomena! As Steven Poole says, "It is like saying serial killers are often quite intelligent – so serial killing must be more common than we thought."

The obvious lesson to take from Sam Harris is something akin to a rebuttal of his views. It's the simple truth that irrationality and warmongering and intolerance are problems that run far deeper than the surface phenomena of religion. It's well-documented that Osama Bin Laden would love nothing more than a war against Islam, and that the recruitment technique for Al Qeada largely relies on the view that the west is Anti-Muslim, and that there is a holy war against Muslims, and so on. Personally, I can think of few better unwitting agents for his cause than Sam Harris.

* please note here that I'm referring to the California stereotype, and not actual Californians who are often far more well-thought-out than Sam Harris.