In a structural context, I think you could argue than anyone who participates in existing institutions which propagate these differences in opportunity/resources is “racist”. Of course, this definition makes it extremely hard to avoid being racist- even by accident. This is how I (perhaps generously) interpret “white people are inherently racist”.
Because many people are born into these institutions, judging someone’s character based on this version of racism is misguided imo. Instead, we must all try to be aware of the effects of our institutions and how our participation affects them.
I am very sensitive to the plight of the white American working class. I'm aware of how the American oligarchs used us to become rich, and then shipped our jobs to third-world countries. There are countless communities of white people that have just flat out died due to this economic betrayal. Many of these areas which have been stripped of industry suffer social blights like heroin use, etc. There are entire areas in America where white people are just killing themselves with drugs because they are completely hopeless. Chris Hedges has written several great books about this. Also, you can look up plenty of documentaries on this subject on YouTube if you are not familiar with this subject.
Do some white people have an unfair advantage in this system? Absolutely. Do all white people have an unfair advantage in this system? Given what has happened to the white working class, I would say that the evidence proves that they don't.
I believe all people are inherently racist. I don't think race is the biggest issue in our nation. I believe class is the central issue, and I can't help but believe that race conflict is a diversion used to avoid class conflict.
All white people in America have an unfair advantage. That’s what white privilege is. If you actually care about this, research Peggy McIntosh and the concept of the invisible knapsack. Two very simple examples:
1. In the majority of industries in the US, a white person can rise to the upper echelons of that industry without meaningfully interacting with majority groups that don’t look like them.
2. White names have a better response rate with equivalent resumes than ethnic names.
There are dozens if not hundreds more tangible advantages that being white has. Does this mean that it’s not hard to be poor and white? No. But no matter what your class is in the US, it is advantageous to be white if you want to move up.
> All white people in America have an unfair advantage.
Statistical advantage you mean, but that does not translate to good outcomes for many people.
I'll agree with you that in a historically white country, white people, in general, have an advantage. But saying this completely disregards the marginalized white working class which has been under siege, like minorities, by a predatory ruling class.
I enjoyed reading through this -- maybe more-so than other commenters since I'm less familiar with the material. It seems like the overall goal is to provide some intuition for how automatic differentiation & program synthesis might be implemented efficiently using matrices. However, I'm a little confused on how the section on Weifeiler-Lehman & checking for isomorphic graphs ties in to the rest of the article?
> It seems like the overall goal is to provide some intuition for how automatic differentiation & program synthesis might be implemented efficiently using matrices.
Right! I wish I had emphasized that theme a little more. This is basically a long digression on how to think about automatic differentiation in the context of program synthesis, two topics which I enjoy thinking about.
> However, I'm a little confused on how the section on Weifeiler-Lehman & checking for isomorphic graphs ties in to the rest of the article?
Great question! I introduce isomorphism testing for two reasons:
1. It is an example of a general purpose algorithm which, although we do not show it, can be implemented completely using matrix multiplication.
2. It is an example of how message passing on graphs works. This helps us build an intuition for how to implement more complex graph algorithms.
Hamilton (2020), does a much better job at introducing the WL algorithm and why it matters in the context of graph representation learning:
One of my favorite after school activities as a kid was playing with Lego’s Mindstorm robot kits — if your kids have any interest, it could be a fun (and productive imo) way to have your interests meet in the middle :).
My son is a Lego obsessive, but he doesn't really go in for the more technical stuff like Mindstorms or Technic - he thinks it is overpriced and prefers to use Scratch and an Arduion to make machines and the like.
The irony is that he owns about €1000 of Lego bricks. He spent half his first communion money on Lego (€300), we made him put the rest in to the credit union. Since them he has told us he has become atheist as science makes more sense, but he'll still do his confirmation to get more money to buy Lego. Hmm....
I was recently reading into Total Functional Programming [1] and found it surprising that it seems possible to reason about/model Turing Machines in languages which guarantee a program's termination [2]. I've barely scratched the surface, but I feel like it's a fun combination of engineering and theoretical/philosophical issues. I'd super appreciate and fellow HNers suggestions for related resources or things to read.
It’s only the newer “concatenative” languages that have explored this forms correspondence. See this essay by Jon Purdy (author of Kitten) on “why concatenative languages matter”:
Interesting concept, but an unauthenticated SMS gateway might not be a good idea. I hope there is throttling and other means of abuse prevention in place.
Because many people are born into these institutions, judging someone’s character based on this version of racism is misguided imo. Instead, we must all try to be aware of the effects of our institutions and how our participation affects them.
Curious if you’d disagree?