The WOKE Thread (Merged from WTF?)

[Biff_T]

3 hours ago, nsplayr said:

When I looked at these targets vs the 2020 US Census they looked pretty close; not sure what data you looked at for the country at large. Using the "race alone" numbers from the 2020 census (i.e. you identify as this race exclusively), here's what it looks like:

• Target White: 67.5%
  • Census White: 61.6%
• Target Black: 13%
  • Census Black: 12.4%
• Target Asian: 10%
  • Census Asian: 6%
• Target Native American: 1.5%
  • Census Native American: 1.1%
• Target Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: 1%
  • Census Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: 0.2%
• Target Hispanic/Latino (although not strictly a "race"): 15%
  • Census Hispanic/Latino (of all races): 32.7%

Multiracial is harder because the census used "some other race" as an option, which 8.4% of respondents chose, but also uses "race together" for people who want to choose multiple races from the above list, and then also tracks "multiracial" as a combined category, which 10.2% of the population falls into. Either way, both 8.4% and 10.2% are higher than the Air Force target of 7% for multiracial.

The target for gender split is also 64% men to 36% women, which obviously significantly over-targets men given that the broader population is much more balanced with women being the slight majority.

It's also worth considering that based on age, the younger age cohorts that would be being targeted by recruiters for military service are also significantly less "white alone" and more racially diverse than the number for the population at large.

So if you wanted an officer corps that was broadly representative of the US population, a worthy goal IMHO depending on how you hope to achieve it, the biggest miss both by percentage as well as in absolute numbers is a significant over-targeting of men vs women, and of white people being disproportionately overrepresented in this hypothetical "target" future officer force makeup.

TheMoreYouKnow.gif

Imagine if people put this much thought and effort into flying their aircraft vs making sure we have enough minorities or women with dicks leading us into combat.  

[Guardian]

Isn’t it impossible to make the percentages of skin color and gender when you can change how you identify at any given moment? Gotta believe that’s a little difficult. But we should spend our treasure and time to try to do it. Who cares about doing military type things.

[BFM this]

3 hours ago, Guardian said:

Isn’t it impossible to make the percentages of skin color and gender when you can change how you identify at any given moment? Gotta believe that’s a little difficult. But we should spend our treasure and time to try to do it. Who cares about doing military type things.

OPR bullet?

[nsplayr]

12 hours ago, Guardian said:

Nsplayer. Please explain why the military needs to match the skin color and genitalia percentages of our country? Why it matters more than combat effectiveness or capability? Also how is preferring one demographic of skin color over another or gender not racist or sexist?

I wasn't gonna really say much more, but you asked specifically...

I think it's valuable to have a wide variety of points of view, backgrounds, etc. in a high performing group of people. That doesn't mean you can't perform well with more homogeneity, but I think diversity of thought/experience/etc. adds additional value. Some others don't share that belief and that's ok, but that's the starting point for me.

That doesn't mean you're necessarily doing it wrong if you have a group that's fairly alike. My current group has, for simplicity's sake, ~50 pilots. There are three black men and four white women, and the rest AFAIK are white men. I think we have no Asian/Native/etc. and maybe 1-2 with hispanic/latino background? Zero LGBT I think as well.

Those are the fairly easily discernible dimensions of identity; obviously there's way more diversity in terms of airframe background, AD vs Guard baby, how you grew up, where you grew up, family situation, etc. etc., which is all good. Hell they even let in a token liberal! #DiversityHire

We are a fantastic group of professional aviators and are highly mission-ready and effective in combat - the most important thing for a leader to think about by far.

Overall the AF, ops and the Guard are all fantastic career opportunities that a lot of people would both benefit from and would contribute positively to. So it's a bit curious that we're so overwhelmingly white and male...I mean I am a normal person so I understand why this is, but I look at it genuinely curious. With very few exceptions, all the people I've seen hired have been fantastic and I have full faith that hiring decisions were made fairly, without bias, and were geared toward choosing the best pilots possible from the group of applicants.

That being said, why are so few women applying? Why so few people of other races?

I look at "solving the diversity 'problem'" like an evangelization challenge - I want more people to hear the Good News about the Air Force, being in ops, and the Guard. I was not aware at all about the Guard when I was thinking about joining the military nor was I properly briefed on how being in ops is far superior to being a noner - I had good luck, fell backwards into flying, eventually saw the greener grass from the dusty confines of Cannon and finally wised up to joining the Guard.

So my questions, after looking at our group: are people from all kinds of background hearing about our unit and how great we have it? Are lots of different kinds of people seeing themselves as future-pilots and working on the pre-reqs required to even apply? Are we reaching out to fantastic but underrepresented people and encouraging them to give us a look?

I firmly believe that talent is relatively evenly distributed among races, among men and women, and around the world, so what can we do to get the best of the best along all these dimensions of identity to look at our unit and decide to apply?

I think any good Commander would both be asking those same questions, yet would also hiring only the very best people each round of hiring based on the candidate's potential to succeed as pilots and officers. That's the right way to do it IMHO and I think my local leadership sees it in a similar way.

It's not about preferring one person over another due to race/gender/etc. nor is it about "quotas" or changing your hiring decisions to favor anything but competence and potential for flying skill and leadership, it's about finding the best people from a variety of backgrounds, getting them to apply, and then picking a lucky few from an abundance of excellence.

Realistically though, you also need to always save a few spots on the roster for the sons of random ORFs (old retired farts)...because it's still the Guard 😅

Edited September 3, 2022 by nsplayr

[Boomer6]

Maybe few woman and ppl of other races are applying because certain elements in the media and an entire political party have built a following around the idea that white men are trying to systemically oppress them at every turn. Or maybe it’s that these entities built a platform around the idea that America is a country one should be ashamed to be from, not even worth the simple act of showing respect for its anthem. Yeah, after 20 years of hearing/seeing that messaging play out I can’t imagine why these groups don’t want to come work for the government and salute a bunch of mostly white guys..

[Biff_T]

1 hour ago, nsplayr said:

I wasn't gonna say much more,but....

 

I agree that it's interesting as to why this happened/happens.

I wonder if it's because it takes time for immigrants and etc. to integrate into society?

I'm now a minority in the state of CA.  In a few years, I expect there to be more Hispanic representation in leadership positions here than we currently have.  My mayor is Hispanic.

Things change at a slower pace than we like here in America.   

It's good that things (racism, sexism, exorcisms, etc) are being identified and corrected. It's just the approach of making everyone deep throat diversity that is making me tired of listening anymore.   

I know it's cool to know your heritage and be represented but I looked at the bros/sis I flew with as airmen not Irish, Mexican, African, Australian,  Texan?...Americans.   In the aircraft I didn't care what you looked like, as long as you knew your job.  Same with commanders, who cares what they look as long as they take care of their dudes.   Easy peasy.  

 

Edited September 3, 2022 by Biff_T
Scrub it kook

[nsplayr]

1 hour ago, Biff_T said:

I agree that it's interesting as to why this happened/happens.

I wonder if it's because it takes time for immigrants and etc. to integrate into society?

I mean I hear ya, and in some cases that might be true. But there's no shortage of well-integrated women in the United States for example.

In my ops group as an example, out of ~50 pilots, the four who are women are as follows: 1 is a patch, 1 is a Commander, 1 is an IP, and the fourth is a soon-to-be-IP and probably future patch. They're significantly over-performing on pretty common tactical and leadership job milestones compared to the average rando dude in the squadron, including yours truly!

BL: We need more pilots like that to choose from when it comes time to hire new folks, and there's not really a great reason I can think of for there not to be more women who apply or who we reach out to and recruit.

1 hour ago, Biff_T said:

It's just the approach of making everyone deep throat diversity that is making me tired of listening anymore.

I agree with you here. Please don't take the terminally online SWJ left DEI warriors to be the only voices on this issue. Trust me, I think they suck just as much if not more than you do because in this case, they and I are on the "same side" in general, but I really think they're f-ing up a lot of chances to make positive progress by taking everything up to 11.

Most people are not overly racist/sexist/etc., and I want to convince more conservative people to see the added value in looking for and embracing diversity along many vectors on top of what you should always screen for in the first place - competence, intelligence, interpersonal skills, future potential, specific job skills, etc.

Edited September 3, 2022 by nsplayr

[Biff_T]

30 minutes ago, nsplayr said:

positive progress by taking everything up to 11.

😁

[brabus]

To Nsplayr’s point, I volunteer with Young Eagles when I can; over the years I think I’m up to about 3 or 4 black kids who, when asked, “so what’d you think man, want to be a pilot now!?” responded with, “well I can’t be a pilot because I’m black.” Wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t been the one they were talking to. So why’d they answer that way? Well, the short of it is they’ve been fed a complete bullshit lie about life, this country, and the people in it. And unfortunately after a little more talking to them, my feeling has been they’ve received most/all of the bullshit POV from friends and relatives, NOT from the KKK guy down the street shouting slurs at them. The communities they live in are so uninformed/misinformed and continue to internally propagate completely false narratives against themselves. To that end, I completely support outreach/educational efforts in these communities - I want every minority kid to know they can be a pilot if they so choose, and at the end of their adolescence road, I have no problem if none of these kids are selected if they don’t make the bar, but if they do make the bar, then welcome on board and I’m glad to have you! 

Now, quotas and going for specific percentages - that’s bullshit and a complete miss. Targeted informational outreach and recruiting, but without any affirmative action bullshit, would be a good thing.

[Guardian]

Agreed. Free country is about freedom of opportunity. Not equity. Equality. And there is a massive difference. Setting quotas is racist and sexist as a goal for service composition. But doing out reach and spreading the word isn’t. Good post brabus.

[Lord Ratner]

54 minutes ago, brabus said:

my feeling has been they’ve received most/all of the bullshit POV from friends and relatives

Yup. We've reached a pretty amazing point where the biggest threat to black people are the mostly-white people who claim to be their champions.

 

I've had some amazing conversations over the past few years with black friends and co-workers. All of them can be boiled down to this paraphrased statement:

 

 Well, no, none of that has actually happened to me, but I'm sure it's happening to all the other black people.

[brabus]

As one of my black friends says, “the two greatest threats to the black community are the lack of fathers in the house and woke white women.”

[TreeA10]

Warrior ethos vs peacetime dirtbag vs wokeism. Interesting article. 

https://chrisbray.substack.com/p/rough-men-strange-peace?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

[Biff_T]

53 minutes ago, TreeA10 said:

Warrior ethos vs peacetime dirtbag vs wokeism. Interesting article. 

https://chrisbray.substack.com/p/rough-men-strange-peace?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

My grandfather retired from the USAF in the late 1960s.  He started in WW2 as a B-26 bombardier and flew as a flight engineer in other aircraft in Korea and Vietnam as well.  Guess what?  He started a second family in Germany after the war.  My mom says that my grandmother used to beat the shit out of him on a regular basis when he was home lol.   But in all seriousness, he had a huge drinking/womanizing problem.    My grandmother had enough and left him when my mom was around 7 years old.   My mom says she remembers my grandfather screaming violently in his sleep quite a bit.  I never knew this side of my grandfather.  By the time I met him, he had given up alcohol (not his chewing tobacco or women) and he was very supportive of me getting into military aviation.   

I know other people who struggle with PTSD.  It's not a joke. I have a good friend who lost his FAA flight physical a year after starting his airline career because of it.  We all know people who have died from war and suicide from the last 20 years of fun in the sun.

The point I'm trying to make (besides the fact my grandfather had bigger balls than I can ever dream to possess) is that war F's with people's minds.   It breaks down the strongest warriors (even the services guy handing out towels lol) in some way.  Hell, the stress of flying training sorties has broken down grown men.  I want someone who's going to perform in a stressful environment.   In my experience, war (military aviation) is not the place for social experiments.  We need strong minded people in the military, not dudes with purple hair taking hormone pills.  Once the dude figures out who they like to bang, let them in. The time and place to figure that out is prior to joining.   

Who do want to lead your children into the next war?   A drunk (drinks more than two per sitting) who knows how to lead in battle or a nice guy who knows what pronoun the kids prefer.   

I know who I'd rather fight against.  

Edited September 3, 2022 by Biff_T
used naughty words

[M2]

Rumor is we lost Afghanistan because we weren't diverse enough!! 😲😲😲

[LookieRookie]

8 hours ago, brabus said:

To Nsplayr’s point, I volunteer with Young Eagles when I can; over the years I think I’m up to about 3 or 4 black kids who, when asked, “so what’d you think man, want to be a pilot now!?” responded with, “well I can’t be a pilot because I’m black.” Wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t been the one they were talking to. So why’d they answer that way? Well, the short of it is they’ve been fed a complete bullshit lie about life, this country, and the people in it. And unfortunately after a little more talking to them, my feeling has been they’ve received most/all of the bullshit POV from friends and relatives, NOT from the KKK guy down the street shouting slurs at them. The communities they live in are so uninformed/misinformed and continue to internally propagate completely false narratives against themselves. To that end, I completely support outreach/educational efforts in these communities - I want every minority kid to know they can be a pilot if they so choose, and at the end of their adolescence road, I have no problem if none of these kids are selected if they don’t make the bar, but if they do make the bar, then welcome on board and I’m glad to have you! 

Now, quotas and going for specific percentages - that’s bullshit and a complete miss. Targeted informational outreach and recruiting, but without any affirmative action bullshit, would be a good thing.

Similar point, did a career day at my daughter’s school with G suit, harness, helmet.

Boys were only asking questions until I brought up girls can be pilots too and my sister is a military pilot as well. 

Blew their minds.

[Clark Griswold]

West Virginia Coal Miners Push Stranded Electric Car to Plant in Order to Charge Up

Randy Smith - Some days are just better than others. Today... | Facebook

[CaptainMorgan]

West Virginia Coal Miners Push Stranded Electric Car to Plant in Order to Charge Up

Randy Smith - Some days are just better than others. Today... | Facebook

Great comment here, maybe at cruise we can use two props on the 130 as generators to power the other two!



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[Scooter14]

Great comment here, maybe at cruise we can use two props on the 130 as generators to power the other two!



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I’m not sure what other USAF aircraft have it, but the KC-46 has a Ram Air Turbine that can deploy to generate emergency power. Most modern airliners have some variation of this.

That would be handy on a long highway trip…deploy a small ram air windmill type device that would at least generate power to extend your range?

[herkbum]

I’m not sure what other USAF aircraft have it, but the KC-46 has a Ram Air Turbine that can deploy to generate emergency power. Most modern airliners have some variation of this.

That would be handy on a long highway trip…deploy a small ram air windmill type device that would at least generate power to extend your range?

We have them on our 747-8s.

I’ve always wondered why manufacturers can’t come up with an alternator-like thingy that charges the batteries as the vehicle moves/wheels turn. something to convert kinetic energy into a charging system.


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[CaptainMorgan]

I’m not sure what other USAF aircraft have it, but the KC-46 has a Ram Air Turbine that can deploy to generate emergency power. Most modern airliners have some variation of this.

That would be handy on a long highway trip…deploy a small ram air windmill type device that would at least generate power to extend your range?

Emergency power/hydraulics from a RAT come at the expense of increased drag.

Extend your range on the other hand? Are you unfamiliar with the concept of conservation of energy?


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[Scooter14]

Emergency power/hydraulics from a RAT come at the expense of increased drag.

Extend your range on the other hand? Are you unfamiliar with the concept of conservation of energy?


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Right. Clearly it would not make sense to fly with a RAT deployed in a turbine aircraft with two generators on your engines and one APU as a backup if a generator fails.

But if you’re going 75 on a highway and you throw a small RAT out there into the slipstream or like herkbum said have it in your wheel to charge the battery…

Not sure what you’re getting at with the “unfamiliar with the concept of conservation of energy.” Feel free to amaze me with your engineering degree I guess.

[arg]

We have them on our 747-8s.

I’ve always wondered why manufacturers can’t come up with an alternator-like thingy that charges the batteries as the vehicle moves/wheels turn. something to convert kinetic energy into a charging system.


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My daughters Prius had some thingy like that. Worked off the brakes I think. Not 100% sure.


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[SurelySerious]

Right. Clearly it would not make sense to fly with a RAT deployed in a turbine aircraft with two generators on your engines and one APU as a backup if a generator fails.

But if you’re going 75 on a highway and you throw a small RAT out there into the slipstream or like herkbum said have it in your wheel to charge the battery…

Not sure what you’re getting at with the “unfamiliar with the concept of conservation of energy.” Feel free to amaze me with your engineering degree I guess.

Cars already have an alternator that uses some engine power to create electricity. Putting more drag on a car with a RAT, or causing more friction (i.e. increased energy expenditure to move the car) by putting an alternator on the axle does not provide a benefit…unless the device only works when you want to slow down in which case you’re describing the hybrid design manufacturers have been using for 20 years.

[GrndPndr]

 

Federal Oil Leases Slow to a Trickle Under Biden

President, citing climate change, spurns resources his predecessors relied on to boost U.S. energy production

Have to apologize, as this particular story the WSJ wants you to sign-up (not free).  So, I've posted some snippets:

"WASHINGTON—The Biden administration has leased fewer acres for oil-and-gas drilling offshore and on federal land than any other administration in its early stages dating back to the end of World War II, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis.

President Biden’s Interior Department leased 126,228 acres for drilling through Aug. 20, his first 19 months in office, the analysis found. No other president since Richard Nixon in 1969-70 leased out fewer than 4.4 million acres at this stage in his first term."

And

"In all, the Interior Department has awarded 203 leases for oil and gas development during Mr. Biden’s first 19 months in office. Former presidents Trump and Obama each approved 10 times as many leases during the same period, the Journal’s analysis shows."

And

"For offshore drilling, the Biden administration has yet to complete a sale."