To make up for Japanese internment we should honor a Japanese icon, so Goku on the quarter and Super Saiyan Goku on the dollar coin.
FDR will stay on the dime but he'll be reimagined by esteemed Japanese artist Akira Toriyama.
Nah, we would need to celebrate an actual Japanese American who was in an internment camp...
I think the best option is to stop having a set picture for any denomination. I like seeing new stuff on quarters and I think it'd be great for other denominations to follow suit. I wouldn't expect a new design every few months but every 5-10 years would be nice.
They were doing this on dollar coins after they gave up on Sacagawea. They started with Washington and every three months, they would switch to the next president. They cancelled the program like halfway through, and I was pretty disappointed, because I wanted to get a proof set of Nixon.
I think math wise, it comes out cheaper to run with dollar coins over bills, they're much more durable and I gather harder to counterfeit (granted drop in the bucket and they do have drawbacks)
I was under the impression that nobody counterfeited anything smaller than a twenty because it wasn't cost effective.
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
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knitdanIn ur baseKillin ur guysRegistered Userregular
Is anyone here old enough to remember Susan B Anthony dollars?
I remember them being super rare and something people never spent, like JFK 50-cent pieces.
“I was quick when I came in here, I’m twice as quick now”
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
Is anyone here old enough to remember Susan B Anthony dollars?
I remember them being super rare and something people never spent, like JFK 50-cent pieces.
I went to the science museum on a field trip as a kid. There was a change machine that was loaded with Susie B's instead of quarters.
I... I was a really honest kid. I exchanged one dollar for four Susie B's and then I stopped and told the museum staff. My classmates weren't too happy with me.
Did they make/plan two coins for Grover Cleveland?
Huh, I had thought the program was cancelled sometime around Chester Arthur, but according to Wikipedia they're still doing it, just only for proof sets and not for general circulation (because who uses dollar coins, am I right). They're at Eisenhower now.
And yeah, Cleveland got two separate coins with two different portraits. Also, Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover look basically the same as each other.
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ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
I think math wise, it comes out cheaper to run with dollar coins over bills, they're much more durable and I gather harder to counterfeit (granted drop in the bucket and they do have drawbacks)
I was under the impression that nobody counterfeited anything smaller than a twenty because it wasn't cost effective.
Pretty much. But the rest is correct, coins are more durable and end up costing less in the long run, but then people have to use coins without bitching and saying bullshit like "what are we, Canada?"
I think math wise, it comes out cheaper to run with dollar coins over bills, they're much more durable and I gather harder to counterfeit (granted drop in the bucket and they do have drawbacks)
I was under the impression that nobody counterfeited anything smaller than a twenty because it wasn't cost effective.
Pretty much. But the rest is correct, coins are more durable and end up costing less in the long run, but then people have to use coins without bitching and saying bullshit like "what are we, Canada?"
I think math wise, it comes out cheaper to run with dollar coins over bills, they're much more durable and I gather harder to counterfeit (granted drop in the bucket and they do have drawbacks)
I was under the impression that nobody counterfeited anything smaller than a twenty because it wasn't cost effective.
Yeah, the idea is to make a fake $100 bill, go to a store a buy a candy bar, walk out with $99 of real money. Stop doing it before people catch on. Resume after the heat dies down. Rinse, repeat.
But to get close to something that can pass as real you need all the fancy paper and printers and enough patience to do it just right. There was a couple doing it around here that got caught. The money counterfeiting was a parallel story to their meth production and distribution.
I think math wise, it comes out cheaper to run with dollar coins over bills, they're much more durable and I gather harder to counterfeit (granted drop in the bucket and they do have drawbacks)
I was under the impression that nobody counterfeited anything smaller than a twenty because it wasn't cost effective.
I think math wise, it comes out cheaper to run with dollar coins over bills, they're much more durable and I gather harder to counterfeit (granted drop in the bucket and they do have drawbacks)
I was under the impression that nobody counterfeited anything smaller than a twenty because it wasn't cost effective.
Pretty much. But the rest is correct, coins are more durable and end up costing less in the long run, but then people have to use coins without bitching and saying bullshit like "what are we, Canada?"
I remember reading a news article awhile back, about a popular practice with some counterfeiters in the drug trade. Is to get a bunch of one dollar bills, bleach them and then try to make the bleached dollars into convincing imitations of higherdenomination bills. One of the bigger hurdles right now, is getting the right material.
It's also probably a great case for making our paper currency different sizes (with smaller denominations being smaller bills). In addition to being fair to those who are blind.
I think math wise, it comes out cheaper to run with dollar coins over bills, they're much more durable and I gather harder to counterfeit (granted drop in the bucket and they do have drawbacks)
I was under the impression that nobody counterfeited anything smaller than a twenty because it wasn't cost effective.
Is anyone here old enough to remember Susan B Anthony dollars?
I remember them being super rare and something people never spent, like JFK 50-cent pieces.
So cool. Susan B. Anthony on the front and the Moon landing on the back. I bought lunch with some a few months back; the kid at the register thought they were quarters : /
There was a proposal last year from the US Postal Service Inspector General and supported by Elizabeth Warren that the US postal service could act as a bank. It would undercut the payday loan service business in some areas by not gouging people to cash cheques, and it could provide basic banking services free or at a minimal cost.
Interesting idea, we already have post offices everywhere and it isn't like they have anything better to do.
It's also something done by many nations (for example, the largest bank in Japan is the postal service) and we actually had such a service in the US in the early 20th century.
Sure, but we weren't Under God in the first half of the 20th century
Who do they hire to draw the faces on the momey? I want answers
Various in-house artists at the Mint. One thing to remember is that these aren't drawings - they're more akin to wood block prints, and as such the images aren't drawn so much as carved. How It's Made has done a few episodes on production of money (they did Canadian coins and Australian bank notes), so those are worth looking up.
Who do they hire to draw the faces on the momey? I want answers
Various in-house artists at the Mint. One thing to remember is that these aren't drawings - they're more akin to wood block prints, and as such the images aren't drawn so much as carved. How It's Made has done a few episodes on production of money (they did Canadian coins and Australian bank notes), so those are worth looking up.
They used to hold contests!
they should again because the last one brought us the Standing Liberty Quarter
Is anyone here old enough to remember Susan B Anthony dollars?
I remember them being super rare and something people never spent, like JFK 50-cent pieces.
I went to the science museum on a field trip as a kid. There was a change machine that was loaded with Susie B's instead of quarters.
I... I was a really honest kid. I exchanged one dollar for four Susie B's and then I stopped and told the museum staff. My classmates weren't too happy with me.
That's why they were such a failure. Almost the same size as a quarter. Constantly jammed up vending machines.
Interestingly, because the first run of Sacajawea dollars got approved so late they couldn't mint enough to meet the mandated amount, so they broke out the Anthony dies again and ran another batch of them in 1999.
Do we have a national problem with acknowledging the role of women in shaping our country? Here's a list of all the people who have appeared on federally-issued legal tender in the US; I'll save you the time and tell you that out of 7 persons on the face of coins and 55 persons on paper currency, there were a total of 3 women and 2 minorities (with one person, Sacajawea being both). There have been more military commanders, senators, governors, treasurers, judges, and even inventors and explorers on our currency than women. Ever heard of Silas Wright or Charles Sumner? Probably not, but they got their mug on a bill at one time. Meanwhile, terribly influential women such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Sojourner Truth remain on the bench.
If we want the historical figures to be actually at least somewhat representative of the most important figures in American history/culture/science, no.
The legal and societal (and even conceptual) equality of men and women is relatively new. As a result, a vast majority of major figures in US/Western history/culture/science are male. And in the United States, an unequal balance of power and legal (and defacto) discrimination of non-white people means a very large majority of influential figures also come from the substantial majority of the population that is not a racial minority.
We could include some ethnic minorities and women on currency but it would some fairly dishonest revisionist history. One of the greatest societal (as opposed to individual) harms from irrational discrimination based on race/sex is the inefficient utilization of talent. A genius female or African American would likely have a very difficult time having nearly the impact they would if they were white male through much of US history. That tragedy shouldn't be "whitewashed"
We could include some ethnic minorities and women on currency but it would some fairly dishonest revisionist history. One of the greatest societal (as opposed to individual) harms from irrational discrimination based on race/sex is the inefficient utilization of talent. A genius female or African American would likely have a very difficult time having nearly the impact they would if they were white male through much of US history. That tragedy shouldn't be "whitewashed"
So having Joseph Mansfield and James Wilson on our currency was more merited than, say, Harriet Tubman or Harriet Beecher Stowe or Elizabeth Cady Stanton?
I'm sorry, but this reasoning sounds like BS
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
We could include some ethnic minorities and women on currency but it would some fairly dishonest revisionist history. One of the greatest societal (as opposed to individual) harms from irrational discrimination based on race/sex is the inefficient utilization of talent. A genius female or African American would likely have a very difficult time having nearly the impact they would if they were white male through much of US history. That tragedy shouldn't be "whitewashed"
So having Joseph Mansfield and James Wilson on our currency was more merited than, say, Harriet Tubman or Harriet Beecher Stowe or Elizabeth Cady Stanton?
We could include some ethnic minorities and women on currency but it would some fairly dishonest revisionist history. One of the greatest societal (as opposed to individual) harms from irrational discrimination based on race/sex is the inefficient utilization of talent. A genius female or African American would likely have a very difficult time having nearly the impact they would if they were white male through much of US history. That tragedy shouldn't be "whitewashed"
So having Joseph Mansfield and James Wilson on our currency was more merited than, say, Harriet Tubman or Harriet Beecher Stowe or Elizabeth Cady Stanton?
We could include some ethnic minorities and women on currency but it would some fairly dishonest revisionist history. One of the greatest societal (as opposed to individual) harms from irrational discrimination based on race/sex is the inefficient utilization of talent. A genius female or African American would likely have a very difficult time having nearly the impact they would if they were white male through much of US history. That tragedy shouldn't be "whitewashed"
So having Joseph Mansfield and James Wilson on our currency was more merited than, say, Harriet Tubman or Harriet Beecher Stowe or Elizabeth Cady Stanton?
I'm sorry, but this reasoning sounds like BS
Man I do like paying for things with a nice crisp Mansfield. Oh that's not actual currency? Its a transfer note used for one fucking year 150 years ago?
For most of the history of the US women were not permitted an overly public or professional role. Pretending that didn't occur is dishonors the cause of gender inequality far more than not having women (or ethnic minorities) on money and insults the intelligence of everyone.
Can we get some strawwomen to go with these strawmen?
"Having an impact" is not the same as having so much impact that you end up on currency. The former is achieved by hundreds of thousands of people. The latter is achieved by a tiny fraction of the most impactful.
I mean picking two female Computer Scientists should make it fucking obvious, given the chronic gender disparity . Hopper is at least in the conversation but Hopper's contribution was not as much as Church or Chomsky or Godel or von Neumann or Kilby or Thompson/Ritchie etc. And none of them are in serious consideration for appearing on currency. Hamilton is not even in the remotest of discussions.
And that's just Computer Science. Albert Einstein is not on money. Samuel Clemens is not on money. Teddy Roosevelt is not on money. There are 353 American Nobel Prizer winners not on money and only 15 of them are women.
There's like 10 people on currency at one time. There are a small number of non-white males that could reasonably be on that short a list (MLK Jr for instance). But an inevitable legacy of women and minorities being barred from the spheres of politics, science and culture for centuries is there is going to be a lack of women and minorities among the most influential figures all time in the spheres of politics, science and culture.
Its not a good thing, but an ugly truth is still the truth. As I said its among the worst things about discrimination. Imagining a world where maybe there were two Mozarts and two Einsteins but only one could have an impact of society is maddening.
You could have a historical affirmative action, but it would be revisionist, dishonest about the impact of discrimination beyond simple fairness and frankly insulting.
You could have a historical affirmative action, but it would be revisionist, dishonest about the impact of discrimination beyond simple fairness and frankly insulting.
We could include some ethnic minorities and women on currency but it would some fairly dishonest revisionist history. One of the greatest societal (as opposed to individual) harms from irrational discrimination based on race/sex is the inefficient utilization of talent. A genius female or African American would likely have a very difficult time having nearly the impact they would if they were white male through much of US history. That tragedy shouldn't be "whitewashed"
So having Joseph Mansfield and James Wilson on our currency was more merited than, say, Harriet Tubman or Harriet Beecher Stowe or Elizabeth Cady Stanton?
I'm sorry, but this reasoning sounds like BS
Man I do like paying for things with a nice crisp Mansfield. Oh that's not actual currency? Its a transfer note used for one fucking year 150 years ago?
For most of the history of the US women were not permitted an overly public or professional role. Pretending that didn't occur is dishonors the cause of gender inequality far more than not having women (or ethnic minorities) on money and insults the intelligence of everyone.
Can we get some strawwomen to go with these strawmen?
"Having an impact" is not the same as having so much impact that you end up on currency. The former is achieved by hundreds of thousands of people. The latter is achieved by a tiny fraction of the most impactful.
I mean picking two female Computer Scientists should make it fucking obvious, given the chronic gender disparity . Hopper is at least in the conversation but Hopper's contribution was not as much as Church or Chomsky or Godel or von Neumann or Kilby or Thompson/Ritchie etc. And none of them are in serious consideration for appearing on currency. Hamilton is not even in the remotest of discussions.
And that's just Computer Science. Albert Einstein is not on money. Samuel Clemens is not on money. Teddy Roosevelt is not on money. There are 353 American Nobel Prizer winners not on money and only 15 of them are women.
There's like 10 people on currency at one time. There are a small number of non-white males that could reasonably be on that short a list (MLK Jr for instance). But an inevitable legacy of women and minorities being barred from the spheres of politics, science and culture for centuries is there is going to be a lack of women and minorities among the most influential figures all time in the spheres of politics, science and culture.
Its not a good thing, but an ugly truth is still the truth. As I said its among the worst things about discrimination. Imagining a world where maybe there were two Mozarts and two Einsteins but only one could have an impact of society is maddening.
You could have a historical affirmative action, but it would be revisionist, dishonest about the impact of discrimination beyond simple fairness and frankly insulting.
I don't know, inventing a programming language - strike that, inventing the first mid-level programming language (which, might I remind you, is still running major businesses around the world to this very day) strikes me as an achievement that had an incredible amount of impact. The fact that you claim that Thompson and Ritchie had more impact than Hopper when the reality was that their work was built on the foundation that she laid illustrates how much you are stretching to try to make this argument.
Not to mention that many other countries have placed women of note in their history on their currency - the French have used the Curies, hell, the Aussies put an opera singer on their currency because Melba is that important a cultural icon to their nation. Your argument of "impact" is solely a smokescreen to allow you to pass off your subjective belief about who is "worthy" of the honor of being placed on our currency.
Achievement doesn't exist in a vacuum though. Nor is it a contest to see who has the most accolades, and the top 10 end up on money. Switching from symbolic imagery on money to portraiture was intended to commemorate the people appearing on money for what they did.
In the same vein, the US dollar and quarter both commemorate a slave-owning hardcore racist.
I don't know, inventing a programming language - strike that, inventing the first mid-level programming language (which, might I remind you, is still running major businesses around the world to this very day) strikes me as an achievement that had an incredible amount of impact. The fact that you claim that Thompson and Ritchie had more impact than Hopper when the reality was that their work was built on the foundation that she laid illustrates how much you are stretching to try to make this argument.
Not to mention that many other countries have placed women of note in their history on their currency - the French have used the Curies, hell, the Aussies put an opera singer on their currency because Melba is that important a cultural icon to their nation. Your argument of "impact" is solely a smokescreen to allow you to pass off your subjective belief about who is "worthy" of the honor of being placed on our currency.
Dismissing Thompson and Ritchie's invention of UNIX and C* (the most influential Operating System and Programming language in computing history) and not even mentioning the impact of the others should hint at the weakness of your argument.
And if it doesn't matter who belongs on money, then an argument about who should go on currency would be extremely petty wouldn't it?
*Presenting C as an intellectual descendent of COBOL is also a pretty grossly inaccurate understanding of the different paths programming languages took in the mid-20th century. C derives from ALGOL (Dijkstra is the most prominent name from that group of early languages). COBOL has largely been a dead end despite being widely used (and reviled) for a long time. That doesn't mean Hopper's work wasn't impactful, but it simply can't be framed as a primary influence of C or UNIX
I don't know, inventing a programming language - strike that, inventing the first mid-level programming language (which, might I remind you, is still running major businesses around the world to this very day) strikes me as an achievement that had an incredible amount of impact. The fact that you claim that Thompson and Ritchie had more impact than Hopper when the reality was that their work was built on the foundation that she laid illustrates how much you are stretching to try to make this argument.
Not to mention that many other countries have placed women of note in their history on their currency - the French have used the Curies, hell, the Aussies put an opera singer on their currency because Melba is that important a cultural icon to their nation. Your argument of "impact" is solely a smokescreen to allow you to pass off your subjective belief about who is "worthy" of the honor of being placed on our currency.
Dismissing Thompson and Ritchie's invention of UNIX and C* (the most influential Operating System and Programming language in computing history) and not even mentioning the impact of the others should hint at the weakness of your argument.
And if it doesn't matter who belongs on money, then an argument about who should go on currency would be extremely petty wouldn't it?
*Presenting C as an intellectual descendent of COBOL is also a pretty grossly inaccurate understanding of the different paths programming languages took in the mid-20th century. C derives from ALGOL (Dijkstra is the most prominent name from that group of early languages). COBOL has largely been a dead end despite being widely used (and reviled) for a long time. That doesn't mean Hopper's work wasn't impactful, but it simply can't be framed as a primary influence of C or UNIX
It was a primary influence in that it got computer science to move away from the metal towards abstraction. And while you may argue that the field would have moved that way, the fact is that someone had to be first down that path, and Hopper was one of those pioneers.
But really, this is the argument in a nutshell:
You: "There are Rules About Who Goes On Money."
Us: "Yes. Those rules suck. We need better, more inclusive rules."
You: "But...there are Rules About Who Goes On Money!"
And that's the whole point - you have yet to provide any real defense of your rationale for who is worthy of being honored on currency, other than "this is how it's been", in large part because I don't think you have one. In comparison, many people have pointed out that there are many worthy individuals who aren't the usual slate of dead white guys who a in traditional history books. To argue that acknowledging that fact is some form of damaging "affirmative action" is not ridiculous, but actually ignores the reality that the true problem is that the historic record has had a massive bias against noting the deeds of women and minorities.
actually ignores the reality that the true problem is that the historic record has had a massive bias against noting the deeds of women and minorities.
But he's saying that due to bias against women and minorities in the Olden Days, they didn't accomplish as much as white men. Your sentence here sounds like you're arguing that there were secret black Einsteins or female Lincolns and their accomplishments didn't get written down, which is not true. There weren't any because they weren't allowed to become them thanks to racism and misogyny.
actually ignores the reality that the true problem is that the historic record has had a massive bias against noting the deeds of women and minorities.
But he's saying that due to bias against women and minorities in the Olden Days, they didn't accomplish as much as white men. Your sentence here sounds like you're arguing that there were secret black Einsteins or female Lincolns and their accomplishments didn't get written down, which is not true. There weren't any because they weren't allowed to become them thanks to racism and misogyny.
No, they just get downplayed - see his whole "well, Grace Hopper really wasn't that impressive an individual, her contributions to programming notwithstanding" argument. Not to mention that our idea of "worthiness" is itself up for discussion, as those very rules themselves are structured in a way that benefits white men at the expense of women and minorities.
If the government were to pick a set of 10 people to appear on the money from now on until the end of time, you could make the argument that only the 10 most influential people in the country should get their face on money. Of course, that runs into problems of how to measure "most influential" person. (You could also argue that some of those 10 slots should be reserved for "most influential African American" or "most influential woman" or whatever.)
A better idea (adopted by most countries) is to routinely redesign their currency, giving new people the chance to be on the money. So next print run would be, say, Harriet Tubman on the $1 bill, rotation after could be Teddy Roosevelt (or whatever).
Sic transit gloria mundi.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
I think we can all hopefully agree that MLK, at least, should be on money.
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Captain Marcusnow arrives the hour of actionRegistered Userregular
I think we can all hopefully agree that MLK, at least, should be on money.
I want Malcolm on the other side.
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Lord Palingtonhe.him.hisHistory-loving pal!Registered Userregular
How about Hedy Lamarr? She invented a frequency hopping system that helped defeat the Nazis in WWII, and it is still used today in cell phones to hop communication towers.
Also, she was a great actress as well as an engineer.
I agree that Harriet Tubman (which my phone wants to auto correct to 'gunman') should be first, though.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
How about Hedy Lamarr? She invented a frequency hopping system that helped defeat the Nazis in WWII, and it is still used today in cell phones to hop communication towers.
Also, she was a great actress as well as an engineer.
I agree that Harriet Tubman (which my phone wants to auto correct to 'gunman') should be first, though.
How about Hedy Lamarr? She invented a frequency hopping system that helped defeat the Nazis in WWII, and it is still used today in cell phones to hop communication towers.
Also, she was a great actress as well as an engineer.
I agree that Harriet Tubman (which my phone wants to auto correct to 'gunman') should be first, though.
Hedy Lamarr wasn't American, as far as I know
Okay, then how about Jeanette Rankin? First woman to be elected to the House of Representatives (not just appointed to an open seat), she was a staunch anti-war advocate - casting a no vote against the the declaration of war in both WWI and WWII (being the only member of Congress to do so in the latter case.)
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E Pluribus OhMy.
They were doing this on dollar coins after they gave up on Sacagawea. They started with Washington and every three months, they would switch to the next president. They cancelled the program like halfway through, and I was pretty disappointed, because I wanted to get a proof set of Nixon.
Did they make/plan two coins for Grover Cleveland?
I was under the impression that nobody counterfeited anything smaller than a twenty because it wasn't cost effective.
I remember them being super rare and something people never spent, like JFK 50-cent pieces.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
I went to the science museum on a field trip as a kid. There was a change machine that was loaded with Susie B's instead of quarters.
I... I was a really honest kid. I exchanged one dollar for four Susie B's and then I stopped and told the museum staff. My classmates weren't too happy with me.
Huh, I had thought the program was cancelled sometime around Chester Arthur, but according to Wikipedia they're still doing it, just only for proof sets and not for general circulation (because who uses dollar coins, am I right). They're at Eisenhower now.
And yeah, Cleveland got two separate coins with two different portraits. Also, Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover look basically the same as each other.
Pretty much. But the rest is correct, coins are more durable and end up costing less in the long run, but then people have to use coins without bitching and saying bullshit like "what are we, Canada?"
Yeah... wait, are we Canada?
I can never tell.
Yeah, the idea is to make a fake $100 bill, go to a store a buy a candy bar, walk out with $99 of real money. Stop doing it before people catch on. Resume after the heat dies down. Rinse, repeat.
But to get close to something that can pass as real you need all the fancy paper and printers and enough patience to do it just right. There was a couple doing it around here that got caught. The money counterfeiting was a parallel story to their meth production and distribution.
http://www.snopes.com/business/money/mister880.asp
You wish.
It's also probably a great case for making our paper currency different sizes (with smaller denominations being smaller bills). In addition to being fair to those who are blind.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
I remember an episode of Hey Arnold that had some criminals making counterfeit pennies.
So cool. Susan B. Anthony on the front and the Moon landing on the back. I bought lunch with some a few months back; the kid at the register thought they were quarters : /
Various in-house artists at the Mint. One thing to remember is that these aren't drawings - they're more akin to wood block prints, and as such the images aren't drawn so much as carved. How It's Made has done a few episodes on production of money (they did Canadian coins and Australian bank notes), so those are worth looking up.
They used to hold contests!
they should again because the last one brought us the Standing Liberty Quarter
That's why they were such a failure. Almost the same size as a quarter. Constantly jammed up vending machines.
Interestingly, because the first run of Sacajawea dollars got approved so late they couldn't mint enough to meet the mandated amount, so they broke out the Anthony dies again and ran another batch of them in 1999.
If we want the historical figures to be actually at least somewhat representative of the most important figures in American history/culture/science, no.
The legal and societal (and even conceptual) equality of men and women is relatively new. As a result, a vast majority of major figures in US/Western history/culture/science are male. And in the United States, an unequal balance of power and legal (and defacto) discrimination of non-white people means a very large majority of influential figures also come from the substantial majority of the population that is not a racial minority.
We could include some ethnic minorities and women on currency but it would some fairly dishonest revisionist history. One of the greatest societal (as opposed to individual) harms from irrational discrimination based on race/sex is the inefficient utilization of talent. A genius female or African American would likely have a very difficult time having nearly the impact they would if they were white male through much of US history. That tragedy shouldn't be "whitewashed"
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
So having Joseph Mansfield and James Wilson on our currency was more merited than, say, Harriet Tubman or Harriet Beecher Stowe or Elizabeth Cady Stanton?
I'm sorry, but this reasoning sounds like BS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Hamilton_(scientist)
Yeah, no impact at all. It can't possibly be because History education in this country is biased as shit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper
Man I do like paying for things with a nice crisp Mansfield. Oh that's not actual currency? Its a transfer note used for one fucking year 150 years ago?
For most of the history of the US women were not permitted an overly public or professional role. Pretending that didn't occur is dishonors the cause of gender inequality far more than not having women (or ethnic minorities) on money and insults the intelligence of everyone.
Can we get some strawwomen to go with these strawmen?
"Having an impact" is not the same as having so much impact that you end up on currency. The former is achieved by hundreds of thousands of people. The latter is achieved by a tiny fraction of the most impactful.
I mean picking two female Computer Scientists should make it fucking obvious, given the chronic gender disparity . Hopper is at least in the conversation but Hopper's contribution was not as much as Church or Chomsky or Godel or von Neumann or Kilby or Thompson/Ritchie etc. And none of them are in serious consideration for appearing on currency. Hamilton is not even in the remotest of discussions.
And that's just Computer Science. Albert Einstein is not on money. Samuel Clemens is not on money. Teddy Roosevelt is not on money. There are 353 American Nobel Prizer winners not on money and only 15 of them are women.
There's like 10 people on currency at one time. There are a small number of non-white males that could reasonably be on that short a list (MLK Jr for instance). But an inevitable legacy of women and minorities being barred from the spheres of politics, science and culture for centuries is there is going to be a lack of women and minorities among the most influential figures all time in the spheres of politics, science and culture.
Its not a good thing, but an ugly truth is still the truth. As I said its among the worst things about discrimination. Imagining a world where maybe there were two Mozarts and two Einsteins but only one could have an impact of society is maddening.
You could have a historical affirmative action, but it would be revisionist, dishonest about the impact of discrimination beyond simple fairness and frankly insulting.
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
What's your point, guy?
I don't know, inventing a programming language - strike that, inventing the first mid-level programming language (which, might I remind you, is still running major businesses around the world to this very day) strikes me as an achievement that had an incredible amount of impact. The fact that you claim that Thompson and Ritchie had more impact than Hopper when the reality was that their work was built on the foundation that she laid illustrates how much you are stretching to try to make this argument.
Not to mention that many other countries have placed women of note in their history on their currency - the French have used the Curies, hell, the Aussies put an opera singer on their currency because Melba is that important a cultural icon to their nation. Your argument of "impact" is solely a smokescreen to allow you to pass off your subjective belief about who is "worthy" of the honor of being placed on our currency.
In the same vein, the US dollar and quarter both commemorate a slave-owning hardcore racist.
Dismissing Thompson and Ritchie's invention of UNIX and C* (the most influential Operating System and Programming language in computing history) and not even mentioning the impact of the others should hint at the weakness of your argument.
And if it doesn't matter who belongs on money, then an argument about who should go on currency would be extremely petty wouldn't it?
*Presenting C as an intellectual descendent of COBOL is also a pretty grossly inaccurate understanding of the different paths programming languages took in the mid-20th century. C derives from ALGOL (Dijkstra is the most prominent name from that group of early languages). COBOL has largely been a dead end despite being widely used (and reviled) for a long time. That doesn't mean Hopper's work wasn't impactful, but it simply can't be framed as a primary influence of C or UNIX
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
It was a primary influence in that it got computer science to move away from the metal towards abstraction. And while you may argue that the field would have moved that way, the fact is that someone had to be first down that path, and Hopper was one of those pioneers.
But really, this is the argument in a nutshell:
You: "There are Rules About Who Goes On Money."
Us: "Yes. Those rules suck. We need better, more inclusive rules."
You: "But...there are Rules About Who Goes On Money!"
And that's the whole point - you have yet to provide any real defense of your rationale for who is worthy of being honored on currency, other than "this is how it's been", in large part because I don't think you have one. In comparison, many people have pointed out that there are many worthy individuals who aren't the usual slate of dead white guys who a in traditional history books. To argue that acknowledging that fact is some form of damaging "affirmative action" is not ridiculous, but actually ignores the reality that the true problem is that the historic record has had a massive bias against noting the deeds of women and minorities.
No, they just get downplayed - see his whole "well, Grace Hopper really wasn't that impressive an individual, her contributions to programming notwithstanding" argument. Not to mention that our idea of "worthiness" is itself up for discussion, as those very rules themselves are structured in a way that benefits white men at the expense of women and minorities.
A better idea (adopted by most countries) is to routinely redesign their currency, giving new people the chance to be on the money. So next print run would be, say, Harriet Tubman on the $1 bill, rotation after could be Teddy Roosevelt (or whatever).
I want Malcolm on the other side.
Also, she was a great actress as well as an engineer.
I agree that Harriet Tubman (which my phone wants to auto correct to 'gunman') should be first, though.
Hedy Lamarr wasn't American, as far as I know
Okay, then how about Jeanette Rankin? First woman to be elected to the House of Representatives (not just appointed to an open seat), she was a staunch anti-war advocate - casting a no vote against the the declaration of war in both WWI and WWII (being the only member of Congress to do so in the latter case.)