Agnostics decides that they must form knowledge and make decisions knowing that they do not know some things. Some people choose agnosticism out of practical considerations: we really don’t have them mental capacity to know all, that it is most rational to assume we don’t know some things. Other people choose to not learn, consider or even be aware of some knowledge for moral, legal or other intangible reasons.

In practice, the reality is often that the agnosticism is artificial. The subject really do know something but choose to not consider that knowledge: For example any fair employer in America not only has to do it, they also have to declare that their considerations are always agnostic of race, age, sex, place-of-origin and residence.

There are some technical fields that have discovered the effectiveness of using agnosticism. Those that I have heard, things like uninformative priors and maximum entropy principle make an initial assumption that are mathematical representations of knowledgelessness and maximum chaos. Obviously there are words and math, which is knowledge, that described that state, but what is described is with least assumption about what the world is. These approaches, for a time or for eternity depending on whom you asked, have been producing the most useful technologies.

So, when the University of California school system announced, in May of 2021, that college applicants will no longer require ACT/SAT test scores, I thought: That’s great! I hope they’re using all that smarts and technology to make this more agnostic admission process better than before. But sadly, I found out later that this decision was a reactionary response to a law suite that successfully impressed upon the UC system that the use of ACT/SAT adversely impacted black and latino people from exposure to higher education.

I would like to argue that this characterization is possibly biased. Recalling one aptitude test that my 6-year-old took, asked what class of object could a Neapolitan belong to. (The right answer, btw, based on googling and choosing available answer from the multiple-choice test, is that it is a desert) I have to admit, I am too poor to have had that desert ever. I can’t recall ever having desert in a restaurant when I was a child. So is that a test question that is biased against my lack of Italian-American heritage? I mean, if the test asked what a guilinggao is, would that be fair if it has been served in American restaurants publically for possibly more than 300 years?

This question is a challenging one. But a common explanation is that it isn’t really a race based selection but rather a economic-class based discrimination. People who are rich enough to have the curiosity and to have the time to sample enough restaurants to have tried the guilinggao are allowed into universities. Other people who had to work until their bodies and minds are too tired to do anything else will never have a chance.

Honestly, it is quite possible that the preparation for ACT/SAT is just like that–only families rich enough to have the free time and money and curiosity to prepare for it can do well in the tests. Those poor bodies laboring in the cotton fields, or fighting off bullies, or even those who are too busy selling drugs, they all had to make a living before they have the wherewithal to do well on a standardized test. It is not really a choice for any of these poor people.

Looking back, the critical thinker will point out that there are very direct and very organized systems for discriminating against black latinos (and that possibly more for these two groups than other minorities for economical reasons). And that a class-based affirmative action will not sufficiently address the gaping cavity left by generations of discrimination.

I would agree with that claim completely. Yes, definitely more black people were enslaved, beaten, and grotesquely exploited than any other race of people from China or Korea or Japan. There is absolutely no doubt about it. But on the flip side, Asian Americans, like Chinese people, were excluded from arriving and reproducing here. Asian people had far fewer opportunities in America than all those black people, each of whom was an opportunity. And it gets worse from there onward. Think of all the black people who knowingly and actively helped white people in the perpetuation of enslavement of their color. Think of all those people who did not rise up when they could have, think of all the black people who did not speak loud enough over the centuries… And what about the drug dealing, and white-people killing, and riots… Seems there have been some great subtraction from American culture as well. Think of all your white parents, they have behaved in ways we find unacceptably racist their lives, and think of your white grandparents who used the word nigger derogatorily and inflammatorily. (A finding a race-neutral(by today’s standards) white person before a certain point time is like searching for a prostitute with a heart of gold—they DO exist, I’ve definitely seen how that can work out in movies… But immho rarely really well(I would appreciate any feedback in way of counterexamples though) [[EDIT]change to PG version maybe cavity free Easter Bunny would have more apropos hue and chroma] What should these white people pay for their transgressions? Shouldn’t we just kick all the white kids out universities instead? I mean seriously, if you want admission quota, you can take all the Asian-American spots, and it would still far inferior to the piece of juicy meat that is the white student body. I mean wouldn’t that be something worth sinking your teeth into?

Alas, everyone is a sinner and those sins, sometimes sinful thoughts, lead us to sin more. Being an agnostic does not free us from a necessarily evil cycle of sinning if you believe that, but it does give us a break from intergenerational retributions. White kids should be happy, they should not have to pay for the sins of their parents and ancestors. Black kids should be happy, they should not pay for the sins of the white parents and white peoples’ ancestors. And certainly nice happy Chinese-American kids should not have to pay for the sins of both black and white peoples’ parents and their ancestors. We shouldn’t have to pay for a fight that you people could not finish despite centuries of injuries. I mean for Spanish speaking people, some of your ancestors had been fighting with the other white people of Europe for millenniums before America, and you are still at war. You are still discriminating against each other and still racist against each other. (And i should digress here and point out that although I am fervent supporter of space tourism, especially the non-polluting kind, I am completely against colonization unless there is an existential reason to do that. We must resolve our strives before we take the fighting to space.)

Here, agnosticism saves us from a spiral of hatred down to hell. In past generations, many have wronged and many have suffered. But in the present, nobody should have to. Kids should be admitted agnostically without regards to any criterion.

What? You might ask me, are you freaking serious? The university would be overrun with druggies and hippies who stand around the mall and smoke weed and skateboard all day long. You might inform me that if we import that kind of lazy culture that our future society will be ruined! The teachers will be busy teaching high school or grammar school material instead of college material to catch everyone up. I mean, the teachers might be too busy dodging bullets and smoke. How can that possibly work?

But it will.

I have faith that it will.

I am an agnostic to my people’s past in America.

I am agnostic to all past exploitation of minorities in America.

I am agnostic to admissions to twenty-first century academic institutions in America.

I am agnostic to the fact that UC is sued and forced to make this admissions change for two specific minority races.

I will choose not to look back at all the things that happened to Chinese-Americans and look forward to my kids attending UC system(If they choose to) and succeeding in their American lives having benefited from a world-class education!