Kolya on 13/1/2017 at 07:28
Most of us have spent our formative years here, working really hard at each other.
Tocky on 14/1/2017 at 05:15
Oh baby, the way you talk.
faetal on 14/1/2017 at 18:15
Quote Posted by Kolya
Now you're saying as self-proclaimed left-wingers that left-wing extremism isn't as bad as people say. Regardless of whether that's true, can you see now why this argument was wrong?
Of course any accused group will have a different opinion about the accusations than the accuser. But trying to exclude them from the discussion based on that bias is still an illegitimate move and a sign of an ideological mindset.
That's a straw man. I'm not trying to exclude anyone, just remarking on how most of the time I hear how X, Y, Z isn't a problem (i.e. not that it doesn't affect them, how it's not actually as bad as the people affected say it is.), it's the subset of humans who have the least to worry about prejudice that are the ones saying it. I'm not saying straight white guys don't or can't have valid opinions, just that it's odd how they seem to dominate the discussion that people worry about these things too much.
Or maybe I just spend most of my time in places where straight, white guys are. Either way, I was remarking on it, not suggesting legislation.
Tony_Tarantula on 15/1/2017 at 22:09
Maybe because "white" is a pretty piss poor gauge of privilege.
The zip code you grew up in a much better predictor, and would account for many of the racial disparaties that exist.
Although in my case I should explain that my perspective is a bit different than most. My group in high school was the "smart" black kids, my best buddies in training were a black guy who grew up in the Philly hood and a jewish guy from Minneapolis, my best friend in service was a hispanic guy from a bad neighborhood in LA, and my life coach is an old school black guy from the bay area.
The biggest thing that I've noticed is that these people are all very successful in their fields, but none of them make a huge deal about "white privilege". They're more concerned with self empowerment and community empowerment than with "white privilege".
Another way that the military was formative for me was that I got to work with a large number of teams that were, as a general rule, extremely racially and socially diverse. Any given team would have every race under the rainbow on it and people from all parts of the country yet we all somehow managed to work together. Colin Powell documents this fairly well in his autobiography where he found the Army to have extremely good race relations relative to society as a whole.
What he doesn't get into is why. I'd posit that it's the same reason that sports teams generally have very good race relations between the team members: humans need a tribal identity to rally under, and for both the military and in those sports teams people have a shared group identity that transcends their racial identities. Europe also(until recently) didn't have this problem because people there identify primarily by national identity. You aren't "white" or "black" there, you're a Brit, German, Frenchperson, etc.
At the moment I'm leaning towards arguing that is why the current PC mentality towards race is destructive. It encourages people to identify first and foremost by their race. When you do that your race becomes the "in" group and everyone else becomes the "out" group. It would be far more effective to shift towards a "We're all Americans" attitude and make one's identity as an American far more important than race.
faetal on 15/1/2017 at 23:26
Yes, privileged black guys do better than poor white guys, but if you look at the overall statistics for the categories white and black:
(
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_wage_gap_in_the_United_States)
(
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistics_of_incarcerated_African-American_males)
(
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027656240900002X)
It's a lot different. This is one of those nuance issues. You think you can point to exceptions to the rule and think that it means the rule is false. It's a common assumption made when two distinct populations have different means, but overlapping residuals on a specific metric, like so:
Inline Image:
http://www.thesimpledollar.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/reliabilitygraph3.jpgIf you employ a little additional analysis, you'll see that the overlapping areas are less informative (describe less of the area beneath the curve) than the overall averages. This is actually a good example of what I'm talking about - you, a straight white guy are talking not about how you aren't affected by prejudice, but how black people aren't adversely affected by it and you are using your own anecdotes and proof of this. So thanks I guess - it's always good to get a real life example.
Now, I am also a straight white guy, yet I am not doing this because I have the presence of mind to accept that my life is possibly not the best lens to view this particular issue through, hence I'm more about the stats. But then, I'm a trained scientist, so it's also possibly down to the fact that I have a higher than ordinary tendency to try to avoid what my gut tells me, if there's a load of information which conflicts with that. Don't get me wrong either, I was very much of the "all lives matter" mentality years back, but I developed past that when I realised that accepting there was a problem is a vital part of getting past it. The phrase "check your privilege" actually summarised this fairly nicely until its meaning was lost amidst a frenzy of juvenile discourse to the point where a couple of paragraphs pointing this shit out step by step has become necessary.
It's the tendency of society to modify its conscience through consensus-driven objection to elements of the status quo. Something the the US and Europe should be particularly mindful of given how recently racial segregation laws were abolished. The US in particular.
Vivian on 16/1/2017 at 01:07
Preach
SD on 16/1/2017 at 16:54
Quote Posted by SubJeff
Another example is SD and his vegetarianism. I'm glad that it's acceptable as a lifestyle choice and I like the idea of it (because I really don't think animal slaughter is humane). But the fiver incident is the type of thing that makes veggies look like extreme nuts.
You don't think vegetarians are entitled to be angry that government is discriminating against their lifestyle - we get it.
SubJeff on 16/1/2017 at 19:58
Do you really think it's discrimination though? I think someone just didn't think about it. It's not discrimination unless it's done on purpose or at least with the knowledge that it's an issue.
Kolya on 16/1/2017 at 20:28
The point is: If you're that fussy you couldn't even use a computer or use a car, get a flu shot, get a tattoo, wear red clothes, have a fridge etc. But they are likely not putting up the same resistance to that.
I'm not saying they shouldn't use those things or that they aren't "real" vegans/vegetarians if they do. But there are practical limits. And any realistic vegan knows that (and is still willing to go as far as practically possible for them, which is admirable). Extending some of that understanding to your government when it turns out there are tiny amounts of animal product in these banknotes, would probably be better than trying too hard to kick up a shitstorm. But I guess that's the same fraction of people who start no-true-scotsman discussions among each other. The chance for moral high horsing is important to a few dickheads. Which exist among veggies just like anywhere else.
faetal on 17/1/2017 at 19:14
Quote Posted by SubJeff
Do you really think it's discrimination though? I think someone just didn't think about it. It's not discrimination unless it's done on purpose or at least with the knowledge that it's an issue.
I think at worst it is a snub, but an accidental one. The Bank of England's response was entirely in proportion to that: (
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-38164921)
