Attention: "alt right" is no longer politically correct

[Trausti]

As I told JP just now, conservatives seem to apply their newly found sense of disgust with racism . . .

Treating people as individuals and not prejudging them on their skin color is the conservative position now. 'Cause that's what being against racism used to mean. Re-defining words and guilt shaming whole groups of people on account of their skin color is the apparent ideology adopted by far-left liberals.

 

[Arctish]

Please note that I said "streewalking", not "whores". Streetwalking is very dangerous!

I note that when you say they were streetwalkers you are calling them whores.

You are assuming it's because they aren't trying rather than because the perps are hard to catch.

If you had read the linked article you'd already know that Canadian officials, including the Prime Minister, question the diligence of police investigators looking into the thousands of cases over the last 4 decades. You'd also know why they question it.

A single death or missing person case is easy to overlook. A hundred of them that are considered individually and not compared to each other are easily dismissed, nothing to see here folks, case closed. It's only when the cases are considered in the aggregate that the extreme peril faced by Native women in Canada comes into focus. There could be a very prolific serial killer or two, cruising the Al-Can and looking for the next victim, and you'll never come to grips with it if you won't even talk about the group with the high murder rate.

Streetwalkers have a high murder rate, period. Every country, every race.

I think that old saying about 'not seeing the forest because of the trees' applies here.

Your problem is once you see a racial pattern you take it as proof racism and refuse to look if it's really just a proxy for something else.

How are you going to address the needs of poor people if you can't talk about groups? How are you going to address the factors that impede the progress of poor people if you refuse to discuss the most common, persistent, and obvious obstacles to self-advancement and success?

The group you should be looking at is poor people!

Poor people, and black people, and white people, and Native people, and transgendered people, and Asian people, and any group of people where there are indications that bias and bigotry are affecting their opportunities to succeed and where fairness and social justice for them are deficient.

The thing is real solutions cost money. Government money. Blaming discrimination puts the cost on the supposed discriminators and thus appears to be free.

The only people who think it's free are idiots, ignoramuses, and children too young to have learned how our government works.

Note that I said "appears to be"--of course it isn't really. It's just you think you have solved the problem by putting the burden on those you imagine are at fault so you don't care about the cost.

You say you understand my point and then go one to completely mischaracterize it.

No--I pointed out the flaw. You have good evidence of white privilege in the past. You continue to insist that it's current.

It is current.

It's an ongoing social dynamic that plays out over and over again in housing, employment, medical care, interactions with the police, etc. Heck, it even affects how people see children. Black children are judged much more harshly than white kids of the same age, something you should know seeing as how you're one of the ones who do it.

Someday you and I can talk about that 'thief' comment. It looks like Ayn Rand-style libertarian whinging about social spending, but I'm not sure you made it all the way through Atlas Shrugged.

Taking from those who did no wrong is theft.

So is mooching.

You aren't a moocher, are you? You don't suck up the sweet benefits of living in modern American society without contributing to it the way your predecessors and fellow Americans do, do you? You don't actually think that roads, water and sewer systems, electrical power generation, police and fire protection, sanitation, schools, and all such infrastructure, institutions, and programs that provide for the common good are free, do you?

I certainly hope you don't think that motherf***er Ragnar Danneskjöld was some kind of hero.

I do understand current factors. I understand that institutional racism is a thing of the present. It happens every single day, across all sectors of the economy, and in all communities. And I understand the desperate hand waving and cries of 'everything that gave whites undeserved advantages are all in the past' whenever privileged whites feel their advantages are threatened. Most Americans have a very precarious position on the economic ladder, and the ladder is sinking. It's scary to think you might be worse off next year. I get that. But fairness and social justice are better than unfairness and injustice.

You continue to see racism everywhere but it's shoddy research that fails to consider if race is simply a proxy. Basically all the research that does try to consider whether it's a proxy finds race isn't a factor. (You build a matrix of possible factors and see which ones are predictive. The "researchers" routinely put race in the list but leave off socioeconomic status. Oops--if you put socioeconomic status on the list you find race is no longer predictive.)

The first step towards self improvement is to admit you have a problem. The first step toward a more just and fair society with equal opportunities to succeed for all, is to admit the current system falls short of that goal and to understand why. And in order to do that, you're going to have to come to grips with how groups of people are advantaged or disadvantaged by the current system.

Why am I reminded of the woman I used to know who was diagnosed as an alcoholic despite being a teetotaler? Once they decided she was an alcoholic they used her denials as evidence that she was. (The actual problem was one question: "Have you ever lost friends due to alcohol use?" to which she answered yes. It's a poorly worded question, she had lost friends due to their alcohol use.)

You just gave an excellent example of the importance of careful, thoughtful consideration of what people say they have experienced, and not jumping to conclusions. How about revisiting your conclusion that the reason so many Native women in Canada have been murdered is because they were 'streetwalkers', and giving some careful consideration to the question of why so many have gone missing without it being considered a national crisis?

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Treating people as individuals and not prejudging them on their skin color is the conservative position now. 'Cause that's what being against racism used to mean. Re-defining words and guilt shaming whole groups of people on account of their skin color is the apparent ideology adopted by far-left liberals.

As Haidt puts it, they are not liberal, they are illiberal.

 

[Arctish]

I may have misread the above due to the context of what I and others had been saying before you wrote it. I took it to mean that you intend to treat them either as individuals or as group members. Is that incorrect?

Yes, that is incorrect.

There's more than one way to approach a problem and usually more than one tool that can be used to fix it. If the first tool you try fails to produce the desired results, try another. You're refusing to use every tool at your disposal because for some reason you have decided that certain tools must never be used.

How in the heck are you going to fix whatever is causing Native women in Canada to be murdered and go missing with such appalling frequency if you won't talk about the issues impacting the lives of Natives and women? You can't just work on each case separately because you don't have thousands of trained investigators to devote to the thousands of cases. Also, you're unlikely to understand the dangers faced by specific Native women if you refuse to consider the dangers faced by Native women in general.

I suppose you can just sweep it all under the rug. That appears to be what the cops in Yukon and BC have been doing for decades. But that doesn't fix the problem, it just hides it.

We should NEVER treat people as interchangeable members of groups based on one trait instead of as individuals. We should not address the "groups" instead of the individuals within those groups, as the individuals are people and the groups are artificial abstractions. Do you agree? If so then I misunderstood the above.

I disagree. It doesn't matter how you feel about group identities in the abstract. The reality is some groups face obstacles, impediments, and perils that others don't.

Look at it this way: if Japanese Americans in the Western half of the US are being rounded up and forced into Internment Camps, yer darn tootin' we should be talking about fairness and social justice for the group, all Japanese Americans, as well as for the individuals affected.

The goal is fairness, social justice, and equality of opportunity to succeed for all. Treating people as individuals is good when it serves that purpose; treating them as members of a group is also good when it serves that purpose. Both ways of approaching the problem have merit, and both can be helpful in achieving that goal.

 

[Mumbles]

...it's not at all difficult to find people who insist that black/Native/Hispanic people receive massive advantages, even in areas where they are still discriminated against, such as in hiring or housing.

Taking the thread even further off-topic, a similar misapprehension can be observed in regard to women. Militant MRAs are not the only people who pluck some statistic out from somewhere or misuse another to claim that the female sex is significantly advantaged compared to males. Lying with statistics is so easy. Add confirmation bias, and you have malevolent attitudes and unjustified resentment solidly embedded in the mindset of the prejudiced. Most of them are very unlikely to ever change. The way to gradually remove the various prejudices is by educating new generations properly, and therein lies another obstacle; Conservative governments have this tendency to cut funding to education, and they focus particularly on any education that does not strictly belong to any of the STEM fields. STEM is the new version of the three Rs in the same Intelligent Design has replaced creationism - basically a rebadging of same old, same old.

I better clarify now: While I am opposed to teaching creationism/Intelligent Design, I am very much in favour of STEM/RRR, but not to the exclusion of non-STEM/RRR subjects.

That doesn't address my query. The end result is that somebody TODAY is poor because of something that happened to their ancestors. Why should it matter what it is that happened? The person we are talking about never had the wealth that was drained anymore than the person whose ancestors wasted the wealth had it. What entitlement do either of them have to the lost wealth as compared to a third person whose ancestors never had any wealth to begin with? Should we not all be treated equally and fairly as INDIVIDUALS?



Then they and only they should have a right of redress. Others should NOT be allowed to steal from the funds allotted for any such redress just because they happen to have the same skin pigmentation as those who were so affected. Nor should recent white immigrants have any white guilt for what happened to black slaves or first nations that were destroyed by colonist just because they share skin pigmentation with those slavers and colonists, but that is how the "social justice" of identity politics works.

That's great, but how do you expect that to happen, when we refuse to address the massive divisions along these lines that exist today?

Did you skip over the rest of my post? I wrote about universal basic income, inheritance being taxed more or done away with, and I add universal health care and tax funded education. I address the massive divisions by helping people based on need instead of by race proxy. If more individuals of one race than of another need help, then those individuals should get it, and you would just happen to have more of that race getting help, but not by racism.

As I told JP just now, conservatives seem to apply their newly found sense of disgust with racism . . .

Treating people as individuals and not prejudging them on their skin color is the conservative position now. 'Cause that's what being against racism used to mean. Re-defining words and guilt shaming whole groups of people on account of their skin color is the apparent ideology adopted by far-left liberals.

Hah, no. We'ves een more than enough examples of "conservatives" outright placing stereotype ahead of all else. The idea that there's some sort of air there is a joke.

 

[laughing dog]

As I told JP just now, conservatives seem to apply their newly found sense of disgust with racism . . .

Treating people as individuals and not prejudging them on their skin color is the conservative position now.

Utter nonsense.

'Cause that's what being against racism used to mean.

No, it is not.

Re-defining words and guilt shaming whole groups of people on account of their skin color is the apparent ideology adopted by far-left liberals.

You have redefined racism and are engaging in guilt shaming on account of their ideology.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

We have tons and tons of studies that don't consider whether race is a proxy for socioeconomic status and they almost all find racism.

We have a much smaller pool of studies that do consider it, and they rarely find racism.

The conclusion we should reach is that the big pile of studies are fatally flawed and should be thrown in the trash.

If you want to counter, I would rather you critiqued the meta-study on the 'blind' job applications in the 1st instance. Consider me open to suggestion. I don't doubt, in principle, that racism can be, is, often overstated in the current climate. Ditto for the gender earnings gap. But you seem to be pedalling just a bit too hard towards saying that there is no or negligible racism. Which I admit I find very hard to accept.

The thing is we see very different results when socioeconomic status is included vs when it isn't. Despite this the vast majority of the research fails to include it--which to me means they know they're after a result rather than after the truth. The value of such research is basically zero.

Note that this doesn't mean there isn't racism, but rather that it isn't big enough to be a meaningful factor.

If company A refuses to hire you because you are black, try company B. Only when the A's constitute a decent percentage of all positions in your field does it actually hold people back.

(And note a particular problem with the resumes: They are obviously using names to indicate skin color--but the blackest names have on average about 4 years less education than the whitest names. Even if there is a bias against them is it because of race or because of the perceived education?)

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

We should NEVER treat people as interchangeable members of groups based on one trait instead of as individuals. We should not address the "groups" instead of the individuals within those groups, as the individuals are people and the groups are artificial abstractions. Do you agree? If so then I misunderstood the above.

I disagree. It doesn't matter how you feel about group identities in the abstract. The reality is some groups face obstacles, impediments, and perils that others don't.

You disagree that we should never treat people as interchangeable members of groups based on one trait instead of as individuals? Really? Why? They each have their own unique experiences. That they share a particular trait which may become relevant in various contexts that they may or may not enter into does not justify treating them all as the same and interchangeable cogs.

Look at it this way: if Japanese Americans in the Western half of the US are being rounded up and forced into Internment Camps, yer darn tootin' we should be talking about fairness and social justice for the group, all Japanese Americans, as well as for the individuals affected.

I'm glad you are now saying as well as the individuals affected and not instead of the individuals affected.

In your Japanese scenario, do you include Japanese who don't live in the US but in countries where this isn't happening? Do you include Japanese people generations later who did not experience any of this? How about those who are only part Japanese? That would include myself

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Non-responsive. Not only did you fail to present any evidence, but you ignored the crucial point that correlation is possible evidence of causation. So, your earlier response stands as babble.

[
Finding a correlation simply means you look for how they are linked, you don't assume one causes the other. (In the ice cream case they're both related to weather--when it's cold women are out less and thus less likely to be raped. They also don't buy as much ice cream.)

Wrong. Finding correlation means finding linked. How things are linked depends on theory and reality, not statistics.

Correlation is an indiction of possible causation.

Of course it could be causation. The point is that it's only evidence that you should look, not evidence that there really is a link.

As for your ignorance of a classic example: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=ice+cream+causes+rape+fallacy

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Truth is that as a group blacks are worse off because they are discriminated against on account of being black. If that were not the case there'd be no differences in average pay rates, student debt and so on between whites and blacks.

You are making the assumption that there is no other difference that matters.

One simple example: Blacks are far more likely to have a criminal record than whites. Are you saying that's entirely due to discrimination?

Also, whatever the actual mechanism there is a strong heritable component to how one fares in life even without any wealth transfer.

We got a very clear demonstration of this from Poland. After the war they had to rebuild among other things the schools. The communists implemented their ideals with a vengeance--extreme equality in the educational system. Was the result equality in the end product? Nope--there was still a major correlation between parental professional level and child professional level. Stomping with an elephant foot had almost no effect.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Hey Loren, how do you know ice cream doesn't cause rape? Maybe they are lacing the ice cream with a rape drug or luring unsuspecting children to gingerbread houses with cold ice cream treats

 

[Arctish]

You disagree that we should never treat people as interchangeable members of groups based on one trait instead of as individuals? Really? Why?

I just told you why.

I don't think you are incapable of understanding my meaning.

Look at it this way: if Japanese Americans in the Western half of the US are being rounded up and forced into Internment Camps, yer darn tootin' we should be talking about fairness and social justice for the group, all Japanese Americans, as well as for the individuals affected.

I'm glad you are now saying as well as the individuals affected and not instead of the individuals affected.

I have been saying it all along. Are you just now noticing?

In your Japanese scenario, do you include Japanese who don't live in the US but in countries where this isn't happening?

Yes. A policy that denies the civil rights of some Americans affects all Americans, most particularly members of the group being most strongly affected. They might escape being sent to Manzanar if they're out of the country, but they are still being denied the same rights as other Americans.

Do you include Japanese people generations later who did not experience any of this?

If the policies remain in force or the effects of anti-Japanese American bigotry still linger, then yes, because that means the injustice and unfairness is still affecting people's lives and limiting their opportunities.

How about those who are only part Japanese?

If the policies impact Americans who are only part Japanese, then of course. The goal is fairness, social justice, and equality of opportunity to succeed for all.

That would include myself

If the policies of the US government towards American citizens with Japanese ancestry have a direct impact on the fairness, social justice, and opportunities for success of Canadians, then yes, anyone considering how US policies affect Japanese Americans should consider the impact on Canadians as well.

Lets get back to discussing the peril faced by Native women in Yukon and British Colombia. How do you, Jolly_Pengiun, propose dealing with that issue without considering the groups 'Natives', 'women', 'people living in Yukon', or 'people living in BC'?

 

[laughing dog]

Non-responsive. Not only did you fail to present any evidence, but you ignored the crucial point that correlation is possible evidence of causation. So, your earlier response stands as babble.

[
Finding a correlation simply means you look for how they are linked, you don't assume one causes the other. (In the ice cream case they're both related to weather--when it's cold women are out less and thus less likely to be raped. They also don't buy as much ice cream.)

Wrong. Finding correlation means finding linked. How things are linked depends on theory and reality, not statistics.

Correlation is an indiction of possible causation.

Of course it could be causation. The point is that it's only evidence that you should look, not evidence that there really is a link.

Um, it could be both - example that one should investigate and that there really is a link. So, it seems you are tacitly admitting that handwaved dismissals of correlation linking to causation are premature at best.

[
As for your ignorance of a classic example: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=ice+cream+causes+rape+fallacy

Finally, you provide a link to substantiate one of your claims. Interestingly, one has to wade through a number of the associated links to find this "classic example" - and no data is used.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Lets get back to discussing the peril faced by Native women in Yukon and British Colombia. How do you, Jolly_Pengiun, propose dealing with that issue without considering the groups 'Natives', 'women', 'people living in Yukon', or 'people living in BC'?

By treating them as individuals with traits, one of which may include "native", "woman", "living in yukon", or "living in BC". Those traits may, or may not as Loren is arguing, put them more at risk. We can study if and why any particular trait of an individual puts them more at risk and if so what can be done about it. It is very likely that not all people living in BC are more at risk than many individuals living elsewhere, and that not all people who are "native" are more at risk than many individuals who are not.

As I have said repeatedly and as you have now twice said you disagree with, yet based on other things you've said I'm still not sure you do, we should never treat people as interchangeable members of groups based on one trait instead of as individuals. Disregarding their individuality and treating them according to group identity is prejudice.

But even if you do insist on treating them as interchangeable members of groups, there are subgroups and subgroups within subgroups. Within natives, are female natives more at risk? Are female natives living in Yukon more at risk? Are female women living in Yukon and who are poor more at risk? Are female natives living in Yukon who are poor and have low IQ even more at risk? How about female natives living in Yukon who are poor and have low IQ and are particularly young and attractive and inherently trusting? You'll have some far more at risk than others and by studying the traits within individuals rather than by treating people as interchangeable cogs within groups, you can actually address people fairly.

Failing to discriminate between individuals also enables "Social Justice Groups" to speak on behalf of entire segments of society, when clearly they don't. BLM does not represent "black people". The protesters against Jordan Peterson do not represent "transgender people". There are plenty of individuals with those traits who do not support those groups. And yes, many white individuals lack privilege as compared to many non-white individuals.

Another problem with identity politics, aside from turning people against each other and encouraging prejudice, is that groups with better PR get more power and more perks. You've got race, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation that get all the focus. What about wealth? Intelligence? Height? What about attractiveness? We look at those more as traits of individuals. You don't have "Ugly Rights" or "Short Guy Rights" groups given special consideration from society or government. Why not? There is plenty of research showing that those traits often work against individuals who have them.

 

[Arctish]

Lets get back to discussing the peril faced by Native women in Yukon and British Colombia. How do you, Jolly_Pengiun, propose dealing with that issue without considering the groups 'Natives', 'women', 'people living in Yukon', or 'people living in BC'?

By treating them as individuals with traits, one of which may include "native", "woman", "living in yukon", or "living in BC". Those traits may, or may not as Loren is arguing, put them more at risk. We can study if and why any particular trait of an individual puts them more at risk and if so what can be done about it. It is very likely that not all people living in BC are more at risk than many individuals living elsewhere, and that not all people who are "native" are more at risk than many individuals who are not.

So you'd consider the traits of each individual and study if and why a particular trait put them more at risk, but you wouldn't do it by identifying the group of people who share those traits and comparing their outcomes to those who don't.

I wonder if you have any idea how risk factors are identified and assessed.

As I have said repeatedly and as you have now twice said you disagree with, yet based on other things you've said I'm still not sure you do, we should never treat people as interchangeable members of groups based on one trait instead of as individuals. Disregarding their individuality and treating them according to group identity is prejudice.

But even if you do insist on treating them as interchangeable members of groups, there are subgroups and subgroups within subgroups. Within natives, are female natives more at risk? Are female natives living in Yukon more at risk? Are female women living in Yukon and who are poor more at risk? Are female natives living in Yukon who are poor and have low IQ even more at risk? How about female natives living in Yukon who are poor and have low IQ and are particularly young and attractive and inherently trusting? You'll have some far more at risk than others and by studying the traits within individuals rather than by treating people as interchangeable cogs within groups, you can actually address people fairly.

Failing to discriminate between individuals also enables "Social Justice Groups" to speak on behalf of entire segments of society, when clearly they don't. BLM does not represent "black people". The protesters against Jordan Peterson do not represent "transgender people". There are plenty of individuals with those traits who do not support those groups. And yes, many white individuals lack privilege as compared to many non-white individuals.

Another problem with identity politics, aside from turning people against each other and encouraging prejudice, is that groups with better PR get more power and more perks. You've got race, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation that get all the focus. What about wealth? Intelligence? Height? What about attractiveness? We look at those more as traits of individuals. You don't have "Ugly Rights" or "Short Guy Rights" groups given special consideration from society or government. Why not? There is plenty of research showing that those traits often work against individuals who have them.

You know you're asking me to consider groups of people and compare them with other groups, right?

As I said before, IMO the best way to increase fairness and reduce bias against people with a certain set of traits is to ensure that everyone with those traits is treated fairly and equitably. If treating them as individuals is the best way to achieve that goal, then they should be treated as individuals. If treating them as members of a group is the best way, then they should be treated as members of the group. Both approaches have merit.

 

[laughing dog]

By treating them as individuals with traits, one of which may include "native", "woman", "living in yukon", or "living in BC". Those traits may, or may not as Loren is arguing, put them more at risk. We can study if and why any particular trait of an individual puts them more at risk and if so what can be done about it. It is very likely that not all people living in BC are more at risk than many individuals living elsewhere, and that not all people who are "native" are more at risk than many individuals who are not.

Meanwhile, more women are put at risk/peril. Brilliant solution.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Finally, you provide a link to substantiate one of your claims. Interestingly, one has to wade through a number of the associated links to find this "classic example" - and no data is used.

You claim some knowledge of statistics--I shouldn't have had to explain something so classic as this.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Lets get back to discussing the peril faced by Native women in Yukon and British Colombia. How do you, Jolly_Pengiun, propose dealing with that issue without considering the groups 'Natives', 'women', 'people living in Yukon', or 'people living in BC'?

Groups are an output, not an input.

The inputs are individuals with various traits. Construct all possible groupings of your input traits, run the correlations with what you are testing (in this case "murdered") and then cast out the ones that add nothing: In case of ties you cast out the more detailed option.

You're left with the factors that matter.

Note that if you fail to include a relevant factor you're likely to end up reaching a poor conclusion.

In this case there are two obvious factors to add: streetwalker and in poverty.

Given what I have read about these cases I would be surprised if "native" and "women" survive this test.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

So you'd consider the traits of each individual and study if and why a particular trait put them more at risk, but you wouldn't do it by identifying the group of people who share those traits and comparing their outcomes to those who don't.

I wonder if you have any idea how risk factors are identified and assessed.

The problem is you are putting the cart before the horse. Traits first, then groups.

As I said before, IMO the best way to increase fairness and reduce bias against people with a certain set of traits is to ensure that everyone with those traits is treated fairly and equitably. If treating them as individuals is the best way to achieve that goal, then they should be treated as individuals. If treating them as members of a group is the best way, then they should be treated as members of the group. Both approaches have merit.

The problem is that your "solution" does not ensure those that lack those traits are also treated fairly and equitably.

- - - Updated - - -

By treating them as individuals with traits, one of which may include "native", "woman", "living in yukon", or "living in BC". Those traits may, or may not as Loren is arguing, put them more at risk. We can study if and why any particular trait of an individual puts them more at risk and if so what can be done about it. It is very likely that not all people living in BC are more at risk than many individuals living elsewhere, and that not all people who are "native" are more at risk than many individuals who are not.

Meanwhile, more women are put at risk/peril. Brilliant solution.

Ah, I understand. Ready, fire, aim.

 

[laughing dog]

Finally, you provide a link to substantiate one of your claims. Interestingly, one has to wade through a number of the associated links to find this "classic example" - and no data is used.

You claim some knowledge of statistics--I shouldn't have had to explain something so classic as this.

I understand the concept. I'd like to see if there is actual data or if this is just some thought experiment. If this is so "classic", one would think you'd be able to come up with a direct and relevant link. So far, nope.

- - - Updated - - -

Ah, I understand. Ready, fire, aim.

Written like a true misogynist.