Snowflakes in action: the actual reality of "snowflakes" in the world and the consequences

[Loren Pechtel]

I’m trying to figure out if Trausti is saying that police departments refused to adequately do their jobs if they were going to be scrutinized for the occasional murder of unarmed black people.

Conclusion assumed in argument.

The problem is most of these "unarmed" shootings are justified.

And yet, white men’s credentials were never considered suspect.

If you’ve got to lower standards to meet the quota, that ought to concern us all.

What does that mean (in relation to this discussion) lower the standards to meet the quota?

Because that has been a common "solution" to increasing diversity hires.

There have been times it's appropriate--old standards that have little to do with actually doing the job, and old standards that don't really imply someone is unsuitable (for example, possession of personal quantities of pot.) However, mostly it has resulted in inferior hires.

 

[Toni]

Oh, we are playing conflate correlation with causation. How about
news events you need to know so far for May 2020:

1. Multiple Car Dealerships are Burglarized
2. Coronavirus Updates
3. Murder Hornets Spotted in the US
4. Coronavirus Updates (2)
5. Coronavirus Updates (3)
6. Shooting in Texas
7. State Department Inspector General Fired
8. Shooting in Louisiana
9. Coronavirus Updates (4)
10. Coronavirus Updates (5)
11. Black Lives Matter Protest

Big USA events in May 2020

And let's not forget the prevalence of firearms that aid in those murdered during the spike.

Thus showing your lack of understanding of the problem.

What he's talking about doesn't show up as a big news event. Most criminal on criminal shootings don't even get mentioned in a large-city newspaper. Around here they only get mentioned if they stray into tourist territory or if a drive-by kills a child or innocent teen. Note that this long predates the virus. A quick search turns up this:

The effects of Black Lives Matter protests

Research shows places with BLM protests from 2014 to 2019 saw a reduction in police homicides but an uptick in murders.

www.vox.com

For 2014 to 2019 BLM protests are associated with about 300 fewer police killings--but 1,000-6,000 increased murders.

So, a ballpark estimate is BLM kills 10x as many as they save.

This directly contradicts the Vox article

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/police-shootings-database/?itid=lk_inline_manual_2

I’m trying to figure out if Trausti is saying that police departments refused to adequately do their jobs if they were going to be scrutinized for the occasional murder of unarmed black people.

Conclusion assumed in argument.

The problem is most of these "unarmed" shootings are justified.

And yet, white men’s credentials were never considered suspect.

If you’ve got to lower standards to meet the quota, that ought to concern us all.

What does that mean (in relation to this discussion) lower the standards to meet the quota?

Because that has been a common "solution" to increasing diversity hires.

There have been times it's appropriate--old standards that have little to do with actually doing the job, and old standards that don't really imply someone is unsuitable (for example, possession of personal quantities of pot.) However, mostly it has resulted in inferior hires.

Really. You believe that the only way that women, black people, Hispanic people, Native American people, Asian people were hired is because they.....lowered standards?

Thank god there is no more racism.

 

[Trausti]

Oh, we are playing conflate correlation with causation. How about
news events you need to know so far for May 2020:

1. Multiple Car Dealerships are Burglarized
2. Coronavirus Updates
3. Murder Hornets Spotted in the US
4. Coronavirus Updates (2)
5. Coronavirus Updates (3)
6. Shooting in Texas
7. State Department Inspector General Fired
8. Shooting in Louisiana
9. Coronavirus Updates (4)
10. Coronavirus Updates (5)
11. Black Lives Matter Protest

Big USA events in May 2020

And let's not forget the prevalence of firearms that aid in those murdered during the spike.

Thus showing your lack of understanding of the problem.

What he's talking about doesn't show up as a big news event. Most criminal on criminal shootings don't even get mentioned in a large-city newspaper. Around here they only get mentioned if they stray into tourist territory or if a drive-by kills a child or innocent teen. Note that this long predates the virus. A quick search turns up this:

The effects of Black Lives Matter protests

Research shows places with BLM protests from 2014 to 2019 saw a reduction in police homicides but an uptick in murders.

www.vox.com

For 2014 to 2019 BLM protests are associated with about 300 fewer police killings--but 1,000-6,000 increased murders.

So, a ballpark estimate is BLM kills 10x as many as they save.

This directly contradicts the Vox article

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/police-shootings-database/?itid=lk_inline_manual_2

I’m trying to figure out if Trausti is saying that police departments refused to adequately do their jobs if they were going to be scrutinized for the occasional murder of unarmed black people.

Conclusion assumed in argument.

The problem is most of these "unarmed" shootings are justified.

And yet, white men’s credentials were never considered suspect.

If you’ve got to lower standards to meet the quota, that ought to concern us all.

What does that mean (in relation to this discussion) lower the standards to meet the quota?

Because that has been a common "solution" to increasing diversity hires.

There have been times it's appropriate--old standards that have little to do with actually doing the job, and old standards that don't really imply someone is unsuitable (for example, possession of personal quantities of pot.) However, mostly it has resulted in inferior hires.

Really. You believe that the only way that women, black people, Hispanic people, Native American people, Asian people were hired is because they.....lowered standards?

Thank god there is no more racism.

Right. When colleges drop the SAT/ACT for “equity” that’s not signaling anything at all.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Don't blame us, blame yourself. If you didn't push diversity admits and diversity hires the credentials would not be suspect in the first place. You're playing monday morning quarterback--think you can change one thing without there being secondary effects.

If anything in our world isn't white and male, it is assumed by too many that it is on some level, suspect or wrong. Movie casting, job employment, elected officials, judges.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

What does that mean (in relation to this discussion) lower the standards to meet the quota?

As an example, there is a current obsession in Australia with firefighting organisations having as many females as possible. To enable this, they have lowered physical fitness and strength standards and gone to quota systems, among other degradations, all because it is somehow important that women make up exactly half of every industry and job role in Australia. Except the unprestigious roles, obviously.

Now, I'm a deplorable who believes men and women have different physical strength on average, and I want firefighters to be the best possible ones to recruit, regardless of sex. But it will mean male firefighters vastly outnumber female ones.

And yes, when I see a female firefighter from NSW, especially if she has been recruited from 2017, it is absolutely fair and honest to say 'diversity hire'. Because the policy is explicitly and exactly that.

Some physical fitness standards were discriminatory--proxies that worked for measuring male ability to do the job, rather than actual ability to do the job. The proper fix is to come up with more meaningful yardsticks rather than lower the standards.

While I don't know the details of what is required for a firefighter I'm saying something like instead of "do X pullups" the standard is "don't cross the red line, take this fire hose and get 500 gallons into each of those windows in two minutes" and "wearing full gear go into that smoke-filled room and bring out the dummy in 45 seconds. Don't break the egg inside."

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Why is this removed?

I do not know, but that's not a case of some teaching the law bans.

While it says "should" the problem is that this is one of those fuzzy things that will get fought over in court.

Maybe, but I think it's clear enough for the courts to quickly resolve the matter. What it says is that an individual should not be made to feel discomfort, etc., on account of his or her race.

Just being able to sue will be painful for the teachers. They're going to quit teaching the controversial stuff.

What do you mean by "the controversial stuff"? Can you give me an example of the things that teachers will stop teaching?

The "controversial stuff" is anything the right doesn't want taught.

(granted, there is the weird " Members of one race, color, sex, or national origin cannot and should not attempt to treat others without respect to race, color, sex, or national origin.", so that's probably a blunder, maybe "without respect" means "without taking into consideration", or something like that?)

I believe "taking into consideration" is the meaning of "respect to" in this context. It is a legitimate but not all that common usage.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I'm sorry that you are having difficulty understanding the study.

As for redlining not being real? I think I've written here that some years ago, when we were looking to buy our first home in another city/state, we were being shown houses in a particular neighborhood because the relator assumed we were Jewish. That's one form of redlining. We weren't harmed by it. We didn't mind being perceived as Jewish and would have purchased a home in one of those neighborhoods if we could have afforded one (we were outbid). But once we cleared up that we were not looking for a Jewish neighborhood (something she assumed---we never suggested), other neighborhoods suddenly were opened up to us. And we found a nice house we could afford in a neighborhood with excellent schools and a relatively diverse population.

But I'm sure you will believe what you want to believe and disregard... data.

I see no racism. The agent tried to select homes she thought you would want. You told her the pattern was wrong, she adjusted.

I see LP is living up to the thread title.

You wanted snowflakes in action?

You got snowflakes in action.

You tell the agent what you're looking for. When you don't they are going to make a guess that very well might be wrong. This is Toni's failure, not the agent's.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Bill Title: Requiring graduating high school seniors to pledge oath to Constitution

Senate Bill 495
By Senator Azinger
[Introduced January 27, 2022; referred
to the Committee on Education]
A BILL to amend the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, by adding thereto a new section, designated §18-2-6d, relating to requiring that all graduating seniors in West Virginia pledge an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America as a condition of graduation.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
ARTICLE 2. state board of education.
§18-2-6d. Oath to uphold United States Constitution upon graduation.


Upon graduation from high school, all seniors shall pledge an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America as a condition of graduation. The oath shall read as follows:
"I, _____, as a graduating senior of _______ High School, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; and that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same. So help me God."

Another politician out of touch with reality.

Hint: There are non-citizens in our schools!

Some are on their way to citizenship, some are merely stationed here for a period of time and will be leaving.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

First, with that sort of reasoning, you do not need to justify anything at all, ever, whenever you choose to say something about a law promoted by conservatives. You can say "argument from incredulity" when one points out that the claims you make are simply not based on any evidence you presented, and then you can just say they are conservatives.

Second, actually, the teachers are surely not conservatives. Why would they stop teaching history? Because some conservatives threaten to sue them with a law that says nothing in support of the lawsuits? For that matter, conservatives can do the same without the law, so you should predict that teachers will stop teaching history regardless of whether there is SB148.

This is clearly about using lawsuits as an enforcement mechanism. The failure to promptly strike down SB8 has opened the floodgates. We really need some blue states to pass some such measures that target Republicans before the Supreme Court does a full review on SB8.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You persist in thinking intergenerational wealth transfer is a substantial factor.
Intergenerational wealth transfer is a huge factor, Possibly the biggest.

What intergenerational wealth transfer? Most people do not get a meaningful inheritance.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The most impactful inheritance is parental genes for behavior and intelligence. The acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree.

This implies that siblings should be nearly alike in behavior.

There is a substantial random factor, but genetics is a big deal. Look at comparisons of adopted children to their birth parents and adoptive parents. And attitudes they get from their family and environment are also a big deal.

 

[Jarhyn]

You persist in thinking intergenerational wealth transfer is a substantial factor.
Intergenerational wealth transfer is a huge factor, Possibly the biggest.

What intergenerational wealth transfer? Most people do not get a meaningful inheritance.

Intergenerational wealth transfer is a huge factor, Possibly the biggest.

I vehemently disagree.

My parents were upper middle class. My mom died recently, I know there's a check out there coming my way. They were frugal people. Doug and I could use a cash infusion right now. But I'm still dreading the arrival of the check. It's like cashing out my parents.
Ew.

My real inheritance I've long since gotten.

My parents were huge on education and committed relationship and self reliance and service and family ties and a raft of stuff that can't be deposited in a bank account. That's my real inheritance.

Yeah, they popped for a lot of tuition. And when I started my business, I knew that no matter how badly it went I wouldn't be homeless. (Having to move back in with them and their advice and rules and such was marginally better than couch surfing.) But what they gave me wasn't the money, it was their culture.

Based on media reports, I believe that my parents gave me more than Ivanka Trump's parents gave her.
Tom

Sounds like a lot of intergenerational transfer of wealth. Just because it doesn't happen at the end doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

These are the vector of force that kept you out of the gutter and this has been broken, shattered, and destroyed among populations of black Americans across generations.

 

[Hermit]

If the fact that the real median household income for blacks has been half that of the real median household income for non-Hispanic whites for at least the past six decades is not due to racism, what is it due to? Something wrong with blacks?

Correlation does not prove causation!

The top line on that chart has no apparent racial cause but has obvious cultural causes. Why do you assume the other lines must be racially caused?

Oh. Blacks are culturally inferior. I wonder why. Nothing to do with slavery, redlining or any other treatment meted out to them by whites, to be sure. Of course not. That's just correlation, right?

 

[laughing dog]

I'm sorry that you are having difficulty understanding the study.

As for redlining not being real? I think I've written here that some years ago, when we were looking to buy our first home in another city/state, we were being shown houses in a particular neighborhood because the relator assumed we were Jewish. That's one form of redlining. We weren't harmed by it. We didn't mind being perceived as Jewish and would have purchased a home in one of those neighborhoods if we could have afforded one (we were outbid). But once we cleared up that we were not looking for a Jewish neighborhood (something she assumed---we never suggested), other neighborhoods suddenly were opened up to us. And we found a nice house we could afford in a neighborhood with excellent schools and a relatively diverse population.

But I'm sure you will believe what you want to believe and disregard... data.

I see no racism. The agent tried to select homes she thought you would want. You told her the pattern was wrong, she adjusted.

I see LP is living up to the thread title.

You wanted snowflakes in action?

You got snowflakes in action.

You tell the agent what you're looking for. When you don't they are going to make a guess that very well might be wrong. This is Toni's failure, not the agent's.

WTF? Why would anyone necessarily think to mention one's religion or ethnicity when looking for a home? If a realtor is showing people houses based on assumptions about ethnicity, race or religion, that is a form of bigotry. It doesn't matter if it is well-meaning or not.

 

[Toni]

I'm sorry that you are having difficulty understanding the study.

As for redlining not being real? I think I've written here that some years ago, when we were looking to buy our first home in another city/state, we were being shown houses in a particular neighborhood because the relator assumed we were Jewish. That's one form of redlining. We weren't harmed by it. We didn't mind being perceived as Jewish and would have purchased a home in one of those neighborhoods if we could have afforded one (we were outbid). But once we cleared up that we were not looking for a Jewish neighborhood (something she assumed---we never suggested), other neighborhoods suddenly were opened up to us. And we found a nice house we could afford in a neighborhood with excellent schools and a relatively diverse population.

But I'm sure you will believe what you want to believe and disregard... data.

I see no racism. The agent tried to select homes she thought you would want. You told her the pattern was wrong, she adjusted.

I see LP is living up to the thread title.

You wanted snowflakes in action?

You got snowflakes in action.

You tell the agent what you're looking for. When you don't they are going to make a guess that very well might be wrong. This is Toni's failure, not the agent's.

What we told the agent is that we wanted a 3+ bedroom 1 1/2 bathroom home in a nice neighborhood with good schools that we could afford.

The agent made assumptions based upon the fact that we had given our children fairly traditional names that also happen to be found in the Old Testament. Also the New Testament. I'm not sure if she assumed we were Jewish because.....my husband is an academic with curly hair or because I have dark hair/dark eyes and at various times, have been assumed to be Jewish, Arab, Italian, Catholic although I'm none of those things. Note: no one who is actually Jewish or Arab or Italian has ever taken me for being of those ethnicities. Just WASPs
mostly.

The agent made an error based on....frankly I am only guessing her assumptions were based on our kids' names and that only because one of my husband's colleagues asked if we were Jewish and said they wondered because we named our kids .....perfectly common names that are also found in both the New and Old Testaments.

BTW, we ended up with a nice 4 bedroom 1 & 1/2 bath home in nice neighborhood in a diverse family oriented neighborhood which was served by the same excellent school district our children attended while we were renting. Some of our neighbors were Jewish. Some were Arabic, some were Asian, and a couple were black but most were white. I was really sorry to leave that house/neighborhood when we relocated for my husband's job.

But F you for deciding I failed by NOT stating I didn't want a Jewish neighborhood. I didn't care if the neighborhood was Jewish or Arab or Asian or Catholic or Protestant or Hindu or what. It was highly unlikely that she would have steered us towards houses in predominately black neighborhoods given the other assumption she made. We are obviously not black. I cared that we had at least 3 bedrooms, 1 and 1/2 baths, and a good school district.

 

[Bomb#20]

Bomb#20, you make me feel like a 5th grader debating a college professor.

Sorry, my dad's a college professor. I've probably picked up some of his mannerisms. Don't mind me.

Anyway, in the thirty years prior to SB 148, nobody in the Florida education system ever told white students they ought to accept responsibility for their slave-owning ancestors.

Well, leftists appear to believe that. Rightists appear to believe it happens a fair amount. Both sides have an axe to grind; I'm not impressed by either side's objectivity on this point. But I don't think it's a coincidence that this controversy blew up at the same time as the Covid epidemic. For the first time, children were getting lessons by Zoom, so for the first time, parents were hearing at first hand what teachers were telling their children. Something ticked them off about it. And if what they were ticked off about was history being taught objectively and factually and SB 148 was intended to put a stop to that, then the legislators wouldn't have put in a clause specifically saying objective and factual teaching of history doesn't qualify as discrimination.

As far as I know, existing public accommodation law says a school can't refuse to hire black teachers and can't refuse to teach black students, and it can't make all the black teachers attend training sessions unless the white teachers have to attend them too. ... SB 148 addresses the content of the training rather than the rules for who has to attend it.

The keyword is discrimination. So how does the law (not Bomb#20) define discrimination? To my knowledge its unfair or unequal treatment of an individual (or group) based on certain characteristics, including:

• Age
• ...
• Sexual orientation.

Everything SB 148 aims to protect individuals against is already covered by the Civil rights act

If there are cases where courts have held that the sorts of advocacy of discrimination SB 148 is aimed at count as actual discrimination under existing civil rights law, as opposed to being mere advocacy of it, I haven't heard of those cases. What can I say? I'm not a lawyer.

however the additional language dictated by Critical Race Theory with the aim to be Anti CRT ultimately makes it Critical Race Theory to the benefit of white people made law.

"Critical Race Theory to the benefit of white people". Nice turn of phrase. Sort of a riff on "Reverse discrimination". But there's certainly stuff in SB 148 that isn't about stopping establishment of the new religion, but is rather about reestablishing the old religion. I don't think anybody here is arguing against criticisms of those bits.

 

[Gospel]

I respect that. See you in 2052.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Racism still exists. I'm really sorry that this is so but it is absolutely true that racism still exists. I hear it frequently in my very nice relatively blue state. It's a fact. I believe you believe what you're writing about racism being over but it isn't. I won't argue with you that what you see as irrelevant 'evidence' is in fact, evidence. You seem to be a data driven person but when it comes to data supporting a conclusion you don't believe in, out come the scare quotes. But let's go along with what you're saying: there is no more racism.

Racism at the individual level certainly exists. Racism sufficient to hold back large groups of people--all the "evidence" for this is the disparate impact type. To actually hold people back it must block most all routes, not merely one route.

But you seem to accept that today, we are still dealing with the negative effects of racism.

There's no question of that. But note that "negative effects of racism" != "racism"--hence my comparison to the broken arm in the ER. The problem is different, different solutions are needed. Blaming discrimination for the current situation provides an easy "solution" that inflicts no harm on anyone other than wrongdoers. It's akin to the drunk looking for his keys under the streetlight because that's where he can see. It's also about as effective. The real problem is far harder to solve and has no convenient bad guy to stick with the bill.

So let's frame it this way: Think of the horrors of racism in all of its forms, from acknowledged enslavement of people who were born in Africa and their descendants, to unacknowledged enslavement of Native Americans and Chinese people who were treated as far less than human and very disposable when imported to work on the railways, the interment of Japanese Americans during WWII which was more about racism and a land grab as it was for 'security' reasons. We'll ignore the way that Hispanic peoples, including those who have lived in what is now the US since well before the US existed as the US, and people who 'look' Arabic or Jewish or Muslim or Sikh or (fill in whatever you like) are treated--as illegals, as terrorists, as not possibly living in this nice neighborhood or being able to afford to shop here or having only earned their spot in an elite college or job or whatever because of affirmative action and not because of their own talents, abilities and hard work. We'll pretend that all stopped and doesn't happen any more.

Data demonstrates that populations of people are still suffering from the effects of such 'past' discrimination. These ill effects include greater incidences of some illnesses, of some mental illnesses, illiteracy, joblessness, poverty, homelessness, crime victimization, just for starters.

Those are all problems we, as a society, still must deal with. Failing to deal with these issues creates a tremendous drag on our economy, for one thing. It hampers the ability of our schools to do their best for children not so burdened by legacies of poverty, and 'past' discrimination.

And none of this provides one speck of evidence that the past wrongs are currently causing harm. We don't have a time machine, we can't change the horrors of the past, we can only look to making a better future.

While I do not like affirmative action in the first place it was probably the best solution at the time--the path of the lesser evil. A lesser evil is still an evil, though, and should not be used any longer than necessary--and it looks like it's being used far past the point where the benefit is worth the harm. At this point it's perpetuating the problem, not solving it.

I don't see any 'innocents being harmed' except that persons of color and sometimes women are assumed to have earned their places in whatever school/job you care to mention because of affirmative action.

Women?!?! You realize we are discriminating against women so heavily that they are only 60% of college admissions?? And young, childless women with degrees fare better than corresponding men? Foot, meet bullet.

There are no benefits you say? I look around me and see a world that looks a lot different than the one I grew up in because now I see teachers and professors and doctors and lawyers and politicians and architects who are not the same white men I always saw and knew to expect in those jobs.

So do my kids. So do all the generations since I was a kid. Unless they do not realize that it is their own racism and lack of imagination that allows them to see that women and persons of color make fine astronauts, doctors, lawyers, judges, professors, business people, politicians, POTUS and Supreme Court Justices.

You're talking about the benefits of past affirmative action, not the result of current actions. Affirmative action worked. It did it's job, the job's done. Now we need to clean up the mess history left us with instead of trying to perpetuate past wrongs in reverse.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

That won’t be true until black lives do matter.

Who said they don’t?

Everyone who points out that all lives matter—while ensuring that white lives matter more.

You are basing this on a flawed premise. BLM is protesting a fairly small cause of black deaths based on some bad math.

Oh, bullshit. EVERYONE knows that police are not the biggest cause of the death of black people. But anyone who is willing to look at data can see that police kill too many people, period. Too many of those killed are not armed. Disproportionately, they are not white.

The number that are not armed is small--and it can be perfectly justified to shoot someone who is not armed. The standard example is when the person is trying to take your gun. BLM has a poor record of picking cases to champion.

Even if you hate black people, you should want police to do a better job avoiding killing people. A bunch of the people they kill are white. The SAME policy and procedures changes that prevent unarmed black people from being killed by police will do the same for white people. We ALL benefit.

We are ALL harmed when we cannot trust our safety or our communities to the protection of police. We are ALL harmed if police are not trained better to avoid shooting at anyone! ALL of us.

The data says the police killing fewer people translates to more dead people.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The only ones making Black life matter less are the anti-police / abolish police folks who gave us the spike in Black murder victims since the summer of Floyd. What, 3000-4000 excess deaths? Black Lives Murdered. Take a bow.

I find it hard to believe that you are serious - attributing excess deaths to the BLM during covid is breathtakingly ridiculous.

I don't know the numbers but he's right.

Cities with substantial BLM protests have seen a reduction in proactive actions by the police--and thus a surge in violence causing the black violent death rate to go up. The increase in criminals shooting criminals far exceeds the reduction in police shooting people.

So what you and Trausti are saying is that police are exacting revenge upon black people because they resent BLM? By not policing? Or by killing more black people? You are saying that police are not acting professionally?

In any case, the trend of police killing citizens has increased annually since before BLM became so prominent.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/police-shootings-database/?itid=lk_inline_manual_2

Once again, you fail to comprehend blasphemy.

We are not saying the increase in deaths are from the police. We are saying the increase in deaths are from a lack of policing.