White people are kinda assholes

[Tom Sawyer]

Moderation

 

[Bronzeage]

I can't believe this thread is still here.

Surely such a crass and offensive generalization of an entire race in a thread title would violate the forum's policies.

White people are big enough to take it. American white people, at least. We're tougher than the European variety.

 

[dismal]

I can't believe this thread is still here.

Surely such a crass and offensive generalization of an entire race in a thread title would violate the forum's policies.

White people are big enough to take it. American white people, at least. We're tougher than the European variety.

So based on this precedent we can feel free to start "Asian people are assholes", "Hispanic people are assholes", "Black people are assholes", "Pacific islander people are assholes", "Inuit people are assholes", etc threads?

Or can some of those people not take it?

 

[Emily Lake]

I did not see that they measured a starting point. Perhaps I missed it. Can you please provide me with a link and reference for that, or at least a quote describing how they measured that starting point?

I erred. But we do have the results. No conclusion based on sample data is 100% conclusive. But this data is suggestive that white people are kinda assholes.

It only suggests that if you already believe that to be true.

 

[Bronzeage]

White people are big enough to take it. American white people, at least. We're tougher than the European variety.

So based on this precedent we can feel free to start "Asian people are assholes", "Hispanic people are assholes", "Black people are assholes", "Pacific islander people are assholes", "Inuit people are assholes", etc threads?

Or can some of those people not take it?

Most white people can't take it.

 

[laughing dog]

I erred. But we do have the results. No conclusion based on sample data is 100% conclusive. But this data is suggestive that white people are kinda assholes.

It only suggests that if you already believe that to be true.

That may be your belief, but it is not a factually accurate claim.

 

[Emily Lake]

It only suggests that if you already believe that to be true.

That may be your belief, but it is not a factually accurate claim.

It's not factually accurate that the data in this study suggests that white people are kinda assholes either. I suppose that makes us even?

 

[laughing dog]

That may be your belief, but it is not a factually accurate claim.

It's not factually accurate that the data in this study suggests that white people are kinda assholes either.

Whether or not the data in the study suggests white people are kinda assholes depends on what one considers a "kinda asshole" and what one is willing to consider as suggestive evidence.

[
I suppose that makes us even?

I have no idea.

 

[dismal]

So based on this precedent we can feel free to start "Asian people are assholes", "Hispanic people are assholes", "Black people are assholes", "Pacific islander people are assholes", "Inuit people are assholes", etc threads?

Or can some of those people not take it?

Most white people can't take it.

Hmm, since you're the one that said White people can take it as the basis for it being OK, maybe you should sort that out and come back with clearer guidance.

 

[Bronzeage]

Most white people can't take it.

Hmm, since you're the one that said White people can take it as the basis for it being OK, maybe you should sort that out and come back with clearer guidance.

Man up and take advantage of your white privilege to get more of the good things in life. Who cares if someone thinks you're an asshole while you drive by with the windows up and the air conditioning on Max. You're less likely to get pulled over by a cop, because few cops are curious to see what kind of white man could afford a car like that. That can be a big advantage in life. Don't waste it.

 

[dismal]

Hmm, since you're the one that said White people can take it as the basis for it being OK, maybe you should sort that out and come back with clearer guidance.

Man up and take advantage of your white privilege to get more of the good things in life. Who cares if someone thinks you're an asshole while you drive by with the windows up and the air conditioning on Max. You're less likely to get pulled over by a cop, because few cops are curious to see what kind of white man could afford a car like that. That can be a big advantage in life. Don't waste it.

That's sort of irrelevant to the discussion we are having about why this forum allows blatantly racist comments in thread titles.

That really can't have much to do with me personally, so comments addressed at me personally seem out of place.

 

[Bronzeage]

Man up and take advantage of your white privilege to get more of the good things in life. Who cares if someone thinks you're an asshole while you drive by with the windows up and the air conditioning on Max. You're less likely to get pulled over by a cop, because few cops are curious to see what kind of white man could afford a car like that. That can be a big advantage in life. Don't waste it.

That's sort of irrelevant to the discussion we are having about why this forum allows blatantly racist comments in thread titles.

That really can't have much to do with me personally, so comments addressed at me personally seem out of place.

Bigotry against white people is common on this forum. I've brought the subject up myself, with very little effect. Since it doesn't affect the quality if my life, that's as much effort as I care to expend. I don't come here to make better people out of the crowd.

You wanted clearer guidance. If you don't have a car with air conditioning, it's obvious you are not using your white privilege to its full potential.

 

[The Paul]

I take it you can't meet my challenge, since you refuse to quote any of my 'many' things I've said that are wrong.

1) You can't be bothered to say what you mean

Yeah, you said this already, and it was as nonsensical as the first time you said it. Actually, it's worse than the first time you said it. The first time you said it, you might really have believed it, as nonsensical as it was. But you can't possibly believe it now, given that I'm not known for mincing words.

2) You're incapable of remembering what you've said and what it was in response to.

Though to be entirely accurate, I can't be sure about the second one. Since you think it's terribly fucking clever to say something then ridicule me for thinking you actually meant it, it could be that you're merely pretending to be incapable of communicating via a typical internet forum because you think convincing me of that is some kind of victory.

I no longer have any notion of what it is you're accusing me of. I never say something I don't mean, unless it's dripping with irony.

Crack open an experimental design in the behavioural sciences textbook. I've been there and done that.

You have indicated through your misuse of concepts that you don't understand experimental design yet you're also convinced there is no other explanation for the results of the OP. ...

Well, you've succeeded in convincing me that you really, honestly, are having trouble remembers what you said and what it was in response to, so I'll play with quotes a bit for you.

First, you made this post:

The research shows racist attitudes among the white participants.

Except it does not show that, for all the reasons people have already explicated. The experimenters' manipulations had an effect on endorsed harshness of justice measures. You have to take a number of leaps (and ignore realities of the experimenter manipulations) to go from that to 'White people are racist'.

In this post you accuse me of making a number of leaps in order to get to the conclusion "White people are racist." Only, if you look back one step, I never said "White people are racist" what I said was, (and you had just quoted it) "The research shows racist attitudes among the white participants." I think it's pretty fair that I wasn't willing to take your criticism seriously, given it was for something I didn't actually say. Hence this post:

Except it does not show that,

I'd be more likely to give that kind of statement serious consideration if it were coming from someone who's able to tell the difference between the statements "The research shows racist attitudes among the white participants" and "white people are racist."

And that brings us to the reason I'm having trouble taking you seriously in general:

I'd be more likely to give that kind of statement serious consideration if it were coming from someone who's able to tell the difference between the statements "The research shows racist attitudes among the white participants" and "white people are racist."

You know, I almost edited my post before I saw your response. I thought "The Paul might object to something as ludicrous as me paraphrasing 'White people have racist attitudes' to 'White people are racist'."

But then I thought 'no, that's petty and absurd, no-one's going to dismiss my entire post because of a paraphrase'.

Well, obviously, I understimated your willingness to cling to ridiculous minutiae and then make the most breathtakingly blatant ad hominemto weasel out of actually addressing any substantive points I made.

I'm sorry I expected more from you. That showed a misplaced faith and generosity of spirit on my part. I erred in too generously judging your personal and intellectual character.

But just so you'll have at least a little cognitive dissonance (if you haven't been able to completely shut that off):

The experiment does not show that the White participants had a racist attitude.

The outcome of the experiment is compatible with that hypothesis, but it is also equally compatible with a number of other hypotheses, and the experiment as it stands is not robust enough to favour one hypothesis over another.

See, here you talk about how you realized describing my claims as "White people are racists" was wrong, but you simply couldn't be bothered to fix it. You say it wasn't really your understanding of my post, and that you realized it was an inaccurate description of your understanding of my post, but you went ahead and said it exactly like that anyway. You also devoted a lot of energy to seeming very upset at the notion that I had taken your words at face value, but whether or not that emotion was genuine, it really is a problem.

There's a lot of things wrong here, but let's focus on the one we agree on: You can't be bothered to say what you mean.

That's pretty insurmountable, really.

...and let's be serious. It is insurmountable. You described to me how you knew what you said wasn't what you meant, but you couldn't be bothered to say what you did mean instead. Regardless of how offended you might be that I've got such weak telepathy, how the fuck am I supposed to take your descriptions of this experiment, it's results, and it's methods seriously if I don't even know if you're bothering to line your sentences up with what you think?

So anyway, you quoted this sentence...

There's a lot of things wrong here, but let's focus on the one we agree on: You can't be bothered to say what you mean.

...like so...

There's a lot of things wrong here

Name one. Name a single thing I've said that you think is wrong, and explain your reason for finding it wrong.

You can't and you won't, because all you have are desperate drive-bye one liners in a sad attempt to assassinate my character.

but let's focus on the one we agree on: You can't be bothered to say what you mean.

That's pretty insurmountable, really.

But I've said exactly what I mean. Not only have I said it, I've explained the reasons for why I think what I think.

But if you are accusing me of failing to rush to a conclusion when the evidence does not justify it: guilty!

...so... do you think you're performing for someone and you're trying to deliberately misrepresent what I said for their benefit by responding to fragments of sentences? Are you so eager to find and respond to "gotchas" that you aren't actually reading whole sentences and so can't respond meaningfully to them? I don't know what's going on here.

I asked you to go back and re-read what you had quoted...

Name one

Check directly under the sentence you quoted.

(to be fair I didn't remember it exactly right either, what I should have said was "check directly to the right of the sentence-fragment you quoted")

...and you just seemed like you'd lost all track of what you'd been talking about and what I was responding to:

Check directly under the sentence you quoted.

I quote a lot of sentences in my posts. Which sentence are you talking about?

So as fun as that was, I hope it illustrates why I can't take you seriously on this.

 

[Metaphor]

See, here you talk about how you realized describing my claims as "White people are racists" was wrong,

Except I didn't 'admit it was wrong'. What I admitted was that I was aware it was a paraphrase (and not a verbatim quote). I do not think the paraphrase misrepresents anything you said, any more than saying 'He is a murderer' misrepresents the statement 'He was convicted of murder'.

I also 'admitted' that I was aware that there was a possibility that someone would seize hold of the fact that I used a paraphrase, out of desperation, in an attempt to dismiss my substantive points. And I also told you that I didn't go back and change the paraphrase to a verbatim quote, because I thought you would not be that petty.

but you simply couldn't be bothered to fix it. You say it wasn't really your understanding of my post, and that you realized it was an inaccurate description of your understanding of my post,

No, I never said I realised anything of the sort. I said I knew it was a paraphrase and that out of desperation you might claim the paraphrase misrepresents your position, but that I thought you would not be that petty. I was wrong about your pettiness.

but you went ahead and said it exactly like that anyway. You also devoted a lot of energy to seeming very upset at the notion that I had taken your words at face value, but whether or not that emotion was genuine, it really is a problem.

I'm upset, mostly at myself, for having given you too much credit.

...and let's be serious. It is insurmountable. You described to me how you knew what you said wasn't what you meant,

I never described to you any such thing. I did not, and do not, think paraphrasing someone means that the paraphrase misrepresents the verbatim quote. I did not say that, it cannot reasonably be implied from what I have said, and I don't believe it.

but you couldn't be bothered to say what you did mean instead. Regardless of how offended you might be that I've got such weak telepathy, how the fuck am I supposed to take your descriptions of this experiment, it's results, and it's methods seriously if I don't even know if you're bothering to line your sentences up with what you think?

"Its"

I did line up my sentence with what I think. My error was to overestimate your willingness to cling to irrelevant minutiae.

...so... do you think you're performing for someone and you're trying to deliberately misrepresent what I said for their benefit by responding to fragments of sentences? Are you so eager to find and respond to "gotchas" that you aren't actually reading whole sentences and so can't respond meaningfully to them? I don't know what's going on here.

No, I'm not 'performing' for someone and I've got no desire to misrepresent (deliberately or otherwise) anything you've said.

Indeed, it's you that's misrepresented what I've said. I said that I thought you might seize on a paraphrase to ignore my substantive points. I never said that I thought the paraphrase misrepresented you, nor that it would be reasonable of you to seize on the paraphrase as a desperate rhetorical crutch. Yet not only did you do exactly what I predicted might happen and seize on the paraphrase, you compounded your sin by then claiming I knew the paraphrase misrepresented your position and I went ahead and wrote it anyway.

That shows you're either totally confused or outright lying.

So as fun as that was, I hope it illustrates why I can't take you seriously on this.

It illustrates that your beliefs, even if wrong, are impervious to outside criticism.

 

[Metaphor]

Oh -- and by the way The Paul -- not a single person has attempted to rebut my assertions about the design of the experiment, and the limitations that must be placed on the experimenters' conclusions.

Do you know why? I'll give you a hint: I know what I'm talking about when it comes to experimental design in the behavioural sciences.

 

[The Paul]

Except I didn't 'admit it was wrong'. What I admitted was that I was aware it was a paraphrase (and not a verbatim quote). I do not think the paraphrase misrepresents anything you said, any more than saying 'He is a murderer' misrepresents the statement 'He was convicted of murder'.

I also 'admitted' that I was aware that there was a possibility that someone would seize hold of the fact that I used a paraphrase, out of desperation, in an attempt to dismiss my substantive points. And I also told you that I didn't go back and change the paraphrase to a verbatim quote, because I thought you would not be that petty.

but you simply couldn't be bothered to fix it. You say it wasn't really your understanding of my post, and that you realized it was an inaccurate description of your understanding of my post,

No, I never said I realised anything of the sort. I said I knew it was a paraphrase and that out of desperation you might claim the paraphrase misrepresents your position, but that I thought you would not be that petty. I was wrong about your pettiness.

but you went ahead and said it exactly like that anyway. You also devoted a lot of energy to seeming very upset at the notion that I had taken your words at face value, but whether or not that emotion was genuine, it really is a problem.

I'm upset, mostly at myself, for having given you too much credit.

...and let's be serious. It is insurmountable. You described to me how you knew what you said wasn't what you meant,

I never described to you any such thing. I did not, and do not, think paraphrasing someone means that the paraphrase misrepresents the verbatim quote. I did not say that, it cannot reasonably be implied from what I have said, and I don't believe it.

but you couldn't be bothered to say what you did mean instead. Regardless of how offended you might be that I've got such weak telepathy, how the fuck am I supposed to take your descriptions of this experiment, it's results, and it's methods seriously if I don't even know if you're bothering to line your sentences up with what you think?

"Its"

I did line up my sentence with what I think. My error was to overestimate your willingness to cling to irrelevant minutiae.

...so... do you think you're performing for someone and you're trying to deliberately misrepresent what I said for their benefit by responding to fragments of sentences? Are you so eager to find and respond to "gotchas" that you aren't actually reading whole sentences and so can't respond meaningfully to them? I don't know what's going on here.

No, I'm not 'performing' for someone and I've got no desire to misrepresent (deliberately or otherwise) anything you've said.

Indeed, it's you that's misrepresented what I've said. I said that I thought you might seize on a paraphrase to ignore my substantive points. I never said that I thought the paraphrase misrepresented you, nor that it would be reasonable of you to seize on the paraphrase as a desperate rhetorical crutch. Yet not only did you do exactly what I predicted might happen and seize on the paraphrase, you compounded your sin by then claiming I knew the paraphrase misrepresented your position and I went ahead and wrote it anyway.

That shows you're either totally confused or outright lying.

So as fun as that was, I hope it illustrates why I can't take you seriously on this.

It illustrates that your beliefs, even if wrong, are impervious to outside criticism.

Okay, so you've shifted you position back to not being able to tell the difference between the statements "The results show racist attitudes among the white participants" and "white people are racists."

EDIT: Sorry, I don't want you to think I don't appreciate your efforts at playing word games here.

You think "White people are racists" is an accurate paraphrase of "The results show racist attitudes among the white participants."

That little bit of terminology aside, I really would be far more concerned with your criticism of the study's claims if you were aware of what the claims were.

 

[Metaphor]

Okay, so you've shifted you position back to not being able to tell the difference between the statements "The results show racist attitudes among the white participants" and "white people are racists."

No: I haven't 'shifted' my position 'back' to anything. My 'position' has not changed.

You think "White people are racists" is an accurate paraphrase of "The results show racist attitudes among the white participants."

Yes, in this context, it was an accurate paraphrase. Sometimes, paraphrases are not an accurate representation of a speaker's position. Sometimes, verbatim quotes are not an accurate representation of a speaker's position (like when a speaker is being ironic, and the context of the irony is removed by quoting her). Context is everything.

Where the paraphrase in contention could have been misleading is if we were talking about racism as an essentialist phenomena, or we were talking about racist behaviour as a temporary versus permanent feature, or we were talking about whether racism was a defining feature of a person, or there was dispute over whether it was sensible to generalise from the White participants in the experiment to White people in the population.

We weren't talking about any of those things. We were talking about whether the experimenters' manipulations proved that the White participants had a racist attitude. Since they do not, so much the less could they prove the (in some respects) stronger claim that 'White people are racists'.

My paraphrase does not misrepresent the experimenters' conclusions in context, nor does the difference between "White people are racist" and "White people in the experiment displayed racist attitudes" have any purchase whatever on the validity of my criticisms.

That little bit of terminology aside, I really would be far more concerned with your criticism of the study's claims if you were aware of what the claims were.

My criticisms hold whether you think the distinction between 'White people are racist' and 'the White participants displayed a racist attitude' is substantive or not.

 

[The Paul]

My paraphrase does not misrepresent the experimenters' conclusions in context, nor does the difference between "White people are racist" and "White people in the experiment displayed racist attitudes" have any purchase whatever on the validity of my criticisms.

Right, but you've told me you're not performing for anyone else's benefit, so I guess I'm the one you're trying to impress.

Whether or not you're able to display a basic grasp of the position you're attacking has a great deal of purchase on whether or not I'm willing to discuss your objections in greater detail.

Even creationists can post terribly detailed and superficially scientific criticisms of papers meant to show some detail of evolution. What they can't do is display a basic grasp of the claims they're responding to. I'm disinclined to be impressed with the first capability in the absence of the second.

 

[Metaphor]

Right, but you've told me you're not performing for anyone else's benefit, so I guess I'm the one you're trying to impress.

Why would you characterise my responding to you as a performance? Two things spring to my mind to explain your language. Either you imagine I'm insincere in my beliefs that the experimenters' conclusions are only one of several hypotheses compatible with the data, and that for reasons as yet unexplained, I want others to believe that that is what I believe.

Or perhaps you merely wanted to poison the well of discourse by invoking an allusion to circuses or theatres, as if I were on stage, uttering fictions in a fictive reality, and that I can momentarily sweep up the audience in the illusory world that I've created.

But, why would you believe that I'm trying to impress you? Are you so embroiled in your own combative thinking and one-upmanship that you think that is my only motivation? Is it impossible that I've engaged with you because perhaps there's something I've overlooked, some mistake in my reasoning, some error of empirical fact I've made, and that someone on the 'other side' will often be the most well equipped to point that out to me?

Whenever I've made mistakes of fact or I've made errors in logical reasoning, it benefits me to have those pointed out.

Even creationists can post terribly detailed and superficially scientific criticisms of papers meant to show some detail of evolution. What they can't do is display a basic grasp of the claims they're responding to. I'm disinclined to be impressed with the first capability in the absence of the second.

Even if it were true (and it's not) that I had misunderstood what the experimenters were claiming, that cannot silence my criticisms, because the criticisms apply to any singular conclusion the experimenters could have made. A number of conclusions apart from the ones made by the experimenters is compatible with the results of the experiment.

But you're not even claiming I'm wrong, you're claiming you've got no reason to 'trust' me, because you think my paraphrase of the conclusion shows I've misunderstood something as simple as what the experimenters are claiming. And yet I've already described more than once why my paraphrase does not show that I misunderstood what the experimenters are claiming. And I've already described more than once why, even if I had misunderstood what the experimenters were claiming, my criticisms still stand.

I believe you know that my claim (that the outcomes of the experiment are compatible with a number of different conclusions, and therefore the outcomes do not prove any singular conclusion) is right. I'm not a mind reader, though. Perhaps you sincerely believe that my paraphrase shows I'm not to be trusted, and you do not have sufficient expertise in experimental design to judge for yourself whether I'm right about the latter. In that case, there's nothing else I can say to you.

 

[Tammuz]

Do the comments in this thread indicate that, in the hypothetical case of me immigrating to the US (and currently I have no intention of doing so), I would be a sort of immigrant not wanted by the politically correct posters in this thread, due to being white?