Reply With Quote
Try to keep up instead of the waging the tired ass bad faith argument time and again.
you're Native American, but piss down on black folks? is that about the size of it?
Try to keep up instead of the waging the tired ass bad faith argument time and again.
even the devil quotes scripture for his purpose.
you might not be, but how am I supposed to tell the difference? you're just some asshole on a comment board.
and cheers to that
all the stories qua stories are unreliable. the facts are few, and the stories ruin them.
So you think it's a biological fact that we discriminate against what? You are starting to sound like what the Nazis read into Darwin vs. what we now know. Explain your biological facts please. Are you saying there are genetically induced behaviors that.... (please finish) I would really like to read this as you are getting into extremely heavy water from any biological point of view that involves science. (there is some interesting stuff on group behavior and degree of relatedness)
And of course we have a right to discriminate. But when that right leads to behavior that squashes another's rights then what?
Last edited by pgardn; 11-23-2016 at 11:20 AM.
Wow.
Let us proceed with your biology.
Go.
"Overt displays of discrimination are noteworthy, but the every day, lingering racism, sexism, age discrimination and even things like hair color and eye color.. all things we find attractive or unattractive."
I'd also include less controversial things like social status, disability, employment (Fizzy routinely castigates WC for being a parts changer), body type (look at all the discrimination going on on this forum any time someone posts a pic of a half naked female "would not hit, pointy elbows"), what car you drive, what clothes you wear, home owner or not, height... just about anything that would cause you to favor one person over another even if you don't realize it. Even religion (especially religion) can cause discrimination.
I never said they were genetically induced.
The Hitler card so early?
Give me an example.And of course we have a right to discriminate. But when that right leads to behavior that squashes another's rights then what?
Defend your bad faith argument, leads to progress.
So they are socially acquired. That is something environmentally induced and can definitely change.
Overt displays of discrimination are noteworthy, but the every day, lingering racism, sexism, age discrimination and even things like hair color and eye color.. all things we find attractive or unattractive."
So from your pasted above. So what? And agree. What expectations does this give you about the way we behave towards each other? Where are we going with something that is rather obvious? We constantly make decisions on how to behave towards all sorts of discriminating qualities. Does this mean it's understandable we should act out in some manner?
You look at a black person, let's say as a teacher, and automatically make the assumption he can't understand math. You move him to a remedial course. And this is a very benign example. Yes, I think education in this country is a fundamental right that aides the entire population.
That's not a realistic example. You'd never move someone to a remedial course through prejudice (not racism). A racist would not want to help the black person. Prejudice would be the device that would lead the teacher to conclude black = cannot read, and the solution of remedial reading would be a corrective, not punitive one.
Do you have a realistic example? Does the teacher have a right to conclude black people cannot read?
Your question presupposes that a right to discriminate has crossed the boundaries of another's rights against discrimination.
You asked too many questions. Can you whittle down to just a couple so we don't end up with War and Peace?
1. I don't have any expectations outside of what we are currently and have always done. Our actions change but not our tendency to deploy rapid analysis to groups for sake of expediency.
2. I was addressing the "biological" comment.
3. The qualities change but the discrimination does not.
4. Act out? We chose between things. What leads us to pick one over another is discrimination. Social pressure to use or not use specific characteristics when deciding don't change the fact that we still use them. We just then must weight the pressures of society against the benefits of acting out on our biases. How will it affect me negatively if I refuse to live next to a black person, or if I won't date an Hispanic, or if I refuse to eat in a restaurant where a gay couple are eating?
No this is not how it works.
You put the kid in a remedial course as it is a storehouse for kids who have trouble learning. The decision is made before the teacher knows based on skin color.
Thats my fault. I should have made this clear. This is not helping a kid who needs to move on and is capable. He is losing a whole year of math. This automatic assumption is clearly punitive from an educational point of view.
Its the same basic question.
How will affect you personally? Well, if you try to segregate yourself from all your unfounded reservations you might miss some great opportunities to educate yourself. To actually learn about people you see as unworthy. This does not mean you must marry a Chinaman.
And the whole "how does it affect me" is in itself part of the problem. Does this go back to the idea of basic genetic selfishness? Which the right loves to move to extremes. And the left acts as if they need to save every individual from himself.
Last edited by pgardn; 11-23-2016 at 12:46 PM.
So was it the teacher's decision or the school system?
It was a rhetorical question. I'd have to weigh those decisions if I held that bias (neighbors on both sides are black btw). No one would know that's why I made those choices except me, and it's quite possible I wouldn't be aware of it either. That is a form of discrimination that cannot be legislated out of us.
How it affects "me" is always at the root of the decision. Even if you think you're using more of a group view, you're still doing it because you think it makes you better. There are no truly unselfish decisions. Some are more egregious than others.
So a parent jumping the water facing certain death to save a child is still selfish? This is just not true and has been debated by philosophers and evolutionary scientists for a while. If you mean selfish as the decision must come from inside one's brain I agree. If you mean selfish as will benefit one immediately or in the long term... up for debate. IMO you have a highly deterministic view of human nature and how brains work.
What does altruism mean? You don't think this exists?
As an aside: I like these discussions because they help me personally understand others views. Which could be defined as selfish. The definition of words becomes very critical at some point. And I admit I am not a wordsmith. And I am not a philosopher, much more of a science oriented mind.
Last edited by pgardn; 11-23-2016 at 01:33 PM.
Here you are changing my words to "selfish".
Why does the parent want to save the child? Whatever the reason, the action is to appease the need in the parent, not the need in the child. It will always benefit one immediately as it quells the "urge". That's always the case. The parent who kills the child and herself is considering only her wants but perhaps feels its also best for the child. If the parent knows the child wants to live but kills it anyhow, that's total disregard for the other person. At that point what soothes the urge of the parent is the death of the child, perhaps the suffering as well if there's hate involved. Some acts take into account the mutual benefit, some have longer term benefits for the recipient than for the actor however all acts are to appease the actor. I realize this gets into some sloppy psychology but too often folks discuss group think, and that simply doesn't exist outside of the artificial construct of convenient thinking.
Could a person alone on an island be altruistic? Would they instantly become selfish?
Words are important because we cannot understand thoughts and we also need the ability to build a pen in which to trap the other individual so we can drill down on a thought process. If we allow so many semantic escape routes everything becomes a cat and mouse game. This diminishes as people grow to know each other and these things are no longer important.
IMO immediate action does not involve appeasement. It involves a complex group of neuronal signals eliciting a decision. There is no appeasement. You are saying because a decision is made it has to be some sort of want or urge but then extended this to very complex situations. I don't see that we are getting anywhere in understanding each other's points.
This will eventually lead to some discussion of free will. There are plenty of totally involuntary decisions we make through the brain or just the brain stem that illicit urges that lead to actions that have nothing to do with complex decision making. If I am not mistaken, this subject is on a more complex level. This is not the hammer on the knee response that doctors test that never even involves the cortex until well after a very quick decision has been made in the spinal chord.
Every decision comes from within our brains, but I don't see this as meaning the action must be what you describe as biased or discriminating. I still believe that bias based on misconceptions can be dangerous. And that they can be changed with experience, which does have a tremendous impact on how our brains reason. On the simplest level, poking eardrums out at birth totally changes the part of the brain that is normally used for hearing in humans and other animals. The brain rewires and some of it even dies.
Am I completely missing your point?
There's either a decision or there isn't. If it's a reaction only then there's no decision process (like blinking). Where there's a decision there's appeasement.
Would the same person drown to save a cat or a mouse, or even a bug? If not, there is a decision. That person feels strongly enough about the life of that child that the only appeasement available at that time, as far as the actor realizes, is to risk death or even accept it as a way of quelling the urge. The actor won't be around to see the child he saved, he'll be dead. The decision is made in an instant, and the urge to save the child overcame the urge to survive. That could have changed as soon as the actor hit the water, however.There is no appeasement. You are saying because a decision is made it has to be some sort of want or urge but then extended this to very complex situations. I don't see that we are getting anywhere in understanding each other's points.
This is correct, however given all chemistry and conditions can be controlled to the nth degree, the outcome would be the same every time. So in effect it's the same thing but for the sake of discussion we can consider that complex decisions that weigh the repercussions of actions even for an instance are different than involuntary responses. The actor still uses the most desirable outcome given the limited possibilities as they are currently understood as a measuring stick.This will eventually lead to some discussion of free will. There are plenty of totally involuntary decisions we make through the brain or just the brain stem that illicit urges that lead to actions that have nothing to do with complex decision making. If I am not mistaken, this subject is on a more complex level. This is not the hammer on the knee response that doctors test that never even involves the cortex until well after a very quick decision has been made in the spinal chord.
It is biased and discriminating. Without the two we could never make a decision.Every decision comes from within our brains, but I don't see this as meaning the action must be what you describe as biased or discriminating. I still believe that bias based on misconceptions can be dangerous. And that they can be changed with experience, which does have a tremendous impact on how our brains reason. On the simplest level, poking eardrums out at birth totally changes the part of the brain that is normally used for hearing in humans and other animals. The brain rewires and some of it even dies.
Am I completely missing your point?
The effects of bias and discrimination are another issue. We can agree they have undesirable consequences in some instances, however the point is that bias and discrimination is a biological aspect and not controlled by social pressure. All we can control is what we do about it, not how we feel about it. The fact that blacks and white still, by and large, are segregated in society at least lends some credence to the notion that birds of feather flock together, even if they purport to think it's not socially beneficial.
Last edited by DMC; 11-23-2016 at 05:58 PM.
it matters little that human experience goes one by one, statistical variation is real: outcomes are race segregated.
Existentially and philosophically, there is no collective grievance, but this is banal and assholish. Society ain't fair.
Gonna get back to this.
No time.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
