Re: icymi above
 

Will respond to the rest later, but I think what you're saying is, if I don't think I have the right to decide what sorts of skepticism and defenses may be raised and what ones shall be taboo, then it's stupid.

Guess what? I don't think I have that right. I'm not saying anything is taboo. I've been discussing your ideas with you, which is the exact opposite!

Ergo, your idea is stupid.

Re: icymi above
 

I have no problem with that study and don't see how it challenges anything I've said. Why don't you quote what I said that you think the existence of that study falsifies.

eta: I never said questions like ones in that study can't be assessed. I said that a disadvantaged group's "responsibility" for its own disadvantages cannot be "assessed" with "science." Do you not see the difference?

Re: icymi above
 

I thought I knew what sebby was talking about, but then it turns out I didn't, so I have to pretend something if I want to have a position on it.

Re: icymi above
 

See Section 8 of the study.

Section 7 is also somewhat related.

Re: icymi above
 

You can reply to my post, but you can't respond to my post, apparently.

Why don't you quote what I said that you think the existence of Sections 7 & 8* of that study falsify.

*I believe you mean the discussion under the headings, Myth 7 and Myth 8.

Re: icymi above
 

How the fuck can you determine how a group contributes to their own situation? You keep saying things like "factual" and "scientific," but you never address the underlying ridiculous premise that racial groups voluntarily act in concert somehow and don't just react to their treatment as a group.

A large number of black people do not fail to learn how to swim because black people have decided they don't really want to swim. They have been (and continue to be) forced to live in areas where there is no access to water, they were historically excluded from public pools, they don't have a foundation of people who are capable of teaching them to swim because their parents, friends, etc. never learned (for the reasons stated above). You want to argue that we need to assess some kind of blame percentage to blacks as a group because a disproportionate number of us (compared to whites, similarly situated minorities, everyone else?) do not know how to swim and are not going out and getting swimming lessons? Can you see why this shit is so stupid?

TM

Re: icymi above
 

At this point, there is no explanation for how you characterize this as anything but intentionally and stubbornly ridiculous.

The left is saying, "Stop treating these groups differently than you treat white, heterosexual males."

The right is saying, "Blame groups for a whole lot of shit, including the circumstances they're in."

You are saying, "Yeah, let's see how much they are at fault for their own circumstances."

TM

Re: icymi above
 

Dude, there is a serious disconnect occurring in your brain.

If you want to argue that an individual who has experienced something negative can be studied and held responsible for subsequent actions they've engaged in that are not the best decisions, go for it. I'm not sure how you could possibly reconcile how you assign a percentage blame on actions that sprung from that negative experience, but knock yourself out.

But you absolutely cannot apply this approach to a group , because if a group of people acts in a way that is different than another group of people it is necessarily because of outside influences on that group of people. Races do not get together and decide to act a certain way. The only thing races share is a common treatment. Period. There is no getting around that conclusion.

TM

Re: icymi above
 

??

Any argument can be made. This one gets dismissed pretrial with prejudice.

Please make that argument for me. How the fuck can a group's disadvantages be partly the group's fault if they were oppressed? I think you'll need an example, but maybe not. So far, all I've heard from you is that this is a thing. You have yet to explain how the hell it's possible.

You just did it like a sentence ago.

No. He's pinning you down by (i) stating that this argument can't actually be made in any logical way (and I have been arguing that as well) and (ii) asking you what the point of the argument is. The only people who want to make such an argument are looking to say, "This minority group is partly to blame for their own circumstances because as a group they ________."

No I don't because that rebuttal is fucking ridiculous. It's like saying, "If you say that the sky is blue, you invite a rebuttal that it is not."

Bullshit. Based on what you have posted, I think it is quite clear that you believe minority groups need to own a certain percentage of the blame for their circumstances.

You are conflating a response to a ridiculous rebuttal that says the rebuttal is complete bullshit and steeped in racism with soft censorship. It is a ridiculous position to take. Every time an argument is proven to be stupid and/or racist is not an example of "soft censorship," whatever the fuck that means.

TM

Re: icymi above
 

Klein suggested it should not be made at all, but could not explain why, as he had no argument around Harris's assertion that it was a logical inquiry.

I don't think the group's disadvantages are the group's fault. As I've said, I think the group concept does not work. But if one is going to have these debates by defining people by group, as Klein and Harris did, how else can I respond?

The truth is, each person is individually responsible for his own actions. Each should be assessed exclusively as an individual.

Here's a personal example. My grandfather was an immigrant from Eastern Europe. Came over with nothing. Started working in menial labor as did everyone else on the boat. But then he said "This shit's a train to nowhere." He took a chance and started a business. Life got better. Compare him to the other people who remained in menial labor (and this can be done, as he remained in his neighborhood for most of his life). The people who faced the same choice he did and decided to stick with the menial labor enjoyed a life a few degrees below the life he did. (Many died young, abused by oppressive corporate bosses at a time when there were few labor protections.) Some others took the same chance and failed. Still some others took the same chance and succeeded far beyond him. Are these people not partly responsible for the differentials between their success or lack thereof? Stated otherwise, because they were significantly disadvantaged at the start, do their personal decisions somehow not matter?

I have another grandfather who was an Ivy League fuckup. Blew a pile of opportunities. He owns 100% of his failures. But let's say he'd been oppressed, rather than advantaged. Would he then have no responsibility for his situation?

Each person always owns some % of responsibility for his life's circumstance. That's not a point up for debate. It's impossible for a contrary situation to exist. There can never be a scenario where it can be said, "[Name] bore absolutely no responsibility for his fortune or lack thereof." The percentages can vary wildly based on individual and outside forces acting upon that individual. And there can be discrete instances over a lifetime in which a person bears no responsibility. But there can never be a scenario where it can be said that a person has 0% responsibility.

That a bunch of people want to abuse a logical argument doesn't render it invalid. For the 50th time, I do not think the group construct works. But if we use the correct construct, the individual, the argument is this:

"Is an oppressed person 0% responsible for his life's circumstance?" No. That's flatly absurd. Every individual owns some percentage of responsibility for where he's at.

I do not think the assertion that an individual owns some percentage of responsibility for his circumstances on par with arguing the sky is not blue. And I think I'm on fairly solid footing there.

No. I do not. I do not think any "group" owns a certain % of responsibility (blame is a different concept) for its circumstances. I think every individual person owns a percentage of responsibility for his circumstances. And this applies to the positive as well as the negative. The most wildly successful person owes a certain percentage of his success to luck and, if he had certain advantages, those advantages.

This is a big part of why looking at people as groups first, individuals second, is dumb. But that's what Klein and Harris did, and a lot of fans of identity politics do. I'm not fighting the hypo.

The argument wasn't proven to be bullshit. I provided Ty with a study from Duke, based on data, doing the assessment he claimed could not be done. (I think it's flawed because, again, it's using groups where the only valid measure is individuals.) I could offer many more similar studies, I'm sure.

But Klein suggested we not even engage in that kind of study. That's foreclosing inquiry. That's not a "marketplace of ideas," as Ty put it, but the preclusion of certain ideas. Klein is not a judge, nor is Ty. They don't get to decide what gets dismissed with prejudice on a 12(b)(6) based on their sensibilities.

TM[/QUOTE]

Re: icymi above
 

The last line is incorrect. I am saying, "One cannot argue that any individual, anywhere, bears 0% responsibility for his circumstances."

Ty will cite in response scenarios in which someone is murdered, hit by a car, etc. So yes, there are come discrete instances in which a person has 0% responsibility. But barring extreme events like that, every person owns a percentage of responsibility for where he finds himself.

To argue otherwise effectively creates a man free of obligation of any kind -- not at all responsible for any of his acts.

Re: icymi above
 

I don't know how many times I have to say this, but I guess I'll just keep doing so. It is not a logical inquiry. It is not an exercise one can perform. I don't give a shit about Klein. I have given you reason after reason after reason.

Your argument has shifted so often that I don't know what the fuck you're saying. You say things like this:

"This takes right back to Murray and Harris and Klein. To talk effect is to examine inequality between races, which involves an analysis of causes. That analysis includes an examination of how much responsibility a disadvantaged group has for its circumstances versus how much was inflicted by outside forces beyond its control.

I agree with the approach, but this is the third rail conversations of all third rail conversations, apparently."

And you've said this often. You talk about logical inquiry into a group's responsibility for their circumstances. Then you turn around the next minute and talk about how this can't be done for groups. You are making no sense. The argument you have seized on and keep making (and denying you're making) is ridiculous. But you can't drop it no matter how stupid it is.

Defining people by group? I haven't read the Klein and Harris piece, but what are you talking about? Blacks, as a group are at a disadvantage because of racism and oppression. If they weren't, they would never be defined as a group when it comes to achievement or treatment or whatever because they'd be treated like everyone else. I don't think even you understand what you're saying anymore.

This is the dumbest fucking analogy to support an argument I've seen in quite some time.

Either we discuss the impact of the disadvantages an individual faces in the context of the treatment that person endured as a part of a group or we don't. Discussing what an individual does outside of that context is fucking pointless because it has nothing to do with whatever impact on that class of people the negative treatment has had.

Brilliant. No one is debating that.

Again, you are arguing a point that no one is making anywhere.

The whole point of the conversation is that if one group suffers a difference in circumstances than another after disparate treatment, whatever evidence you think you're analyzing about why part of it is their fault is really evidence of how they are treated differently. I don't know why you keep bringing up individuals in the context of this conversation to make your point. It makes absolutely no sense.

It's not a logical argument. That's the whole fucking point. You can't shift the conversation into something that no one was discussing and call it logical. It is illogical to try to figure out a percentage of blame that you can assign to a group that has suffered oppression for their current circumstances. Period. End of story.

Holy shit. NO ONE is saying that or has said it. We can take a look at any individual's life and understand that any specific choice they make is a bad one or a good one. Of course. We can gauge to what extent that person's choices are limited or influenced by racism and oppression. We can step back and say, "Okay. We see you don't have the same opportunity that others do, but you could have started a business like this other guy in a similar situation." But what the fuck does that do? And how do we measure a percentage of blame for each individual and then aggregate it for a group. And even if that were possible, what is the point other than to point to the group and say, "See? It's __% your fault."

You are shifting the argument away from the one being had into one that no one but you is having. So your footing is definitely not solid.

This response is confusing. Are you saying groups are to blame for a certain percentage of their circumstances?

Your inability to understand the point of what you have deemed to be "identity politics" is sickening. Black people don't engage in identity politics because it's fun. They do it because they are in a class of people that is treated worse than other people. They are asking to be treated in the same way as white people. "Fans of identity politics." What a stupid fucking way to look at it.

Yes. It absolutely was. You just can't see it.

Sure. I'm sure it did what you said it did.

Again, didn't read it, but based on what everyone else has said here, that's not what Klein said at all. In any case, whatever.

TM

Re: icymi above
 

Why? Why are you saying this when no one has said anything like what you put into quotes?

Since you've decided to shift this argument into a realm that no one but you is talking about, I'll avoid responding to this.

TM

Re: icymi above
 

You need to find a disadvantaged group that Sebby truly relates to for this to work. I'd suggest trying to think of an example using wealthy white conservatives trying to get by at Ivy League schools.

Re: icymi above
 

would it help to summarize what Harris and/or Klein said or suggested be done? they suggested some study of a disadvantaged group, and what, successes within that group despite the disadvantages, and how that can then be applied to rate "blame for individuals?" No one seems to understand the point you are trying to make, but maybe there was a concrete example that started you down this road?

Re: icymi above
 

No he didn't. Here's the transcript.

If you're going to argue with a straw man, find one that didn't put up a transcript.

Re: icymi above
 

False.

And I have to say that if you couldn't read and understand my succinct responses to you, I have a hard time believing that you read and understood much of that study.

False.

You've got the transcript. Prove me wrong. Show me where Klein suggests that.

Re: icymi above
 

I think Sebby listened to a podcast of the debate between Harris and Klein and was irritated by Klein, and is now arguing against a Klein bogeyman of his own irritated imagination.

Re: icymi above
 

I tried. Can't do it.

TM

Re: icymi above
 

Rest assured that in repeatedly ascribing to Klein and to me things we didn't say, Sebby is following in Harris's shoes. Here is an exchange from early in the transcript:

Sam Harris
... So, I felt a moral obligation to have [Murray] on my podcast. In the process of defending him against the charge of racism and in order to show that he had been mistreated for decades, we had to talk about the science of IQ and the way genes and environment almost certainly contribute to it. Again, IQ is not one of my concerns and racial differences in IQ is absolutely not one of my concerns, but a person having his reputation destroyed for honestly discussing data — that deeply concerns me.

I did that podcast, again exactly a year ago. Vox then published an article that was highly critical of that podcast. It was written by Eric Turkheimer and Kathryn Harden and Richard Nisbett. This article, in my view, got more or less everything wrong. It read to me like a piece of political propaganda.

I reached out to you by email. I felt this article was totally unfair. It accused us of peddling junk science and pseudoscience and pseudo scientific racialist speculation and trafficking in dangerous ideas. Murray got the worse of it, but at minimum, I’m painted as a total ignoramus, right? One line said while I have a PhD in neuroscience I appear to be totally ignorant of facts that are well known to everyone in the field of intelligence studies.

Ezra Klein
I think you should quote the line. I don’t think that’s what the line said.

Sam Harris
The quote is, this is the exact quote: “Sam Harris appeared to be ignorant of facts that were well known to everyone in the field of intelligence studies.” Now that’s since been quietly removed from the article, but it was there and it’s archived.

[I went back and looked into this and, as far as I can tell, the original quote that Harris is referring to is this one: “Here, too briefly, are some facts to ponder — facts that Murray was not challenged to consider by Harris, who holds a PhD in neuroscience, although they are known to most experts in the field of intelligence.” Here is the first archived version of the piece if you want to compare it with the final. — Ezra]

Everything old is new again.
 

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

The preceding pages have reminded me of a 100+ page opinion by the Nevada Supreme Court that purported to discipline a dead judge. https://law.justia.com/cases/nevada/...2/18326-1.html

Re: icymi above
 

This is funny. TM on board, saving your ass, and your confidence is back.

I’ll address this in the am.

Re: icymi above
 

Oh you tease! I shan't sleep a wink.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Depending on how they “discipline” the corpse that could be a felony too. Trivia this is why Penske got kicked out of mortuary school IIRC?

Re: icymi above
 

According to science, the responsibility for saving my ass was 99.44% mine alone.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

We need a "like" button.

Re: icymi above
 

First time I've seen a dead horse give the time for his next beating.

Re: icymi above
 

Yes he did. He he come out and say exactly that? No. Because then he'd concede Harris's argument. In context, unequivocally, the entirety of his comments were:

"Sam, you should not engage in this sort inquiry as you've done. Murray should only be considered with a pile of caveats I think apply to his work."

Bullshit. Harris can examine Murray's work however he likes. And Klein can examine it however he likes. Neither has the right to tell the other how he should discuss something.

Harris's point was very simple: There's knowledge out there today that politically correct people don't want discussed. Klein responded, Those politically correct people have a point, and you should listen to them. That's ludicrous. It turns that "marketplace of ideas" you cited into a "marketplace of acceptable ideas"... as decided by brahmin like Klein.

Bad ideas die in the light. If Harris desires to discuss the positives of Nazism, or nuclear war, he can do so, and Klein has no business telling him he shouldn't do it. Klein can of course do so, as his free speech rights are as broad as Harris's, but then I can write the following here: Ezra Klein is a politically correct McIntellect.

Re: icymi above
 

The JV cheering squad's on the court, sweetheart.

Re: icymi above
 

You waffled all over the place and tried to change the subject, as you always do.

Re: icymi above
 

Nonsense. The study did exactly what you said could not be done. You're dissembling.

Klein's suggestion that Harris self-censor is inescapable. But of course he doesn't dare say that out loud. You know what. The text in aggregate makes the point beyond doubt, particularly when read in context of his article that started the whole thing, and Harris's interview with Murray that spurred that article.

Timmyism isn't going to get you the "win" here.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...like_thumb.png

Edited by Not Bob because the very appropriate image really fucked up the margins.

Re: icymi above
 

Is there? What is it? It's certainly not Murray's "work" which has been discussed far more frequently and widely than it merits, given that it's bullshit.

Klein said maybe you should point out that Murray's work is bullshit. There's nothing ludicrous about that.

You are a deeply strange human being.

Re: icymi above
 

And I'm going to tell you, I don't agree with you, for the 50th time. You very well can assess how much an individual is responsible for his own disadvantages relative to forces beyond his control. You can look at his actions over the course of his life, figure out which of his behaviors caused self-harm, and which were directly attributable to outside forces. Is it easy? No. Is it technically possible? Yes.

I don't like that group approach. I don't think it provides accurate data for reasons I've stated. But the hypo, the issue as it was framed by Klein and Harris, involved groups.

If you're going to engage in the analysis they did, the only approach is the one I offered above.

There's absolute consistency. If I'm compelled to debate this involving groups, as Harris and Klein did, then within those limits, you'd have to take a number of sets of people in that group, assess how many suffered disadvantage as a result of their own acts versus outside acts, compare these smaller sets to one another and reach average percentages which are then extrapolated to the whole group. I don't like it because I think it's terrifically inaccurate, but if we must chop people into groups, this is how it'd be done.

No it's not. It's simple. X, Y, and Z are members of an oppressed group. X makes certain decisions, Y makes others, Z makes others. All decisions are discrete. Their lives take different trajectories afterward. Each bears a certain degree of responsibility for his trajectory. The fact that they're oppressed does not erase that.
The above does that.

It took me several go-rounds before Ty would concede that an oppressed person is not completely absolved of all responsibility for decisions.

That wasn't the point of this conversation. The point of this conversation, going way back, was whether Harris should be engaging in an assessment of self-responsibility regarding oppressed individuals.

It is entirely logical to accord a percentage of personal responsibility to every single person, everywhere, in every circumstance. You yourself admitted earlier that every person bears a certain level of responsibility for his circumstance. This includes all people, advantaged people and disadvantaged people.

So we should just ban such inquiry? We should police against it by having people like Klein cast opprobrium on Harris? Free speech is absolute. Period. End of story. That's my ultimate point here.

I don't think black people engage in identity politics at all. I think things like BLM are direct, rational reactions to clear racism. I think white people like Klein, and on the other side, the bigoted Trumpkins, are the peddlers of identity politics. Harris says numerous times, in his podcast and elsewhere, "Isn't the goal to see people as individuals, not groups?" At one point, he says, "If we get to Mars and people are still fixating on skin color, haven't we failed miserably?" (Those are paraphrases, T[imm]y.)

Klein's points can be distilled to, "What good is it to analyze self-responsibility of an oppressed person. It can only be used for negative ends. You shouldn't do that."

He does not get to make that call. No one gets to make that call. All questions may and should be asked, always.

TM[/QUOTE]

Re: icymi above
 

I never heard of Harris before this debate and my thoughts on Ezra Klein are mostly limited to musing how such a dude ended up with the delightful Annie Lowrey (who writes circles around him). She is, indeed, Better than Ezra.

But I agree with you, Sebby! No, really. Why shouldn’t we discuss all of the scientific data that leading European scientists collected regarding groups of people during the 1940s? I mean, sure, we might disagree with their views or the reasons why (and how) they collected that data, but who are we to say “you shouldn’t do that”? Argue their points by refuting their data, I say.

Re: icymi above
 

to be fair to Sebby, I don't think he is saying such studies are particularly instructive or valuable, I think he is saying the one guy should be able to say they are instructive or valuable and the other guy shouldn't be trying to shut him up.

what is saddest here is that this board once held the promise of an Abba or gwnc fuck story and now we are reduced to this. We can't even hope for adder strikes out stories anymore{sad face}

Re: icymi above
 

We never should have put you in charge of recruiting new blood.

Re: icymi above
 

This is all drivelous nonsense. But at least I now have a new word. I plan on using "drivelous" as often as I can. In fact, I shall label Trump's single term the Drivelous Era.

TM

Re: icymi above
 

He has shown zero evidence of anyone trying to shut anyone up. He's as full of shit as ever.

TM