We are all Slave now.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Setting aside whether Harris says this, why is this a good thing? We are not atomized individuals with no connection to other people? We are members of groups -- countries, religions, trade associations, companies, states (and commonwealths), neighborhoods, ethnic groups, families, benevolent and protective fraternal orders named after fauna, etc. Why on Earth would people want to ignore all that? How ever could they?

I've heard it said one should never trust the intelligence of a man who salts his food before first tasting it. This seems an arbitrary grouping, but it also tends to hold true.

I'd say the same applies to a person who holds strong group identification and places it ahead of or commensurate with private, individual critical thinking. "I'm a proud this..." or "I'm a proud that..." is a statement that one has self-limited. One should have principles, of course. But one should also be open to changing his mind, to thinking differently based on circumstances. To self-contradicting as necessary.

It's unfortunately both human and incredibly dimwitted to assess a person based on his last name, or his skin tone. These regressive heuristics probably aren't going to end any time soon. But for God's sake, we shouldn't enable and encourage them.

The frictions between groups (of all sorts -- racial, political, religious, sex) only abate when people start viewing each other as a clean slates. In a truly evolved world, you'd meet another person with no preconceived notion of what his politics, interests, or views would be. He'd get as fair a shot at being accepted by you as you would by him. (This is why I loathe Trump's immigration policy -- it frustrates this progression.) A big step in this direction is abandoning group identification and favoring a more relativist view of everything. Have a few bedrock principles, but don't let any party, organization, religion, or heritage drive your thinking any more than minimally, if at all.

I know, pie in the sky. But it's where we ought to be going as humans.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I'm not fighting the hypo. You see the meta point.

The whole act of chopping people into groups and comparing them is futile. And yet the Right and the Left are telling us this is how we must have the debate.

All of what I've said about the Left's poor reasoning applies to the Right. The only valid analyses are those done on individuals.

Example: Murray cites Asians as a monolithic group and then tells Harris, "This was tough, because we had very little solid data on Chinese people." So half of the Asian population is represented by sketchy data in his study? How's that a "study" at all?

The same applies to races, religions, etc. here. You can never tease out how many outliers skew the group IQ upward or downward. Murray was about four or five layers too high in terms of granularity. Someone will get there in the future, and I'm pretty confident they'll reach the conclusion, "It's really only useful to assess people one on one."

ETA: By the way, Murray does the same sort of lazy analysis of whites in Coming Apart. I've not read it, and probably won't because of its flaws. But there, Murray argues that poor whites and affluent whites are turning into culturally unique groups which, via assortative mating, will eventually diverge genetically in terms of ability. For all the same reasons I find the Bell Curve unpersuasive, this too is unpersuasive.

So why are you suggesting that we need scientific studies assessing the responsibility of a given group in its own oppression?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

You're right. It's Orwellian.

I'm just glad we have enlightened sorts like you to tell us who's an idiot and who's not.

I would rather that schools not try to fire idiots, because I don't trust schools to make that decision well, and worry that they will use it as a pretext. If a school can't figure out how to avoid giving tenure to an idiot, it seems unlikely that they will exercise discretion in firing idiots any better.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I've heard it said one should never trust the intelligence of a man who salts his food before first tasting it. This seems an arbitrary grouping, but it also tends to hold true.

I'd say the same applies to a person who holds strong group identification and places it ahead of or commensurate with private, individual critical thinking. "I'm a proud this..." or "I'm a proud that..." is a statement that one has self-limited. One should have principles, of course. But one should also be open to changing his mind, to thinking differently based on circumstances. To self-contradicting as necessary.

It's unfortunately both human and incredibly dimwitted to assess a person based on his last name, or his skin tone. These regressive heuristics probably aren't going to end any time soon. But for God's sake, we shouldn't enable and encourage them.

The frictions between groups (of all sorts -- racial, political, religious, sex) only abate when people start viewing each other as a clean slates. In a truly evolved world, you'd meet another person with no preconceived notion of what his politics, interests, or views would be. He'd get as fair a shot at being accepted by you as you would by him. (This is why I loathe Trump's immigration policy -- it frustrates this progression.) A big step in this direction is abandoning group identification and favoring a more relativist view of everything. Have a few bedrock principles, but don't let any party, organization, religion, or heritage drive your thinking any more than minimally, if at all.

I know, pie in the sky. But it's where we ought to be going as humans.

So don't ignore it, but don't give too much weight to it. Be discriminating, but don't discriminate.

Well, now that we have that solved, let's fix the Syrian refugee crisis.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

So why are you suggesting that we need scientific studies assessing the responsibility of a given group in its own oppression?

I don't think we do, except in one instance: Where the argument is raised that an oppressed group does not bear some [personal]* responsibility for its circumstances at a later point. If one says that, he's necessarily employing such an analysis and has to also measure comparative responsibility. Any effort to measure or examine one without considering the other doesn't work.

ETA: * Removed. “Personal” should not be there. See subsequent posts.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I don't think we do, except in one instance: Where the argument is raised that a group does not bear personal responsibility for its circumstances. If one says that, he's necessarily employing such an analysis and has to also measure comparative responsibility. Any effort to measure or examine one without considering the other doesn't work.

Who ever says, no one in x group bears any personal responsibility for where he or she finds him or herself or for his or her actions because of the history of that group's treatment? (Hint: Exactly no one.)

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Who ever says, no one in x group bears any personal responsibility for where he or she finds him or herself or for his or her actions because of the history of that group's treatment? (Hint: Exactly no one.)

That's not what was said. What was said is that it is invalid to examine a group's responsibility (not personal responsibility) if that group was oppressed, as that group cannot be responsible for its own circumstances, as all actions responsive to or following the oppression are still entirely the fault of the oppression.*

I agree with what you have said here, but it's a different point.

______
* ETA: This is wrong both because the "group" construct is invalid, and for the reasons your point makes. (If it's absurd to say no individual of a group bears any personal responsibility for his own circumstances, it's absurd to say no entire group bears any for its.)

ETA2: My bad... I just noticed I inadvertently included “personal” in the sentence to which you replied. It should just be “responsibility” alone. No group can have personal responsibility.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

I would rather that schools not try to fire idiots, because I don't trust schools to make that decision well, and worry that they will use it as a pretext. If a school can't figure out how to avoid giving tenure to an idiot, it seems unlikely that they will exercise discretion in firing idiots any better.

I think every school tries to avoid hiring idiots in the first place. There is a process, by which a department of people who have some idea of what they are doing interviews candidates who have something to say for themselves. This process is designed to weed out idiots, and perhaps even, at some schools, to establish standards reasonably far above idiocy.

Like all processes, it is far from perfect, and mistakes are made. When a mistake is made, you have to fire someone. Hopefully that is before giving them tenure, but, certainly, sometimes idiots get tenure for various reasons (for example, Harvard regularly gives conservatives tenure because they want to have some, even if their work is sub-par).

But we all fire idiots on occasion, as imperfect as we may be. The hard part is not firing idiots. When you make a mistake and hire an idiot, it's usually pretty easy and a bit of a relief to get rid of them. The problem is when you have to fire someone who is not an idiot, for some reason wholly extrinsic to them (like a downturn in the economy or a decision you need different expertise). Firing idiots is, and ought to be, relatively easy.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

That's not what was said. What was said is that it is invalid to examine a group's responsibility (not personal responsibility) if that group was oppressed, as that group cannot be responsible for its own circumstances, as all actions responsive to or following the oppression are still entirely the fault of the oppression.*

I agree with what you have said here, but it's a different point.

______
* ETA: This is wrong both because the "group" construct is invalid, and for the reasons your point makes. (If it's absurd to say no individual of a group bears any personal responsibility for his own circumstances, it's absurd to say no entire group bears any for its.)

ETA2: My bad... I just noticed I inadvertently included “personal” in the sentence to which you replied. It should just be “responsibility” alone. No group can have personal responsibility.

Let's just assume that you got through the Albanian quiz for all Albanian gypsies and did all your math for the group. You're at Nuremberg.

Prosecutor: General von Badguyberg ran a concentration camp and executed gypsies. He is responsible and should be serve the appropriate sentence.

Defense lawyer: Albanian gypsies as a group were also responsible (not personally responsible)* so their oppression is not fully the fault of General von Badguyberg and he is not fully responsible.

You're the judge. What do you do and why?

*WTF does this even mean?

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Let's just assume that you got through the Albanian quiz for all Albanian gypsies and did all your math for the group. You're at Nuremberg.

Prosecutor: General von Badguyberg ran a concentration camp and executed gypsies. He is responsible and should be serve the appropriate sentence.

Defense lawyer: Albanian gypsies as a group were also responsible (not personally responsible)* so their oppression is not fully the fault of General von Badguyberg and he is not fully responsible.

You're the judge. What do you do and why?

I have no real idea what Sebastian is saying, but I think you’re really afield here? One might ask if the General was justified in something more limited, say economic, based upon actions. Extermination might be a bit much.

It is interesting though, your hypo, what if after escaping these same camps some of these gypsies set up a country, and neighbors started trying to exterminate them. Would you support them shooting back? In other similar fact patterns you do not iirc?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

I have no real idea what Sebastian is saying, but I think you’re really afield here? One might ask if the General was justified in something more limited, say economic, based upon actions. Extermination might be a bit much.

I'm just trying to translate Sebby's concepts into something concrete, but since they don't make sense to me maybe I'm not doing a good job.

I don't see how it makes a difference if an out-group is 3% or 30% responsible, whatever that means, if you can say that what the in-group did was wrong. What follows from that number?

It is interesting though, your hypo, what if after escaping these same camps some of these gypsies set up a country, and neighbors started trying to exterminate them. Would you support them shooting back? In other similar fact patterns you do not iirc?

Pretty sure I am in favor of self-defense when someone is trying to exterminate you. But the use of violence must be proportionate to the threat. If some dude in Warsaw tweets that he is trying to destroy the United States, that doesn't mean we nuke Poland, nor do I think you disagree.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Let's just assume that you got through the Albanian quiz for all Albanian gypsies and did all your math for the group. You're at Nuremberg.

Prosecutor: General von Badguyberg ran a concentration camp and executed gypsies. He is responsible and should be serve the appropriate sentence.

Defense lawyer: Albanian gypsies as a group were also responsible (not personally responsible)* so their oppression is not fully the fault of General von Badguyberg and he is not fully responsible.

You're the judge. What do you do and why?

*WTF does this even mean?

The only crime the general would be on trial for at Nuremberg would be the killing of the Romany person.

He couldn’t be charged with the preceding impacts of local bigotries on that person’s life.

Identically, using my hypothetical, which is more appropriate, if that general had merely imprisoned the two Romany brothers, and was caught 30 years later, and the claim were brought at that at that point, that the general was entirely culpable for all the disadvantages the fisherman brother suffered, the general’s culpability would be mitigated to the extent superseding causes (fisherman's own subsequent choices) contributed to his disadvantages.

And, in any logical forum, where a person’s (or group’s, if we’re throwing rigor and care out the window) situation is alleged to be exclusively or near exclusively the result of outside forces, there will always be an offset against that charge to the extent personal responsibility comes into play.

I’ve actually litigated this case several times. Even asserting fraud, the other side will often use a “sophisticated plaintiff” defense (“your guy was sharp and only got taken because he wasn’t observing adequate diligence”). One counters with “you don’t have a right to defraud my guy, regardless.” But it is an accepted defense. And it works, and should work.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

(for example, Harvard regularly gives conservatives tenure because they want to have some, even if their work is sub-par).

Ty, if you want to see “narrative creation” and “fact shading,” this is it. This is a perfect MSNBC/Fox talking point. (Just reverse it for Fox.)

Now, academia being littered at least 5:1 with liberal and progressive idiots versus conservative idiots, the example cited is cherry picked to make a point suiting the speaker’s incorrigible bias. Harvard of course has some conservative morons, but does anyone doubt the # of conservative morons is significantly higher?

And yet they are cited, transparently, as though they’re the majority of idiots. Nevermind the armies of liberal idiots at Harvard (or any decent school) who dwarf them.

This is j.v. shit, and I’m slumming to flag it. But this is “narrative creaton.” Fox-style anti-factual narrative creation.

There’s no false equivalence. What GGG did is only transparent if your IQ gets to triple digits. That’s a thin slice of Fox’s demographic. So Fox is far more blunt and embarrassing in the way it does this same thing, as the bar for getting away with it is incredibly low. But it’s all on the same continuum of bullshit.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

I'm just trying to translate Sebby's concepts into something concrete, but since they don't make sense to me maybe I'm not doing a good job.

I don't see how it makes a difference if an out-group is 3% or 30% responsible, whatever that means, if you can say that what the in-group did was wrong. What follows from that number?



Pretty sure I am in favor of self-defense when someone is trying to exterminate you. But the use of violence must be proportionate to the threat. If some dude in Warsaw tweets that he is trying to destroy the United States, that doesn't mean we nuke Poland, nor do I think you disagree.

For someone who doesn’t know what I’m saying, you’re doing a great job of offering the responses of someone who exactly gets my points and endeavors to counter them.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Harvard of course has some conservative morons, but does anyone doubt the # of conservative morons is significantly higher?

This is exactly what I'm saying.