It is 64-bit
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@boomzilla said:
I'm sure that imperfectly executed and applied laws translate to other languages and cultures, and I probably should have made it clearer.
Yeah, well. The fact that you can't actually legislate irredeemable fuckwittery out of existence doesn't make the attempt to do so worthless, because what the law says does explicitly define what is normal and expected to at least some extent; the existence of a law that anybody who bothers to read it will understand is explicitly about fairness should nudge the Overton window in a healthy direction even if spottily enforced.
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@flabdablet said:
@boomzilla said:
I'm sure that imperfectly executed and applied laws translate to other languages and cultures, and I probably should have made it clearer.
Yeah, well. The fact that you can't actually legislate irredeemable fuckwittery out of existence doesn't make the attempt to do so worthless, because what the law says does explicitly define what is normal and expected to at least some extent; the existence of a law that anybody who bothers to read it will understand is explicitly about fairness should nudge the Overton window in a healthy direction even if spottily enforced.Yes, but if you're going to bitch about people pointing out fuckwittery in the excesses, don't be surprised when those people call you out on your fuckwittery. And right or wrong, the way the law actually works is a lot more complicated than what's written into the legislation, especially when you're dealing with fuckwittery like the modern ideas about a "living Constitution," which is exactly about ignoring the explicitness of the words and pretending they mean whatever the fuck you want them to mean now.
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@Snooder said:
The only distinction to make between "Affirmative Action" and "Equal Opportunity" is that the former is a policy or set of policies, while the latter is a goal or aspiration.
In my opinion those are persuasive definitions. Someone could just as reasonably define equal opportunity as a policy. Using persuasive definitions and calling anyone who disagrees an idiot is hardly conducive to useful and reasonable discourse.
You think of equal opportunity as a goal. How will you know when that goal has been attained?
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@PedanticCurmudgeon said:
How will you know when that goal has been attained?
When the average distribution in organizations matches the population of the country?
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@boomzilla said:
opportunity equal outcome
That would be the key distinction. Affirmative action proponents are really looking for equal outcome because that's the only way to be sure of equal opportunity. But they can't say that they're looking for equal outcome because then they'd have to address the possibility that discrimination isn't the only reason for disparities.
I'll give you an example. In the early 90s I joined an amateur orchestra. When I showed up for the first rehearsal, I noticed that everyone there was white except me. But the orchestra had an explicit "sit anywhere you like" policy and their bylaws prohibited auditions. Literally anyone could show up with an instrument and play. Maybe Snooder thinks the orchestra should have had an urban outreach program.
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@dhromed said:
Yes, that is the correct answer. Have a cigar.@PedanticCurmudgeon said:
How will you know when that goal has been attained?
When the average distribution in organizations matches the population of the country?
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@PedanticCurmudgeon said:
Have a cigar.
I don't smoke.
Do you have a pack of those chocolate cigarettes?
Love those.
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@boomzilla said:
However, there are some notable exceptions. Higher education is one area. Administrators have been coming up with ever more clever ways to use race in admission policies, and the continuing litigation over this demonstrates it.
That's horseshit. See my post earlier about Fisher v. University of Texas. That's more typical for this sort of litigation with regards to higher education than whatever you are thinking about. And it's really hard to sympathize with the plaintiff on that one.
@boomzilla said:For instance, the recent case about firefighters and the low percentage of minorities who passed the aptitude test (or whatever it was). Of course, that was a case of the litigants trying to get the less qualified people (wildly unqualified? I wouldn't go that far without more specific knowledge).
I remember the firefighter case. And I have a different impression of it than you do. See, here's the thing, when you have a qualification test for firefighters that consistently selects very few minorities year after year, it's not unreasonable to decide to go back and take a look at the test to see if it's really testing the things you care about. Because logically, having a test where a group of applicants is consistently failing in disproportionate numbers means one of two things. Either that group is just inherently unqualified, or the test itself is broken. It should be obvious why the first thing to do when trying to fix the problem should be looking into that second possibility. Because the first generally requires a racist mindset of belief in the inherent inferiority of said minority group. True, it's possible that the link may be due to indirect causes and other sociological factors, but that shouldn't be the first thing that comes to mind. The logical thing, unless you are racist, is to start from the assumption that the test is broken somehow and investigate how to fix it.
And yes, it's not much worse to deliberately design a test to keep out minority applicants than to have a test that does so inadvertently, know that it does, and just shrug your shoulders and let it happen.
Let's look directly at the facts of the firefighter case. You had a fire department where the rank and file had a fairly equal distribution of firemen. But for some reason all the supervisors and higher ups were white. They looked into it, and found that the written test was selecting white firefighters a lot more often than non-white firefighters. So, they sat down and redesigned the application process to include more on-the-job qualifications like oral exams and performance evaluations while weighing the written test less. After this rework, they got a better mix in the people who qualified, but some of the people who'd originally passed the written test, but apparently didn't do so well in the rest of the evaluation sued.
Now, we're talking about firefighters here. They aren't rocket scientists or brain surgeons. They walk into burning buildings and rescue people. The written test is not the actual qualification, it's just an attempt to measure that qualification. There are other methods of measurement, and if the written test is proven to be in error, and is actually cutting out some qualified people, there shouldn't be anything wrong with trying to find a different set of measurement. Logically, an argument against that requires the premise that black people are just on average less qualified to be supervisors. Which is bullshit. That argument can be true in certain cases where sociological factors like wealth and poor urban schools has an effect on the level of preparation and training. But in the case of people who are already firefighters, that's not likely. They all make the same salary, and it's not the sort of job that requires a specialized training beyond what they should all have had as firefighters.
In addition, even if after investigation, the written test was actually as fair as they could get it, and the group of black applicants was just not qualified, then they would still have a responsibility to look into why they consistently had black people who are good firefighters but not qualified for supervisory roles. And a further responsibility to take steps such as leadership training to correct this. That's what "Affirmative Action" means; an active responsibility to fix the problem rather than simply a passive duty to avoid causing it.
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@PedanticCurmudgeon said:
@boomzilla said:
opportunity equal outcome
That would be the key distinction. Affirmative action proponents are really looking for equal outcome because that's the only way to be sure of equal opportunity. But they can't say that they're looking for equal outcome because then they'd have to address the possibility that discrimination isn't the only reason for disparities.
I'll give you an example. In the early 90s I joined an amateur orchestra. When I showed up for the first rehearsal, I noticed that everyone there was white except me. But the orchestra had an explicit "sit anywhere you like" policy and their bylaws prohibited auditions. Literally anyone could show up with an instrument and play. Maybe Snooder thinks the orchestra should have had an urban outreach program.
Well, it would depend on whether one of the priorities of the orchestra was affirmatively and aggressively promoting equal opportunity. In that case, yes, it probably should try to reach out to those people who by virtue of their circumstances have less opportunity to be involved in classical music. Doing otherwise is like having a concert that's "open to everyone" and then setting the entrance fee at $1000. When you know that some people can't afford to join, you can't claim to be fulfilling "equal opportunity" by setting the bar for joining too high for them.
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@boomzilla said:
@PedanticCurmudgeon said:
@boomzilla said:
There's no subtext in calling someone an Oreo or an Uncle Tom, or a lot of the other things that have been said about Thomas and Rice.
Actually, there is a subtext in calling someone an Oreo or an Uncle Tom. The person who says that has a set of things in their head that blacks should do (e.g. voting Democrat) and a set of things that blacks shouldn't do (for example, voting Republican). Someone is only called an Uncle Tom or an Oreo if they do too many things from the second set. Note that there is no similar obligation assigned to whites.Maybe subtext isn't the right word. The point I was getting at is that there's no attempt to hide the offense. It doesn't take a postmodern effort at deconstruction to tie the statement to its derogatory intent.
The joke way to describe this--and I understood immediately what Boomzilla meant--is that there's no subtext here. It's all text. Calling a black person an Oreo isn't some kind of subtle dig that someone who's not smart won't get: it's a straight-out insult.
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@Snooder said:
Back in that thread I suggested that a great deal of the reason why the Republican party does not have the support among minority voters that the Democratic party does is because the Republican party has a perception of being racist. I further stated that the perception is, in large part, due to many members of the Republican party saying or doing racist things and being tolerated by the rest of the party. To support that statement, I used a few examples of mildly racist things that I've heard conservatives say. Things like a guy taking a picture of a gorilla at the zoo and comparing it to Obama.
Wow, I never knew Democrats were racist for doing the same thing!
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@boomzilla said:
if you're going to bitch about people pointing out fuckwittery in the excesses, don't be surprised when those people call you out on your fuckwittery.
I bitch about you because the only bad behaviour that ever seems to get you really exercised is that of poor people and minorities; outrageously awful conduct on the part of the rich and powerful is consistently off your critical radar unless those concerned happen to be in (dramatic chord, sinister uplighting) Government. Any time some rich prick fucks over some huge number of little people we can rely on boomzilla for a bucket of Ayn Rand free-enterprise whitewash, but let some poor undereducated inner-city dickhead beat up some other dickhead and it's all oh horror jail him jail him jail him I am having an attack of the vapours where are my pills oh my god these people are just such awful thugs AMIRITE.
It's predictable, it's monotonous, it's tiresome, and the saddest part is that you never even notice yourself doing it because you're so utterly contemptuous of the concept of privilege and it's more than your ego can stand to risk your redneck mates catching a whiff of political correctness. Were it not for the fact that your opinions on technical matters are generally quite moderate and sound, I'd have written you off long ago as an utterly worthless bigot. On any social topic I take it as an absolute badge of honour to be called a fuckwit by you.
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@FrostCat said:
Calling a black person an Oreo isn't some kind of subtle dig that someone who's not smart won't get: it's a straight-out insult.
In the UK, the equivalent pejorative is coconut.@The BBC said:A [black] Bristol city councillor who called an Asian colleague a "coconut" has had her conviction for racial harassment upheld.
Liberal Democrat Shirley Brown used the derogatory remark against Conservative Jay Jethwa at a council debate [regarding spending cuts for ethnic minority projects] in 2009.
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@FrostCat said:
@Snooder said:
Back in that thread I suggested that a great deal of the reason why the Republican party does not have the support among minority voters that the Democratic party does is because the Republican party has a perception of being racist. I further stated that the perception is, in large part, due to many members of the Republican party saying or doing racist things and being tolerated by the rest of the party. To support that statement, I used a few examples of mildly racist things that I've heard conservatives say. Things like a guy taking a picture of a gorilla at the zoo and comparing it to Obama.
Wow, I never knew Democrats were racist for doing the same thing!
The difference is, Bush has large ears and a small roundish head. If you squint, he kinda looks like a chimp. Comparing him to a chimp does not contain an implication that all white people everywhere also look like chimpanzees. Obama on the other hand doesn't actually look anything like a gorilla. He's fairly light skinned, he's tall and skinny with a lean face, there's pretty much no connection there, unless you are invoking the well known insult that all black people look/act like apes.
Again, it's the difference between a personal insult, and one toward an entire race.
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@flabdablet said:
@boomzilla said:
if you're going to bitch about people pointing out fuckwittery in the excesses, don't be surprised when those people call you out on your fuckwittery.
I bitch about you because the only bad behaviour that ever seems to get you really exercised is that of poor people and minorities; outrageously awful conduct on the part of the rich and powerful is consistently off your critical radar unless those concerned happen to be in (dramatic chord, sinister uplighting) Government. Any time some rich prick fucks over some huge number of little people we can rely on boomzilla for a bucket of Ayn Rand free-enterprise whitewash, but let some poor undereducated inner-city dickhead beat up some other dickhead and it's all oh horror jail him jail him jail him I am having an attack of the vapours where are my pills oh my god these people are just such awful thugs AMIRITE.It's often interesting to see the things that people imagine about you, and I think this speaks more about you than it does about me. I can understand, given what you've said about your world view, why you'd think this of me. It's pretty standard that leftist types have very little understanding of the views of people who don't think like them and generally write them off as evil and stupid. You're not the first person with a lazy and incorrect assessment of me, and you won't be the last. I can live with that.
@flabdablet said:
It's predictable, it's monotonous, it's tiresome, and the saddest part is that you never even notice yourself doing it because you're so utterly contemptuous of the concept of privilege and it's more than your ego can stand to risk your redneck mates catching a whiff of political correctness. Were it not for the fact that your opinions on technical matters are generally quite moderate and sound, I'd have written you off long ago as an utterly worthless bigot. On any social topic I take it as an absolute badge of honour to be called a fuckwit by you.
Woo! Redneck mates! Awesome. Embrace your inner bogan.
I would have said that I'm skeptical of the way I perceive the concept of privilege to be abused. I think it's healthy to consider a contrarian position and question the conventional wisdom. On many social issues, I tend to agree with my ideological enemies on the existence of a problem, but vehemently oppose their solutions that often seem to perpetuate or exacerbate the situation.
You used to offer more substantive arguments. I guess you got frustrated because I disagreed, or maybe just don't like arguing stuff like this long past the dead horse stage. Either way, you're now pretty much reduced to calling me names, which makes you look like a less thoughtful person than I think you are, even if I think your conclusions aren't very good.
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@boomzilla said:
I would have said that I'm skeptical of the way I perceive the concept of privilege to be abused. I think it's healthy to consider a contrarian position and question the conventional wisdom. On many social issues, I tend to agree with my ideological enemies on the existence of a problem, but vehemently oppose their solutions that often seem to perpetuate or exacerbate the situation.
You used to offer more substantive arguments. I guess you got frustrated because I disagreed, or maybe just don't like arguing stuff like this long past the dead horse stage. Either way, you're now pretty much reduced to calling me names, which makes you look like a less thoughtful person than I think you are, even if I think your conclusions aren't very good.
It would help if you were less confrontational and used less hyperbolic language in your normal mode of discourse. The above is a fairly reasonable and rational set of statements, and shows you to be someone who can be argued with, and even if you ultimately end up disagreeing, the disagreement can be civil. Your normal tone however, is anything but reasonable and implies you couldn't give a fuck what the other guy is saying and aren't even bothering to listen.
And yeah, I know the heat of debate can lead one to extremes of rhethoric. But usually, the reasonable person recognizes when they've gone too far and begins to apologize. You don't.
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@Snooder said:
It would help if you were less confrontational and used less hyperbolic language in your normal mode of discourse.
This is true. Especially around here, I do that. Well...we all do, and we feed off each other. That's part of what makes it fun, but definitely gets in the way sometimes.
@Snooder said:
And yeah, I know the heat of debate can lead one to extremes of rhethoric. But usually, the reasonable person recognizes when they've gone too far and begins to apologize. You don't.
I've backed down on things multiple times, including around here. Maybe I am as socially inept as flabdablet says I am. What should I have apologized for in this thread? Was it my arguments themselves or their bombastic tone? (serious question)
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@boomzilla said:
What should I have apologized for in this thread? Was it my arguments themselves or their bombastic tone? (serious question)
Can't speak for anyone else, but personally, the shoulder alien cracks were a little over the top.
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@Snooder said:
@boomzilla said:
What should I have apologized for in this thread? Was it my arguments themselves or their bombastic tone? (serious question)
Can't speak for anyone else, but personally, the shoulder alien cracks were a little over the top.Hmm...OK. They were cracks in only the sense that they're a local running gag. They were perfectly serious in that your comments were coming across as motivated attempts to read into my statements things I didn't say and didn't mean, and didn't seem like reasonable inferences (which IIRC was basically the original usage of "shoulder aliens" by blakeyrat). They were really an expression of frustration on my part, since you seemed to be doing what flabdablet likes to accuse me of, which is to say, dismissing the opinions of others (which is not to say I never do that).
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@boomzilla said:
@Snooder said:
@boomzilla said:
What should I have apologized for in this thread? Was it my arguments themselves or their bombastic tone? (serious question)
Can't speak for anyone else, but personally, the shoulder alien cracks were a little over the top.Hmm...OK. They were cracks in only the sense that they're a local running gag. They were perfectly serious in that your comments were coming across as motivated attempts to read into my statements things I didn't say and didn't mean, and didn't seem like reasonable inferences (which IIRC was basically the original usage of "shoulder aliens" by blakeyrat). They were really an expression of frustration on my part, since you seemed to be doing what flabdablet likes to accuse me of, which is to say, dismissing the opinions of others (which is not to say I never do that).
My guess would be that Snooder took it in the other way that it gets used which is as a way of dismissing someone's reading of a comment as unreasonable when something wasn't well phrased. Unfortunately it gets used both ways around here so it can be hard to tell which of the ways someone means by it (though generally it's only offensive if ment in the original format but read as the dismissal).
The other problem is that the large amounts of hyperbolic rhetoric that gets used here can make it hard to tell when people are having fun screaming at one another vs. when they are trying to have an actual discussion about significantly different viewpoints.
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@Snooder said:
Well, it would depend on whether one of the priorities of the orchestra was affirmatively and aggressively promoting equal opportunity. In that case, yes, it probably should try to reach out to those people who by virtue of their circumstances have less opportunity to be involved in classical music. Doing otherwise is like having a concert that's "open to everyone" and then setting the entrance fee at $1000. When you know that some people can't afford to join, you can't claim to be fulfilling "equal opportunity" by setting the bar for joining too high for them.
I guess simply admitting that the interest isn't there is out of the question. You weren't there; I was, and I certainly wasn't making big bucks at the time. Getting a musical instrument and enough training and practice to play in public without embarrassing yourself and others is well within reach of plenty of middle class people including minorities. But lack of interest isn't something policy can fix.
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@boomzilla said:
@Snooder said:
@boomzilla said:
What should I have apologized for in this thread? Was it my arguments themselves or their bombastic tone? (serious question)
Can't speak for anyone else, but personally, the shoulder alien cracks were a little over the top.Hmm...OK. They were cracks in only the sense that they're a local running gag. They were perfectly serious in that your comments were coming across as motivated attempts to read into my statements things I didn't say and didn't mean, and didn't seem like reasonable inferences (which IIRC was basically the original usage of "shoulder aliens" by blakeyrat). They were really an expression of frustration on my part, since you seemed to be doing what flabdablet likes to accuse me of, which is to say, dismissing the opinions of others (which is not to say I never do that).
Well yeah, but you'd get a significantly different response if you'd said "your comments [come] across as motivated attempts to read into my statements things I didn't say and didn't mean, and [don't] seem like reasonable inferences." We can then have a discussion about why those inferences seem reasonable to me, but not to you. And maybe into a further discussion about whether the how much deference ought to be paid to the difference in our world views and experiences when considering what is appropriate behavior in general.When you jump straight to the "shoulder aliens" in what is an otherwise serious debate, it's much harder to have that discussion. There's a reason why nobody pays attention to blakeyrat, and it's not because he's wrong about everything. It's because when he gets into that crazy rant mode, even the reasonable things he says are wiped out by the rhetoric he uses to say them.
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@PedanticCurmudgeon said:
@Snooder said:
Well, it would depend on whether one of the priorities of the orchestra was affirmatively and aggressively promoting equal opportunity. In that case, yes, it probably should try to reach out to those people who by virtue of their circumstances have less opportunity to be involved in classical music. Doing otherwise is like having a concert that's "open to everyone" and then setting the entrance fee at $1000. When you know that some people can't afford to join, you can't claim to be fulfilling "equal opportunity" by setting the bar for joining too high for them.
I guess simply admitting that the interest isn't there is out of the question. You weren't there; I was, and I certainly wasn't making big bucks at the time. Getting a musical instrument and enough training and practice to play in public without embarrassing yourself and others is well within reach of plenty of middle class people including minorities. But lack of interest isn't something policy can fix.
You aren't understanding my point.
See, I played piano as a kid. I used to be very interested in classical music. And since I'm honest about it, I'll admit that it didn't just happen by magic or in a vacuum. I learned piano because my parents bought a piano for me and hired a piano tutor to teach me to play. I was interested in classical music because I heard it growing up, was encouraged to read the biographies of the great artists, and my parents took me to opera and ballet and other such things. If my parents didn't do that, and I lived in a neighborhood where nobody listened to classical music, and there wasn't any outreach or after-school music program, I wouldn't have develop an interest in it. That's fairly obvious and not really something up for much debate. The question then is whether the goal is to make sure that everyone gets the same opportunities that I did to experience music and develop an interest in it. You can say that that goal isn't important, and that's fine. Or that it's important, but too expensive or difficult to attain. But you can't say that the goal is to give everyone the same opportunity, but then ignore the simple truth that without that early background and exposure it's much more difficult to develop the interest at all. If "interest" is the bar for joining, but some people get the opportunity to develop that interest while others don't, then you are setting the bar too high for it count as "equal opportunity".
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@Snooder said:
For the record, I didn't have any significant exposure to classical music until college. But I do understand your point. The problem is that you've gone well past the point where someone who wasn't a proponent of affirmative action would think you're talking about equal opportunity. You're really talking about equal outcomes. And what will you do when they are exposed to classical music and explicitly reject it because it's "acting white" or some similar nonsense?
See, I played piano as a kid. I used to be very interested in classical music. And since I'm honest about it, I'll admit that it didn't just happen by magic or in a vacuum. I learned piano because my parents bought a piano for me and hired a piano tutor to teach me to play. I was interested in classical music because I heard it growing up, was encouraged to read the biographies of the great artists, and my parents took me to opera and ballet and other such things. If my parents didn't do that, and I lived in a neighborhood where nobody listened to classical music, and there wasn't any outreach or after-school music program, I wouldn't have develop an interest in it. That's fairly obvious and not really something up for much debate. The question then is whether the goal is to make sure that everyone gets the same opportunities that I did to experience music and develop an interest in it. You can say that that goal isn't important, and that's fine. Or that it's important, but too expensive or difficult to attain. But you can't say that the goal is to give everyone the same opportunity, but then ignore the simple truth that without that early background and exposure it's much more difficult to develop the interest at all. If "interest" is the bar for joining, but some people get the opportunity to develop that interest while others don't, then you are setting the bar too high for it count as "equal opportunity".
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@PedanticCurmudgeon said:
But I do understand your point. The problem is that you've gone well past the point where someone who wasn't a proponent of affirmative action would think you're talking about equal opportunity. You're really talking about equal outcomes. And what will you do when they are exposed to classical music and explicitly reject it because it's "acting white" or some similar nonsense?
The problem is that, to me, "equal outcome" would be saying that the orchestra has to have a set number of seats for X minorities. I'm not saying that at all. Sure, if you expose the kids to classical music and do the best you can to give them equal opportunity to develop the interest, but they choose not to, then that's ok. But I don't think it's ok to just throw up your hands before that step or ignore the very real inequities involved in that situation.
See, as I see it, if you "support" equal opportunity, you have to actually support it. Not just support "equal opportunity for everyone who already has an advantage." That's the part where a proponent of Affirmative Action would look at the other side, see them ignoring the differences in background and other factors and start to believe that those people are simply playing lip-service to the idea of "equal opportunity" but aren't actually interested in it.
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@Snooder said:
This seems to me to be a perfect example of a persuasive definition. Ask 100 people who are not affirmative action proponents what they think equal opportunity means. If more than 2 of them come up with your definition (including your requirement of doing everything possible to support it) without being prompted, I'll buy you a beer of your choice.The problem is that, to me, "equal outcome" would be saying that the orchestra has to have a set number of seats for X minorities. I'm not saying that at all. Sure, if you expose the kids to classical music and do the best you can to give them equal opportunity to develop the interest, but they choose not to, then that's ok. But I don't think it's ok to just throw up your hands before that step or ignore the very real inequities involved in that situation.
See, as I see it, if you "support" equal opportunity, you have to actually support it. Not just support "equal opportunity for everyone who already has an advantage." That's the part where a proponent of Affirmative Action would look at the other side, see them ignoring the differences in background and other factors and start to believe that those people are simply playing lip-service to the idea of "equal opportunity" but aren't actually interested in it.
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@PedanticCurmudgeon said:
This seems to me to be a perfect example of a persuasive definition. Ask 100 people who are not affirmative action proponents what they think equal opportunity means. If more than 2 of them come up with your definition (including your requirement of doing everything possible to support it) without being prompted, I'll buy you a beer of your choice.
With all due respect, that's tangential to the point here. It doesn't matter if the 100 people who are not affirmative action proponents believe that "equal opportunity" means "equals opportunity for everyone with an advantage." What matters is that sort of "equal opportunity" is not beneficial or what was intended by civil rights legislation.
The irony here is that personally, I'm an elitist prick. I don't actually believe in "equal opportunity" as a fundamental right. I'm an Ayn-Randian style objectivist at heart. But I'm honest about it and I recognize that my beliefs are founded in an innate sense of superiority and classist snobbery. I don't try to hide it behind hypocrisy or redefining the term just to make myself feel better. I support Affirmative Action policies and support equal opportunity because I think it's the best way to increase public buy-in into the government among people who don't have a great deal of trust for the system. I support it because I know that I'm better off than others simply because I got lucky in who my parents are, and I recognize that if I pretend that I didn't have those advantages, people without them will get resentful and bitter. And even though I could give a shit how they feel, I care a LOT about what they'll do once they realize that there are fuckton more of them than there are of me and people like me. I also support it, selfishly, as a backstop to preventing racist and discriminatory behavior that could offset the inherent advantages that I do have. If they're allowed to fuck over the poor guy, or the gay guy, or the jewish guy, or the chick, what the hell is there to keep them from fucking me over in the end? Better to fight that battle where it doesn't affect me directly, than wait for it to become my turn.
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@Snooder said:
@PedanticCurmudgeon said:
This seems to me to be a perfect example of a persuasive definition. Ask 100 people who are not affirmative action proponents what they think equal opportunity means. If more than 2 of them come up with your definition (including your requirement of doing everything possible to support it) without being prompted, I'll buy you a beer of your choice.
With all due respect, that's tangential to the point here. It doesn't matter if the 100 people who are not affirmative action proponents believe that "equal opportunity" means "equals opportunity for everyone with an advantage." What matters is that sort of "equal opportunity" is not beneficial or what was intended by civil rights legislation.
The irony here is that personally, I'm an elitist prick. I don't actually believe in "equal opportunity" as a fundamental right. I'm an Ayn-Randian style objectivist at heart. But I'm honest about it and I recognize that my beliefs are founded in an innate sense of superiority and classist snobbery. I don't try to hide it behind hypocrisy or redefining the term just to make myself feel better. I support Affirmative Action policies and support equal opportunity because I think it's the best way to increase public buy-in into the government among people who don't have a great deal of trust for the system. I support it because I know that I'm better off than others simply because I got lucky in who my parents are, and I recognize that if I pretend that I didn't have those advantages, people without them will get resentful and bitter. And even though I could give a shit how they feel, I care a LOT about what they'll do once they realize that there are fuckton more of them than there are of me and people like me. I also support it, selfishly, as a backstop to preventing racist and discriminatory behavior that could offset the inherent advantages that I do have. If they're allowed to fuck over the poor guy, or the gay guy, or the jewish guy, or the chick, what the hell is there to keep them from fucking me over in the end? Better to fight that battle where it doesn't affect me directly, than wait for it to become my turn.
Someone needs to show you how guns work.
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@Snooder said:
@PedanticCurmudgeon said:
This seems to me to be a perfect example of a persuasive definition. Ask 100 people who are not affirmative action proponents what they think equal opportunity means. If more than 2 of them come up with your definition (including your requirement of doing everything possible to support it) without being prompted, I'll buy you a beer of your choice.
With all due respect, that's tangential to the point here. It doesn't matter if the 100 people who are not affirmative action proponents believe that "equal opportunity" means "equals opportunity for everyone with an advantage." What matters is that sort of "equal opportunity" is not beneficial to anyone.The main point that he was attempting to make was in your earlier post you said:
@Snooder said:Sure, if you expose the kids to classical music and do the best you can to give them equal opportunity to develop the interest, but they choose not to, then that's ok.
But you weren't clear on just where you draw the line on giving the chance to develop interest lines. Where the line is does very much matter to what you are talking about as little support ("hey kid you can do this if you want") is kinda what those you are arguing against are saying to go for where as what you are encouraging is significantly more support than that. However just how much more is significant as you could take it to the extremes of attempting to make everyone's culture (or whatever you want to call the starting experiences) the same.
And yeah I've argued with people (on both US cultural right/left) that thought this was a good thing to go for, so where you are drawing the line is important to a discussion otherwise you are just going to keep talking past eachother.
Edit: and you tacked a bunch on to your post before I was done replying to it. Your added in second paragraph helps with the line drawing a bit.
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@Snooder said:
The irony here is that personally, I'm an elitist prick. I don't actually believe in "equal opportunity" as a fundamental right. I'm an Ayn-Randian style objectivist at heart. But I'm honest about it and I recognize that my beliefs are founded in an innate sense of superiority and classist snobbery. I don't try to hide it behind hypocrisy or redefining the term just to make myself feel better. I support Affirmative Action policies and support equal opportunity because I think it's the best way to increase public buy-in into the government among people who don't have a great deal of trust for the system. I support it because I know that I'm better off than others simply because I got lucky in who my parents are, and I recognize that if I pretend that I didn't have those advantages, people without them will get resentful and bitter. And even though I could give a shit how they feel, I care a LOT about what they'll do once they realize that there are fuckton more of them than there are of me and people like me. I also support it, selfishly, as a backstop to preventing racist and discriminatory behavior that could offset the inherent advantages that I do have. If they're allowed to fuck over the poor guy, or the gay guy, or the jewish guy, or the chick, what the hell is there to keep them from fucking me over in the end? Better to fight that battle where it doesn't affect me directly, than wait for it to become my turn.
You're not an elitist prick, and you're not an objectivist either. If you were an elitist prick, you wouldn't be advocating pushing a different culture on a group of people who largely aren't interested. An elitist would know that most of them wouldn't want it and couldn't appreciate it anyway. You also wouldn't be concerned with everyone having the opportunity to do the best they can. If you were an objectivist, you wouldn't want public buy-in to government, at least not in the current form. If you were an objectivist, you also would recognize that nature gives us inherent advantages and disadvantages. Some of us can carry a tune, and others are tone deaf. Should someone who is tone deaf have an equal opportunity to play in an orchestra? Not if you want to hear the results.
What you are is a young man who hasn't thought his philosophy through enough.
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@PedanticCurmudgeon said:
Some of us can carry a tune, and others are tone deaf. Should someone who is tone deaf have an equal opportunity to play in an orchestra? Not if you want to hear the results.
I agree. That is pretty much the first thing I thought of when I first read about your auditionless orchestra. (Actually, I thought of unskilled rather than tone deaf, but the end result is the same.) "I don't want to hear a concert by that orchestra!" Yet that seems to be exactly what your orchestra allows. Explain?
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@PedanticCurmudgeon said:
What you are is a young man who hasn't thought his philosophy through enough.
Are you an old man who has?
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@HardwareGeek said:
@PedanticCurmudgeon said:
Some of us can carry a tune, and others are tone deaf. Should someone who is tone deaf have an equal opportunity to play in an orchestra? Not if you want to hear the results.
I agree. That is pretty much the first thing I thought of when I first read about your auditionless orchestra. (Actually, I thought of unskilled rather than tone deaf, but the end result is the same.) "I don't want to hear a concert by that orchestra!" Yet that seems to be exactly what your orchestra allows. Explain?I was with the orchestra for two years. When I first got there, the results were as you would expect. Some of the people there (especially the woman who was sitting next to me at the first concert) shouldn't have been playing in public at all, and we could only play simple pieces. As time went on, more talented people showed up. Even without the auditions, everyone knew who was who, and though there wasn't any public shaming, the unskilled people stopped coming. As a result, we were able to play more complex pieces later into the season and into the next. A couple of times some of us from the orchestra got together to play chamber music.
There was another amateur orchestra I was involved with that played in an old rich guy's studio. No one knew what we would be playing until we got there. There weren't any auditions for that orchestra either, but having to show up and play without even a practice run is a pretty good weed-out.
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@PedanticCurmudgeon said:
You're not an elitist prick, and you're not an objectivist either. If you were an elitist prick, you wouldn't be advocating pushing a different culture on a group of people who largely aren't interested. An elitist would know that most of them wouldn't want it and couldn't appreciate it anyway. You also wouldn't be concerned with everyone having the opportunity to do the best they can. If you were an objectivist, you wouldn't want public buy-in to government, at least not in the current form. If you were an objectivist, you also would recognize that nature gives us inherent advantages and disadvantages. Some of us can carry a tune, and others are tone deaf. Should someone who is tone deaf have an equal opportunity to play in an orchestra? Not if you want to hear the results.
What you are is a young man who hasn't thought his philosophy through enough.
The problem is that society isn't an orchestra. Yes, I would want to hear an orchestra with skilled people who play their instruments well. But that would be counter to the purpose of being "open and free to all to join." Which is fine for an orchestra since getting everyone to play in the orchestra isn't really a priority over having the orchestra sound good.
And anyway, we've gotten far enough afield that it's kinda proven my original point about definitions. This is why I said this shit was too complicated to sum up with a simple "good or bad" judgement. It depends on which policies are being implemented, what program it's being applied to, what the applicant pool is, what the intended effect is, etc. An quota system to increase minority membership in the New York Philharmonic is dumb. An urban outreach program to get more African American applicants to the LAPD police academy is something else entirely.
Edit: I just realized that I assumed that you would recognize the logic here, and it may not be so obvious. Here's my point. If I was a shitty musician, but enjoyed playing music and I heard about an orchestra that's "open to everyone, no auditions" I'd join just to have fun. Finding out that it's really a serious thing that expected people to self-select themselves based on skill, experience and ability to practice, I'd feel like I was lied to. Because that's not really "open to everyone" and never was. They simply never outright said "open to people with talent, but we'll trust you to be honest about it" even though that's what they really meant.
With society on the other hand, getting every person, even the stupid and weak ones, to participate in it and believe that they have a fair shot at a decent life is the only way that it functions. Otherwise they'll start burning shit in the streets and eventually end with tossing everyone who they resent for being better than they are on the pyres.
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@PedanticCurmudgeon said:
... Even without the auditions, everyone knew who was who, and though there wasn't any public shaming, the unskilled people stopped coming....
Thanks for the explanation. Fortunately for those around us, some of us know our skill level well enough not to show up in the first place.
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@locallunatic said:
Further on that point, if he's talking to people who have the "hey kid you can do this if you want" idea of equal opportunity, they will not be able to accurately understand what he's saying, but will think they do.@Snooder said:
@PedanticCurmudgeon said:
This seems to me to be a perfect example of a persuasive definition. Ask 100 people who are not affirmative action proponents what they think equal opportunity means. If more than 2 of them come up with your definition (including your requirement of doing everything possible to support it) without being prompted, I'll buy you a beer of your choice.
With all due respect, that's tangential to the point here. It doesn't matter if the 100 people who are not affirmative action proponents believe that "equal opportunity" means "equals opportunity for everyone with an advantage." What matters is that sort of "equal opportunity" is not beneficial to anyone.The main point that he was attempting to make was in your earlier post you said:
@Snooder said:Sure, if you expose the kids to classical music and do the best you can to give them equal opportunity to develop the interest, but they choose not to, then that's ok.
But you weren't clear on just where you draw the line on giving the chance to develop interest lines. Where the line is does very much matter to what you are talking about as little support ("hey kid you can do this if you want") is kinda what those you are arguing against are saying to go for where as what you are encouraging is significantly more support than that. However just how much more is significant as you could take it to the extremes of attempting to make everyone's culture (or whatever you want to call the starting experiences) the same.
And yeah I've argued with people (on both US cultural right/left) that thought this was a good thing to go for, so where you are drawing the line is important to a discussion otherwise you are just going to keep talking past eachother.
