Physical Revue says "Whiteboards are Racist"

[MigL]

I believe he just did

4 hours ago, Jez said:

You seem to be saying that racial discrimination is the problem here to fix, but there is no fix, but that if there were a fix then it'd be to discriminate the victims by racial profile.

So, what's tripping you up ?

[dimreepr]

6 minutes ago, MigL said:

I believe he just did

Is that your bias talking?

[MigL]

So much for the 'explanation'.

[dimreepr]

Just now, MigL said:

So much for the 'explanation'.

OK, 

 

12 minutes ago, MigL said:

4 hours ago, Jez said:

You seem to be saying that racial discrimination is the problem here to fix, but there is no fix, but that if there were a fix then it'd be to discriminate the victims by racial profile.

So, what's tripping you up ?

Who the victim is? 

And for what reason?

Bearing in mind, what an excuse is...

[Jez]

1 hour ago, dimreepr said:

Jeez, do I have to explain the legal system as well?

Maybe you can explain the 1st amendment right of petition? Not discussed here yet. Why do you say that is not what is required, or if I misrepresent you, what did you actually say about it?

 

3 hours ago, dimreepr said:

No, I said your post was full of bias' and I went on to explain why, on a couple of points, in subsequent posts.

I saw no 'why' explanations.

I saw a bizarre cartoon and an incomprehensible 'parabola'.

If that is your idea of an explanation then I'd fear to see what happens if you were to try to deliberately confuse someone!

[Jez]

2 hours ago, dimreepr said:

OK, 

Oh, was that to me?

Great explanation, asking two 4 word questions to address a very difficult political issue that a civil war and 200 years of further efforts and troubles has not seen the end of.

 

2 hours ago, dimreepr said:

Who the victim is? 

And for what reason?

Bearing in mind, what an excuse is...

The victims are subjugated minorities.

The reason is seeing black and white differently.

Now that I have answered your questions, am I meant to 'see the light', somehow? I have not, please try again and avoid questions, cartoons, parabolas or anything else, just a plain speaking and a straight forward explanation of your position that anyone dropping in to the thread at this point would then uderstand what you are saying.

 

Please. You said you do this.

I am asking, for a self-contained explanation of your position here, that anyone could understand if this was the first post of the thread they saw,  and is not predicated on any previous text in the thread.

 

 

 

And, in keeping with the OP, it needs to be logically testable.

I am unclear if people have forgotten the starting point, I am sure the OP hasn't. The point of the thread was a story in which authors of the paper saw a 'black and white' difference between writing boards.

When challenged with logic and objective reasoning, the publishers and authors put up a smoke-screen of responses that could not be objectively challenged.

It's ironic that when I came in to the thread I was told the thread subject had moved on.

... seems it hasn't ....

Please provide me your explanation in a form that can be logically and objectively challenged, with propositions and logical statements as to why you said what you said.

[iNow]

9 hours ago, Jez said:

The difference lies in those that believe seeing 'black' versus 'white' is part of the solution, and the other see it as part of the problem.

 

I see. So your position is that reparations cannot be focused on the groups who experienced racism in the past because doing so would be racist. Roger that. 

[Jez]

9 minutes ago, iNow said:

I see. So your position is that reparations cannot be focused on the groups who experienced racism in the past because doing so would be racist. Roger that. 

Straw man/non-sequitur

'Groups' did not experience racism.

'People' experienced racism.

Or is your claim that 'a whole group' experience racism and that every single member of the group experienced the same racism and thus the same losses?

If that were true I'd agree with you. But I believe that is objectively untrue. I just have to find a single example of an individual of the group that didn't suffer racism and losses and your statement is falsified.

The fallacy here is that you see 'the whole group' experiencing racism, and if you think that is true I want to have the opportunity to test that logically. How would you present, objectively, a rational argument that every single individual of that group experienced the same racism?

 

Let us discuss this further.

 

I could easily be lead to believe that the proportion of a given group who experienced a systematic prejudice is so large as to represent a common interest with a common reparation needed. I would not seek to dispute that proposition.

So, for example, I would not think for a moment to seek to limit the creation of a 'help commission' whose focussed effort is on the needs of members of a particular minority group.

However, within their focussed effort and expertise to undertake that help, I would expect them to understand the impact of those past injustices on members of that group, and dispense the reparation in a manner relevant to individual needs.

What I would also expect is that such 'help commissions' are not limited to the worst example of a minority group suffering injustices, but that there would be an equal opportunity for anyone suffering such injustices to have a 'help commission' to approach to assist them also in their losses.

[iNow]

Okie dokie

[Phi for All]

10 minutes ago, Jez said:

'Groups' did not experience racism.

'People' experienced racism.

Discrimination or prejudice against a group BASED ON RACE happens to groups by definition. You don't get to reinvent new definitions just to make your arguments look better. This is part of what makes it difficult to discuss the subject with you. 

15 minutes ago, Jez said:

Straw man/non-sequitur

<snip>

Or is your claim that 'a whole group' experience racism and that every single member of the group experienced the same racism and thus the same losses?

This is pretty ironic. Accuse someone of strawmanning, then turn right around and do the same thing. Yuk. Sorry I got dragged back in on this, but your discussion style guarantees a LOT of wasted time.

[Jez]

59 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

Discrimination or prejudice against a group BASED ON RACE happens to groups by definition. You don't get to reinvent new definitions

I don't agree that is the definition of what we are talking about.

We disagree. It is allowed in politics.

The discussion is 'discrimination or prejudice occasioning actual [financial, welfare and social mobility] losses'.

That is because if there are no losses, then there is nothing to 'reparate'.

I mean, sure, if you want to, you can argue that people with hurt feelings should get money hand outs for that, but that is not what I am talking about. I thought we were discussing actual losses arising from discrimination injustices?

Someone may well be racist against a group 'in their heads' but they can only be racist to some fraction of them at any one time.

If you can name anyone, or any thing, any Government policy, that has caused unjust losses to every member of a group at once, then please name it.

 A person might well think in their heads that they are prejudiced against every member of a group, I even commented on my own experience of people like that. But it is in their heads, and they were unable to, and would always be unable to, impress that prejudice on all of that group at once.

As I said, the 'idea' that a person might hold to be racist to everyone in a group, and the 'idea' of members of that group that someone out there is prejudiced against them, these things live in the virtual world. They are imagined realities only. They only become manifest when someone puts those prejudices into action, and when they do, they can only affect those around them, not every member of the group.

It's for that reason I don't agree with your statement. I trust I am allowed not to agree with you on that?

... meanwhile ....

That we all recognise that there are victims of prejudice, do you have better ideas than I do to help those people? I recommend 'help commissions' and legal aid. You recommend? I can't tell.

Would kneeling on pencils help, in your view? What? I just don't know what you are suggesting to move forward.

Edited June 13, 2023 by Jez

[Jez]

 

 

The negative reaction score is disappointing, for my last post that is neither insulting anyone nor failing to rationalise my opinion. A negative reaction just for my opinion? So much for freedom of opinion in the great democracies of our world.

Well, let me put this proposition forward. Surely we, at least, need to make sure we understand what it is we are disagreeing on before we conclude we are disagreeing? I think the last exchange might have opened my eyes to that difference.

I said;

'Groups' did not experience racism.

'People' experienced racism.

and a reply was;

8 hours ago, Phi for All said:

Discrimination or prejudice against a group BASED ON RACE happens to groups by definition. You don't get to reinvent new definitions

I have re-bolded those quotes to make the point.

I don't feel it is merely a semantic difference that I commented on racism that has been 'experienced' and that @Phi for All has commented on racism that 'happens to'.

I'm working on a theory here that much of the misunderstanding surrounds this issue.

I'm unclear on why I am trying so hard to pinpoint the misunderstanding when few else seem to care. Surely resolving the misunderstandings is the route to answers, not to ratchet up the misunderstanding? That's just my autistic way I guess, others seem to like to keep some things misunderstood. Not a solution, though, is it?

There may well be people out there in the world that have racial prejudices against me. But I am not a 'victim of racism' because of it because I don't know who they are, and whatever their opinion is it is not appearing to have an effect on my life, or at least nothing that I regard as anything more than life's usual unfairnesses and injustices.

It seems to me that the other side of the debate here is proposing that the racism occurs immediately that some other person has conceived of the prejudice and harbours it somewhere in their psyche. Well, that might be true by definition (as @Phi for Allsaid) but it does not allude to a racism 'experienced' and occasioning losses.

So this is one aspect of the misunderstanding, and I was misquoted there, and arguing something I didn't say is a straw man, not sure why I was thrown a rock for saying that.

 

There exists a fundamental problem seeing racism as 'happening to' a group rather than being what it experiences, and that is that people have a right to hold absurd opinions. If the elimination of racism is to force people not to think in a certain way, I would remark that such a goal is as non-sensical as it is impossible, and almost certainly counter-productive. Possibly so counter-productive that 200 years after a lot of deaths in a civil war over the issues, it is still not settled.

So that cannot be a route. Both intellectually and practically, trying to eliminate racism from people's heads doesn't work. Perhaps it is even an ingrained evolutionary feature, to fear competing groups of humans, and those that did not develop that instinct were killed off by those other groups.

Moving into the modern world, however, such innate fears have no place any more, and the means to regulate such instincts (if that is what it is, I am not really arguing that, just painting a picture) is by regulating behaviour.

Someone who has racist thoughts that supresses the conversion of such thoughts in to manifest action and never expresses nor acts on them I do not believe would be properly labelled if they were called 'a racist'. This is probably something we might disagree on.

I think I can see why some people might regard this view as wrong, and that is that if people harbour racist ideas, even if they never express them perhaps they might leach out of their thoughts into the world of reality without them even realising. In other words, a bias.

But as we have long discussed, we all have biases and we might well be blind to them.

I do agree, however, that a person holding unexpressed racist views who believes they are supressing their instincts, but actually fails to do so and induces some unintended bias into public proceedings, does risk implicit racism and I recognise and accept that risk being the thing which others here are rightly concerned about. However, in practice that has to be regulated by good governance, monitoring and oversight, for otherwise we would be policing society according to what the State believes people 'might be thinking' and there is nothing good nor viable about that approach.

In conclusion, I do not think a person is guilty of 'racism' if they harbour racist thoughts that they never mention, manifest or act on. 'Racism' is the experience of a discriminated group, it is not the mental state of the person who lawfully holds such an opinion, unexpressed, in their heads.

The proposition that changes might be made that can alter what opinions people hold in their heads on a subject is as flawed as it will be unsuccessful. I believe the only way to rid people of opinions on a subject is to remove the subject in its entirety from common thought.

The only way to prevent unintended manifestations of racist opinion that do remain in people's thoughts is through vigilance and open dialogue to reach common understandings when and if it is suspected to give people a chance to consider the issues.

 

 

[iNow]

44 minutes ago, Jez said:

'Groups' did not experience racism.

'People' experienced racism.

Groups in this context are collections of individual people. You’re asserting a distinction without a difference. A distraction to sew doubt. A waste of bandwidth and time. 

[Intoscience]

15 hours ago, iNow said:

I see. So your position is that reparations cannot be focused on the groups who experienced racism in the past because doing so would be racist. Roger that. 

I think there are 2 schools of thought that are butting heads to try and get the same outcome with differing solutions. 

One school of thought in simplified terms is proposing that people in a group (identified by a certain skin colour) have been discriminated against because of their skin colour and therefore all persons with that skin colour should be compensated accordingly. So in essence, the argument is that, they where discriminated against by identification of their skin colour and so therefore should be compensated by the same mechanism - Discrimination between groups by skin colour both negatively and positively. 

On the counter to this there is an acceptance that people were discriminated against by their skin colour but also many other people in many other groups have been discriminated against by race or colour. That these people should be compensated for this, not by positive racial or colour discrimination but by induvial assessment which does not use colour/race as a discriminative process.  

One could argue that the outcome of the counter view would overwhelmingly be discriminative anyway by colour, since the vast majority of those compensated would be from a certain group defined by skin colour. 

But the argument is that to cease discrimination by virtue of skin colour one must change the systems operate in a way that ceases to use skin colour or race as a mechanism for group identification. 

So I think this is Jez's point with the statement - "stop seeing people as black or white". 

Now, I get both arguments, my feelings and morals tend me towards sympathy and understanding of retribution (I'm a eye for an eye type of person in general). But my logical side understands that to eliminate a problem completely, one must cease using mechanisms which may inadvertently compound the problems even further so they may not continue into the future.   

Edited June 14, 2023 by Intoscience
spelling

[Jez]

5 hours ago, iNow said:

Groups in this context are collections of individual people. You’re asserting a distinction without a difference. A distraction to sew doubt. A waste of bandwidth and time. 

Of course there is a difference.

Perhaps your bias prevents you from seeing it?

If there exists individuals in the group that have not experienced 'X', then the group has not experienced 'X'. Only some subset of the group may have experienced it.

_____

If the set N, a set of natural numbers, is multiplied by 2 and is transformed to set T, then it means every member of T must be even. 

If set A contains members that are odd, then it could not be equivalent to set T, nor one that has previously experienced a multiplication by 2.

_____

 

The 'experience' of being a set of natural numbers multiplied by 2 cannot be one that a group containing odd numbers has experienced.

 

In my opinion;

A member of a group that has not personally experienced racial injustice (even if other members of the group have) needs no reparations.

 

As far as I can tell in your opinion;

All member of a group in which any significant proportion have experienced racial injustice as a result of discriminatory attitudes to the whole of that group deserve reparations.

 

I'd not seek to refute that you have the right to hold that opinion. I just don't find it very logical to be able to test its appropriateness.

That is what the OP was about, that authors of a proposition [on seeing a correlation between black and white writing boards and racism] would refute approaches by others who want to logically test the proposition.

 

 

Edited June 14, 2023 by Jez

[dimreepr]

18 hours ago, Jez said:

Please. You said you do this.

I am asking, for a self-contained explanation of your position here, that anyone could understand if this was the first post of the thread they saw,  and is not predicated on any previous text in the thread.

I've tried in several different ways, I've written a synopsis on the topic, a cartoon the sums up a solution to the topic and several posts explaining why you're wrong; it's like you haven't read any of my posts since you joined the conversation and I asked you to please read the thread, before you try to reduce a complicated nuanced question, into a one or two sentence answer (Please, read it all again).

And here you are, asking me to do what you clearly couldn't and reduce a complex issue to a single, easy to understand, summary; I've tried, but you don't understand and thats not my responsibility (I can't understand it for you); it's like I'm pointing to the moon and you're saying "is that a wart on your finger". 🙄

[Jez]

15 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

I've tried in several different ways, I've written a synopsis on the topic, a cartoon the sums up a solution to the topic and several posts explaining why you're wrong; it's like you haven't read any of my posts since you joined the conversation and I asked you to please read the thread, before you try to reduce a complicated nuanced question, into a one or two sentence answer (Please, read it all again).

And here you are, asking me to do what you clearly couldn't and reduce a complex issue to a single, easy to understand, summary; I've tried, but you don't understand and thats not my responsibility (I can't understand it for you); it's like I'm pointing to the moon and you're saying "is that a wart on your finger". 🙄

You could just answer the question as I put it than belligerently refuse. I asked for a concise summary for someone if that were to be the first post of the thread they came across.

I expressed my position in a single sentence, and yet you feel a need to write whole paragraphs saying you can't do that.

I don't think your position is comprehensible, and you cannot express it in a way that can be logically tested How do I logically test a cartoon or a parabola?

I'll just repeat my position, because it's so short;

A) In my opinion; A member of a group that has not personally experienced racial injustice (even if other members of the group have) needs no reparations.

B) In my opinion; The difference [in this discussion] lies in those that believe seeing 'black' versus 'white' is part of the solution, and the other see it as part of the problem.

 

Even if my opinion is wrong and yours are right, I have still seen no proposals from you how to actually implement any reparations.

I have been concrete in my proposals; use your laws, use your 1st Amendment (which you've not explained to me what you think of that), set up commissions to help these social groups and administer any reparations as they see the means-tested needs to do so (they could be called, I dunno, maybe 'Equal Opportunities Commission' or 'Commission on Civil Rights' stuff like that? Maybe? Just stabbing in the dark here.)

[dimreepr]

1 hour ago, Intoscience said:

Now, I get both arguments, my feelings and morals tend me towards sympathy and understanding of retribution (I'm a eye for an eye type of person in general).

This is what's tripping some people up, retribution, in this context, does not equal revenge, it's more like the library cartoon I posted, "if you can't reach it, I'll get it for you". The problem is also muddied with the introduction of money into the conversation, people assume that means we have to pay for something that's not my fault, exchange my hard earned bear token's for someting I can't see... No chance...

1 minute ago, Jez said:

You could just answer the question as I put it than belligerently refuse. I asked for a concise summary for someone if that were to be the first post of the thread they came across.

And I asked you to read it all again, because it's all there, I'm not going to do the work for you; do it yourself, it's the only way you'll learn anything. 😉

[Jez]

6 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

And I asked you to read it all again, because it's all there, I'm not going to do the work for you; do it yourself, it's the only way you'll learn anything. 😉

If I read the whole thread again and still don't understand, will you explain it to me then?

[dimreepr]

9 minutes ago, Jez said:

use your laws,

You mean the laws, designed by the wealthy to keep the poor from their bear tokens?

14 minutes ago, Jez said:

use your 1st Amendment (which you've not explained to me what you think of that)

In this context, the 1st Amendment needs amending.

9 minutes ago, Jez said:

If I read the whole thread again and still don't understand, will you explain it to me then?

I'll try, but you'll have to be more specific about which part of which post you don't understand.

[Jez]

5 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

I'll try, but you'll have to be more specific about which part of which post you don't understand.

If you can tell me how to be specific about which part of a post is missing something? 

Like I have said, the OP is about a proposition of seeing black and white where it is not actually an issue, and then the authors refusing to provide the means to logically test it.

I've not seen a set of propositions from you that can be logically tested. Maybe I missed it. Maybe you could just let me know, at least, on which page they appeared?

[dimreepr]

3 minutes ago, Jez said:

Like I have said, the OP is about a proposition of seeing black and white where it is not actually an issue, and then the authors refusing to provide the means to logically test it.

What, exactly, are you proposing to test?

[Jez]

5 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

What, exactly, are you proposing to test?

Your solutions to resolve what you see as an issue, and your means and methods of reparation.

I keep asking what those are, but it seems they are buried in other text that you are telling me I'll find in the rest of the thread, right?

[dimreepr]

1 minute ago, Jez said:

Your solutions to resolve what you see as an issue, and your means and methods of reparation.

Have you tested yours?

[Jez]

19 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

Have you tested yours?

Yes, we covered that over several posts.

The example presented to me was redlining, and I showed that the legal system is appropriate to deal with that, there are already several dozen cases that have run in court and it looks like the "reparations" have totalled some several billion so far.

So, can you please now explain your routes which, as far as I can tell, are not going to include any legal means to enforce as you don't trust your own laws.

So, what is the solution, a dictatorship? I'm not following what possible solution you could propose that can be logically tested if you say that laws aren't a solution and the constitution needs amending.

Please spill the beans on your solutions. I've asked about a dozen times or more, and always get back a question about my thinking (which I always answer).