To your second bit, you more or less nailed it on the head. You have to be a community member, and it is your duty. They help each other frequently, but it's because they're helping their neighbor not being given handouts by someone outside of their community. Of course, if some hippy liberal in skinny jeans, a flannel shirt, and holding a typewriter comes to rescue them from drowning on top of their roof they'll happily take his hand. They are still human and would be gracious for his saving of their lives. Here's the key difference: you can save my life, but don't tell me how to live it. This is what they see the "liberal agenda/media/etc" is trying to do, tell them that their way of life is wrong and they should change it.
The best thing you can do is go be among them, eat dinner with them, help them build their barn (don't pay for it, just pick up a hammer), and don't say a thing about way of life, betterment, right or wrong, or any of the other things they might take as a slight. A mass movement to help these people goes against that stupid pride. Going there as an individual to help them as a small community because you ARE part of their community is how you help. It's the epitome of making a difference one person at a time. Here's the catch, if they think you're there just because you want to help them, you're out. You have to actually go there to become their friend, join their community, then and only then will you be allowed to offer assistance. And it damn well better be manual labor, you bring out your wallet and you're done. It's like being Jane Goodall...just for millions of people instead of chimps.
Ah, I see Cel. You are not just saying 'my opportunities in life are limited because college is outrageously expensive', you are also saying 'I do not have all the college funding opportunities I would have otherwise, being a SWM'.
Is that an accurate summary?
Xizoh, are you saying the same?
I highly doubt anyone (except maybe a university administrator preparing for another price hike) would criticize you for saying the former; it is universally obvious and clearly harmful. But I don't have to imagine criticism for saying the latter, I have seen it happen.
Let me ask you something. What do you think reverse discrimination is and what do you think the consequences are for you and others?
I suppose I've seen a lot of ways people define reverse discrimination, and most versions of it don't hold a lot of weight. Affirmative Action is the typical poster child of what the more racist middle Americans will say reverse discrimination is. I'm pretty sure that argument doesn't hold much weight, but I suppose once in a great while the less qualified person gets the job because of Affirmative Action. My guess would be that the frequency this happens is about the frequency as an innocent person going to prison. Hard to quantify precisely, but likely exceedingly rare.
The difference to me between real discrimination and reverse discrimination is that I get to choose how said discrimination plays out. I would never be denied doing anything, but I will have to pay for it no matter what even though I could always demonstrate financial need. I was never below the poverty line where there is much more assistance available, but I was always close to that line. I was never quite smart enough for the academic scholarships, but I was smart enough to get in to anything I wanted. I don't fit into any kind of minority where special scholarships exist (i.e. eligible for being X% Native American). It put me in middle-class SWM limbo where there is a vast void of financial assistance. I'd be willing to bet that it's not that much different for a gay middle class white male either, but I'm not one so I never looked to see if there would be specific financial assistance to a gay middle class white male. Anyway, the consequences are relatively minute. I won't equate lower income due to high student loan payments, but more or less comfortable income, as anything as life altering as rape or being beaten within an inch of my life or other number of like things subjected to non-SWM. Lots of people go without, and in a lot less comfortable situations than mine. Lots of people have huge student loan debts. My consequence is that I have a mild annoyance for working no less hard than anyone else who accomplishes what I did, but for less POSSIBLE assistance...in other words, "GET OVER IT SWM, your life is still pretty great!" And that is fact.
I think the culmination of it to me is that reverse discrimination falls more into the non-negatively connotated version of consequence: if <thing here>, then <said result>. It might be a form of discrimination (differentiating between one person and another via measures outside of one's control), but not the more typically thought of version of discrimination (prejudice). I hope that makes sense?
Intellectual discussions are fun!
I'm glad you're having fun, but hold on to your hat. It's usually pretty uncomfortable to discover that a fundamental assumption you've been making is wrong (or at least I find it so).
Factual statement: white men are *more likely* to receive financial aid for college.
Proof:
NPR
Color Lines
Inside Higher Ed
Journal of College Admission
The numbers for women aren't as well summarized, but even assuming women don't take on more debt during college (they do), imagine trying to pay off your current debt making 21.&% less money.
Does learning this change your view?
The last article is back to referencing intelligence. My high school GPA of 3.8 and college GPA of 3.4 were not enough to get any kind of merrit based scholarship related to academics. I don't remember my exact SAT score, but I know I was right smack dab in the middle of the total points...definitely not enough for academic scholarship. I tried to find academic scholarships and came up dry based on my abilities.
Also, in reference to the gender pay gap, I'll go back to statistics can sometimes be less telling than we think with this.
It doesn't really change my view, because my view was never about white men being discriminated against. My view was about me specifically being in a weird limbo area that resulted in discrimination, hence my previous statement about it not being a predjudicial discrimination. The best I was ever able to dig up was being able to write several thousand word essays to compete with several thousand other essays for $500. Sure, every little bit counts, but when I was taking 17-18 credit hours per semester during the school year and another 16 over the summer while working full time plus studying I didn't have that kind of time to write those essays on a chance at such a small amount. Maybe it's different today, but this was the case 15 years ago when I graduated from high school.
Anyway, no matter how you want to define it, my individual story is one example of MANY kinds of stories that may be completely unrelated to each other but still result in the middle thinking the way they do. You most certainly have stories just like mine too, but the difference is that while you align as a liberal (making an assumption there) they do not. The specifical culture of the middle American conservative is, as I say, stupid, and so they take stories like mine and vote for people like Trump. I left the area, because of that kind of thinking, moved out here and voted for Clinton. I don't like all of her, or agree with a LOT of the things she does, but her record has been consistent and it's one I'm relatively okay with. So, my story doesn't enter into the equation for who I'm voting for, but I can tell you that my use of research and logic to help me pick a candidate to vote for is a rarity in Indiana. Trump is closer to their culture, and doesn't tell them their culture is wrong or misguided or archaic.
I have to look at voter turnout numbers. They aren't high, which only lets me think that there were a lot of people who couldn't bring themselves to vote for either. There's plenty of people who thought for sure Clinton was a shoe-in, so they didn't take the time to vote. Most importantly, there's a ton of people in the middle of the country who are very angry, and they came out to vote.
Yes, three takes on the same study, and the data is now 5 years old. And I agree that report on the pay gap is misleading (does it really matter if the cause is social pressure to carve out time for caregiving, more infrequent raises, less opportunity to advance because of parental leave practices, or bosses actively thinking women’s work is worth less? The outcome is the same. Money is power and women have less.)
Also, independent of your take, Dulae made the point that there’s probably a large bias in those statistics in favor of wealthy white men, particularly for merit based awards. Fair enough, I believe it - that thins out the pool for less wealthy white male students and lowers the advantage middle class white men have, consistent with your experience.
Paying for college is f*cking hard, and I’m sure with that stress and uncertainty it must seem like a lot of opportunities go by that seem inaccessible to you, especially when scholarships for underrepresented groups tend to be better advertised than those open to all students (and that must be true in order for them to achieve their intended goal). But the reality is there are really not that many of them relative to the pool of scholarships and grants as a whole (meaning even if they were open to the entire middle class, sure they would probably (disproportionately) go to white guys instead, but you yourself probably would still have a very small chance).
Keep in mind that none of this lessens your struggle in any way. Your complaint of not having enough support for college is valid and true, and it’s really a very s@#@ty situation. No one would argue with this.
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When you say ‘it’s hard for middle class white men to pay for college’ instead of ‘it’s hard for me to pay for college’ or ‘it’s hard for the middle class to pay for college’, you’re saying that there’s some significant extra difficulty for white men relative to middle class college students as a whole. The key implication in pointing out funds for women/minorities are inaccessible is that white men as a group deserve that scholarship money more than the women/minorities it’s intended for. You might not intend it, but that is what you’re saying (otherwise, in a fair contest surely the minorities/women would just get the money anyway).
When you say ‘minorities CAN find money for being minorities.’ that can’t really be what you think - that minorities show up and say ‘I am brown/black. Check please.’ These scholarships select for excellent students who are shut out of merit scholarships because of the bias that they are innately not as smart or capable as their peers. Because GPA and the SATs are not a fair measure of their potential. Because they have had to face many more challenges daily that may not be visible to others, including consistently less support from teachers.
Let’s say WMs and non-WMs are equally as likely to receive scholarships for college and everyone has an equal shot at taking on the same amount of debt (although we’re not there yet). Do you think that’s enough given that people of color are still less likely to graduate or get into selective schools and women are less likely to be hired, mentored, or paid as much (particularly in STEM fields)? Would that be a fair shake?
Happily, affirmative action does seem to be helping, although it is slow progress. I’m glad we agree this is a good idea because it is accounting for a consistent, measurable bias in the figures of merit that we use for things like hiring, college acceptance, and merit-based financial aid. It is a calibration to get closer to a true value.
Something you may not realize is that a large contributor to these biases is exactly the kind of conversation we were just having, but reinforced between WMs. Complaints between buddies that ‘boy does it seem like it must be easier to be a lady with all those scholarship options’. These buddies enter the workforce and become more likely to make hiring decisions than the subjects of their complaints. It’s pervasive: colleagues that joke that the woman joining the team is the ‘diversity hire’. Comments that a black student only made it to Harvard because of affirmative action. The implication that non-WMs are getting an undeserved leg up.
It may sound like just talk, but it strengthens biases and hurts people’s chances. Real people who also worked hard; and even harder in a way that’s outside of the WM experience.
Let me ask you something else.
Knowing this, you hear one of your peers in a sociology, psychology, or philosophy class make the case that ‘reverse discrimination’ or scholarships just for women or minorities are unfair. That they as a middle class WM are hurting more because they are a WM.
Do you say something? Do you let it slide, or do you make it clear (ideally very politely) that this is one instance where it is not okay to agree to disagree because you know they are doing harm with their words?
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Yes, your story and many more like it deserve immediate attention and reform. So, what kind of change do you want to see? Educational debt forgiveness for teachers and health care providers? Free college in-state? Make some suggestions. I will help.
Most particularly, I don't feel I can fully contribute to discussions of inequality because they don't make any sense to me. I've never understood racism/sexism/etc conceptually. This isn't a statement of "the world should be a better place, we're all human!" It's literally I can't fathom how it even happens in the robotic sense - "Does not compute!" I understand that people are racist, and that Affirmative Action is a good thing to counteract it, but I've also never understood why anyone would hire a less qualified person to begin with, that's bad business. What race/sex/belief/etc someone is is completely and totally irrelevant. Pragmatism doesn't work in the real world, but it's how I think and so I'm often confused by things. That's how I end up trying to describe things that results in an interpretation of my thoughts being, "that minorities show up and say ‘I am brown/black. Check please.’" It wasn't I was trying to convey, nor is it something I believe. I was describing how I could find many scholarships that were, for example, merit based but required at least 25% Native American heritage. Anyway, it means I can't legitimately answer most of your questions until I get to this one:
"Knowing this, you hear one of your peers in a sociology, psychology, or philosophy class make the case that ‘reverse discrimination’ or scholarships just for women or minorities are unfair. That they as a middle class WM are hurting more because they are a WM."
The first sentence I would correct from unfair to illogical, and then say yes because I'm a pragmatist. I'd call out the second statement as false. It's far too broad of a statement with far too many irreconcilable variables to make a sweeping statement that all middle class WM are hurting more because they are WM. It's a circular argument fallacy, fallacy of composition or fallacy of division (depending on how you want to take the statement), and borderline a slippery slope fallacy, and that's what I would call out. It's a bad argument.
I would love to see education and funding reform, but plain and simply I don't count on it. There isn't enough money to go around, and there will always be fighting over who gets what. It is also such a BIG problem, then a few sentences between peers would be hard pressed to find any solutions. I'm not saying I abandoned hope, and that people shouldn't try to find solutions to that problem, I'm simply saying it's not something I focus on because my attentions are drawn elsewhere. My attentions are on tackling healthcare issues, which has far less to do with education inequalities or gender/race pay gaps and far more to do with how we go about practicing medicine. That's also a whole separate conversation.
So, you wanting to help me is very kind, but I also wasn't trying to make the point that I need help. I was using what turned out to be a bad example to explain a group of people who you are trying to understand (Trump supporters). Hindsight is 20/20! I think the summary of how you understand middle America who largely voted for Trump is go be a part of their community. The smaller the better, and become their friend. That would provide far more insight into how they think that resulted in them voting for Trump more than anything I could say. My apologies for the convoluted twisting in what I was trying to help explain in all those previous posts!
I’m going to interpret that P.S. as you appreciate that there’s more at stake for me than fun in these conversations, rather than as a jab. (I think we have a good rapport and you’ve never once shown any sign of antagonism (which I appreciate btw) so that fits my understanding of your character better. My reply to the words as written would be: Daaang, you gonna come heal me from that burn?)
Also, no need to apologize - I was being fairly silly/irreverent myself a couple posts back.
Yes, this is a detour. I am still interested in discussing middle (geographical) America and I do think there’s more that you could help me understand there from your own experiences, but that was me calling you out for something you said awhile back (I wanted to be sure I understood your perspective before I pushed the point).
However, there is a part of me that is and always will be furious not because there was not support for me for being a middle-class SWM, but because I'm not allowed to be upset about it. That there are the disenfranchised who don't have it as good as a middle-class SWM. That I have NO reason to complain about a lack of support because I've never been subjected to bigotry, racism, or any of the other terrible things that the non-middle-class SWM people have been subjected to.
I'll repeat it because it's worth repeating: you have every reason to be upset that you didn’t have support. You have every right to use your voice to advocate for yourself and be heard. If you say ‘the middle class is struggling and needs help’ I will shout that with you. I would fight for it. I think most people would agree.
If you say ‘white men in the middle class are struggling and need help’, you are doing harm and I don’t just disagree. I object. And although I still care about your problems and I would still help, I will object whenever you use your voice to promote bias.
My interpretation of our last exchange is that you agree that the problem at hand is there’s clearly woefully inadequate support for the middle class, not that there’s significantly less support for middle class WMs in particular. Is that the case? If so, do you understand that even if you don’t mean to, framing the issue as though non-WMs are getting unfair treatment is actively harmful to them?
I respect you and your point of view, but I also respect your fellow students who said something to you in your classes (although from what you say I do wish they were nicer about it). Standing up to a peer can be hard when you’re a student, especially a peer that doesn’t understand why his words are doing damage.
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My ideal outcome for this detour is that you become more aware of the implications of what you say for others. Being the pragmatist that you are, I'd bet you would rather interact with the world as it really is instead of as logic dictates it should be. (Plus there are a lot of implications for racial and gender/SO bias in health care access that you could be really powerful in helping address.)
I think growing awareness would largely come from addressing this:
Most particularly, I don't feel I can fully contribute to discussions of inequality because they don't make any sense to me. I've never understood racism/sexism/etc conceptually.
You seem to be attacking understanding racism and sexism from motivation. True, I agree, being racist or sexist doesn’t make sense. There are very, very few people who get up in the morning, have a stretch, and say ‘Beautiful day for threatening black people.’
Discrimination manifests mostly because everyone is biased. I unconsciously discriminate against women and minorities. So do you. Everyone does it. We forge expectations of their capabilities/behavior and how we should treat them based on our social interactions and what we observe (including in media/entertainment). The only way to combat it and change the culture is to be aware that you are biased and check yourself. (Or go the extra mile and object when others contribute to the problem.)
It’s sort of like your GM telling you ‘elves are less likely to trust dark elves, and humans tend to think human women are innately not as good at math.' Except it’s real, and learned pretty much since we’re born.
Happily for you, understanding the impact of racism and sexism is more straightforward for someone who is experienced with RP. It’s just empathy. You learn about people’s experiences and you try to internalize what that feels like and its impact. Ask your fiance what she thinks would surprise you about the challenges of being female. Ask your friends of color about their experiences. Ask me. Come visit the lab and ask my friends (you are welcome here, and you would not escape hearing all about physics). Very likely more than 50% of the people you know are experts. Opportunity beckons.
Closing thought:
I've also never understood why anyone would hire a less qualified person to begin with, that's bad business. What race/sex/belief/etc someone is is completely and totally irrelevant.
Okay buddy, we’re going to need to talk about this. (Obviously, I object.)
But first, what do you think? Are you willing to give it a try?
(I think we have a good rapport and you’ve never once shown any sign of antagonism (which I appreciate btw) so that fits my understanding of your character better. My reply to the words as written would be: Daaang, you gonna come heal me from that burn?)
Another case of my struggles to communicate the words in my head to words on paper, or screen in this case. It's not intended to be antagonistic as it may have come across. I was under the impression that this was a fun, intellectual conversation, but this:
I'm glad you're having fun, but hold on to your hat. It's usually pretty uncomfortable to discover that a fundamental assumption you've been making is wrong (or at least I find it so).
made me think otherwise. As written I gathered that you were intending to upend my beliefs, that it could be uncomfortable, and that more importantly I shouldn't be interpreting that we are having fun when it may not be a shared opinion. Genuine apology intended and just letting you know that you can attempt to upend any of my beliefs at any time, because I often enjoy it.
If you say ‘white men in the middle class are struggling and need help’
Nope, I don't think that, I was trying to express the frustration I had about my singular situation of being precluded from being able to apply for financial assistance sources on no small occasion because I wasn't a non-middle-class WM. I'm dropping the S, because I just don't think it would be any different for straight or gay in this context, but I could be wrong. Anyway, my perspective was if the scholarship can be qualified for at a 3.5 GPA from high school, which I had attained, but being excluded from it because (in the example used before) I wasn't at least 25% Native American was super frustrating. So close to one I could apply for, but alas I couldn't check that box. I was trying to use my situation as an example for perceived inequalities that may not actually be there for middle Americans from that standing in line metaphor. I've never felt like middle-class WM are struggling and need help more than anyone else. I was simply not allowed to apply for a scholarship because of my ethnicity and social class. I move on and live a happy life. Middle Americans often are less educated than their city-dwelling liberal counterparts, and take an example of a story like mine and blow it up into much of what you hear them screaming about. My whole story was never about trying to champion support for the middle class (white or otherwise) it was just an example of what middle America often uses to go off the deep end.
I also respect your fellow students who said something to you in your classes (although from what you say I do wish they were nicer about it). Standing up to a peer can be hard when you’re a student, especially a peer that doesn’t understand why his words are doing damage.
I've probably given the wrong impression here too. I would frequently play the devil's advocate and it happened to piss off a lot of people. I was offering a differing perspective, they would assume it was a belief I had, which was never true. My philosophy mentor in college was big on being able to argue the other side regardless of your beliefs, and I tended to agree with him. It always helped me to understand how better to tackle a problem when I understood the other side better. I never minded the lashing out, and the point wasn't to cause dissention, it was to try to foster understanding that people have the opinion of being discriminated against even when it's not valid opinion. Screaming back at them, "You're opinion is wrong!" won't get them anywhere even if it might be wrong. Hearing it, but sitting and having a reasonable conversation, trying to use the opportunity for education is a bit more likely to get further. Much like we're doing here, except in this case my beliefs do align with yours. My frustrations pretty much started and ended with, "Damnit, stop excluding me from financial assistance!" It didn't start a fundamental belief in my core that I'm being held back by The Man. It did offer me a chance to play devil's advocate, though. It was a new perspective for me, but one that classrooms full of educated people didn't want to hear.
Discrimination manifests mostly because everyone is biased. I unconsciously discriminate against women and minorities. So do you. Everyone does it. We forge expectations of their capabilities/behavior and how we should treat them based on our social interactions and what we observe (including in media/entertainment). The only way to combat it and change the culture is to be aware that you are biased and check yourself...It’s just empathy. You learn about people’s experiences and you try to internalize what that feels like and its impact.
This is 90% what my job is, empathy. Absolutely not sympathy, but definitely empathy. It's the ability to step outside of what you believe, see their side and understand what their going through to the best of your ability, and help them heal. The healthcare professions are largely based on having to step outside of any beliefs I have and address the person in front of me. I've treated a great number of bigots, criminals, racists, and people who made my skin crawl. It's not my job to dole out special treatment to people I like better or who align with my belief structure. Ask my opinion about smoking and it won't be pleasant. However, I cannot treat a smoker any different than a non-smoker, because I took an oath and I'm being paid to fulfill said oath. I ask myself a million times each day, "Is this the right treatment for this person? Would I do something else to <name redacted>, because I like them better?" My job description is to provide best care possible and not taking steps to make sure I'm always doing that is a failure to do my job.
Can I be biased outside of my work? Of course, because like you said we are all biased. My profession has just trained me to be consciously aware of when I'm being biased, because I cannot fulfill my duty if I don't pay attention to those things. It's a skill that takes a lot of time to learn and energy to perform, which is why I'm frequently aware of when I'm being biased in my daily life outside of work but don't have the energy to stop it. Mostly it manifests in my shaking my fist and screaming, "Asian drivers!" in my car on the way to work. Totally a racist generalization, and not at all an accurate reflection of the giant population of people who are Asian and driving. I'm fully aware of that when I'm screaming in my car. Are there still situations where I am unconsciously bias? Most definitely, because I am human, it's just not the default setting.
Okay buddy, we’re going to need to talk about this. (Obviously, I object.)
But first, what do you think? Are you willing to give it a try?
Now we get to the genuine interest and curiosity. Contextually (plus GIF) I can gather that you find the statement extremely upsetting. I would have thought this is would be something you support, because the statement is effectively founded in what an ideal world would be: color/genderblind. Whether or not a person can program a computer has no bearing on their gender or ethnicity. Therefore, hiring the best programmer is better business than hiring a programmer through a lens of ethnicity or gender.
I'm more than willing to give it a try, I'm really kind of confused by the upsetness.
You know, this is not the first time on the forums I've wished for some kind of tone/meaning indication syntax.
I'm glad you're having fun, but hold on to your hat. It's usually pretty uncomfortable to discover that a fundamental assumption you've been making is wrong (or at least I find it so).
This is the silliness/irreverence I was referring to. (Plus the spoiler title.) Maybe I will adopt something like <this is a joke> or {this is sarcasm}.
Really, no worries.
I was simply not allowed to apply for a scholarship because of my ethnicity and social class.
True. Irrefutable. Though I'm still not convinced you realize how unhelpful pointing out the ethnicity part is.
It was a new perspective for me, but one that classrooms full of educated people didn't want to hear.
I'm not surprised they were pissed. It's not a new perspective for them - they either hear it themselves every day or they realize that many of their peers do. Non-WMs are already exhausted from having to defend their presence there without being prompted in class as well. They're constantly overcoming fear that they don't belong because they've spent their whole lives getting the message or being outright told that they don't (particularly minorities).
Imagine you're a black girl in that class. You've already had dozens of conversations that echo this one. When you first arrived, people asked you 'How did you get into <school name>?' in this curiously surprised tone like they have no idea how much that stings. White guys have confrontationally approached you, asking about your high school GPA and qualifications and how much money you're getting, like you've stolen something from them. (This sh!t actually happens.)
Now a peer in a class asks, 'Have you ever considered white men might believe they're being discriminated against? Is it fair to exclude people from funds because they're white?' Like that hasn't been pointed out to you. Like it's not ever-present in your life. And if defending yourself has worn you down, you probably stay quiet and let it chip away at your confidence. (Although happily for you, apparently in this case other peers come to your defense and that probably buoys you some.)
Now we get to the genuine interest and curiosity. Contextually (plus GIF) I can gather that you find the statement extremely upsetting.
Hah, no, I am not upset. The gif was another attempt at humor.
I would have thought this is would be something you support, because the statement is effectively founded in what an ideal world would be: color/genderblind. Whether or not a person can program a computer has no bearing on their gender or ethnicity. Therefore, hiring the best programmer is better business than hiring a programmer through a lens of ethnicity or gender.
I object because if you instructed people (of any genetic makeup) to hire a team of the best programmers based on resumes/experience only, chances are you'd end up with a room full of white guys and you'd miss out on better talent. If somehow you were able to find a bias-proof resume review system, you'd still end up with a room of mostly white guys and you'd miss out on talent.
Discrimination shapes people who are affected and the way they see themselves in the world. If we don't carefully consider gender and race in hiring, we'll miss trends like talented women and minorities being less likely to apply for top-tier jobs, or differences in resources and networks that mean they're less likely hear about them.
'Color/gender-blindness' steers us further away from equality, not toward it. This is harder to explain, but I will think on it.
Also, Dulae, Dara/Alaina, how's the weather there? We just got our first snow here, but it melted :(
It's Southern California, it's the same as always.
It's not cloudy and raining in San Diego? It's cloudy and raining in LA, or at least northeast of downtown LA. (True f*cking story - I'm going to need my umbrella. It is amazing.)
Sorry about your snow Xizoh. I always really liked the first snowfall. (Towards mid February my position on the magical qualities of snow would change.)
Also: for the group's entertainment. Could be only my fellow music nerds will find this funny, but I laughed for about 5 minutes, and even a day later I am still chuckling.
Massachusetts has been having a decent november so far, although we had a couple of snow showers in october. Days up to low 50s for highs, 20's at night.
I am the California rain bringer. (Seriously, I took a road trip across country and it rained in death valley; I've been in LA 4 times in the last year and during 3 of them there were clouds and at least a sprinkle.)
We appreciate you! (Thank you for visiting California, please come again.) Also, we should hang out.
Okay, I'm back, sorry for the delays in posting everyone! Extremely big, and exciting work stuff, but it held my attentions all weekend. I'm getting in with a professional athlete, and it looks like more might be coming! Anyway, I'm going to play catch up later today, so I stop holding everyone up (including more spoiler stuff!)
Congratulations Cel! I don't have a good frame of reference to appreciate the significance of that, but it sounds like great news.
Thank you! It's great news from a business development perspective. I'm not one to get particularly star struck, so it's not so much about working with the individual. However, there's a definite effect in the PT world that the general public often wants to go where their favorite players go.
In terms of the classroom stuff, I didn't actually end up at a very diverse college to begin with. The angry people were all more middle-class white people (both genders, though). The point you make remains valid though, there's a fair chance I would have still played devil's advocate in those scenarios you mentioned anyway. It's certainly another thing to remember, staying quiet is sometimes the better option.
In terms of the color/gender blind steering further away, that's a harder one for me to understand conceptually. There's a fair chance that some of my lack of understanding originates from my particular branch of STEM fields where there is a SIGNIFICANTLY higher volume of females to males. Things like Affirmative Action have never really applied because there's a (for lack of a better description) default diversity present in the field along the lines of gender (plus or minus ethnicity). How this has played out for me personally is that, of the 6 resumes that have come across my desk in the last year, I remember none of the names or where they did their schooling/internships. The first thing I go to is what specialty education the candidate has pursued after school immediately followed by where have they previously worked to see what clinical setting they have experience in. I'm sorry to say, but I will definitely need more help understanding why color/gender blind is worse than not?
Also, with the holiday coming I can't guarantee much time posting. We're flying to Phoenix for Thanksgiving, and my mom is coming to meet her parents for the first time. For those of you who watch Modern Family, her mom is Gloria. No exaggeration. The only difference is that she doesn't look anything like Sofia Vergara. It's uncanny how similar they are outside of appearance all the way down to what city they are from. The point being, it's going to be a lot of fun, but it's going to be very time consuming and stressful too! Just want to say there's a fair chance I go dark for those days.
Sorry, couldn't help myself. It seemed like a great time for a HIMYM 'Telepathic Conversations'.
I'd be lying if I said I wasn't very amused.
Noted Cel, have a great time. I will take that as implicit permission to auto-bot if others are able to post. (I should be able to.)
Please do! I'll probably get some time to pop on in the mornings (Arizona time), but no guarantees. Auto-bot away!
Happy Thanksgiving all! If you are traveling, travel safely.
It’s challenging to explain why ‘colorblindness’ is actually harmful, because it relies on a deep understanding that people of color (and analogously, women/trans for ‘genderblindness’) have fundamentally different experiences in life.
They obviously have many of the same common worries you do, plus extra worries. Some you’ve mentioned, like physical violence, intimidation and threats, and explicit discrimination. Those things happen, and they’re traumatic. But the real struggle is the constant, unending flow of smaller worries. Facing discrimination isn’t just bracing for the major blows, it’s trying to run the same race everyone else is with weights on. It’s watching flash judgments that people make based on their own experience and stereotypes (because this is how our brains deal with large amounts of information efficiently) yield consistently different treatment in business negotiations, finding housing, trying to get service or make purchases, and opportunities of every form.
‘Colorblindness’ removes these different experiences from view, meaning it’s harder for people to check themselves that they haven’t made a biased judgement (for better or worse) and also makes it impossible for them to correct/account for differences in treatment that do exist.
This gentleman articulates some of these points better than I can, and this scholar explores alternative views on ‘colorblindness’.
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‘Colorblindness’ enables miscommunications like the one I suspect happened in your classes. If you treat everyone equally, then by default you assume everyone’s experience mirrors yours and they’re all coming from the same place you are. If you do this, you’re overlooking relevant experiences that may be very present in their minds.
I am very sure you meant no harm and only wanted to debate the philosophical question ‘Is it fair to exclude people from funding opportunities because they are white?’ On it’s own, with no context about bias or the implications of such a question in our society, that’s a fair and interesting question. Very appropriate for the classes you discussed it in, even.
If you had recognized the experience of colored students and said ‘assume it is a given that all current students have a right to be here and deserve whatever funding they received’ (note in reality this is *not* a given) as a preface to your question, that would have set the class up for an interesting debate that challenged ideas instead of people themselves.
It sounds like your classmates treated your question like an attack. And if you didn’t make the separation between the philosophical question of making distinctions based on race and challenging the right of brown people to share space with white people, then chances are they were right. It depends on exactly what you said down to the word, but in all likelihood, without meaning to, you did attack your classmates. As people. And I would wager they did not articulate this very well (especially if they just said ‘Hey, f*ck off’ or ‘How could you?’) and that’s on them, but you dismissed their objection to this treatment as they ‘didn’t want to hear it’.
If so, such miscommunication is ‘colorblindness’ at work.
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If you don’t notice women colleagues are more likely to be spoken over, you can’t help them be heard. If you don’t see that neighbors of color are more likely to be threatened, you can’t help them get where they’re going safely. If you don’t notice that non-SWM co-workers tend to avoid social events where alcohol is served because they’re more likely to be harassed in that situation (this is when the dark sh!t comes out and is inevitably excused, because booze) then you can’t help them gain the same networking opportunities and informal access to superiors that you have.
An example of something that tends to go unnoticed is that women in the workplace are often expected to do service work like train/orient newcomers and organize extras like outings without promotion-track recognition or financial compensation because ‘they’re good at nurturing’ and ‘they don’t seem to mind’. Or that if you have had a number of people of color apply but not get hired, chances are at least one person in the hiring chain sees a name like Jamal and thinks ‘I just don’t think that’s a good fit for us’. (Blanking out the name on a resume is really good for this, but doesn’t help as much in interviews.)
If SWMs adopt ‘colorblindness’ or ‘genderblindness’, they can carry on ignoring that racism and sexism still exists, satisfied in their assessment that they themselves are not contributing. But non-SWMs can’t ignore it. It shapes pretty much everything we do. Every conversation we have. Especially if it’s bias based on external traits like color or gender.
There are entire sub-cultures of different experiences that exist in parallel to yours, defined by yours. Some of them, particularly differences in gender roles, you maybe haven’t noticed or questioned. (My family has a Thanksgiving tradition where after dinner all the men go watch football and all the women clean up and do dishes, which can take awhile with half the people. I didn't realize this was pretty sh!tty until I was older than Xizoh.)
Probably the best possible thing you could do to understand is ask. Ask people of color and women how their experiences differ from yours. Intake new data points on the human experience into your robot brain. Read some bell hooks. Get woke.
If you're game to put your mind to it, I think we’ll get there. In the meantime, here is a robot-human interface algorithm.
Humor intended: Mikkel’s guide to ‘should I say this race-related thing?’
Would a white supremacist say this during a white power rally?
Yes - Do not say the thing.
Maybe - Tread carefully, Padawan.
No - Go ahead and say the thing.
(Your in-class question falls squarely into ‘maybe’ territory in this irreverent analogy.)
Agreed, I hope you all survive the onslaught of humanity and family!
I find it highly unlikely I stop judging others on their behavior as my sole criteria for judgement, because generally I don't like all people. How I ended up in a service job to people is beyond me. It's not a colorblind statement, if you're rude (WAVE THANKS WHEN I LET YOU OUT IN TRAFFIC!!!), obnoxious, selfish, oblivious to other humans around you (STOP LEAVING YOUR F+&$ING CART IN THE MIDDLE OF THE GROCERY ISLE BLOCKING EVERYONE'S WAY!!!), etc. I'm probably going to dislike you (specifically avoiding the word hate due to connotations, but you get my intent). Mostly I just keep my mouth shut and avoid people outside of my very small network of friends and those I consider family, because I don't particularly care about blood.
In terms of statements regarding the gender specific area, I'm probably not the one to be able to understand your full meaning. I've watched enough movies, TV shows, and stand-up comedy to get your point about gender bias but it's far from the places I've worked in my industry. My superiors have been female in every job I've had since high school. My current place of employment is just over 1000 employees, and the majority of management and up positions are held by women (including stereotypically "male" jobs like accounting). I am in a leadership role that was previously held by a female who didn't want the job, and I was trained by 3 different males as some kind of amalgamation of my role because the previous woman who had it didn't have time to train me. I'm not negating the things you say being true, but it hasn't been my experience to be able to see these things. It's a story in isolation, and probably an industry in isolation. The only other real reference I have is to my fiance who works in a female dominated industry where gender seldom comes up, but drinking often does. She seldom drinks, and never does at work functions, which seriously bothers her co-workers, because they don't know how to interact with her when they all drink and she doesn't. It still doesn't get into dark territory where alcohol is involved considering who her co-workers are, it's more that they just get REALLY awkward around her. I accept and agree that the gender issues exist, but I don't have the data points to corroborate it.
I avoid venturing outside on Black Friday if I can help it, for sure. Also, I am pleasantly full of leftovers, as it should be. Hope others are faring the same, and thanks for finding the time to post, those who can.
I am going to assume from the past-tense phrasing:
I took pleasure in ruffling feathers on a frequent basis on all subject areas, hence the classroom story.
that you understand why what happened likely wasn’t okay, you agree it wasn’t just ‘ruffling feathers’ in that case, and that you will be cognizant of that distinction in the future. (I also assume you are similarly dissuaded from dismissing speech normalizing sexual assault as ‘locker room talk’ that happens everywhere. (Otherwise, I offer a strong objection here too.))
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My superiors have been female in every job I've had since high school. My current place of employment is just over 1000 employees, and the majority of management and up positions are held by women (including stereotypically "male" jobs like accounting).
That is so awesome. (Incidentally, I’ve been reading a fantasy book where pretty much all the driving characters are women. It is so f*cking amazing to read a good action-driven story that’s pretty much a gender swap of tradition. I want to buy the author a beer, then assign it as required reading for every self-identified fantasy nerd.)
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I find it highly unlikely I stop judging others on their behavior as my sole criteria for judgement, because generally I don't like all people.
It seems like you’re assuming:
Cel observes behavior → [Straightforward ‘is this behavior acceptable’ check] → Cel judgment
But our brains are much more clever than that in terms of providing context for observed behaviors. We have a lot of stereotypes and shortcuts that are generally very helpful in making quick calls. (For example, ‘small children are more likely to dodge into the street without warning’ enables you to immediately slow down when you see a small child near the side of the road, almost by instinct.) When you’re judging people’s actions in traffic you also notice things like the car they’re driving, any identities or states you can perceive about the driver, and who else is in the car. Is this driver a parent trying to quell a backseat argument? Do they look emotionally distressed? You observe a lot in an instant; perhaps sometimes something to temper your annoyance.
This process really looks like:
Cel observes behavior → [Very complicated process in which observables are projected onto Cel’s experiences and internal stereotypes] → Cel judgment
The race and gender of the driver are likely also observed. And given that you’ve caught yourself making generalizations about Asian drivers, clearly the infrastructure for race-based driving behavior judgments is present in your brain. Racial and gender stereotypes probably influence you more than you think they do, especially if you think you’re not prone to it. (If you never actively think about if/how race and gender shape your judgments and decisions, you can never be sure.)
Bias can manifest in other ways too. For example, when I’m writing for the game and I need an NPC who is a competent authority figure, I will tend to reach for a SWM. Intellectually I recognize that makes no f*cking sense, but it’s an unconscious association I have based on 29 years of existing in our society and consuming our culture. If I didn’t actively check myself and correct for this, Captain Vazquez would probably be Captain Smith, yet another SWM authority figure in a fantasy setting. (Hopefully it is readily apparent why diversity in storytelling is very important to me.)
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I accept and agree that the gender issues exist, but I don't have the data points to corroborate it.
I think this statement tells me more about your data analysis than your data. Setting aside the grim statistics you've probably heard on the number of women you know who have suffered some form of intimidation or violence from an acquaintance or partner that likely went insufficiently addressed:
You’ve never approached a client with a woman superior and noticed the client naturally looks to you first as the authority figure? You’ve never heard someone dismiss a woman’s concerns because she’s ‘emotional’ or it’s ‘that time of the month’? You've never heard a 'funny story' about your female superior being mistaken for a secretary? You’ve never heard a guy use the word ‘friendzoned’ like he is somehow owed something? Or heard someone question a woman’s choices to have kids or work? Or use her appearance to judge her competence? Or heard her called ‘bossy/b!tchy’ where a man would be ‘showing leadership’? Never? Not once?
Methinks you see, but do not observe.
If so, I hope you decide to take the red pill. You have quite a few experts at hand to offer new data, and I'd bet you'd find these patterns in your stored data if you looked for them.
that you understand why what happened likely wasn’t okay, you agree it wasn’t just ‘ruffling feathers’ in that case, and that you will be cognizant of that distinction in the future. (I also assume you are similarly dissuaded from dismissing speech normalizing sexual assault as ‘locker room talk’ that happens everywhere. (Otherwise, I offer a strong objection here too.))
I still ruffle feathers, but the intentions are different. I never have stopped playing devil's advocate, because my specific beliefs are founded in skepticism/agnosticism so my I actively work to avoid making my belief structure be the major driving force for my day to day life. Devil's advocate helps me see both sides of the coin, even sides I am polar opposite in agreement to. It also forces putting on the other shoe (no matter how reprehensible) in questions about how Trump supporters work, because the best way to combat something is to understand it intimately even if you disagree with it.
In college, ruffling feathers was just because I was (in game terms) chaotic neutral.
But our brains are much more clever than that in terms of providing context for observed behaviors. We have a lot of stereotypes and shortcuts that are generally very helpful in making quick calls. (For example, ‘small children are more likely to dodge into the street without warning’ enables you to immediately slow down when you see a small child near the side of the road, almost by instinct.) When you’re judging people’s actions in traffic you also notice things like the car they’re driving, any identities or states you can perceive about the driver, and who else is in the car. Is this driver a parent trying to quell a backseat argument? Do they look emotionally distressed? You observe a lot in an instant; perhaps sometimes something to temper your annoyance.
Of course the brain is more clever in its operation, my area of focus in PT is directly tied to brain and nervous system function more than it is the post-surgical type of PT. I think you're also discrediting differing thinking patterns. The brain is extremely good at seeking out patterns, including where there are none. When there is priming you see what you want to see and ignore what you don't. There is also "practice makes perfect" where one can literally change what the brain focuses on by practice. It's not just getting better at the piano. If you practice pain, you get much better at pain.
My battle has never been race or gender, it is inconsiderate behavior that is not culturally or gender dependent. I can make jokes to myself regarding the Asian driver because I'm very much not politically correct, but I'm also not running around telling said jokes because I'm not a stand-up comedian who makes their money by "telling it how it is." Incidentally, the Asian driver thing was the other stereotype. Not race culture, the changing lanes without signaling or looking for a car in another lane stereotype.
My battle is bad behavior, things that disrupt another's day. I'm highly attuned to that where race/gender/etc aren't relevant. If you have an umbrella, you're walking under the overhang, and you're crowding out people who don't have an umbrella, that makes you a dick. It's not because you're a SWM holding the umbrella. It's not because you're a millenial holding an umbrella. It's not because you're a transgendered individual holding an umbrella. It's because you are a dick, and I will refuse to deviate my path in walking playing a game of chicken until we either collide or you move out from the overhang letting those without umbrellas shelter from the rain. If you leave your cart in the middle of the aisle, I will hit it unapologetically because your disregard for other people moving about is unacceptable.
Your battle is much more on the disparities in this country among gender and culture, you're acutely aware of it. It's objectionable that I'm oblivious to much of it, because I'm not doing enough to correct it and potentially even fostering it.
You’ve never approached a client with a woman superior and noticed the client naturally looks to you first as the authority figure? You’ve never heard someone dismiss a woman’s concerns because she’s ‘emotional’ or it’s ‘that time of the month’? You've never heard a 'funny story' about your female superior being mistaken for a secretary? You’ve never heard a guy use the word ‘friendzoned’ like he is somehow owed something?
Have I? Most definitely. Has it registered that it's occurring? Not in recent memory. I have some vague memories of similar events, because you're cuing me on it, but I don't remember who or when or what kind of frequency. I'm not watching for the client to look to me as opposed to my superior, because I'm watching for whether that client I'm approaching is standing in front of a stairwell making it hard for other people to get around. My judgement of whether I want to work with this client is dependent on where he's standing, not who he's talking to. I've not heard someone dismiss a woman's concerns because in my work it's seldom to never two men talking. The ratio of women to men been varying between 4:1 and 2:1 depending on where I've worked. My department specifically has always been closer to 4:1 and as I think about it even a 5:1 in one setting. In my personal life, I have my fiance and two friends. I don't get out much. I've been told I was friendzoned before by a female friend, but I've also heard it about my male best friend. The times I've heard it and remember it (which is to say rarely) have been in gender neutral circumstances.
Or heard someone question a woman’s choices to have kids or work? Or use her appearance to judge her competence? Or heard her called ‘bossy/b!tchy’ where a man would be ‘showing leadership’? Never? Not once?
No, I can honestly say I haven't. I've heard the statements talked about by people, but I haven't witnessed it that I can remember. It's also fairly likely been said and I missed it because I'm more focused on the fact that the person saying it is smoking less than 20 feet from a door that other people have to walk through. I'm distracted by the callous disregard for those around the person making the statement, so I miss the words.
My focus area isn't more or less important than yours, it is different. Should I make an effort toward the things you mention? Absolutely, and I will do my very best. However, I stand by my statement that my subconscious is far more attuned to how a person acts regardless of gender, culture, race, or any other attribute ascribed to a person. It's what I've been primed to do since I was a small child when I was being scolded for throwing a temper tantrum in a grocery store, "Becuase you're disrupting that nice person's day over there."
My primary functions are to make sure my actions cause as little distress to another's day as I can, and if I'm going to do something, then do it right. Looking over a resume is about picking the best candidate. I can't do that if I'm discriminating. Seeing human interactions are first about judging whether or not they are being selfish in how they go about their business. I'm guilty of the thing I can't stand in much the same manner that you mention Captain Vasquez versus Smith. I'm most definitely not perfect, but I work hard to make sure I'm not being the dick with the umbrella.
I will be doing what I can to dedicate more brain space to make sure that in the rare occasion that I'm talking to someone outside of my patients or my circle of three friends/fiance that I'm not using potentially hurtful words. Afterall, that could disrupt their day. My mission will remain going after selfish behavior, though. In my eyes, there's too much individualism in this country that has no basis in culture or gender and it is divisive. It allows for people to vote exclusively based on what they want as opposed to what's better for the whole (i.e. a true Trump supporter). I don't have a mental image of who might have parked on the line making it so someone else can't park in the space next to them. I have anger that someone did it, and I will write a note and put it on their car. It's not refusing to take the red pill, it's refusing to take up the same banner because there's not enough hours in the day and the things I find upsetting are stressful enough. I will do my part to be better at not contributing to the things that are counter to your banner without question whether I always understand them or not.
In the vein of no misunderstanding, because we're apparently awesome at that, this post is being stated in a tone of pleasantry!
Dulae, what weather magic have you worked in LA? It’s supposed to snow in the mountains tonight and I can see my breath outside.
I will do my part to be better at not contributing to the things that are counter to your banner without question whether I always understand them or not.
I really appreciate that. I hope that I can help you understand.
Speaking of, there seem to be some contradictions here I want to be sure I understand.
I never have stopped playing devil's advocate, because my specific beliefs are founded in skepticism/agnosticism so my I actively work to avoid making my belief structure be the major driving force for my day to day life. Devil's advocate helps me see both sides of the coin, even sides I am polar opposite in agreement to.
It seems like you either avoid or struggle with doing this for people and their motivations though. Do you agree? Here is a challenge, if you’re game: every time someone does something you consider rude or annoying, try to think of one reason you might excuse it. This could be good or bad (distracted because they’ve just been fired, or maybe they’ve just found out they’ll see a distant loved one again soon) or neutral. I’ve got one for ‘WAVE THANKS WHEN I LET YOU OUT IN TRAFFIC!!!’: I drive a manual car and I very rarely have a hand free in that kind of situation.
Here’s some additional counterpoint on socially enforced politeness - I learned very quickly, pretty much as soon as I learned language, that in order to be heard and advance in the world I needed to coat my “other”ness with a friendly smile and polite tone. Where WMs are allowed to show anger or frustration, non-WMs are seen as angry and aggressive in a way that’s somehow more harmful to the fabric of society. So the expectation that I’m going to smile and wave is something I chafe at - it hits very close to the submissive politeness I am expected to adopt as an “other” so as not to offend. (Harmony is not equality.)
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Incidentally, the Asian driver thing was the other stereotype. Not race culture, the changing lanes without signaling or looking for a car in another lane stereotype.
To clarify, you wouldn’t agree that a stereotype that paints a racial group as less competent is still a harmful negative stereotype? If you heard someone else say ‘Sorry I’m late, g@%&*~n Asian drivers were out today,’ you wouldn’t object to that?
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Your battle is much more on the disparities in this country among gender and culture, you're acutely aware of it. It's objectionable that I'm oblivious to much of it, because I'm not doing enough to correct it and potentially even fostering it.
Again, I really appreciate that you’re willing to learn and do more. I think that’s wonderful. But you realize that I’m acutely aware of it because it’s not a battle or a banner or a 'cause' for me, right? Discrimination leads to things that happen to me that I can’t choose to walk away from, like you might choose to walk around a grocery cart or walk away from a badly parked car.
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I've not heard someone dismiss a woman's concerns because in my work…
I highly doubt that. I expect concerns would be more likely to come up outside of work, for one thing. We may also not have the same definition of ‘dismissal’.
Do you remember right after the election when I told you all I was shattered and terrified? You no doubt meant very well when you said "It's unbelievably hard, but try not to lose too much sleep over this." That is what it looks like to very nicely/politely dismiss someone’s concerns.
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Or heard someone question a woman’s choices to have kids or work? Or use her appearance to judge her competence?No, I can honestly say I haven't.
I really struggle to believe that. Hell, go back and hang out with your in-laws and if your fiance doesn’t get awkward questions about when she’s planning on having kids by the end of your visit I will buy you a beer.
It's also fairly likely been said and I missed it because I'm more focused on the fact that the person saying it is smoking less than 20 feet from a door that other people have to walk through. I'm distracted by the callous disregard for those around the person making the statement, so I miss the words.
Out of curiosity, do you ask them to move or stop smoking so you can continue the conversation? Or otherwise make it known what you think about their behavior?
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I don't have a mental image of who might have parked on the line making it so someone else can't park in the space next to them. I have anger that someone did it, and I will write a note and put it on their car. It's not refusing to take the red pill, it's refusing to take up the same banner because there's not enough hours in the day and the things I find upsetting are stressful enough.
Hold up. Hang on. You have also said:
The cited people who have been openly violent and threatening have always been there. This current population may be citing Donald Trump as their empowerment, but lets not forget, the Westboro Baptist Church existed long before Trump's election. Violent protests, rape, murder, racism, and the like have all been there all along. Sadly, none of that will change.
So… what am I supposed to tell a young black girl when I’m explaining to her that there are people out there who would hurt her because of what she looks like? Or that some of her teachers will assume she isn’t as smart as her peers? To you, that’s too bad, it is what it is and we can’t change it, but at the same time, you won’t rest until you’ve informed your neighbor that they’ve parked badly?
How can violence and discrimination against people of color and women be 'Welp what can you do', but "disregard for other people moving about is unacceptable"?
I agree that there are only so many hours in the day, but honestly, I can’t help but wonder if the banner you’ve taken up is things that interfere with your version of a 'nice day'. What evidence do you have when you take these actions to minimize ‘day disruption’ that most or even any of the people also sharing that space agree with you? Or if they do also find it annoying, that they share the same priorities in terms of how important it is to address?
Imagine that I’m a black father who lost a child shot unarmed by the police. I'm sure you can appreciate my loss and my constant fear for my family and friends of color that they won’t make it home if they get pulled over. Or imagine I’m a Muslim woman in Pennsylvania and I’ve been verbally and physically attacked, spit on, and degraded for what I wear. Can you explain to me why I should find a statement like “the things I find upsetting are stressful enough” in reference to shopping cart placement, parked cars, and expecting a wave of thanks as something more than self-centered and petty? (Not rhetorical - I am listening. (Particularly since this contradicts other things you've said more recently.))
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My focus area isn't more or less important than yours, it is different.
Okay, the premise as I read it is: social enforcement of politeness in society is of equal importance to combating racism, sexism, and xenophobia.
I won’t let that premise stand unchallenged as written, so you can offer any corrections to what you meant if needed and we can debate it.
But before we weigh the relative importance of these ‘focus areas’, we should be sure we have a shared definition of them. I’ll repeat my understanding of your focus area back to you and you should do the same for mine.
Politeness in society: This is a tool for facilitating mutual respect and civility. If practiced by all, it generally improves the quality of life. The consequences of not practicing it are acute disturbances and inconveniences usually limited to a few people per incident, resulting in high levels of annoyance, anger, and frustration that may last minutes to hours. It is hypothesized that if unchecked, this behavior could result in selfish decisions that have more lasting impact on others, such as elections. The recommended course of mitigation is person-to-person intervention whenever such behavior is observed (social enforcement).
Do you agree that is a fair summary? What is your understanding of the manifestations of racism, sexism, and xenophobia in our society, and the consequences?
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Afterall, that could disrupt their day.
If you hear somebody spouting racist/sexist nonsense I very much hope you do disrupt their day.
This is probably a preview for a debate of the above, but I pose that no one’s comfort is more important than someone else’s life or rights.
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In the vein of no misunderstanding, because we're apparently awesome at that, this post is being stated in a tone of pleasantry!
Agreed. Interested to hear your responses.
It seems like you either avoid or struggle with doing this for people and their motivations though. Do you agree? Here is a challenge, if you’re game: every time someone does something you consider rude or annoying, try to think of one reason you might excuse it. This could be good or bad (distracted because they’ve just been fired, or maybe they’ve just found out they’ll see a distant loved one again soon) or neutral. I’ve got one for ‘WAVE THANKS WHEN I LET YOU OUT IN TRAFFIC!!!’: I drive a manual car and I very rarely have a hand free in that kind of situation.
Here’s some additional counterpoint on socially enforced politeness - I learned very quickly, pretty much as soon as I learned language, that in order to be heard and advance in the world I needed to coat my “other”ness with a friendly smile and polite tone. Where WMs are allowed to show anger or frustration, non-WMs are seen as angry and aggressive in a way that’s somehow more harmful to the fabric of society. So the expectation that I’m going to smile and wave is something I chafe at - it hits very close to the submissive politeness I am expected to adopt as an “other” so as not to offend. (Harmony is not equality.)
But you can nod. Or you can wave before you start driving out of the parking lot. Yes, there are times that people are distracted, but I'm not okay with someone doing as they please because they're going to see a loved one. It prioritizes themselves over everyone else in a manner that is unnecessarily disruptive. It might be petty, but it's never been about the size of a gesture. It's about the principle of manners to help society see outside of themselves, which still links back to the fundamental problem with racism. It is selfish. And taking a perspective of being polite feels like submissive expectation is your viewpoint on it based on what you've experienced from a racial standpoint. That's understandable, but taking the stance that not being polite is justifiable because of submissive expectations are part of racism is pretty damn close to, "Well you did this to me, so I'm going to do it back!" It deepens the problem. A racist will see that and shout a racial slur because of the rudeness. The simple fact of the matter to me is that rudeness is rudeness, and gratefulness is gratefulness. It's an idealized perspective, but that same ideal covers (venn diagram style) of race/gender crossover into selfish perspective. To quote Wil Wheaton, "Don't be a dick." It's not a statement about sometimes it's okay to be rude because special circumstances. Everyone has special circumstances every day. Don't be a dick.
To clarify, you wouldn’t agree that a stereotype that paints a racial group as less competent is still a harmful negative stereotype? If you heard someone else say ‘Sorry I’m late, g@*+!~n Asian drivers were out today,’ you wouldn’t object to that?
I probably didn't go into it enough, but that was basically a statement that an assumption was made about a stereotype that missed the mark likely due to past experiences you've had leading toward the race culture stereotype. It's proving your point that it's hard to shut off pre-conceived notions.
Again, I really appreciate that you’re willing to learn and do more. I think that’s wonderful. But you realize that I’m acutely aware of it because it’s not a battle or a banner or a 'cause' for me, right? Discrimination leads to things that happen to me that I can’t choose to walk away from, like you might choose to walk around a grocery cart or walk away from a badly parked car.
It's a cause to try to educate me on making the world a better place. I'm a part of the same cause. I can walk choose to walk away from a grocery cart, and you cannot choose to walk away from your race, but I think you're missing my point. It's not about comfort being mroe important than someone else's life or rights. They are the same thing. The cart is a symptom of a much more pervassive principle in our society: "I am more important than you." It is a serious problem and it creates divides that includes race and gender discrimination. Getting up in arms about these things might seem petty and self-centered, but it's something I can take direct action on. I cannot tackle the KKK. Every opportunity I get to remind people that they aren't more important than someone else I take, because I want to root out the problem at the individual level. I used to try for years to take on things at a mass scale, and it didn't work. I go after the individual because it humanizes the person being disrupted as opposed to a distant concept that happens to involve humanity. This paragraph also, I think, applies to some of the other questions you posed further down (for example the one starting with "So… what am I supposed to tell a young black girl when").
Do you remember right after the election when I told you all I was shattered and terrified? You no doubt meant very well when you said "It's unbelievably hard, but try not to lose too much sleep over this." That is what it looks like to very nicely/politely dismiss someone’s concerns.
You're absolutely right and I apologize. In an attempt to try to protect your health and well being I becaem dismissive. The path to Hell is laid with the best of intentions, but rudeness is rudeness and needs to be called out.
Politeness in society: This is a tool for facilitating mutual respect and civility. If practiced by all, it generally improves the quality of life. The consequences of not practicing it are acute disturbances and inconveniences usually limited to a few people per incident, resulting in high levels of annoyance, anger, and frustration that may last minutes to hours. It is hypothesized that if unchecked, this behavior could result in selfish decisions that have more lasting impact on others, such as elections. The recommended course of mitigation is person-to-person intervention whenever such behavior is observed (social enforcement).
I think that's pretty close to correct, except that I would entirely remove: "The consequences of not practicing it are acute disturbances and inconveniences usually limited to a few people per incident, resulting in high levels of annoyance, anger, and frustration that may last minutes to hours." I don't feel like those words are necessary to add to convey my meaning.
Okay, so I will do my best to try to define what your focus area is, but I caution that I become deer in the headlights when I try to state a definition pretty much everything. Fair chance there will be poor word choice again that misconstrues meaning!
Race and gender inequality: It is a matter of life that is unavoidable and entirely consuming that forces alteration of both behavior and circumstances regardless of whether it should be there or not. It is dismissed more often than not among those who are not subjected to it, and that only breeds further discrimination. Providing more awareness and taking direction action in that regard would be a significant leap toward correction of the disparities particularly among those not among the disenfranchised. Without these steps the gaps will only grow wider and create more divide.
There's the makings of like 7 other sentences floating around in my head that I can't solidify, but that is at least a start?
I highly doubt that. I expect concerns would be more likely to come up outside of work, for one thing. We may also not have the same definition of ‘dismissal’.
and
I really struggle to believe that. Hell, go back and hang out with your in-laws and if your fiance doesn’t get awkward questions about when she’s planning on having kids by the end of your visit I will buy you a beer.
This would be why I talk about what I remember, and also specifying that I am probably not hearing statements. I took over as clinic manager from a woman who decided she'd rather spend more time with her family than manage the clinic and received nothing but compliments for it. It wasn't dismissive, "Well, she's being a woman" statements. It was a sentiment expressed by co-workers of happiness that she prioritized her family over her work, not derided it. I can't imagine you would say that her decision was socially pressured or dictated by her husband or that she's feeding into the problem. She makes more than I do because of her years experience and quality as a PT AND she gets to spend more time with her loved ones? I love that concept, and so did the rest of the staff in our clinic. I have and still work in a distinctly different environment than the one talked about in popular commentary, and thus I say, "No, I can honestly say I haven't seen it in my workplace." I'm also sure that it still exists in my industry, but it's far less the norm and social pressure stops it from being a major feature, because it is the minority opinion.
In terms of personal life, you don't have to buy me a beer. There was a statement about when she would have kids, but context matters too. The statement came from her mother, who has a great deal of regrets about her life, and constantly makes statements about the SHE wants things to be. It's not a statement of gender stereotypes, it was a statement about how her mom wants things to be. She also wants a marriage in a church with hundreds of people, but we don't. She also makes tons of comments about the fact that we're getting married in hiking boots in the Hoh National Forest, because it doesn't fit the picture of what she wants to see. Beyond that, no, everyone else didn't make comments about kids because they know we aren't going to have any. And as I said, the rest of my personal life revolves around 3 people and very occasionally my mom and her family who are minorities and live a culture of mom runs the house.
Let it be stated for the record that everyone who said Doctor Strange is excellent was correct.
You're absolutely right and I apologize.
Apology unnecessary, but accepted with thanks.
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I think that's pretty close to correct, except that I would entirely remove: "The consequences of not practicing it are acute disturbances and inconveniences usually limited to a few people per incident, resulting in high levels of annoyance, anger, and frustration that may last minutes to hours." I don't feel like those words are necessary to add to convey my meaning.
If we’re going to weigh relative importance in terms of addressing these ‘focus areas’ in society, consequence is the essential metric. Impact is more important than intent. I have summarized what I see as the consequences of a lack of politeness in society. You may offer correction, if you wish.
Similarly, you have not addressed what the impact of sexism, racism, and xenophobia is. What do you think this means for people? How do you think it affects them?
Race and gender inequality: It is a matter of life that is unavoidable and entirely consuming that forces alteration of both behavior and circumstances regardless of whether it should be there or not. It is dismissed more often than not among those who are not subjected to it, and that only breeds further discrimination. Providing more awareness and taking direction action in that regard would be a significant leap toward correction of the disparities particularly among those not among the disenfranchised. Without these steps the gaps will only grow wider and create more divide.
This is a bit too vague for me to take your meaning on any particular point. Can you define who you’re referring to in each sentence (particularly ‘those not among the disenfranchised’)? What is a ‘matter of life’? What is your definition of ‘discrimination’? What do you mean by ‘gaps’? What is your sense of the ‘divide’ that exists and how do you think it will it grow?
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I probably didn't go into it enough, but that was basically a statement that an assumption was made about a stereotype that missed the mark likely due to past experiences you've had leading toward the race culture stereotype. It's proving your point that it's hard to shut off pre-conceived notions.
I'm lost. What assumption, exactly? How did it ‘miss the mark’? And let’s come back to your distinction between ‘race culture’ stereotypes and ‘other’ race-based stereotypes. First, what the actual what? Second, why do you think that my experience influences to me to ask you to defend that distinction?
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It's not a statement of gender stereotypes, it was a statement about how her mom wants things to be.
What difference does it make if it comes from her mother in a string of other opinions? If my grandmother is the one to tell the women in my family to get in the kitchen and the men to stay put, does that make it okay? If she switches from criticizing the sweet potatoes to telling my sister she should settle down because she’s ‘losing her prime’, does that make it any less uncomfortable for my sister because her grandmother also has an opinion about sweet potatoes? Why is upholding gender stereotypes okay if it’s coming from family members?
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What you’re asking for in some of your example cases is constant, undisrupted attention to others. That’s not realistic. Plus, these are largely relative. If I have a moment of distraction and I leave my cart out in the middle of the aisle trying to figure out a price, and you run into it instead of asking me to move it, I am not going to learn the lesson you intended. I am going to think you’re a dick.
You’re enforcing a set of rigid rules that you alone have defined by punishing people you judge to not have followed them. You don’t think that’s more lawful (and arbitrary at that) than it is good? How can you be sure what they’ve done is harmful enough to others to merit your interference (if harmful at all)?
And why when making judgments does your mother in law get context for her comments, when these ‘selfish dicks’ you don’t know don’t get consideration for what might be happening in their lives?
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taking the stance that not being polite is justifiable because of submissive expectations are part of racism is pretty damn close to, "Well you did this to me, so I'm going to do it back!" It deepens the problem. A racist will see that and shout a racial slur because of the rudeness. The simple fact of the matter to me is that rudeness is rudeness, and gratefulness is gratefulness.
If you let me out in traffic, sure, I will wave if I can. I think that’s a nice thing to do. It makes you feel good, and I feel good knowing you feel good.
But let me be clear - this choice is mine to make. I do not owe anyone a wave. I do not owe anyone a smile. I owe no gratitude. No one has the right to expect a cookie for treating me like they’d like to be treated. Ideally we can all treat each other well without the expectation of acknowledgement or reward.
If you think racial slurs are generally provoked, prompted by some perceived affront, you are wrong. It’s about power. They shout it to make sure their targets hear that they’re lesser. They shout it because they think no one will stop them. (You've never heard this happen?)
And if I witness someone shouting a racial slur, I will object, and you can be damn sure I’m going to be rude as sh!t about disrupting their day.
Enforcing ‘politeness’ can also silence people who are trying to voice concerns. If I shout in a crowded room ‘Hey, unarmed protesters are getting the living sh!t kicked out of them in North Dakota’ and the response is ‘Shhh, lower your voice, we’re trying to enjoy our day’, then socially enforced politeness is silencing my protests. If I am not allowed to object unless I do it in a ‘polite’ way in which I’m not bothering them, then my objection is forgotten. I am unheard, but they can carry on with their undisrupted days.
Racists can politely keep their shopping carts in check while denying housing to people of color, and the expectation of ‘polite’ behavior can silence people protesting bad treatment. Enforcing politeness is not particularly helpful in either discouraging discrimination or supporting those who are discriminated against; it can even reinforce institutional discrimination.
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I cannot tackle the KKK. Every opportunity I get to remind people that they aren't more important than someone else I take, because I want to root out the problem at the individual level. I used to try for years to take on things at a mass scale, and it didn't work. I go after the individual because it humanizes the person being disrupted as opposed to a distant concept that happens to involve humanity.
Yes, you can tackle racism. Clearly you believe social norms can be corrected on an individual basis, and that applies to discrimination too. You recognize society is not an unyielding, unstoppable force; it’s made up of people and relationships.
We've addressed unfair/oppressive societal institutions before to some extent; slavery, Jim Crow, women in the workforce. Hell, women couldn't serve on a jury in all 50 states until 1973. Gay marriage wasn't legal across the US until *last year*. Our society is changing rapidly, and we as individuals did that. We can foster awareness and discourage discrimination with our friends, family, and acquaintances as a matter of course.
Instead of throwing shade at people getting groceries, you could throw shade at people for making comments about Asian drivers. Instead of writing notes for badly parked cars, you could save that energy for the next time you hear a stranger casually using racial or anti-LGBTQ slurs. When people (including family) ask your fiance when she’s going to have kids, you could make sure she knows she has your support and she shouldn’t feel pressured to fit people’s expectations of what women should do. You could take the plunge and talk to your family who voted for Trump about the impact their vote had. There are a lot of things you can do to effect meaningful change. And your voice is more powerful than mine - it will go farther.
Similarly, you have not addressed what the impact of sexism, racism, and xenophobia is. What do you think this means for people? How do you think it affects them?
This is a bit too vague for me to take your meaning on any particular point. Can you define who you’re referring to in each sentence (particularly ‘those not among the disenfranchised’)? What is a ‘matter of life’? What is your definition of ‘discrimination’? What do you mean by ‘gaps’? What is your sense of the ‘divide’ that exists and how do you think it will it grow?
I can certainly try. The impact is essentially all the things you've described over these posts. How do I put that into a few sentences I don't know. If you were to ask me to define a doe, I would have the same struggles.
Those not disenfranchised - anyone not being subjected to discrimination
What is a matter of life? - The matter of life is that it happens to you as opposed to around you coming from other people that results in your needing to change what you do and how you behave as a result of people trying to control what opportunities and experiences are available.
What is your definition of discrimination? - Separating individuals or groups of individuals by gender, race, culture, or beliefs with action taken to deny basic human rights and opportunities by gender, race, culture, or beliefs.
What do you mean by gaps? - Wage imbalances, job availability/type of job/opporunities for advancement, living circumstances, education opportunities, food quality differences, TSA screenings, traffic tickets, violence, and what I'm sure is a ton of other things I'm forgetting to list
What is your sense of the divide and how do you think it will grow? - The divide was just a synonym for gap, and I wanted to sound smarter by using a different word <this is a joke>. I don't know that it will or won't grow. I can't answer that part of it simply because I don't know what the future will hold. I can only say that all of the gaps above can get bigger without people intervening.
I'm lost. What assumption, exactly? How did it ‘miss the mark’? And let’s come back to your distinction between ‘race culture’ stereotypes and ‘other’ race-based stereotypes. First, what the actual what? Second, why do you think that my experience influences to me to ask you to defend that distinction?
This one is definitely a miscommunication. I read one of your posts stating "race-based driving culture" as litterally a racing culture stereotype a la Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. Re-reading it, that's not what you said. Everything following from that point on started from that miscommunication. Disregard!
What difference does it make if it comes from her mother in a string of other opinions? If my grandmother is the one to tell the women in my family to get in the kitchen and the men to stay put, does that make it okay? If she switches from criticizing the sweet potatoes to telling my sister she should settle down because she’s ‘losing her prime’, does that make it any less uncomfortable for my sister because her grandmother also has an opinion about sweet potatoes? Why is upholding gender stereotypes okay if it’s coming from family members?
The difference is that you said you'd buy me a beer if no one asked when we're going to have kids. I could lie and say that it didn't happen, but I'm not going to do that. The reason context becomes important is because her mom isn't saying that my fiance's place is in the kitchen standing in a bucket of water over a roast with a kid on her hip and 17 more crawling around the floor. Her mom wants hundreds of grandbabies, so she asks, "When do I get hundreds of grandbabies?" It has nothing to do with gender stereotypes. It has to do with her mom being a selfish dick pressing what she wants on everyone around her, and yes she is called out on it every time. She doesn't get a pass either. The context was exclusively because you asked if the words were spoken, not why the words were spoken, and I'm not going to lie to you and say they weren't said.
What you’re asking for in some of your example cases is constant, undisrupted attention to others. That’s not realistic. Plus, these are largely relative. If I have a moment of distraction and I leave my cart out in the middle of the aisle trying to figure out a price, and you run into it instead of asking me to move it, I am not going to learn the lesson you intended. I am going to think you’re a dick.
You’re enforcing a set of rigid rules that you alone have defined by punishing people you judge to not have followed them. You don’t think that’s more lawful (and arbitrary at that) than it is good? How can you be sure what they’ve done is harmful enough to others to merit your interference (if harmful at all)?
Nope, not realistic, it's idealistic like Communism. I'm principled to a fault, I'm also an a+&%##@. It's also why I tend to avoid social situations whenever possible, because my unrealistic standard of society being less individualistic isn't attainable just like the end of racism isn't realistic. It doesn't mean it's not worth fighting for. "What an a!@+&~+ for leaving a note on my car!" My retort is, "Don't park like an a*&*~!*!" Because I like to be dramatic in my story telling I say a lot of sarcastic things (see Cel's animaniacs type behavior). It probably bears mentioning that when I write a note, it is saying things like, "Please don't park on the line, it makes it so others can't park here too." When I do bump a cart it's not a massive collision with an angry face. It's a glancing blow that has a sound as I look at the things on the shelves that results in a reaction of the person to often snap to attention that the cart is blocking paths, and they typically apologize for blocking the way. I also sometimes say, "Would you be so kind to move your cart?" It just depends on whether I feel like acting that I didn't notice the cart and bumped it incidentally because mine didn't fit in the space between or whether I feel like talking to strangers. My net result is still about letting the person realize that they've blocked another's way.
It's principled to a fault, and I accomplished my goal of drawing attention to the fact that parking in a way that limits others ability to park in a place where available parking is a serious problem. That often makes me out to be an a+&~*@+, and I'm okay with that. "What if that person parked that way accidentally because they're in a hurry to get to their dying loved one?" I don't accept that premise, because it's equally likely that the person being boxed out of the parking spot is also in a hurry to get to a dying loved one.
But let me be clear - this choice is mine to make. I do not owe anyone a wave. I do not owe anyone a smile. I owe no gratitude. No one has the right to expect a cookie for treating me like they’d like to be treated. Ideally we can all treat each other well without the expectation of acknowledgement or reward.
If you think racial slurs are generally provoked, prompted by some perceived affront, you are wrong. It’s about power. They shout it to make sure their targets hear that they’re lesser. They shout it because they think no one will stop them. (You've never heard this happen?)
And if I witness someone shouting a racial slur, I will object, and you can be damn sure I’m going to be rude as sh!t about disrupting their day.
Ideally we do treat each other well, and it's never been about owing someone anything. It's kindness shared between two people. It's a humanization of the people around you. Lack of humanization and kindness results in someone shouting a racial slur. If you think I think all racial slurs are provoked, and that it isn't about exerting power you would be wrong as well. The key word there is that the racist thinks their target is lesser. It's a lack of humanization and kindness. I would disrupt the shouter's day too, rudely. I wouldn't do it because they are being racist. I would do it because they are displaying a lack of kindness and humanization of others around them that manifests as being racist. Our two concepts are not mutually exclusive. I've probably used a lot of phrasing that makes it seem like the two things we are focusing on are mutually exclusive. In daily life, what I will miss is more subtle things that occur because I'm paying attention to whether or not a person is blocking a stairwell over who they look at as the work superior. The way I look at the world is that no one gets a pass for lack of kindness and humanization to everyone around them. "That guy yelled a racial slur!" I'll catch that one and fire back with "F!&+ you ignorant guy!" with the same vigor I will the person who decides to block the doorway of a busy building. It's callous disregard for others that I protest against independent of race, gender, culture, or belief. If there were no callous disregard to others, then there would be no racism.
The mass changes do happen, like Jim Crow, gay marriage, etc. I've frustrated myself by yelling at the masses until I'm blue in the face about environmentalism without change. So now I've chosen to take it to one on one interaction. You're right, I can tackle racism, I didn't say the contrary. I said I can't tackle the KKK. I am choosing to do it at the individual level, because I feel I can get more results that way. I used the term color/gender blind in the past, and the evidence you gave me was pretty interesting. I should correct a perspective I probably conveyed. I'm not trying to combat racism by being color/gender blind, the evidence you cited proves that it doesn't work and fosters more of the same problem. My version of color/gender blind is simply that I just don't feel that anyone should get a pass for being individualistic in a society of people.
Sorry for the delay today - had a surprise root canal. (Fairly painless all in all, but I can’t say I’d recommend it.)
Welcome to Day 3 in-game! Thanks for hanging in there.
(Thanks also for the reply Cel - there are some science fires to put out tomorrow, but I will be thinking about it.)
Ew, root canal! Glad to hear it went okay. Also, science fires to put out sounds both horrifying and cool at the same time although I imagine it's probably more of the neutral, paperwork kind of fire. I just like the visual of somekind of multicolored flame made of a living gel or something instead :)
I now know what dentin tastes like and I very, very much wish I didn't, but on the other hand I have a super sweet new fake tooth that makes me feel like a pirate.
More of the 'we're supposed to start an international data taking run tomorrow and we aren't ready yet' kind of fire. (The curses are certainly colorful. I think I've strung 'f*ck' together as every part of speech multiple times today.)
Okay Mikkel, are you running on a non western us time zone? Because I thought humans slept at two in the morning? Or is science all you need?
I would normally immediately look very guilty after a comment like that, but is it not later for you (and don't you need to get up early as #$%^)?
If I were to have worked my salaried 40-hour weeks' worth of time for 2016 by September (and I'm not saying that I have) then I'll have you know it's an extremely exciting time for science, and you're welcome American taxpayers.
(EDIT: if not obvious, [humor intended])
No, and yes respectively. My sleeping habits would probably not work for most people. It was just strange to actually see other people up so late.
Speaking of science, can you explain this to a confused physics enthusist? Cause my friend and I spent hours wondering and discussing it without any real progress.
Humor recieved :D
Sorry all for the lack of posting today - all my spare brain cycles were devoted to setting up a non-profit for physicists to donate prize money to good causes. Made some satisfying progress. (Won't be quite in time for the Breakthrough Prize, but ah well).
You may have plenty of company on the forums in the odd hours Xizoh: my sleep cycle has been a bit of a mess since Nov 9, Dulae stays up even later than I do (he must not like the sun), and I'm 80% sure Alaina does sleep, but I can't pin down when that is exactly.
Propellent-less propulsion, hm? I'll have a think on it - in order to summarize it well I'll have to give the paper a thorough read to better understand what they did. (Even knowing all the words and acronyms, it is still pretty tough to wade through.) Happily, we have an abundance of experienced physicists here: Dulae knows more quantum field theory than I do.
"If the vacuum is indeed mutable and degradable as was explored, then it might be possible to do/extract work on/from the vacuum, and thereby be possible to push off of the quantum vacuum and preserve the laws of conservation of energy and conservation of momentum. It is proposed that the tapered RF test article pushes off of quantum vacuum fluctuations, and the thruster generates a volumetric body force and moves in one direction while a wake is established in the quantum vacuum that moves in the other direction."
http://arc.aiaa.org/doi/10.2514/1.B36120
My initial take: "Propellent-free propulsion would be game-changingly important to space exploration, so we got funding to try this even though it's extremely unlikely to work. Our results are 100x less consistent with zero thrust than anything that's been measured before, at a fairly unconvincing 1-2 sigma."
H'ok, so. I briefly read the paper in question. My impressions:
0) Before beginning, its good to know that 'reactionless' drives have existed for a long time. If you stick a laser pointer to a battery or solar panel, you have a reactionless drive. Whats interesting is that the magnitude of the effect they measured is 200 times more energy efficient than a photon propulsion system.
1) The researchers involved are being honest and careful. They've attempted as best they can to account for possible sources of error and have found them too small to explain the signal. They presumably consulted with/used the same equipment as the folks doing ion drive tests, which measure signals an order or two larger, but is comparable. The whole thing could still be an error - its an analogous situation to the faster than light neutrinos - but its not fraud. That said, NASA funds a lot of weird s*~~ so just because its them doesn't mean much besides (maybe) technical competence.
2) As an experimentalist I have no issues with their design. They are using a standard method to measure small forces. The signal is highly correlated with the input. When they put power in, there is definitely a force acting on the pendulum. The source of that force in not known, but they attempt to rule out most of the common guesses.
3) The discussion section is HILARIOUS. Their actual discussion section is what Mikkel posted:
If the vacuum is indeed mutable and degradable as was explored, then it might be possible to do/extract work on/from the vacuum, and thereby be possible to push off of the quantum vacuum and preserve the laws of conservation of energy and conservation of momentum. It is proposed that the tapered RF test article pushes off of quantum vacuum fluctuations, and the thruster generates a volumetric body force and moves in one direction while a wake is established in the quantum vacuum that moves in the other direction.
Everything previous to that is one of the theories as to why the vacuum has something to push against.
4) That said, the theories are really interesting. The briefest of rundowns:
- Quantum mechanics is probabilistic. People don't like that so theorized 'hidden' variables that really controlled things deterministically.
- Unlike string theory (obligatory f&$! string theory insert), hidden variables were experimentally testable (Bell). They came up false for 'local' hidden variables ie: hidden variables constrained by speed of light interactions.
- Non-local hidden variables have not been ruled out, but are considered bizarre because they imply that the 'real' foundation of reality does not obey relativity in the slightest.
- One consequence of (some) hidden variable theories is that vacuum fluctuation, which have been observed in several ways, are not random particles popping in and out of existence; rather they are a manifestation of a 'true' background that has a persistent state. And if there is a persistent state, maybe we can do s@#$ to it.
The experiment does have important implications for space travel simply because its more efficient than other reactionless technologies, but the real impact imo is to much more exotic physics like artificial gravity and FTL travel. Seriously. The existence of a persistent vacuum background which we can extract work from implies that we can reduce its energy; regions of negative energy density space is the basis behind repulsive gravity and the Alcubierre drive - which obeys the formulas of general relativity by clever use of flagsloopholes.
I find it very funny the scale of groundbreaking physics lately. Particle phyics? Billions of dollars and a many kilometer wide underground ring (meh). General relativity/cosmology? Billions of dollars and 2+ kilometers long L shaped interferometers (woooo!LIGO rules and LHC drools!! *chugs*).
Quantum gravity? Pump some RF into a copper cone, sprinkle with the tears of string theorists everywhere.
I feel like there's a correlate with online pathfinder and s$#~ty sleepers...
That's awesome on the non-profit, and no worries on the posting! I'm sure we're all okay with a slow down when it's for important things.
I don't totally understand everything that you just described Dulae, but I get the gist. And the bits at the end...OMG, I love you! I so hope you are right about the implications! I desperately want to be able to teleport (favorite super power) at will and FTL travel would probably be close enough.
I feel like there's a correlate with online pathfinder and s+*&ty sleepers...
My Cel-meaning filter tells me by "s%&*ty sleepers" you recognize that our sleeping patterns are unusual but you don't necessarily mean to judge that there's something wrong with them.
which obeys the formulas of general relativity by clever use offlagsloopholes.
+10 to Dulae for a spot on Eddie Izzard reference.
I find it very funny the scale of groundbreaking physics lately. Particle phyics? Billions of dollars and a many kilometer wide underground ring (meh). General relativity/cosmology? Billions of dollars and 2+ kilometers long L shaped interferometers (woooo!LIGO rules and LHC drools!! *chugs*).
Keep chugging that Kool Aid, maybe you'll spontaneously start chanting "U-S-A". (I've told you that I'm going to CERN next year, right Dulae? Hopefully there's not too much drool.)
Urg, the unpleasant thought just occurred to me that when LIGO wins the Nobel Prize next year the Trump administration will probably claim they are 'tremendous' for US science, even though they'll have had absolutely nothing what-so-f*%+ing-ever to do with the last 60 years of research, including the the discovery. (Meanwhile, this is about my expectation for the near future, particularly since physics relies on international cooperation on many frontiers.)
==== Dulae-translation filter engaged ====
0) Before beginning, its good to know that 'reactionless' drives have existed for a long time. If you stick a laser pointer to a battery or solar panel, you have a reactionless drive. Whats interesting is that the magnitude of the effect they measured is 200 times more energy efficient than a photon propulsion system.
Dulae means that photons have momentum (even though they don’t have mass). Just like propelling gas out the back of a rocket, if you spew photons behind you the photons propel you forward some. The trouble is that photons have an extremely tiny amount of momentum - just enough to make you speed up very, very slowly in the absence of any gravitational fields or other forces. (If these findings are true, 200x better is a decent start, but we’d need to do many zeroes better still before we could do something like escape the Earth’s gravitational pull.)
One consequence of (some) hidden variable theories is that vacuum fluctuation, which have been observed in several ways, are not random particles popping in and out of existence; rather they are a manifestation of a 'true' background that has a persistent state. And if there is a persistent state, maybe we can do s!+~ to it.
First it’s probably good to know two things about quantum mechanics.
1) On small scales, everything is quantized (made up of discrete bits). Light, matter, space itself.
2) These small quantized parts (think matter particles or photons) do behave probabilistically, like Dulae said. That means they exist in a combination of many different states at once: they’re not in one particular place or position in space, they’re in a distribution of positions that we can describe mathematically as a wave (a wave that is centered around one particular place).
On macro scales like we experience, if a ball hits a wall it will always bounce off. At small scales, if an electron (which is in reality a wave particle) runs into a wall, part of its wave-like position distribution bleeds over to the other side of the wall. This gives it some small but non-zero probability of going *through* the wall (this is a real thing that happens - it’s called quantum tunneling).
If you’re thinking “Wait, what the actual f*ck” then you may be starting to understand. (A lot of our technology is based on these strange rules.)
----------------------------
Coming back to the NASA experiment with that in mind:
The premise is to test how much force is induced in some particular configuration; in this case, resonant radio-frequency (RF) light inside a weirdly conical copper cavity. (Resonance means you’ve successfully achieved standing waves, which look like this (except ideally much more stable), but with light. And by 'light' I mean electromagnetic radiation, not necessary in the visible spectrum.)
A torsion pendulum (torsion pendulum means a pendulum that twists from side to side instead of swinging like a playground swing) is a good choice if we’re trying to measure force in one particular direction (which we are) because it enforces that, when pushed, our set-up can only move in one direction, and is largely isolated from movement in all others, including downward gravitational pull. (Their torsion pendulum apparently looks like this. It has a bunch of other stuff on it that I think I understand completely now if you have any questions, but that’s the idea.)
Now you mount your copper cavity on one side of your torsion pendulum such that when it is pushed a little, your pendulum spins a little. You then induce a resonant RF light field inside the cavity (which will have some pretty interesting patterns due to the geometry of the cone, so I’m not totally sure why they made that choice) and see if you measure any induced force.
They report that they did measure force (this figure shows pretty much that when they turned on the RF field, they measured force.) So, as Dulae says, *something* seems to be pushing on it. A lot of the paper goes into trying to check what else could be causing this. (It seems like an electromagnetic effect to me - I notice that they didn’t seem to check for residual charge.)
But they claim that, of the many potential possible explanations left, this set-up could be ‘pushing on the quantum vacuum’ such that some momentum was imparted. (‘Quantum vacuum’ means quantization of space itself, in this case the space that’s inside the copper cavity (which happens to be under vacuum in a different sense of the term). Incidentally, we do know the ‘vacuum’ (i.e. space) has quantized states - we use this to manipulate light for other purposes.)
What we can definitely conclude: if you take a copper cavity of exactly that shape and size and induce an RF field in exactly the way they did it, that will somehow induce a very tiny amount of force you can measure with a torsion pendulum. (How is unclear.)
========= GM travel advisory =========
Right, this is a thing I should mention: I'm not going to Ecuador this week (this got swapped for a trip to Bangalore in March), but I am going to Milwaukee.
I'll be traveling Sunday, at UWM Monday-Wednesday, and traveling back to LA Thursday.
You can expect at least one post a day from me evening central time.
(Future travel highlight: Cel, I expect there's a 50% chance I'll be headed to the Tri-Cities via Seattle sometime in January.)
I feel proud that I understood 75% of that post! That's a C. Though that does make the idea of heading to college next year a little intimidating.
Haha, no filter needed for me...I'm a complete s!*~ty sleeper. Whether or not there is something wrong with other's sleep, well, that's something you would have to be in my clinic subjected to a battery of tests to determine. Sometimes there are titanium tools that look like knives involved! ;)
I'll be around in January! We should get together, and if you need a place to stay we do have a pullout couch we could offer up. We live in a pretty awesome part of the city.
Hah, don't be intimidated by that post Xizoh - I have very little experience explaining other people's research without the crutch of assuming someone else has already taken the trouble of teaching the person I'm explaining to a bachelor's degree worth of physics. (I'm okay with my own research, but it's taken years to find the right words.)
If you got 75% you have safely understood far more than the National Geographic reporter, for whatever that's worth. (And if you're willing to tell me what you didn't understand, I'm willing to shoot for 100%.)
If you mean you understood 75% of Dulae's post I am genuinely very impressed - a significant fraction of that was PhD level.
---
Titanium tools that look like knives? That sounds cold. I'll be over here content with my manageable sleep deprivation.
That's kind of you to offer Cel - I'll let you know if/when my plans get more concrete.
Southern California, what have you done to me? I swear 30F didn't feel this cold before.
First: getting married in the forest wearing hiking boots is such an awesome idea. (We’ve never regretted focusing on what we wanted for our wedding; the whole ceremony from procession to recession took about 10 minutes, then we taught everybody to contra dance. It was a good day. [understated humor intended])
Second: I appreciate your having these debates! I hope this is useful for challenging your perspective.
"Race-based driving culture” - oh gods, this made me laugh so much when I first read it. (Maybe we should quit our day jobs and become stand-up comedians.)
It seems like we agree that tackling cultural change at the individual level is worthwhile and effective, and that ‘color/gender-blindness’ is more harmful than beneficial. We also agree on most of your definitions, although I’d suggest that you broaden your definition of discrimination. I’d include harassment, intimidation, and acts that result in these groups getting pushed to the margins of society; out of the shared community space. Most importantly, I’d emphasize that it’s not a conscious choice of “separating” people that results in the gaps/consequences you describe - it’s usually different treatment due to unconscious or conscious associations of some identifies (white, gay, Muslim, etc) with positive or negative attributes (smart, immoral, dangerous, etc).
Do you agree with this suggested expansion to your definition, and if so, how does it change your assessment of the consequences of bias?
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Looking over a resume is about picking the best candidate. I can't do that if I'm discriminating.
Not accounting for known effects is like knowing your measuring glasses all say ‘20 mL’ for very different volumes but trying to compare them as though they’re the same anyway. You’re deliberately ignoring information that would help you make a better, more informed decision. Two things you can do: 1) track diversity in hiring and retention 2) take steps to improve it and measure how well they work. (You don’t need to judge resumes differently, particularly if they’re already blind to names, but you might want to change where and how you recruit, for example).
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"That guy yelled a racial slur!" I'll catch that one and fire back with "F~$% you ignorant guy!" with the same vigor I will the person who decides to block the doorway of a busy building.
Treating someone who made the pretty harmless mistake of standing in a doorway the same way you’d treat a racist shouting hate... that seems a bit harsh for the former case. (Very lawful neutral.)
Ideally we do treat each other well, and it's never been about owing someone anything. It's kindness shared between two people. It's a humanization of the people around you.
I agree completely. Have you tried being kind and understanding yourself rather than demanding?
Here’s an example: this past Thursday I had a day during which I was unusually helpful. I helped organize donations to and advocacy for Standing Rock (speaking of which, good news), volunteered to mentor undergraduate students with their research, invested a few hours in helping two different graduate students with job applications, actively appreciated every human and mammalian animal I interacted with (except that one a#~~~$# squirrel that keeps throwing olives at me), and I even picked up abandoned trash on the sidewalk. But Friday morning I noticed I was parked on the street over the line. Pretty sure I was parked as the other cars allowed Thursday night, but, there you have it. By your rules, which judge by this observation alone, I am a dick. This act was “unacceptable”. If you’re consistent with the way you apply your rules, I should now face my car note punishment designed teach me that I need to think of others.
Something else that happened Thursday night: I was at the grocery store and a young woman with earbuds in wasn’t paying attention and just about ran me over with her cart. These things happen. Instead of shooting her side-eye, I was patient and understanding. She got to the checkout a few seconds after me - I had about twice as much stuff (it’d been awhile) so I let her go ahead of me. And you know what happened? She thanked me (with some surprise), took off her earbuds, and started engaging. She picked up a lime the person in front of her dropped and even helped them bag.
If you want to foster kindness, I suggest you be kind. If all they need is a reminder they are one of many, let people see they’re part of a community bigger than themselves. Be positive and inclusive and chances are they will be positive and inclusive. If you’re negative and punishing, defensiveness is a natural response - it’ll feel more like them vs. the world. (Also why rehabilitation works better than US-style jail time.)
Furthermore, ‘politeness’ in the way you describe it is valued in a subset of cultures around the world, far from all. In Morocco and some German cities, people don’t queue in lines, they form disordered clusters around the checkout counter or bus door. In many places in India, sharing space is pretty much just utter chaos; carts, cars, animals everywhere. And there’s nothing inherently wrong with this cultural difference - these are not selfish, thoughtless people because they share space differently than you do.
You do not have the right to expect to control the manner in which other people share space with you to your personal satisfaction - sharing space means everyone has a say in the common rules. Parking over the line and smoking near a door, sure, these are rules (laws) we’ve jointly agreed to abide by. (I’d argue it’s helpful to try to be understanding in your rebuke anyway.) But where people stand, how they manage their shopping carts, and most of all whether or not they wave to you - it’s not fair to assume they have the same idea of how to share space well/considerately or that they’re wrong or selfish if they don’t.
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Now, you might notice I am suggesting you treat discrimination with swift and certain pushback instead of kindness and understanding. That’s because leaving a cart in the aisle or not waving at another driver isn’t hurting anyone, but promoting discrimination *is*. We all have the right to live without fear and be treated equally. I don’t think everyone who lets ‘you got gypped’ slip without thinking is an irredeemable racist dick, but it’s not okay to say that, it is harmful.
It’s convenient to pin racism on the nebulous concept of unpolite “selfishness” - it certainly seems tidy - but what evidence is there that “selfishness” and discrimination are “the same”? 60 years ago most middle class (i.e. suburban, white) American neighborhoods had a much more stringent sense of politeness; kids didn’t speak out of turn, people took extra care to park appropriately, to not cause offense. But the prospects of people of color and women have actually significantly improved with the deterioration of this ‘politeness’ in society, a ‘politeness’ that served to maximize the comfort of the most powerful groups.
It’s really important to emphasize what you’re doing to quell “selfish’’ behavior is the same social mechanism that made it acceptable to support segregation or domestic violence six decades ago. It’s the same underlying assumption that there’s a one true ‘correct’ way for people to behave (generally dictated by the SWM-Christian perspective). The only differences are that the expectations for behavior were dramatically different for people of color and women instead of subtly different, and acceptable methods for ‘teaching’ them to behave extended to assault and violence.
Enforcing ‘politeness’ and expected behavioral norms is in many cases actively oppressive. You assume that you’re being perfectly fair and unbaised in doling out your judgements, but until you unpack your own bias, until you really invest time in thinking about the associations that come to mind for different groups, you may very well be discriminating without realizing it. (If you're willing, you should consider taking this implicit bias test, which will also help add data to an important study.)
You do not have the right to have every aisle free of shopping carts or have everyone be polite in exactly the way you expect them to be at all times. It might be very annoying in the moment, but one observed instance of this behavior is a better predictor of people having a different background/culture than you than it is a predictor of society-crumbling selfishness. (I would argue analytical and critical thinking skills (or lack thereof) that tend to come with a quality public education are a much better predictor of the ‘selfishness’ that would cause society deterioration in the way you mean.)
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I think our debate comes down to this:
In daily life, what I will miss is more subtle things that occur because I'm paying attention to whether or not a person is blocking a stairwell over who they look at as the work superior.
You might not notice that your patients treat your women co-workers differently, but your co-workers do. You’ve argued that your constant vigilance against the inconvenience of people having to assert their own share in space around them is enough to excuse you from any attempt to watch for bias happening. That you alone, without consulting your co-workers or investing time to understand the consequences of bias for them, have judged your attentions are best elsewhere and that’s that.
You’ve also said you don’t understand issues of racial and discrimination well, which means you are taking a known (your experience of the situation) and weighing it against an unknown (your co-worker’s experience) and declaring your own priorities to be more important. You seem very sure of that for someone who takes pride in understanding other perspectives on issues.
My mission will remain going after selfish behavior, though. In my eyes, there's too much individualism in this country that has no basis in culture or gender and it is divisive.
Attempting to modify others’ behavior when consulting only your own experience and assuming that what you value is “standard”, that everyone else around you of course agrees, is another form of selfishness. Acknowledging that there are groups with different views and experiences from you and choosing to ignore them in favor of your own is treating yourself as more important and the rest of us as lesser. I am the authority on my own experience - you can't assume your view is the right one and then claim to be acting for my benefit as well as yours in your mission. I don’t condone your strategy and I’m reporting to you that it doesn’t serve me well.
If by taking on this mission your intent is to act on the behalf of all for the general betterment of society, then you’re obligated to do your best to ensure your actions to represent the best interests of all. If you’re an agent for all and ‘all’ includes non-SWMs, then we should get a say in your actions and priorities. Listen to us.
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If you want to work toward an unambiguously positive cultural change at the individual level, you could invest in recognizing patterns of discrimination and understanding that bias is absolutely everywhere. Don’t dismiss instances of it as ‘just a joke’, don’t write them off as ‘it’s just part of what an unreasonable relative wants’, don’t ignore them because ‘that’s just the way things are’. And above all, if you want to not be part of the problem, don’t excuse yourself from watching for them because you think that you have better things to do, judging by only your own experience.
Big things are changing at work and at home, and my free time is dwindling significantly. I don't want to give the impression that I'm shutting down, but there is quite a bit of things that are demanding most of my attention and time! I love the discussion, and I would love to keep going into length, but starting this week this might be my last opportunity for lengthy typing :(. I will continue in shorter snippits, though!
It seems like we agree that tackling cultural change at the individual level is worthwhile and effective, and that ‘color/gender-blindness’ is more harmful than beneficial. We also agree on most of your definitions, although I’d suggest that you broaden your definition of discrimination. I’d include harassment, intimidation, and acts that result in these groups getting pushed to the margins of society; out of the shared community space. Most importantly, I’d emphasize that it’s not a conscious choice of “separating” people that results in the gaps/consequences you describe - it’s usually different treatment due to unconscious or conscious associations of some identifies (white, gay, Muslim, etc) with positive or negative attributes (smart, immoral, dangerous, etc).
Do you agree with this suggested expansion to your definition, and if so, how does it change your assessment of the consequences of bias?
I definitely agree, but honestly, it wasn't a willful removal of those the things you've brought up in this paragraph. It was more my mental block for trying to put hard sentences on concepts. I'm not sure that it changes my assessment, though. For lack of a better word bias is bad including the unconscious form. It's something you and I and everyone else does to certain degrees and it serves far better to turn people against each other than it does bring them together.
Not accounting for known effects is like knowing your measuring glasses all say ‘20 mL’ for very different volumes but trying to compare them as though they’re the same anyway. You’re deliberately ignoring information that would help you make a better, more informed decision. Two things you can do: 1) track diversity in hiring and retention 2) take steps to improve it and measure how well they work. (You don’t need to judge resumes differently, particularly if they’re already blind to names, but you might want to change where and how you recruit, for example).
Some of this is a moot point on me simply because I don't have the patient demand to hire more (and therefore no recruiting). I haven't been in the leadership role long enough to hire anyway (although hiring has occurred while I was being trained) It's simply resumes that come to me directly. The only place our clinics recruit directly is at local universities that have job fairs who also have PT schools. Our company pretty exclusively uses the marketing department to recruit.
Treating someone who made the pretty harmless mistake of standing in a doorway the same way you’d treat a racist shouting hate... that seems a bit harsh for the former case. (Very lawful neutral.)
This one is my fault for using the dramatic writing to create a false equivalency fallacy. It's not going to be equivalent vigor if I actually be literal for once in this discussion. I will ask the person to kindly not block the doorway so others can get through and about their day. But yes, lawful neutral is pretty much to the letter how I live. Can't really say if it's a construct I've created for myself or it's my brain wiring, but it is most definitely my alignment. Perhaps it's why I find chaotic neutral so funny? Either way, being lawful neutral also means that I seldom understand others, and I can't determine if someone's internal beliefs are good, bad, better, worse, differing, or anything else. I can recognize that physically blocking a doorway serves no one and it is irrelevant to what internal discourse or belief may be occurring. So, "Excuse me, would you be so kind to step out of the doorway, please?" happens. Typical response being, "Oh, I'm sorry!" To which I get to reply, "No problem, thank you!" and we can share a smile.
I agree completely. Have you tried being kind and understanding yourself rather than demanding?
Pretty much all the time. More dramatic writing aside, when I actually interact with others it is in kind terms (more bees with honey). Punishment doesn't work as the research has long shown. I also have a mother who has exclusively taught at inner-city schools progressively working further and further into the more problematic populations. She now teaches at the school where only expelled kids attend. I've learned a lot from her about getting people on board with learning and bettering themselves. I think our conversation would have more clarity if 1)I stop being sarcastic in my descriptions or 2) We were in person where you could hear my sarcasm.
(I would argue analytical and critical thinking skills (or lack thereof) that tend to come with a quality public education are a much better predictor of the ‘selfishness’ that would cause society deterioration in the way you mean.)
150 million percent agree <sarcasm>, and if people don't learn it then consideration is much harder to attain. Being a polite person asking to not block a walkway takes away the chance for the person to be defensive and lash out (unless they really are an a#*$~&~, which happens) but does bring the idea of consideration to the forefront of their consciousness. I don't take pride in understanding other's perspectives, I quite legitimately don't understand other's perspectives most of the time. All I would like to see is more consideration (which in turn often requires critical thinking skills) in situations like blocking a doorway that has nothing to do with gender, color, religion, etc. And it's why I speak up in non-punative methods. Unless I'm alone where no one else can hear me, then I yell, but that's for catharsis purposes.
I'm not trying to cop out of anything with a statement of "I don't get it, therefore I don't have to follow it!" It's that I don't have the experiences to know what it looks like. I have spoken to friends, family, classmates, and others where lengthy conversations can happen about discrimination. I understand conceptually the issues of discrimination, and our conversation has done nothing but push me to watch as hard as I can. I will miss a great deal of it because I can't actually experience discrimination, so I don't have a frame of reference other than lists of things I've been told to watch for. I will be a try hard <joke phrase, but not a joke statement>. I believe if you're going to do something, do it right, and I will do everything I can to do it right.
However, I would also argue that it also doesn't mean that minor acts of consideration should be shrugged off either. Cultural norms do differ world wide, and when I go world wide I do my best to try to adapt to that culture. But again, it's not about carts or lines or doors. It's consideration for others, and if people don't queue up in other places, then that's great, it's what they do. Polite behavior based on any standard SWM-Christian or otherwise is irrelevant. Politeness is a judgement without all the data including discrimination. The things I speak up about are the things that have nothing to do with a definition of politeness. It's about consideration.
You said you accidentally parked on the line, and accidents happen. You did lots of good things that day, and that's awesome! Judging one's version of good as better than another's version good (and thus irrelevant) is also a form of dismissing someone else's concerns as unimportant. You identified the accident, and there's a fair chance that the next time you park you remember this very story you've told me including that you did great good that day and go one step further to look at the line and get back in an realign your car because it is yet another form of kindness. I do my very best to specifcally address small things (petty), because I don't frequently understand perspectives. It's impossible to not be biased as the studies show (and I have used that Harvard study website multiple times in the past to confirm). However, I can run enough lawful neutral calculations in my head to know that blocking a doorway or parking on a line and trying to change that has potentially less to do with bias than more. When someone yells a racist slur, I can run through enough lawful neutral calculations in my head to know that I can address it without worrying about my biases too. The extremes are easy, the middle area is not, and without fully understanding everything I can do my best to be the best person I can. However, I know that a small act of kindness can go a long way, and that kindness can spread when it's brought to the forefront of someone's mind.
Big things are changing at work and at home, and my free time is dwindling significantly.
In a good way, I hope?
In any case, fairly good timing, because it seems like this discussion is wrapping up. From what you say, I should adjust my reading of your posts to treat your examples as intentional exaggerations that aren’t actually representative of what you think and do. And if I do that, then it seems we actually have a pretty solid consensus. We agree bias is harmful and kindness is effective, and you say you’re committed to watching for signs of bias and doing what you can to mitigate it.
Awesome. Go team. [pleased enthusiasm intended]
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Three quibbles and a question:
1.
Polite behavior based on any standard SWM-Christian or otherwise is irrelevant. Politeness is a judgement without all the data including discrimination. The things I speak up about are the things that have nothing to do with a definition of politeness. It's about consideration.
As long as we recognize what people view as considerate is almost entirely culturally dependent, sure.
2.
Judging one's version of good as better than another's version good (and thus irrelevant) is also a form of dismissing someone else's concerns as unimportant.
I said petty annoyances like shopping carts and badly parked cars aren’t as harmful as bias, but incidentally, yes, if the goal is to minimize harm overall that does logically make addressing bias more important.
3.
I'm not trying to cop out of anything with a statement of "I don't get it, therefore I don't have to follow it!"
Okay, I believe you, but I am unable to reconcile that statement with this one:
I do my very best to specifcally address small things (petty), because I don't frequently understand perspectives.
Q.
Either way, being lawful neutral also means that I seldom understand others, and I can't determine if someone's internal beliefs are good, bad, better, worse, differing, or anything else.
You’re saying you have a limited internal moral compass and base your judgments on your sense of ‘consideration for others’, which you consider to be absolute? (I’ve met more than a few physicists who construct rote rules for engaging socially because they don’t read people well, but they would almost certainly not describe themselves as a “humanist”, as you have. You are unique in my experience.)
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Another major take-away I got from this debate is that you and I don’t seem to communicate well with each other. One result of that: this has been really great practice for me to better articulate my views. Another result: I’m trying to re-calibrate my Cel interpretation algorithm to accurately reconstruct your meaning.
Here’s an interesting example:
150 million percent agree
Interpretation: enthusiastic exaggeration (agreement)
but
150 million percent agree <sarcasm>
Interpretation: disagreement
ERROR: inconsistent with the tone of the surrounding text (indicates agreement).This leads me to think we don’t have the same definition of sarcasm. Mine is pretty similar to MW’s, particularly in that sarcasm inverts the meaning of what was said. (i.e. Great <sarcasm> = Decidedly not great.) What would you say yours is?
In a good way, I hope?
In any case, fairly good timing, because it seems like this discussion is wrapping up. From what you say, I should adjust my reading of your posts to treat your examples as intentional exaggerations that aren’t actually representative of what you think and do. And if I do that, then it seems we actually have a pretty solid consensus. We agree bias is harmful and kindness is effective, and you say you’re committed to watching for signs of bias and doing what you can to mitigate it.
Awesome. Go team. [pleased enthusiasm intended]
Yeah, definitely a good way. The way it appears we're going from a large health club organization to a full on medical center. I'm not on the ground floor of the organization at 1000 employees, but holy s#&+ are we about to get bigger and in a lot of aspects their looking to me to grow certain aspects of that, which don't have anything to do with phyiscal therapy. Stressful, good stress, but stressful none the less.
Haha, we're a pair! I feel like there may be a webcomic somewhere in this of two people yelling the same thing back and foreth but thinking they're saying different things.
As long as we recognize what people view as considerate is almost entirely culturally dependent, sure.
Most definitely!
I said petty annoyances like shopping carts and badly parked cars aren’t as harmful as bias, but incidentally, yes, if the goal is to minimize harm overall that does logically make addressing bias more important.
That you did, and I forgot that part. And logically quantizing harm does definitely line up with bias being more important. The little things that are minimally harmful are just things I can always recognize, and I can hope it does result in larger ripple effect.
You’re saying you have a limited internal moral compass and base your judgments on your sense of ‘consideration for others’, which you consider to be absolute? (I’ve met more than a few physicists who construct rote rules for engaging socially because they don’t read people well, but they would almost certainly not describe themselves as a “humanist”, as you have. You are unique in my experience.)
Slight correction, I'm a moral relativist in belief, but a humanist in action. Also, I make no sense. I legitimately don't like people, yet I have this duty to fix them...PT is a service industry to people that I don't like? It's weird. My mother and my fiance are completely convinced I'm this guy. But yes, I don't like or understand people, and yet I feel an external duty (I suppose you could call it divine if one were a believer in that kind of thing?) to do everything I can to make life better, to help the species survive. I'm a hardcore environmentalist not because I like trees, but because if we ruin the planet that is the end of the species. If we keep hating and killing each other that's also the end of the species. Yet I also run around feeling that there's too many people in the world (belief instead of action) and there should be less of them. It's all very contradictory.
Interpretation: disagreement
ERROR: inconsistent with the tone of the surrounding text (indicates agreement).This leads me to think we don’t have the same definition of sarcasm. Mine is pretty similar to MW’s, particularly in that sarcasm inverts the meaning of what was said. (i.e. Great <sarcasm> = Decidedly not great.) What would you say yours is?
Damn the vocab (shaking fist at the sky)!! Seriously, it's like some kind of weird tangential dyslexia or something for me. I wrote sarcasm as just overinflating something beyond normal amounts, which is more obviously the definition of exageration not sarcasm. It definitely wouldn't help you understand what I'm saying when I can't proper language use good.
Also, I hate English, it's a stupid language that doesn't make any sense.
Holy #$%& Wisconsin, is a 15 degree windchill really necessary? (I had forgotten you can get brain freeze directly through your face.)
Important question: a name is needed for the ACLU donation drive I'm working that targets physicists, astronomers, and supporters of science (particularly the folks who just won the Breakthrough Prize and anyone else that might match donations). So far we have 'Cosmic community: physicists and astronomers give back'.
Physicists here seem to like it, but we're not renowned for our aesthetic taste. Suggestions are extremely welcome.
Yeah, definitely a good way. The way it appears we're going from a large health club organization to a full on medical center. I'm not on the ground floor of the organization at 1000 employees, but holy s~** are we about to get bigger and in a lot of aspects their looking to me to grow certain aspects of that, which don't have anything to do with phyiscal therapy. Stressful, good stress, but stressful none the less.
Glad to hear it, sounds exciting.
Also, I hate English, it's a stupid language that doesn't make any sense.
Can't say I disagree with you there. Speaking of which:
== Initiating Mikkel's Cel interpretation algorithm:==
quantizing harm
Interpretation: breaking up harm into smaller discrete parts
ERROR: does not fit context.Most likely substitute for quantizing: quantifying. Certainty: low (20%)
Unable to parse. Contact local Cel network communication administrator for assistance.
=============