Atheism Plus/Free Thought Blogs (FTB)

[luchog]

squealpiggy, what proxy would you use for class as opposed to education or wealth in order to test for it? How would you qualitatively or quantitatively measure it? And are any minorities "high class" in the US?

Some East Asians, particularly the Japanese and Chinese, tend to be viewed as middle- or upper-class, or at least highly educated (which often amounts to the same thing). Indians also tend to be similarly classified, due to their association with the IT industry.

I don't think anyone in this thread doubts classism (at least in terms of socio-economic status) exists, just that not all racism can be explained by classism.

Which no one is claiming. The claim is that classism is often mistaken for racism; and that studies purporting to examine racism do not adequately control for classism.

Actual audits have found that black applicants do worse. Experimental testing finds even people who express no racial animus seem to harbor an automatic preference for their own race, with whites doing so at higher rates than blacks in the US.

But, as previously noted, that may be less an example of racism, than of the familiarity response, which is more deeply rooted and more difficult to control for.

 

[AlBell]

It's objectively true that in their (possibly demented) brain there is a very real set of nerves and chemicals and electrical charges and whatnot which underly their (possibly demented) view of reality.

So in that sense if I think I'm Jesus Christ and Napoleon and also nonexistent, and that President Obama's haircut is moral justification for me to shoot up a pre-school, then that brain state is part of "the reality of the situation".

It might even be true that all else being completely equal it might be polite to pretend that my demented views are reasonable or valid, at least for long enough to talk me down off a clock tower.

However this does not get you to the conclusion that I'm right that I ought to shoot people, or that only mentally ill people are allowed to criticise me, or that I'm morally entitled to call a forum a critical thinking forum while also maintaining it as a "safe space" for my delusions.

Objectivity requires third person, so no. Delusions are private behavior even if (objectively) reported or acted upon such that 3rd persons are involved.

Whitman had an objective brain tumor verified by autopsy.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/27/mind-murderer_n_1384102.html

 

[qwints]

1. Do you dispute that there is socioeconomic information in having a "black" name? To put it more indelicately, that lowclass black people tend to chose "black" names.

No, Fryer and Levitt's study seems persuasive. Statistically, someone in the US with a distinctively black name is likely to come from and currently be a lower socio-economic situation. Bertrand and Mullainathan's study is consistent with this, as someone pointed out earlier all of the distinctively black names were associated with a lower value for the mother's education than all of the distinctively white names.

But, as previously noted, that may be less an example of racism, than of the familiarity response, which is more deeply rooted and more difficult to control for.

I'd still see familiarity response maintaining the inequalities of a previously unjust society as a problem. Of course, differentiating between conscious racism, automatic racial preferences and familiarity response is necessary in determining how to address inequality. Even if they're all unjust, they require different responses.

 

[Foolmewunz]

I don't want to disrupt this derail, as it's actually been an interesting discussion, so I'll just interject this and y'all can get back to it....


Is anyone in the US claiming their SSI payments have been held due to the shut down? Everything I've read says that SSI is functioning and that no one's benefits have been held up.

Kassiane seems to be the only person in America who I can locate who's having a problem with SSI benefits. Or maybe not - zlog changed the subject when someone questioned her on her veracity. But it's good to know that whether it's a real problem or a Kassiane drama llama one, at least it will inspire Surgoshan to go out and kick over trash cans, or maybe it won't....

Not much of a thread, except for an expected sidebar game of Crazy Crazy Who's Got Teh Crazy, but I include for reference.

http://atheismplus.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=5481&start=25

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Objectivity requires third person, so no.

That's not my view. In my view Russell's Teapot is either there or it is not, regardless of whether some third person exists to think about the matter. My brain state, whatever it is, would be an objective fact even if I was the only person in the universe.

 

[qwints]

Is anyone in the US claiming their SSI payments have been held due to the shut down? Everything I've read says that SSI is functioning and that no one's benefits have been held up.

That's correct. But, as Kassiane said, the Republicans were threatening to not raise the debt ceiling. Reaching the debt ceiling would have interfered with SSI payments. Threatening to not raise the debt ceiling unless the Democrats agreed to concession is holding government payments, including SSI payments, hostage.

 

[AlBell]

That's not my view. In my view Russell's Teapot is either there or it is not, regardless of whether some third person exists to think about the matter. My brain state, whatever it is, would be an objective fact even if I was the only person in the universe.

I agree brain state can be objectively monitored, but that does not solve the problem of what you are thinking and reporting.

Russell's Teapot is of course either a physical object or impossible.

 

[Foolmewunz]

That's correct. But, as Kassiane said, the Republicans were threatening to not raise the debt ceiling. Reaching the debt ceiling would have interfered with SSI payments. Threatening to not raise the debt ceiling unless the Democrats agreed to concession is holding government payments, including SSI payments, hostage.

You must be reading another thread. I linked to the one I'm talking about. First she posted that they were holding her checks up. Then she posted that Obama was playing chicken with the situation. I don't see any reference to the GOP anywhere.

Surgoshan at least tried to set her straight, way too politely for A+, that SSI wasn't effected by the shut down but don't you people even care when someone makes stuff up in order to play the victim card. "Well, it might be a problem next month"? Really? Why didn't you say that in the first place instead of claiming they were holding up your payments?

 

[qwints]

You must be reading another thread. I linked to the one I'm talking about. First she posted that they were holding her checks up. Then she posted that Obama was playing chicken with the situation. I don't see any reference to the GOP anywhere.

She never said the checks were held up. She said they were being held hostage, and that if the debt ceiling wasn't raised it would be as issue Nov. 1. I took the "they" in her first post as a reference to Republicans, but she might have just been talking about the government in general.

Currently the US will hit the debt ceiling (a different thing than the shutdown) on October 17. It's unclear right now which payments would get made and which wouldn't, but there is a very real possibility that the government will miss SSI payments

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

I agree brain state can be objectively monitored, but that does not solve the problem of what you are thinking and reporting.

Then I no longer understand what this "problem" you are posting about is, nor why you were going on about objectivity requiring a third party since you've now agreed that it doesn't.

 

[Foolmewunz]

She never said the checks were held up. She said they were being held hostage, and that if the debt ceiling wasn't raised it would be as issue Nov. 1. I took the "they" in her first post as a reference to Republicans, but she might have just been talking about the government in general.

Currently the US will hit the debt ceiling (a different thing than the shutdown) on October 17. It's unclear right now which payments would get made and which wouldn't, but there is a very real possibility that the government will miss SSI payments

You're right... strange parsing of that opening sentence in her first post in the thread.... "They are holding my SSI, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, hostage...." It's correct grammatically, just awkward. Took me four readings to get it right.

And I sincerely doubt that the GOP are stupid enough to approve payments for military personnel and then allow SSI to renege. Imagine facing the constituency with that smudge on your copy book. .... but that's probably for another thread..... Purpose of this post was to admit I'd misread.

 

[AlBell]

Then I no longer understand what this "problem" you are posting about is, nor why you were going on about objectivity requiring a third party since you've now agreed that it doesn't.

I don't recall agreeing to that, and certainly did not intend to.

 

[Stout]

They sure love their rape over there Plusland.

The whole thing starts with a author/anthropologist Acharya S, who some of you may know from the movie Zeitgeist ( Jesus is Horus ) makes a whiny post about her Facebook account being deleted because she published a photo that violated their ToS.

Does Facebook still disallow breastfeeding photos ?

In that post about physical virginity testing in South Africa she mentions these tests are done by a man.

As we can see from the blurred edition to the right, the image is of a man with a row of little girls

Now I don't know about you, but I had an extremely hard time trying to determine the gender of the person in the photo by just looking at their arms and shoulders but I thought it odd that an anthropoligist would be "unaware" that these tests are usually performed by women.

A little googling resulted, confirming my suspicions. here, here and here

Either this anthropologist is really bad in her field, or she's making thins up.

Along comes Ophelia Benson ( hi Ophie ) who simply barfs Acharya S's post back up without doing a shred of research.

Cue the Aplussers, where they take it one step further and start calling this virginity testing a rape and describing how traumatized they were about having to view, in the words of the thread title "Exploitation Porn"

Fact check fail, again.

There's something not quite right about a bunch of privileged white SJWs punching down on the cultural makeup of a colonized indigenous group. I know there's a word for it.......

 

[Mr. Scott]

They sure love their rape over there Plusland.

The whole thing starts with a author/anthropologist Acharya S, who some of you may know from the movie Zeitgeist ( Jesus is Horus ) makes a whiny post about her Facebook account being deleted because she published a photo that violated their ToS.

Does Facebook still disallow breastfeeding photos ?

In that post about physical virginity testing in South Africa she mentions these tests are done by a man.



Now I don't know about you, but I had an extremely hard time trying to determine the gender of the person in the photo by just looking at their arms and shoulders but I thought it odd that an anthropoligist would be "unaware" that these tests are usually performed by women.

A little googling resulted, confirming my suspicions. here, here and here

Either this anthropologist is really bad in her field, or she's making thins up.

Along comes Ophelia Benson ( hi Ophie ) who simply barfs Acharya S's post back up without doing a shred of research.

Cue the Aplussers, where they take it one step further and start calling this virginity testing a rape and describing how traumatized they were about having to view, in the words of the thread title "Exploitation Porn"

Fact check fail, again.

There's something not quite right about a bunch of privileged white SJWs punching down on the cultural makeup of a colonized indigenous group. I know there's a word for it.......

I used to follow Ms. Acharya S., who does not publish her real name, until after we had an argument about vaccines (she's an anti-vax conspiracy theorist) which cast doubt on her skeptical and critical thinking skills.

I notice in her post she never calls herself an anthropologist, but rather "a lifelong scholar of anthropology" which to me means she reads about it a lot.

The link indeed says "Girls between the age of seven and 26 lie on a mat in front of the woman doing the test," and I saw nothing to validate Acharya's use of the word "torture."

Last I heard, though, white people were not licensed to criticize brown cultures, as per A+ bully ceepolk's edict. I'm confused.

 

[Stout]

Yes, Dorothy gets really upset when you call her that.

Last I heard, though, white people were not licensed to criticize brown cultures, as per A+ bully ceepolk's edict. I'm confused.

I'm thinking there's a version of "it's OK when we do it" going on here.

It's an interesting study on what amounts to the evolution of a lie. Starting with Dorothy's small one(s) and watching the plussers grow it into raaaaaaaape!!.

Speaking of A+ and rape..I came across this gem from global moderator SubMor, over on Richard carrier's blog.

It is clearly possible for a person to be raping someone without knowing it is rape. In the most charitable interpretation possible, this descriptor can apply to scenario B. Even if the sex began consensually, as soon as the victim decided they were uncomfortable with having that sex, it became rape, regardless of whether or not it should be criminally prosecutable (which is a secondary and irrelevant consideration to this point). Yes, that means the perpetrator may not have known their victim wanted them to stop, but that doesn’t make it not rape.

Link..comment 20.4

Bolding mine

Andrea Dworkin just sat up in her grave.

 

[Dissolution]

The whole process is unpleasant and appalling, but equating it with rape is both unnecessary and incorrect.
It's wrong, but that's not why it's wrong.

The idea that people need to be telepathic to avoid raping anyone now is beyond ludicrous.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

If that's the definition of rape, then I've been raped, and can happily join the A+ forums safe in the knowledge that my opinions will be treated with the utmost respect. As long as I declare my status as a rape victim up front.

 

[The Man]

As would I, if our partners at one time feeling the same, we too would become (or have been) that unknowing “perpetrator”. So besides simply trivializing rape to expand the ranks of victims and perpetrators alike (perhaps often at the same time). It deliberately erases the life experiences of others supplanting instead someone else’s preferred interpretation.

 

[Empress]

Speaking of A+ and rape..I came across this gem from global moderator SubMor, over on Richard carrier's blog.



Link..comment 20.4

Bolding mine

Andrea Dworkin just sat up in her grave.

The universe doesn't contain enough facepalms.

Apparently the only way any of us can be sure we're not rapists is to remain celibate. Or only practice masturbation. And even then, what if you're in two minds about it? Are you raping yourself?

I have a headache.

 

[Stout]

It almost like the real world isn't rapey enough for them and they have to go and look for ( or simply make up ) definition/examples of rape to convince themselves that the world is a really really awful place.

The universe doesn't contain enough facepalms.

Apparently the only way any of us can be sure we're not rapists is to remain celibate. Or only practice masturbation. And even then, what if you're in two minds about it? Are you raping yourself?

Ah..I see you've been reading Tumblr social justice blogs