[Split]When are you white?

[ponderingturtle]

I am really surprised about this. Is it true? I know that certain projects require Professional Engineer licenses but they are usually structural in nature. Up in Detroit, for example, I bet fewer than 5% of hte automotive engineers are Professional Engineers (PE's).

Do those licenses require degree's or is passing exams enough? There are lots of licenced profeshions that you can learn in school, but do you need a degree in accounting to be a CPA or an engineering degree to get certified?

 

[ponderingturtle]

That's all you have to say? I tried to answer you seriously with a comprehensive post that I put some time and effort into, and I didn't insult you, and you brush off my answer with "Ok then..."

That's awfully gracious of you. Good luck with the interview portion of your college application process.

I have a suggestion, Dustin. Go back to your dermatologist and have her remove that big chip from your shoulder.

AS

Then he should get a proctologists consult so he can find his hat

 

[ZirconBlue]

The fewer people below the poverty line, the richer the country is.

Or the lower the poverty line is set. Who decides what the poverty line is? How do we compare one country's poverty line to another's?

 

[Dustin Kesselberg]

That's all you have to say? I tried to answer you seriously with a comprehensive post that I put some time and effort into, and I didn't insult you, and you brush off my answer with "Ok then..."

That's awfully gracious of you. Good luck with the interview portion of your college application process.

I have a suggestion, Dustin. Go back to your dermatologist and have her remove that big chip from your shoulder.

AS

I don't mean to sound like a jackass and I appreciate your detailed response.

But the fact of the matter is I have addressed it all already in this thread.

 

[Darth Rotor]

That's all you have to say? I tried to answer you seriously with a comprehensive post that I put some time and effort into, and I didn't insult you, and you brush off my answer with "Ok then..."

That's awfully gracious of you. Good luck with the interview portion of your college application process.

I have a suggestion, Dustin. Go back to your dermatologist and have her remove that big chip from your shoulder.
AS

"Sharper than a serpent's tooth is the tongue of an ungrateful child."

DR

 

[hgc]

Like I said, it differs from country to country. If you don't have enough money to live, then you are poor. Obviously, this is different in Denmark than it is in the US, and it is different in Denmark than it is in Burkina Faso. $1,000 will buy you a different amount of things in each country.
...

Your insistence on a clear boundry between poor and not poor (or poor and rich, whichever) is interesting, especially given that you continually use fuzzy concepts to define that border -- have enough money to live. Does that mean live, literally? Meaning, if you're not dead, you're not poor?

 

[CFLarsen]

Or the lower the poverty line is set. Who decides what the poverty line is? How do we compare one country's poverty line to another's?

There are several oprganizations who tries to gauge that, e.g., OECD and UNDP.

The question is, do we think one person is black when in one country, and not black when in another?

 

[Darth Rotor]

There are several oprganizations who tries to gauge that, e.g., OECD and UNDP.

The question is, do we think one person is black when in one country, and not black when in another?

May I suggest you look into the matter of Negritude in Haitian society? There are an interesting set of social conventions in re "how black is black."

DR

 

[drkitten]

I am really surprised about this. Is it true? I know that certain projects require Professional Engineer licenses but they are usually structural in nature. Up in Detroit, for example, I bet fewer than 5% of hte automotive engineers are Professional Engineers (PE's).

As he said, it varies from state to state. I believe Texas has the strictest requirements; if I remember properly, you can't even have the title "engineer" as a job title wthout being state-licenced, so the number of "software engineers" in the state is surprisingly small and the number of "computer programmers' is surprisingly large.

The requirements for a PE licence usually include a degree, four years of work experience, and passing an exam. Having said this, anywhere outside of Texas, it's very rare to need a licence to practice any variety of engineering other than civil.

 

[CFLarsen]

Your insistence on a clear boundry between poor and not poor (or poor and rich, whichever) is interesting, especially given that you continually use fuzzy concepts to define that border -- have enough money to live. Does that mean live, literally? Meaning, if you're not dead, you're not poor?

It's not my clear boundary. Take a peek at this UNDP document. That's one way of defining it.

Can you answer when a black person is black, and when he is not? I'm not black, Kofi Annan is. But where is the boundary?

 

[ponderingturtle]

As he said, it varies from state to state. I believe Texas has the strictest requirements; if I remember properly, you can't even have the title "engineer" as a job title wthout being state-licenced, so the number of "software engineers" in the state is surprisingly small and the number of "computer programmers' is surprisingly large.

The requirements for a PE licence usually include a degree, four years of work experience, and passing an exam. Having said this, anywhere outside of Texas, it's very rare to need a licence to practice any variety of engineering other than civil.

Are they specific as to who kind of degree? Could someone with a non engeniering degree but the work experiance and such take the exam?

 

[drkitten]

Are they specific as to who kind of degree? Could someone with a non engeniering degree but the work experiance and such take the exam?

As with almost any question involving the US government, the correct answer is "it varies by state." In general, to sit the exam requires an engineering degree from an accredited school, but the accreditation requirements also vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

Outside of Texas, almost no one cares anyway.

 

[hgc]

It's not my clear boundary. Take a peek at this UNDP document. That's one way of defining it.

Can you answer when a black person is black, and when he is not? I'm not black, Kofi Annan is. But where is the boundary?

Hey, I completely agree that sometimes you know who's black and who's white, and sometimes you don't. It all depends on how black or how white, by appearances, and it also depends on why you want to know -- what use does it have. In some cases, there is no useful reason to distinguish racial boundries. But when it does serve some purpose, such as determining who is eligible for racially defined benefits of some sort, such as with affirmative action, then arbitrarily determined boundries will be applied. Note: arbitrary, but useful for the purpose they serve. The same can be said about the so-called "poverty line." This is a boundry that results from subjective judgements about what is poor and not poor. It serves the purpose of determining who gets assistance. It also serves as a reference point in political discourse. All these things affect the judgement, and makes the boundry somewhat arbitrary from the point of view of someone who is choosing between food and medicine for the expenditure of their meager resources. Plenty of the people above the "poverty line" in the U.S. know that they are inadequately sustained.

 

[CFLarsen]

Hey, I completely agree that sometimes you know who's black and who's white, and sometimes you don't. It all depends on how black or how white, by appearances, and it also depends on why you want to know -- what use does it have. In some cases, there is no useful reason to distinguish racial boundries. But when it does serve some purpose, such as determining who is eligible for racially defined benefits of some sort, such as with affirmative action, then arbitrarily determined boundries will be applied. Note: arbitrary, but useful for the purpose they serve. The same can be said about the so-called "poverty line." This is a boundry that results from subjective judgements about what is poor and not poor. It serves the purpose of determining who gets assistance. It also serves as a reference point in political discourse. All these things affect the judgement, and makes the boundry somewhat arbitrary from the point of view of someone who is choosing between food and medicine for the expenditure of their meager resources. Plenty of the people above the "poverty line" in the U.S. know that they are inadequately sustained.

It still doesn't answer the question of what "scale" we use to determine skin colour.

When it comes to determining poverty, we have something we can actually measure - income, consumption, what-have-you. Whatever we choose, it is an absolute number: So many $.

What do we use when it comes to skin colour? The demarcation line may be arbitrarily drawn, but what do we use as a "scale"?

 

[Hagrok]

Can you guys take this to another thread? I was actually enjoying reading this one

 

[Dustin Kesselberg]

That's what happens. Specific members with short attention spans tend to derail threads when the number of pages gets above 10.


I'd report it but I don't really care. I don't think there's anything else anyone opposing my view can say that hasn't already been said. And those who support my view are likely too afraid to speak up due to their getting flamed as I did.

 

[hgc]

Can you guys take this to another thread? I was actually enjoying reading this one

Yeah, sorry. I enjoy this thread for what it is too. No more digressions from me.

 

[CFLarsen]

We can split it. Or someone with those powers can....

 

[drkitten]

It still doesn't answer the question of what "scale" we use to determine skin colour.

That's because you're asking the wrong question.

People don't use a "scale" to determine race; it's a set of prototypes. (The other usual term of art in psychological literature is "family resemblance.") Skin colour itself can be semi-scaled. Certainly variations in darkness can be measured, but a proper description would have to take hue, saturation, and value into account -- Asians aren't considered "white" in part because their skin varies too much from the typical Caucasian norm, just not on a dark/light axis.

Someone with (relatively) fair skin but displaying many other traits associated with the "black" racial prototype -- Colin Powell is a good example -- will still be considered "black." Skin colour is a single and very relevant feature for racial determination, but it's not the only one.

If you're looking for single thin bright line to separate racial categories, you won't find it. Which isn't surprising, since people don't typically categorize things that way. It's actually rather hard to find any natural category that can be broken down by thin bright lines that way, because that's not how people think.

For further details, start with this Wikipedia article (with the usual caveat that almost all Wikipedia articles are wrong in detail), and then continue with the complete works of the brilliant Eleanor Rosch. A good article is Rosch, Eleanor. 1977. "Human Categorization." In N. Warren, ed., Studies in Cross-Cultural Psychology. London: Academic, or Rosch, E. 1973. "Natural categories." Cognitive Psychology 4: 328—350.

 

[CFLarsen]

That's because you're asking the wrong question.

People don't use a "scale" to determine race; it's a set of prototypes. (The other usual term of art in psychological literature is "family resemblance.") Skin colour itself can be semi-scaled. Certainly variations in darkness can be measured, but a proper description would have to take hue, saturation, and value into account -- Asians aren't considered "white" in part because their skin varies too much from the typical Caucasian norm, just not on a dark/light axis.

Someone with (relatively) fair skin but displaying many other traits associated with the "black" racial prototype -- Colin Powell is a good example -- will still be considered "black." Skin colour is a single and very relevant feature for racial determination, but it's not the only one.

If you're looking for single thin bright line to separate racial categories, you won't find it. Which isn't surprising, since people don't typically categorize things that way. It's actually rather hard to find any natural category that can be broken down by thin bright lines that way, because that's not how people think.

Perhaps not. But when we talk about who gets a college grant based on skin colour, somebody somewhere has to draw that single thin bright line. Someone might draw it somewhere else, for another purpose.

I want to know what they base their decision on. How would people here draw the line? How would you draw the line?

For further details, start with this Wikipedia article (with the usual caveat that almost all Wikipedia articles are wrong in detail), and then continue with the complete works of the brilliant Eleanor Rosch. A good article is Rosch, Eleanor. 1977. "Human Categorization." In N. Warren, ed., Studies in Cross-Cultural Psychology. London: Academic, or Rosch, E. 1973. "Natural categories." Cognitive Psychology 4: 328—350.

From my profession, I'm aware of the difficulties with categorizing things. That's one of the reasons why I am asking.