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I asked Don't show how I'm treated better than others, show how I have power. Your argument is largely that I may get treated better than others. How, exactly

• FullMtlAlcoholc 10y ago
  > > I live in a society where the white male has power What power do I have as a white male? You're being a bit disingenuous. I don't know if this is purposeful or not. Would we agree the Sunni had power in Iraq under Saddam and today the Shia have power? In China, is it far to say that the Han have power? That doesn't mean that every Shia today in Iraq has power. I was mainly trying to rebut your argument that minorities and women receive favorable treatment in society due to policies such as affirmative action and relaying that to you with details from my own personal experiences. > Your argument is largely that I may get treated better than others. How, exactly, does that show I have power, as the GP comment suggested? You don't take the logical leap. Receiving preferential treatment affords one greater mobility whether it is in the social, professional, or administrative realm. Accordingly, I think we can both agree that being treated better gives one greater access to power, increasing the probability that you can exercise power. I cannot prove how you specifically have greater power because I don't know you. > And did you read my other comment? The overwhelming better treatment is due to sex, not gender. Being male means you're treated much more poorly than being female. Being a minority is just (nasty) icing on the cake. I showed you a specific example on this very site on how women are not treated better, it is the opposite. Jennifer Widom's worthiness for being Engineering Dean at Stanford was questioned, despite her impressive credentials being just a google search away. I also don't know what you're insinuating by calling minorities a "nasty" icing on the cake. > If you want some comments as to where those "gaps" come from, see Thomas Sowell, who's been deconstructing that gap since the 1980's: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_pQ7KXv0o0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_pQ7KXv0o0 He makes a fair argument over the traditional wage gap but some of the conclusions he comes to are a bit wonky. Especially the argument he makes that if women make . 75 cents on the dollar, firms would be falling over themselves to hire the cheaper labor. He makes the assumption that hiring decisions are based chiefly on getting the most for your dollar when it is somewhat obvious that people hire for individuals that they get along with. I was specifically referring to today's climate. Again, I offered an anecdote. If you actually care about the truth, not what anyone else says, if there is a woman where you work in the same position as you what she makes. (Side note) I actually have a degree in Economics from Stanford and had the opportunity to chat with him while meeting with one of my professors (John Cogan). I don't take academic economists seriously. It's good for explaining the broad strokes of history, but it just does not accurately model human behavior. As a field, it's closer to philosophy than science and often times it is treated like a religion. I'll be brief as to why,..(1)Economic models make simplifying assumptions without explicitly stating them, the rational economic actor being chief among them (2) Economics theory is better described as hypothesis since hardly any vidence by way of experiment is ever presented (3) Preponderance of a cult of personality > Sure... but how does that give me, the (alleged) recipient of such bias... power? How do I use that bias to become one of the .0001% of society which is ruling the country? I'm not making any claims about your specific level of power. It's the .00001% as you state, By definition, you don't get in the club ONLY because of your skin color. Being born to the right family helps (I'll leave to you the demographics of those families), If you aren't born into it, you need not only a certain ability, but the will to exercise power. I You do have a greater chance of getting into that rarified group than a woman or a minority, who face additional hurdles. How much weight to give them, I don't know. > If society is so controlled by The White Male, and is so racist, how come Asian-Americans are doing better than white people on average? Is The White Male secretly biased in favor of Asians? Or is something else going on? > I think the answer here is at least in part poverty. If you're poor, it doesn't really matter what your skin color is. You get treated poorly by everyone. And it's damned hard to get out of the trap of poverty. That fact alone explains why the descendants of poor ex-slaves have a hard time getting ahead. Their families have been poor for 130 years... getting ahead is hard. You're putting a lot of words in my mouth, making assumptions about things I never said, and veering into the political. I believe that we agree on most points. All I'm trying to say is that women and minorities do not get preferential treatment. Poverty is likely the most significant factor in mobility, but not the only. People do not cross the street when they see a group of asian teens coming towards them. People like me do face the type of cognitive bias that causes others to go on the other side of the street when they see me approaching.
  • adekok 10y ago
    > You're being a bit disingenuous. I'm trying to understand just, what, exactly people mean by "power". You've used it repeatedly in subsequent examples. But haven't given explanations. Your examples largely amount to "people in charge have power", or "the majority of the population has power". That's nice, but it doesn't mean a whole lot. > I was mainly trying to rebut your argument that minorities and women receive favorable treatment in society due to policies such as affirmative action I never said any such thing. > You don't take the logical leap. Exactly. I'm asking you to explain the logical leap. And to explain what, exactly you mean by "power". I'm not sure I buy the argument that being treated better is "power". At least, "power" in the way many people mean it. When I (as a white male), get accused of being part of the "patriarchy", or "having male power", I question just what the heck people mean by that. The answers tend to be tautological statements, or sophistry. It would be more accurate (and more honest) to say that the people in power tend to keep it. (i.e. rich, upper class people). And that the majority race / religion / whatever in a society tends to get by as the "default" group, which makes things easier for them. Is that "power" in the same way that a king has power over his subjects? I don't think so. Yet that is precisely how it's commonly being used. And it makes me worried. > I showed you a specific example on this very site on how women are not treated better, it is the opposite. One data point does not a conclusion make. While individual anecdotes are compelling, we should not draw larger conclusions from them. Instead, we should draw conclusions about society by examining... society. i.e. via statistics. > He makes a fair argument over the traditional wage gap but some of the conclusions he comes to are a bit wonky. Especially the argument he makes that if women make . 75 cents on the dollar, firms would be falling over themselves to hire the cheaper labor. He makes the assumption that hiring decisions are based chiefly on getting the most for your dollar when it is somewhat obvious that people hire for individuals that they get along with The unstated implication here is that there won't be women that employers can get along with. i.e. Given a pool of qualified applicants, employers will find a subset that they can get along with. In those subset, there are some men and women. If they can hire women at 75 cents on the dollar, why wouldn't they? The only way to refute that conclusion is to say that there are no qualified female applicants. In which case you can't do wage comparisons, because the men applying will have different skills than the women who don't apply. If you care to look, about 95% of the wage gap is explained by people doing different jobs, or who have different education, or different work experience. And, unmarried childless women under 30 make the same (or now slightly more), than men their same age. That's been true for about 30 years now. But if you don't believe that, you've go to believe that despite it being illegal for almost 50 years, and despite the overwhelming propaganda about the wage gap, and despite most HR / accounting departments being a majority female, that the wage gap still exists for people doing the same job with the same experience and the same skills. The only way you can believe that is to posit some massive secret conspiracy. That way lies madness. > Being born to the right family helps (I'll leave to you the demographics of those families) Because most of the people who immigrated to the US before 1880 where white (ish) European? And most of the blacks before then were slaves? Hmm... so the people that were rich and powerful 150 years ago tend to be the related to the people who are rich and powerful now. Gosh, how the heck does that work? It's almost like it's hard to make money. And that it's hard for a poor person to make money in the face of entrenched and wealthy opposition. Where you see racial divides, I see demographic divides. I think my view is a little simpler, and explains history a bit better. > You're putting a lot of words in my mouth, making assumptions about things I never said, and veering into the political. I was making a point by using an extreme example. > All I'm trying to say is that women and minorities do not get preferential treatment. I think that in many aspects of society, women do get preferential treatment. And the statistics (CDC, DoJ, department of labor) support this position. > People like me do face the type of cognitive bias that causes others to go on the other side of the street when they see me approaching. Sure. I've had people do the same thing to me... as a large white male walking alone down a street late at night. People fear the unusual and unknown. Evolution shows us that people without such fears get eaten. It's not nice to have people avoid you. But their reasons are not just racism. I've had similar experiences with religious relatives. 30 years ago, it was "What are those damned gays doing? Why are they trying to destroy our society?" Now, it's "My next door neighbour is gay. I don't understand any of it, but he gave me some nice petunias". Familiarity helps a lot. Along with understanding that there are reasons why such behaviors are economically encouraged, or evolutionary adaptations.