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There's a big difference between ideas that weaken minorities, and ideas that weaken majorities, because you get blowback for different reasons. When you attack

There's a big difference between ideas that weaken minorities, and ideas that weaken majorities, because you get blowback for different reasons. When you attack minorities the people that get upset with you, are people that are worried that weakening an already weak group is a bad thing. When you attack majorities however, you get blowback from the people that are afraid to lose their power. I agree that there are problems with not allowing people to express all kinds of ideas, but there's a big difference in the two types above: You should be more careful when attacking the already weak, for their position is already brittle.

briandear 9y ago
Why weaken anyone? It isn’t zero sum. The free market has nothing to do with minorities or majorities: people don’t care about the race of a person selling them bread — they just want the cheapest bread at the highest quality.
- johnny22 9y ago
  they sure did care for the race of the people they sold it to though. In any case, none of what you said matches actual American history.
kazagistar 9y ago
(I'm going to assume from context you don't mean minority as in population, but rather power dynamics as you talk about for the rest of the post.) The problem distinguishing stronger and weaker sides is that there isn't an objective metric that both sides can agree on. The reason gender issues are so prevalent on this list and are such a hot topic is exactly because it is a debate about which side is weaker, about which measures of power are valid and invalid, and so on.
- EmilStenstrom 9y ago
  That there isn't a metric is a really interesting problem. I think most debates should start with talking about metrics. For instance, when talking about skewed power dynamics when it come to gender, you could look at the number of men vs. women in management positions. Being able to fire someone is a form of power. Or you could look at raw salaries, and say that money is a form of power. And so on. Would make many discussions a lot clearer.

briandear 9y ago

Why weaken anyone? It isn’t zero sum. The free market has nothing to do with minorities or majorities: people don’t care about the race of a person selling them bread — they just want the cheapest bread at the highest quality.

johnny22 9y ago
they sure did care for the race of the people they sold it to though. In any case, none of what you said matches actual American history.

kazagistar 9y ago

(I'm going to assume from context you don't mean minority as in population, but rather power dynamics as you talk about for the rest of the post.) The problem distinguishing stronger and weaker sides is that there isn't an objective metric that both sides can agree on. The reason gender issues are so prevalent on this list and are such a hot topic is exactly because it is a debate about which side is weaker, about which measures of power are valid and invalid, and so on.

EmilStenstrom 9y ago
That there isn't a metric is a really interesting problem. I think most debates should start with talking about metrics. For instance, when talking about skewed power dynamics when it come to gender, you could look at the number of men vs. women in management positions. Being able to fire someone is a form of power. Or you could look at raw salaries, and say that money is a form of power. And so on. Would make many discussions a lot clearer.