5 ms·

> Your examples are all about punishment, I'm talking about lifting them up, correcting the wrongs, reimbursing the damage done. Lifting one group up is almost

> Your examples are all about punishment, I'm talking about lifting them up, correcting the wrongs, reimbursing the damage done. Lifting one group up is almost always at the expense of other groups, which is isomorphic to punishment. If you have a way to lift some up without any disadvantage to others, we should probably just do that to an infinite extent to everyone.

lern_too_spel 3y ago
If some groups were so oppressed that they now put a cost on the rest of society via crime and welfare costs, fixing that will be a long term net benefit for other groups, not an expense. We can discuss the most effective way to fix it, but pretending the problem doesn't exist won't make it go away.
- forgetfreeman 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - seneca 3y ago
    Accusing people of using hidden messages, intentionally interpreting their post as negatively as possible, is very against the community standards here. Please don't do that. > Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
    - forgetfreeman 3y ago
      I made no accusation, I am requesting clarification of the ops intent.
    - sidlls 3y ago
      This is disingenuous. "Dogwhistle" rhetoric is a thing precisely because it is a "hidden message." It's not against community rules to point out that rhetoric is similar to dogwhistle rhetoric, especially when the comment actually is full of said rhetoric. Or it ought not be: if it is, the community rule is wrong.
  - lern_too_spel 3y ago
    > Was that intentional? Of course not. The white supremacists say that these problems are genetic in origin, not due to oppression.
- slt2021 3y ago
  how is AA fixing problem of crime in inner cities? Absolute Majority (>75%) of beneficiaries from AA at Ivy League are kids of rich black people and rich immigrants from African continent 1. https://www.aei.org/op-eds/affirmative-action-helps-black-immigrants-but-not-black-americans/ https://www.aei.org/op-eds/affirmative-action-helps-black-im... 2. https://www.jbhe.com/news_views/52_harvard-blackstudents.html https://www.jbhe.com/news_views/52_harvard-blackstudents.htm...
  - lern_too_spel 3y ago
    That is a valid argument against AA if you can provide the data that shows that only a minority of AA beneficiaries are descendants of oppressed blacks and that therefore the net benefit of AA on oppressed communities isn't worth the cost it puts on society. If you can show that, society benefits because it can scrap a nonworking program and replace it with one that works. My point was that simply saying there is a cost for programs that benefit black communities is not an argument against those programs. There is a cost to all regulations. We should keep the ones that are net beneficial and discard the ones that aren't. Typically, the argument against these programs is about fairness, which you might call a "crybaby argument." Life isn't fair. These people should have learned that when they were three. The only correct arguments relating to policy are about whether they benefit society.
    - slt2021 3y ago
      https://www.aei.org/op-eds/affirmative-action-helps-black-immigrants-but-not-black-americans/ https://www.aei.org/op-eds/affirmative-action-helps-black-im... https://www.jbhe.com/news_views/52_harvard-blackstudents.html https://www.jbhe.com/news_views/52_harvard-blackstudents.htm...
      - lern_too_spel 3y ago
        You still haven't presented a complete argument. Reread GP about how only the net effect matters, and then read https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/optimal-amount-of-fraud/ https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/optimal-amount-of-fra....
mcv 3y ago
> Lifting one group up is almost always at the expense of other groups, which is isomorphic to punishment. Not necessarily. Life is not a zero sum game. Who is hurt by better funding for schools in poor neighbourhoods? Who is hurt by training cops to not shoot first and ask questions later? Who is hurt by encouraging home ownership by black people?
- notSupplied 3y ago
  College admissions at elite universities, what this SCOTUS case is about, is zero sum.
- sokoloff 3y ago
  > Who is hurt by better funding for schools in poor neighbourhoods? Whatever that money would otherwise have been spent on is harming the recipient of that now foregone benefit. If you raise taxes to do it, taxpayers are harmed. > Who is hurt by encouraging home ownership by black people? If home ownership is a good thing, whoever would have otherwise bought those marginal houses is harmed.
  - Denzel 3y ago
    You missed the part where it’s not a zero-sum game. If you’re interested in the economic concepts behind why an economy is a positive-sum game in an open system, look up: production possibilities frontier (PPF) and comparative advantage. An economy would become zero-sum if we ran up against the limits of the universe. Until then, rest assured that opportunity can grow for both sides in a transaction.
    - chii 3y ago
      The whole economy is indeed nonzero sum, but the topic is not the entire economy, but allocation of limited dollars between different groups. It is zero sum here in this limited context.
      - mcv 3y ago
noduerme 3y ago
This is the trouble. If one believes that material leveling is tantamount to justice, then it doesn't really matter whether one group is lifted up or the other is reduced. Your argument (A) implies that by raising one group another is lowered. Another poster here (B) states that if we can't raise one group, we must lower the other. These are both Manichaean positions that obfuscate the mutual gains added to economic society when one group is raised and the mutual losses sustained when one group is reduced. [The counterpoint to both positions is "A rising tide lifts all boats".] I'd argue they both arise from a sense of group identity that is anathema to both universal identity and individual liberty; at root they are the pathologies behind (A) fascism wherein the group identity is based on a threatened victim race and (B) communism where group identity is based on a threatened victim class. That's why switching from one to the other is so easy; they're both simply material grievances, elevated through propaganda into mythic group struggles.
HWR_14 3y ago
"Expense of other groups" is not at all isomorphic to punishment. In 1866 Southern America it would be strange to talk about how the poor plantation owners were punished by losing their slave labor force. Yes, they were materially worse off, but it was hardly a punishment. Even if those plantations had been broken up and given to the freed black people as reparations, it wouldn't have been punishment. It would have been backpay.
- chii 3y ago
  If I were there plantation owner, I would definitely consider the above a punishment.
  - Timon3 3y ago
    That just goes to show that we can't rely on people's feelings to judge the world accurately, doesn't it? Or do you suggest we should take it seriously and give slave owners recompense when slavery ends?
    - defrost 3y ago
      That's exactly what the UK did when the Abolitionists ended British Slavery. They achieved this by promising to repay slave owners for the "loss of chattel". The UK Government repaid slave owners and carried the loss forward over the next 200 years until just a few years ago. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/12/treasury-tweet-slavery-compensate-slave-owners https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/12/treasu...
      - Timon3 3y ago
        I know that this happened. I'm asking: is it right?
        defrost 3y ago
        At the time it was neccesary otherwise British involvement in slavery would not have ended. What would have made it much better was additional compensation to those enslaved. What was a good outcome for society, other than the obvious end of slavery of course, was the relatively vast amount of money freed up to reinvest in other massive capital projects, rail, canals, free colonies (no prisoner labour | slaves) for agriculture, wool, timber, etc. What was a poor outcome for broader society was that ownership of and direct benefits from all these new projects were largely concentrated in a small group of former slaveholders. Such is the ebb and flow of reality which rarely examples purely black and white expressions of some particular notion of absolute right.

lern_too_spel 3y ago

If some groups were so oppressed that they now put a cost on the rest of society via crime and welfare costs, fixing that will be a long term net benefit for other groups, not an expense. We can discuss the most effective way to fix it, but pretending the problem doesn't exist won't make it go away.

forgetfreeman 3y ago
[flagged]
- seneca 3y ago
  Accusing people of using hidden messages, intentionally interpreting their post as negatively as possible, is very against the community standards here. Please don't do that. > Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
  - forgetfreeman 3y ago
    I made no accusation, I am requesting clarification of the ops intent.
  - sidlls 3y ago
    This is disingenuous. "Dogwhistle" rhetoric is a thing precisely because it is a "hidden message." It's not against community rules to point out that rhetoric is similar to dogwhistle rhetoric, especially when the comment actually is full of said rhetoric. Or it ought not be: if it is, the community rule is wrong.
- lern_too_spel 3y ago
  > Was that intentional? Of course not. The white supremacists say that these problems are genetic in origin, not due to oppression.
slt2021 3y ago
how is AA fixing problem of crime in inner cities? Absolute Majority (>75%) of beneficiaries from AA at Ivy League are kids of rich black people and rich immigrants from African continent 1. https://www.aei.org/op-eds/affirmative-action-helps-black-immigrants-but-not-black-americans/ https://www.aei.org/op-eds/affirmative-action-helps-black-im... 2. https://www.jbhe.com/news_views/52_harvard-blackstudents.html https://www.jbhe.com/news_views/52_harvard-blackstudents.htm...
- lern_too_spel 3y ago
  That is a valid argument against AA if you can provide the data that shows that only a minority of AA beneficiaries are descendants of oppressed blacks and that therefore the net benefit of AA on oppressed communities isn't worth the cost it puts on society. If you can show that, society benefits because it can scrap a nonworking program and replace it with one that works. My point was that simply saying there is a cost for programs that benefit black communities is not an argument against those programs. There is a cost to all regulations. We should keep the ones that are net beneficial and discard the ones that aren't. Typically, the argument against these programs is about fairness, which you might call a "crybaby argument." Life isn't fair. These people should have learned that when they were three. The only correct arguments relating to policy are about whether they benefit society.
  - slt2021 3y ago
    https://www.aei.org/op-eds/affirmative-action-helps-black-immigrants-but-not-black-americans/ https://www.aei.org/op-eds/affirmative-action-helps-black-im... https://www.jbhe.com/news_views/52_harvard-blackstudents.html https://www.jbhe.com/news_views/52_harvard-blackstudents.htm...
    - lern_too_spel 3y ago
      You still haven't presented a complete argument. Reread GP about how only the net effect matters, and then read https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/optimal-amount-of-fraud/ https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/optimal-amount-of-fra....

mcv 3y ago

> Lifting one group up is almost always at the expense of other groups, which is isomorphic to punishment. Not necessarily. Life is not a zero sum game. Who is hurt by better funding for schools in poor neighbourhoods? Who is hurt by training cops to not shoot first and ask questions later? Who is hurt by encouraging home ownership by black people?

notSupplied 3y ago
College admissions at elite universities, what this SCOTUS case is about, is zero sum.
sokoloff 3y ago
> Who is hurt by better funding for schools in poor neighbourhoods? Whatever that money would otherwise have been spent on is harming the recipient of that now foregone benefit. If you raise taxes to do it, taxpayers are harmed. > Who is hurt by encouraging home ownership by black people? If home ownership is a good thing, whoever would have otherwise bought those marginal houses is harmed.
- Denzel 3y ago
  You missed the part where it’s not a zero-sum game. If you’re interested in the economic concepts behind why an economy is a positive-sum game in an open system, look up: production possibilities frontier (PPF) and comparative advantage. An economy would become zero-sum if we ran up against the limits of the universe. Until then, rest assured that opportunity can grow for both sides in a transaction.
  - chii 3y ago
    The whole economy is indeed nonzero sum, but the topic is not the entire economy, but allocation of limited dollars between different groups. It is zero sum here in this limited context.
    - mcv 3y ago

noduerme 3y ago

This is the trouble. If one believes that material leveling is tantamount to justice, then it doesn't really matter whether one group is lifted up or the other is reduced. Your argument (A) implies that by raising one group another is lowered. Another poster here (B) states that if we can't raise one group, we must lower the other. These are both Manichaean positions that obfuscate the mutual gains added to economic society when one group is raised and the mutual losses sustained when one group is reduced. [The counterpoint to both positions is "A rising tide lifts all boats".] I'd argue they both arise from a sense of group identity that is anathema to both universal identity and individual liberty; at root they are the pathologies behind (A) fascism wherein the group identity is based on a threatened victim race and (B) communism where group identity is based on a threatened victim class. That's why switching from one to the other is so easy; they're both simply material grievances, elevated through propaganda into mythic group struggles.

HWR_14 3y ago

"Expense of other groups" is not at all isomorphic to punishment. In 1866 Southern America it would be strange to talk about how the poor plantation owners were punished by losing their slave labor force. Yes, they were materially worse off, but it was hardly a punishment. Even if those plantations had been broken up and given to the freed black people as reparations, it wouldn't have been punishment. It would have been backpay.

chii 3y ago
If I were there plantation owner, I would definitely consider the above a punishment.
- Timon3 3y ago
  That just goes to show that we can't rely on people's feelings to judge the world accurately, doesn't it? Or do you suggest we should take it seriously and give slave owners recompense when slavery ends?
  - defrost 3y ago
    That's exactly what the UK did when the Abolitionists ended British Slavery. They achieved this by promising to repay slave owners for the "loss of chattel". The UK Government repaid slave owners and carried the loss forward over the next 200 years until just a few years ago. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/12/treasury-tweet-slavery-compensate-slave-owners https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/12/treasu...
    - Timon3 3y ago
      I know that this happened. I'm asking: is it right?
      - defrost 3y ago
        At the time it was neccesary otherwise British involvement in slavery would not have ended. What would have made it much better was additional compensation to those enslaved. What was a good outcome for society, other than the obvious end of slavery of course, was the relatively vast amount of money freed up to reinvest in other massive capital projects, rail, canals, free colonies (no prisoner labour | slaves) for agriculture, wool, timber, etc. What was a poor outcome for broader society was that ownership of and direct benefits from all these new projects were largely concentrated in a small group of former slaveholders. Such is the ebb and flow of reality which rarely examples purely black and white expressions of some particular notion of absolute right.