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When I grew up one of the values instilled in me (moreso by society and personal interactions rather than passed on by my parents) was to see human beings as hu

When I grew up one of the values instilled in me (moreso by society and personal interactions rather than passed on by my parents) was to see human beings as human beings, without cognitive overhead to their race. i.e. To me it was akin to hair color - neat, but not something by which I'd make judgements. Theoretically a world which doesn't distinguish, seems most equitable (and sane, at least to me). I'm genuinely trying to understand the impetus toward a different status quo. Is it because the reality of growing up a certain race is so far removed from that ideal that justice requires accommodations be made? Grateful for insight and experiences. I grew up in a diverse city in Canada so my reality may be a bit skewed from readers in other parts of the world.

twobitshifter 3y ago
It’s really about handicaps starting out, or if you’re into maths, initial conditions.
- zmgsabst 3y ago
  If you’re into maths, you’d know convergence behavior dominates initial conditions: A system which fails to converge because of purposeful injustice with lagging feedback is worse than a system that converges toward an equal outcome — no matter the initial conditions. That’s the problem with racial programs: you’re institutionalizing racism with no end, which causes the system to “ring” between modes of racism rather than converge on an equal outcome. So-called “systems thinking” consistently fails to account for control lag, convergence, and stability of the system — revealing that it’s a shallow pretense. But you’re not the first bigot to pretend science justifies their racism.
d2049 3y ago
The world you propose sounds good in theory, but we are starting at a point where certain groups of people have been discriminated against (or enslaved) for the better part of two centuries. So some argue that we cannot simply treat everyone "equitably" when our society has been decidedly inequitable up to this point.
erenyeager 3y ago
This is some naive approach in my opinion. Nobody sees human beings as “human beings” in their day to day life, it is all about statuses, circumstances, etc AND also the individual. Distinction is an incredibly important feature between groups of people. For example, someone may bring a lot of your cultural assumptions into how the country should be run, but a different group of people may see things completely differently. So when the majority group of people imposes their culture and influence on the less powerful groups, how is this fair and just to say everyone is equal & we don’t need to see distinctions? To give you a silly example something like bathroom design is heavily influenced by culture. In places where water was important and cleanliness, they had bidets. But in places like the US and Canada, there really isn’t this present in many places, as a result we lose many benefits of bidets from imposing the current cultural standard for bathrooms. People talk about tests, well standardized tests are also rooted in gate keeping undesirable groups of people, and by setting requirements that are “equal” they actually discriminate against people who were actively hurt by unjust social policies and circumstances. For example if one group is more illiterate because of historical injustice against them, if you make a test requiring literacy and then nothing is done to address the injustice, you are just perpetuating an excuse to continue discrimination under the guise of being equal. Does that make more sense?

twobitshifter 3y ago

It’s really about handicaps starting out, or if you’re into maths, initial conditions.

zmgsabst 3y ago
If you’re into maths, you’d know convergence behavior dominates initial conditions: A system which fails to converge because of purposeful injustice with lagging feedback is worse than a system that converges toward an equal outcome — no matter the initial conditions. That’s the problem with racial programs: you’re institutionalizing racism with no end, which causes the system to “ring” between modes of racism rather than converge on an equal outcome. So-called “systems thinking” consistently fails to account for control lag, convergence, and stability of the system — revealing that it’s a shallow pretense. But you’re not the first bigot to pretend science justifies their racism.

d2049 3y ago

The world you propose sounds good in theory, but we are starting at a point where certain groups of people have been discriminated against (or enslaved) for the better part of two centuries. So some argue that we cannot simply treat everyone "equitably" when our society has been decidedly inequitable up to this point.

erenyeager 3y ago

This is some naive approach in my opinion. Nobody sees human beings as “human beings” in their day to day life, it is all about statuses, circumstances, etc AND also the individual. Distinction is an incredibly important feature between groups of people. For example, someone may bring a lot of your cultural assumptions into how the country should be run, but a different group of people may see things completely differently. So when the majority group of people imposes their culture and influence on the less powerful groups, how is this fair and just to say everyone is equal & we don’t need to see distinctions? To give you a silly example something like bathroom design is heavily influenced by culture. In places where water was important and cleanliness, they had bidets. But in places like the US and Canada, there really isn’t this present in many places, as a result we lose many benefits of bidets from imposing the current cultural standard for bathrooms. People talk about tests, well standardized tests are also rooted in gate keeping undesirable groups of people, and by setting requirements that are “equal” they actually discriminate against people who were actively hurt by unjust social policies and circumstances. For example if one group is more illiterate because of historical injustice against them, if you make a test requiring literacy and then nothing is done to address the injustice, you are just perpetuating an excuse to continue discrimination under the guise of being equal. Does that make more sense?