Happy Atheist Forum

Now I don't hate woman, but this ad was blatantly sexist toward men. Most of the "facts" they put out here are not even true, and if they were the company who made the ad is guilty of doing so.

The ad is by Bianco Footwear and in the ad they are talking about how clothes are more expensive for woman so woman deserve more. But they sell over priced clothes! They also say there is not equal pay "anywhere in the world" which is an admission of guilt on the level of Donald Trump.

Meanwhile through the whole commercial there are women abusing men and at the same time telling you women need more. Essentially that's on the level of "do what I'll say or I'll hurt you".



I mean I'm not sexist or anything, I believe there should be equality but this isn't even talking about equality!

Don't see it as a problem. I mean, we're still in a male dominated society, though we have made some steps towards equality (and recently some steps backward), we're still a long way away from worrying about having to defend men's rights against women trying to control them.

So when I hear men complain about women being sexist towards men, I mostly just laugh. At least until or even if it ever becomes a problem, I don't think that it's an issue to take seriously.

Wake me up when they're forcing us men to have or not have medical procedures done to our genitals.

Yeah I don't know about the gender wage gap either. I haven't seen the statistics for myself but it's illegal to not be paid the same based on gender, yet people say woman don't get paid as much as men. Then I hear that woman don't take the high paying jobs as often as men do which would account for the gap.

But none of this is backed up by statistics. All of it is just anecdotes. However I would  ask why woman aren't taking higher paying jobs and try to come up with some data for that.

The wage gap is a complicated issue. The statistics do show that women are paid less on average. People try to justify what the statistics show, those are the people that need to back up their claims. But because of mountains of past examples, one needs to highly scrutinize and evaluate any claims, in as unbiased a way as possible, that blame the victims.

Gender dufferences in pay are a whole crate of canned worms!

Where a woman is doing exactly the same job as a man there should be no difference at all. A friend's daughter is a building site labourer - she is a very strong and solid young woman. She gets paid the same rate as the young men in her skill grade, because she can hump as many bricks around as they can! She spent all her weekends since age six mucking out horses for a local stable to get rides - now she has to maintain her own horse.

Years ago, when they still made Ford cars in the UK,there was a strike in the upholstery shop. The women machinists and assemblers got a much lower wage than the male engineering machinists and assemplers. Both jobs required training but both were repetitive step-wise functions - the very basic of education was sufficient.

So, all that was needed was decent eye sight, good hand-eye coordinations, average strength and probably more muscle memory than intellect. Taken down to basics the functions they were very similar in their requirements, so should the wages have been.

[For some readon my tablet has taken it on itself to capitalise after commas . . .] [Also to charge at half its normal rate  >:( ]

To me, this is nothing more than an overly exaggerated, quite frankly retarded, commercial about shoes and fashion. In my honest opinion, if shoes and fashion rank this highly in your world order, you have some serious issues.

Quote from: No one on February 08, 2017, 09:49:24 PM
To me, this is nothing more than an overly exaggerated, quite frankly retarded, commercial about shoes and fashion. In my honest opinion, if shoes and fashion rank this highly in your world order, you have some serious issues.

Yes I saw someone pick apart this commercial as well and showed how men's and woman's underwear cost the same. Just to make sure they were right, I went to amazon and yes they are about the same, unless you count bras as underwear.

Quote from: Apathy on February 08, 2017, 09:53:37 PM. . . unless you count bras as underwear.

What in the hell would you count them as, if not underwear?

Quote from: Recusant on February 08, 2017, 10:17:47 PM

Quote from: Apathy on February 08, 2017, 09:53:37 PM. . . unless you count bras as underwear.

What in the hell would you count them as, if not underwear?

I would also like to know! :lol:

It's an ad, it's propaganda, which aims to tap into some deep-seated emotion present in a group who might feel oppressed in some way or form, and seek liberation. It's parasitical, in a way. 

If the idea is to stir controversy and get people talking so that they get more exposure, they've probably achieved that.

 

Quote from: Recusant on February 08, 2017, 10:17:47 PM

Quote from: Apathy on February 08, 2017, 09:53:37 PM. . . unless you count bras as underwear.

What in the hell would you count them as, if not underwear?

I mean I thought they were there own thing. I wear layers in winter sometimes but I don't call the shirt at the bottom underwear.

Quote from: Davin on February 08, 2017, 08:36:03 PM
So when I hear men complain about women being sexist towards men, I mostly just laugh.

I don't. In my society, I could potentially not get a job while being the most qualified applicant simply because of my gender. A woman runs no such risk. Yes, I could go on, but I will not... Yet.

Sexism is a game both sides can play, and play it well they do. Me, I just try to avoid being sucked into it. I am not pro-equality as such, but I am absolutely for equal starting conditions for everyone. Still, not broadly discriminating against women, men or donkeys, for that matter, I still manage to annoy most modern feminists I get into a discussion with... I wonder why? May my aversion to any sort of preferential treatment for any one, including women, be an issue?

The answer, by the way, is "yes." Yes, it quite often is.

Moralising time.

...On second thought, nah. I'll get to it if I manage to start a fire in a jug of water again.

Quote from: Asmodean on February 09, 2017, 11:13:07 AM

Quote from: Davin on February 08, 2017, 08:36:03 PM
So when I hear men complain about women being sexist towards men, I mostly just laugh.

I don't. In my society, I could potentially not get a job while being the most qualified applicant simply because of my gender. A woman runs no such risk. Yes, I could go on, but I will not... Yet.

That is something that is more complicated than you make it sound. Here in the US there was a thing known as affirmative action where by a company large enough, was required to hire a percentage of minorities. I heard pretty much the same issues brought up by white dudes, "well, if I go in to get a job and I'm more qualified than a black guy, I still won't get the job." I have a lot of issues with such a statement. For one, for a long time, the "black guy" had zero chance to get a job no matter how qualified he was because people were allowed to discriminate against race. So which is more important to me, that I might be more qualified and lose a job opportunity, or that members of my country may never be able to get a job no matter how qualified?

Another problem is that being qualified is somehow quantifiable. I get that we want to be able to code and rank things, but I don't see how that is possible. We can't look at the paper trail, so many people with good recommendations, good education, and great looking job history have turned out to be more useless than a high school student. The other problem is that even if we could trust the papers, how is someone who is not going to be allowed to work, because of their gender or race, supposed to start creating their own job history and references?

I get that it's not a perfect system, but at times, some intervention is useful to try to get us as a society to a point where we don't need to police people being bigoted assholes.

Quote from: AsmodeanSexism is a game both sides can play, and play it well they do.

It is, but the women oppressing men thing isn't even close to being a problem. It's like worrying about what were going to do when out planet is going into global cooling trend. Like putting the cart before the horse.

In some cases in the UK the initial stages, resumė to application form and any tests, are done "incognito". It is only when the interviews take place, after any shortlisting or grading, that the gender and ethnicity are made known to those who chose the final candidate(s).

I like that system.

Not sure whether age is "hidden" or not.

Quote from: Davin on February 09, 2017, 01:59:36 PM
That is something that is more complicated than you make it sound.

In certain areas, yes. Where I am at, not at all. (That being middle-middle class and above in an urban Northern European setting)

QuoteHere in the US there was a thing known as affirmative action where by a company large enough, was required to hire a percentage of minorities.

Yes, I actually know that. Yay, me!

QuoteI heard pretty much the same issues brought up by white dudes, "well, if I go in to get a job and I'm more qualified than a black guy, I still won't get the job." I have a lot of issues with such a statement.

If the statement is correct right here and now (Or, well, at the time it's made) is your issue with it objectively-ish valid?

QuoteFor one, for a long time, the "black guy" had zero chance to get a job no matter how qualified he was because people were allowed to discriminate against race.

And if that is still the case, that issue may well require addressing, but not at the expense of any fucking body else. If, on the other hand, your use of past tense indicates a past issue, then maybe the current problem is something else?

QuoteSo which is more important to me, that I might be more qualified and lose a job opportunity, or that members of my country may never be able to get a job no matter how qualified?

I despise using the following statement, but this screams for a "The former president was African American." oO(Especially in light of how the oranger sort of gentleman seems to be going about running the "free world")

I do recognise the validity of your question, subjective as it may be. Me, I'm a strong proponent of a "Fuck you. Earn it." attitude. That's well-established. Thus, my answer to it would be "If they didn't earn it, it's only fair that they don't get it. If they did earn it, they should have it."

QuoteAnother problem is that being qualified is somehow quantifiable.

Not really. I even have a formula for comparing qualifications around here somewhere, with weighing of education, experience, various personality traits, etc. Actually, written recommendations are not worth that much more than the paper they are printed on, according to that. Interviewing former co-workers does yield reasonable results though.

That said...

QuoteI get that we want to be able to code and rank things, but I don't see how that is possible. We can't look at the paper trail, so many people with good recommendations, good education, and great looking job history have turned out to be more useless than a high school student.

...this is a non-issue, because one has to assume that a person hired based on some affirmative action scenario would be just as susceptible to poor hiring practices as the rest of them. Just because you have to hire somebody to fill some bullshit government quota, does not mean that that somebody will turn out to be more useful than a high school student. At a certain point, you just take a chance on a person. Sometimes you get lucky. If you do your job right and preferably without interference, you are likely to get lucky more often.

QuoteThe other problem is that even if we could trust the papers, how is someone who is not going to be allowed to work, because of their gender or race, supposed to start creating their own job history and references?

Start at the bottom and kiss influential ass all the way to the top, just like the rest of us losers. Well, not necessarily, but this is also a non-issue. I was a useless-ass student without any sort of job history too at one point, and I'm doing OK. I wasn't just handed my victories to either. And I am far - FAR from unique. Most people I've had the misfortune of meeting have followed a similar path. Men, women, whites, Middle-Easterners, Africans... Whoever. You start with nothing - if you are lucky, with whatever your parents give you. If you are very lucky, that also contains a solid network which can propel you along. Then you build on that, one fucking brick at a time. From there, it's the proverbial "Be good, get good or give up."

QuoteI get that it's not a perfect system, but at times, some intervention is useful to try to get us as a society to a point where we don't need to police people being bigoted assholes.

Yeah... At the risk of sounding Republican, that's their bigoted asshole parents' job.

QuoteIt is, but the women oppressing men thing isn't even close to being a problem. It's like worrying about what were going to do when out planet is going into global cooling trend. Like putting the cart before the horse.

It's a moot point. People oppressing other people within their society is a problem for me as long as it affects me in any way, shape or form, which it often does (albeit indirectly)

Who is oppressing who and based on what traits is... An artificial issue, I'm inclined to call it. Are you a woman being oppressed by men, or an Asian being oppressed by Indians, or a G being oppressed by an H? I don't give a shit. You've had me at oppressed (If you indeed are, by any standard I am willing to apply to the term)

Quote from: Asmodean on February 09, 2017, 04:51:07 PM

Quote from: Davin on February 09, 2017, 01:59:36 PM
That is something that is more complicated than you make it sound.

In certain areas, yes. Where I am at, not at all. (That being middle-middle class and above in an urban Northern European setting)

I couldn't say about there. It is here in all classes.

Quote from: Asmodean

QuoteI heard pretty much the same issues brought up by white dudes, "well, if I go in to get a job and I'm more qualified than a black guy, I still won't get the job." I have a lot of issues with such a statement.

If the statement is correct right here and now (Or, well, at the time it's made) is your issue with it objectively-ish valid?

It is not, that is why I have issues with it.

Quote from: Asmodean

QuoteFor one, for a long time, the "black guy" had zero chance to get a job no matter how qualified he was because people were allowed to discriminate against race.

And if that is still the case, that issue may well require addressing, but not at the expense of any fucking body else. If, on the other hand, your use of past tense indicates a past issue, then maybe the current problem is something else?

The problem is still there, the people causing the original problem hove found other ways to discriminate. It's now not so easy to point to an example of it, though those still pop up every once in a while, now it's become a layered thing that is mostly only revealed in aggregate.

And when there are people oppressing other people, to equalize things, it necessarily is at the expense of the oppressors or at least those that the oppressors favor. And of course the ones favor are going to get all butt hurt about it. And I sympathize, it's not exactly all their fault, they were just favored while others were denied. However those that are denied are worse off than bringing down the favored a little bit will be.

Quote from: Asmodean

QuoteSo which is more important to me, that I might be more qualified and lose a job opportunity, or that members of my country may never be able to get a job no matter how qualified?

I despise using the following statement, but this screams for a "The former president was African American." oO(Especially in light of how the oranger sort of gentleman seems to be going about running the "free world")

I don't see your point. This is also another commonly used statement that lead to a lot of jokes about racism being solved because we had a black president... then a bunch of unarmed black men got shot and their murderers walked free because black people be scary to the pale skinned.

Quote from: AsmodeanI do recognise the validity of your question, subjective as it may be. Me, I'm a strong proponent of a "Fuck you. Earn it." attitude. That's well-established. Thus, my answer to it would be "If they didn't earn it, it's only fair that they don't get it. If they did earn it, they should have it."

It's not a subjective question. If people are never given the opportunity, they will never grow and then never be able to break into the system. Even now there are people that work for things, and therefore would deserve it, but are denied it because of their race or gender or sexual preference.

Quote from: Asmodean

QuoteAnother problem is that being qualified is somehow quantifiable.

Not really. I even have a formula for comparing qualifications around here somewhere, with weighing of education, experience, various personality traits, etc. Actually, written recommendations are not worth that much more than the paper they are printed on, according to that. Interviewing former co-workers does yield reasonable results though.

That said...

I know a lot of people have systems to attempt to quantify it, but if they truly were quantifiable in such a manner then the error rate would be much smaller, near non-existent.

Quote from: Asmodean

QuoteI get that we want to be able to code and rank things, but I don't see how that is possible. We can't look at the paper trail, so many people with good recommendations, good education, and great looking job history have turned out to be more useless than a high school student.

...this is a non-issue, because one has to assume that a person hired based on some affirmative action scenario would be just as susceptible to poor hiring practices as the rest of them. Just because you have to hire somebody to fill some bullshit government quota, does not mean that that somebody will turn out to be more useful than a high school student. At a certain point, you just take a chance on a person. Sometimes you get lucky. If you do your job right and preferably without interference, you are likely to get lucky more often.

Yes, that is true, but at least under an affirmative action scenario it affords people a chance who would never have gotten that chance otherwise.

Quote from: Asmodean

QuoteThe other problem is that even if we could trust the papers, how is someone who is not going to be allowed to work, because of their gender or race, supposed to start creating their own job history and references?

Start at the bottom and kiss influential ass all the way to the top, just like the rest of us losers. Well, not necessarily, but this is also a non-issue. I was a useless-ass student without any sort of job history too at one point, and I'm doing OK. I wasn't just handed my victories to either. And I am far - FAR from unique. Most people I've had the misfortune of meeting have followed a similar path. Men, women, whites, Middle-Easterners, Africans... Whoever. You start with nothing - if you are lucky, with whatever your parents give you. If you are very lucky, that also contains a solid network which can propel you along. Then you build on that, one fucking brick at a time. From there, it's the proverbial "Be good, get good or give up."

Affirmative action doesn't just hand people things. Those people still need to have qualifications like education and/or training just like the others. They are not just picking up a random person off the street to make a quota. And it's great that you were afforded the bricks. Some people are not afforded the bricks to build with, and that's the point of it.

I'm not saying that people should just be given a job just because they fall into some group, if you think that or keep trying to argue against that position, then I'm not sure what I can do to correct it after this.

Quote from: Asmodean

QuoteI get that it's not a perfect system, but at times, some intervention is useful to try to get us as a society to a point where we don't need to police people being bigoted assholes.

Yeah... At the risk of sounding Republican, that's their bigoted asshole parents' job.

If you're part of a society as we wall are, it's all our jobs to take responsibility for it. Or don't complain when other people try to do something.

Quote from: Asmodean

QuoteIt is, but the women oppressing men thing isn't even close to being a problem. It's like worrying about what were going to do when out planet is going into global cooling trend. Like putting the cart before the horse.

It's a moot point. People oppressing other people within their society is a problem for me as long as it affects me in any way, shape or form, which it often does (albeit indirectly)

Who is oppressing who and based on what traits is... An artificial issue, I'm inclined to call it. Are you a woman being oppressed by men, or an Asian being oppressed by Indians, or a G being oppressed by an H? I don't give a shit. You've had me at oppressed (If you indeed are, by any standard I am willing to apply to the term)

To be honest my entire reaction here is pretty much "Aw, AN ad was sexist toward men? In the whole Super Bowl and maybe ever you saw ONE ad you perceived diminished your gender? That must be really awful for you."

Quote from: Pasta Chick on February 09, 2017, 08:49:21 PM
To be honest my entire reaction here is pretty much "Aw, AN ad was sexist toward men? In the whole Super Bowl and maybe ever you saw ONE ad you perceived diminished your gender? That must be really awful for you."

;D

Two wrongs don't make a right.

Quote from: Magdalena on February 09, 2017, 08:57:49 PM

Quote from: Pasta Chick on February 09, 2017, 08:49:21 PM
To be honest my entire reaction here is pretty much "Aw, AN ad was sexist toward men? In the whole Super Bowl and maybe ever you saw ONE ad you perceived diminished your gender? That must be really awful for you."

;D

My secondary reaction is

God, lighten up, it's just an ad/Children are starving in other counties, you could have it so much worse/this is why no one likes you people, always making problems where there are none/look those men all agreed to be in that commercial so clearly there's no problem here

Quote from: Apathy on February 09, 2017, 09:15:45 PM
Two wrongs don't make a right.

It's not two wrongs. It's one (debatable) wrong versus millennia of wrongs.

Quote from: Apathy on February 09, 2017, 09:15:45 PM
Two wrongs don't make a right.

Sometimes you have to go from white to black to get to gray.

Quote from: xSilverPhinx on February 09, 2017, 09:30:39 PM

Quote from: Apathy on February 09, 2017, 09:15:45 PM
Two wrongs don't make a right.

Sometimes you have to go from white to black to get to gray.

In my experience that is never the case. Black people, as discriminated against as they are, can still be racist. I know because they all picked on me when I live in a black dominated city. They all assumed I was white, when my skin is brown. That's prejudice on a level of ignorance. And the elder's in my family has their own personal experiences about how they saw them picking on whites when they were young.

Not saying whites are any better, or anybody else. But once someone states they are superior or someone is inferior, then you have problems, and then I have an issue. Nobody is inherently superior to anybody else.

But it's just one ad so I don't really have a problem with it.

I wasn't talking about one group being superior to another, though that's an understandable reaction, I think. I was talking more about shaking things up. ;)

I don't think that any of the civil rights movements of the past would have gotten as far as they did if there hadn't been lots of noise, and noise can be offensive to those who oppress. It annoys. It shines light on a situation that they don't really want to see. These days things have gotten better for some minority groups but there is still some way to go.

Take the New Atheist movement for instance, which became more militant in recent years. Some alienated theists might tell you that atheists are not discriminated against in most parts of the world but we know that isn't true. When the oppressor isn't even aware that they are oppressing or couldn't care less it is a sad thing indeed.

As for women and equal rights, it hasn't been my reality thankfully, but there are some jobs that do discriminate against us when it comes to pay in Brazil. I don't know how it is in the States but I wouldn't be surprised if it's the same. I personally do not think that quotas and affirmative actions are the answer though as it's more of a patch-up solution and doesn't solve the underlying root of the problem.

Affirmative Action type programs are a catch-22. It's easy to say "fix the root" but how? If people are accustomed to never hiring X demographic they're likely to continue that pattern regardless of outside change, unless suddenly there is a complete lack of their accustomed demographic (which is not likely when we're talking about white men in the US). Even today ethnic-sounding names are less likely to be hired in the US than white-sounding names. Something has to break the pattern. But on the other hand, you do run to situations where you simply don't have the diversity of applicants needed to meet certain AA-type criteria. I honestly don't know what the best solution is.

I think the silliness of the ad in the OP is that it's just that - an ad. They're trying to work the "more" concept from two angles and imply that buying their shoes will help you fight the patriarchy, which is fucking stupid.

What they say, however, is true. Women are paid less overall (in the US) for the same jobs. They are not hired for better paying jobs, which is a problem in itself - women aren't just sitting there going "well shit, I really just wanted to be a secretary anyway." Pushing for more is seen as being brash and bossy and a cold bitch, which then gets you overlooked. Playing the balance is fucking exhausting. And god help you if you plan to have kids. This is part of why Hillary Clinton resonated so strongly with so many women. She played that game and came as close to winning as anyone has.

The "pink tax" as it's often called is real. I frequently seek out men's items because they are cheaper. Often I don't have a choice - my outdoor and working gear is predominately men's because I simply can't find quality products for women. Sometimes they exist but you have to special order at higher cost. (And yes, bras are underwear - I prefer to go without but see the prior paragraph about playing the game, in this case not being a gross slut. Even in my off time I usually wear one because getting leered at in Walmart gets really old really fast).

So by saying women should get "more" it's in answer to this. If we're expected to be wearing the right clothes, with the right hair and all the product that entails (have I mentioned I've been called into manager meetings because my hair wasn't straightened?) full make up, eyebrows properly waxed, touch ups throughout the day of course, and all the time that entails... Yeah, I would say we do deserve higher compensation in turn.

Let's be clear. I consider myself a racist. A racist in the true sense of the word. There is one, and only one race of people on this planet, the human race. I hate them all!

Quote from: Pasta Chick on February 09, 2017, 10:47:58 PM
Affirmative Action type programs are a catch-22. It's easy to say "fix the root" but how? If people are accustomed to never hiring X demographic they're likely to continue that pattern regardless of outside change, unless suddenly there is a complete lack of their accustomed demographic (which is not likely when we're talking about white men in the US). Even today ethnic-sounding names are less likely to be hired in the US than white-sounding names. Something has to break the pattern. But on the other hand, you do run to situations where you simply don't have the diversity of applicants needed to meet certain AA-type criteria. I honestly don't know what the best solution is.

I have no idea how to fix the root of the problem, at least not in the short term. Maybe the best solution is affirmative action because it gets practical results quicker, I don't know. I just think there's a hole somewhere.

QuoteI think the silliness of the ad in the OP is that it's just that - an ad. They're trying to work the "more" concept from two angles and imply that buying their shoes will help you fight the patriarchy, which is fucking stupid.

Yes, I don't get the link. :lol: Consumerism = fight the patriarchy.  :wtf: Looks more like a distraction than a solution, although with plenty of emotional appeal. 

QuoteWhat they say, however, is true. Women are paid less overall (in the US) for the same jobs. They are not hired for better paying jobs, which is a problem in itself - women aren't just sitting there going "well shit, I really just wanted to be a secretary anyway." Pushing for more is seen as being brash and bossy and a cold bitch, which then gets you overlooked. Playing the balance is fucking exhausting. And god help you if you plan to have kids. This is part of why Hillary Clinton resonated so strongly with so many women. She played that game and came as close to winning as anyone has.

This (bolded) really, really irks me. While men can be seen as being assertive, women are sometimes seen as brash and bossy bitches.

I can't even begin to count the number of times I've asked repeatedly asked passively for information, gotten nothing, and finally been like "sorry, I really need clarification on this now" and gotten my answer followed by "geez, you didn't have to be such a bitch about it!"

I feel like this ad was developed by a bunch of middle aged white men and maybe a Kellyann Conway type sitting around going "yes, that march has been very popular! Empowerment seems to be trending highly among the female 18-35 demographic!"

I do not think for one second that a strong, determined woman is a bitch. To me, a bitch is an uptight, cold, demanding,  "I deserve this because" woman.

Here in Germany women and men are paid equally for the same job. Many women however have part-time jobs, thus are paid less because they make less hours. That also means they pay less taxes, which basically means that they have a better net salary per hour. You won't find many female top managers for various reasons. I think one of the main reasons is "The old boys network". Quite often managers are not selected by their capabilities, but by whom they know.

Quote from: Apathy on February 09, 2017, 09:45:09 PM

Quote from: xSilverPhinx on February 09, 2017, 09:30:39 PM

Quote from: Apathy on February 09, 2017, 09:15:45 PM
Two wrongs don't make a right.

Sometimes you have to go from white to black to get to gray.

In my experience that is never the case. Black people, as discriminated against as they are, can still be racist. I know because they all picked on me when I live in a black dominated city. They all assumed I was white, when my skin is brown. That's prejudice on a level of ignorance. And the elder's in my family has their own personal experiences about how they saw them picking on whites when they were young.
...

Interesting.

In my experience, black people, as discriminated against as they are, they were the kindest to me when I was brought to this country. I know because they all wanted to be my friend when I lived in a black dominated city. They all assumed I was black, when my skin is extremely, extremely white.
Let me explain this.

As I said, my skin is extremely, extremely white. So white that when my man walks in the room, and it's dark and I'm naked he says, "Damned! Someone dim the lights up in here! Please!"  ;D
>:(

Anyways...

But my hair is extremely curly. What some "racist" call: "Kinky hair, or nappy hair."  They use these words to describe Afro hair. To some this term is offensive.

Well, my hair is so kinky that a black girl asked me, "Are you black?" The other girl touched my hair, and she said, "No, she's not black." When I visited Ecuador, someone over there asked, "How are we gonna know what she looks like when we go pick her up at the airport?" The other person responded, "You can't miss her, she has a "black woman's hair." When I got there, I went to see a doctor, and the doctor asked the woman I was with, "Is she a monkey?" (That's what they call people who live in the south, (Guayaquil). Mainly a black population. When I went to live in Florida, the black kids welcomed me with open arms and so much love. They introduced me to all the other black kids in the school.

I've gotten nothing but love from them, even though my skin is white. Maybe it's my hair, I don't know, who cares? I think it's not about one's skin color, I think it's about the "vibe" you send with your attitude and the one you receive...and what you do with it the minute you receive it.

Quote from: Magdalena on February 10, 2017, 07:33:39 AM

Quote from: Apathy on February 09, 2017, 09:45:09 PM

Quote from: xSilverPhinx on February 09, 2017, 09:30:39 PM

Quote from: Apathy on February 09, 2017, 09:15:45 PM
Two wrongs don't make a right.

Sometimes you have to go from white to black to get to gray.

In my experience that is never the case. Black people, as discriminated against as they are, can still be racist. I know because they all picked on me when I live in a black dominated city. They all assumed I was white, when my skin is brown. That's prejudice on a level of ignorance. And the elder's in my family has their own personal experiences about how they saw them picking on whites when they were young.
...

I think it's not about one's skin color, I think it's about the "vibe" you send with your attitude and the one you receive...and what you do with it the minute you receive it.

Yeah I agree with that statement. Maybe it's just my male mentality but I always tried to be the cool kid and that got me into a lot of trouble. Or maybe it was that time I mooned my black friend in first grade that sent me on a path of darkness. I eventually tried to act like the kids around me so they wouldn't pick on me. And that worked for a time.

Fast forward to 2011 and I just graduated from high school the year before and was involved with a girl on a real level. It came time to ask her out and I didn't because I thought she didn't like me. But in that moment her face went from overwhelming joy and destroyed into disappointment like I've never seen. From that point on she is telling me she locked me out of her house and that I'm a liar and a manipulator and I should go away. I lost all my friends and I started going to mental hospitals. I tried to kill myself on more than one occasion.

It wasn't until recently that I tried to make everyone happy. And I think that what I learned from her is that showing someone they have an inherent positive value can really make people like you.

Quote from: Davin on February 09, 2017, 07:14:24 PM
I couldn't say about there. It is here in all classes.

It's more complicated than that, or(/and) it exists across the spectrum?

Quote
It is not, that is why I have issues with it.

I don't think I understand... Your have an issue with said statement because your issue with it is not objectively valid?

Post-time edit: Oh! Because the statement is not accurate, you mean? Are you sure it is not?

QuoteThe problem is still there, the people causing the original problem hove found other ways to discriminate. It's now not so easy to point to an example of it, though those still pop up every once in a while, now it's become a layered thing that is mostly only revealed in aggregate.

Mmh... Perhaps in the US. The Norwegian variety of discrimination is pretty transparent. In any case, as long as you don't impose motives at every turn, I may be inclined to buy your position.

QuoteAnd when there are people oppressing other people, to equalize things, it necessarily is at the expense of the oppressors or at least those that the oppressors favor. And of course the ones favor are going to get all butt hurt about it. And I sympathize, it's not exactly all their fault, they were just favored while others were denied. However those that are denied are worse off than bringing down the favored a little bit will be.

I disagree with you here. You don't need to swap my imaginary Rolls Royce for a bus ticket to give poor people car loans. Ok, too materialistic an example by far, but it does apply. What you suggest simply turns the bias around through legislation. Ought there be a law? Probably not. Not that law.

QuoteI don't see your point. This is also another commonly used statement that lead to a lot of jokes about racism being solved because we had a black president... then a bunch of unarmed black men got shot and their murderers walked free because black people be scary to the pale skinned.

An African American got himself right to the top of the food chain in US politics. My bloody doctor is from some Middle-Eastern shithole, and by all accounts, he's more successful than I am. Usain Bolt can outrun any pale-skin. My point does not really go beyond that. It was a not-very-good counter to a not-very-good argument, that's it. Black people getting shot may very well be racial discrimination - I don't know the story you are referring to to make any kind of analysis. What I see here, is the tendency for the poor to stay poor, the rich to stay rich and the middle class to go either way, in addition to staying in the middle, of course. If it so happens that many of the poor people in urban Norway are of ethnicities other than the majority, that does not scream of racism to the same degree as it does of failed integration, too few expectations and a job market which favours the educated and those having some drive and/or resources to propel themselves along. It doesn't really matter that much what colour you are or what the shape of your genitals is. If you come from the bottom and want to reach the top, you'll have to work your ass off - and kiss others - to get there.

That said, I like the way this discussion is progressing, but we were talking about women, not minorities, were we not? Perhaps we should steer this thing back to me bashing on feminism?

QuoteIt's not a subjective question. If people are never given the opportunity, they will never grow and then never be able to break into the system. Even now there are people that work for things, and therefore would deserve it, but are denied it because of their race or gender or sexual preference.

I challenge you to re-read your question, as it was posed, and explain how it was not a call for a deeply subjective opinion. I provided one, while recognising that of course, some people would prefer A over B rather than the opposite.

When it comes to giving people chances, what possible professional profit-seeking entity would turn down a candidate capable of generating the most profit of the current pool just because he smells funny? Over here, I don't know of a big business that would do that. They didn't do it even before the stupid(-ly ineffective, albeit annoying) equalizer law. Small businesses are another story, as they tend to be a lot more personal, mirroring the owner's biases and insecurities in their practices, including hiring. But then, if you insist on working in a small business but are dissatisfied with how the ones you've contacted operate, you can bloody well start your own.

Quote
I know a lot of people have systems to attempt to quantify it, but if they truly were quantifiable in such a manner then the error rate would be much smaller, near non-existent.

In the company I work for, the hire-miss rate is what... Like one in one fifty? Seems pretty damned good. Could be better, sure, but... It's adequate. (Measured by who is still here after their trial period expires. This also goes both ways. You may not be right for us, but we may also not be right for you)

Quote
Yes, that is true, but at least under an affirmative action scenario it affords people a chance who would never have gotten that chance otherwise.

But they would. Again, we are talking to each other about a problem of the same name from two different worlds (which I am quite fascinated by, by the way) Yes, you can give people chances. They can also claim them. If I must hire you because the law says that I must - yes, I may do that. You may then end up on a dead-end career path somewhere not suited to your needs and wants, where you may also not be suited to the needs and wants of this entity. You may very well also get lucky, but you WILL start in the red and have to work your way into the green. Or you can convince me that you are the right person for the job and get hired on equal footing with everyone else. If then you find out that I'm not for you, nor you for me, then I will wish you the best of luck and you can be off convincing someone else that they need you, want you and must have you. Just to emphasise, the laws I'm talking about do not apply to the minorities over here - only to women. They don't need those laws to get ahead. Nor do the minorities, for that matter. The government has long had this ethnic diversity thing going, where they encourage various minorities to apply for government jobs, yes. The private sector? We hire who we think suits our needs best and has the chance of staying the longest. When doing so, we honestly do not care whether your name is Muhammad Al-Muhammadi or Petter Nilsen. (Again, I defer to my disclaimer about the whole middle-middle class and above thing - things are different in the unskilled camp)

QuoteAffirmative action doesn't just hand people things. Those people still need to have qualifications like education and/or training just like the others. They are not just picking up a random person off the street to make a quota. And it's great that you were afforded the bricks. Some people are not afforded the bricks to build with, and that's the point of it.

I had to craft my own damned bricks too. I got some financial support from family, but being industrial and secretarial workers, they did not give me much in terms of a safety net or a network of people whose favour I could call upon. Yes, I know, who cares about one particular me, but my point is... You don't have to be given, afforded, imbued with - or any other euphemism for the same damned concept - stuff to get somewhere. You can create what you need. It's a slow and sometimes painful process, but it does yield results.

Also, are you seriously saying that affirmative action, the whole point of which is to give people freebies, does not give people freebies? Of course I was not talking about picking some random loser off a street and making her the director of economics in a massive corporation. I even stated my position in very clear terms in my post. I was talking about businesses being pressed to settle for less or keep looking just to fill a quota, when a satisfactory candidate with unsatisfactory genitals already was at hand.

QuoteI'm not saying that people should just be given a job just because they fall into some group

In a way, you are. I'm arguing the flipside of the issue, however. I don't really care who gets hired and who does not - what I do care about, is that the ones hiring are unrestricted in their choice of candidates, as that best benefits the company.

QuoteIf you're part of a society as we wall are, it's all our jobs to take responsibility for it. Or don't complain when other people try to do something.

Communist! >:(

Nah... Just messing around. On that note, I just got this flashback to that stupid-ass "ask not what your country can do for you"-thing. What?! Really? REALLY-really?! Why the fuck would I even want a country if it wasn't there to "do for me?" From there, we can complicate things and group and split them and end up with a complex political system, but at the end of the day... If you are not lobbying for your own causes, that's on you.

Thus, it's my solemn duty to complain when my society does something against my best interest. It's my responsibility to myself and, coincidentally, to those others who occupy the same raft as I do. After all, we sink or swim together. That's how politics works; many different individual and group interests collide, then those strongest in enough key areas win... Until next time. That's not oppression - well, it is, but that is how the game is played.

Quote from: Asmodean
It's a moot point. People oppressing other people within their society is a problem for me as long as it affects me in any way, shape or form, which it often does (albeit indirectly)

Who is oppressing who and based on what traits is... An artificial issue, I'm inclined to call it. Are you a woman being oppressed by men, or an Asian being oppressed by Indians, or a G being oppressed by an H? I don't give a shit. You've had me at oppressed (If you indeed are, by any standard I am willing to apply to the term)

This one is worth restating. Changing the oppressed party is still oppression.

Quote from: xSilverPhinx on February 09, 2017, 10:06:52 PM
I wasn't talking about one group being superior to another, though that's an understandable reaction, I think. I was talking more about shaking things up. ;)

I don't think that any of the civil rights movements of the past would have gotten as far as they did if there hadn't been lots of noise, and noise can be offensive to those who oppress.

(I just wanted to add something here) If that's the case then I would agree. Sometimes you need to hit the reset button and make everyone and everything equal.

I will agree, to a degree, with Msgs' "vibes".

When on a course I was quite surprsed when the only black man on the course started calling me, and only me, "bro".  Surprised and pleased. We got on OK from day one whdn I helped him with something.

But there is a kind of "algebra" here I think. There has to be a similar "polarity" in both "sides" to balance the "equation". If one party is very deeply 'negative' no amount of "positive" in the other oarty will balance it. Short of facing mutual destruction and relying on a joint effort to save themselves - maybe.

Quote from: Asmodean on February 10, 2017, 09:49:11 AM

Quote from: Davin on February 09, 2017, 07:14:24 PM
I couldn't say about there. It is here in all classes.

It's more complicated than that, or(/and) it exists across the spectrum?

Sexism and racism are still a thing across all classes in the US.

Quote from: Asmodean

Quote
It is not, that is why I have issues with it.

I don't think I understand... Your have an issue with said statement because your issue with it is not objectively valid?

Post-time edit: Oh! Because the statement is not accurate, you mean? Are you sure it is not?

The statement is not accurate, my objections are not subjective.

Quote from: Asmodean

QuoteAnd when there are people oppressing other people, to equalize things, it necessarily is at the expense of the oppressors or at least those that the oppressors favor. And of course the ones favor are going to get all butt hurt about it. And I sympathize, it's not exactly all their fault, they were just favored while others were denied. However those that are denied are worse off than bringing down the favored a little bit will be.

I disagree with you here. You don't need to swap my imaginary Rolls Royce for a bus ticket to give poor people car loans. Ok, too materialistic an example by far, but it does apply. What you suggest simply turns the bias around through legislation. Ought there be a law? Probably not. Not that law.

That is a wild misrepresentation of my position and I don't see how we can continue if you're willing to do something like that.

If it were like you're trying to say, then I'd be against that, I don't see who wouldn't... but then that's probably why you constructed it not out of what I said but out of something else isn't it?

No one is talking about taking anything away from anyone else, we were talking about hiring. So if white men have to go to a few more interviews to get a job in order to offer up a chance to minorities and women, well I don't think that's such a bad trade.

Quote from: Asmodean

QuoteI don't see your point. This is also another commonly used statement that lead to a lot of jokes about racism being solved because we had a black president... then a bunch of unarmed black men got shot and their murderers walked free because black people be scary to the pale skinned.

An African American got himself right to the top of the food chain in US politics. My bloody doctor is from some Middle-Eastern shithole, and by all accounts, he's more successful than I am. Usain Bolt can outrun any pale-skin. My point does not really go beyond that. It was a not-very-good counter to a not-very-good argument, that's it. Black people getting shot may very well be racial discrimination - I don't know the story you are referring to to make any kind of analysis.

You said we had a black president, apparently to infer that racism isn't as much of a problem anymore in the US. This is also a false claim presented by many a racist in the US.

Quote from: AsmodeanWhat I see here, is the tendency for the poor to stay poor, the rich to stay rich and the middle class to go either way, in addition to staying in the middle, of course. If it so happens that many of the poor people in urban Norway are of ethnicities other than the majority, that does not scream of racism to the same degree as it does of failed integration, too few expectations and a job market which favours the educated and those having some drive and/or resources to propel themselves along. It doesn't really matter that much what colour you are or what the shape of your genitals is. If you come from the bottom and want to reach the top, you'll have to work your ass off - and kiss others - to get there.

When you study the poor, you will find that the poor do not stay poor. I mean some do, and I know that a bunch of dishonest people point them as if they are representative, but one's financial situation is normal fluid. My family being typical went from be being very poor to being middle class, back down to poor, then back up to middle class. This is not uncommon. The poor do not stay poor in general.

What you're saying here is that education, and resources and whatever else matters more than gender or race. I agree with that, but not every employer agrees with that. If an employer will not hire a women, it doesn't matter how much education and/or training that woman has.

Quote from: AsmodeanThat said, I like the way this discussion is progressing, but we were talking about women, not minorities, were we not? Perhaps we should steer this thing back to me bashing on feminism?

To me, irrational discrimination is about the same thing.

Quote from: Asmodean

QuoteIt's not a subjective question. If people are never given the opportunity, they will never grow and then never be able to break into the system. Even now there are people that work for things, and therefore would deserve it, but are denied it because of their race or gender or sexual preference.

I challenge you to re-read your question, as it was posed, and explain how it was not a call for a deeply subjective opinion. I provided one, while recognising that of course, some people would prefer A over B rather than the opposite.

I see the confusion and how it would be assumed to be merely subjective.

Quote from: AsmodeanWhen it comes to giving people chances, what possible professional profit-seeking entity would turn down a candidate capable of generating the most profit of the current pool just because he smells funny? Over here, I don't know of a big business that would do that. They didn't do it even before the stupid(-ly ineffective, albeit annoying) equalizer law. Small businesses are another story, as they tend to be a lot more personal, mirroring the owner's biases and insecurities in their practices, including hiring. But then, if you insist on working in a small business but are dissatisfied with how the ones you've contacted operate, you can bloody well start your own.

We can't assume that people are rational when we have a lot of examples of irrational behavior. Just look at what happened to the banking industry over here in 2008. Your question is similar, why would a company not act in it's best interest? Why do Republicans vote for the people that are hurting them the most? There are a lot of different reasons and not all of them are publicly available. We both could look up court cases on discrimination though, and there are a lot.

I'm not really all that interested in seeking out to understand every stupid reason a company decides to discriminate, the reality though, is that it does happen. Maybe less right now, probably more in the future, at least in the US.

Quote from: Asmodean

Quote
Yes, that is true, but at least under an affirmative action scenario it affords people a chance who would never have gotten that chance otherwise.

But they would. Again, we are talking to each other about a problem of the same name from two different worlds (which I am quite fascinated by, by the way) Yes, you can give people chances. They can also claim them. If I must hire you because the law says that I must - yes, I may do that. You may then end up on a dead-end career path somewhere not suited to your needs and wants, where you may also not be suited to the needs and wants of this entity. You may very well also get lucky, but you WILL start in the red and have to work your way into the green. Or you can convince me that you are the right person for the job and get hired on equal footing with everyone else. If then you find out that I'm not for you, nor you for me, then I will wish you the best of luck and you can be off convincing someone else that they need you, want you and must have you. Just to emphasise, the laws I'm talking about do not apply to the minorities over here - only to women. They don't need those laws to get ahead. Nor do the minorities, for that matter. The government has long had this ethnic diversity thing going, where they encourage various minorities to apply for government jobs, yes. The private sector? We hire who we think suits our needs best and has the chance of staying the longest. When doing so, we honestly do not care whether your name is Muhammad Al-Muhammadi or Petter Nilsen. (Again, I defer to my disclaimer about the whole middle-middle class and above thing - things are different in the unskilled camp)

That's a great optimistic world that I'd love to live in, but I do not, I live in this one.

Quote from: Asmodean

QuoteAffirmative action doesn't just hand people things. Those people still need to have qualifications like education and/or training just like the others. They are not just picking up a random person off the street to make a quota. And it's great that you were afforded the bricks. Some people are not afforded the bricks to build with, and that's the point of it.

I had to craft my own damned bricks too. I got some financial support from family, but being industrial and secretarial workers, they did not give me much in terms of a safety net or a network of people whose favour I could call upon. Yes, I know, who cares about one particular me, but my point is... You don't have to be given, afforded, imbued with - or any other euphemism for the same damned concept - stuff to get somewhere. You can create what you need. It's a slow and sometimes painful process, but it does yield results.

I'm familiar with people being able to luckily pull through a difficult thing to get to where they are. And that's great for them. The problem isn't that someone can leak through the cracks every once in a while, it's for every one person able to make their way through, many others working equally hard don't get the chance to.

Quote from: AsmodeanAlso, are you seriously saying that affirmative action, the whole point of which is to give people freebies, does not give people freebies? Of course I was not talking about picking some random loser off a street and making her the director of economics in a massive corporation. I even stated my position in very clear terms in my post. I was talking about businesses being pressed to settle for less or keep looking just to fill a quota, when a satisfactory candidate with unsatisfactory genitals already was at hand.

Do the people just sit around not working and still get paid? That's not a freebie. The people still need to have the minimum job requirements, and that's not just a handout. So yeah, it's not just giving people freebies, but you continue to misrepresent. I would prefer you not to.

Quote from: Asmodean

QuoteI'm not saying that people should just be given a job just because they fall into some group

In a way, you are. I'm arguing the flipside of the issue, however. I don't really care who gets hired and who does not - what I do care about, is that the ones hiring are unrestricted in their choice of candidates, as that best benefits the company.

No, I'm not saying that in a way. If you think I am, then I strongly encourage you to read what I wrote without all that bias. You will notice that I'm still saying that the candidates must still have the minimum job requirements (and there is a work around for that here in the US that a lot of companies use). That is not finding a random unqualified woman on the street just to fill a quota. If you keep misrepresenting my argument from this point, I'm going to consider it willful and hostile.

Quote from: Asmodean

QuoteIf you're part of a society as we wall are, it's all our jobs to take responsibility for it. Or don't complain when other people try to do something.

Communist! >:(

Nah... Just messing around. On that note, I just got this flashback to that stupid-ass "ask not what your country can do for you"-thing. What?! Really? REALLY-really?! Why the fuck would I even want a country if it wasn't there to "do for me?" From there, we can complicate things and group and split them and end up with a complex political system, but at the end of the day... If you are not lobbying for your own causes, that's on you.

Thus, it's my solemn duty to complain when my society does something against my best interest. It's my responsibility to myself and, coincidentally, to those others who occupy the same raft as I do. After all, we sink or swim together. That's how politics works; many different individual and group interests collide, then those strongest in enough key areas win... Until next time. That's not oppression - well, it is, but that is how the game is played.

It's a good thing to try to make society a better place for everyone.

Quote from: Asmodean

Quote from: Asmodean
It's a moot point. People oppressing other people within their society is a problem for me as long as it affects me in any way, shape or form, which it often does (albeit indirectly)

Who is oppressing who and based on what traits is... An artificial issue, I'm inclined to call it. Are you a woman being oppressed by men, or an Asian being oppressed by Indians, or a G being oppressed by an H? I don't give a shit. You've had me at oppressed (If you indeed are, by any standard I am willing to apply to the term)

This one is worth restating. Changing the oppressed party is still oppression.

It doesn't change the oppressed party. It's like men have been getting two cookies for preferential chores for centuries while women have been getting only a certain kind of half cookie chores. These measures let one women out of a many have a chance at the nicer two cookie jobs, and men are acting like sharing is oppression.

If it were a switch in who was being oppressed, I'd also be against that. But I suppose that's why you keep phrasing it that way instead of what I'm saying.

Looks like our objections are falling into three places, so if there is a next time, I'll condense the next forty page response down to something more efficient.

(Responding to the very last sentence)

Yes. I think I'm down with that. I'm getting out of the office soon, and have no time to compose a proper response at this moment, but I am certainly re-visiting this when I get home. You claim being misrepresented on occasion, and I will ask for clarification there. Misrepresentation is not something I normally do, so if I indeed misrepresented what you said, then it may just have been too ambiguous in its phrasing.

I also think that it's possible that we actually agree on this issue to a far greater degree than what can be assumed directly from the last couple of our posts, but we disagree on some important lines and means. I may need to define those far more clearly for my side of the table.

Ok, In the spirit of keeping walls of text under control, I'll attempt some creative cut-pasting here...

...EDIT: I failed.  8)

Quote from: Davin on February 10, 2017, 02:34:16 PM
That is a wild misrepresentation of my position and I don't see how we can continue if you're willing to do something like that.
****
No one is talking about taking anything away from anyone else, we were talking about hiring. So if white men have to go to a few more interviews to get a job in order to offer up a chance to minorities and women, well I don't think that's such a bad trade.

In what way did I misrepresent your position? Are you not advocating giving certain groups of people advantage over certain other groups of people through law? Because there are only so many ways I know of when it comes to reading the sentence I italicised.

It's true that as an individual, I would likely lose very little from being passed over for a job. In fact, I would likely not even race for that job in the first place - maybe I would once. Don't need to today. The company forced to hire someone else, however, because it so happens that I am a white male, stands to lose the chance to hire me. So while such laws are not poison to me on personal level (as there is a strong theoretical possibility of them being that to someone else, I still regard them as such "on the whole") they are indeed poison to corporate hiring processes. They are ineffective at eliminating the -isms because the larger sort of business doesn't care and the smaller sort of business is exempt and they mess with parts of running a business which need no outside control to perform its best.

Quote]You said we had a black president, apparently to infer that racism isn't as much of a problem anymore in the US. This is also a false claim presented by many a racist in the US.

Yeah yeah... I'm happy to leave this well enough alone. As stated, it was a poorly-made response to a poorly-made argument. I hear you claim that racism is rampant in the US employer-employee relationships, and perhaps it is. Thing is though, any one can make claims. If my original response failed to illustrate that, well... As stated, it was because it was not very good.

Quote from: Asmodean
What you're saying here is that education, and resources and whatever else matters more than gender or race. I agree with that, but not every employer agrees with that. If an employer will not hire a women, it doesn't matter how much education and/or training that woman has.

People moving up and down through different economic layers is not a widespread phenomenon here. Sure, you can get wealthier or poorer, but our vastly expensive social safety net does actually work when it comes to countering sudden challenges in life which would normally push you down. You can lose your job and sit on government coin for up to two years, practically keeping 2/3 of your former income. If your savings account is for more than collecting cobwebs, then generally, you'll be quite alright. Also, I suspct the divide between the poor and the middle class is far wider in Norway than it is in the US. The poor people here have an income somewhere around 25K USD or lower. The middle class has its "centre of gravity" somewhere around 40K USD (I may be somewhat generous to the poor here; if statistics are to be read with no regard for anything but the numbers, the middle of the middle class is actually closer to the 60K USD mark) In any case, the socialists have had a hard-on for making this society classless for so long that many people actually think that it is. The question then becomes "compared to what?" Rural Uganda? Sure, we are classless. Suburban Copenhagen? Nope. Not so much.

Now, back to the agreeing about stuff bit. Yes. That is not all I'm saying, but it certainly is a fair chunk. If an employer will not hire a woman - fuck him. Let him pass over great opportunities in the name of keeping the sausage fest stocked with enough sausages. There's plenty more fish in the sea, and as I have said before and probably will again, the larger sort of profit-seeking fish don't care. They are too complex for that.

There are only loosely connected teams of people involved in hiring a single individual, so their individual agendas tend to... Just drown. By the way, I'm working for a company which does aspire to be large, but still under 1000 employees. Still, it took... Six people to hire me. Six, from four departments in two geographic locations. I was headhunted, true, but six is the minimum it takes to fill my sort of position, even on a half-year trial basis. It helps pick people who are most likely to fit in, do a good job and preferably stay for a long time. This should also begin to address your point about a person or a group of people in the same canoe not necessarily acting from their own best interest.

It's a similar story across the... Garden, they call it. Or a sculpture park. Google Fornebuporten - there are pictures. Judge for yourself. In any case, it's a similar story over there *point* where the oily sort of businesses hang out, and over there *point* at an airline's headquarters and there *point* at oil service businesses... Maybe not there *point* at Telenor, but then Telenor sucks enough for me to name them by name.

Quote
That's a great optimistic world that I'd love to live in, but I do not, I live in this one.

It's nothing special, my world. Past a certain point, that's how it seems to work in large parts of Europe.

QuoteI'm familiar with people being able to luckily pull through a difficult thing to get to where they are. And that's great for them. The problem isn't that someone can leak through the cracks every once in a while, it's for every one person able to make their way through, many others working equally hard don't get the chance to.
****
Do the people just sit around not working and still get paid? That's not a freebie. The people still need to have the minimum job requirements, and that's not just a handout. So yeah, it's not just giving people freebies, but you continue to misrepresent. I would prefer you not to.

It's a freebie if they have a legal advantage which I do not.

QuoteNo, I'm not saying that in a way. If you think I am, then I strongly encourage you to read what I wrote without all that bias. You will notice that I'm still saying that the candidates must still have the minimum job requirements (and there is a work around for that here in the US that a lot of companies use). That is not finding a random unqualified woman on the street just to fill a quota.

And if you read what I wrote, you would notice that of course, I was not speaking of giving my cool job to some random loser off the street - I was talking about giving it to a potentially lesser candidate because of the legal trouble giving it to me may have presented. Now who's misrepresenting who?

QuoteIf you keep misrepresenting my argument from this point, I'm going to consider it willful and hostile.

Well... If you are willing to consider hostile something, where someone is willing to sift through the ambiguity in order to find out what your position actually is - or even if you have a definable position, for that matter... That's on you. State your position clearly enough, and I will not misrepresent it. Make it ambiguous, and I will read it as I will, then take it from there. Beyond that, think of my tone of conversation what you will, but objectively, your attitude is the passive-aggressive one here. I'm happy enough to dredge the sludge on both sides in pursuit of clarity.

QuoteIt's a good thing to try to make society a better place for everyone.

Yeah. It's nice to live in a nice place. It's how we go about making it nicer that's the issue.

QuoteIt doesn't change the oppressed party. It's like men have been getting two cookies for preferential chores for centuries while women have been getting only a certain kind of half cookie chores. These measures let one women out of a many have a chance at the nicer two cookie jobs, and men are acting like sharing is oppression.

If it were a switch in who was being oppressed, I'd also be against that. But I suppose that's why you keep phrasing it that way instead of what I'm saying.

No, of course sharing something nice is not oppressive. Being made to share, however, may very well be.

Ok... I think I can simplify in order to clarify.

If you have a law that states that only men can vote, that is an oppressive law. (Do let us leave out the muddy waters of children and the mentally disabled voting for now - or this thing will grow even more vast) If you then make a law that says that everybody may vote, all is good and well. If you then make a law stating that for a vote to be legally recognised, at least 40% of voters MUST be women, then you are back to making oppressive laws.

This has turned into a spirited, civilized, and commendably intelligent exchange.  Thank you for the opportunity to observe.

Alright already, I disagree with an isolated point here or there. I will not presume to enter the discussion, it is going too well to be disturbed.   

Discussing the actual topic at hand

Quote from: Davin on February 10, 2017, 02:34:16 PM

Quote from: Davin
That's a great optimistic world that I'd love to live in, but I do not, I live in this one.

It's nothing special, my world. Past a certain point, that's how it seems to work in large parts of Europe.

I doubt that, while I think it might be better or worse in other places, I highly doubt that there is a place that works close enough to a meritocracy. Especially since you previously said that poor stay poor there. I suppose that no poor people where you live work hard. I don't think that that is impossible, but I find it highly improbable.

Quote from: Asmodean

Quote
What you're saying here is that education, and resources and whatever else matters more than gender or race. I agree with that, but not every employer agrees with that. If an employer will not hire a women, it doesn't matter how much education and/or training that woman has.

People moving up and down through different economic layers is not a widespread phenomenon here. [...]

The gaps are much larger than that in the US, and there is still a lot mobility both ways. While we have a lot of poor at or below $25k USD, middle class is closer to $100k USD. We could get into specifics if you want, but I don't find them that important.

This article isn't too long and explains things pretty well.
http://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/articles/2012/09/13/where-do-you-fall-in-the-american-economic-class-system

Quote from: Asmodean
If you have a law that states that only men can vote, that is an oppressive law. (Do let us leave out the muddy waters of children and the mentally disabled voting for now - or this thing will grow even more vast) If you then make a law that says that everybody may vote, all is good and well. If you then make a law stating that for a vote to be legally recognised, at least 40% of voters MUST be women, then you are back to making oppressive laws.

That doesn't make sense in this context. A vote is a person practicing their rights. Having a job is not a right. Which I suppose is something that you wanted me to say. While having a job is not a right, having equal access to jobs should be a right.

Using your voting analogy. A voting place doesn't allow women voters even though there is no law saying that women can't vote. So the big bad Government comes in and makes a law that says that all voting places must allow women to vote.

This too is different than employers and jobs, because the voting place doesn't have to pay the voters or be profitable to survive. But that's why the affirmative action laws work off things like requiring a small percentage of their workforce to be whatever problem the law is trying to address be it minorities or women being unable to find a decent job that they developed skills and went to school for.

Trying to correct misrepresentations of my statements

Quote from: Asmodean on February 11, 2017, 10:07:03 AM
Ok, In the spirit of keeping walls of text under control, I'll attempt some creative cut-pasting here...

...EDIT: I failed.  8)

Quote from: Davin
That is a wild misrepresentation of my position and I don't see how we can continue if you're willing to do something like that.
****
No one is talking about taking anything away from anyone else, we were talking about hiring. So if white men have to go to a few more interviews to get a job in order to offer up a chance to minorities and women, well I don't think that's such a bad trade.

In what way did I misrepresent your position? Are you not advocating giving certain groups of people advantage over certain other groups of people through law? Because there are only so many ways I know of when it comes to reading the sentence I italicised.

It has something to do with this, "You don't need to swap my imaginary Rolls Royce for a bus ticket to give poor people car loans." I certainly never said anything close to that. If you can't see how that is not a wild misrepresentation from anything I've said, I don't know what to do. Nothing in your statement comes close to representing what I've been saying. I could understand a bit of exaggeration, a bit of stretching... but it's like you're off on a completely different planet from what I said.

Quote from: Asmodean

QuoteYou said we had a black president, apparently to infer that racism isn't as much of a problem anymore in the US. This is also a false claim presented by many a racist in the US.

Yeah yeah... I'm happy to leave this well enough alone. As stated, it was a poorly-made response to a poorly-made argument. I hear you claim that racism is rampant in the US employer-employee relationships, and perhaps it is. Thing is though, any one can make claims. If my original response failed to illustrate that, well... As stated, it was because it was not very good.

I never said it was rampant. If you understood it as I said it, you might not think it such a poorly made argument. Can you see the difference between me saying that something exists, from me saying that it is rampant?

I should only have to say what I mean, I shouldn't have to and can't possibly try to explain away all the things I don't mean.

Quote from: AsmodeanIt's a freebie if they have a legal advantage which I do not.

I don't find that to be a useful definition of the term "freebie" and don't see how a nuanced conversation would be possible when using a term with a definition like that that also has other very different meanings.

Quote from: Asmodean

QuoteNo, I'm not saying that in a way. If you think I am, then I strongly encourage you to read what I wrote without all that bias. You will notice that I'm still saying that the candidates must still have the minimum job requirements (and there is a work around for that here in the US that a lot of companies use). That is not finding a random unqualified woman on the street just to fill a quota.

And if you read what I wrote, you would notice that of course, I was not speaking of giving my cool job to some random loser off the street - I was talking about giving it to a potentially lesser candidate because of the legal trouble giving it to me may have presented. Now who's misrepresenting who?

I did notice you not talking about giving your job to some loser off the street, I've never said that you said otherwise.

You said, "Start at the bottom and kiss influential ass all the way to the top, just like the rest of us losers.[...]" because of the response to what I said, it gives the impression that you think that I don't think people should have to work hard to get jobs. It's not an uncommon thing to think when talking about this kind of thing and I never brought up any point saying or even implying that people shouldn't have to work hard to get a job or that people should just be handed jobs.

In an attempt to correct that, I said, "I'm not saying that people should just be given a job just because they fall into some group, if you think that or keep trying to argue against that position, then I'm not sure what I can do to correct it after this."

Then you said, "In a way, you are." Which would mean that you're saying that in a way I am saying that people should be given a job just because they fall into a group. Which is not something I've ever said in any kind of way.

So again I tried to drive the conversation back to what I said (as opposed to these things I didn't say), but you kept on misrepresenting what I said. So you're still the one misrepresenting what I said.

Quote from: Asmodean

QuoteIf you keep misrepresenting my argument from this point, I'm going to consider it willful and hostile.

Well... If you are willing to consider hostile something, where someone is willing to sift through the ambiguity in order to find out what your position actually is - or even if you have a definable position, for that matter... That's on you. State your position clearly enough, and I will not misrepresent it. Make it ambiguous, and I will read it as I will, then take it from there. Beyond that, think of my tone of conversation what you will, but objectively, your attitude is the passive-aggressive one here. I'm happy enough to dredge the sludge on both sides in pursuit of clarity.

Sans any typos, I am saying what I mean. That you assume I mean things other than what I'm saying, is not my fault.

How can I present my argument clearly to a person with such imprecise terminology as you've demonstrated above with "freebie," who throws in Red Herrings like talking about people should work hard to get better jobs when I've never said anything otherwise, who takes my objections and thinks it's OK to wildly speculate I mean something I've never said, and who seem to refuse to listen to my corrections? I can only do so much, the rest is on you to listen to what I say, to not put in things I didn't say, and to listen when I try to correct what appears to me to be your interpretation of what I said. I try my best to do the same.

You have listened to some of what I said, but the other things are things you keep doing. So yeah, after trying several times to correct the issues, I now take it as willful and hostile.

Also I don't understand your usage of calling me "passive-aggressive." A quick google definition defines it how I am familiar with the term:

Quoteof or denoting a type of behavior or personality characterized by indirect resistance to the demands of others and an avoidance of direct confrontation, as in procrastinating, pouting, or misplacing important materials.

I feel that I am very direct and that I do not avoid confrontation. As can be seen by my directly addressing your statements and discussing them directly with you. Aggressive, sure a little, but that in itself doesn't make me passive-aggressive.

Quote from: Davin on February 13, 2017, 05:20:53 PM
...a place that works close enough to a meritocracy.

Oh, no! We drag around way too much dead weight for that. Overall, our society is not very meritocratic.

QuoteEspecially since you previously said that poor stay poor there. I suppose that no poor people where you live work hard. I don't think that that is impossible, but I find it highly improbable.

Many of them are pensioners, students (who I like to count although it's not a standard thing to do; they are likely to cross the class lins at some point), immigrants and garden variety social saety net cases. Some are single parent families with like eight kids. Some are hard-working, yes, but are either not very good at their craft or their craft is not a "prized commodity," so to speak. Meritocracy is not just about how hard you work at your dead-end job. There is room to recognise that some people are "just" more capable when it comes to gnerating what the society percieves as success for themselves than others and there are other variables than meritocracy in play. Failed integration efforts, for starters. Various saety nets and the availability thereof. Etc.

Quote
The gaps are much larger than that in the US, and there is still a lot mobility both ways. While we have a lot of poor at or below $25k USD, middle class is closer to $100k USD. We could get into specifics if you want, but I don't find them that important.

This article isn't too long and explains things pretty well.
http://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/articles/2012/09/13/where-do-you-fall-in-the-american-economic-class-system

This is interesting... I see that I've neglected to household-adjust mine. Not surprising for someone who lives alone, but still... Sloppy. I'll see if I can correct it with a bit more number crunching. Indeed, it's not very important for the purpose of this conversation. I was merely getting around to pointing out as a curiosity, that the divide between the middle class and the rich in terms of purchasing power and economic stability is far narrower in Norway than that between the middle class and the poor. Long live socialism!

Quote
Using your voting analogy. A voting place doesn't allow women voters even though there is no law saying that women can't vote. So the big bad Government comes in and makes a law that says that all voting places must allow women to vote.

Yes. Excellent. Getting places.

That right there is an oppressive law. A well-balanced law would not go beyond clearly stating that people can vote regardless of their gender at any eligible location... If it needed to go that far. This also addresses the part of your argument in this paragraph, not included in my quote.

You know, I think we may actually get this thing off the ground - like *really* get somewhere - if we address this and the implication I keep coming back to.

EDIT:

Ok... I'm editing in afterthoughts now, and I will need to re-state your position, so bear with me and correct where applicable. Feel free to throw the rest of this post (outside the edit "tags") unless still interested in it.

What I am saying is, that any law which makes distinctions based on "normal, natural" (terrible wording, but do let us leave that for another debate, unless my implication is unclear) traits in order to influence the distribution of some commodity, be it wealth, work or... Imaginary (here: much desired) Rolls Royces, is an oppressive law. A balanced law states that equal individuals can do equal things equally. That's it. From there, you can go into anti-discriminatory laws, more or less saying that, for instance, A shall not evaluate B based on C,D,F and/or R. As long as C, D, F and R are traits applicable to "all" Bs (if "B" is "people," those may be gender, hair colour, sexual orientation, height, skin tone... We all have those), the law is still balanced.

You seem to be, and do correct me if I'm still not getting it, of the opinion that a law may clearly state or strongly imply that Bs posessing trait D must be specially considered and included, to the point where a certain percentage of Bs must posess a certain amount of whatever it is the law is distributing, without it being an oppressive law. (Pretty-much-period. Bs posessing other traits are not mentioned at all. This is important, as I shall explain)

It is, of course, possible and even probable that I do not understand the affirmative action laws in the USA. Therefore, I based my reasoning around a Norwegian law that does, in fact, say more or less that a public stock company must have a certain percentage of its board and/or upper management occupied by women. That law makes no such provision for men or any one who defines themselves otherwise than along them classical gender lines.

I would be perfectly OK with the abovementioned law if it did, in fact, take into consideration other groups than those it is specifically designed to advance. 40% women on the board of directors? Not a problem, as long as it also states that at least 40% must be men and, given that the percentage of those who define as "other" (another terrible word, but as I said, I'm editing in afterthoughs, always mindful that while I dally over wording, someone may be replying to a post which will have its centre of gravity shift after editing) so, given that the percentage of "others" is so small, as long as parallel anti-discriminatory laws exist, which at least largely compensate for them not being specifically mentioned in the law in question.

To turn it back to my-your-my example, "All places where voting takes place must allow women, men and people of other gender identities to vote." Do you see my position as any more clear now? Reasonable? Less so? Unchanged? In any case, I hope I've managed to steer this conversation onto a more productive track.

/EDIT

Quote from: Davin
It has something to do with this, "You don't need to swap my imaginary Rolls Royce for a bus ticket to give poor people car loans." I certainly never said anything close to that. If you can't see how that is not a wild misrepresentation from anything I've said, I don't know what to do. Nothing in your statement comes close to representing what I've been saying. I could understand a bit of exaggeration, a bit of stretching... but it's like you're off on a completely different planet from what I said.

I think you may not have read "imaginary" in the way, in which it was written. In this case, "potential" would be a closer substitute than "much-desired/lamented."

Beyond that, yes, it was an exaggerated example, but workable in addressing the issue above.

QuoteI never said it was rampant. If you understood it as I said it, you might not think it such a poorly made argument. Can you see the difference between me saying that something exists, from me saying that it is rampant?

Bad choice of words. "Enough of a problem to be regulated by targeted law." A bit too weak, but apropos, yes?

QuoteI don't find that to be a useful definition of the term "freebie" and don't see how a nuanced conversation would be possible when using a term with a definition like that that also has other very different meanings.

A freebie: in broad terms, something you get for nothing, with no strings attached. This needs not include objects, but may also apply to services, social constructs and the like, no?

Quote
You said, "Start at the bottom and kiss influential ass all the way to the top, just like the rest of us losers.[...]" because of the response to what I said, it gives the impression that you think that I don't think people should have to work hard to get jobs. It's not an uncommon thing to think when talking about this kind of thing and I never brought up any point saying or even implying that people shouldn't have to work hard to get a job or that people should just be handed jobs.

In an attempt to correct that, I said, "I'm not saying that people should just be given a job just because they fall into some group, if you think that or keep trying to argue against that position, then I'm not sure what I can do to correct it after this."

Then you said, "In a way, you are." Which would mean that you're saying that in a way I am saying that people should be given a job just because they fall into a group. Which is not something I've ever said in any kind of way.

Ok... I think I see where you are coming from. Yes, I did challenge you to clarify that you do not indeed mean that someone should get a job "just" because they fall into a certain group (Which of course applies to falling into groups one has little to no control over)

I still maintain this challenge. I'll give you a somewhat less muddy scenario, after I've muddied it up a tiny bit. You live in a place where the law states that 40% of all executive positions in public stock companies must be held by... Luxemburgers. Traditionally, 8 out of 10 o those positions were held by Asmos. This is also the case in your company. Your company is now looking to replace a retired... Let's not make him a CEO. CFO, perhaps. You are looking for someone who wants a stable position, in other words, someone who is likely to stick around for a decade or two. You have two outstanding candidates - an Asmo who is more than happy to stay until he retires if he finds the job nice enough, and a Luxemburger who will stay for three years, then move to Singapore because Luxemburgers are generally more appreciated there. Both have comparable experience, skill set and personality. Do you hire the Asmo you want and go to court? Or do you hire the Luxemburger? Or do you keep looking for another Luxemburger to hire while the perfectly good Asmo goes to a competitor?

If your answer is b or c, how is that law not oppressive to your business? How are you not giving a job to someone "just" because they fall into a certain group?

So there we are. When it comes to the very first quoted line, the one about licking influential balls or some such... That's my solution in getting ahead in the world for those who want ahead. Men, women, North Koreans... Especially North Koreans. If getting somewhere is the goal, few things will propel you right to the middle of your journey faster than kissing the right ass. And yes, that ass usually sits on a middle-aged white man, but I doubt that will be the case to anywhere close to the same extent in a generation or two - regardless, or perhaps even in spite of, the inequality laws.

Quote
How can I present my argument clearly to a person with such imprecise terminology as you've demonstrated above with "freebie," who throws in Red Herrings like talking about people should work hard to get better jobs when I've never said anything otherwise, who takes my objections and thinks it's OK to wildly speculate I mean something I've never said, and who seem to refuse to listen to my corrections? I can only do so much, the rest is on you to listen to what I say, to not put in things I didn't say, and to listen when I try to correct what appears to me to be your interpretation of what I said. I try my best to do the same.

Perhaps the above will help. "Freebie" is an umbrella term, used as such. If I wanted a more precise term, I would use a sentence in stead. It would not change much; I put no negative connotations into the word itself, so it... Works. "Something given/bestowed/granted/pick-your-semi-synonim to someone at no price" or, if you will, with no strings attached. Or, without expectations of any returns - reasonable or otherwise. Does affirmative action come with strings attached? For instance, are employment contracts time-binding on a different level than those not issued under affirmative action? (It needs not be time or generally lower salary or whatever - but if there are indeed strings attached, I will withdraw my one-word statement, even though no such strings exist in the original context in which I was operating.)

QuoteYou have listened to some of what I said, but the other things are things you keep doing. So yeah, after trying several times to correct the issues, I now take it as willful and hostile.

Also I don't understand your usage of calling me "passive-aggressive." A quick google definition defines it how I am familiar with the term:

Quoteof or denoting a type of behavior or personality characterized by indirect resistance to the demands of others and an avoidance of direct confrontation, as in procrastinating, pouting, or misplacing important materials.

I feel that I am very direct and that I do not avoid confrontation. As can be seen by my directly addressing your statements and discussing them directly with you. Aggressive, sure a little, but that in itself doesn't make me passive-aggressive.

I do not see this point as worth arguing. However, if you are willing to defend your definition of "hostile" given that I have not displayed hostility towards your opinion, much less your person, then I will indulge in the semantics of passive aggressiveness. (Broadly speaking, I was aiming at your avoiding challenges to your points or refuting such challenges by restating your point. It may be a case of talking past each other, but it does whiff a little of passive aggressive behaviour)

Again, we can spend some time debating whö's the more despicable human being, but this does nothing to further either of our agendas. I am willing to let it lie.

Quote from: Asmodean on February 13, 2017, 06:27:49 PM

Quote from: Davin on February 13, 2017, 05:20:53 PM
...a place that works close enough to a meritocracy.

Oh, no! We drag around way too much dead weight for that. Overall, our society is not very meritocratic.

I'm not fan of a meritocracy anyway, as you demonstrated just after this, even that gets into too many blurry things to try to get working as meritocracy is supposed to work. It's an alright thought experiment, but not possible for humans to pull off. But that's an entirely different discussion.

Quote from: Asmodean

Quote
Using your voting analogy. A voting place doesn't allow women voters even though there is no law saying that women can't vote. So the big bad Government comes in and makes a law that says that all voting places must allow women to vote.

Ok... I'm editing in afterthoughts now, and I will need to re-state your position, so bear with me and correct where applicable. Feel free to throw the rest of this post (outside the edit "tags") unless still interested in it.

What I am saying is, that any law which makes distinctions based on "normal, natural" (terrible wording, but do let us leave that for another debate, unless my implication is unclear) traits in order to influence the distribution of some commodity, be it wealth, work or... Imaginary (here: much desired) Rolls Royces, is an oppressive law. A balanced law states that equal individuals can do equal things equally. That's it. From there, you can go into anti-discriminatory laws, more or less saying that, for instance, A shall not evaluate B based on C,D,F and/or R. As long as C, D, F and R are traits applicable to "all" Bs (if "B" is "people," those may be gender, hair colour, sexual orientation, height, skin tone... We all have those), the law is still balanced.

You seem to be, and do correct me if I'm still not getting it, of the opinion that a law may clearly state or strongly imply that Bs posessing trait D must be specially considered and included, to the point where a certain percentage of Bs must posess a certain amount of whatever it is the law is distributing, without it being an oppressive law. (Pretty-much-period. Bs posessing other traits are not mentioned at all. This is important, as I shall explain)

Yes, somewhat... mostly.

I feel that I have already conceded that the point that it is an oppressive law.

Quote from: Davin on February 09, 2017, 07:14:24 PMAnd when there are people oppressing other people, to equalize things, it necessarily is at the expense of the oppressors or at least those that the oppressors favor. And of course the ones favor are going to get all butt hurt about it. And I sympathize, it's not exactly all their fault, they were just favored while others were denied. However those that are denied are worse off than bringing down the favored a little bit will be.

A correction for clarification is that, it doesn't in effect make things equal, I meant that more as an attempt to equalize. Mileage per country might vary, but I don't think that a mildly oppressive law that serves to help out the oppressed is necessarily a bad thing. I'm against killing other people, but not so much when the person is trying to kill someone. In the same kind of reasoning, I'm not against mildly oppressive laws against people who are being much more so oppressive (and if a company is not being oppressive, then they most likely already have met the quota).

Quote from: AsmodeanTo turn it back to my-your-my example, "All places where voting takes place must allow women, men and people of other gender identities to vote." Do you see my position as any more clear now? Reasonable? Less so? Unchanged? In any case, I hope I've managed to steer this conversation onto a more productive track.

Going back to the voting analogy, i some states even though it was legal for black people to vote, some states just never registered them to vote. So the Federal Government stepped in (after many years of struggle), and forced them to register qualified black people to vote. I see that technically, that is a slightly oppressive law by oppressing the registrar's ability to oppress. But I don't see it any worse than oppressing a muggers' ability to steal money from people. Anti-stealing laws are oppressive in the same sense.

Quote from: Asmodean

Quote from: Davin
It has something to do with this, "You don't need to swap my imaginary Rolls Royce for a bus ticket to give poor people car loans." I certainly never said anything close to that. If you can't see how that is not a wild misrepresentation from anything I've said, I don't know what to do. Nothing in your statement comes close to representing what I've been saying. I could understand a bit of exaggeration, a bit of stretching... but it's like you're off on a completely different planet from what I said.

I think you may not have read "imaginary" in the way, in which it was written. In this case, "potential" would be a closer substitute than "much-desired/lamented."

Beyond that, yes, it was an exaggerated example, but workable in addressing the issue above.

The thing is though, I don't even see how it fits if I correct for the exaggeration.

Quote from: AsmodeanBad choice of words. "Enough of a problem to be regulated by targeted law." A bit too weak, but apropos, yes?

Sure.

Quote from: Asmodean

QuoteI don't find that to be a useful definition of the term "freebie" and don't see how a nuanced conversation would be possible when using a term with a definition like that that also has other very different meanings.

A freebie: in broad terms, something you get for nothing, with no strings attached. This needs not include objects, but may also apply to services, social constructs and the like, no?

Even in that case, I don't think it applies, since no one is getting anything for free. Unless you want to start saying that white males have been getting far more freebies for far longer and are now upset that they have to share those freebies with another group.

Quote from: AsmodeanI still maintain this challenge.[...]

If such a thing were the case all the time, it would be a bad thing. But this idea of comparing the best option, with a much, much worse option (that as constructed falls outside of what the company desires), and asking a reasonable person to agree or disagree with it... well I don't find it convincing. Like, "Would you choose to eat a pepperoni pizza or a bunch of kale?"

What I'm saying, is there are companies that when they have two candidates that are closely equal, and the company chooses the man instead of the woman just because he is a man or because she is a woman.

I'm also saying that in a less equitable scenario, like the man is a great fit for the job, but the woman is a bit less so. That the woman, while not the optimum for the company, will not be a complete waste of space because she'll still be able to perform pretty well.

But I also acknowledge the chances that it might be as you put forward, where the man is a great match and the woman is a bad fit. In that case, the company gets to take one for the team (society), and look for another person to replace that woman with.

The woman can still be fired, the laws aren't really all that oppressive. And I'm not aware of any law where chief officers are required to meet a gender or race quota.

Quote from: Asmodean

QuoteYou have listened to some of what I said, but the other things are things you keep doing. So yeah, after trying several times to correct the issues, I now take it as willful and hostile.

QuoteAlso I don't understand your usage of calling me "passive-aggressive." A quick google definition defines it how I am familiar with the term:

Quoteof or denoting a type of behavior or personality characterized by indirect resistance to the demands of others and an avoidance of direct confrontation, as in procrastinating, pouting, or misplacing important materials.

I feel that I am very direct and that I do not avoid confrontation. As can be seen by my directly addressing your statements and discussing them directly with you. Aggressive, sure a little, but that in itself doesn't make me passive-aggressive.

I do not see this point as worth arguing. However, if you are willing to defend your definition of "hostile" given that I have not displayed hostility towards your opinion, much less your person, then I will indulge in the semantics of passive aggressiveness. (Broadly speaking, I was aiming at your avoiding challenges to your points or refuting such challenges by restating your point. It may be a case of talking past each other, but it does whiff a little of passive aggressive behaviour)

Being that I consider listening to other as being friendly, I also consider not listening to them to be unfriendly. But that's not the only reason I chose the term "hostile." Because it also matches another kind of behavior, and that is of being antagonistic. And while that might not have been your intention, when I have to try again and again to correct the same misunderstanding and continue to be misrepresented, it appears from this end, by all evidences there of, to be antagonistic. Being that "hostile" is one who is unfriendly and antagonistic, I think that the word fits quite well from what can be demonstrated. That is why I said I will take it as hostile, not that it was hostile. I try to speak as accurately and precisely to what I mean as I can.

Quote from: AsmodeanAgain, we can spend some time debating whö's the more despicable human being, but this does nothing to further either of our agendas. I am willing to let it lie.

Just being hostile doesn't make one a horrible person. Though if one were constantly hostile there might be something to be said of it. I was talking about your statements and my interpretation of them, I never said anything about you personally. Besides, I don't mind so much being considered the worst person.

Edit: Tried to fix some quoting there at the end.

I do not think thst I have seen a thread on any forum that has had so many responses of quite the length of these.

Not even any involving the most verbose of evangelizing theists!

Quote from: Gloucester on February 13, 2017, 09:06:29 PM
I do not think thst I have seen a thread on any forum that has had so many responses of quite the length of these.

Not even any involving the most verbose of evangelizing theists!

Yes, they are very thorough, aren't they?  :tellmemore:

Quote from: Gloucester on February 13, 2017, 09:06:29 PM
I do not think thst I have seen a thread on any forum that has had so many responses of quite the length of these.

Not even any involving the most verbose of evangelizing theists!

Well, we may have ever-so-slightly gotten ourselves a tiny-wee-bit bogged down in micromanagement here, but... It's a good run.

Quote
I'm not fan of a meritocracy anyway, as you demonstrated just after this, even that gets into too many blurry things to try to get working as meritocracy is supposed to work. It's an alright thought experiment, but not possible for humans to pull off. But that's an entirely different discussion.

Yes. I think that one is a discussion worth having when next we do this. And yes, meritocracy does deal with blurry lines and gray areas, just like pretty much every other system.

Quote
I feel that I have already conceded that the point that it is an oppressive law.

Certainly. My beef is with there being a need for the solution to be at the expense of the oppressor. (Also with it not being, as I put it, changing the oppressed party. It's not even as much changing it as it is shifting the legal bias, but we'll get there)

You can define a law, which gives equal people equal rights. You can define it in a way which obligates certain entities to treat equal people equally. We'll get to that as well...

I do not include your clarification in the quote for reasons of brevity, but it was good. Your position is understood.

QuoteGoing back to the voting analogy, in some states even though it was legal for black people to vote, some states just never registered them to vote. So the Federal Government stepped in (after many years of struggle), and forced them to register qualified black people to vote. I see that technically, that is a slightly oppressive law by oppressing the registrar's ability to oppress. But I don't see it any worse than oppressing a muggers' ability to steal money from people. Anti-stealing laws are oppressive in the same sense.

Getting to the meat of this post.

Yes, it is oppressive, or at least highly discriminatory, of the government to go in and force a certain group of people to be treated a certain way. If you have a law, that states that any sane person of legal age without felony convictions may vote, it cannot be very well-written if it allows for unequal treatment of potential voters. You could fix it with something like "No eligible voter may be denied access to voting," just with more lawyer speak. You see, that law would protect me, the Chinese guy and that pesky Luxemburger down the street to the same degree as it would protect an African American voter. It is possible to accomplish - just put in the same document, that every other qualified group is included into it as well, so why settle for a law that discriminates against some of those groups in order to advance specific minorities? Yes, there may already be a law stating that you may not keep a white middle-aged male citizen from exercising his right to vote, but... Bloody well change it! Cross over the white middle-aged white man part and put in some legal definition of a modern day eligible voter, which also includes that man.

QuoteThe thing is though, I don't even see how it fits if I correct for the exaggeration.

My imaginary Rolls Royce is a commodity being redistributed using legislation.

QuoteEven in that case, I don't think it applies, since no one is getting anything for free. Unless you want to start saying that white males have been getting far more freebies for far longer and are now upset that they have to share those freebies with another group.

Oh, white males have been getting tons of freebies. However, the laws today are becoming more balanced exactly by removing the freebies for everyone. Redistributing them is... A waste of a potentially good law, I think.

QuoteIf such a thing were the case all the time, it would be a bad thing. But this idea of comparing the best option, with a much, much worse option (that as constructed falls outside of what the company desires), and asking a reasonable person to agree or disagree with it... well I don't find it convincing. Like, "Would you choose to eat a pepperoni pizza or a bunch of kale?"

I'll take the kale; I have no idea what it is and would not mind finding out what it tastes like. (No metaphors here)

I did try to balance it, actually. I did not compare the best option with a that much worse one. Yes, I could have shaded it a little more, but... Why bother? It's illustrative. I could also have said that a Luxemburger is more likely to go off and have maternity leave for six months, and who's there to perform that critical function then? One of the Asmos forced to hire him/her/it?

Yes, there are nuances, but overall, if a law opens for something, and that is not the intention, why not close the gap? Equal opportunity oppression and discrimination is just regulation. That's a part of the game, and that's "well and good."

QuoteWhat I'm saying, is there are companies that when they have two candidates that are closely equal, and the company chooses the man instead of the woman just because he is a man or because she is a woman.

Certainly, this is a shitty hiring practice. But this, I think, is where cultural differences come in. I'm not sure what my company would do if presented with two equally good candidates separated only by gender... The people responsible for hiring would likely vote on it. Maybe flip a coin if tied. In my department, they would likely hire the woman because they are relatively rare in my profession and they do provide a different perspective to the sausage fest. One thing is common around these parts though; the personnel departments tend to take their job seriously, even in cases where individual employees may not.

QuoteI'm also saying that in a less equitable scenario, like the man is a great fit for the job, but the woman is a bit less so. That the woman, while not the optimum for the company, will not be a complete waste of space because she'll still be able to perform pretty well.

No, of course she would not necessarily be a waste of space, and I do hope I did not imply that in my scenario. The Luxemburger with Asian ambitions was a highly qualified one, who would perform his/her/its best.

I don't think we disagree about this issue... Maybe some wording and nuances here and there, but in my book, it loops back to that pesky equal-opportunity-discrimination-or-none-at-all thing.

Quote
But I also acknowledge the chances that it might be as you put forward, where the man is a great match and the woman is a bad fit. In that case, the company gets to take one for the team (society), and look for another person to replace that woman with.

Yes, that is exactly what happens. Not often, but occasionally, here and there, a corporation does take one for the team. Corporations would continue to do so under my version of affirmative action laws, but on a more balanced playing field.

Quote
The woman can still be fired, the laws aren't really all that oppressive. And I'm not aware of any law where chief officers are required to meet a gender or race quota

Well, the US affirmative action laws differ from the law I was raging against at the start of this debate. It's not quite as bad as my barebones representation of it states, not if you read intent as well as the letter of it. However, the letter of the law is a powerful thing, and the law is imbalanced. It does shift bias rather than securing equal opportunities for equal people.

QuoteBesides, I don't mind so much being considered the worst person.

I want that one too. I think there ought to be a poll.  ;) (Since we are making progress, I'm dropping the whole point.)

Quote from: Asmodean on February 14, 2017, 08:06:58 AM

Quote from: Davin
I feel that I have already conceded that the point that it is an oppressive law.

Certainly. My beef is with there being a need for the solution to be at the expense of the oppressor. (Also with it not being, as I put it, changing the oppressed party. It's not even as much changing it as it is shifting the legal bias, but we'll get there)

You can define a law, which gives equal people equal rights. You can define it in a way which obligates certain entities to treat equal people equally. We'll get to that as well... [...]

I boiled it down again.

I think that we disagree on that I think that sometimes some laws specifically protecting a group are necessary and usually don't do much harm to the oppressors, doesn't do much harm to the favored group, while doing a lot of good for the oppressed group.

I think we both agree that laws for equal rights are the best way to make laws. I disagree that it is always enough. There are a lot of historical examples that I point to, to try to show that it's not always enough.

Quote from: Asmodean

QuoteThe thing is though, I don't even see how it fits if I correct for the exaggeration.

My imaginary Rolls Royce is a commodity being redistributed using legislation.

Yes, I get that, but I've never advocated for redistribution of jobs or any other thing. Which is why I don't see how it fits. At most it's about modifying the distribution of some things (so long as there was a problem with the distribution in the first place).

Quote from: Asmodean

Quote
The woman can still be fired, the laws aren't really all that oppressive. And I'm not aware of any law where chief officers are required to meet a gender or race quota

Well, the US affirmative action laws differ from the law I was raging against at the start of this debate. It's not quite as bad as my barebones representation of it states, not if you read intent as well as the letter of it. However, the letter of the law is a powerful thing, and the law is imbalanced. It does shift bias rather than securing equal opportunities for equal people.

Yes, talking about similar laws from different countries is a difficult thing to do.

And with that, this thing is officially out of gas.

It was a nice run though. We should do it again... On the subject of meritocracy, perhaps?

Quote from: Asmodean on February 15, 2017, 09:38:05 AM
And with that, this thing is officially out of gas.

It was a nice run though. We should do it again... On the subject of meritocracy, perhaps?

Meritocracy?

Nah, not worth it . . .

:wormpeek:

:headscratch: The Asmo sees what you did there.

Approval is pending. Grumpily.  >:(

Quote from: Asmodean on February 15, 2017, 09:38:05 AM
And with that, this thing is officially out of gas.

It was a nice run though. We should do it again... On the subject of meritocracy, perhaps?

Oh yes do, I'm not up to taking part.
But if you need a human foot stool,
I can dress to match your furnishings. :-)

Maybe if the topic comes up. I don't like any pure version of systems, because with them people start seeing everything as a nail.

Ah, but the intricacies of the necessary impurities can be so... Fascinating!