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Started by Arturo, February 08, 2017, 08:14:12 PM

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Tom62

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.
The universe never did make sense; I suspect it was built on government contract.
Robert A. Heinlein

Magdalena

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.

"I've had several "spiritual" or numinous experiences over the years, but never felt that they were the product of anything but the workings of my own mind in reaction to the universe." ~Recusant

Arturo

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.
It's Okay To Say You're Welcome
     Just let people be themselves.
     Arturo The1  リ壱

Asmodean

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: Ecurb Noselrub on July 25, 2013, 08:18:52 PM
In Asmo's grey lump,
wrath and dark clouds gather force.
Luxembourg trembles.

Arturo

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.
It's Okay To Say You're Welcome
     Just let people be themselves.
     Arturo The1  リ壱

Dave

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.
Tomorrow is precious, don't ruin it by fouling up today.
Passed Monday 10th Dec 2018 age 74

Davin

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.
Always question all authorities because the authority you don't question is the most dangerous... except me, never question me.

Asmodean

(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.
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on July 25, 2013, 08:18:52 PM
In Asmo's grey lump,
wrath and dark clouds gather force.
Luxembourg trembles.

Asmodean

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.
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on July 25, 2013, 08:18:52 PM
In Asmo's grey lump,
wrath and dark clouds gather force.
Luxembourg trembles.

Icarus

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.   

Davin

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.
Always question all authorities because the authority you don't question is the most dangerous... except me, never question me.

Asmodean

#41
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: Ecurb Noselrub on July 25, 2013, 08:18:52 PM
In Asmo's grey lump,
wrath and dark clouds gather force.
Luxembourg trembles.

Davin

#42
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.
Always question all authorities because the authority you don't question is the most dangerous... except me, never question me.

Dave

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!
Tomorrow is precious, don't ruin it by fouling up today.
Passed Monday 10th Dec 2018 age 74

Magdalena

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:

"I've had several "spiritual" or numinous experiences over the years, but never felt that they were the product of anything but the workings of my own mind in reaction to the universe." ~Recusant