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Journal by The Mighty Buzzard
In case you haven't heard, FreeBSD has a new code of conduct that's seemingly pulled straight from the shit-spewing face of a blue-haired intersectional feminist.
Me, I refuse to contribute to any coding project with a code of conduct designed to protect people of one political ideology from those who disagree with them. They're of course welcome to do what they like but they'll be doing it without my help in any way.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Agnes' Law:
Almost everything in life is easier to get into than out of.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Thursday February 22 2018, @02:47AM (9 children)
Likewise.
"I will take issue with your paraphrasing of various definitions from the site you linked."
I'm sorry but you appear to be mistaken, I did not paraphrase from the various definitions, I skipped down past them and directly excerpted that authors own words. The ones he came up with AFTER reviewing the definitions from around the net.
So while I will reply to some of this where I think it might be interesting there may be a divergence of relevance from the point of that misunderstanding.
"Personally, I support human equality in every aspect of life. I dislike imposed inequality. That's not to say that I think all humans are identical in capacities or motivation. Rather, I support the idea that all humans *should* have an equal opportunity to succeed or fail or anything in between."
Well then we agree on that. Equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome.
Now apply that to the supposed 'wage gap' please?
"I also strongly support the idea that all persons should have the *opportunity* to participate as equals within society."
And I don't have a problem with that, as you've expressed it. But I'm very concerned with it, in a context of social justice, because that means we're talking about *legally mandating* this. In that context it becomes contradictory to a higher principle - freedom of association. The only way you could mandate social equality without violating freedom of association would be if everyone is already there. At which point a mandate would be utterly superfluous.
"Humans are, and have always been, even before there were humans, social animals that lived in groups and found ways to survive and thrive. "
Absolutely, but again, let's not lose track of the distinction between society and government. Society is formed by consensual association. Government is the power to force. They are opposites. If you use force to compel people to associate unwillingly, that's not society any longer, it's not consensual, it's not an improvement. So at that level you do have to choose one or the other - equality or liberty. Equality or consent. I think, and it sounds like you may even agree, that equality must be judged the lesser value and give way in that case.
"I'm not really sure what it is that you're arguing here. Equality has many facets: Equality under the law, equality of political access, equality of opportunity and the list goes on and on. I don't see that spelling out the facets of such a broad term reduces its importance or value."
It's a similar issue. Equality under the law is a fundamental principle that can be applied and followed, and it's non contradictory. But if we keep expanding this circle of abstractions a bit we can make it very contradictory. By the time we get to equality of outcome we have something entirely different. There is no way you can guarantee equality of outcome while still respecting equality under the law, for instance. Think about that for a moment. Equality under the law implies (and requires) respect for individuals in their right to make their own choices and live with the consequences of those choices. Equality of outcome (unless held strictly subordinate to fundamental rights) is deeply incompatible with that respect for the individual.
The way the game seems to work is that first they put the two on the same plane, and then they use the latter to destroy the former.
I appreciate the attempt to have a serious conversation and I will try to come back and give you a few better examples of what I am talking about a little later.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Thursday February 22 2018, @05:01AM
No. I'm sorry. I did miss the bit to which you refer. It was in this paragraph (with emphasis added) [socialjusticesolutions.org]:
And yes, that one phrase "equal distribution of resources" is included there. However, you didn't quote the whole paragraph which gives context to that phrase. Specifically:
That context gives a more nuanced meaning, I think.
Regardless, it seems odd to reject as Marxist/collectivist an entire set of ideas (which have been defined in various, but similar, ways at various times) focused on equality and liberty for all on that one phrase. But we all take meaning where and how we find it.
I find it a little disingenuous of you to leave out the direct references to "personal responsibility" and "creating access to opportunity," as those are critical aspects of societies that have liberty and equality.
That said, I'm not going to defend the author's word choices or her sincerity. You'll have to judge that for yourself.
What's more, I went ahead and read the short essays linked [socialjusticesolutions.org] from the page you linked in an effort to find any of this "redefinition" and "collectivist/marxist ideology" of which you speak. I didn't find it. Quite the opposite, in fact. I believe that my fluency in English is quite good and, while I did miss that one phrase, I've read through this stuff several times now and have been unable to identify these things.
You say that
I'm not really sure what you're getting at. Unless you're referring to the Fourteenth Amendment's [cornell.edu] Privileges and Immunities clause.
What's more, while the First Amendment [cornell.edu] doesn't make specific reference to freedom of association, the SCOTUS confirmed that freedom of association is an essential component of the freedom of expression [wikipedia.org] guaranteed by the First Amendment in NAACP v. Alabama [wikipedia.org].
So I'm not sure where you get the idea that *any* legal mandate WRT freedom of association is possible in the United States. As such, I hope this has put those concerns to rest.
I understand your point, but I can't agree.
Firstly, society [dictionary.com] is the sum of people, cultures and institutions living together. Societies can, and do, take many forms. However, in every case (with the exception of a mob, which could be considered a society if one wishes to stretch the definition) a society, whether it be narrow (e.g., The Society of Illustrators [societyillustrators.org], The Society of Women Engineers [swe.org], The Society of Friends [quaker.org], etc.) or broad (e.g., American Society [wikipedia.org], Western Society [wikipedia.org], etc.) has some form of governance [wikipedia.org].
Without such governance to provide the force of law and decision making at various levels, society would fall apart, which has happened repeatedly throughout history. In the United States, we created that governance to be by consent of the governed. Which, IMHO, is quite enlightened and, while it can have its vicissitudes, has been stable for almost 250 years. Not a bad run.
Is American governance perfect? No. Does it provide the structures that can create the conditions conducive to liberty and equality for all? Yes. Does it, in fact, do so well? No.
Given the fact that those in the US have freedom of movement, freedom of expression, widespread distribution of the political franchise and, to a fair degree, the due process of law, it seems ridiculous to claim that your local government, your state government or the Federal government imposes its will upon you at the point of a gun.
Don't like local ordinances? Write an op-ed for your local paper. No one will come and arrest/shoot you for that.
Become/support a candidate who will change such ordinances. Any shooting or threats to be killed then? I think not.
Don't get satisfaction/results from the above efforts? Move to another town. Are there men with guns ready to shoot you if you try to leave? Please.
The same goes for state and federal governments.
So. You aren't being forced to submit at the point of a gun. Rather (assuming you're in the US) you were born (or immigrated) into a society whose governance is well-defined and does not restrict you from voicing opposition, working for change or simply leaving.
Sorry. I'm not buying it.
Again, I'm not sure what you're saying here, except as a means to inject "equality of outcomes" which we both (and the folks on the original website you linked) don't support.
I hear you. But again, that leads me back to the question I asked earlier in the larger journal discussion: Who is this "they" you're talking about? I assume you're not referring to this guy [sfgate.com].
Jokes aside, I'm really interested to understand to whom you are ascribing that goal. I think you'll find that there are very few in the US who support that concept, and even fewer who would be willing to admit it.
I think it more likely that such a "group" is a fiction promulgated to sow division between us all in an effort to either profit, advance an agenda that the vast majority of us would reject, or both.
Again, your thoughts and comments are most welcome, sir.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 3, Interesting) by acid andy on Thursday February 22 2018, @12:07PM (7 children)
I think you're begging the question here, Arik. If we consider an observed wage gap between genders, you are implying that you assume each gender already has an equal opportunity to earn the same wage for a given role (or an equal opportunity to successfully negotiate the same wage). Those that complain about the wage gap would disagree with you on that.
Forcibly adjusting people's pay to address the wage gap could be construed as equalizing outcome but only within the confines of a specific employment role.
You express a desire for equality of opportunity, but how does one go about creating that? It certainly cannot be achieved by doing nothing unless it already exists universally in society. Unfair discrimination certainly exists, so that's not the case.
A key example of inequality of opportunity is where some individuals are born into very wealthy, influential families, affording them great capital and business connections right from the start. There are millions of others who have none of that. How would you go about addressing that inequality? Is adjusting outcome completely off limits?
Master of the science of the art of the science of art.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Friday February 23 2018, @09:06AM (6 children)
I'm not implying that I assume anything at all. *sigh*
Let me spell it out for you.
If we apply "equality of opportunity not equality of outcome" to the "wage gap" as it's defined by those who promulgate the concept, the conclusion is not that it's right or wrong - it's that it's irrelevant, if we're talking about justice. It is entirely and explicitly a collective measure. Females earn less money in wages, per 10 million. Ok, so what?
You're measuring outcomes but outcomes are not the appropriate measure.
If I told you that blue-eyed people made more than green eyed people, in the same sort of aggregate measure, would you decide that green-eyed people were being underpaid on the basis of that evidence? Let's smash the evil blues and make them give the greens their fair share!
Ooops, I read that backwards, greens make MORE money, they're the evil oppressors, gas the blues!
This is all nonsense. You're measuring the wrong things.
Is there any sort of obstacle preventing the virtuous greens, err I mean the long-suffering blues, from competing on an equal playing field?
If yes, what, specifically? That would be very interesting. There's a tremendous amount of hand-waving but very rarely does anything solid get pointed to. You realize, I hope, that actual discrimination, hiring preferentially or paying more based on gender, is actually an offense that police and district attorneys and courts investigate and prosecute and can easily destroy anyone for, right? If you have any evidence for anyone doing that in any western nation you can literally shoot it off to a state lawyer and see careers if not the entire enterprise destroyed, that's no joke.
But if not, then yes, then we reach the point of "well, in that case, it seems likely that this is a result of different choices." And in fact there's plenty of scholarship documenting and detailing that, that's exactly what it is. Females, in that same meaningless aggregate sense, work less, make less money, live longer, spend more money. You want to talk about the wage gap, how about we talk about that spending gap huh?
But I say that only rhetorically, again, the real point is that we're measuring the wrong thing, both ways.
If you believe in individual justice, then a "wage gap" that appears only as an aggregate, statistical generalization based on a very narrow set of measures, and one that neatly disappears when you start to control for different people having different values and pursuing different goals, then you don't see it as a problem. If you cared more about money than I did and you pursued it with more vigor and energy and determination than I did and you got paid more of it... I don't see the problem. And I don't know or need to know your gender. That's just completely irrelevant.
But as I said earlier, "social justice" is not the same thing at all. So if you view everything with this lens of collectivism, it doesn't matter that no individual was harmed, it's intolerable that those greens, I mean blues, I mean males, got more than their fair share.
That's not a rational position, or one that's genuinely respectful of other individuals and their rights either.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Friday February 23 2018, @07:09PM (3 children)
Apologies and thank you for clarifying your position a little.
Ah, so prosecuting anyone that demonstrably introduces inequality of opportunity. Yes I suppose that's one way of attempting to create and maintain equal opportunities. What about the polite bigots though? The ones that keep their actual discrimination inside their heads and construct other excuses in parallel for why they won't hire someone of a demographic they dislike.
It's actually extremely hard to do anything to influence equality of opportunity one way or another. I'll be honest with you; I've been somewhat playing devil's advocate in this thread. Up to a point, I agree with you that these demographic classifications shouldn't be relevant. Still, they're relevant to the discriminating bigots because of aspects of the past culture they grew up in. It takes time for cultural preconceptions to change.
It's hard for leaders that preside over thousands or tens of millions of people to assess the well-being of that population without invoking some collective statistics. Yes, they often try to talk and listen to individuals too but when populations get that large statistics become a tool to make the problems knowable. And as we've already said there are plenty of bigots that do treat people of different statistical cohorts differently. Sometimes the discrimination even seems somewhat rational and is tolerated, for example risk assessments by insurance companies.
By the way, I'm curious at precisely what point you feel opportunity turns into outcome. Clearly pay would come under outcome. But my example of someone being born into a wealthy family, are they inheriting opportunities or outcomes? Does every opportunity arise from someone else's outcome (or a past outcome for the same person)?
If you introduce a little bit of inheritance tax, are you taxing unequal outcome or unequal opportunity?
Master of the science of the art of the science of art.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Saturday February 24 2018, @12:19AM (2 children)
"Ah, so prosecuting anyone that demonstrably introduces inequality of opportunity. Yes I suppose that's one way of attempting to create and maintain equal opportunities. What about the polite bigots though? The ones that keep their actual discrimination inside their heads and construct other excuses in parallel for why they won't hire someone of a demographic they dislike."
I think the most succinct answer I can give to that is "don't let the best become the enemy of the good."
Let's suppose, for a moment, that it were possible, with sufficient expenditure of resources, to produce perfect equality of opportunity across society.
I'm afraid it is not, but let's assume for the moment it is. BUT, it's extremely expensive.
Just how much would you pay for it? Just how much is it worth?
Now I know the standard sort of politically correct reply has to be any amount, because money is never more important than equality, right?
But that's bullshit. That really is bullshit. Think that logic through. Increase the price till you don't have enough left over to feed everyone. But hey, everyone is equally starving? What? How can that sound like a good idea.
Which is why I keep insisting equality can't be placed alongside fundamental rights, not without a lot of qualification at least. Imagine two buttons, one makes everyone wealthy (but unevenly so) while the other one makes everyone absolutely equal, and desperately poor. Do you REALLY think that the second button is better?
So, back to your question, what do you do about those people? Absolutely nothing, as long as they don't fsck up at least. It's a small evil that must be tolerated to avoid the greater evil. Thoughtcrime. Thought police. An authoritarian distopia, no matter how well-intentioned.
Irrational discrimination solves itself, we just have to be more patient with it than we would like. Darwin can take generations to work.
"It's hard for leaders that preside over thousands or tens of millions of people to assess the well-being of that population without invoking some collective statistics."
One of many reasons the importance of such 'leaders' should not be exaggerated.
"Sometimes the discrimination even seems somewhat rational and is tolerated, for example risk assessments by insurance companies."
Yes, another point that should be made. It's not discrimination that's wrong, or bad. Discrimination is the natural function of the rational mind. It just means noticing differences. A person who cannot discriminate cannot function, which makes it ironic that it's got such a bad name. "A discriminating mind" is actually a good thing, unless something else has gone wrong.
It's irrational or unjust discrimination that we really mean when we talk about discrimination being bad. It's plain bad logic.
And there's no difference in logic between the white racist that hates blacks, and the black racist that hates whites. Nor is there any difference we need to take note of, at least in the context of justice, between the misogynist and the misandrist.
Social justice, as I have seen it expressed many times, directly contradicts that point. They define racism in such a way that it's impossible for a "non-white" to be racist, and impossible for a "white" to be non-racist, so that all men are rapists, and all women are victims. This is not just wrong it's obviously wrong, it's lazy, dishonest thinking.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Saturday February 24 2018, @09:30PM (1 child)
Thank you. That's an excellent analysis of the problem. That's why I think the best solution is to strike a careful balance: a little bit of regulation to keep the peace and uphold basic morals, a little bit of social welfare to limit absolute suffering, and a lot of freedom and civil liberties. Compromises like this aren't in fashion though. Many politicians and their supporters seem to be spending much of their time instead arguing for and against extremes.
Oh, I couldn't agree more.
Of course but the trouble is everyone has their own idea of what forms of discrimination are, or are not unjust. Obviously some discriminators can be unquestionably wrong if they believe a fact about a demographic that is the inverse of a statistical truth about it. But the question of whether a discriminatory choice is unjust is harder. For example, I would argue that any decisions, that a motor insurance company make for a quote that are based upon the past behavior of other drivers that share attributes with the applicant, are unfair discrimination because they are not considering that person as an individual. Increasing or reducing their premium based on their own past behavior would be fair though.
Oh up until this bit you were starting to win me over, Arik. What you're describing sounds so extreme it almost seems like a hyperbolic caricature, if you'll excuse my language. What percentage of social justice proponents really believe exactly this? I don't doubt there will be some very stupid individuals (or intellectually lazy, as you note) that do, but there will always be bad apples in every school of thought. You are careful to qualify the observation by saying you have seen social justice expressed this way many times. I too have come across these ideas a number of times although strangely in my case it's almost invariably been opponents of so-called "SJWs" that have expressed them. Perhaps I just don't frequent the right echo chambers to observe this sort of thinking first hand. One thing that bothers me is that some "SJW" opponents fall into the very collectivist, discriminatory trap you've described (though you are careful to avoid it yourself) by automatically assuming that every "SJW" thinks in this same extreme, hypocritical, dishonest way.
Master of the science of the art of the science of art.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Monday February 26 2018, @03:54PM
Did you follow the 'Mizzou' and 'Evergreen' protests at all?
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Reziac on Saturday February 24 2018, @12:45AM (1 child)
As a more practical matter, if employers could get away with paying $class less for the same work, they'd hire ONLY $class. The strongest realworld evidence that the 'wage gap' doesn't exist (once one controls for equal work) is that people other than $class still get hired.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by dry on Thursday March 01 2018, @06:15AM
That's not true. People's prejudices come into it. Basically it is what the employers believe rather then the reality. If an employer believes that men are better at math, they're more likely to hire men for more pay, even in the face of evidence that women are at least the equal of men. There's other believes that come in, such and such a group is more likely to be thieves, so don't hire them for any wage, even though it is a huge generalization. For reasons such as these, employers are willing to pay more.
People, including employers, are often not rational actors.