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New About that "Catch-22"
I feel their pain. I've been in situations like that. Here's what I've learned: if you're going to be damned, see to it that your conscience is not among the damners. If you're going to be hated either way, you may as well be on the side of right.

Another thing I've found: the people who will hate you if you're right are many and vociferous, but the people who respect you for being right are the ones that matter most. They tend to win in the end, despite being outnumbered, for the simple reason that they're smarter. But it takes a while.

And please, no knee-jerking about racist crap and assholes. Especially not after preaching about unconditional tolerance. If you can't practise what you preach (and by the way, no one can practise what you preach) then preach something more workable.
[link|http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/marlowe/index.html|http://www.angelfir...e/index.html]
New I think you are reading in something I didn't say
What about what I "preached" do you think people (including me) find hard to practice?

I strongly suspect that you are reading me and projecting a caricature of what you think PC people are like onto me. If so then you have certainly not read what I have written on IWETHEY in the past about racism, stereotyping, when it makes sense, when it doesn't, and what I see as the proper role of government in the same. My full feelings on the topic are rather too complex to fit in any convenient labels that I have seen.

But that doesn't change the fact that right now I despise the people who are taking their outrage over last Tuesday out on fellow Americans.

Ben
New Here's an idea.
Detail your algorithm for deciding what to tolerate and what not to tolerate. Provide comments explaining the rationale behind each decision fork.

Here's mine:

main function: I tolerate that which is not dangerous. I give zero tolerance to that which is dangerous. If the danger value of something is indeterminate, I flag it for careful observation.

subroutine: determine whether something is dangerous. Take the sum total of personal experience, call it P. Take the sum total of what I can find in history books. Call it H. Take the sum total of prevailing conventional wisdom. Call it PCW. Take the sum total of prevailing wisdom among those who reject conventional wisdom. Call it SCW, for Second-tier Conventional Wisdom. Take the opinios of the Politically Correct. Call it PC.

Into each of these, feed the question: is X dangerous? Take a weighted average of the results, thusly:

P has a weighting of 55
H has a weighting of 40
PCW has a weighting of 3
SCW has a weighting of 2
PC has a weighting of 0

I arrived at the weightings above thusly: that which is verifiable gets higher marks that that which is harder to verify. That which has high predicitive success outweighs that which does not. By these criteria, adjust the weightings until an optimal set of values emerges.




[link|http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/marlowe/index.html|http://www.angelfir...e/index.html]
New I am for an effective understanding
History indicates that simple black and white pictures tend to have their own dangers. And often you need to balance out opposing dangers. Merely saying, "This is my threat, what can I do against it?" without taking into account more subtle trade-offs has in the past consistently been the cause of new nasty threats.

So I aim for the most effective understanding I can get, with a feedback cycle limited only by the effort taken inputing and analyzing data, and with my active seeking shaped by my personal opinion of how important different things are to look for. (Even when I am not actively seeking information on something, I am passively open to new information if I should stumble on it.)

I attempt to modulate my own behaviour according to what is likely to be most effective in reaching my personal goals of the moment.

For instance, based on having known quite a few Arabs living in the US and Canada, my most effective understanding is that these people generally came here for a reason, and a good portion have nothing to go back to. And I stand by my claim that these people are, even with the effort needed to search for terrorist cells, a net benefit for our country.

Just a random example that came up last night in conversation with my wife. What would you do with a woman born in Iran by the name of Shirley Basiri? (I don't know the spelling of the last name, sorry.) Make up your mind. Would you want to evict her? Well if so then you have just chosen to evict a Jew whose family fled the Iranian revolution. She is also a top medical student at one of the top 10 medical schools in the US. Sounds to me like someone I would want to keep around...

New Fair enough, but...
taken at face value, this is all a far cry from squishy sermonizing on tolerance. As well as from categorically dismissing all non-squishies as "racist assholes."

I'm all for a scientific approach to things. In fact I'm quite hardheaded about it. It's the one thing from my period of atheism that I deem of any value. But one must be willing to follow where it leads. No having it both ways.

When "open-minded" is just a word you bandy about, you're no longer open-minded.

[link|http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/marlowe/index.html|http://www.angelfir...e/index.html]
New Read the "squishy sermonizing" again, please
You might find it rather less squishy than you think. Sure, it talks about ideals. That is largely because people who think themselves moved by ideals of the human spirit are more likely to react generously than people who are not.

As for racist assholes, well do you think we should have kind words for the people firebombing mosques and threatening Arab Americans?

But what is the truth of it for me? Well the truth is that any perceptive person mistaken notion that all cultures are to be treated equally is unlikely to survive any real friendship with someone of a different culture. Likewise any silly notion that all people are treated equally in the US is unlikely to survive any friendship with someone of a different race. I am a person who attempts to be somewhat perceptive, and I have definitely named as friends over the years people of different races and cultures. So it should come as no surprise that I am aware of how much the US falls short of its ideals, and I don't have particularly rose-colored glasses.

But still I believe that multi-culturalism in the US is a good thing, and is worth supporting.

More precisely I believe that this is a nation that draws great strength from its immigrants. That tradition is not just (in some vague sense) the right thing to do, but is good for the country in very direct ways. Of course not all imigrants are good for us. But by and large, they work out very much to our benefit.

Think about this. Your average immigrant has generally had to come several thousand miles, has settled in a country that speaks a foreign language, and is trying to set down roots. Very often they have managed to do this while coming from a place where your average person is dirt poor and conditions are pretty desperate. Overall there is a decent correlation between being able to do that and being motivated, intelligent, and reasonably good with money. On the whole those are traits that are pretty good to have in your populace...

Now I won't say that immigrants are an unmitigated good, or that all of them are wonderful people. I am not stupid and I don't ask you to be either. But over the years studies have consistently found that on the whole immigrants put more into our economy than they take out. The outcry goes, "They are taking American jobs!" Well, not really. At first they take jobs that nobody wants. After they can take real jobs, well put a bunch of good workers in your economy, and you improve productivity. Improve productivity, and you wind up creating jobs and raising the standard of living. Jobs are not a fixed resource, rather they are a dynamic resource. Again and again immigrants wind up creating more jobs than they take. (Besides which, their food tastes good...)

Now it may not be pretty good for the rest of the world, but many of the best and the brightest choose to come here. Seems to me that this is a pretty good thing for us, and it is something that the US should want to encourage...
New Immigrants as a self-selecting group.
Your argument about immigrants and their traits is not utterly without validity. In fact, it's pretty good as far as it goes. However, I'm not sure you grasp all its implications. Some points:

1. If the value of immigration to the US is contingent on its difficulty, what happens if we don't make it difficult enough? Where's the quality control then? What you have provided is an argument for keeping immigration difficult.

1a. With the advances of transportation technology over the centuries, immigration is getting progressively less difficult. It may not be a coincidence that the most successful enthnicities in this country are mostly the least recent (the Chinese are a notable, but only partial, exception.)

1b. Already there are immigrants who've been here for thirty years and never bothered to learn English. They're in dead end jobs, or even on welfare. That's not a good trend.

2. It may well be difficult for the poor to get in, depending on where they start from. But it's all too easy for those funded by an evil Saudi billionaire to get in. This is precisely the opposite of what we want.

3. It's not at all obvious how to keep out the evil geniuses and their henchmen. Even sealing our borders wouldn't work. They'd just come ashore at night by submarine.

4. Since we can't realistically hope to keep them out, it follows that we must watch carefully for them once they're here. That means looking at foreigners with suspicion, based on their ethnicity. It's the Red Scare all over again, but without the poodle skirts and bouyant economy this time. It's unfair to the innocent immigrants, but what's to do?

4a. Besides, it's always been unfair for the immigrants. They have a hard time of it. That's part of what keeps out the riffraff, according to your own argument.

5. The only long term solution I can see is to destroy their power base. Bin Laden and his deep pockets have got to go, and in such a spectacular way as to deter any others with his inclinations.

6. In the meantime, it's live in fear. It sucks, but it's better than getting blown up.
[link|http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/marlowe/index.html|http://www.angelfir...e/index.html]
     A request for tolerance - final - (ben_tilly) - (35)
         Words . . - (Andrew Grygus) - (6)
             Words? C'mon. - (wharris2)
             He's preaching to the choir, don'cha know. - (marlowe) - (4)
                 WTF is your problem? - (ben_tilly)
                 What is your point? - (Ashton)
                 Grow up. -NT - (pwhysall) - (1)
                     Oh dear, now I've gone and offended the choir. - (marlowe)
         change hateful racists to cowards hiding behind the skirts - (boxley)
         I dont think that it is just racists (their there) - (boxley)
         One suggestion. - (Steve Lowe)
         Give reasoning from the general to the particular its due. - (marlowe) - (14)
             Re: Give reasoning from the general to the particular its du - (wharris2) - (1)
                 For what it's worth... - (marlowe)
             Get over your bad self - (cwbrenn) - (1)
                 I'm open to suggestions. - (marlowe)
             I give it exactly its due - (ben_tilly) - (7)
                 About that "Catch-22" - (marlowe) - (6)
                     I think you are reading in something I didn't say - (ben_tilly) - (5)
                         Here's an idea. - (marlowe) - (4)
                             I am for an effective understanding - (ben_tilly) - (3)
                                 Fair enough, but... - (marlowe) - (2)
                                     Read the "squishy sermonizing" again, please - (ben_tilly) - (1)
                                         Immigrants as a self-selecting group. - (marlowe)
             nit - (tablizer) - (1)
                 Counter-nits. - (marlowe)
         two minor suggestions - (brettj)
         Thanks for caring! - (brettj)
         What I might say in a similar situation. - (addison) - (2)
             Excellent. - (Ashton)
             I thought about including some of those points... - (ben_tilly)
         good to go, still dont like racist but (shrug) -NT - (boxley) - (4)
             It is a question of audience - (ben_tilly) - (3)
                 well the ahole see's the word racist and - (boxley)
                 Calling them racist is counterproductive. - (Andrew Grygus)
                 A question of audience indeed. - (marlowe)

Eiks taeae vittun homma nyt riitaeae taestae paeivaestae?
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