Medicine is advancing rapidly and allowing consumers to live longer than ever. — Pathogen

The major improvements in longevity have come about through better agriculture (more and better food -- this goes back to the late 19th / early 20th Century. Civil engineering in the form of sewers and pure water systems also can take credit for longevity. The third thing that has made a large difference is public health measures such as vaccination programs.

"The average age" of people has always been kept low by infant and child mortality. If people made it through the first few years of life, they had a good chance of making it to adulthood. Once they were adults, they had a reasonably good chance of making it to their 60s. Some lived Into their 70s, 80s, and even 90s--not a lot, but some. Even today, the number of people 100 and older is really very small.

Medicine has played an important role in the quality of life, certainly, but only in the 20th century, and not until antibiotics went into production during WWII. Advances in medicine, while very helpful to the sick, haven't lengthened life that much. Surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, etc. haven't added many years onto the average lifespan. I'm not criticizing cancer specialists in saying this.

All of Erlich's predictions were wrong. He lost all his resource price bets. I'd say the same will happen in the future. Human ingenuity will defeat doom and gloom as it has for thousands of years.

. So says @fishfry

Tell that to the people who died in the pandemic, the famine, the tidal wave, the war, the sinking boat, the earthquake...

What has forestalled the dooms predicted by Malthus or Ehrlich are improvements in agriculture and sanitation -- nothing terribly complex. Both of those have limits: Once improvements that depend on large energy inputs have been fully implemented, more energy inputs won't result in continual increase. There is only so much food value that plants can extract from soil. Once the sewers are built, the drinking water supply secured, and routine public health measures such as hand washing are established, more sewers, more water pipes, and more hand washing won't improve life.

So, we can feed more people and prevent many diseases. The population grows and eventually reaches a number (in the billions) where the supply chain is over-booked, and if anything goes wrong, orderly society starts falling apart.

It requires monumental stupidity for a species to paint itself into such a corner that it depends on some future technology that might never materialize to stave off an existential threat. — RogueAI

Precisely.

Human procreation will increase, but so will its mortality rate. — Purple Pond

At this point, however, births are about double the rate of death. To paraphrase Ebenezer Scrooge, "If more people are going to die, then they had better get on with it."

Environmental constraints/carrying capacity are much more about the population growth of consumers and our industrial support than the raw population numbers. A few more million poor Indians won't matter as much as a few more million Humvee drivers. — fdrake

True enough, except that people usually don't exist as "raw population". The whole Humvee-style economy is a very perverse aberration.

You heard abut the 'isotope powered accident"? I understand the Russians are busy trying to build some sort of atomic powered rocket -- either a very fast high flying rocket, a low flying very fast cruise missile, or a drone torpedo armed with a large thermonuclear weapon. More nonsense. We will, of course, match them. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

We attempted this sort of technology back in the 1950s, early 1960s, at the Idaho Nuclear Laboratories. The project was abandoned as too risky.

As a rule I do not discuss female sexuality, because it is pretty much outside my ken. But... what I have observed (and read) is that women often establish sexual relationships with other women later in life than gay men do with other men. While a "lesbian" identity seems to be very strong for some women, many women in same-sex relationships don't identify strongly as lesbian or homosexual.

Sex seems to work a bit differently for women (so I have heard) than for men, for which there are various evolutionary reasons.

If by "queer" you mean "homosexual," this is not true at all in my experience. Perhaps others with more can shed light on this. — T Clark

In the last 50 years, all the homosexual men I have met were interested in having pretty conventional sex (adjusted for male anatomy) OR were interested in having sex with somebody else. I don't know... human anatomy doesn't really allow for much variation in sexual mechanics. There are shafts, orifices, hands, and brains.

Oh, and I have met many transgender and gender fluid people. The latter tend to make more sensible claims, in my opinion. But apparently it's not good form to ask them to explain transgenderism. It's considered "questioning their existence." Which is unphilosophical, but, hey, that's what fora like this one are for. — Artemis

The "gender-fluid" people I've met strike me as fairly confused and irrational about sex, bodies, roles, and so forth. Their confusions are aided and abetted by the times they live in.

I have long felt that bisexuals and trans people were inappropriately included in what was first the "Gay and Lesbian Liberation movement". "Bisexuals" just don't seem like they ever developed an identity as such. Trans-gendered people are not homosexuals, presumably. Then there are the "queers" who are some sort of limp dick nouvelle cuisine. So we now have the GLBTQ movement.

There is a specific political reasons for grafting bisexuals (a '3' on the Kinsey Scale), transgendered, and 'queers' onto the movement, such as it is: Numbers. The conventional politics of gay liberation has required respectable numbers, with "10%" being the desired [and delusional] portion of the population belonging to the gay movement. As Mike McCarthy famously said, "If 10% of men are gay, who is getting my share?"

Partisan politicians get away with the 10% figure because it sufficiently nebulous to disprove. So, 10% it is. (The percentage of people in the US who identify and perform as gays and lesbians is probably below 4%. Transgendered persons constitute less than 1/2 of 1% (based on surveys).

I take your opinion seriously. — T Clark

And I return this respect for the depth of your experience and opinions.

Simple - if a man were to tell me he feels like a woman, considers himself one, and would like to be treated like one, I would respond "ok." What more do we need to know — T Clark

I would agree with treating anyone how they like to be treated. I'm not sure why that entails believing them about their self-id. There are countless examples of self-id that we do not and should not take at face value, so there have to be other criteria to believe it. — Artemis

Back in the early '80s I lived in a building with a guy who believed he was Jesus returned to usher in the Kingdom of Heaven. He was a well-educated, urbane, gay, New Englander in his 30s and was a productive individual. "Jesus" was a great conversational partner. Really interesting on many levels.

Did I think he was Jesus of Nazareth? No. I thought he was either very deluded or enjoyed faking a delusion. I lost track of him back then when I moved, but lo these many years later, it doesn't seem like the Kingdom of Heaven has been inaugurated.

I've known transsexuals, some of them fairly well. Did I think that they were actually a man/woman in the wrong body? No. Did they seem to benefit from taking testosterone or estrogen, and undergoing plastic surgery? Yes. Does that convince me that they were not deluded? No.

Would I be polite to these delusional people? Of course.

But what is the root of this delusion? Not quite sure, but probably deep dissatisfactions. "The times they live in" have made it possible to reach farther out for what they imagine will be more satisfying ways of being in the world. in 1300 a.d. France or in 1845 Virginia, the solution to profound and deep dissatisfactions were structured along different lines than in 1930, 1960, or 1990...

Take Bitter Crank. Here is a guy who has nursed certain delusions about possible better worlds that are possible because of the times he lives in. Imagining that he is living out these delusions has at times been quite comforting. At other times it has generated a lot of internal and external static. He persists in these delusions, nonetheless, even those there is little evidence that his delusional aspirations are possible/probable/feasible etc. I blame the original Jesus for inspiring these delusions in the first place.

There is a mistaken assumption here. Neutron bombs still explode with quite a bit of force--and resulting destruction. The "desirable" feature of the neutron bomb is that it produces a lot of excess neutrons which penetrate vehicles and protective structures of the sort the military might use.

So, setting off a neutron bomb in Toronto would wreck too much property to be useful for solving the housing problem. There are lethal alternatives, but let's not go there.

you will have to get used to that (In so far that I am posting here, I guess.). — thewonder

There are effective means available to thwart your peculiar pronoun proclivities.

"Computer: commence thwarting @thewonder until further notice."

"Greetings, master. I will comply."

On the one hand, it seems fairly clear that the situation is hopeless: GO @Schopenhauer1!!! On the other hand, I hate that -- "There ought to be a way around the problem". But I don't see one. It's extremely unlikely that the share of 7.5 billion people who are young reproductives are going to decide that they should reproduce at less than the population replacement rate of 2.1 children per couple. Holding the population steady isn't enough -- we have to shrink it.

People in stable, prosperous industrialized nations tend to have low birth rates - often below the replacement level. That may be good for population alone, but prosperous industrialized nations use up a lot of resources, and immigrants to nations with shrinking populations tend to scale up their standards of living in the destination country. Every individual who becomes resident in the U.S., for instance, consumes much more than they would in Guatemala, Mexico, or Somalia.

Population is one aspect of the global crisis, global warming, pollution, and resource exhaustion being other aspects. At some point (not all that distant) the supply of oil and natural gas will start to diminish, and with it, the basis of the whole industrial agricultural complex of food production.

There are some things that could be done... We [the world] could back off on child survival and maternal health programs. We could cut back on vaccination programs. We could stop food assistance programs. We could not rescue immigrants in the deserts or on the oceans. We could stop life-lengthening treatment for people once they are 75 years old (frees up resources). We could lower the standards of care for illnesses and injuries--letting more people die, in essence.

We [the world] may need to decide that when famine strikes, aid will not be forthcoming, unless progress in the famine area has previously been made in reducing population--not just slowing growth.

First-world countries will have to abandon their high standards of living (which are extremely costly in terms of food, fiber, metals, energy, etc.) and revert to reduced (poorer) lifestyles. This in itself need not be a miserable experience, but it would require some tough adjustments.

We've been living in a fantasy world of continual growth and ever-rising standards of living. The fantasy is becoming downright indecent.

"it's" — god must be atheist

Yes, thank you. It is not surprising that people get confused by its and it's. Most words are made possessive by adding an 's to the word. Not it. it's = its. Why do we make contractions of two words with 4 letters anyway? Just say "it is". But I use it's all the time. It's seemingly easier, faster, cheaper, better.

Now in self-defense, I entered that comment in which you found the error on a tablet which eagerly spells words the way it wants to spell them. I'm blaming the gadgetry.

I am, by the way, a person degreed in English. So, fuck me.

This was considered to be grammatically correct, but it's totally absurd. — thewonder

It's not absurd. The reason underlying the grammatical correctness of using "he" is because in English, "man" is the default general term for "human, mankind, people". If you know that the person in question is female, then it would be incorrect to use "he" rather than "she".

If you want to be grammatical, forget about making up new pronouns:

These are your choices. Get used to it.

English is one of the German languages, Anglo-Saxon. Despite all of the words it has borrowed from other languages, it’s grammar has been stable for a long time. It has become less inflected, which makes that part of the language simpler.

I am amazed, sometimes, at the obscurity of some of the words some authors use.

The “corpus” of Anglo-Saxon words is maybe 10,000 - 15,000 words. After 1066 (William the Conqueror) a batch of French words were added. Lord of the Rings was written in about 80% Anglo-Saxon words, with maybe 20% common French-derived words.

Shakespeare invented quite a few words; a lot of words we used were invented by authors, which is how we got so many Latin and Greek based words. Shakespeare’s language is, of course, “dramatic” stage language. It doesn’t make for easy reading.

“Do you think English is one of the hardest languages to learn as an adult? I am a native speaker of English, but even still, I consider myself to have above average writing/reading literacy skills (it does not show here of course, when I am rushing and usually exhausted typing this) but at times, struggle with such niceties as punctuation and grammar.“... Grre

I do not know whether English is harder than Chinese or Swahili for instance. English shed a lot of stuff that makes some other European languages more complicated, like gender, part-of-speech changing word forms (can’t think of the word for that), and so on. English retains some, but not a lot.

Spelling is probably tough for some people in any language.

You sound like a good teacher. Keep up the good work.

The Guardian noted that a shortage of remotely affordable housing was an underlying frustration of many of the young protestors. Granted that HK does not have large empty parcels on which to build a lot of affordable housing, many feel the HK government could do better than it has in the housing area. True? No?

How about that “renegade province” NE of you? Any thoughts on their future?

they deserve our support. — Baden

I totally agree, but I have not the vaguest idea what I can do that would amount to even the most gossamer support. I fear that Hong Kong's goose is cooked. (New entrée: Take a flock of protesting geese; execute, torch their feathers, draw, quarter, stir-fry in blood. Pass it around the restaurant as a warning to everyone else.)

I experience sadness from time to time because I suffer from depression, and I sometimes wonder, will my brain run out or limit the chemicals or energy that produce these sad feelings? — Purple Pond

If it helps, people experience sadness from time to time whether they suffer from depression or not.

But what I want to focus upon is this: For some people with very severe depression (which is fortunately not at all common), "feeling runs out". They stop feeling much of anything, and lapse into a state of emptiness, blankness, blackness... all zeroes. These patients are the ones who especially benefit most from ECT. Why, or how this sort of intense, deep illness developed, I have no idea -- but in the one case I am familiar with, a history of MI and a lot of drugs and alcohol helped produce the state.

They aren't unconscious; they don't feel much of anything; nothing interests them; nothing gives them any pleasure. It's a bad state.

For the rest of us--the 99.99% of the population who won't experience this sort of severe depression, we can exhaust positive feelings. There comes a moment when we can't stand one more second in the sauna, one more second laying in the sun on the perfect beach, one more second being outside in lovely snow, playing with the dog, or even having sex. Enough becomes enough.

Fortunately we rebound. What was very pleasurable before becomes pleasurable again.

The pleasure bit can be a bit tricky. Take tobacco: smokers find lighting up pleasurable. Based on my own experience (and science) the pleasure comes from RELIEF rather than a positive sensation. After 20 minutes, or whatever length of time, the nicotine from the last cigarette has been metabolized and we are due for another dose. We yearn for the next cigarette, and when we light up there is immediate relief. It feels good, but it isn't the aromatic hydrocarbons and other toxic substances in the smoke that are giving us what we want.

What is true for pleasure is not true for unpleasant experiences like pain, nausea, numbness, severe itching, and all sorts of other things.

For mildly negative sensations (like pain) we can manage to overcome the pain with our own physical resources (endorphins for example) or distraction. When that doesn't work, we reach for some pain medication.

For major, severe discomfort, we either make some accommodation and alleviate the distress or, if we can't, eventually die because of it. For instance, people with advanced cancer "fail to thrive"; their bodies can no longer function. Severe addition, mental illnesses such as severe anorexia, very severe depression, and so on result in death because people stop eating and starve (or succumb to infection or some such cause of death).

One of the Guardian's list of 10 best jokes at the Edinburgh festival:

Ken Cheng: The other kids all called me “token” growing up. At least that’s what they put at the top of my Christmas cards. Sure, there was a space between the “to” and the “ken” but the point remains the same.
Ken Cheng: To All the Racists I’ve Blocked Before is at Bedlam theatre

May your obituary remain unwritten for a long time.

They’ll all be dead soon enough — I like sushi

There are a few who definitely won't be dead soon enough for my satisfaction. I won't begin naming names. Everyone, supply your own list.

If it was, then Germany would be paying the Jews for the Nazi era — Waya

And they have been paying Jews and the state of Israel - billions of Marks.

Unless, of course, you extracted it from those with the most resources -- the very small very rich segment of the population that controls most of the wealth in the country.

I gave up on the idea of reparations as I've worked through this discussion, but within my previous theory about reparations, we don't owe people anything for what was done 200 years ago. All those people are dead and gone. 5 to 8 generations (depending how you count) have passed since the end of slavery. The masters and slaves both are long dead.

The worst period of Jim Crow is now a century past. Those people are also dead.

The people to whom a debt could be considered payable are the children of the last generation and their parents. So 3 generations, back to the beginning of the Federal Housing Program post WWII. During the 1940s, 50s, 60, and into the 1970s, blacks were systematically excluded from a critical wealth-building program: the construction of huge suburban tracts around all of the major cities. They were excluded explicitly: Blacks were not to be approved for mortgages in suburban building projects. (You can read all about the policy in the recent book, The Color of Money.)

Whites who were given mortgages in the suburban projects were able to benefit from the appreciation of their high quality homes. Home value appreciation became the core cash asset of the white middle class.

For blacks? It was new, large-scale, high rise construction that was designated as rental property. The quality of the homes was good, but urban administrations were usually not willing to spend the money on maintaining the buildings so that they would remain good places to live. In any case, renters do not accumulate equity.

In cities where the large high-rise and dense public housing buildings were maintained, they remain in good shape. After all, cast concrete doesn't deteriorate very fast. Of course, it wasn't the concrete that failed in cities that neglected their public housing. It was the elevator systems, heating, ventilation, cleaning, routine maintenance, and security that failed, eventually turning the neglected buildings into cast concrete shit holes.

In addition to dealing the black population out of value-appreciating suburban housing, blacks tended to be concentrated (an active process) in specific "redlined" areas -- slums, in other words. Generally low levels of income caused by poor education, insufficient access to jobs or the transportation needed to get to outlying jobs, and harsh policing (which other groups of people were not subject to) resulted in the present underclass. You can add on to all that "the end of welfare as we know it" in the 1990s under William Jefferson Clinton, president of the US from Arkansas.

Just as suburban development benefitted whites from coast to coast, the pattern of denying blacks opportunity was also carried out coast to coast.

The blacks who would receive reparations, if reparations were to be handed out (don't worry, they won't be, ever) are blacks who are alive now and have suffered under current and recent policy.

Look, you didn't do it to blacks, and I didn't do it to blacks. My parents didn't participate in the suburban program because they lived in a small town, where the FHA was not building nice homes. I didn't benefit from black poverty, and neither did you. The idea of reparations doesn't depend on you or me benefitting or causing the problem. We are merely part of the country led by some people who went out of their way to fuck over black people once more time.

What do you think can be done to improve literary education and consequently, the educational success of students? — Grre

One has to begin very early by talking to children - a lot, and nicely - so that they accumulate a big supply of words as soon as possible. Then it is important to get little children interested in books (start with the thick-cardboard paged books). Read to the children, encourage them to read. When children see their parents reading, when children see books around the house, that is a good thing.

Language is nothing if not used, so engage in conversation with your young child. Encourage them to listen, speak, read, and in time, write.

Children first learn to read, then they use reading to learn content. (well, of course children are learning content before they can read, but...)

Unfortunately, children whose early language experiences are impoverished (they hear far fewer words spoken than other children, and more of those words are command words like shut up, sit down, go away... or curse words directed at them.

Children whose early language experiences are impoverished are disadvantaged from the get go. It is very difficult for these children, or their schools, to remediate the early deficiencies. Children from these impoverished backgrounds will fall behind children with richer language experiences, and they may stay behind. By the 4th or 5th grade, they may be permanently disadvantaged. (The early deficit is very difficult to fill in at a later date.)

Non-English speaking students may be at no disadvantage IF in their own language they have a rich language experience. But the later they begin to learn English, the more difficult it gets to acquire -- this is true for everybody. So non-English speaking adults will just not be as successful as 6 year olds in learning English. One hopes that non-English speaking students are being encouraged to read, speak, and write in their native language.

Before the 6th grade, absolutely before middle school, children who have not acquired adequate language skill are generally screwed, even if serious efforts are made to remediate their deficiencies. They just won't be able to use reading to acquire content efficiently. (EXCEPT: People can be very adaptive, and if they are ambitious, bright, flexible, and creative they will find ways around their deficiencies.

Economic advantage and white privilege are different concepts. Any individual, regardless of race, can have economic advantage over another. — NOS4A2

Very true. And when they have economic advantages over others, the advantages and privileges derived therefrom are about money--not race.

Baden is an Irishman living in Southeast Asia. — T Clark

The Anglo Saxon Gestapo knows exactly where he lives. As for you, just make sure that you gerrymander nothing but congressional boundaries.

gerrymandered — Baden

I've never seen that word used that way. Not a complaint. Maybe I'll use it too. That's how language changes. — T Clark

You do and you'll be sharing a small, damp, hot, mold and vermin-infested cell with Baden. He's being charged by the Anglo-Saxon Gestapo with felony misappropriation, unauthorized use of a term with a very solid and specific meaning***, and other high crimes and misdemeanors.

***early 19th century: from the name of Governor Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts + salamander, from the supposed similarity between a salamander and the shape of a new voting district on a map drawn when he was in office (1812), the creation of which was felt to favor his party; the map (with claws, wings, and fangs added) was published in the Boston Weekly Messenger, with the title The Gerry-Mander.

More proof of how Massachusetts politics have been rotten from the beginning.

It's true, and also irrelevant, that race has no anatomical or genetic basis. That it's an artificial construct. Fact is, race in this context was invented by Europeans, white people, as a way to put other people in their place, to dehumanize them so they could be exploited. — T Clark

Wait a minute, people aren't red and yellow black and white randomly. People inherit the characteristics of their racial group (or mixed racial group), such as skin coloration and a zillion genetic traits from their biological parents. To paraphrase a George Carlin skit:

"Thorndyke Clark happens to be white."

He had two white parents?
Indeed he did.
And did they fuck?
Oh yes, they certainly did.
So, where is the fucking surprise? Wouldn't it be more surprising if he were Chinese?

Are you sure that no other large grouping of people, like those living in Asia, on their own didn't/don't parse differences among peoples in a similar way that Europeans did/do? Or People in Africa, the Western Hemisphere, etc.?

"Race" has both denotative and connotative meanings, some of the latter which are positive, some negative, and some neutral. In a 1912 hymn, "O master workman of the race" (Jesus), "race" means "human". It has also referenced what we call ethnicity--Irish, Catalonian, Ukrainian, etc. Race has been applied to the African, Asian, Caucasian, Amerindian, and Australian aboriginal peoples.

Then it has famously and notoriously been applied to the "Aryan race", a concoction of the National Socialist German Workers' Party, the leadership of which often fell very far short of the Aryan Ideal: tall, blond, blue-eyed, muscular, etc.

Race, referencing ethnicity, should be criticized for seeing consistency of traits, particularly in Europe. The peoples of Europe have been stirred and mixed about as much as possible, going back to the earliest waves of migration out of Africa, and subsequent east-west-north-south sloshing of population movement.

Race, referencing the largest groups of peoples, has more validity. The people of Africa, those who did not migrate, display the genetic great diversity of the "root stock" of the world's population. Africans do not have Neanderthal or Denisovans DNA, because those and other ancient humanoid groups arose from the earliest outward migrations from Africa. The Eurasian plains, the area north of the Middle East, was the mixing bowl out of which Aboriginal, Amerindian, Asian, and European people came.

The Great Error in the concept of race is that some races are better than others, rather than there are some differences among the races.

You are a trouble maker.

"Education" is probably one of the most contentious topics. Everybody is in favor of it, but once we start discussing the details all hell breaks loose. We could, for instance, get into a fight about whether adults obtaining literacy improves employment opportunities significantly. Whatever kept them from literacy prior to adulthood might be an enduring disadvantage. Or not. The last time I checked, the evidence was weak. I'm still in favor of literacy, though.

I live in a state where the literacy rate is, county by county, quite high, but whether the ability to read at a 8th grade level or higher corresponds to solid cultural competence is another matter. People who can read quite well may not consider climate, health, economics, politics, foreign relations, international conflicts, trade, etc. interesting or relevant to them, and so would do poorly on a survey of general knowledge.

My general impression of high school graduates (over the last couple of decades, say) is that maybe 20% are receiving and absorbing a good, thorough general education. Maybe 30% are receiving and absorbing a somewhat deficient general education, and the remaining half are, to varying degrees, missing the boat.

Some adults pursue lifelong learning, at least staying informed about current affairs. A large share of adults are not staying well informed about current affairs, and some adults are just out to lunch on what is going on in the world.

What can be done? Obviously, if people stopped spending so much time watching TV or staring at their phones they could get more reading-to-become-better-informed done. Telling people this is pretty much just whistling dixie.

There are just so many interesting things to learn about...

You can play both ends of the court if you can run back and forth fast enough (like, faster than a speeding tennis ball) but you should probably decide which end you really want to play.

It angers me how facilely white people can shrug off 400 years of brutality. — T Clark

Well, people can shrug off the violence they themselves performed yesterday, let alone violence that preceded their birth by 400, 300, 200, 100, and fewer years. This isn't white folk behavior, this is Homo sapiens behavior. People aren't that nice.

Beside that, these "white people" may not actually exist in significant numbers -- by which I mean "people whose white identity is tightly coupled with a sense of automatic superiority, deserving advantage over non-whites, approval of violence against non-whites, entitlement, and so forth". The image that some (usually) white, so-called leftists creates of "white people" is that of a Nazi race extremist--a la Third Reich.

I'm not sure that I've met a white person in the flesh who fits the model of "white people who facilely shrug off 400 years of brutality". I'm sure they exist; I don't think they exist in large numbers.

It takes time to civilize people. A century ago (22 months short) white people rioted in Tulsa, OK.

The Tulsa Race Riot (or the Greenwood Massacre) of 1921[8][9][10][11] took place on May 31 and June 1, 1921, when mobs of white residents attacked black residents and businesses of the Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma.[1] It has been called "the single worst incident of racial violence in American history."[12] The attack, carried out on the ground and by air, destroyed more than 35 square blocks of the district, at that time the wealthiest black community in the United States known as "Black Wall Street".

More than 800 people were admitted to hospitals and more than 6,000 black residents were arrested and detained, many for several days.[13] The Oklahoma Bureau of Vital Statistics officially recorded 36 dead, but the American Red Cross declined to provide an estimate. When a state commission re-examined events in 2001, its report estimated that 100–300 African Americans were killed in the rioting.

. Wikipedia

Bad, bad, very bad bad. Three generations later a repeat of this sort of event seems extremely unlikely. If it had been happening right along, then I think the characterization of white people as nazi race extremists would be more justified. But it has not been happening right along.

About America becoming majority brown... Maybe not. A lot of the Mexicans count themselves as white. Two reasons, probably. A), they read the newspaper and it doesn't take long to figure out who has an advantage--POC or WP, and B), quite a few Mexicans (and other South Americans) either are white (they are relatively recent emigrants from Europe) or they have many European ancestors. You know, like the many children and grand children of all the Nazis who settled down in South America. Eichmann, Mengele, Hitler, et al.

Let's all leave it there. I will have to settle for a revolution and redistribute the wealth to everybody. So, now hear this, now hear this: I will no longer use the term reparations.

I should stick to just plain redistribution. Reparation is causing too much confusion in some quarters. Then it would apply to traits that are objectively ascertainable: what is your income now, what was your income in the past, type of work, assets, debt, etc. Individuals who make 250,000 a year now would not qualify; people who make 25,000 a year now, would.

True, "black" is not always a certain adjective. A woman who came from 100% Northern European stock got away with calling herself black, and even became head of her local NAACP. (This was a case of this out on the West Coast, somewhere.). She just decided that "being black" fit her personality better than being white. I guess. Conversely, there are blacks who can pass for whites. So... screw race.

Focusing on race is the problem to begin with, and will always arrive at racist conclusions. — NOS4A2

Exactly.

there is no point looking backwards nor in exacerbating racial tensions. — Judaka

True enough. One of the points I have been trying to make (with not much success, apparently) is that you don't have to look backwards. In the present moment disadvantage is a matter of policy. You can look backward to see where the present disadvantageous policies came from, but the contemporary facts are clear.

As for white privilege, well, yes, it does exist. — T Clark

There are many kinds of privilege which individuals, or collectivities, can do very little about, which is what makes privilege a-not-very-useful-concept. Like straight privilege. You are straight. You were born that way. You didn't do anything to earn or acquire it. It's there because most people in general, and most people with social, financial, and political power are straight, and such big majorities tend to arrange things in their favor. Why the hell wouldn't they?

There are age privileges--different ones for different ages. 3 year olds can get away with things that 30 year olds can't, like throwing tantrums. On the other hand, 3 year olds EDIT: can CAN NOT buy alcohol (legally, anyway). There are height, weight, fitness, and symmetry advantages. Tall, slim, nicely muscled men with attractive symmetrical bodies and faces have a beauty and height privilege. Tall men tend to do better in society. Short, fat, ugly men -- not so much. As the Duchess of Windsor said, "You can never be too rich or too thin."

There are geographical privileges. People who live in hot, arid sandy parts of the world will be increasingly disadvantaged compared to people who live in temperate, well-watered, and fertile parts of the world. People living in mountainous areas are attitudinally privileged over people who are going to get flooded out as the oceans rise.

White privilege in the US is like Han privilege in China. Whites and Han aren't the only people living in their respective countries, but they have been and are the majority and arranged things to their liking. Why wouldn't they? In Rwanda, the Hutu-Tutsi strife stems from class warfare, with the Tutsis perceived to have greater wealth and social status (as well as favoring cattle ranching over what is seen as the lower-class farming of the Hutus). Tutsi privilege.

Your story is interesting but I still don't see any argument for why we should prioritise help/redistribution based on race. — Judaka

Whether we call it "reparations" or "redistribution" is not a critical question and neither are likely to happen.

The reason that I changed my mind about reparations based on race is that significant racial discrimination is clearly in force now, and has been in force for the last 50 years. (It has been in force much longer, of course, but let us concern ourselves with current discrimination.). We are concerned about institutional discrimination, not individual feelings.

Housing policy, education policy, social service policy, crime policy, illicit drug policy, prison policy, etc. have all been selectively disadvantageous to the black community. The disadvantages of the last 50 years have been built on the much longer term disadvantages of the black population.

Individual actions with respect to race play a relatively small part here. It is policy, not personal actions which are the big problem. The force of policy (like neglecting the maintenance of the large scale public housing buildings, which were a large capital investment, and which were assigned by policy to the black population, until the buildings were not fit to live in) was selectively disadvantageous to the black population. Eliminating "welfare as we know it" was selectively disadvantageous to the black population. It was of course disadvantageous to the white population too, but white people, in general, have fewer deliberate policies aimed at their suppression, at least based on race. The selective enforcement of laws prohibiting drug possession, use, and selling is disadvantageous to the black population, particularly the male population. Long prison terms for repeat offenders is an even worse policy burden.

The policies which are selectively disadvantageous could and should be changed, but even if they were changed today that would do nothing for the millions of wrecked lives which are the result of very bad policy.

Reparations are a way to aid individuals in repairing the damage. Repairing the damage done takes cash and much better policy.

I have said, and I still say CLASS IS MUCH MORE IMPORTANT THAN RACE. People who have been selectively disadvantaged and have ended up at the bottom of the class structure aren't going to get out of that location by their own efforts. This applies to whites, blacks, American Indians, asians, and anyone else who has been shafted down to the bottom.

So, again, whether we call it redistribution or reparations is unimportant. The CLASS STRUCTURE, and all the economic, social, and political policies which enforce it, are the problem. Just in case anyone forgot about it, the distribution of wealth and the power of classes has been severely skewed in the last 50, 60, 70, 80... years to favor a very small portion of the population at the disadvantage of a very large portion of the population (the 1% vs. 99%, or if you like, the 10% vs. the 90%).

It will take a literal revolution, an overthrow of the oligarchy, to enact either reparations or redistribution of wealth and a rewriting of the rules and regulations of American society. Do I expect this to happen? No, of course not. The oligarchy is riveted, bolted, and welded in place.

I can't explain myself any clearer.

If I were arguing for an across the board redistribution of wealth (from the absurdly rich to the broad working class (which I am in favor of), then the question reparations to blacks would be considerably changed. They would at last be equalized with everyone else.

Americans have about $98 trillion in wealth. A substantial portion of that is controlled by the richest 1%, then the richest 2%, 3%, and 4%. 90% of the population controls a very small portion of the wealth, and in fact, has most of all the debt. Let's say we took $50 trillion from the rich and distributed it evenly to 350,000,000 Americans citizens. Each person would receive $142,857, regardless of race, sex, or age.

There would be HUGE financial and economic problems resulting from such a sudden transfer of wealth, which is OK because it is merely hypothetical. It is inordinately unlikely to ever happen. BUT, nevertheless, $142,857 per person would accomplish reparation and would equalize wealth, for a period of time, anyway.

A Revolution would have to have happened in order to take $50 trillion from the uber rich. I am assuming that business would not proceed as usual after the revolution. A revolution will probably be required to merely raise their taxes up to where they were, not so very long ago, at 90%.

You said you changed your mind, why is that? — Judaka

I became increasingly obvious to me that the black population has been subjected to several rounds of disadvantageous policy, long after slavery ended, after the Jim Crow era ended. Disadvantaging blacks is in progress right now, through the usual means: housing policy, education policy, spending priorities, and so on. And in identifying blacks as being disadvantaged, I am not denying that whites, hispanics, American Indians, and asians are also being disadvantaged by the same methods.

For an unlikely but terrific sociology read, try EVICTED: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond‎. (available used, digital, libraries, or new) The book is about a black landlord in the slums of Milwaukee and a white owner of a run down house trailer park (also in Milwaukee). The renters in the slums are mostly black, and the renters in the trailer park are mostly white. Both landlords are making a lot of money off their poor tenants. The black landlord has something like 200 properties (all low quality) and the white landlord has something like 90? trailers, most falling apart. The formula is simple:

Charge as much as possible
Fix nothing (unless it is absolutely unavoidable, and maybe not even then)
Evict any tenant who misses payments and/or becomes too annoying

Renting to the poor in the slums happens to be quite profitable for the landlord. For the tenant, the chaos of their lives -- and the ruthlessness of the eviction policies, means repeated loss of money in furnishings, clothing, food, etc. Plus, the tenants are paying very high rents to live in what are, frequently, shit holes.

What goes in Milwaukee goes pretty much everywhere. There is limited public housing (which in many cities has largely been eliminated by blowing the buildings up), there are Section 8 vouchers (which do NOT provide luxurious apartments IF one can wait long enough to get a voucher, and there are a few grades of slum dwelling -- some of which might be OK, but most of which most people would refuse to live in if they had any choice in the matter. Outside of these alternatives for the poor, there is homelessness.

"A world based on total empathy"... What is "total" empathy?

And besides, if pigs could fly, it would be a much different world.

@et al

I've changed my mind about paying reparations. I used to think it was inadvisable, impractical, unfair, and so forth. But now I think we should do it.

There are several ways that blacks can, over the long run, be compensated for the systematic discrimination practiced against them.

One way would be to fund a selective federal housing program for black people. The goal of this program would be black-owned, private, and quality-constructed homes. Grants could be made to assist with substantial down-payments, along with requirements for banks to extend loans based on non-discriminatory federal guidelines.

Another way would be to fund high-quality achievement-oriented K-12 schools and follow that with substantial-to-complete subsidies for college (linked to reasonably good academic performance). Since there is a limited need and aptitude for academic work, non-academic training should be covered by subsidies, but not operate preferentially (that is, don't arbitrarily steer black students into trades).

There are too many blacks in prison for non-violent drug offenses. They have quite broad rehabilitation needs, and programs for housing, education, mental and physical health care, and employment need to be ready and in place when they are discharged from prison.

Some level of cash grant to blacks who are too old, or not otherwise in a position to benefit from education or new housing programs, and are not in prison. Perhaps it could work like a lottery: taking the grant in payments over time would result in a larger payout than a single up-front payment.

This will, of course, cost quite a bit of money and take time. Scores of billions of dollars, I should think, paid out over time--50 years, maybe. We might have to reduce defense spending, raise taxes on the rich, or (preferably) both.

If black people deserve reparations, American Indians are even more in need. Cash, yes; benefit programs for education, economic development, health, housing, and so forth. But for American Indians I would recommend returning substantial portions of land -- territory. And let us not return land that is good for nothing--ruined, contaminated, never much good to begin with. Rather, return land that is still good. Where? scattered across the United States. Small, medium, and large tracts. large tracts of the Great Plains are already being gradually and voluntarily depopulated. Let's speed it up, and hand over some big tracts--fences, buildings, and infrastructure removed. Let the buffalo roam...

We owe Mexico a big chunk of the United States, but thanks to illegal immigration, they are gradually repopulating lost territory anyway.

To make “privilege” a property of a certain race is nonsensical , not to mention racist. Privilege and it’s opposites applies only to individuals, not races. — NOS4A2

It is neither nonsensical nor racist. It's what it is. White people, in general, on average, have more money than black people, in general, on average. — T Clark

PRIVILEGE is derived from ECONOMIC ADVANTAGE. IF blacks had not been so thoroughly and systematically economically disadvantaged since 1865, their present economic situation would be similar to whites, and we would not be fretting about "white privilege".

White people are not privileged by dint of a light skin color, per se, and black people are not dis-privileged by dint of a dark skin color, per se, any more than Asians or Jews are privileged to do well in school. People obtain advantages through historical processes. We know how wealth was accumulated among a very small proportion of Europeans, Indians, South Americans, and Asians. (I won't review the history here.). We know that there was a class system imported into North America from England which advantaged a small number of English upper class people and disadvantage a much larger number of English "waste" and "trash" who were poor. The upper class view of poor whites was one of disgust.

Black slaves were dehumanized, and once freed by the E. P. and the end of the Civill War, were systematically prevented from accumulating wealth. A substantial chunk of the white population were advantaged by various government programs, starting with the laws applying to the Northwest Territories (think Ohio or Indiana) which made land grants available. In various ways land grants were continued well into the 19th century across the plains to the Pacific. Many settlers obtained some wealth and some security, but thanks to the vicissitudes of agriculture, a lot of them went broke. Workers in urban areas were systematically screwed by capitalists.

The last very large effort to benefit whites was housing development begun in the Great Depression and running up to the 1970s. During these 40 to 50 years, the suburbs were hugely expanded with new, quality homes which were pretty much limited to white, middle class people. The long term appreciation of these houses, properties, and communities--complete with cultural amenities--formed the basis of economic advantage for several million people, and given inheritance and further capital accumulation, to quite a few million people.

Blacks were not allowed into the suburban housing game. Considerable expense was applied to new housing for blacks--communal, large-scale, rental housing. The initial intent and execution of the various housing projects was positive; but as everybody knows, renters do not accumulate equity, and the initial enthusiasm and support for public housing (by urban administrations) withered. Before long large scale deterioration set in, and in a surprisingly short period of time what had been good turned bad.

Three to five generations of people living in public housing, very cheap low quality privately owned rental housing, or section 8 has resulted in continued wide-spread poverty among blacks. Housing policy affects education attainment and health status, and this adds to the burdens of the poor black population. (Never mind the effects of drugs, alcohol, and the war on drugs.).

ADVANTAGE NOT PRIVILEGE.