It is interesting the idea that being rich allowed you to buy better quality products, and then consider things like gaming software that came along in more recent decades.

A decent computer game might take millions to make, in the order of some movies, in budget. But once it has been made, anyone who has a spare 50 quid and games console, can buy the game.

This is a departing perhaps from the old way of looking at things, in this example.

In the old days a consumer product would have been an actual thing, and money and time had to be spent making the individual thing. With software, once made, it can simply be copied any number of times with little or no expense...

by the by; I always think it is ironic that police forces have the impact on society of making the accumulation of wealth possible by enforcing the law. And it is only possible for a thief to find utility in stealing, because some people have accumulated wealth, therefore thieves actually depend on the existence of police authorities for their way of life.

Could this be generalized to asking why it's ethically wrong to consider one group of people better or worse than other groups based on some biological factor like gender or ethnicity? — Marchesk

is it always the reason for racism? That one group is better?

I think it is more to do with feelings of hatred.

And I think some of the reasons can be found in the cross-race effect, which has the effect of making it harder to distinguish individuals in another group, from others in the group, which can lead to a feeling of distrust, in members of that group, and then those feelings of fear morph into feelings of hatred in some people's minds.

Let's say a postman is a member of race A. Someone on his delivery round is a member of race B...The member of B can't easily tell the difference between members of race A, which leads to a feeling that that the postman could be anyone from group A; are they even a real postman, or a fraud; is the postman someone who has been in the news for a crime, also committed by a member of group A?....this can lead to a feeling of distrust, paranoia and fear....whereas another regular postman who is a member of group B, is easier to recognise, creates a greater gestalt, in the person who is being delivered to, and so they find it easier to trust that person, and in general, easier to trust members of his own group.

Just as a curiosity, do you worry about getting enough iron and other vitamins and minerals as a veggie/vegan? — Noah Te Stroete

through most of my life as a vegetarian I didn't bother with supplements, and didn't have any problems that I could see....as a near vegan, I did start to take a few like b12 pills and think about protein....
No nutritional problems were ever a concern to any doctors I dealt with...no anaemia for instance my whole life, and I haven't even eaten that healthy a diet for the last 30 years. I am kind of a pasta and beans person, chips, crisps, chocolate etc...no actual dietary deficiencies although I did end up with type 2 diabetes from just eating too many carbs, I guess.

what I was saying about groups was well depicted in the movie 'Life of Brian'...

' the People's Front of Judea' vs. 'The Judean People's Front' :)
'

Certainly there are group politics. But there are also huge differences within groups reflecting the uniqueness of all individuals. — Noah Te Stroete

that is the problem with groups. A group will often need forces of cohesion, but when you get a group of people who have a few things in common, they often have similar world views, and at that point what might seem like subtle differences from the outside observers point of view, can be incredibly decisive within that group.

People in groups often say 'we should present a united front'...but that isn't always possible....you should/or might have seen arguments within veggie and vegan groups over things like 'is honey vegan?'...for example...to most people outside the group who are quite happy to much on a cheeseburger, will get the impression that the group is dysfunctional...but that sort of thing is true within a lot of groups.

I wonder, for example, what internal conflicts there may be in groups like gun hobbiests...? Which lubricant is best for lubricating the gun barrel?

That’s what I’m suggesting. — Brett

so in the case of black people, you might emphasis the difference in colour/shade, in racial features....there may be dangers in that, but at the same time it isn't something that can be hidden.
Everywhere people go, one of the first thing people will notice about them is what they look like..unless they wear a veil. I think it is often a good idea to get things out in the open, rather than pretend those things aren't real.

Yes, I understand that. But my point was it goes towards emphasising difference, which is the problem. Unless blacks and gays think differently. — Brett

that makes the assumption that emphasising differences is a counter productive thing to do.

That plays into the hands of the people who use differences as a reason to be against a group of people....gay people don't maybe want to say 'look we are just like you, please accept us', they maybe want to say 'look we are different in this way from you; we accept that, and there is nothing wrong with the difference, please consider accepting us and our difference'.

Any other approach implies that the 'difference' is some how ...wrong, a problem in some way.

Why take pride in being black? — Brett

it can be a useful mechanism for any oppressed group of people. They take pride in surviving oppression, and maybe overcoming it. The pride they feel reinforces group cohesion, and forms part of the strength a group needs in order to survive and overcome oppression.

People often ask why there are gay pride events, and it is for the same reason, I would guess.

but the world also needs welders. — Noah Te Stroete

what do you mean by 'welders'?

I read the idea that a lot of people simply do not have the time to invest in much reading, and research etc...so they end up getting their world view from the media they do have the time for, like news programs, newspapers, the entertainment industry...this is the danger, that people end up taking on narratives that are presented to them by other people...and narratives that end up not being challenged enough....a narrative might be seen to be challenged at some point, but not enough to overturn the world view it is related to, and indeed the 'challenge' itself can be turned into something that can reinforce the original narrative....as in 'look, they don't want you to believe this that or the other..they have an agenda(we don't of course; we are fair an impartial)'...

I sometimes watched the Bill O'Reilly show on Fox News back in the 00s and at the end of the program, as I recall, he said 'the spin stops here'...and at some point I realised that is he subconsciously saying that his show was all spin, and it stopped at the end of his programs...? :D

yea 'fair and impartial' or whatever FoxNew's motto is...everything is subjective, so you can interpret evidence anyhow you want and claim to be impartial.

my GP once gave me some pills that were supposed to reduce appetite. They had the opposite effect and made me ravenous...the 'paradoxical effect'....appetite isn't really the reason I ended up overweight anyway..it was more to do with boredom, inactivity and feeling stuck.

for a meme to survive it has to just consistently survive(not meaning to be circular but it is true)....a meme might be useful in some way to some groups of people, or as part of some system of thought....I suppose that is a form of popularity..

But if you take the original idea as memes being like viruses...they don't survive because they are useful to their host, they survive because they can be passed between people, and spread amongst the population, and are capable of adapting evolutionarily in order to survive the hosts mechanism of defence....the same might be true of memes, and I think Dawkins thought of religious thinking as a kind of unhealthy meme, originally..

I was in the rugby team at school for a while, and the atheltic team....all on and off, as I wasn't that intrested in those sports. What I wanted to play was tennis; I actually enjoyed that, but it was only the girls who played that back at my school in the 80s, and my sports teacher was very disparaging of the idea of the boys doing it....I think he thought it was for wimps....wonder what he thinks now after the success of Tim Henman, and Andrew Murry...

I was a runner for fun in the mid 90s and ran a half marathon and a few 10 Ks and 10 mile race...things kind of felt appart after that and I ended up putting on a lot of weight ant weighed as much as 36stone at the maximum....low 20s now...but seem to have plateaued a bit around that weight.

My general feeling is that attempts to deny things like race, might be a temporary band aid for the problem of racism and racial politics, but in the long run it would be part of a general dumbing down of society, and dumbing down of society is partly what has lead to racism.

eg representing racial groups in a stereotypical manner is also part of a dumbing down of how some people see society..

We need to get people in society into the habit of thinking about things, and doing their own research into things rather than accepting the spoon feeding of narratives by the mainstream medias etc..

Individuals shouldn’t identify too strongly with race, in my opinion. It causes social problems (to put it mildly). If everyone had their own genomes sequenced, then medicine wouldn’t have to rely on race factors in diagnoses, for example, and it would show how we are all unique and yet still related. — Noah Te Stroete

I read that in India doctors often ask which cast a patient has come from, because the different casts have historically been so separate that they have ended up with different genetic sets. And the difference is important I think due to the different reactions to certain drugs.

Furthermore, you are now conflating “race” and “species”. — Noah Te Stroete

yes, biology is kind of a fuzzy thing with fuzzy definitions. I don't know if tigons and ligers are sterile, but that an offspring can be produced shows they are closely related.
I do know that mules are usually sterile, and they are the offspring of horses and donkeys I think....the separation through evolution of one species into two often starts like that, in that as they begin to separate their offspring are sterile...this process does accelerates the separation process.

Sure, I guess “race” has some useful meaning, but when it engenders identity politics it becomes a problem. — Noah Te Stroete

well I don't think it would be a good idea to deny that race variations exist just because the idea is used in identity politics...it might seem like a good idea, but it just isn't true, in the same way that a blackberry is very different fruit than a raspberry, and yet they were interbred to make the loganberry variation..i think.

Lions and tigers are species that are closely related. They are close enough to be able to breed together and the offspring are either tions or ligers(I think) yet would most people think that those two species difference is meaningless?

Certainly there is much genetic variation among Africans, but my illustration was meant to point out how we’re all related, making the term “race” effectively meaningless. — Noah Te Stroete

yes, people do make that argument, but the same can be said of the whole animal kingdom, yet there are separate species.
Race has ended up being a controversial concept, but this is an outcome of the way the concept has been used, rather than intrinsic in the concept itself.
Race just means like different groups within a species...I always say if race definitions are meaningless then would that apply to physical conditions like sickle cell anaemia for instance which has a wide representation in black people, and I read that this biological feature evolved partly as a way to deal with malaria, which is more common in Africa.

Genetic groupings within a species is all race really means, in biology anyway.

that also made me think about the genetic variation amongst the people who usually come under the group description 'black'....I saw on TV once that marathon runners who are black often come from one part of Africa historically, whereas 100,200 etc meter runners who are black come from another part of Africa. 100meter athletes are usually much stronger all round than marathon runners who are slimmer etc.....so there seems to be quite a variation in genetics amongst people whose ancestors came from the continent of Africa, and I wonder if black people consider that there are different races within Africa...?

A discussion on different races under the 'black' description umbrella might well be stifled by being all lumped into the same category....

another thing regarding memes and language. I gather that chips can be taught sign language to some extent, and babies can be taught it as well...so I think the communication of ideas and memes isn't limited to verbal communication....dogs as well can be taught about things like commands etc...I really do think memes are formed by interactions of all sorts, and when it comes down to it even the interactions of things like the fist cells on this Earth.....I have some theory type ideas that in fact it is memes that formed the so called physical world, the universe, the first cells etc, rather than the other way around. Minds weren't first to create memes; memes were in some ways perhaps first to create the minds that would interact with the world the memes created, through the process of abiogenisis and evolution....;my thoughts are that the physical world and the minds that are part of it aren't two separate system......perhaps I will call this memegenisis..theory.. :)

Maybe God is the ultimate meme generator..

Yeah, well it got created as an opposite to black rather than trying to be an accurate description. I don't like it either but I guess I don't care that much. — Judaka

the term 'white' sort of does what you were talking about in the OP..it kind of sets up a way of looking at race in a binary way; ie black and white...if you do or have to identify, and tick the 'white' box, then that disregards all the variations of how someone's genetics are formed..my ancestors must have come from all over the place, like Scandinavia to Italy etc...but forget all the nuance in all that 'you're wither black or white etc'...this might lead to a polarisation in how people see things, unnecessarily. I'd certainly rather tick another box, like 'mainly of European descent'..or something....how would I know exactly what section of the world all my ancestors came from historically?

it might seem like will power but how would you feel if you went ahead and behaved in a bad way to people?

I was and still am quite overweight. I have been a veggie for most of my life, and I joined up with a vegetarian forum, and pretty soon got into problems with a vegan there....she set me straight as to what she thought of the consumption of dairy..and man I felt pretty bad...it came to a crunch one evening when my thought processes, as I remember them, lead me to think that if I didn't give up dairy, and throw in eggs as well, then I would be living a lie...arguments for vegetarianism(in terms of the right way to treat animals) inevitably lead one into veganism if one is consistent. indeed the term 'vegetarian' started off as a term for not eating meat, milk and other products of animal husbandry. The term was kind of hijacked to include eggs and dairy, and a faction of the veggies broke off and came up with the term 'vegan'...which they said was the begging and end ofvegetarian-ism..

After that moment I gave up eggs and dairy by and large; gave away my cheese, and let my eggs go unused, and they were thrown away eventually.
This put huge restrictions on the food I would eat, and after around 6 years I had lost 10stone...with really no will power at all....all I was doing was trying to be consistent with the reasons I had been vegetarian and the way I would in future chose the food I ate.

I went back to vegetarianism at one point when someone gave me some chocolate bars...and I have sort of yo-yo-ed back and forth between veggie and vegan(mainly) since then...I am currently in the process of giving up animal stuff again...but it is partly out of a feeling that animal produced foods are unpleasant...I had that feeling since I was a kid...and it does help motivate giving such stuff up..

This is part of the problem with weight loss; there isn't really anything wrong with being overweight, so there isn't really any way that attempting to be morally consistent will lead to weight loss, for most people...and they are left with naked will-power alone.

Trying to shame a person to lose weight is like trying to shame a person to give up eggs, dairy and ,meat;;;it just doen't work, because the shame for most people isn't based upon anything much, other than the suggestion implied that it is immoral not look slim, or immoral to not go along with the rest of society, and then there is the idea that it is immoral to act in ways that lead to ill health...if that was a consistent argument one could argue that mountain climbing was immoral, or skydiving, motor sports etc...but it usually isn't applied to things like that.

just as an aside, I am not keen on the term 'white' people, mainly because 'white' people are not white generally; a piece of paper is white, most 'white' people are shades of pink, peach, etc....but partly because I am not always keen on the colour white. I'm not keen on white cars, white computers etc...white is ok in some contexts, like a chess piece, or a fridge..maybe.

If I was black I would be fine with that description of 'black' though, as I like the colour black, and shades of grey, brown etc...but I think some black people object to the description.

I don't know if this is a problem in the debate generally...but I sort of cringe at the description of 'white' if I have to fill in a form of some kind.

I have no issue with any of that, and in fact do a great deal of it myself in one way or another. But the point is, that is theology not philosophy. Again i have no issue at all with theology - quite the contrary - but it is an important point for both theist and atheist to know when they are leaving one discipline and entering another. — Rank Amateur

I don't know; I would have thought there would be a philosophy component in theology, as I think there is, or should be, in science.

I always had problems with my venn diagrams. :)

What I mean is that good manners is just a part of political correctness.
Having good manners doesn't necessarily mean that someone will ascribe to political correctness.

By attacking the the concept of political correctness, then, doesn't mean that they are attacking the concept of good manners, in the same way as attacking the way Mussolini's way of behaving doesn't attack something like his use of a belt to hold up his trousers..

There are so many ways to classify people but we choose to focus on race and for me, that's the main cause of racism. By talking about things in a racial framework all the time, it's inevitable that people think about things racially and form opinions about — Judaka

that is partly where the mainstream media come in. It is up to the media organisation what stories they focus on and how they set the framework to present any stories. In this way they spin narratives for whatever reason, that get taken up by people in society.

Well there you have it. Authoritarians with no authority, you can't get more straw of a man than that. That is to say anyone who wants to make accusations of political correctness is a proponent of political correctness, trying to control the debate. — unenlightened

Authoritarian control....well maybe I should have just said 'control'....it might feel authoritarian though, if you feel that you are being censored and controlled, eg by people in situation in the media that have a level of authority..

yes that is the problem with talking about models of god.

It is possible that God doesn't function on such things as 'needs' and 'motivation'....but human connection with god often is based upon a conception or model of god, which inevitably will be partly human based.

The concept of need is pretty fundamental to humans though, and is the bases of all/most behaviour, so if any attempt is made to form a model of god, then perhaps these things are a good starting point.

I was positing the existence of a god with no personal needs and asking people what the motivation for their behaviour would be...

You can have a go at answering if you like.

What really is political correctness and what do its critics criticise? This? — unenlightened

well there is no central control of what the term 'political correctness' means, it is just used a lot and people associate the meaning by how they hear it used.

A lot of the time it seems to be used in the context of a type of authoritarian attempt to control how people express themselves, or behave. It is a top down approach of control, with no official body at the top. Anyone can criticise anyone under the banner of political correctness...its effect often seems to be to stifle debate and behaviour without any recourse for appeal.

As someone who despises racism, would it better to advocate for shaming anyone who talks along racial lines, irrespective of their intent. Trying to make it so whether someone is different based solely on their race into an unasked question, irrelevant to everybody.

Share your thoughts — Judaka

It seems like maybe you want to do away with terms like 'black community' as they maybe set up a dichotomy that wouldn't be there otherwise?

This is similar to the ideas presented in George Orwell's book 1984, in that the authorities in that fictional world wanted to reduce the number of words that were in use and in the dictionary, in order to prevent the discussion and thinking about certain subjects.

I think that Orwell considered this approach a problem.

I would agree that it is a problem, in that reducing the ability for people to discuss things, in a dialectic way, reduces the ability to resolve problems.

Rather than do away with terms like 'black/white community' I think it would be better to discuss what those terms mean, and stuff that relates to those terms.

I realise it can be a problem if some terms go on being used without discussion, as it kind of risks normalising certain ways of looking at the world, but I think it is the lack of discussion which is the problem.

I think there are reasons at the root of things like racism. With racism I think that one of the reasons is due to our evolutionarily developed mind/brains..in the form of the Cross Race Effect.
Another reason is the tensions that are place upon communities by financial problems, and the narratives that are spun in the mainstream media.

Any discussions that go into any causes would be pretty much disabled if people weren't allowed to recognise things like race..and in disabling discussion, there would be less or no resolution to the problems...I don't think shaming as a general rule gets rid of problems but pushes them underground, where they may have an even more malign effect on society.

regarding 'disordered desires':

Maybe a useful analogy could be the desire for food. We need food to survive, so take someone who doesn't have access to enough food. They still 'desire' food, and have access to some, and choose to eat some non-food items to try and stave their hunger, like eating clay or something.
The original desire isn't disordered, it is the way the person who is behaving to try and fulfil the desire/need which is perhaps symbolic with disorder.

Maybe food is a bad example as it is a complex issue...

But if you take the general case of a desire being based on something which isn't disorders, it still might lead to a disordered attempt to try and fulfil it...
And the thing is with having to try to fulfil a deeper need with something that isn't going to do it in the long run, is that the behaviour might just escalate, as they are never going to be satisfied.

But people who criticism the promotion of political correctness in its present form, aren't usually advocating that people should have the right to say 'all the horrible things that naturally pop into their heads through the frictions in their lives'...so that line of defence of political correctness is a bit of a strawman.

Do you think those people are literally saying that they existed prior to being "brought into the world to be turned into meat"? I don't think that would make sense if they're saying "They wouldn't have existed if not for . . ." — Terrapin Station

no I think existing before conception isn't part of their argument.
They are arguing that sheep find some value in their short lives...and that a being getting some value out of life, justifies the existence of the meat industry to some extent.

I don't know; it is often an argument in meat-eating vs. veggism debates as in..'those sheep wouldn't have existed if they weren't brought into the world to be turned into meat.'

I often think that is a silly argument.

'Excellent' is also the WRONG answer. — unenlightened

but I think the answer 'excellent' was mentioned up thread a few posts back.

I don't know if some work environments expect that kind of response from people, but as you say it is pushing things too far, beyond the realm of etiquette, and more into the realm of social control.

I agree that the interaction you suggest seem fine...it's not too hard to say, ok', or 'fine'(pushing it a bit), and there is always the reply 'not too bad'...which is one of the options within etiquette, yet also states, in a potentially literal way, that the person does feel bad, but not too much...

But to the OP. The antidote for political correctness is plain and simple good manners. When talking about political correctness, the problem lies on the political aspect of it: it's only political, it's just in the present political climate correct. — ssu

I sort of see it the other way around; good manners is a subset of political correctness; it's just a kind of aspect of how it might present.

If something were just about good manners, then it should have its own description....like 'social pragmatism', or something.

People often defend political correctness with the reference to good manners, and just behaving in a pleasant/reasonable manner etc...but that is like defending Mussolini's actions by saying something like 'he always made sure that his guests were well catered for, when they visited him', as a defence for his other actions.
Sure looking after your guests is a good thing, and can't really be argued with.. ..but that was(I assume) just a subset of his broader activities.

this may be ok if you feel fair to middling, but if you are really going through a bad time then saying 'I feel excellent!', might feel like lying...'oh yea, most of the people I care about just died in a plane crash, but I FEEL EXCELLENT!'. ... :)

But this still means that there is something that transmits this information. We can distinguish between that which transmits and that which is transmitted. By definition, we can only measure that which is transmitted. But wouldn't that which transmits be the underling, objective basis for what we call the ''ball''? — philosophy

I don't think science really is at a place where it can say what actually transmits information, but it seems that however this transmission process works, it is measured as being at the speed of light...