Who does this? If there are such people making such absurd sweeping generalizations, then they are ignored and small in number, as one ought to expect and as they ought to be. — Thorongil

I hear a lot of obvious examples. That "Mexicans are rapists", that "Muslims are terrorists", that "blacks are gang members, or looters". As many people are outraged by such statements, there are quite a few who defend those statements. If you go inside those groups, you often hear them say that those statements are only true for a small minority who are denounced or ignored by the rest. So while it is true that the number is small, it does make an impact. There are theories that Prohibition was essentially a reaction to the false belief that Italian and Irish immigrants were wild and violent drunks. Maybe a lot of these generalizations are really subtle and even subconscious.

Not all biases are bad. Being biased towards the good, the true, and the beautiful is surely no vice. The problem you have is with biases towards the bad; when people prefer the bad and make assumptions based on this preference. This is unfortunate indeed, but ineradicable. Nor does it have anything to do with being white skinned. It's a fault in human behavior that we also witness in our ape relatives, the chimpanzees. Or take the rare white-furred cubs sometimes born to black bear mothers, known as spirit bears by Native Americans. As they grow older, these bears are sometimes ostracized, or you might say, "othered," by their black-furred counterparts. All of this is to say once again that you are opposed to that which is an innate tendency in various sentient species, not every example of which is necessary bad, though most of time it is. — Thorongil

I think we value reason highly because it allows us to understand and choose our biases. We can choose a good bias, like caring for family and neighbors, over bad ones, like rejecting those who could be a valuable asset one day. If your car tends to drift off to one side, you probably want to get it fixed.

Which is why, to my knowledge, they don't and haven't done this. The destruction and torching of buildings and cars in Ferguson, however, was not as isolated or on the fringe as you seem to think. The reason it was reported was because it was significant. — Thorongil

During this election season, I've seen it quite common. Everytime there is another primary, they start guessing which way the state will vote, usually based on some sweeping generalizations, often ignoring the diversity or complexity of the situation -- despite CNN being based in Atlanta, Georgia. My complaint about CNN during Ferguson isn't about what either side was doing, but even before anything had happened yet, they were already condemning the protesters, assuming that all the protesters were black, and didn't seem bothered by the police showing up in so much military-grade hardware. Unfortunately, CNN has lately been far more interested in long-winded speculation about issues than just reporting facts.

It depends on which libertarians you're talking about. Many who apply this label to themselves are likely very confused. My retort was about people in general being against unlawful behavior. I see nothing wrong with that, especially if the law in question is not self-evidently unjust. — Thorongil

So my point is that those Libertarians which are confused are falling into the social privilege bias. If they thought things out rationally, they might figure out what logically follows. I'm not a good libertarian, or anarchists, so I'm not sure what the answer is.

So what are you saying? That you don't like people with biases? Why bring up skin pigmentation if that's not your target? — Thorongil

Skin pigmentation? I read about some court cases about a century ago, when only whites had the right to vote. Well, someone with very fair skin went to court to sue for the right to vote. The courts threw out the case, saying something like "when we said 'white', we meant Caucasian". So not long after that case was public, someone from India, (considered part of the Causcasian group), sued for the right to vote, but that case was also thrown out with the statement, "when we said 'Caucasian', we meant white".

So I'm going to make the same irrational statement that when I saw "white", I mean whatever society appears to mean by the statement. I'm not sure how it correlates to skin pigmentation. I've seen some pretty fair-skinned people who were not considered "white". I saw a study were a significant percentage of Americans believed in the "one-drop rule", from a long time ago. Sometimes it is applied to behavior, personality, the way someone speaks or interests. Those all seem to grow from a complex mess of stereotype and assumptions. I'm against that way of categorizing people, because it divides, drives conflict and distribution of privilege or trust. And again, I think it is a problem common to everyone, as a psychological bias. It isn't a conspiracy or system of oppression. Just bugs in the software to work out.

You want to fix people. Fortunately we aren't code. A lot of the whining, bitching, carping, complaining, and so forth about race, gender, ethnicity, etc. boils down to a wish that everybody else would just get debugged. We especially want the people who are assholes to get debugged. Why can't assholes see themselves as the obvious assholes they are? Why don't they reform? Why don't they just get their asshole code fixed? — Bitter Crank

To press the bad analogy even further, people are hardware, society is the code. And society is pretty much a game with rules that is regularly tweaked to get "better" results. Back in college, I was really into Nash's "game theory", and its implications.

If cognitive bias is everywhere, if othering is pervasive, if personal preferences are ubiquitous, maybe that is the way we are, rather than a deviation. Perhaps? I'm not looking for an excuse for people to hate and hurt each other. People can live, have lived, and do live peaceably with people who are quite unlike them. Sort of the way street dogs behave. Put us into pressured situations where we are forced to compete for artificially (or truly) limited goods, and we start behaving badly amoungst ourselves. — Bitter Crank

Yes, I think it is the norm, but that doesn't mean we can't at least be aware of where this pressure and constraint on our behavior comes from.

I'm a leftist too, and I've been reading leftist, liberationist stuff since the early 1970s. Some of it is really quite good, liberatory, and helpful. A lot of it is clearly based more on leftist dogma than any leftist's actual experience. (I'm not arguing for the social darwinist alternative, of course.) Leftist dogma is often disconnected from the real world. Leftists are, of course, idealists in many ways, and idealists tend to take extreme uncompromising stances. I've been there (dogmatic extreme idealism) several times.

Take, for instance, unlimited immigration with open borders. Nice ideal -- freedom of movement, freedom of labor, freedom of capital, no borders, etc. Who wins, who loses? It is not and can not be, a nice rosy win-win situation. Both the donor and recipient countries sharing unlimited immigration can experience a lose/lose situation. The donor country loses the bulk of its talent and young people, and the receiver country gains more workers than it has resources to employ and support. — Bitter Crank

I'm not throwing it out as my personal ideal, but something confrontational to break out those who are stuck in their current mode of thinking. I'm not sure what people fear would really come about. All the discussion seems centered on one particular problem. What happens to all the American companies outsourcing manufacturing to maquiladoras, (avoiding US taxes and laws)? If you make illegal immigrants legal, they can demand more and raise the standard of living for everyone.

Angela Merkel is ready to admit a million or two, or three refugees/asylum seekers/immigrants from the middle east. She wants the rest of Europe to get with the program.

I readily grant that the situation of Syrians and various others is wretched. They need a place to stay, at least for a time. But if they stay, Europe will need much more robust growth than it has now to absorb them as workers. Europe has absorbed some, but by no means all, of previous waves of immigration/refugee/asylum seeking people. It is not producing enough jobs to keep it's German, Spanish, Polish, etc. youth properly employed. Who has first claim on the jobs? The natives or the latest arrivals? — Bitter Crank

I keep wondering when the discussion will get around to mention why there are refugees. Get around to the part about drone strikes, proxy war, funding rebels and fighting a proxy war and collapsing the world economy. I wonder when they will get around to mentioning famous Syrian refugees, like Steve Jobs, who is partly responsible for a huge part of the US GDP and tech industry. Maybe people who like to say "make America great again", (who I guess never think about what they mean), should recall all those scientists that escaped to the US and gave us a boost in technology, or all the others ... we were all immigrants once, and just needed a chance.

Oh yeah, and I've known a few Syrians, (one taught me some Arabic and I helped him learn English). Most of them would rather stay home, and just want things to settle down, no matter who is in charge. I imagine they are hoping they don't end up in the US with all our problems.

I've known a number of transsexuals, a few quite well, and most of my friends have been deviants of various kinds, over the years. Clearly, transgendered persons do not pose any threat in a public wash room, any more than any random person might. But sexual individualization can be outlandish even to the sexual minority life-style sophisticated, much less to the previously uninitiated person.

... — Bitter Crank

I think it won't be long before they regret this weird law. Who joins the police force just to enforce gender-bathroom regulation? What about all the exceptions? A parent taking their kid to the bathroom? Women trying to skip the long lines at the women's restroom? Maybe some comedy-news show will corner one of those politicians in the men's room with the help of a group of "drag queens". When I lived in that Muslim dictatorship, they had a few rules against men and women mixing at a party. One group was making a TV series, (drama about an anti-corruption squad), and they wanted to show such a party but the police wouldn't allow it -- so we rounded up some local transvestites, (who were actually quite convincing), to play the "women". So we were technically following the law, but in a way that would probably upset them if they figured it out.

And sometimes, the "other" is exactly all three of these things. — Thorongil

But I'm talking about assuming that everyone in those groups has those attributes, which justifies mistreating and excluding those groups as a whole.

Race doesn't exist as a biological concept, so they were of the human race and no other. Race as a social construct needs to die and stop being perpetuated as if it matters. — Thorongil

I agree. My daughters were asking me because I had never brought it up before. When confronted with this treatment, I explained it as a social construct because we need to understand where it comes from to defeat it.

What does? Being white?! — Thorongil

Being othered.

Yes, and many, many white parents effectively tell their children just this. You seem to have a bone to pick with a certain small social class (the rich), whose skin pigmentation happens to be white, not with the latter in and of itself. Or at least I hope so. — Thorongil

As a computer programmer, I deal in math and logic. My enemy is human biases and assumptions, so I guess my bone is with the way society magnifies and perpetuates those biases instead of overcoming it. I understand that everyone is just as subject to those biases as anyone.

Some of these faux protesters were simply looters and thugs, burning, quite ironically, many black owned businesses, among other things. To the extent CNN reported this, they were being accurate. And they should have been more peaceful and submissive. Freedom of assembly does not entail theft and arson. — Thorongil

Yes, and some white Southerners are members of the KKK, but that doesn't mean all or even most are members or agree with their ideology -- so it would be unfair for an international news agency to realize someone is a white Southerner and immediately call them a member of the KKK and suggest that they are too racist to be listened to. Another big example, for me, is when Hillary Clinton, during one of the primaries, mentions Flint, Michigan. While trying to be helpful, or just gather voting support, she said something along the lines of "if the people were white, this problem would have been solved by now". I was a bit shocked, since the only famous person I know from Flint is Michael Moore, who is considered "white". A quick fact check said that 1/3 of Flint is white, so I wondered why she dismissed it as a problem of racism, rather than a problem of dismissing an entire group of people based on a generalization.

And it's never going to stop. But if you want to fight it, you don't blame a person's skin color. — Thorongil

I think everyone, regardless of skin color, is subject to this bias.

You're surprised people are against illegality? — Thorongil

I thought Libertarians rejected the authority of the state to pass laws which restrict the free market. Therefore they aren't really "illegal". Someone trying to compete against other companies is being forced to select more expensive workers from a smaller selection. If people really prefer to buy things made by citizens, they can reject it by refusing to pay for the product. Or you could even quote Adam Smith whose phrase "invisible hand of the market", (misunderstood by a lot of people), referred specifically to businesses only hiring locals out of a sense of moral responsibility.

Maybe, but then the laws would have to be changed first. — Thorongil

That was the suggestion. It seems the laws are being changed every year, and usually to support one lobby or another.

Yes you do. Remember the people you don't like? The people who are "white, male, married, protestant," etc? You're also a sexist apparently, since you don't like the fact that they're male. Like you, I'm not a fan of Protestantism or conservatism broadly speaking, but I don't care one iota what skin pigmentation or gender a person happens to be. — Thorongil

I didn't say I don't like privileged people. How could I? I fit 86% of that description myself, as does most of my family. I'm not particularly against protestants or conservatives, or anyone else. When I see bad code, I want to debug it and wish I could just rewrite it, (even though I know I shouldn't).

So, I'm free of white stigma on 5 of 7 counts, being a white male but single, atheist, working class, gay, and a leftist. I guess I couldn't properly oppress anyone if I tried. — Bitter Crank

Being privileged doesn't mean you can't oppress, anyone can oppress anyone else, even within their own in-groups. Just last weekend, I read an article by a black lesbian advising other black women not to let their hair grow "naturally", because it could cost them promotions or business partnerships. Ever see two teenage girls brutally manipulate each other?

Maybe we humans are hard wired to prefer people like ourselves, and if that is so, then there isn't very much we can do about privilege, racial preferences, and all that, beyond being more conscious of how we operate. We have a host of behaviors that are hard wired, as well as behaviors that are the product of cultural software -- not that cultural software's influences are feeble. I don't know how much is hard wire and how much is cultural software. — Bitter Crank

I'm thinking more of a system that seems to standardize on group of features, independent of the audience. Look at the impossible standard for fashion models. I've seen pretty much the same models in every mall around the world, even when they don't really resemble the local population.

True, we do "other" some people, and some people other themselves, too. (Othering one's self isn't 'self oppression' -- it's cultural definition.) For instance, gay men used to be viewed very much as other, back say... before gay liberation, 1970. Before and after Gay liberation some gay men adopted styles and manners that made sure they were perceived as other. I can't speak for straight blacks, of course, but it would appear that straight blacks have also adopted styles and manners that make them othered. — Bitter Crank

Othering is pervasive. It can be subtle, or not so subtle -- like when some people are scared of transgendered people using the "wrong" bathroom on one side, or people who heap faux sympathy and charity on people just because they are different. I don't think we can avoid it or even understand our relationship to it. Whenever you define someone by how they are different, (like the need for adjectives).

Not quite. Privilege comes from power, but what does power come from? Power generally comes from control of the means of existence--in other words, control of production and distribution of goods--all of it, more or less. Those who control the process of wealth creation (they own land, factories, etc.) can afford to project their power in the form of financial rules, lending practices, rental management, guards, police, and so forth. This framework wasn't built just yesterday, of course. It has been installed, remodeled, and reinstalled many times. For us, it was installed during our colonial period--under the control of England. We kept it. — Bitter Crank

I work in a bank and attended all the banker classes and I've worked for HR departments and interviewed people. I've never seen a single written rule that says that we should prefer whites or men or people who own shoe factories over someone who works there. I think we all have to stop and consider whether we are being fair, or just falling into the old psychological traps. It might be what people think when they meet someone at a bar, but that is outside my experience.

Mao said that power comes out of the barrel of a gun. As a last resort, maybe. But if you have enough wealth, you can employ hired guns who will generally shoot sparingly. The threat of power coming out of the gun barrel (especially when the gun is pointed at one's esteemed self) is enough to keep people in line. — Bitter Crank

When I lived in a monarchy/sultanate/dictatorship, I noticed how eagerly people rushed to join in the privilege/others dichotomy. Imagine the way US media goes crazy over British Royalty, then raise it to "Lord of the Flies" level. They are actually all quite well educated and sane, and regularly criticized the royalty, but there is just some kind of bias that turns some group into the privileged group, then they become the standard which everyone follows.

We all look different now because of thousands of years of hard-won survival in varied and difficult circumstances. I think there are "races" (four of them) and there are discreet ethnic groups too. — Bitter Crank

I was just taking a short online course in cognitive biases and Cross-race effect came up which seems apropos.

BTW, re: the chimpanzee experiments... Dogs have been found to have a similar response. If one dog notices that he is not getting rewarded, and the other dog is (dogs aren't fussy about the reward itself) the unrewarded dog will stop cooperating. And the rewarded dog doesn't worry about the unrewarded dog -- so dogs are a more realistic representation of our esteemed species. — Bitter Crank

You mean like this?


I suppose it depends on the situation. I've seen plenty of dogs share things. Apparently that old study about pack mentality and the "alpha male" was a really flawed study. They only studied wolves in captivity. When you force them all into one place and they have no control over food supply, (means of production?), they form a hierarchy and use aggression and violence to keep their position. But in the wild, they pretty much free to hang out in their families until they form their own. There are some interesting analogies to draw from that.

White privilege is bad because it harms all of everyone.

Also, it isn't just "white privilege", but "white, male, married, protestant, upper-middle class, straight, moderate conservative privilege". It isn't just who oppresses whom, it is about the dominant social and cultural "narrative". We seem to be hard-wired into the process of "othering". The dominant group is the default group, generally trustworthy, rational and moral. Everyone else is difficult to trust, (they might become mindless violent savages trying to steal or destroy privilege), irrational, (they think differently, otherwise they would choose to be as similar as possible to privilege), and immoral, (their view of right and wrong is different than what is trustworthy and rational). I think you said it yourself in an old thought-provoking post, when you are treated as someone with low morals, you tend to not care too much about being moral. I've found that, in general, those pushed out to the fringes of society are often as moral, if not more, or have greater integrity -- maybe because they don't get the trust-illusion to hide behind. In general, people expect them to explain themselves, or submissively accept their discounted character.

I like to submit myself to my own personal experiences, because I don't trust society and I want to see reality for myself. I think it is so pervasive, we can't really see outside our experience. It takes years of deliberate manipulation. At one point, I was living as a minority in a foreign country. During Christmas time, most people would leave and I was the only white face around. I once woke up in the morning, looked in the mirror, and probably for the first time in my life saw my face the way the it really was. The bony facial structure, pale skin, wispy hair. I had already gotten used to local faces so I didn't see them as "different" anymore. I thought maybe it was a weird hallucination, but last week I read about an fMRI study which confirmed that our brains automatically warp faces to fit stereotypes. Other studies show that we tend to bias our interpretation of facial expressions positively for whites and negatively for non-whites. I used to go into bidding conferences for government contracts in that country. I noticed a distinctive bias against locals and favoritism toward my company, once they saw my face. They automatically assumed I was more honest and skilled than locals before they knew anything about me.

I have two daughters with a Chinese woman, so they are considered "mixed race". My youngest, however, can easily pass for white. They once asked me what race they were. Their friends would go into shock when they saw their mother, and then they would find themselves pushed out to the "Asian table" at their school cafeteria, (and they were treated as "practically white" by them). I see them struggling to define who they are in a black-and-white society. My youngest went to Beijing to work for a few years, then came back and is going to school in North Dakota. My eldest relates to both privileged groups and minorities volunteer aid groups.

Even if we don't deliberately oppress them, it harms those who have been "othered". Society doesn't trust them and sometimes comes up with long, complicated, ways of keeping them out of privileged groups subconsciously. If you raise a kid, always telling him he is stupid, then he will act that way, not bother to get an education and bypass opportunities. I was reading a commentary on a study on the gender wage gap. "If it were true that women are willing to work for less, then a company could make a lot of money by only hiring women", went the argument. The study said that women were less likely to ask for a raise, or try to negotiate for a higher salary. Companies usually have a pay grade/salary scale that isn't related to gender and most try to close the gap as much as possible. Even if you get into problems like gangs and crime in the inner cities, you find out the problem isn't as bad as it is portrayed, it is more of a confirmation bias. We ignore violent organized activities in privileged groups, emphasize the same behavior in "other" groups, and that makes us associate crime and violence with those areas, if we didn't already grow up there. But I think that starts a vicious circle and it is that perception that perpetuates the evidence. Remember when Katrina hit New Orleans, when CNN saw black people carrying things, they were "looters". When white people carried things, they were "salvaging". Even more recently, (in post-racist America), I watched the protests in Furgeson and heard CNN reporters, (even non-whites), saying that the protesters should essentially be more submissive to authority so they would be taking seriously.

The psychology of "othering" and privilege is harming society and the economy. Would you rather live in a Brazilian slum or Beverley Hills? As a business owner, investor or worker, you rely on a strong economy, so you rely on wealthy consumers. It is to your advantage for people around you being as well off as possible, so why would you want them to be poor and powerless? That's why I am fond of the philosophy of "Ubuntu", or "win-win", if you want the western equivalent. Yesterday, I was watching some videos about morality in animals and was surprised about one study in which a chimpanzee seemed to understand this principle. The test was to give two monkeys or apes a task. In this case, they had to pick up a rock and drop it through a hole. One was awarded with cucumber, the other with a grape, (and monkeys really like grapes a lot more), withing clear view of each other. Eventually the monkey getting the cucumbers started throwing them at the researcher instead of eating them, (the narrator of the video said "there you have Occupy Wall Street"). When chimpanzees were given this test, the one receiving the grapes refused to take any more grapes until the other one got grapes too! Apparently it appeals to their instinctive attitude toward the social benefits of fairness. I can really identify more with that chimpanzee. I was beaten quite a lot in school, which can be emotionally traumatizing, but I moved beyond that by realizing that those who beat me lost more than I ever did. I was the smartest kid in my school and could have helped them get good grades, a good job and everything else they valued. I also realized that the way they treated me wasn't for a reason they could express, but the collaboration of a lot of social and psychological reasons. They came from violent and oppressive backgrounds and was transferring those feelings onto me, in an attempt put me in my "proper" place.

The issue of slavery is difficult to approach. Most of us can probably dismiss guilt in the situation. But the economic advantage is interesting. If we benefited from forcing people to work for no money, then wouldn't we also benefit from people volunteering to work for just a little money, if they are given an opportunity to eventually prosper? I'm surprised when Libertarians are opposed to illegal immigrants. There was a recent example where Alabama created very strict rules on immigration and drove illegal immigrants away. The crops ended up rotting in the field because no Americans would work for such low wages and farm owners couldn't afford minimum wage -- so they ended up forcing prisoners to work the fields to save the crops. It would seem to me that completely open borders with liberal employment would be the best economic option. I would think the ones currently doing the hard jobs could graduate up to managing those workers. From a Libertarian perspective, wouldn't the government forcing employers to only employ citizens qualify as state-sponsored coercion? We seem to be protecting "citizen privilege", and often applying "othering" to a population mostly to justify that privilege. (In a way, I suppose you could say that privilege needs non-privileged minorities to exist).

I'm pretty out on the left, so I think all those attributes we use to divide privileged and non-privileged are socially derived. I don't believe in "race". Sometimes it sounds like people talk as if white people sprang fully formed from a hole in the ice in Scandanavia like a skinny dipping Polar Bear Club member into the world. I'm pretty sure our distant ancestors migrated their from a small group in Africa, so I find the phrase "African American" strange. All Americans ae ultimately from Africa. Again, the default is "white", and anyone else needs an adjective to indicate how they are not the default. I've never been called "European American" in my life, yet we are more deserving of an adjective to describe which area our ancestors originated then most others. Asian American is horribly vague, as it could apply to anyone who can trace their ancestry to anywhere from Turkey and Russia to China and Japan.

But maybe I'm a bit confused about it being all about power. Power comes from privilege. As a society, we ultimately gave our trust and accept the authority of the default group. Americans tend to assume they are "temporarily inconvenienced millionaires", so those who are poor seem to be simply waiting for the right opportunity or have resigned themselves to be victims of some other injustice. Maybe it is the implicit logic that happen to be circular. We expect those who are privileged to succeed and the rest to not even try, so we fall in line with those expectations. Sometimes we expect the privileged to lend a helping hand to the others, but not to equal or succeed themselves. It is easy to exploit privilege. If you only pretend to be wealthy and in power, people give you things. If you are not privileged, then you have to be overtly polite and submissive to get anything. I knew a British "Lord" in Indonesia. He got invited to dinners with the World Bank and ran a society of telecom engineers -- despite being broke most of the time. I guess I see power and wealth as a tool that society has voluntarily handed to the group they think they ought to trust. I've toyed with the idea of a world without any monetary system at all, (money demands implicit inequality and unfairness -- like cucumbers and grapes), or one where the power system is recognized to have been in in the hands of the majority of society and nature all along. I would meditate while gardening on the implicit economic system, free water and sun from the sky, that I neither owned nor paid for, some soil and seed that was basically thrown away, gives me a reciprocal exchange of food for labor and keeping the system going. I feel a bit strange being in such a dirty and subversive socialist system and how it could have been applied to all of humanity.

I still have a number of questions about what is going on.

First, from everything I've seen, the US has a lot to gain from the agreement. What does the EU gain? What would motivate European leaders to agree to something that is clearly unpopular to Europeans, especially with several critical issues going on at the same time. I think most Europeans can still remember how the US mostly wrecked the world economy with the banking/housing collapse -- why hand over their sovereignty. It looks like it would be political suicide to not oppose it in the strongest possible terms, (I guess France is already there). Unfortunately, the US media is completely silent on the subject, (most major news networks focus about 90% on political primaries, which used to be pretty minor news subjects). Everything else I've seen is pretty liberal, anti-GMO, anti-growth hormone, anti-corporation.

Second, speaking of which, where are all the Libertarians? I thought they love free trade, so why aren't there Libertarian pundits defending TPP, TIPA and TISA? It basically overthrows state "coercion" and hands most of the power to removing all barriers in commerce. Do they think there is something not-so-free about these agreements? They had been becoming fairly powerful. In the 2012 US elections, they were #3, after Republicans and Democrats, garnering an unprecedented 1% of the US vote. I heard the Koch brothers are quietly funding another candidate, but nothing else.

Here is some interesting trivia about Trainspotting -- the filmmakers initially considered subtitles, then decided to have all the actors dub in their lines with less of an accent for American audiences. So if the version you saw had subtitles, were they added to the original or Americanized version? My fiance. (originally from Indonesia), lived in Aberdeen, Scotland for a few years, (also college in Manchester and married to a New Zealander), so she has no problem with the thickest Scottish accent, but she is still struggling with American English. She has difficulty differentiating between when I say "can" and "can't". She also ended up feeling cheated when she ordered "chips" and didn't get what we call "french fries".

I've seen the video before, as I was researching some stories about the history of English, (kind of an interest in linguistics), and I've gone through Chaucer ... and don't forget Beowulf's language, (Beowulf=bee+wolf=bear). I think most Americans are under the impression that the English spoke like Prince Charles ever since the days of King Arthur, and Americans ended up speaking this way because we were lazy and uneducated. But I found out that actually the English and Americans spoke the same way, then England built up a new way of speaking to differentiate the classes, and it started catching on in Boston, (pahk the cah), when the Revolution came along. I've heard some people say that Shakespeare's Original Pronunciation sounds like a mix of American and Irish, with a bit of Aussie. I heard Liam Neeson started in the Dublin Shakespeare company. He should do a Shakespeare movie in his native accent.

Who is more "establishment"? Senator Sanders? Hillary Clinton? David Koch? Donald Trump? Justice Roberts? Sanders and Roberts aren't very rich; how did they get in (if they did/are)? (Consider your own country's leading figures.) — Bitter Crank

I'm probably the weird one here, but I have to say that Trump is the most establishment, as he himself said, he has worked both sides of the system. He is who he is and where he is because he swims around in bribes and corruption like Scrooge McDuck in his money vault. That puts Clinton and David Koch closely behind with the degree of corruption and manipulation of the public through "well-established" systems. Sanders is probably the least establishment of the bunch, but I still reserve some suspicions about Sanders and "established" ties with unions and maybe some special interest groups, like the NRA.

I think the media is completely wrong about Trump. They keep saying things about how his followers are angry, (with the current system), or like the bigoted remarks. Those statements probably go over the heads of most people who are willing to follow, (even reluctantly, maybe because they learned to hate Clinton more). It looks more to me like he is blatantly offering to bribe everyone and every group, so people tolerate him because it is going to give their group a foothold into the real establishment. Conservatives that hate big government and wasting taxes should be up in arms over his plans to vastly expand government powers and expenditures, but they seem to accept it based on the appearance of appealing to conservatives and disparaging liberals. My father is a Trump supporter, and the last time I talked to him, (back when he was sure Trump didn't have a chance), I asked how he could accept some statements, (he is also a die-hard Ayn Rand fan) -- and I got the usual explanation about how Trump doesn't know what he is doing, but will hire a bunch of "advisers" that would fix all those problems afterwards. But just looking at recent history, I'm sure those advisers will be gathered right out of the upper shelf of "establishment".

What is The Establishment? — Bitter Crank

In reality? The existing system of collaboration between business and politics used to maximize profit and economy. In current public dialog in the US -- it has become a pejorative to discredit groups and individuals who are seen to be only serving the interest of "others". Anyone can be accused of being "establishment", because of a weird political system in the US that relies on the image of political tension. Technically, there is only one side to the political spectrum, and the only real choice is between who is going to inhabit that particular seat in the established system.

I've heard that the reason that liberal values or even socialism never gets much traction in the US is because the "American dream" is that everyone has a chance to become rich, so while we promote a lot of equality and disdain class distinctions, we want the system to be selective and favorable to our own group. I've found most Americans think it is strange to hear from British people that where you are born and what accent you have marks you for life, but regularly celebrate people in our own lower classes that makes it to the "big time".

Do you love or hate the establishment? (Applicable in every country in which TPF is available) — Bitter Crank

I am indifferent. I think the system that has been established ultimately derives power from everyone. It is a manifestation of the social and political climate and the reality of the consequences of our dreams and values. We don't rise up and revolt because we like the way things are. It exemplifies what we are really saying, even if it isn't what we meant. We seem to love blaming others for the problems we created ourselves. Some of us drive in SUVs to protest against petroleum industry. We condemn violence with bombs and bullets. The different social and political groups get into fist fights over the proper pronunciation "potato" and "tomato". I don't mean that cynically, it seems to be what is currently working for us. There are, of course, a large exceptional minority, but they are kept at a distance on the fringes of society. There is a lot more disdain for people based purely on very traditional fundamental values. We are one of the few places where "socialist" is still a derogatory term, and "competition" is a virtue. I guess I'm on the fringe of the fringe, because I want a fundamental change in values, not just another restructuring of the old values.

There is one monologue from Shakespeare that actually brings tears to my eyes when I read it. I really wish someone would do it in the voice I read. So far, every video I've seen, it is done very dispassionately and arrogantly, (and in RP English which sounds even more dispassionate and arrogant to my non-British ears). It is the "Mercy Speech" from the Merchant of Venice, (Act IV, Scene I, for those who care about those details):

The quality of mercy is not strained;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
‘T is mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown:
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthronèd in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
That, in the course of justice, none of us
Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy. I have spoke thus much
To mitigate the justice of thy plea;
Which if thou follow, this strict court of Venice
Must needs give sentence ‘gainst the merchant there. — The Merchant of Venice, Act IV, Scene I

It should be read with passion and humiliation, in a moment when the "bad guy" has pretty much won. It should be more like Charlie Chaplin's final speech from The Great Emperor -- or even the "To Bait Fish Withal", which usually gets a much better dramatic read BBC Off By Heart or even Al Pacino.

When I was a teenager, I memorized the entire Hamlet monologue, ("To Be or Not to Be"), and quoted it all the time. Here is an interesting take on it by the Sonnet Man:

There was a study by "Nutrition Journal", that noticed that "high intakes of arachidonic acid (a long-chain omega-6 fatty acid", so they compared the moods of vegetarians and omnivores to find that vegetarians had a better outlook. But that only shows correlation, and there may be contingent factors, (maybe depressed people eat more meat because they don't care?).

I heard some rumors about inflammatory diseases. That may be indirect, since it seems a lot of it is related to being overweight. Vegetarian diets tend to make it easier to lose weight simply because there is less calories and more bulk/fiber.

I recently switched to vegetarian meals from my meal kit delivery service, (a good way to learn that vegetarian doesn't mean raw vegetables and salads). Then I got a fitbit and challenged myself to walk 5 miles, (7km) every day. On Saturdays, I try to double it and after a month, tripled it. I also limited my calorie intake to 1500 per day. I've lost 20 pounds, (8kg) and most of my inflammation problems disappeared, and my mood has improved a lot. It was probably a combination of several things, but I think a vegetarian diet is part of it.

I notice that many arguments about vegetarianism and morality focus mainly on the plight of the animal, and it seems the majority of people don't care, (unless we are talking about animals like dogs, cats, koalas, pandas, dolphins, or something else seen as more of a pet or intelligent). But there are plenty of moral reason on the human side of the equation.

It is objectively better for the environment and would help alleviate the symptoms of overpopulation. It takes much more land to support food animals than it does vegetation. The majority of crops currently being grown ends up as feed for animals. With more vegetation available, we have more to use to create reusable energy. But you tell people that, and they still don't care. World problems and the environment are problems that can be put off for now and they don't need to take direct responsibility for the situation.

But what about all the health benefits? With developed and developing countries faced with mounting health effects of obesity, diabetes, depression and inflammatory diseases. Eating meat is essentially on the spectrum of self-destructive behavior from suicide, drunk driving, drug addiction, anorexia and bulimia or smoking. Some of those things feel good, (just like eating meat), and may even have some temporary short-term benefits, but over the long term "natural selection" would weed out those with less healthy diets.

I think it is 3 steps forward, 2 steps back, and has always been that way. Invent democracy, then get taken over by royalty. Free the slaves, then oppress them socially and economically with Jim Crow laws or segregation. The general trend is forward, but with lots twists and turns along the way.

In my world travels, I found that what passes for traditional and conservative values is just a paper thin illusion. When I lived in a conservative Muslim country, where 80-90% of women in government offices and schools wear headscarves. But then I came across old movies, newspapers and magazines and there hardly any women wore headscarves. I did some research and found that it was a movement pushed by a few self-righteous wealthy people trying to place themselves at a higher moral level than the rest of the country, then either pressured people to go along with them, or they jump on the bandwagon to gain a wealthy aura by association. It seemed more obvious looking in from the outside at a foreign culture, but eventually I realized the same thing was happening back home. All these conservative, religious or traditional values are actually very recent innovations. A reaction against some perceived threat to authority. The Taliban are actually very similar to American evangelicals behind all the superficial differences. They actually hate and love the same things, but they draw their authority against a different backstory. In reality, the things they have "always traditionally opposed" are concepts that didn't exist until recently. The "golden age" they seem to think they are trying to resurrect never existed outside of fairytales. The Taliban, ("the students" in Arabic), started as a revolt to Soviet occupation in the 70's and 80's. Before then, Afghans were fairly liberal and cosmopolitan. The current wave of American Christian fundamentalism is a fairly recent invention. If you went back a century, the Christians of that era had completely different values.

Things were just unfolding, so they wouldn't be in the newspapers yet. Local news lead story was about a chihuahua that got out onto the Oakland Bay Bridge being chased by police. The next day, all the news media reported on it, but I noticed many stories were titled "What you need to know about the Panama Papers". As expected, many news sources implied it was just a silly European thing leading people in Iceland to throw yogurt at politicians, and it was all more about Putin. It seems like only a few news outlets mentioned how hard Obama and Clinton had pushed for the Panama Trade Agreement, despite complaints it would just create tax havens and a channel for money laundering.

When I got into my work, (at a subsidiary of a European bank), they are assigning us all etchics courses. I saw that another subsidiary was mentioned in helping someone in Morocco hide funds.

It is described as the largest leak of data in history. It could have some really wide-reaching effect. But here in the US, the media is completely silent. An hour ago, I went to CNN, MSNBC and Fox news websites and searched for "Panama Papers" and nothing at all came up, (CNN suggested some tourist hotspots when I visit there).

I think the impact to the US, when that part of the data is released, will probably be huge. It could bring down Hillary Clinton, (we already know they have shell companies), and Donald Trump, (many friends and people he admires are on the current list). This is just one legal company, but with history going back 40 years. Already released are some contributions to different sides of the Syrian Civil War, whose funds ended up with Al Qaeda and ISIS.

It will be interesting to watch. Having a shell company isn't necessarily illegal, although in some countries it is more serious, (India, for example, doesn't allow locals to invest in foreign companies -- but some of the most famous names in the country are seen starting shell companies from which they can invest, earn profits on their investments and avoid taxes). The effect would be more on public perception. Remember the "Arab Spring" revolution was brought about by the revelation about corruption concerning the leaders there.

I remember an interview with Clinton on some big news program around 2011. She was asked directly whether the US had any role in funding ISIS, (back when people noticed how well funded and armed they were). She answered that the situation on the ground was very complex and it was hard to know how people were aligned and who received the money. That immediately brought to me the definition of a "traitor" as someone who knowingly gives aid or comfort to the enemy, (and I made the distinction that since the US is in a "war on terror", terrorists like ISIS would fit the definition as the "enemy"). It was part of a long line of incidents where the administration had gone headlong into war, even with huge resistance from the US populace. They hit Libya, (my oil company friends saw it as an attempt to take over their oil reserves while Europe was back home avoiding the violence). They wanted to hit Syria really bad and made a tough case on chemical weapons, but when 95% of the US public refused, they had to back down temporarily. From what I read, there was no interest in helping out Syrians, the US just wanted to get a strategic hold on one of the main entry points for Russian oil. It was essentially a "proxy war", especially when the Russians started bombing anti-Asad groups, (including the very groups the US had funded). As a pacifist, I realized there was no way I could ever vote for Clinton.

I know that a lot of people who are critical have misogynist tendencies. I think I can call myself exempt, since I'm probably going to vote for the same candidate I voted for last election -- Dr. Jill Stein. She is the only one left who seems interested in ending the war which is the *real* reason the US is being drawn into debt. Every war ever fought by the US drained the treasury, and this "war on terror" is the longest war the US has ever been involved in, (if you don't count the "Cold War").

As for Trump, well when he said he wanted to have a database of Muslims, a lot of us thought we should sign up. Maybe someday, we could get gun owner databases and police shooting databases built, (I even thought of writing the code for that database). When he said we should wear special symbols, most Muslims I know didn't mind that either. In a way, wearing a headscarf, or having a beard is already a symbol for that purpose. Then he wanted to stop immigration, even deport American-born Muslims. Well, I've left the country before, and I suppose if Trump were president, I would want to leave the country anyway before he sells all his supporters out. But then it gets surreal, with him praising someone who, (fictionally), shot Muslims with bullets dipped in pigs blood, or another time when he said he would kill the relatives of Muslims to send a signal -- and of course, the coward immediately backed down on all of that.

I did a bit of research after Hillary said something along the lines of "this kind of thing wouldn't happen if there were white people suffering". My first researched turned up that Flint, Michigan is like 30% white, so I calculated you could probably find around 1000 young white girls with lead poisoning to get some action. Then I wondered where are her Washington contacts at a time of emergency. That reminded me of Obama's "red line" -- the thing that if Syria ever did, it would mean a full invasion of Syria, (which the US public rejected so unanimously the idea was dropped -- remember that)?

So anyway, I checked the chemicals that Syria allegedly used on its own people, which was chlorine gas. It just so happens that the lethal dose level of toxicity of lead is about twice that of chlorine by weight. From there, it gets difficult to gauge. Lead is a lot heavier than chlorine, but poisoning the water supply is more effective than airborne toxins. I wonder if any foreign countries want to take on a similar role and invade the Michigan?

When I was in grade school, I came across some of those optimistic books which predicted flying cars and jet-packs by the 1970's. I asked teachers what went wrong, (almost expecting some dystopian period that nobody talked about) -- but they just said something about it being too expensive or turning out to be not practical.

My very first year of college, I had a fun class of Introduction to Aeronautical Engineering. The professor was in his 90's -- his first job was working on dirigibles during the era of the Hindenburg. One of his main themes in his lectures was "there is nothing new under the sun", (from the Bible). One of his favorite examples was that the jet engine, (one of the biggest new inventions in the field at the time), had actually been first created by the ancient Greeks. We were just now coming up with a practical use for it. The Chinese had gunpowder and printing long before the Europeans.

Over a lifetime of being involved in all kinds of technology, I realize that the problem of what we have is more economic than technical. It is good that book was written by an economist and not an engineer. An engineer will build something because they can, and tell you how wonderful it will make life, while an economist sees everything as trade-offs. You can have flying cars if you also accept heaps of flaming metal falling out of the sky when things go wrong. I think the true secular prophets of mankind should be Thomas Malthus, (Malthusian collapse), William Lloyd, (tragedy of the commons), and John Nash Jr, (game theory). They all tried to show how technological advancement always has a price. You can do things faster or better, so you consume more. You constantly negotiate the benefits of what is available over what it costs.

Yet there is a common naive meme that whatever problem we have can be solved with technology, even if many of those problems are caused by technology in the first place. Yet there seems to be a mainstream naive optimism that things will constantly get better as long as we get rid of all those opposed to modernization. Where I live, (an hour's drive from Google HQ), there are some real zealots. There is the "Singularity" club that believes once we have a supercomputer that is smart enough to program itself, it will immediately solve all the world's problems and usher in a utopia, (unless it decides it is better off without us). It implicitly assumes that all the world's problems are solvable and won't cost anything. There are the "Venus Project" people, who follow the doctrine that they can solve everything with technology if only they could overthrow the shadow government which holds back technology. They are mostly sold on the unscientific idea that there is a virtual abundance of resources that has been kept secret from just about everyone.

The truth is that there probably is some balance between what technology can provide and what we are willing to live with. We need to pick the level that we are comfortable with and which can be sustained, or evolution and economics will put us back in place. That's probably what a Singularity or Venus Project would figure out anyway.

So, actually it isn't "The End of American Growth", it is the compromise to a sustainable balance, and no country is immune.

Re: Pascal's Wager


You can sum up a lot more simply. The author simply plagerizes many other religious philosophers without giving them credit, (the first 5 are obviously St. Augustine). Most of the arguments are circular or self referential, (there is a thing I believe in called "miracles", which I define as something done by God, therefore, God exists).

I discovered that series a few months ago. My favorites are:

Kurt Vonnegut on Man-Eating Lampreys
Robert Ebert on Ego
Ray Bradbury on Madmen
John Lennon and Yoko Ono on Love

Ayn Rand may be the only "philosopher". I'm not so negative on her once I realized that she is the archetypal "fool" -- meaning she takes an idea to such an absurd extreme to ridicule it and illustrate the tragedy of taking conservative values seriously. She may have been the Stephen Colbert of her generation, (in his mock conservative role -- which many conservatives took really seriously too).

I assume you are talking about US politics, since you mention the death penalty. If you are referring to the Democratic party, they are pretty much opposed to all drugs. The only difference between parties is concern for inequality in punishment.

The death penalty is a really strange fish in the pudding. The US is the only G7 country that still legally executes people. Only one of 22 countries that have executed anyone in the past 2 years. It has been condemned as clearly immoral by the EU and religious leaders around the world.

If, by the "left", you mean liberal intellectuals in the country, they aren't really saying anything different than the rest of the world. It would seem the entire world is "left" and there are only a few bastions of religious extremists who claim to speak for the "right" in the US, but their political and social views fit slightly to the left of Iran.

Utilitarianism doesn't fit well with the "moral sense" of most people. Look at Phillipa Foot's thought experiments which show that people are far more concerned with intention, securing their place within the social hierarchy than simple calculations of utility. Without that backing, you end up nothing more than another tyrant imposing your will through arbitrary calculations. I think there would be too many ambiguous situations that would have to appeal to vague biases -- why we should care more about immediate utility versus long-term utility. Do you go for bailout or austerity? I think it is those kind of ambiguity and arbitrary biases that will always bring about double-standards.

I think the situation has evolved into something so political and complex that ethical questions no longer apply. Originally, the ethical solution would be to support a peaceful, progressive, solution between the Arab Spring protesters and Assad. But the Western "playbook", is to back whoever is most likely to win, as the most efficient way to end up friends of whoever is on charge. The West decided impoverished dictatorships couldn't survive a populist revolution and backed "rebels", but things immediately got really, really, complicated. It quickly turned from populist uprising to proxy war between superpowers and local power centers. Now it is impossible to back any side without supporting one's "enemies". All the ethical questions are just propaganda designed to sway the folks back home to support the the supervillian of the week, and even that failed spectacularly. The only thing the west has been able to maintain so far is enough deniability to avoid charges of outright treason, (unintentionally supporting the enemy at a time of "war"). Now nobody can change direction without it becoming an outright "world war", or back out without losing their place at the table. Even a peaceful resolution seems to be no longer feasible. Most likely this is going to be long and drawn-out conflict ending up in a stalemate.

I was just reading an article by a physicist who was saying that the ITER project was a waste of time and money that would be better spent on other technology. According to him, even if a reaction could be sustained, there would be no way to have any reasonable level of safety. If you think nuclear meltdowns are bad, wait until some plasma escapes and incinerates the neighborhood -- if you are lucky.

In general, I'm skeptical about technological solutions -- since it is subtly implied that technology is the cause. There are things that get people's excitement up, for valid reasons, but you always end up sacrificing something else. We end up in a kind of ecological/energy debt crisis and will always end up with some kind of austerity measures to pay off our debts.

I think a more reasonable plan would be to undo a lot of the damage that has been done. We could probably lower net CO2 emissions just by planting forests everywhere they could grow, restocking the oceans and replenishing aquifers. Then we have to make a lot of sacrifices on things we take for granted, like air and land travel and big houses in the suburbs. Even then, I'm afraid some processes, (like the melting of Greenland's glaciers), are already over the tipping point and won't slow down no matter what we do -- even if we all suddenly disappeared.

From what I understand, "Plan B", means wealthy countries outsourcing their carbon emissions to poorer countries which will simply report they failed to meet the standard. There are exemptions which allow the worse polluters to not be required to meet those limits for several decades. Finally, I heard that the US, for one, needs approval from the senate, which is highly unlikely so close to a major election.

From everything else I've studied on the issues, I think we are already past the point of no return. There would be nothing to prevent us from getting to 4C raise other than massive depopulation. As long as the population grows exponentially, so will energy requirements. There doesn't seem to be any viable alternatives apart from those who simply transfer the problem on someone else or require rare materials to produce.

So I can never get this straight -- are they mocking religion or the government's protection of freedom of speech? If the latter, does that mean they are sincere religious beliefs and that they really do reject scientific consensus?

What I find odd or let's say missing in the after shock of this event is that no Islamic leader or representative has said anything whatsoever to state that this event was something worthy of condemnation or any sympathy for the victims. Rather, I have heard 3 (selfish) statements from the Islamic community making a claim (defense) that this is not Islam.

Then read this article, which quotes heads of state and religious groups in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco, Qatar, UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, among others which condemn terrorism and vow to help in the fight. I didn't see any discussion about Islam, as much as human values.

These comparisons made me think of this comic:



Apparently I got PTSD from abuse, which turned into psoriasis, depression and OCD for a while, but I've managed to pull out of most of it with herbals and philosophy.