Mind you, I do not discriminate against literal retards, or blacks, or gays, or anything. I do, however, incorporate the words “retard”, “nigger”, and “faggot” into my vocabulary literally exclusively because it triggers humans and demonstrates the fact that the validity of one’s argument and one’s ability to defend themselves in argument does not matter to the human.
You have this almost exactly backwards. Discriminating against people, a.k.a., applying Baysian priors, is in fact rational, despite modern hangups against saying this publicly. In fact you probably do actually discriminate, i.e., use evidence about people in making decisions. For example, let’s say you need someone to help you fix your computer, you probably want someone who’s intelligent and knows about computers, thus you will not be happy if a literal retard shows up.
Up to a point. While you focus on the example the “literal retard” that’s not where the problem comes in. The problem here is that people use the evidence more strongly than they should. Essentially this is the Screening off evidence problem. If I know say someone’s standardized test scores and GPA that will be overwhelmingly more useful for predicting how intelligent they are than any weak prior based on race, gender or socioeconomic class. But humans often don’t act that way.
The U.S. Supreme Court has established certain tests for determining whether disparate (different) treatment of a group is discriminatory and illegal. If the treatment is based on what the law refers to as a “suspect classification,” the disparate treatment will be subject to “strict scrutiny.”A suspect classification is some characteristic of the victim, typically immutable (one that cannot be changed, such as age, gender or race), that has no bearing on the person’s ability to perform his or her job. Under current Supreme Court rulings, there are four traits that are considered suspect classifications: race, national origin, religion and alienage (the status of being an alien).
Forcing employers to judge employees by their ability to do their job is forcing them to be rational.
“You can use evidence relevant to the person’s ability to do their job” and “you can use evidence that you can ‘prove’ is relevant to the person’s ability to do their job” (where ‘prove’ in quotes is not the same as actual proof) are very different.
I suppose I wouldn’t want someone incompetent for a certain task to accomplish that certain task but what I meant was, I do not actively hate any of those things I mentioned as distinguished from just the idea of the human.
Then why did you use the word “discriminate” when you meant “hate”?
Words may ultimately be arbitrary in some sense, but a language constitutes a consensus mapping of arbitrary symbols to things in the real world, and if you want to have a conversation with someone, it’s helpful to follow the mapping. Or worse use the same word for two different things and slip between the two meanings when making an argument, it is even possible to confuse oneself this way.
This problem is not restricted to you, in our culture there is a tendency to do this with the word “hate”.
Then why did you use the word “discriminate” when you meant “hate”?
Because I thought if that excerpt of mines were to be taken literally it would be understood as my simply not treating a retard, a black human, or a gay any differently from any other human were I to approach them for instance, or were I even to just consider them. I don’t ascribe negative emotion to my understanding of them so I don’t scowl when I think of them, for instance. I’ve also seen “discrimination” as a word used as I used it, and assumed my thought would be understood. A lot of what I say is to be taken something less than literally, such as the fact that I even use the word “retard” as an insult when I haven’t anything against literal retards, but my expression makes sense to me.
Because I thought if that excerpt of mines were to be taken literally it would be understood as my simply not treating a retard, a black human, or a gay any differently from any other human were I to approach them for instance, or were I even to just consider them.
Except as we’ve just established you would (and should treat them differently).
I’ve also seen “discrimination” as a word used as I used it, and assumed my thought would be understood.
“Discriminate” is another word that’s sometimes used in a confused manner. Although, here it’s less about confusing two meanings and more about ritually saying statements perceived as socially desirable even if it would be insane to actually act on the literal advice. This by the way is not just a harmless word game, it means that anybody could be accused of hypocrisy (or usually worse) by noting a specific instance where they do in fact discriminate.
Except as we’ve just established you would (and should treat them differently).
Excuse me? Did you miss the part of the excerpt of mines you quoted in this post where I said “were I to approach them for instance, or were I even to just consider them”? I said I would not discriminate against those subset of human were I to approach them, or consider them, and that is what I expected my original remark to be understand as. Without adding variables you have no reason to consider from the excerpt itself, when simply considering me and a retard, a black human, or a gay, I would not treat them any differently than I would any other human.
Although, here it’s less about confusing two meanings and more about ritually saying statements perceived as socially desirable even if it would be insane to actually act on the literal advice.
I don’t really understand this but I would like to affirm that I do not very much care for social constructs. I care for argument, and I care for reason. As I am probably autistic, I cannot understand many social constructs and have yet to be given rational reason to even consider them, so I don’t. If you wish you convince me to heed social constructs in any way please provide an argument defending your notion.
As I am probably autistic, I cannot understand many social constructs and have yet to be given rational reason to even consider them, so I don’t
I don’t know if you’re still reading this, but the answer is “the rational reason to consider them is that if you don’t, you will get very hurt, and you don’t want to get very hurt”.
You have this almost exactly backwards. Discriminating against people, a.k.a., applying Baysian priors, is in fact rational, despite modern hangups against saying this publicly. In fact you probably do actually discriminate, i.e., use evidence about people in making decisions. For example, let’s say you need someone to help you fix your computer, you probably want someone who’s intelligent and knows about computers, thus you will not be happy if a literal retard shows up.
Up to a point. While you focus on the example the “literal retard” that’s not where the problem comes in. The problem here is that people use the evidence more strongly than they should. Essentially this is the Screening off evidence problem. If I know say someone’s standardized test scores and GPA that will be overwhelmingly more useful for predicting how intelligent they are than any weak prior based on race, gender or socioeconomic class. But humans often don’t act that way.
Discrimination of the kind that gets legislated against in fact isnt.
Um, no.
Forcing employers to judge employees by their ability to do their job is forcing them to be rational.
Except the burden is on the employer to “prove” (using only legal evidence) that the test is relevant.
How does that impact my stated point?
“You can use evidence relevant to the person’s ability to do their job” and “you can use evidence that you can ‘prove’ is relevant to the person’s ability to do their job” (where ‘prove’ in quotes is not the same as actual proof) are very different.
The teacup in which this stormlet is occurring shrinks with every iteration.
what
I suppose I wouldn’t want someone incompetent for a certain task to accomplish that certain task but what I meant was, I do not actively hate any of those things I mentioned as distinguished from just the idea of the human.
Then why did you use the word “discriminate” when you meant “hate”?
Words may ultimately be arbitrary in some sense, but a language constitutes a consensus mapping of arbitrary symbols to things in the real world, and if you want to have a conversation with someone, it’s helpful to follow the mapping. Or worse use the same word for two different things and slip between the two meanings when making an argument, it is even possible to confuse oneself this way.
This problem is not restricted to you, in our culture there is a tendency to do this with the word “hate”.
Because I thought if that excerpt of mines were to be taken literally it would be understood as my simply not treating a retard, a black human, or a gay any differently from any other human were I to approach them for instance, or were I even to just consider them. I don’t ascribe negative emotion to my understanding of them so I don’t scowl when I think of them, for instance. I’ve also seen “discrimination” as a word used as I used it, and assumed my thought would be understood. A lot of what I say is to be taken something less than literally, such as the fact that I even use the word “retard” as an insult when I haven’t anything against literal retards, but my expression makes sense to me.
Except as we’ve just established you would (and should treat them differently).
“Discriminate” is another word that’s sometimes used in a confused manner. Although, here it’s less about confusing two meanings and more about ritually saying statements perceived as socially desirable even if it would be insane to actually act on the literal advice. This by the way is not just a harmless word game, it means that anybody could be accused of hypocrisy (or usually worse) by noting a specific instance where they do in fact discriminate.
Excuse me? Did you miss the part of the excerpt of mines you quoted in this post where I said “were I to approach them for instance, or were I even to just consider them”? I said I would not discriminate against those subset of human were I to approach them, or consider them, and that is what I expected my original remark to be understand as. Without adding variables you have no reason to consider from the excerpt itself, when simply considering me and a retard, a black human, or a gay, I would not treat them any differently than I would any other human.
I don’t really understand this but I would like to affirm that I do not very much care for social constructs. I care for argument, and I care for reason. As I am probably autistic, I cannot understand many social constructs and have yet to be given rational reason to even consider them, so I don’t. If you wish you convince me to heed social constructs in any way please provide an argument defending your notion.
I don’t know if you’re still reading this, but the answer is “the rational reason to consider them is that if you don’t, you will get very hurt, and you don’t want to get very hurt”.