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How Americans Became So Sensitive to Harm

theatlantic.com

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Re: How Americans Became So Sensitive to Harm

#51

Post by orbitur »

Shivetya wrote: post #4

a tyranny of the minority backed up by politicians, government appointees, and judges, all who realize their power by separating people into groups to play off each other. Each new victim class further increases the power of government, the loss of privacy, and worse the loss of community and seeds of distrust and anger are set to drive people into different camps. when the individual becomes so important that commun…

What minority in the US is currently given special treatment by the government? It certainly isn't black people. It certainly isn't Hispanics, or homosexuals, or transgender people.

What are you talking about specifically?

Re: How Americans Became So Sensitive to Harm

#52

Post by throwanem »

ska wrote: post #8
Shivetya wrote: post #4

a tyranny of the minority backed up by politicians, government appointees, and judges, all who realize their power by separating people into groups to play off each other. Each new victim class further increases the power of government, the loss of privacy, and worse the loss of community and seeds of distrust and anger are set to drive people into different camps. when the individual becomes so important that commun…

This seems a bit off base to me. For at at least some of the cases discussed in the article, there is nothing minority about it at all. For example, the social pressure to disallow children's independence is by far the majority position now, as far as I can see. The "free range kids" folks and similar represent a minority that gets a lot of social disapprobation for wanting their kids to have the same sort of freedom…

Do you mean "opprobrium"? Approbation is praise.

Re: How Americans Became So Sensitive to Harm

#53

Post by mseebach »

pvaldes wrote: post #24
petewailes wrote: post #3

I suspect a large part of this is down to 1. People defaulting to the nuclear option constantly, in their reactions, and 2. People not wanting to accept that some issues are complex, and that a blanket approach doesn't work. The latter of these is the real issue. People love being outraged over the lack of women in STEM fields, and how those that are are treated, but few people talk about the lack of men in teaching…

> The most outspoken people against both aren't from the countryside, have never kept cattle or been on hunts, don't understand (or want to think too much) about the issues involved, but know that badgers and foxes are cute. You have your point, but is a common and too simplistic interpretation. We need to repeat this more: To have cattle or being able to shoot a rabbit is irrelevant and not a guarantee at all to und…

There are 304,255 signatories to this petition. While they may agree with experts, it seems unlikely that more than a small minority have actually researched the issue, much less qualifying as experts.

https://petition.parliament.uk/archived/petitions/38257

> Farmers are experts in breeding cattle. Point. Not more, not less. Basic concepts in biology are often terribly misunderstood or just ignored stubbornly by them for decades, and there is a big inertia in small villages to accept changes. For some reason, all people are instead ready to follow the local hero, with his myth based ideas, and often lose money by this.

This is a wildly arrogant big city point of view.

Re: How Americans Became So Sensitive to Harm

#54

Post by jules »

pj_mukh wrote: post #47
jules wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right that it's biased, but perhaps not in the way you think it is: http://www.pnas.org/content/112/17/5360.abstract > The underrepresentation of women in academic science is typically attributed, both in scientific literature and in the media, to sexist hiring. Here we report five hiring experiments in which faculty evaluated hypothetical female and male applicants, using systematically varied profiles disgui…

We'd have to look at a meta-study to weed out problems in individual studies. "Encouraging everyone equally is great". We should probably just end the argument on that point we both agree :). The rest will work itself out. If everybody was encouraged and inspired equally and there were still imbalances your point will remain. Unfortunately, that's not true today, so we won't know. Iran and India have much higher repr…

> Iran and India have much higher representation of women in STEM fields, and while they have other issues with misogyny, the inculcation of ambition (across gender lines) is very high (I say that having lived in India). The result seems to contradict any "biological" predilections.

I don't see how it does. If I were to guess I'd say that in those countries there is a greater economic necessity to go into a high earning field in order to earn freedom than in Sweden and Norway. In Sweden and Norway people can follow their passion instead, without having to worry too much about the pay.

It seems inadvisable to me to assume that all differences must be due to socialisation and therefore indicative of a problem that has to be fixed, until the time that research shows this to be the case. Otherwise we risk implementing policies with incentives that make people less happy overall, by incentivising careers that people don't really want to go in. At the very least it should be a warning sign if your metric for gender equality shows Iran at the top and Sweden at the bottom.

Re: How Americans Became So Sensitive to Harm

#55

Post by g_sch »

reitanqild wrote: post #37
pvaldes wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The most outspoken people against both aren't from the countryside, have never kept cattle or been on hunts, don't understand (or want to think too much) about the issues involved, but know that badgers and foxes are cute. You have your point, but is a common and too simplistic interpretation. We need to repeat this more: To have cattle or being able to shoot a rabbit is irrelevant and not a guarantee at all to und…

> all those knowledge is generated normally in universities, placed in big cities, after years of painfully slow research done by experts in zoology, chemistry, genetics... IIRC, so are the ideas that wolves, an animal capable of eating sheep or even moose would not eat children if they happened to walk unprotected. Not saying we should get rid of wolves only that some realism need to be applied.

At least in the United States, a non-rabid wolf has never killed a person in the lower 48 states. Ever.[0] And there used to be millions of wolves in the US.

[0] from Vicious: Wolves and Men in America by Jon T. Coleman, Yale University Press, 2008

Re: How Americans Became So Sensitive to Harm

#56

Post by Kristine1975 »

pron wrote: post #48
viewer5 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Either women statistically have common goals or they don't (they do) Like what?

For example, statistically and empirically women get pregnant more often then men. Statistically and empirically, the father is less likely to care for the child than the woman. As a result, statistically and empirically, issues relating to abortion, contraceptives or day care affect the lives of women more than men. For example, statistically and empirically women get sexually assaulted and harassed more than men. S…

>Therefore, statistically and empirically women are more interested in pay-equity laws.

I don't think that actually follows:

1. People are perfectly capable of caring for injustices they don't experience personally. E.g. men being interested in pay-equity laws not because it would benefit them, but because of a belief that they are necessary for a just society.

2. People are also perfectly capable of acting against their best interests. E.g. women being against pay-equity laws because .

Re: How Americans Became So Sensitive to Harm

#57

Post by willvarfar »

alex_hitchins wrote: post #28
willvarfar wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a different example, you could look at the issue of badger culls it fox hunting in the UK. The most outspoken people against both aren't from the countryside, have never kept cattle or been on hunts, don't understand (or want to think too much) about the issues involved, but know that badgers and foxes are cute. So I'm guessing you are from the countryside and you think its ok to hunt foxes and badgers? Just to…

>I don't know anyone who thinks its ok to hunt For fun or for necessity?

For fun. There really isn't any necessity in fox hunting.

Re: How Americans Became So Sensitive to Harm

#58

Post by iamthepieman »

petewailes wrote: post #3

I suspect a large part of this is down to 1. People defaulting to the nuclear option constantly, in their reactions, and 2. People not wanting to accept that some issues are complex, and that a blanket approach doesn't work. The latter of these is the real issue. People love being outraged over the lack of women in STEM fields, and how those that are are treated, but few people talk about the lack of men in teaching…

I saw this last night[1]. I looked hard to see if this was a spoof or if someone had mistaken The Onion for a valid news source.

As far as I can though it's real. This is a prime example of #2 that you mentioned. People whose connection to animals is their kids nature shows and maybe a dog or a cat.

[1] http://www.fios1news.com/longisland/protest-over-farm-cow#.V...

Re: How Americans Became So Sensitive to Harm

#59

Post by ska »

throwanem wrote: post #52
ska wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems a bit off base to me. For at at least some of the cases discussed in the article, there is nothing minority about it at all. For example, the social pressure to disallow children's independence is by far the majority position now, as far as I can see. The "free range kids" folks and similar represent a minority that gets a lot of social disapprobation for wanting their kids to have the same sort of freedom…

Do you mean "opprobrium"? Approbation is praise.

indeed I did mean disapprobation, thanks!

Re: How Americans Became So Sensitive to Harm

#60

Post by willvarfar »

petewailes wrote: post #44
willvarfar wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a different example, you could look at the issue of badger culls it fox hunting in the UK. The most outspoken people against both aren't from the countryside, have never kept cattle or been on hunts, don't understand (or want to think too much) about the issues involved, but know that badgers and foxes are cute. So I'm guessing you are from the countryside and you think its ok to hunt foxes and badgers? Just to…

Suffolk boy myself (though Welsh by birth and parentage). I suspect that's more because Suffolk isn't traditionally a hunting area. However, where my fiancée is from, is, so I get both sides of the argument. Re. badgers, my problem is that the work that's been done on the trial culls has been so badly managed that it's hard to say one way or the other whether it's working or not. Quarantine and cattle culling in Wale…

(Suffolk is very much a traditional fox hunting area. There are plenty of hunts. Toffs on horseback in red jacket affairs.)
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