How Americans Became So Sensitive to Harm • Hacker News Board

Re: How Americans Became So Sensitive to Harm

#111

Post by richmarr » Wed, Apr 20, 2016, 5:38 PM UTC

jules wrote: post #109

richmarr wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had Williams/Ceci 2014 quoted at me before and it was hugely over-generalised then too. There's simply no rational basis for claiming (like you implied) that it shows wide-spread discrimination against men. It's a study of tenure-track hiring for four STEM subjects, one of which showed zero bias. > The drop out rates for males are (much) higher. Seems off-topic, can you explain the relevence of this? There are s…

> Seems off-topic, can you explain the relevence of this? You said: > Hiring faculty is a very different thing (and subject to different rules and policies) than getting students succesfully to graduation. That's why I mentioned it. > Diverse workplaces are more pleasant to work in If somebody's opinion was that all male workplaces are more pleasant to work in, would you find that a reasonable basis for discriminatin…

You keep dodging the fact that this entire comment thread started from you massively overstating the results of a single study, taking it far past the credible scope of the study.

Either knowingly or unknowingly you're abusing both the study's findings and the scientific method as a whole.

We can talk hypotheticals or debate the relative merit of affirmative action, or discuss the flaws in specific studies (because let's face it perfection is hard in social science), but first we need to address why you feel the need to misrepresent the findings of studies. Did you not read the abstract you linked to?

Re: How Americans Became So Sensitive to Harm

#112

Post by pessimizer » Wed, Apr 20, 2016, 5:45 PM UTC

spriggan3 wrote: post #81

pessimizer wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not Hispanic, and don't care at all about soccer, but I imagine it would be aggravating as hell. I'm black, and when white people call me bro, or start speaking in dialect - I honestly start to hate them. For cultural reasons, when a lot of white Americans are talking about getting fighting and getting angry, or partying and having fun, relaxing and being lazy, flirting or getting laid, or one-upping people or hu…

> I'm black, and when white people call me bro White people shouldn't call you bro like black people shouldn't call you bro either. I'm black, no one calls me bro or the n word, black or white, it shouldn't be a matter of color but respect. I don't understand why you need to single out whites on that matter. Likewise it would be stupid to say it's ok for girls to call each other bitch or cunt, but not ok for a man to…

I'm black, and I feel as if I'm in a brotherhood of common experience with other black people. I'm perfectly fine if someone from that same experience calls me brother or bro. But take it from me, I get bro from white guys who don't bro other white guys, and it's not once in a blue moon, it's more like once a week.

My sister calls me bro, does that mean I'm somehow obligated to take it from you or that she's disrespecting me? I'm not remotely offended when another black person calls me "nigger", because when black people say that to me, they're referring to a position in society that we both know that we're in. Does that mean I have to take it from you? Because you definitely don't mean the same thing. Also, I don't personally say it because every black person doesn't feel the same way, and I don't have any cause to impose my belief system onto them.

> Likewise it would be stupid to say it's ok for girls to call each other bitch or cunt, but not ok for a man to do that because he is a man.

I'm not sure why you think that's not disrespectful; telling other people what they should be called and by who.

Re: How Americans Became So Sensitive to Harm

#113

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Apr 20, 2016, 5:54 PM UTC

g_sch wrote: post #55

reitanqild wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

[deleted]

Re: How Americans Became So Sensitive to Harm

#114

Post by EliRivers » Wed, Apr 20, 2016, 5:54 PM UTC

Majestic121 wrote: post #22

EliRivers wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I don't disagree with the general thrust of your argument, as an aside, the lack of men in nursing roles (and teaching, especially to younger children) is seen as a problem and when you spend time in the nursing or teaching community it comes up a lot. Campaigns to attract more men into these professions have been running for a long time. While I'm here, speaking as a townie, I don't see any complexity in the f…

"While I'm here, speaking as a townie, I don't see any complexity in the fox hunting issue." Well, that's the point the grandparent comment was making. The fact that there is multiple sides on this issue shows that it is not as black and white as you seem to see it. The people hunting foxes and badger are not devils made of pure evil, so there must be a reason why they are doing it. But the actual debate about huntin…

Oh gosh no, nobody is pure evil. Many people who take part in lynchings, for example, go home to show tenderness to their spouse and children. Not being pure evil doesn't make it ok.

Re: How Americans Became So Sensitive to Harm

#115

Post by pessimizer » Wed, Apr 20, 2016, 5:57 PM UTC

existencebox wrote: post #80

pessimizer wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not Hispanic, and don't care at all about soccer, but I imagine it would be aggravating as hell. I'm black, and when white people call me bro, or start speaking in dialect - I honestly start to hate them. For cultural reasons, when a lot of white Americans are talking about getting fighting and getting angry, or partying and having fun, relaxing and being lazy, flirting or getting laid, or one-upping people or hu…

Honest question, since I don't think I've ever had the opportunity to ask this, but I'm curious where that line sits for you? To provide context while answering something you asked, I grew up in philly. I went to a city high school. I have (and most of the other white kids I associated with have) some parts of a philly accent, which I'm very aware I revert to when I, as you say, start partying/relaxing, but in my cas…

> I can tell you authoritatively, although you may not believe me (or say I should stop anyway, which would beg other questions on my part), that there's no "deep opinion" of black culture or speech in that, in fact, the highschool was unfortunately VERY self segregating and most of the white kids didn't have enough interaction to form deep opinions. (which is part of why I'd be curious to ask now about the accent thing, since I know that ALL of the kids there, race aside, picked it up to some degree but it was never something that was discussed, since we just... didn't really talk.)

I'd say the fact that one does pick up a dialect without much exposure to black people means that they do have a deep opinion of black culture - enough to imitate it without any social reason involving black people. They're trying to communicate something to the white people they interact with - what is it?

I know white people who have grown up completely surrounded by black people, with black relatives, black parents, black children, and have a harder time straightening out their speech than I do because I've hung out with tons of white people since I was a teenager. It's different than a white person who was/is isolated from black people constructing some practised black affect.

I bet I can tell Philly from dialect though. There's plenty of white people who have a natural accent close to a lot of black people. It's not really what I'm talking about.

Re: How Americans Became So Sensitive to Harm

#116

Post by PeterisP » Wed, Apr 20, 2016, 5:58 PM UTC

jules wrote: post #97

DougWebb wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fox hunting, where the fox is chased around by dogs for a long time before it is finally killed, is torture. Hunting with a rifle, where you sneak up on an animal and kill it before it even knows it's being hunted, is not. I'd say bow hunting is a grey area; if you have to track the bleeding animal down while it is slowly bleeding out, that's cruel. But if you're hunting for survival and a bow is all you have, or if…

If you compare the worst case scenario for hunting (fox hunting) with the best case scenario for slaughter, but often the slaughter isn't fun either. Many animals are very distressed on their way to the slaughter. Even more importantly, the lives they had before that point were probably much worse than the lives of the wild foxes. Farming animals for meat also happens on a scale that is absolutely incomparable to fox…

I'm reading the parent post not as "you say that hunting is permissible if you're hunting for survival" but instead as a claim that this cruelty is justified if and only if you're hunting for survival.

The same would apply for slaughter - if it would be a survival matter, then any methods would be permissible (i.e. some of the more cruel traditional approaches) but since it is not, it should be mandatory to use only the less painful approaches to slaughter.

Re: How Americans Became So Sensitive to Harm

#117

Post by Splines » Wed, Apr 20, 2016, 5:59 PM UTC

coldcode wrote: post #26

Because we have so many lawyers.

Expanding your point further, because I agree with you in that the CYA mentality is everywhere.

Whenever I see news about something bad happening, inevitably it turns into a blame game. What did someone not do?

The case of the mom getting arrested (http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/07/arrested...) infuriates me. The person who called the police (and, really, everyone involved "up the chain") was faced with a decision:

A.) Do nothing

B.) Call the police (escalate upwards in authority)

C.) Do something else, like find a safer place for the child to be, if you truly believe the park to be dangerous.

A is free, but comes with the non-zero cost of being "the person who did nothing" when something bad happens to the girl (unlikely, but possible). B is cheap (you need to hang around for the police and all that entails), but is an easy way to attain the moral high ground. C is expensive and really you'd be no better off than if you did B.

These three options exist for everyone involved, and they escalated upwards until they found someone who had enough power to do C cheaply enough that they didn't need to do B. That involved taking the child away.

Passing the buck upwards is easy to do and seldom will someone come after you for it. I don't have a good answer for how this can be solved, because I can't say with good conscience that it is never the right thing to do - there are obvious cases where it is.

I also find the amusing that my thoughts on "how would I make this right?" lead to "that mother should sue the state for lost wages or something". Clearly we have too many lawyers.

Re: How Americans Became So Sensitive to Harm

#118

Post by pessimizer » Wed, Apr 20, 2016, 6:05 PM UTC

twoodfin wrote: post #85

pessimizer wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not Hispanic, and don't care at all about soccer, but I imagine it would be aggravating as hell. I'm black, and when white people call me bro, or start speaking in dialect - I honestly start to hate them. For cultural reasons, when a lot of white Americans are talking about getting fighting and getting angry, or partying and having fun, relaxing and being lazy, flirting or getting laid, or one-upping people or hu…

I very much appreciate your comment. I also don't have a good understanding of the "fútbol" kerfuffle, if it indeed is offensive to some people. But at worst it'd seem to be on a par with folks mockingly pronouncing the name of a Minneapolis-based department store chain as "Tar-ZHAY". Why drop into French 'dialect'? Because you're communicating a point about its relative sophistication using (indeed) a stereotype, bu…

That's the old Norman stereotype of French things being better than English things. It's baked into the language.

There's no such relationship between Spanish and English, or at least none that I'm aware of. I would literally narrow that distinction all the way down to the use of French within English.

edit: I mean, we literally have no idea how to pronounce the most common English words until we figure out whether they were derived from French or not.

Re: How Americans Became So Sensitive to Harm

#119

Post by DougWebb » Wed, Apr 20, 2016, 6:15 PM UTC

jules wrote: post #97

DougWebb wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fox hunting, where the fox is chased around by dogs for a long time before it is finally killed, is torture. Hunting with a rifle, where you sneak up on an animal and kill it before it even knows it's being hunted, is not. I'd say bow hunting is a grey area; if you have to track the bleeding animal down while it is slowly bleeding out, that's cruel. But if you're hunting for survival and a bow is all you have, or if…

If you compare the worst case scenario for hunting (fox hunting) with the best case scenario for slaughter, but often the slaughter isn't fun either. Many animals are very distressed on their way to the slaughter. Even more importantly, the lives they had before that point were probably much worse than the lives of the wild foxes. Farming animals for meat also happens on a scale that is absolutely incomparable to fox…

I'm comparing "hunting for sport" against "hunting for food", and I'm comparing "hunting for food in a cruel way for the challenge" against "hunting for food in a cruel way out of necessity."

I don't think it's ok to torture a fox because it had a nice life before the torture started.

I don't think it's ok to torture a fox because we kill a lot more cows than foxes.

I don't think it's ok to torture animals that we raise for slaughter. I pay more for organic grass-fed cattle, free-range chicken and eggs, etc, in the hopes that the animals that provide my food were treated well while they were alive.

As I said at the start, I'm not a vegetarian. I'm definitely a part of the animal food chain, so I'm ok with the killing of animals further down the chain for me to eat, and I avoid the animals further up the chain so that I don't get eaten. (I wouldn't blame them if they got me, though.) What I object to is killing in a way that causes more suffering than it has to.

Re: How Americans Became So Sensitive to Harm

#120

Post by CM30 » Wed, Apr 20, 2016, 6:30 PM UTC

apalmer wrote: post #10

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 to be a commonly expressed concept, the idea that in large this phenomenon is strongly either caused or encouraged by a 'conspiracy' of the government.

Personably, I just consider the timing of all this stuff suspicious. Like how it became an increasingly large issue right after talk of income/class inequality and the 1% and Occupy and all that stuff. Suddenly the focus switches to something more convenient for large corporations and the well off...