On Wed, 05 May 2010 23:01:06 +0100, Stephen wrote:

> You all know that this thread has a time limit. After tomorrow
> (Thursday) the election is over, I hope. <g>

It seems lots of people hope so, but what are the real odds of a hung 
parliament?

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On 5/5/2010 10:15 AM, Warp wrote:
>    Many so-called "multiculturalists" are calling for getting rid of the
> whole concept of "race", but this is purely for political and ideological
> reasons, not scientifical ones. Personally I see this as some kind of
> attempt at orwellian manipulation (like in the novel "1984"): If you
> completely ban offending vocabulary, the "criminals" (in this case racists)
> won't have any way of expressing their views.
>
>    Some anthropologists might have genuine and well-argumented scientifical
> reasons why they are advocating getting rid of the concept, but AFAIK they
> are a minority. I'm convinced that most people who do that are doing it for
> ideological reasons only.
>
On the other hand, the ideological reasons many have for keeping it are 
as bad, or worse. There was even some clown a while back teaching 
"diversity" at colleges, who had the gall to claim that you couldn't 
expect Black people to be on time, because there was something inherent 
in the "race" that made them always late, so you had to "work around" 
this issue, if you wanted to properly deal with and implement 
"diversity". He was a) also black, and b) completely serious about it, 
and had a whole host of other "traits" he tried to claim other people 
have, based on their race, and you had to adjust schedules, rules, 
policies, etc., not to be inclusive of different ideas (what most people 
call "diversity" in businesses, and which can sometimes be just as 
stupid), but different "races".

As far as I know, the bozo is still wandering around the country side 
babbling this BS at colleges.

-- 
void main () {

     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models, 
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

Post a reply to this message

On 5/5/2010 10:58 AM, Warp wrote:
>    For some reason you seem to think that "using a profile" means "discard
> all other evidence and *only* use the profile" (in some past post you even
> explicitly talked about profiles *increasing* the amount of subjects, which
> at the time I didn't understand at all because it made no sense, but now I
> think you were implying "using a profile *and* discarding all other clues").
> I don't understand where you are getting that. It's certainly not something
> I have said nor implied.
>
Somewhere I read something, I don't remember where, which stated that, 
when profiles work, its because enough was known of the suspect to 
already narrow the focus to someone that "fit" the profile, but that, in 
cases where almost nothing is known, its a 50:50 hit or miss. The whole 
FBI profile BS you see in TV, is just that, BS. It doesn't work, unless 
you already know you are looking for someone that "fits" the profile. At 
which point it acts as confirmation (sort of), but gives no other useful 
information, most of the time.

In which case, the result you end up with is **not** profiling. By 
definition, profiling means that you know where, when, but not who, did 
something, so you make a "projection", as to who did it. If you know 
nothing about the who, you can't make a useful bloody prediction, and 
you might be 100% dead wrong, about **everything** related to that 
profile, or avenues that result from it.

-- 
void main () {

     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models, 
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

Post a reply to this message

On 5/5/2010 12:49 PM, Darren New wrote:
> Warp wrote:
>> This is rather odd given that criminal profiling is an important tool of
>> investigation especially in the US:
>
> That's a different kind of profiling.
>
> "Offender profiling is a behavioral and investigative tool"
>
> It's for investigating, not arresting. It's based on behavior, not
> statistics.
>
> As I said, I'm not against "profiling" someone who is driving
> erratically and then checking if they're drunk. I'm not against
> "profiling" someone who isn't paying taxes comparable to their lifestyle
> and finding out if they're getting paid under the table because they're
> in the country illegally.
>
> The profiling people object to is the profiling based on things that
> *don't* have to do with the crime under investigation, such as genetics,
> age, clothing, hair style, or car color.
>
> Or, to sum it up again:
>
> 1) When doing offender profiling, you already know there's an offender
> involved.
>
> 2) The profile you develop is specific to the criminal, based on clues
> left at a crime scene.
>
> 3) When doing offender profiling, you don't use the profile as a means
> to determine who to arrest. You use it as a means to determine who to
> investigate and what further clues to look for and what kind of traps to
> set.
>
> In other words, you use the profile as a means of looking for more
> clues, not as a means of identifying a person. If the profile says "He
> probably had a vehicle", you ask the parking attendant for the video
> tapes of the cars that went in and out of the crime scene. You don't
> stop everyone with a vehicle and ask them for fingerprints. When the
> profile says "cunning" it means you don't set an obvious trap and hope
> the criminal won't notice; it doesn't mean you investigate lost of smart
> people who were around that day. If the profile says "likes to kill
> blond teenagers", you don't send cops dressed like little old black
> ladies walking around the park at night as bait in a trap for him.
>
> "Various aspects of the criminal's personality makeup are determined
> from his or her choices before, during, and after the crime."
>
> Offender profile is "this is what we think the criminal in *this* case
> is like, because of the clues he left." It's also used mainly when
> someone is committing *multiple* crimes in the same way. There's 500
> murders this year. But *these* six all had the victim tied up by their
> left ankle from a tree and had their nose mashed in with a hammer left
> at the site. If we catch someone doing that a seventh time, it's
> probably a good idea to ask him about the other six.
>
Exactly. This is the real thing, which too much of the simplistic TV 
gibberish you see "isn't".

> Racial profiling is "a majority of the people who commit crime X have
> trait Y that they can neither control nor change, but we're going to
> look disproportionately at people with trait Y, presupposing that a
> disproportionate number of them will commit crime X."
>
Precisely, and why, when it has been used, it fails as often as it works.

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models, 
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

Post a reply to this message

On Wed, 05 May 2010 18:33:46 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:

> On the other hand, the ideological reasons many have for keeping it are
> as bad, or worse. There was even some clown a while back teaching
> "diversity" at colleges, who had the gall to claim that you couldn't
> expect Black people to be on time, because there was something inherent
> in the "race" that made them always late, so you had to "work around"
> this issue, if you wanted to properly deal with and implement
> "diversity". He was a) also black, and b) completely serious about it,
> and had a whole host of other "traits" he tried to claim other people
> have, based on their race, and you had to adjust schedules, rules,
> policies, etc., not to be inclusive of different ideas (what most people
> call "diversity" in businesses, and which can sometimes be just as
> stupid), but different "races".
> 
> As far as I know, the bozo is still wandering around the country side
> babbling this BS at colleges.

It sounds like this bozo may be projecting cultural norms on an ethnic 
group.  For example, I note that often when I schedule an appointment 
with people in some countries in Africa (I have no idea what the person's 
race is because I don't speak on the phone with them, see them, or 
communicate in any way other than e-mail and chat typically), they may 
arrive at the online session as much as an hour late.  But I think that 
is largely a cultural thing, due to poor transportation infrastructure or 
other similar reasons that are environmental.

I guess what I may be trying to say is that this bozo has reasons for 
thinking what he does, but he's applying poor logic and attributing 
racial reasons rather than cultural or other environmental factors.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On 05/05/2010 11:59 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Wed, 05 May 2010 23:01:06 +0100, Stephen wrote:
>
>> You all know that this thread has a time limit. After tomorrow
>> (Thursday) the election is over, I hope.<g>
>
> It seems lots of people hope so, but what are the real odds of a hung
> parliament?
>
> Jim

“Real odds” how would I know? But at the end of last month they were 8 
to 13, so said the bookies. Today it was 4 to 7 for a hung parliament.
I think that our parliament should be hung ;-)


-- 

Best Regards,
	Stephen

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
> andrel <byt### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
>> You seemed to support that law or at least didn't condemn it.
> 
>   I think that's the core issue in this whole thread.
> 
>   It was not my intention to support that law. What I was really objecting
> to was (what I perceive to be) the hypersensitivity many people have with
> anything which deals with "race". In other words, my question was whether
> people are objecting to the law purely because they have an automatic
> aversion to anything that makes a distinction between races, or whether
> there are *logical* reasons to oppose the law. (No need to answer that
> for the umpteenth time. I am explaining here, not asking.)
> 

Ah, I wondered what was carrying this thread out for so long.

Alright, the reason is that race is not a good distinction. It looks
like it, on the surface. Maybe 90% of illegals are Mexican, I don't know
the exact numbers. But I would be willing to guess that around 80 to 90%
of the legal population would be of Mexican decent as well. So, race is
not the determining factor. There is also, as pointed out elsewhere in a
recent branch, the fact that you can not look at a person and say 'ahh,
they are this race'. The most you can say is 'they show features of
decent from this race.'

In an area that is already as racially charged and biased. where there
are people with strong prejudices in positions of power, allowing
discrimination based on race is akin to handing them a law saying 'we
know you were right all along, run those folks out of town.

>   There are people (but not anybody here, as far as I can tell) who are
> *so* hypersensitive about "racism" and racial issues that they are
> promoting outright banning the entire concept of "race", and are saying
> that *anything at all* which makes any kind of distinction between "races"
> is extremely bad and should be banned. Naturally even any kind of honest
> police work which does anything at all that distinguishes between racial
> features, is also automatically bad, even if there is absolutely nothing
> in that police work that could be considered discriminatory or racist.
> 

My personal opinion is that race is becoming meaningless as people allow
it to. I admit that I can not look at a person and tell the race of
their grandparents. If I can not look at someone and tell, and I suspect
that the average police officer can not simply look at someone and know
their race, why should race be a basis for anything?

Discussing racial issues and racism is fine, to me. Allowing racism to
bleed over into how the government interacts with citizens, in manners
were race is of no use at all is bad.

If you want to suppose that race can be determined, then I propose a
government wide challenge. Any official, acting, sitting, whatever, who
needs to be able to identify a person as being one race or another,
should be able to identify, and categorize, from picture peoples of the
following decent: Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Taiwanese, Thai,
Vietnamese, Maori, Malaysian, Native Austrialian; Indian, Saudi, Iraqi,
Egyptian; Nigerian, South Afriacan, Brazilian, Mexican, American,
British . . . and so on. Any misses would show that the traits they are
making decisions based on are either not indicative of a certain race or
it would show they are incapable of applying race as a means of
separating the correct people for what ever it is the law allows them to
separate people for.

>   My personal opinion is that *if* in some contexts crime could be more
> efficiently stopped by making the distinction, then it would make sense
> to do so. Race shouldn't be something to be so hypersensitive about. It's
> just another human trait as anything else.
> 

For the reason above, it isn't. A white shop owner says he was robbed by
'some Mexican gangster kids. you know, like those kids talking funny on
the corner.' near a Cuban neighborhood. Should the police focus on
Mexicans, or Cuban, or gang members? Maybe with a bit better
description, eye color, hair, height, skin color, they can narrow it
down. Could make things worse, and say it is a Brazilian neighborhood.
1000 mile difference geographically, a different language that sounds
similar, some shared facial traits in general. Similar cooking, if you
pick and choose carefully.

The average person is just unequipped to distinguish races, even if they
themselves think that they are. Because of that, why should the law,
which is enforced by the average person, allow them to make distinctions
based on their perception of race?

Post a reply to this message

Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> On Wed, 05 May 2010 18:33:46 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:

> > On the other hand, the ideological reasons many have for keeping it are
> > as bad, or worse. There was even some clown a while back teaching
> > "diversity" at colleges, who had the gall to claim that you couldn't
> > expect Black people to be on time, because there was something inherent
> > in the "race" that made them always late, so you had to "work around"
> > this issue, if you wanted to properly deal with and implement
> > "diversity". He was a) also black, and b) completely serious about it,
> > and had a whole host of other "traits" he tried to claim other people
> > have, based on their race, and you had to adjust schedules, rules,
> > policies, etc., not to be inclusive of different ideas (what most people
> > call "diversity" in businesses, and which can sometimes be just as
> > stupid), but different "races".
> > 
> > As far as I know, the bozo is still wandering around the country side
> > babbling this BS at colleges.

> It sounds like this bozo may be projecting cultural norms on an ethnic 
> group.  For example, I note that often when I schedule an appointment 
> with people in some countries in Africa (I have no idea what the person's 
> race is because I don't speak on the phone with them, see them, or 
> communicate in any way other than e-mail and chat typically), they may 
> arrive at the online session as much as an hour late.  But I think that 
> is largely a cultural thing, due to poor transportation infrastructure or 
> other similar reasons that are environmental.

> I guess what I may be trying to say is that this bozo has reasons for 
> thinking what he does, but he's applying poor logic and attributing 
> racial reasons rather than cultural or other environmental factors.

  It often seems that when someone claims some "race" (eg. "blacks") to
be in some way inferior to another (in practice exclusively "whites"),
it always causes huge controversy, but when it happens the other way
around, people seldom even notice, and if they do, they usually don't
care much, even though technically there's no difference.

  For example some years ago there was, I think, some kind of
multiculturalism / tolerance / anti-racism theme in some school here
in Finland (I think it was a secondary school, or the likes). One
task given to students was to write an essay on the subject. The best
essays were published on the website of the school.

  One of the essays had a rather peculiar sentence in it. Otherwise it
was typical text on this subject that you can expect from a person in
his early teens or such, and in fact this one sentence was likewise as
well. However, the contents of the sentence were rather peculiar in that
it stated how black people are generally better at sports than white people
(and this was written explicitly as an argument of why racist people are
so wrong in claiming that black people are inferior to white people).

  Apparently this didn't catch anybody's eye, as it was published in the
website as one of the best exemplars of student essays. The teacher who
read and evaluated the essay didn't seem to think anything special about it.

  Now, imagine that the sentence would have been reversed, in other words,
claiming that white people are in some thing better than black people.
Imagine the commotion and controversy.

  I think this example is rather telling. And it certainly isn't the only
example of such things.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Sabrina Kilian wrote:
> 
> If you want to suppose that race can be determined, then I propose a
> government wide challenge. Any official, acting, sitting, whatever, who
> needs to be able to identify a person as being one race or another,
> should be able to identify, and categorize, from picture peoples of the
> following decent: Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Taiwanese, Thai,
> Vietnamese, Maori, Malaysian, Native Austrialian; Indian, Saudi, Iraqi,
> Egyptian; Nigerian, South Afriacan, Brazilian, Mexican, American,
> British . . . and so on. Any misses would show that the traits they are
> making decisions based on are either not indicative of a certain race or
> it would show they are incapable of applying race as a means of
> separating the correct people for what ever it is the law allows them to
> separate people for.

I propose a challenge.

Let's take 50 Arizona police officers, follow them for a day, and see 
how accurately they identify illegal aliens. One side or the other would 
have to STFU about the quality of the officer's profiling methods.

  -Shay

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
>   I think this example is rather telling. And it certainly isn't the only
> example of such things.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0B9QGrpdu5Y

And yes, there are controversies over that. California keeps flip-flopping 
between "affirmative action" and not. (AA being where you make it easier for 
minorities to (say) get into college simply because they're a minority.)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Linux: Now bringing the quality and usability of
   open source desktop apps to your personal electronics.

Post a reply to this message