Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> Warp wrote:
>>  >  A society consists of individuals, all of who must have the same
>>  > constitutional rights and responsibilities.
> 
>> And in California, they do. One of those is that same-sex couples can't get 
>> married, regardless of whether they're heterosexual or homosexual. You may 
>> think this is wrong, but you've offered zero advice on how one would go 
>> about making this better in a constitutional democracy.
> 
>   I like how you keep bringing up examples of discrimination as examples
> of non-discrimination.

You're completely missing the point of me bringing it up. I'm offering you 
examples that *you* think are discrimination that *most* people do not.

Is it age discrimination to outlaw adults having sex with prepubescents? If 
not, why not?

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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On 2-1-2011 23:12, Warp wrote:
> andrel<byt### [at] gmailcom>  wrote:
>> Wait a minute, are you really claiming that the white race is superior here?
>
>    Are you seriously expecting me not to get offended by such a comment?

Why on earth would I want to offend you? What would I gain by that?
No, it is just that what you wrote appeared to say that. I wanted to 
give you the opportunity to set the record straight, just in case 
somebody else reads it in this way.

In case you don't understand why I read it that way: we have been 
arguing that different groups have different chances based on irrelevant 
differences. I.e. what school you go to partly depends on your skin 
color and the social status of your parents. Now suddenly you claim that 
the elite (people born from well off parents) should be in charge.
To quote you: "The brilliant people are actually stopped from achieving 
innovation because they are forced to stand back. No matter how "unfair" 
it might be, but some people just are naturally more talented, 
intelligent and capable than others. This is just a fact of life and we 
have to live with it. Rather than complain about how unfair this is, the 
society as a whole benefits if these "elite" people are given the 
opportunity to thrive, to innovate, to drive progress. Moreover, they 
should actually been given incentive (eg. monetary) to do so."

I can only assume that you put quotes on "elite" to show that you 
actually don't mean the rich but the people with the best training. Only 
that does not work. In reality these two groups overlap to a great 
extend. That is what we have been saying the whole time, but what you 
refuse to acknowledge. So, in your private world this is not a racist 
remark, but be warned that quite a lot of people (not me) might see that 
different.

Before replying that I am a fool, reread your post with this in mind and 
see why I reacted the way I did.

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andrel wrote:
> I can only assume that you put quotes on "elite" to show that you 
> actually don't mean the rich but the people with the best training.

I read "elite" as meaning "people who actually are better."  Like the NFL 
football players are elite, usually not only because they got better 
football training.

What I failed to understand was why Warp brought up *this* subject at all. 
It seems completely at odds with the conversation so far.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> You're completely missing the point of me bringing it up. I'm offering you 
> examples that *you* think are discrimination that *most* people do not.

  I may be indeed missing the point because I don't understand what you
are trying to say. I *know* that many people have a different view on these
things than I do. So what? Does that somehow invalidate what I'm saying?

  As I have said before, I'm ranting precisely *because* many people have
differing views on these things than I do, not regardless.

> Is it age discrimination to outlaw adults having sex with prepubescents? If 
> not, why not?

  You might as well ask if it's discrimination to outlaw people from stealing
and murdering.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> andrel wrote:
> > I can only assume that you put quotes on "elite" to show that you 
> > actually don't mean the rich but the people with the best training.

> I read "elite" as meaning "people who actually are better."  Like the NFL 
> football players are elite, usually not only because they got better 
> football training.

  That's what I meant. Some people *are* more intelligent than others,
some people *are* more competent than others, some people *are* physically
more proficient than others, no matter how "unfair" that might feel. Rather
than trying to shut down these "elite" people, the system should try to
benefit from these individuals so that the whole society gets some benefit
(usually in the form of progress).

> What I failed to understand was why Warp brought up *this* subject at all. 
> It seems completely at odds with the conversation so far.

  It was a tangent written as a response to what Patrick wrote.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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andrel <byt### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> On 2-1-2011 23:12, Warp wrote:
> > andrel<byt### [at] gmailcom>  wrote:
> >> Wait a minute, are you really claiming that the white race is superior here?
> >
> >    Are you seriously expecting me not to get offended by such a comment?

> Why on earth would I want to offend you? What would I gain by that?

  Not all offence is intentional.

  I don't understand where the racial thing suddenly came up. I wasn't even
thinking about races when I wrote that. I was thinking about (idealistic)
socialism vs. capitalism, and the idea that it's somehow unfair that there
vast differences in social classes and wealth distribution.

> Now suddenly you claim that 
> the elite (people born from well off parents) should be in charge.

  You should read what I was responding to. Also, I didn't say that.
I said that more *talented* people should be awarded and allowed to
succeed, rather than forcing them down to the same line as everybody
else, no matter how "unfair" the idea of some people succeeding (eg.
by getting richer) might seem.

  I don't even have to quote myself because you do it perfectly:

> To quote you: "The brilliant people are actually stopped from achieving 
> innovation because they are forced to stand back. No matter how "unfair" 
> it might be, but some people just are naturally more talented, 
> intelligent and capable than others. This is just a fact of life and we 
> have to live with it. Rather than complain about how unfair this is, the 
> society as a whole benefits if these "elite" people are given the 
> opportunity to thrive, to innovate, to drive progress. Moreover, they 
> should actually been given incentive (eg. monetary) to do so."

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 1/2/2011 12:50 PM, Warp wrote:
> Patrick Elliott<sel### [at] npgcablecom>  wrote:
>> Mind, top down solutions do have one benefit... Eventually the effect is
>> to actually land more and more of the people who where *not* in the
>> category being discussed in the same boat, until nearly everyone is
>> equally poor, uneducated, and prospect-less. We see that starting to
>> happen too now, in the US. And, obviously, you no longer need "racial"
>> equality opportunity laws, if everyone is screwed equally by the system
>> anyway, and the problem is purely one of *no one* having good schools,
>> college, or any chance at a job paying more than poverty levels.
>
>    One could even make the argument that a society actually *benefits* on
> the whole in the long term from inequality (in terms of education, job
> opportunities and such), from some people being part of an "elite".
>
In point of fact, it only does so to a point, then you get a sort of 
striation, where neither the top or the bottom progress.

>    Why? Because not everybody can be an astrophysicist, an electronics
> engineer, a surgeon, or the CEO of a multi-billion dollar company. We
> need people who make and cause progress (the "elite"), and we need people
> who make that progress possible (the "workers"), and we need people to
> direct and lead other people (the "bosses").
>
True, the problem of course being that just because person X was a 
genius at Y, doesn't mean that X's children, with all the opportunities 
and money, will either a) apply themselves to being that good at 
anything, or b) won't be a total idiot, while person Z's kids, who have 
no money, no schooling, etc. might not have been far better. This isn't 
just a hypothetical either, it happens all the damn time, its just hard 
to see, if the resources for the guy that *should have* been elite 
consists of the stuff taken from the local trash can, while the village 
idiot can hire 50 people, slightly smarter than himself, to make a 
small, mediocre, improvement in something.

>    If everybody is forced to always stand on the same line as everybody
> else, that will stagnate and inhibit progress. The brilliant people are
> actually stopped from achieving innovation because they are forced to
> stand back. No matter how "unfair" it might be, but some people just are
> naturally more talented, intelligent and capable than others. This is just
> a fact of life and we have to live with it. Rather than complain about how
> unfair this is, the society as a whole benefits if these "elite" people are
> given the opportunity to thrive, to innovate, to drive progress. Moreover,
> they should actually been given incentive (eg. monetary) to do so.
>
>    This is the reason why I think pure socialism is bad for a society:
> In pure socialism nobody owns anything, and the government forces everybody
> to the same line. This stagnates progress and removes incentive for
> people to improve because there is no reward. While pure capitalism
> might be bad for other reasons, it at least motivates and rewards
> innovation (so the best solution might be somewhere in-between the two
> extremes).
>
Might be? Pure capitalism is what Microsoft tries to exist in. We know 
what their products look like. lol Seriously though, *pure* anything 
engenders stupidity. In the case of economics, pure socialism leaves you 
without incentives. Capitalism, on the other hand, in its pure form, 
rewards those that grab up as much as possible, discourages innovation, 
since any true innovation could badly screw someone's business plans 
(especially if it was someone else's), formation of monopolies, to 
prevent such competition, refusal to implement new ideas at all, since 
the basic cost of doing it would cut into existing profits, and the 
*profit* is more important than improving the products, and when they 
are improved, its flash and window dressing. Change the color, the 
shape, etc., but never *ever* invest in *new*. Only competition forces 
that to happen, and then only if the company with the original company 
can't just buy up something, then bury it in a closet for 50 years.

By some estimates, the nearly totally free system we have in the US may 
be leaving us 50 years *behind* where we should have been, precisely 
because of the, "I refuse to spend the money to adopt this, and hurt my 
billion dollar bonus at the end of the year, and the people buying form 
me won't know the difference anyway." Its even one of the libertardian 
arguments, which goes like, "You don't need limits of controls, because 
everyone should be able to figure out if we are robbing them blind, 
poisoning them, selling them crap!", while ignoring the basic fact that 
this *only* works if you a) have perfect information, and/or b) can 100% 
trust the people giving you information about the products. Since you 
don't have (a), and half the information sources on the market are 
*paid* to *inform* you about the products, or gloss over inconvenient 
details, you are left with the companies forcing each other to compete, 
and that only happens if someone else is standing behind them with a 
damn club.

The result, when they don't, is things like the oil industry, which is 
beholden to one single massive foreign corp to decide who gets the oil 
*they themselves* pumped out of the ground, or *worse* the insurance 
industry, which literally has a sort of convention every year, where 
everyone in it sits around a table, without the guy with the club, and 
goes, "Heh, what can we do to make more money, for less actual service 
this year!"

>    Things like government-imposed hiring and enrollment quotas fail for
> that same reason, because while trying to fight perceived discrimination,
> as a side-effect some of the truly brilliant people might get shunned.
> Granted, actual discrimination can shun brilliant people among the group
> of people being discriminated against, but hiring quotas are not the
> solution to that problem. They only cause more problems than they solve.
>
You really need to examine just how badly "pure capitalism", and lack of 
government intervention *does* fail. Hint: Somalia is often quoted as a 
Libertarian paradise, as a joke. No government to speak of, no 
regulation on anything, in theory, businesses could have *everything* 
they ever wanted. Well, they would have to hire their own cops, build 
their own jails, make laws for their properties as to what was and 
wasn't legal, prevent theft, rape, murder, drug dealing, etc. Oh, and 
somehow set up something to protect their products, so someone couldn't 
just steal them and sell identical stuff some place else. Oh, yeah, and, 
at some point, keep people from discriminating for, often, even stupider 
reasons than sex, or race. If only we already *had* something that did 
that sort of thing...

Everyone seems to be able to say what *isn't* the solution. Oddly, none 
of them can ever give a clear, workable, or even testable, solution that 
*will* solve the problem.

-- 
void main () {

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

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3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

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On 1/2/2011 5:38 PM, Darren New wrote:
> andrel wrote:
>> I can only assume that you put quotes on "elite" to show that you
>> actually don't mean the rich but the people with the best training.
>
> I read "elite" as meaning "people who actually are better." Like the NFL
> football players are elite, usually not only because they got better
> football training.
>
Think you will find that a) they get grabbed from all over, even bad 
schools, and b) they are the ones that don't instantly believe the, 
"good players don't use steroids!", spiel, but.. whatever.

-- 
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();
}

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3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

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On 1/3/2011 10:42 AM, Warp wrote:
> Darren New<dne### [at] sanrrcom>  wrote:
>> andrel wrote:
>>> I can only assume that you put quotes on "elite" to show that you
>>> actually don't mean the rich but the people with the best training.
>
>> I read "elite" as meaning "people who actually are better."  Like the NFL
>> football players are elite, usually not only because they got better
>> football training.
>
>    That's what I meant. Some people *are* more intelligent than others,
> some people *are* more competent than others, some people *are* physically
> more proficient than others, no matter how "unfair" that might feel. Rather
> than trying to shut down these "elite" people, the system should try to
> benefit from these individuals so that the whole society gets some benefit
> (usually in the form of progress).
>
And, as I pointed out, this is not necessarily *always* the rich people, 
with good schools. Or, are you honestly going to tell me that Paris 
Hilton is better off with all that money, and, as nightmare as it is to 
contemplate, opportunity for schooling, but some brilliant kid in a 
shitty school, who will probably resort to joining a gang some place, 
and running drugs, shouldn't even be given any chances?

Often "elite" doesn't mean better, it just means, "more privileged".

A good example of this was a post recently on a thread touching on 
similar things. His father *invented* nearly everything he ever used on 
the farm (since he didn't have the money to just buy equipment), he 
taught himself everything he knew, had almost no education, no chances, 
and started with no money. He ended with less land than you could live 
off of, government subsidies, no education, and *almost* no money. His 
kid had a few more chances than he did, because most of his money when 
to helping that happen. Had he been lucky enough to have had money, and 
gotten into college, odds are the guy would have ended up in 
engineering, or something. He wasn't stupider than his kid, he just had 
shit chances, no opportunities, and no money to find them, oh, and, at 
that time, no help from anyone *to try*.

This is pretty much what you get among "everyone" in the "bottom of the 
bucket", unless someone else steps in and provides an out. And, not all 
of them make enough, or the luck of remaining healthy, out of debt, 
etc., so their kid has better chances than they do. These people could 
have been "elite" too. Probably more people than we imagine could be, 
but the moneyed (not the same thing) don't want the competition, and 
other people have other excuses for not helping them at all.

-- 
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>

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On 3-1-2011 18:49, Warp wrote:
> andrel<byt### [at] gmailcom>  wrote:
>> On 2-1-2011 23:12, Warp wrote:
>>> andrel<byt### [at] gmailcom>   wrote:
>>>> Wait a minute, are you really claiming that the white race is superior here?
>>>
>>>     Are you seriously expecting me not to get offended by such a comment?
>
>> Why on earth would I want to offend you? What would I gain by that?
>
>    Not all offence is intentional.

Nor is being offended always justified. I think you should have known 
better by now, but that is just me.

>    I don't understand where the racial thing suddenly came up.

I though you wouldn't, so I explained it. ;)

> I wasn't even
> thinking about races when I wrote that. I was thinking about (idealistic)
> socialism vs. capitalism, and the idea that it's somehow unfair that there
> vast differences in social classes and wealth distribution.
>
>> Now suddenly you claim that
>> the elite (people born from well off parents) should be in charge.
>
>    You should read what I was responding to. Also, I didn't say that.
> I said that more *talented* people should be awarded and allowed to
> succeed, rather than forcing them down to the same line as everybody
> else, no matter how "unfair" the idea of some people succeeding (eg.
> by getting richer) might seem.
>
>    I don't even have to quote myself because you do it perfectly:
>
>> To quote you: "The brilliant people are actually stopped from achieving
>> innovation because they are forced to stand back. No matter how "unfair"
>> it might be, but some people just are naturally more talented,
>> intelligent and capable than others. This is just a fact of life and we
>> have to live with it. Rather than complain about how unfair this is, the
>> society as a whole benefits if these "elite" people are given the
>> opportunity to thrive, to innovate, to drive progress. Moreover, they
>> should actually been given incentive (eg. monetary) to do so."

There were a couple of lines from me below that where I explained that 
what you intended was not what you wrote. Don't bother quoting them, I 
can still find them in the post one up.

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