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On 3-5-2010 23:12, Darren New wrote:
> andrel wrote:
>> I guess Warp's problem is that not only the police is 'punished' but
>> the society as a whole even more.
>
> It depends on whether you believe you caught the right person in the
> first place.
The assumption was that they caught somebody with illegal substances, so
yes they caught the right person.
> What lots of people seem to be forgetting in this thread is that by far,
> the vast majority of the population is *not* breaking the law. If there
> were no limits on the techniques the police could use to find criminals,
> then the 99% of the people who are law-abiding would be subject to the
> same problems as the people who aren't. And the 99% of people who are
> law abiding are willing to let the guy with an open bottle of beer in
> the car go, so they don't get stopped and have the police rip *their*
> car apart in order to see if maybe there's any pot in a little baggy in
> the door panel or something.
You don't have to convince me. I just tried to explain what the problem
might be. It is very common for people to not understand this (or that
sentence ;) ). Often an underlying cause is that they see police as an
abstract group outside and above the society and not realize that
everyone of them is human. (Though, I assume nobody would express it
that way).
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On Mon, 03 May 2010 16:49:54 -0400, Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] san rrcom> wrote:
>> If the profile is "looks Mexican" and the policeman picks based on
>> "Mexican-looking guy walked past" then it's racist.
>
> In the technical sense maybe, but the policeman didn't necessarily do
> it
> with a racist mindset. Maybe he doesn't care what color, height or shoe
> size someone has, as long as the law is enforced.
>
> You can argue that profiling people like this is not the best and most
> efficient way of doing it, but why must racism always be assumed?
Because the law is crafted to require that the police discriminate based
on race and nothing else.
Jim
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On Mon, 03 May 2010 17:03:24 -0400, Warp wrote:
> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> On Mon, 03 May 2010 16:22:04 -0400, Warp wrote:
>
>> > Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> >> On Mon, 03 May 2010 14:40:52 -0400, Warp wrote:
>> >
>> >> > I consider myself to be the exact opposite of a racist in the
>> >> > sense that
>> >> > I *couldn't care less* about "race" or skin color or anything.
>> >
>> >> When you say "race matters", look out, you're making a distinction
>> >> based on race, whether you want to admit it or not.
>> >
>> > On the contrary: I'm *not* making any distinction based on race. To
>> > me
>> > it doesn't matter what race somebody might represent.
>
>> Um, you are, if you say "90% of illegal immigrants are of Hispanic
>> origin, so we should stop people of Hispanic origin in order to ensure
>> they're here legally". That's the textbook definition of racial
>> profiling.
>
> You didn't understand me. I do not distinguish race as being any more
> or less relevant than any other feature.
So are you changing your view? Otherwise I don't understand the
statement you made earlier about "if 90% of illegal immigrants are of
Mexican descent, then you should check them more frequently" (not an
exact quote, but you did make a statement to that effect). You are in
that statement making race *specifically* the *sole* reason for stopping
someone to ask for proof of citizenship.
> If hair color can be used for some statistic, then so be it. If race
> can
> be used for some statistic, then fine. I don't care. To me it's all the
> same. I don't make any special distinction.
Similarly, you couldn't say "people with black hair should be stopped to
see if they're illegal immigrants" because the fact that they have black
hair has no bearing on whether or not they're illegal immigrants or not.
Let's be clear here: The odds of catching someone as an illegal
immigrant are statistically low by profiling based on race, hair colour,
eye colour, or any other physical trait. It's not like 75/100 of people
of Hispanic descent in Arizona are illegal immigrants.
The law is very similar to laws enacted in WWII regarding internment of
people of Japanese descent here in the US. Or laws concerning the
identification of slaves in early US history that were based on skin
colour (because in general, if you were black, you were a slave).
> Or in other words, I'm not hypersensitive about talking about race, as
> so many other people seem to be. To me it's just as incosequential as a
> subject as hair or eye color.
>
> If the distinguishing feature of some statistic happens to be race,
> and
> you really want to call it "racial profiling", then I suppose I can't
> stop you. It's just that the term "racial profiling" is always used in a
> very negative sense, like it was a thousand times more outrageous than
> making a statistic based eg. on gender or age groups. To me it's all the
> same. I don't make any special distinction between them.
>
> I wish everybody else was like that too. I wish the world was a place
> where you can talk about human races, make statistics about them and
> whatever, freely and without any kind of worry, because it's just as
> inconsequential as gender, age or shoe size.
>
> But no. If you start talking about races, making statistics and
> profiles,
> you are immediately labeled as racist. Sheesh.
That's because making a decision about someone's guilt or innocence based
solely on the colour of their skin is a racist decision. Period, end of
story. What about that don't you understand?
Jim
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On Mon, 03 May 2010 22:54:20 +0200, andrel wrote:
> I guess Warp's problem is that not only the police is 'punished' but the
> society as a whole even more.
That provides the police with incentive to follow the rules. What's
more, if the police don't follow the rules, not only does the bad guy
potentially get put back on the street, but the police can also be held
liable for their noncompliance with the law - so there's a societal
incentive for the police to follow the laws and there's a personal
incentive.
Jim
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andrel wrote:
> The assumption was that they caught somebody with illegal substances, so
> yes they caught the right person.
Yes, but that claim is indistinguishable from not finding illegal substances
and claiming they did.
You're saying "you let crooks go free." I'm saying "you don't know they're
crooks if you let the police do this."
>> What lots of people seem to be forgetting
> You don't have to convince me.
Sure. I was addressing "lots of people." :-)
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Linux: Now bringing the quality and usability of
open source desktop apps to your personal electronics.
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On 3-5-2010 20:40, Warp wrote:
> Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
>> I fear that you are projecting your notions of how "racist people" behave
>> and what they think on me, for the sole reason that I dared to mention
>> ethnicity as something which could be used for illegal immigration
>> statistics. As ironic as that may sound, I call that prejudice.
>
> Btw, do you know what I find both interesting and sad?
Yes and do you know what I find interesting and sad?
That there is such a large gap between what you intend and what you
write. We have been through this several times and I really think that
you are sincere and that you are not a racist yourself. Somehow that
does not stop you from writing the most stupid things without realizing
what that means to others. Why don't you trust other people's judgement
if they say that a remark is a racist one? You might not really mean it
that way, you might not see all the consequences, you might just repeat
a convincing argument you heard in the pub, but some people here live in
societies where racism is part of everyday life. They have seen what
kind of arguments have led to what behaviour. Based on that they know
that e.g. racial profiling is bad, really bad. That has nothing to do
with being "devoted anti-racism activist" just experience and common
sense. The alternative is of course to decide that you know more than
anybody else and that you can insult every other loser here that
disagrees with you as much as you like.
> But that's the modern western culture today. Either you are a devoted
> anti-racism activist, or a white-power supremacist. There is no middle
> ground. Especially there is no "I don't care" option.
Jim, Darren, me and whoever entered this discussion are all something in
between. IMO you are the one who is forcing everybody into some box or
another. The main message is that there are things you can better not
say on internet fora because people will read them wrong. That has not
so much to do with political correctness but with not insulting people
needlessly.
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On 3-5-2010 21:35, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Mon, 03 May 2010 00:49:20 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>
>>> The law goes further, though, by making it possible for people to sue
>>> law enforcement for *not* enforcing the law - so if someone thinks
>>> their neighbor is an illegal and calls the police, and the police do
>>> nothing about it, then the neighbor can sue the state for failing to
>>> take action (so I understand).
>>>
>>> Jim
>> Yeah. One person put it like this: "Damned if you do, damned if you
>> don't, so you are just damned 'period'."
>
> Yep. And a cop of Hispanic descent in Tucson has actually filed a
> lawsuit over this now.
I think I would too if every time I met a colleague I had to present my
birth certificate and every time I arrested someone he could escape
while my back up tried to establish if I was legally in the state. I
guess it would distract from my work.
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On 5/3/2010 12:35 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Mon, 03 May 2010 00:49:20 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>
>>> The law goes further, though, by making it possible for people to sue
>>> law enforcement for *not* enforcing the law - so if someone thinks
>>> their neighbor is an illegal and calls the police, and the police do
>>> nothing about it, then the neighbor can sue the state for failing to
>>> take action (so I understand).
>>>
>>> Jim
>> Yeah. One person put it like this: "Damned if you do, damned if you
>> don't, so you are just damned 'period'."
>
> Yep. And a cop of Hispanic descent in Tucson has actually filed a
> lawsuit over this now.
>
> Jim
Well, as the same person explained it, when he said he was **not** going
to enforce the law, was, "Before this, if we found someone we felt was
likely to be illegal, we handed them over to the border patrol (I assume
this means the Mexican one), now they want me to put them in jail, waste
tax payers money figuring out if we need to do something *then* turn
them over to the same people. And, if I don't, I can be sued?"
--
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>
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On Mon, 03 May 2010 15:34:18 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Well, as the same person explained it, when he said he was **not** going
> to enforce the law, was, "Before this, if we found someone we felt was
> likely to be illegal, we handed them over to the border patrol (I assume
> this means the Mexican one), now they want me to put them in jail, waste
> tax payers money figuring out if we need to do something *then* turn
> them over to the same people. And, if I don't, I can be sued?"
Handing over to border patrol would be the US Border Patrol, not the
Mexican border patrol. That's part of US Immigrations & Customs.
At least that's my understanding. But he raises a good point; the
analysis of the case I've read, though, talks about specific
constitutional violations (more than just the 4th, as I recall).
Jim
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On Tue, 04 May 2010 00:30:10 +0200, andrel wrote:
> I think I would too if every time I met a colleague I had to present my
> birth certificate and every time I arrested someone he could escape
> while my back up tried to establish if I was legally in the state. I
> guess it would distract from my work.
Yeah, that could be a bit of a problem. :-)
Jim
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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> On Mon, 03 May 2010 22:54:20 +0200, andrel wrote:
> > I guess Warp's problem is that not only the police is 'punished' but the
> > society as a whole even more.
> That provides the police with incentive to follow the rules.
But at what cost? They know that the person is a criminal who has harmed
or will harm other people (or both), yet they let him go because of a
technicality. It's the policeman who should be punished for breaking the
law, not innocent bystanders who may be harmed by the criminal who was
let go on purpose...
--
- Warp
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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Every feature you mentioned is part of "race". It's all based on genetics.
Gender and age is part of "race"?
> Was this intentional, or did you also want to include, say, style of
> clothing, amount of taxes paid last year, which God you happen to worship, etc?
Didn't I say it clearly enough? To me it's all the same. It doesn't matter
*what* is used.
--
- Warp
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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> So are you changing your view?
*sigh*
> Otherwise I don't understand the
> statement you made earlier about "if 90% of illegal immigrants are of
> Mexican descent, then you should check them more frequently" (not an
> exact quote, but you did make a statement to that effect).
As opposed to "race must not be used for profiling because that's baaad!"
People are oversensitive whenever "race" comes into question. All I said
is that if "race" *could* be used to catch criminals more efficiently, it
would make sense to use it. (Which is different from claiming that race
*can* be used for that purpose.) However, even making such a suggestion
seems to be a huge no no.
How many times do I have to explain this? I'm tired of explaining it,
so I won't do it anymore. If you don't want to understand, then don't.
Think whatever you wish.
> > If hair color can be used for some statistic, then so be it. If race
> > can
> > be used for some statistic, then fine. I don't care. To me it's all the
> > same. I don't make any special distinction.
> Similarly, you couldn't say "people with black hair should be stopped to
> see if they're illegal immigrants" because the fact that they have black
> hair has no bearing on whether or not they're illegal immigrants or not.
If it raises the apprehension rates of illegal immigrants, then technically
speaking it would make sense. (Of course a different question is whether it
really does, and another different question is how people will feel about
that.)
> That's because making a decision about someone's guilt or innocence based
> solely on the colour of their skin is a racist decision. Period, end of
> story. What about that don't you understand?
What I don't understand is why you keep saying that even though I have
made absolutely no claim in relation to that. I have never talked about
"deciding someone's guilt or innocence". That's all your invention.
But it really doesn't surprise me. When people see "race" and "statistics"
and "criminals" in the same paragraph, they immediately see "racism, racism,
racism, racism" and nothing else, and they start forming all kinds of
preconceptions of what was *really* being said.
I am becoming really tired of these "you have said", "you claimed",
"you argued" lies.
--
- Warp
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andrel <byt### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> That there is such a large gap between what you intend and what you
> write. We have been through this several times and I really think that
> you are sincere and that you are not a racist yourself. Somehow that
> does not stop you from writing the most stupid things without realizing
> what that means to others. Why don't you trust other people's judgement
> if they say that a remark is a racist one?
So when people have preconceptions and strong prejudice against anybody
who even dares to mention things like "race" and "statistics" and "crime"
in the same sentence, *regardless of what he is really saying*, and then
they start making up all kind of lies about what I have claimed and accusing
me of whatever, and they keep going on and on with these lies even after
I clearly and repeatedly explain what I'm saying, and they keep pulling
things I write out of context, *I* am the one to blame for being stupid?
Well, maybe I am stupid for assuming that people can have a rational
conversation even if the subject happens to contain the term "race".
--
- Warp
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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> > As I said, the police checks random drivers here, and I don't see it
> > as a
> > bad thing. Hence it's not *always* a bad thing.
> And over here that's not the way law enforcement generally works. You
> seem to trust your government; over here, we tend not to.
I honestly fail to see how random sobriety testing is a trust issue.
--
- Warp
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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> > In fact, what I have done is to oppose the idea that law enforcement asking
> > random people for their ID
> Even that wouldn't raise the outcry we have here. But police aren't being
> told to check *random* people. They're not stopping every tenth person
> driving past, like they do with the sobriety checkpoints. They're stopping
> people who *look* like an illegal immigrant.
> They are using a profile. They aren't using "random". Stopping "random"
> people isn't anything to do with "If 90% of the lawbreakers are X, then you
> should check people who are X", regardless of what X is.
This conversation is going in circles. If I dared to repeat my original
point once again, it would go on and on forever.
--
- Warp
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Warp wrote:
>> That provides the police with incentive to follow the rules.
>
> But at what cost? They know that the person is a criminal who has harmed
> or will harm other people (or both),
At this point, so are the policemen.
And no, they don't know that. It hasn't been investigated. It's that whole
annoying innocent-until-proven-guilty thing we have going here. :-)
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Linux: Now bringing the quality and usability of
open source desktop apps to your personal electronics.
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Warp wrote:
> People are oversensitive whenever "race" comes into question. All I said
> is that if "race" *could* be used to catch criminals more efficiently, it
> would make sense to use it.
And where race can be used to catch criminals more efficiently, it is, and
it's legal. You gave similar examples yourself, where gender is used to
catch criminals more efficiently. However, that's not what the rest of us
are talking about.
> However, even making such a suggestion seems to be a huge no no.
Because in the scenarios you're giving as examples, race can't be used that way.
> But it really doesn't surprise me. When people see "race" and "statistics"
> and "criminals" in the same paragraph, they immediately see "racism, racism,
> racism, racism" and nothing else, and they start forming all kinds of
> preconceptions of what was *really* being said.
And that's because race is not a useful indicator of criminality before you
know about a specific crime and have some *evidence* that some specific
person of a specific race has committed that crime. Then you do a DNA test.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Linux: Now bringing the quality and usability of
open source desktop apps to your personal electronics.
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Warp wrote:
> I honestly fail to see how random sobriety testing is a trust issue.
It's not. It's the non-random non-probable-cause sobriety testing that's a
trust issue.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Linux: Now bringing the quality and usability of
open source desktop apps to your personal electronics.
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On Tue, 04 May 2010 07:57:49 -0400, Warp wrote:
> I am becoming really tired of these "you have said", "you claimed",
> "you argued" lies.
You're the one who's making assertions, Warp - if you don't want to back
them up, that's fine, but don't be surprised when people challenge your
assumptions. I think Andrel has you pegged right, that you do a very
poor job of translating what you're thinking into words on the screen,
and then you get pissed at everyone because we're *trying* to understand
something YOU think is obvious - and then you start lashing out at people
saying that they're intentionally misundersanding you just to piss you
off.
Maybe it's time for me to filter your posts again, because you take such
an irrational approach to discussion. But of course, you'll see that as
some sort of insult, no doubt.
Jim
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On Tue, 04 May 2010 08:06:58 -0400, Warp wrote:
> Well, maybe I am stupid for assuming that people can have a rational
> conversation even if the subject happens to contain the term "race".
No, but you assume that what you're writing and what people are reading
are the same thing, and when people try to get you to clarify what you're
saying because it isn't making sense, you assume that the READER is
either stupid or trying to twist your words, and then you launch an
attack on them.
What we have here is a failure to communicate. Plain and simple. You
simply refuse to acknowledge that you play a role in this failure to
communicate, and that everyone ELSE must be stupid.
Jim
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On Tue, 04 May 2010 07:42:19 -0400, Warp wrote:
> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> On Mon, 03 May 2010 22:54:20 +0200, andrel wrote:
>
>> > I guess Warp's problem is that not only the police is 'punished' but
>> > the society as a whole even more.
>
>> That provides the police with incentive to follow the rules.
>
> But at what cost? They know that the person is a criminal who has
> harmed
> or will harm other people (or both), yet they let him go because of a
> technicality. It's the policeman who should be punished for breaking the
> law, not innocent bystanders who may be harmed by the criminal who was
> let go on purpose...
The cost is the greater good ultimately. If police are required to
follow the rules or else someone guilty gets let off, then they're
incented to play by the rules.
But you'd probably rather see innocent people locked up because of a
police procedure error, wouldn't you? At least then the cops will have
locked *someone* up for the crime. If there even was one.
Jim
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On Tue, 04 May 2010 08:08:39 -0400, Warp wrote:
> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> > As I said, the police checks random drivers here, and I don't see
>> > it as a
>> > bad thing. Hence it's not *always* a bad thing.
>
>> And over here that's not the way law enforcement generally works. You
>> seem to trust your government; over here, we tend not to.
>
> I honestly fail to see how random sobriety testing is a trust issue.
What Darren said. Again we have a failure to communicate. You want to
admit to your part in it, or continue to assert that everyone who doesn't
agree with you is stupid?
Jim
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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> You're the one who's making assertions, Warp - if you don't want to back
> them up, that's fine, but don't be surprised when people challenge your
> assumptions. I think Andrel has you pegged right, that you do a very
> poor job of translating what you're thinking into words on the screen,
> and then you get pissed at everyone because we're *trying* to understand
> something YOU think is obvious - and then you start lashing out at people
> saying that they're intentionally misundersanding you just to piss you
> off.
Incorrect. I get pissed off when people keep telling the lies even after
I have explained what I mean many, many times. Even after I have told ten
times "I didn't say that", people still keep at it again and again.
> Maybe it's time for me to filter your posts again, because you take such
> an irrational approach to discussion. But of course, you'll see that as
> some sort of insult, no doubt.
If that makes you feel better, who am I to stop you?
--
- Warp
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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> On Tue, 04 May 2010 08:06:58 -0400, Warp wrote:
> > Well, maybe I am stupid for assuming that people can have a rational
> > conversation even if the subject happens to contain the term "race".
> No, but you assume that what you're writing and what people are reading
> are the same thing, and when people try to get you to clarify what you're
> saying because it isn't making sense, you assume that the READER is
> either stupid or trying to twist your words, and then you launch an
> attack on them.
I have said several times what I mean, but you keep going on and on with
the same "you defend putting people in jail because of being brown" bullshit.
It's like you read only what you want to read. Then you accuse me of
"launching an attack" or whatever.
> What we have here is a failure to communicate. Plain and simple. You
> simply refuse to acknowledge that you play a role in this failure to
> communicate, and that everyone ELSE must be stupid.
See, here we go again. You are putting words in my mouth. Words I have
never said. This is your idea of "communication"?
--
- Warp
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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> On Tue, 04 May 2010 08:08:39 -0400, Warp wrote:
> > Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> >> > As I said, the police checks random drivers here, and I don't see
> >> > it as a
> >> > bad thing. Hence it's not *always* a bad thing.
> >
> >> And over here that's not the way law enforcement generally works. You
> >> seem to trust your government; over here, we tend not to.
> >
> > I honestly fail to see how random sobriety testing is a trust issue.
> What Darren said. Again we have a failure to communicate. You want to
> admit to your part in it, or continue to assert that everyone who doesn't
> agree with you is stupid?
Where did that come from? Where did you conjure this "stupidity" thing all
of a sudden? Exactly what in my sentence above implies anything like that?
Is this your idea of "communication"?
--
- Warp
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Warp wrote:
> It's like you read only what you want to read. Then you accuse me of
> "launching an attack" or whatever.
I don't know about anyone else, but part of the problem I have in these
conversations is when people say something[1], I make an important
correction or other form of disagreement[2], and my response does not
indicate that the reader has read and/or understood the point being made.[3]
In this conversation, for example, Warp says "If 90% of illegal immigrants
look Mexican, wouldn't it be more efficient to focus on people who look
Mexican?"[1] I answer "No, the math doesn't work that way, because... for
example..."[2] And then Warp, instead of saying "Oh, I see, that's a good
point I hadn't considered" before continuing the conversation, instead says
"Stop nit-picking the math." Or instead doesn't respond at all, giving the
impression they haven't even read the answer.[3] It would be far better to
respond "Yes, I see what you're saying. However, I disagree because..." Then
it wouldn't turn into a dead-horse-beating-fest.
The problem in this particular conversation here is that it appears to me
Warp was dismissing as a nit-pick something that's the fundamental basic
reason why his idea won't work regardless of which *correct* math one uses.
There is no way to correct the math to make his idea work better than what
we already have, but he never seems to acknowledge that he has understood
the assertion (even if he disagrees), and instead reasserts he was saying
something different than we seem to be arguing against. Yet he has not shown
he understands our position.
That said, I'm probably guilty of some of the same behavior in my own way.
But I can only speak from my point of view.
This is a recurring theme in many of these conversations, where one person
says something important, and the other dismisses it in a way that makes it
sound like it's unimportant and trivial. So the first person repeats the
assertion, and the second gets POed that the first person keeps repeating
himself.
That's why when someone convinces me, I follow up with something like
"that's a fair point" rather than just letting the conversation stop. It
let's the sender know the reader has heard.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Linux: Now bringing the quality and usability of
open source desktop apps to your personal electronics.
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On Tue, 04 May 2010 14:54:49 -0400, Warp wrote:
> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> You're the one who's making assertions, Warp - if you don't want to
>> back them up, that's fine, but don't be surprised when people challenge
>> your assumptions. I think Andrel has you pegged right, that you do a
>> very poor job of translating what you're thinking into words on the
>> screen, and then you get pissed at everyone because we're *trying* to
>> understand something YOU think is obvious - and then you start lashing
>> out at people saying that they're intentionally misundersanding you
>> just to piss you off.
>
> Incorrect. I get pissed off when people keep telling the lies even
> after
> I have explained what I mean many, many times. Even after I have told
> ten times "I didn't say that", people still keep at it again and again.
That's just it: You accuse others of *lying* when in fact the
restatement of what you've said isn't accurate. It isn't that we're
LYING, it's that you're not being clear enough for us to understand, and
we're trying to clarify your position. Then you start employing the
"liar liar pants on fire" defense and getting pissed off.
And you wonder why people don't like debating with you. Maybe it's
because you (a) deal in absolute positions, and (b) instead of clarifying
when someone says "you're not making sense", you launch into personal
attacks.
>> Maybe it's time for me to filter your posts again, because you take
>> such an irrational approach to discussion. But of course, you'll see
>> that as some sort of insult, no doubt.
>
> If that makes you feel better, who am I to stop you?
It doesn't make me feel better. I like *reasoned* debate. But when I
come up against someone who takes an absolutist position and then turns
around and accuses me of twisting what they said and then accusing me of
lying, when I'm actually TRYING TO UNDERSTAND, yeah, I get pissed off to
the point of saying "there's no point in continuing the discussion."
Jim
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On Tue, 04 May 2010 14:58:00 -0400, Warp wrote:
> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> On Tue, 04 May 2010 08:06:58 -0400, Warp wrote:
>
>> > Well, maybe I am stupid for assuming that people can have a
>> > rational
>> > conversation even if the subject happens to contain the term "race".
>
>> No, but you assume that what you're writing and what people are reading
>> are the same thing, and when people try to get you to clarify what
>> you're saying because it isn't making sense, you assume that the READER
>> is either stupid or trying to twist your words, and then you launch an
>> attack on them.
>
> I have said several times what I mean, but you keep going on and on
> with
> the same "you defend putting people in jail because of being brown"
> bullshit. It's like you read only what you want to read. Then you accuse
> me of "launching an attack" or whatever.
That's because you keep saying "profiling based on race isn't a problem"
and then claim - quite counterintuitively, that you don't see race. You
sound like Stephen Colbert, except that he's engaging in *satire* and I
don't think you are.
>> What we have here is a failure to communicate. Plain and simple. You
>> simply refuse to acknowledge that you play a role in this failure to
>> communicate, and that everyone ELSE must be stupid.
>
> See, here we go again. You are putting words in my mouth. Words I have
> never said. This is your idea of "communication"?
Oh FFS, I AM NOT PUTTING WORDS IN YOUR MOUTH.
Jim
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On Tue, 04 May 2010 15:00:34 -0400, Warp wrote:
> Where did you conjure this "stupidity" thing
> all
> of a sudden?
You imply it when you say "I've explained it over and over again and I'm
not going to continue to repeat myself". The undertone there is "if
you're too stupid to understand it, I'm not going to try any more".
My idea of communication is that instead of continuing to REPEAT
something that is clearly not being understood, you instead start
attacking and implying (perhaps unintentionally) that either the reader
is too stupid to understand you OR you accuse them of twisting what
you're saying into something that isn't what you're saying.
When I engage in these conversations with you, Warp, it's never ever ever
ever EVER with the intention of "twisting your words". It's with the
intention of trying to understand what you're saying. But you utilize
the English language well enough that I often forget that you're not a
native speaker, and then you engage in such forceful tactics that you
come across as arrogant and telling the people you're talking with that
they're just too dumb to understand what you're trying to say.
Instead of trying to explain, you then get all defensive and blame
everyone else. Nothing's *ever* your fault, apparently, when you say
something and nobody understands you. It's always someone else's fault.
And when we try to explain to you our point of view, you then start
saying "well, what's wrong with my point of view" in a way that comes
across (perhaps unintentionally) as "if you're too stupid to see what I'm
saying, I'm afraid I can't help you".
Jim
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On 4-5-2010 23:47, Darren New wrote:
> Warp wrote:
>> It's like you read only what you want to read. Then you accuse me of
>> "launching an attack" or whatever.
>
> I don't know about anyone else, but part of the problem I have in these
> conversations is when people say something[1], I make an important
> correction or other form of disagreement[2], and my response does not
> indicate that the reader has read and/or understood the point being
> made.[3]
>
> In this conversation, for example, Warp says "If 90% of illegal
> immigrants look Mexican, wouldn't it be more efficient to focus on
> people who look Mexican?"[1] I answer "No, the math doesn't work that
> way, because... for example..."[2] And then Warp, instead of saying
> "Oh, I see, that's a good point I hadn't considered" before continuing
> the conversation, instead says "Stop nit-picking the math." Or instead
> doesn't respond at all, giving the impression they haven't even read the
> answer.[3] It would be far better to respond "Yes, I see what you're
> saying. However, I disagree because..." Then it wouldn't turn into a
> dead-horse-beating-fest.
>
> The problem in this particular conversation here is that it appears to
> me Warp was dismissing as a nit-pick something that's the fundamental
> basic reason why his idea won't work regardless of which *correct* math
> one uses. There is no way to correct the math to make his idea work
> better than what we already have, but he never seems to acknowledge that
> he has understood the assertion (even if he disagrees), and instead
> reasserts he was saying something different than we seem to be arguing
> against. Yet he has not shown he understands our position.
>
> That said, I'm probably guilty of some of the same behavior in my own
> way. But I can only speak from my point of view.
Oh, I definitely am. Sometimes the tone of a discussion makes it hard to
respond calmly and well thought through. Luckily, there is often time
later to correct it a bit. Except when the thread dies suddenly of course.
> This is a recurring theme in many of these conversations, where one
> person says something important, and the other dismisses it in a way
> that makes it sound like it's unimportant and trivial. So the first
> person repeats the assertion, and the second gets POed that the first
> person keeps repeating himself.
>
> That's why when someone convinces me, I follow up with something like
> "that's a fair point" rather than just letting the conversation stop. It
> let's the sender know the reader has heard.
IME a thread with Warp dies when there is nothing left for him than to
apologize or at least admit that things might be more subtle than he
originally though. Although from his perspective it could also be the
point where we thick heads have made clear that we are never going to
understand his position.
We have made progress, however. It has been a long time since I have
seen "grow up, this is the internet" when someone explained why a
particular remark hurt his (or a groups) feeling.
Next goal: eradicate the use of "that is just political correctness" as
an 'argument' to dismiss another's point of view.
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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> > Incorrect. I get pissed off when people keep telling the lies even
> > after
> > I have explained what I mean many, many times. Even after I have told
> > ten times "I didn't say that", people still keep at it again and again.
> That's just it: You accuse others of *lying* when in fact the
> restatement of what you've said isn't accurate. It isn't that we're
> LYING, it's that you're not being clear enough for us to understand, and
> we're trying to clarify your position. Then you start employing the
> "liar liar pants on fire" defense and getting pissed off.
You make it sound like you (and others) had written sentence in the form:
"Do you mean X? I disagree with that." Or: "I understood what you wrote as
if you were defending position X. I think defending that is wrong."
Nope. Instead what has been being written was: "You claimed that X. That's
completely wrong." And not only once. Many times, even after me explaining
several times that "no, I did not claim that".
So if I have responded several times already that "I did not claim that",
and even *after* that you still keep saying "you claimed X", then what else
is it than lying?
If you misunderstood something I wrote, that's ok. When I later say that
what you interpreted was not what I was trying to say, the correct thing to
do is to stop saying "you claimed X" over and over.
If you don't like being called a liar, neither do I. If you don't
acknowledge me when I say "I did not claim that", then you are, effectively,
calling me a liar, as you keep insisting that I made the claim.
> >> Maybe it's time for me to filter your posts again, because you take
> >> such an irrational approach to discussion. But of course, you'll see
> >> that as some sort of insult, no doubt.
> >
> > If that makes you feel better, who am I to stop you?
> It doesn't make me feel better. I like *reasoned* debate. But when I
> come up against someone who takes an absolutist position and then turns
> around and accuses me of twisting what they said and then accusing me of
> lying, when I'm actually TRYING TO UNDERSTAND, yeah, I get pissed off to
> the point of saying "there's no point in continuing the discussion."
I simply can't understand your rationale with the post filtering thing.
I have been writing to this group almost daily, and I have hard time
believing that you find my thousands of posts irritating.
In this one thread I happened to take a non-politically-correct stance,
and dared to defend it even under strong disagreement. Maybe I *am* stubborn
and irritating in this particular thread, and I can perfectly understand if
you don't want to continue a discussion which is going nowhere (something
I agree with).
What does post filtering help here? It won't stop you seeing other people
quoting me. If the conversation continues with others, you will still see
my posts, or parts of them. Something which you didn't want to continue
doing in this thread. So wouldn't the sensible thing be to simply stop
reading the thread?
Could you explain your rationale?
--
- Warp
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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> In this conversation, for example, Warp says "If 90% of illegal immigrants
> look Mexican, wouldn't it be more efficient to focus on people who look
> Mexican?"[1] I answer "No, the math doesn't work that way, because... for
> example..."[2] And then Warp, instead of saying "Oh, I see, that's a good
> point I hadn't considered" before continuing the conversation, instead says
> "Stop nit-picking the math." Or instead doesn't respond at all, giving the
> impression they haven't even read the answer.[3] It would be far better to
> respond "Yes, I see what you're saying. However, I disagree because..." Then
> it wouldn't turn into a dead-horse-beating-fest.
The problem is that you are misinterpreting my response, even *after*
I explained it more clearly.
Originally I was comparing "concentrate the resources on people who fit
the profile better" vs. "distribute the resources evenly among all people".
That last part is important.
I might not have explicitly said that in the original post, but I tried
to explain in followups, for example by comparing the situation to solving
a rape crime, where it makes sense to restrict investigation on males instead
of spreading the investigation equally on males and females. In other words,
when you narrow your input by some factor, the same resources will be more
efficiently used compared to if you distributed the resource evenly to the
entire input.
Your argument was that "using ethnicity as a basis of narrowing down the
possible suspects is not the *best* factor". In other words, you were not
disagreeing with what I was saying (in other words, that narrowing the
input by using some known factor helps utilize resources better), you were
simply disagreeing with the notion that ethnicity would be the best factor
to do that.
That's also fine, and I said that many times. I didn't claim that
ethnicity is the *best* factor. I simply said that narrowing factors can
be used to distribute resources better and increase the likelihood of
success, and that *if* ethnicity were such a factor (which is different
from saying that it *is* such a factor), it would make sense to use it.
I even gave a simple example where this indeed gave a positive result.
The example was not intended to depict a real situation, but as a simple
demonstration of the basic principle of narrowing down the samples.
The problem is that you kept sticking onto the "ethnicity" part and
wouldn't understand what I was *really* saying. It feels like it was some
kind of red flag which made you blind to anything else. You kept attacking
that "ethnicity" argument over and over, and completely ignoring me when
I said that it's not what I was saying and to stop nitpicking about the
specific example. But you wouldn't stop, no matter what I tried.
--
- Warp
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andrel <byt### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> IME a thread with Warp dies when there is nothing left for him than to
> apologize or at least admit that things might be more subtle than he
> originally though. Although from his perspective it could also be the
> point where we thick heads have made clear that we are never going to
> understand his position.
> We have made progress, however. It has been a long time since I have
> seen "grow up, this is the internet" when someone explained why a
> particular remark hurt his (or a groups) feeling.
> Next goal: eradicate the use of "that is just political correctness" as
> an 'argument' to dismiss another's point of view.
I suppose you understand that that kind of condescending attitude is
quite irritating, and nevertheless you choose to write like that anyways.
If your *honest* intention is to try to teach me something, you are quite
frankly doing a pretty poor job by writing things like the above text. It
makes me think that you are simply patronizing and mocking me.
(And please skip responding with a "but you are doing that too" answer.
"You too" answers are childish. You should preach by example.)
--
- Warp
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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> That's because you keep saying "profiling based on race isn't a problem"
The problem is that when you say "profiling based on race", you are
implying some kind of prejudiced discrimination and abuse based on race.
When I say "profiling based on race" I mean "making statistics based on
race, and *if* those statistics could be used to do something more
efficiently, then do it". That doesn't imply discrimination nor racist
prejudice.
You can argue that race can *not* be used as a profiling factor to
distribute police resources more efficiently. Well, my answer to that is:
If that's so, then don't use race as a profiling factor, it's that simple.
My *point* is, however, that *if* race *could* be used to catch criminals
more efficiently, then it would make sense to do so. (But I do understand
that many people could get offended by that, so there are also practical
reasons why it cannot be done.)
Personally I don't see race as such a holy element that must be protected
from such things. It's no different from gender, age or any other personal
feature.
> and then claim - quite counterintuitively, that you don't see race.
I have made no such claim. (Why do I feel like I'm repeating myself?)
What I have claimed is that to me race is exactly as important and
unimportant as any other personal factor, such as gender, age, shoe size
or hair color. I don't care about race any more or any less than about
any of those other things. It's all the same.
> >> What we have here is a failure to communicate. Plain and simple. You
> >> simply refuse to acknowledge that you play a role in this failure to
> >> communicate, and that everyone ELSE must be stupid.
> >
> > See, here we go again. You are putting words in my mouth. Words I have
> > never said. This is your idea of "communication"?
> Oh FFS, I AM NOT PUTTING WORDS IN YOUR MOUTH.
You wrote quite directly above, that in my opinion "everyone else must
be stupid". I have not said nor implied any such thing. If that's not
putting words in my mouth, then what is?
--
- Warp
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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> On Tue, 04 May 2010 15:00:34 -0400, Warp wrote:
> > Where did you conjure this "stupidity" thing
> > all
> > of a sudden?
> You imply it when you say "I've explained it over and over again and I'm
> not going to continue to repeat myself". The undertone there is "if
> you're too stupid to understand it, I'm not going to try any more".
I have not implied any such thing. Any such "undertone" you are seeing
is purely your own invention. I have never written anything with that kind
of mindset.
When I wrote that I wouldn't bother explaining the same things again,
I was simply implying that I'm tired of doing so again and again, as the
conversation is going in circles. "Stupidity" had absolutely nothing to
do with any of this.
(Well, I didn't actually keep my promise. I succumbed into trying to
explain it, once again, to Darren in a previous post I made today. Let's
see if it helps this time. If not, then I suppose this is hopeless.)
> When I engage in these conversations with you, Warp, it's never ever ever
> ever EVER with the intention of "twisting your words". It's with the
> intention of trying to understand what you're saying.
I understand it if someone misinterprets something I say. What I don't
understand is why they keep misinterpreting it even *after* I say that
they misinterpreted it.
> Instead of trying to explain, you then get all defensive and blame
> everyone else.
But I have tried to explain. However, the conversation nevertheless
goes in circles.
--
- Warp
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Ok, why don't we start over?
Just write down in simple statements what we ourself think without any
attacks on others to start with?
Then, with proper quoting and such, we could have a reasonable discussion.
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On 5-5-2010 13:21, Warp wrote:
> andrel <byt### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
>> IME a thread with Warp dies when there is nothing left for him than to
>> apologize or at least admit that things might be more subtle than he
>> originally though. Although from his perspective it could also be the
>> point where we thick heads have made clear that we are never going to
>> understand his position.
>> We have made progress, however. It has been a long time since I have
>> seen "grow up, this is the internet" when someone explained why a
>> particular remark hurt his (or a groups) feeling.
>> Next goal: eradicate the use of "that is just political correctness" as
>> an 'argument' to dismiss another's point of view.
>
> I suppose you understand that that kind of condescending attitude is
> quite irritating, and nevertheless you choose to write like that anyways.
yes, I wrote this in this way for a two reasons:
- I am not addressing you, though I am aware that you probably read it too.
- It is what my experience is. I am not going to hide that from anybody
because you don't like it. Besides if you read it it might be useful
information for you to know how people think about you.
- yesterday we remembered the start of WWII in the netherlands, today we
celebrate it's end here (and tomorrow we remember a political
assassination). That leaves me in a frame of mind that brings more to
the forefront some of the open wounds in our previous discussions.
couple of side notes:
- You fail to indicate what exactly is condescending in your opinion so
that leaves me guessing. Especially because it wasn't intended that way.
Now I have to try to figure out what part of what I wrote could be
misinterpreted. Being more specific will really help .
e.g. you could read the 'we have made progress' paragraph as
condescending. There is another interpretation however viz. as genuinely
satisfied that at least one invalid argument does not derail discussions
anymore. FYI it was meant as just that, because I feel that way. But if
you expect a condescending attitude you can always interpreted it that way.
- even after I wrote this you tried to play the 'political correctness'
card again.
- at no point is your reaction aimed at the content of the post, just
your usual whining about how I write things. This is at the heart of
what my problem with your style of debating is. In a sense it is
admitting that Darren is right, not by acknowledging but by example.
> If your *honest* intention is to try to teach me something, you are quite
> frankly doing a pretty poor job by writing things like the above text. It
> makes me think that you are simply patronizing and mocking me.
I don't want to teach you anything directly with the above. Remember I
am not even addressing you. Indirectly it shows that I think your skills
as a debater are rather limited. That might be informative, but I think
you already knew that.
> (And please skip responding with a "but you are doing that too" answer.
> "You too" answers are childish. You should preach by example.)
That is what I said too. ;)
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On 5-5-2010 13:32, Warp wrote:
> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> and then claim - quite counterintuitively, that you don't see race.
>
> I have made no such claim. (Why do I feel like I'm repeating myself?)
>
> What I have claimed is that to me race is exactly as important and
> unimportant as any other personal factor, such as gender, age, shoe size
> or hair color. I don't care about race any more or any less than about
> any of those other things. It's all the same.
That is what Jim's 'you don't see race' also means. It is a way of
expressing oneself. There is also a literal interpretation possible, but
that is so preposterous that you can easily rule out that Jim meant that.
>>>> What we have here is a failure to communicate. Plain and simple. You
>>>> simply refuse to acknowledge that you play a role in this failure to
>>>> communicate, and that everyone ELSE must be stupid.
>>> See, here we go again. You are putting words in my mouth. Words I have
>>> never said. This is your idea of "communication"?
>
>> Oh FFS, I AM NOT PUTTING WORDS IN YOUR MOUTH.
>
> You wrote quite directly above, that in my opinion "everyone else must
> be stupid". I have not said nor implied any such thing. If that's not
> putting words in my mouth, then what is?
Informing you that is how you come across?
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andrel <byt### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> Ok, why don't we start over?
> Just write down in simple statements what we ourself think without any
> attacks on others to start with?
> Then, with proper quoting and such, we could have a reasonable discussion.
I wrote an explanation as a reply to a recent post by Darren, where I try
to explain as well and seriously as I can what I meant in my original
posting. I'm hoping it will clear up any misunderstandings.
--
- Warp
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andrel <byt### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> - You fail to indicate what exactly is condescending in your opinion so
> that leaves me guessing.
Talking with someone else about me and apparently my typical negative
behavior as if I were some kind of child who must be understood. It sounds
patronizing.
When you write "IME a thread with Warp dies when there is nothing left
for him than to apologize" it gives the strong impression that you are
saying "he always writes controversially, he is usually wrong, but always
too stubborn to admit it even though we show him how wrong he is, so he
is either forced to apologize, or the thread dies because nobody else
wants to continue". It sounds like you are implying some negative personality
traits. The worst thing is that you aren't telling me about it, but someone
else, making it sound like "you just have to understand him", which sounds
extremely patronizing and condescending. (Maybe it was not how you intended
it, but it *does* sound like that.)
"We have made progress", in this context, also gives an impression of
being patronizing. And since you are not telling that to me but to someone
else, it makes it sound like you were ganged up with others (or at least
want to be, like with a mentality of "we are right, he's wrong").
That's the impression your post gave me, which is why I replied in the
way I did.
--
- Warp
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andrel <byt### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> On 5-5-2010 13:32, Warp wrote:
> > Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> >> and then claim - quite counterintuitively, that you don't see race.
> >
> > I have made no such claim. (Why do I feel like I'm repeating myself?)
> >
> > What I have claimed is that to me race is exactly as important and
> > unimportant as any other personal factor, such as gender, age, shoe size
> > or hair color. I don't care about race any more or any less than about
> > any of those other things. It's all the same.
> That is what Jim's 'you don't see race' also means. It is a way of
> expressing oneself. There is also a literal interpretation possible, but
> that is so preposterous that you can easily rule out that Jim meant that.
You mean "you don't see race" was meant as "you don't consider race to
be any more significant than any other feature"? Then I honestly don't
understand what he meant with:
"That's because you keep saying "profiling based on race isn't a problem"
and then claim - quite counterintuitively, that you don't see race."
I honestly don't see how contrasting the two things are counterintuitive.
Maybe he means something with "profiling based on race isn't a problem" that
I didn't understand.
After all, if race isn't any more or less important than other features,
then the above expression is quite equivalent to, for example, "profiling
based on age".
Even if he meant that *all* profiling is wrong, regardless of what is being
used to do the profiling, I still can't understand what the "you don't see
race" meant in that context.
--
- Warp
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On 5-5-2010 13:15, Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> In this conversation, for example, Warp says "If 90% of illegal immigrants
>> look Mexican, wouldn't it be more efficient to focus on people who look
>> Mexican?"[1] I answer "No, the math doesn't work that way, because... for
>> example..."[2] And then Warp, instead of saying "Oh, I see, that's a good
>> point I hadn't considered" before continuing the conversation, instead says
>> "Stop nit-picking the math." Or instead doesn't respond at all, giving the
>> impression they haven't even read the answer.[3] It would be far better to
>> respond "Yes, I see what you're saying. However, I disagree because..." Then
>> it wouldn't turn into a dead-horse-beating-fest.
>
> The problem is that you are misinterpreting my response, even *after*
> I explained it more clearly.
>
> Originally I was comparing "concentrate the resources on people who fit
> the profile better" vs. "distribute the resources evenly among all people".
> That last part is important.
Part of the problem is that the police is never trying to solve a crime
by stopping every person. In that sense your comparison is between two
things that never happen. What has happened is that at various places
police have stopped almost anyone that matches certain external criteria
(race, colour, nose, religion, culture, country of origin). That has
almost invariably led to disasters.
In any decent country that is also forbidden. The Arizona law tries to
not only make it legal but even mandatory.
You seemed to support that law or at least didn't condemn it. Thereby
attracting all criticism of that law. That may be a bit unfair, but it
is understandable. What we wanted to know is to what extend you will
follow the reasoning behind that law. The first assumption was that you
didn't really meant what we though you said, because it is so bloody
obviously wrong (to us). So that resulted in a number of replies
explaining why you could (or should) not have meant it. Even if the tone
was sort of accusing, it was still meant to figure out what you really
meant.
[other points for later, I am spending to much of this day at home on
this discussion anyway]
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On 5-5-2010 14:37, Warp wrote:
> andrel <byt### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
>> On 5-5-2010 13:32, Warp wrote:
>>> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>
>>>> and then claim - quite counterintuitively, that you don't see race.
>>> I have made no such claim. (Why do I feel like I'm repeating myself?)
>>>
>>> What I have claimed is that to me race is exactly as important and
>>> unimportant as any other personal factor, such as gender, age, shoe size
>>> or hair color. I don't care about race any more or any less than about
>>> any of those other things. It's all the same.
>
>> That is what Jim's 'you don't see race' also means. It is a way of
>> expressing oneself. There is also a literal interpretation possible, but
>> that is so preposterous that you can easily rule out that Jim meant that.
>
> You mean "you don't see race" was meant as "you don't consider race to
> be any more significant than any other feature"? Then I honestly don't
> understand what he meant with:
>
> "That's because you keep saying "profiling based on race isn't a problem"
> and then claim - quite counterintuitively, that you don't see race."
>
> I honestly don't see how contrasting the two things are counterintuitive.
> Maybe he means something with "profiling based on race isn't a problem" that
> I didn't understand.
Because the first implies that you think that race may be important in
same cases and the latter that you don't believe so.
But I can also see your confusion, because it might be about different
people and different cases.
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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.)
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 *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.
That doesn't mean I'm claiming that race *is* a trait that can be used
to more efficiently catch illegal immigrants in the southern US. What I am
saying that *if* it would be, then it would make sense to use it. (And I
do acknowledge that even if that was the case, it would still be problematic
because of other reasons, mainly people getting angry about it.)
--
- Warp
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On 5-5-2010 14:28, Warp wrote:
> andrel <byt### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
>> - You fail to indicate what exactly is condescending in your opinion so
>> that leaves me guessing.
>
> Talking with someone else about me and apparently my typical negative
> behavior as if I were some kind of child who must be understood.
Oh, but you are ;)
> It sounds patronizing.
I know. It wasn't meant that way, but other than starting an e-mail
discussion behind your back (which you would also not have liked if you
knew about it) there is no other way to communicate. That is the curse
of a public discussion.
> When you write "IME a thread with Warp dies when there is nothing left
> for him than to apologize" it gives the strong impression that you are
> saying "he always writes controversially, he is usually wrong, but always
> too stubborn to admit it even though we show him how wrong he is, so he
> is either forced to apologize, or the thread dies because nobody else
> wants to continue". It sounds like you are implying some negative personality
> traits. The worst thing is that you aren't telling me about it, but someone
> else, making it sound like "you just have to understand him", which sounds
> extremely patronizing and condescending. (Maybe it was not how you intended
> it, but it *does* sound like that.)
Darren noticed that some threads suddenly drop dead without any feedback
that somebody has changed his mind or ended with 'I see your point, but
I still disagree'. I can only confirm that and that is what I did. It
has annoyed me again and again over the years.
I don't think this is new to you, I vaguely remember having said this
before.
Also not that there is another sentence behind what you quoted. This was
meant as a point for you to drop in into the discussion with your own
points of view if you would have wanted to. In stead you chose to go
into meta immediately, now I still don't know what your motivation was.
More importantly, there is no indication from your part if you are
prepared to end discussions in a more grown up way (sorry for the
patronizing term). Remember: people are not going to apologize to
someone who never apologized when an apology was badly needed.
> "We have made progress", in this context, also gives an impression of
> being patronizing. And since you are not telling that to me but to someone
> else, it makes it sound like you were ganged up with others (or at least
> want to be, like with a mentality of "we are right, he's wrong").
I don't know about ganging up, but anyway it is not about being right or
wrong in the discussion. It was about the use of invalid discussion
tricks to not apologize for insulting people.
> That's the impression your post gave me, which is why I replied in the
> way I did.
And this was my motivation.
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andrel <byt### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> Because the first implies that you think that race may be important in
> same cases and the latter that you don't believe so.
Maybe originally I expressed myself poorly. When I said "race is not
important" I meant that "race is not something which, IMO, would deserve
special protection over other human traits; it should be considered as
important or unimportant as anything else".
--
- Warp
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Warp wrote:
> Originally I was comparing "concentrate the resources on people who fit
> the profile better" vs. "distribute the resources evenly among all people".
> That last part is important.
I *still* understand what you're saying. You *still* aren't saying what
"profile" you're talking about. Using a profile based on race is *still* not
as efficient as a profile based on probable cause, regardless of the
political correctness.
And people aren't complaining about profiles based on actual causal
relationships to the crimes being investigated. Nobody is complaining about
"profiling" people who are driving badly for sobriety tests, and nobody is
complaining about "profiling" people who don't pay their taxes for
immigration status testing.
And people aren't complaining about random testing, but you repeatedly seem
to conflate "random" testing with "random testing of people who fit a
profile", which are two entirely different things. Plus, random testing
might have a deterrent value in the case of sobriety tests, but it's not
really possible to deter someone from having their ethnicity.
Yet you still haven't indicated that you understand that.
> when you narrow your input by some factor, the same resources will be more
> efficiently used compared to if you distributed the resource evenly to the
> entire input.
Yes. And again, nobody is disputing that. Nobody is saying that if you know
something about a criminal, you should use that information to not
investigate people who could not be the criminal.
A profile of the type you seem to be recommending is not that sort of thing,
for reasons I have repeatedly tried to explain and you *seem* to be ignoring.
> Your argument was that "using ethnicity as a basis of narrowing down the
> possible suspects is not the *best* factor". In other words, you were not
> disagreeing with what I was saying (in other words, that narrowing the
> input by using some known factor helps utilize resources better), you were
> simply disagreeing with the notion that ethnicity would be the best factor
> to do that.
No, I was disagreeing on several fronts:
1) You *cannot* use the statement "Most of the criminals have trait X, hence
we should focus our questioning on people with trait X." The math doesn't
work that way. You have yet to acknowledge that you understand why the math
doesn't work that way.
2) You *can* use the statement "Most of the criminals have trait Y, hence we
should *not* focus our question on people who *lack* trait Y." Again, this
is how the math works. Again, you have yet to acknowledge that you
understand this point.
This is a tremendously fundamental part of the whole "profiling"
conversation. You waved it off with "don't nit-pick the math." This implied
to me that you didn't understand why it's important.
It's like having a debate with someone who thinks "A implies B" implies "Not
A implies Not B". And then the correction is waved off with "Oh, you know
what I mean." No, really, I don't.
Basically, the problem is related to the rate of false negatives not telling
you anything about the rate of false positives. Maybe that phrasing helps.
> That's also fine, and I said that many times. I didn't claim that
> ethnicity is the *best* factor. I simply said that narrowing factors can
> be used to distribute resources better and increase the likelihood of
> success, and that *if* ethnicity were such a factor
And I gave examples where ethnicity *can* be used that way (e.g., medicine),
and explained why linking genetics to criminal behavior is *not* an
effective means of profiling (because of (1) and (2) above). Which, as far
as I could tell, you didn't read or didn't understand.
> I even gave a simple example where this indeed gave a positive result.
Other than the rapist bit? See (1) vs (2) above. You're not going to get
many false negatives be eliminating female rapists. You're going to get a
lot of false positives by considering all or random subsets of males as
rapists.
I didn't see any example where you wound up with a positive result other
than the rapist bit. Note that the stopping of SUV drivers has the same
problem as (1). Your example of eliminating the bus drivers is an example of
(2). The sparsity of false negatives in a group does not imply a sparsity of
false positives in the compliment of that group.
> The example was not intended to depict a real situation, but as a simple
> demonstration of the basic principle of narrowing down the samples.
>
> The problem is that you kept sticking onto the "ethnicity" part and
> wouldn't understand what I was *really* saying.
Except when I tried substituting other examples with the same problem, such
as profiling based on religion, you first ignored it, then called it
outlandish. In this country, when you say someone's statement is
"outlandish", it's generally of the connotation "What, are you crazy?"
Hence, it first looked like you were trying to ignore the example and
continue the debate as if it hadn't been given (which is a mark of debating
with someone unwilling to change their mind). Then it looked like you
thought it was a terrible example because it *wasn't* based on ethnicity,
and indeed the very thought of profiling based on something other than
ethnicity was crazy talk.
Then you gave a bunch of examples like eye color and hair color, all of
which are part of race/ethnicity/etc.
Then you got defensive when people were saying all your examples were
racist. (Not you, your examples.)
That's part of why I thought you were suggesting using ethnic profiling
rather than some other type of profiling.
Here's a suggestion, tho, just in terms of personal-communication:
If you've made a mistake, and someone corrects you, don't berate them for
correcting you. If you give an example, and someone says "The math doesn't
work that way," don't say "don't nit-pick the math." Instead, say "sorry,
that was a bad example, let me try again."
Otherwise, you're saying "You're clearly misinterpreting what I meant to
say, because what I meant to say was something that's correct. Don't nitpick
on the fact that what I actually said was wrong, but instead assume instead
that I said something correct and go from there."
You sometimes get into this mode in a conversation and it makes it hard to
get out, because you start thinking people are intentionally
misunderstanding you. You give bad examples, then complain when people use
those examples even when you say "that's not what I meant." But you never
actually express what you *do* mean, you just say "apply the appropriate
corrections, then discuss that instead."
HTH.
And honestly, it was fun. I learned a bunch how to express my thoughts on
this subject. I hope I didn't offend you. That wasn't my intention. I don't
think you're racist. I simply think in this case you either haven't thought
through the math of the "statistics" you're proposing or you don't actually
care enough about the topic (since you see it as irrelevant and it probably
doesn't happen much around you) to really think about whether profiling
really would work. I think because of this you might *sound* racist to some.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Linux: Now bringing the quality and usability of
open source desktop apps to your personal electronics.
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On Wed, 05 May 2010 07:43:28 -0400, Warp wrote:
> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> On Tue, 04 May 2010 15:00:34 -0400, Warp wrote:
>
>> > Where did you conjure this "stupidity" thing
>> > all
>> > of a sudden?
>
>> You imply it when you say "I've explained it over and over again and
>> I'm not going to continue to repeat myself". The undertone there is
>> "if you're too stupid to understand it, I'm not going to try any more".
>
> I have not implied any such thing. Any such "undertone" you are seeing
> is purely your own invention. I have never written anything with that
> kind of mindset.
Maybe you didn't imply it, but clearly it was inferred.
> When I wrote that I wouldn't bother explaining the same things again,
> I was simply implying that I'm tired of doing so again and again, as the
> conversation is going in circles. "Stupidity" had absolutely nothing to
> do with any of this.
>
> (Well, I didn't actually keep my promise. I succumbed into trying to
> explain it, once again, to Darren in a previous post I made today. Let's
> see if it helps this time. If not, then I suppose this is hopeless.)
>
>> When I engage in these conversations with you, Warp, it's never ever
>> ever ever EVER with the intention of "twisting your words". It's with
>> the intention of trying to understand what you're saying.
>
> I understand it if someone misinterprets something I say. What I don't
> understand is why they keep misinterpreting it even *after* I say that
> they misinterpreted it.
You frequently try to explain by just saying the same thing again. When
you explain something a second time, taking a different approach can
often help make your point clear.
>> Instead of trying to explain, you then get all defensive and blame
>> everyone else.
>
> But I have tried to explain. However, the conversation nevertheless
> goes in circles.
Then a different explanation is needed, not getting pissed off.
Jim
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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> I simply think in this case you either haven't thought
> through the math of the "statistics" you're proposing
*sigh*
I have reached the limit of my ability to write, as the post you were
responding to was my best and most honest effort at explaining myself,
and I just can't think how I could explain myself better. No matter how
clearly I try to put it, it doesn't seem to matter.
Well, since I don't think I can express myself more clearly, I suppose
I will have to simply stop and let you think whatever you want, to let
you have whatever notion of what I "have been proposing" you want. I'm
out of ideas. So I give up.
--
- Warp
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