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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospam com> 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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On Wed, 05 May 2010 07:32:46 -0400, Warp wrote:
> 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.
Perhaps if you lived in or grew up in a country where racism was pretty
extreme and practiced not just by "normal" people but also by law
enforcement, your view would be different. It's not been so long ago
that in parts of the US, just being black could get you killed by so-
called "vigilante justice" and those who were supposed to actually
enforce the law would look the other way.
Go do a little reading on Jim Crow laws (which doesn't get into lynchings
and the like, but is a starting point for understanding why institutional
use of race as a differentiator is a problem here), for example - then
maybe you'll understand better why it's such a hot button over here.
>> 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.
Well, I could go back and find where you seemed to be saying that, but I
don't have the time at the moment to do so. I could swear, though, that
you said something to that effect.
>> >> 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?
It's a logical inference (IMO) from the way you write, at least, that's
how you come across. You may not *write* those specific words, but when
you say "why do I feel like I'm repeating myself", you come across as
implying "god, you're stupid".
Jim
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On Wed, 05 May 2010 08:37:48 -0400, Warp wrote:
> 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 profiling based on race assumes guilt rather than innocence.
"The person is of hispanic descent, therefore they must (or even are
highly likely) to be in the country illegally."
That is not probable cause in US legal terms to stop someone.
Jim
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On Wed, 05 May 2010 06:57:21 -0400, Warp wrote:
> 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?
What I see is you saying that you didn't claim X, and then asserting X in
a later post, and then when you're called out on it, you say "I never
said that". Again, I could probably find specific examples for you to
clarify, but this thread has gotten quite long and I simply don't have
the time to search it for those instances. Maybe next time.
> If you misunderstood something I wrote, that's ok.
Clearly that is a likely option here. So instead of saying "you're a
liar" in response, make what you're writing clearer, and when you're
asked for clarification (such as "earlier you said X, now you seem to be
changing your stance", instead of screaming "NO! I've been saying that
all along", see that as an opportunity to *clarify* what you mean and
reconcile the two seemingly contradictory statements. When you start
going into "liar liar pants on fire" mode, that's when you start coming
across as the persecuted soul who everyone's lying about, being
condescending to, and patronising. For my part, I generally never
*intend* to do that, I want a genuine conversation. If I don't want a
genuine conversation, I'll go do something else.
> 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.
What I'm trying to do is reconcile two seemingly contradictory
statements. So when I say "you claimed X" (which I don't think I've said
directly, but if I have, <shrug>) in response to something that to me
appears to contradict claim X, then what I'm looking for is some sort of
reconciliation - or even a "you know, I didn't think of it that way
before, and that's not what I really meant". But you get so defensive
that you seem to never back down and say "hey, I made a mistake".
> 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.
Fair enough, but again, understand that I'm trying to reconcile something
you've said earlier with something you've said now - so help us reconcile
those two statements by either clarifying or by saying "I was wrong".
It's not so hard, and nobody is right 100% of the time.
>> >> 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.
Because when I start getting wound up, scoring posts as "ignore" from
someone who pisses me off (whether intentionally or not) reminds me not
to engage. I still see the posts, but it's a visual reminder to me that
I should just walk away rather than try to understand or engage in
constructive conversation, because the conversation has turned to a point
of not being constructive any more, but a screaming match about who said
what and who's lying about what.
That's simply not fun for me, so it's better to remind myself that I
don't want to get drawn into that kind of discussion. Sadly, that
happens with you here more than just about anyone else (well, I can think
of one other individual, but he's been absent for a while now and things
have generally been a lot calmer as a result), and you *seem* to not care
how you are perceived (that's probably not the case, but it's how you
come across).
One of the reasons debating with you is so frustrating to me is that you
don't seem to put yourself in anyone else's shoes in order to understand
a different perspective. In this instance, you've said over and over
that you don't see why race shouldn't be used to identify illegals (at
least that's what you seem to be saying). I and others have tried to
explain, both in a cultural context and in the context of how US
jurisprudence is supposed to work, and you've pretty flatly rejected
those explanations instead of saying something like "that's not how it
works here, but I can understand why people in the US might feel this way
given the history".
When you do that, you come across as having an air of superiority - not
you personally, but culturally certainly - and it is interpreted as
"we're better than you".
You need to understand and acknowledge that there is more than one way to
do things in the world, and the way it's done in Finland isn't the way
it's done in the US or other countries, and that perhaps there's
something you can learn from us.
Jim
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Jim Henderson wrote:
> When you do that, you come across as having an air of superiority - not
> you personally, but culturally certainly - and it is interpreted as
> "we're better than you".
And even if you (Finland, whatever) are, it still doesn't mean you can't
understand. You can be superior in many ways and still understand why the
other person's/country's/etc inferiority exists. You can say "that's wrong"
without saying "I can't understand why you don't know that's wrong."
--
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 think that's the core issue in this whole thread.
Thank you. This was a *clear* explanation.
> aversion to anything that makes a distinction between races,
One item to note: One of the reasons people say "there's no such thing as
race" is because "race" is really a mixture of a whole lot of features, and
the variation between those features in any particular "race" (regardless of
how you cut up the races) is larger than between separate "races".
It's not people denying genetics. It's people denying that there's any
feature that occurs in one "race" that doesn't occur in another "race" with
enough frequency to warrant the distinction.
It's taking 100 genes that determine different factors of your make up and
chopping you into one of 3 or 5 or 10 buckets, then dealing with you based
on those buckets instead of the 100 or so genes.
> promoting outright banning the entire concept of "race",
Yes. It's deep down a meaningless term. I've seen twins born of "mixed race"
families where one twin looked like he was from finland and the other looked
like she was from kenya. Yet they were both born of the same parents. Are
they the same race?
Why is Obama "black" but not "japanese"? I believe even you once pointed
out the absurdity there.
Kenyans are tall, but not all of them, and some British are tall too. I'm
sure you know some people born where you are that have dark curly hair.
It's like arguing over whether a programming language is "high level" or
not. Sure, SQL is "high level", and machine code is "low level", but that
doesn't mean you can categorize most programming languages into one or the
other of those categories in any non-arbitrary way.
That's why people argue against using race for *any* purpose.
HTH.
--
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:
> No matter how
> clearly I try to put it, it doesn't seem to matter.
As I said, I understand what you're saying. I'm giving you the answer:
> 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.
There are logical reasons to oppose the law. The number of false negatives
found by avoiding investigating those who lack feature X is unrelated to the
number of false positives caused by investigating those who possess feature X.
Do you understand that? Because you still seem to be asking the question,
instead of going "Oh! I see now! I no longer have to ask the question,
because you answered it."
It's not simply because the profile is based on race. It's because no
profile will work, period, when you're talking about things that aren't
close to at least 50% of the population having the trait (criminality)
you're looking for.
> Well, since I don't think I can express myself more clearly,
You seem to be ignoring the fact that I'm telling you I understand what
you're saying. I'm trying to give you an answer to exactly what you asked,
and you say "Well, I guess nobody understands."
> 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.
I completely understand. And I'm telling you "the math shows that there are
no contexts in which crime could be more efficiently stopped by making the
distinction," in any case where you don't already know something about the
specific criminal you seek. And yet, you still haven't said you understand
this. Do you?
Even when you use race to find a mugger reported (say) to be a black man,
you're not using race to decide who to question. You're using location (near
the time and place of the mugging) to decide who to question and you're
using race to *eliminate* suspects from questioning. You don't question all
black men. You question all people *near the crime scene*, *except* for the
people you know *cannot* be the mugger. Which is entirely different than
"focusing your attentions on those of the right profile."
It's like you're saying "If you could safely go free-climbing up rock faces
while falling-down drunk, I don't see why you shouln't." Then someone
points out that safe rock climbing while "falling-down" drunk is
mathematically impossible, and you complaining about how people hate drunks. :-)
Sure, if it worked, it might be useful. But it doesn't work, so why are we
insisting? It's not necessarily that people are particularly sensitive about
it. It's that it doesn't work, it's known not to work, the only reason to
propose it here is to hassle the brown people, and saying "but if it only
worked, how much more efficient could we be" tends to set off all the alarm
bells of all the people so hassled.
Not to goodwin it or anything, but this *is* exactly how the holocaust was
sold. "Most jews are evil. Oh, maybe the jews *you* know are nice people,
but trust us, if we round them all up, we'll be better off."
--
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:
> 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.
Those are also protected here. ;-) So right, it's no different.
--
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 09:28:55 -0700, Darren New wrote:
>> I think that's the core issue in this whole thread.
>
> Thank you. This was a *clear* explanation.
+1, definitely makes the position clear.
Jim
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Warp wrote:
> (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.)
You had a very clear explanation. The problem seems to be that when people
say "I understand exactly what you mean. Here is why you're wrong" then your
response seems to be "you must not understand what I mean."
We (at least I) do actually understand what you're trying to say. But the
conversation is going:
You: "If X then Y."
Us: "Never X."
You: "Yeah, but *if* X, then Y!"
Us: "We understand. But X is never the case. Do you undertand that?"
You: "But all I'm saying is, *if* X, then Y! I'm not saying X. I'm just
saying If X Then Y. There's no need to be afraid of X. X isn't special."
Us: "No, X isn't special. But X, regardless of which specific X, is never true."
We're trying to figure out why you keep advocating "If X then Y" when X is
never true, and to figure out if you understand that X cannot now or ever be
true, regardless of what specific traits you plug into the formula for X.
--
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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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> In this instance, you've said over and over
> that you don't see why race shouldn't be used to identify illegals (at
> least that's what you seem to be saying).
That's the problem. You only read *part* of what I write, not the whole
thing.
Maybe if I emphasize it would help: *IF* race could be used as a trait
to catch criminals more efficiently, *THEN* it would make sense to use it.
When I write that sentence over and over, it seems that you only read
"it makes sense to use race to catch criminals more efficiently".
There is a difference. If you can't understand the difference, then
I really don't know what else I can do.
(Well, I have been emphasizing like that many times already, and it isn't
helping, so I'm not very hopeful it will help this time either.)
> I and others have tried to
> explain, both in a cultural context and in the context of how US
> jurisprudence is supposed to work
Yes, and I have many, many times written sentences along the lines of
"(but I understand why this wouldn't work in practice because eg. people
would get angry)", but once again it doesn't seem to register. Do the
parentheses confuse the meaning or something?
> and you've pretty flatly rejected
> those explanations instead of saying something like "that's not how it
> works here, but I can understand why people in the US might feel this way
> given the history".
And now you are once again putting words in my mouth. I'm sorry I have
to say that, but it's just true.
I have never said anything even remotely resembling "that's not how it
works here" when talking about racial profiling.
What you are doing there is to mix two completely different contexts.
The issue of "can a policeman check someone without probable cause?" was
a completely different line of discussion which had nothing to do with
racial profiling or anything. I did not discuss that in response to the
Arizona law nor to racial profiling, nor anything relating to race.
I discussed it purely on the context of "checking without probable cause"
because that separate issue came up in a post.
Now you are confusing my "in Finland the police can make sobriety tests
on drivers without the need for probable cause, which is an example where
it's sensible" with a completely different line of discussion of "is racial
profiling to catch criminals acceptable?" They are completely different
contexts.
And yes, you are not talking about the driver sobriety test here because
you started the paragraph with "you don't see why race shouldn't be used
to identify illegals" and then immediately proceeded in the same paragraph
to say ''I and others have tried to explain, both in a cultural context and
in the context of how US jurisprudence is supposed to work, and you've pretty
flatly rejected those explanations instead of saying something like "that's
not how it works here"...''. So you are mixing up two completely different
things here.
> When you do that, you come across as having an air of superiority - not
> you personally, but culturally certainly - and it is interpreted as
> "we're better than you".
I don't think that "I'm surprised that the police is not allowed to do
random sobriety tests on drivers there" shows an air of superiority.
> You need to understand and acknowledge that there is more than one way to
> do things in the world, and the way it's done in Finland isn't the way
> it's done in the US or other countries, and that perhaps there's
> something you can learn from us.
What makes you assume that racial profiling is acceptable in Finland?
I have never said such a thing.
--
- Warp
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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> One item to note: One of the reasons people say "there's no such thing as
> race" is because "race" is really a mixture of a whole lot of features, and
> the variation between those features in any particular "race" (regardless of
> how you cut up the races) is larger than between separate "races".
AFAIK anthropologists have well-defined meanings for "human races", and
the vast majority of them (well over 50%) don't have a problem with it nor
are advocating getting rid of the concept. For example an anthropologist
can usually easily distinguish from a skull whether it belonged to, eg. a
nordic person or to a central-African person. There are many distinguishing
features. And just because people can have traits of multiple races doesn't
mean that the concept is meaningless.
Many so-called "multiculturalists" are calling for getting rid of the
whole concept of "race", but this is purely for political and ideological
reasons, not scientifical ones. Personally I see this as some kind of
attempt at orwellian manipulation (like in the novel "1984"): If you
completely ban offending vocabulary, the "criminals" (in this case racists)
won't have any way of expressing their views.
Some anthropologists might have genuine and well-argumented scientifical
reasons why they are advocating getting rid of the concept, but AFAIK they
are a minority. I'm convinced that most people who do that are doing it for
ideological reasons only.
> > promoting outright banning the entire concept of "race",
> Yes. It's deep down a meaningless term. I've seen twins born of "mixed race"
> families where one twin looked like he was from finland and the other looked
> like she was from kenya. Yet they were both born of the same parents. Are
> they the same race?
Just because individuals can have mixed traits doesn't make the concept
meaningless.
> Why is Obama "black" but not "japanese"? I believe even you once pointed
> out the absurdity there.
I think that's more a political than a scientifical issue.
> Kenyans are tall, but not all of them, and some British are tall too. I'm
> sure you know some people born where you are that have dark curly hair.
Yet an anthropologist can easily distinguish whether a skull belongs to
a Kenyan or a British.
Why would that be a bad thing? I don't know.
--
- Warp
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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> Because profiling based on race assumes guilt rather than innocence.
Well, there's where we are using different meanings of the word
"profiling". You are using a rather loaded meaning of the word.
> "The person is of hispanic descent, therefore they must (or even are
> highly likely) to be in the country illegally."
That's not profiling. That's prejudice.
--
- Warp
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On Wed, 05 May 2010 13:00:31 -0400, Warp wrote:
> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> In this instance, you've said over and over that you don't see why race
>> shouldn't be used to identify illegals (at least that's what you seem
>> to be saying).
>
> That's the problem. You only read *part* of what I write, not the
> whole
> thing.
>
> Maybe if I emphasize it would help: *IF* race could be used as a trait
> to catch criminals more efficiently, *THEN* it would make sense to use
> it.
>
> When I write that sentence over and over, it seems that you only read
> "it makes sense to use race to catch criminals more efficiently".
Yes, but you also applied some math (which Darren tried to discuss with
you but you wouldn't engage in that discussion). It's not just the two
sentences, it's the context. You know context is important, I know that,
because you have occasionally asserted that people take your statements
out of context.
So that sentence on its own makes sense; in the context of trying to make
a mathematical case for then using race as a discriminating factor in
picking out illegals, you then said "if 90% of illegals are hispanic,
then use that as a determining factor". But that 90% (and I think this
is what Darren was trying to say) is of *illegal immigrants* and not of
the *total population*, then you may be looking at the illegal immigrant
population being 5% of the total population. So does it then make sense
to pull 95% of the people in an area over because they happen to be
hispanic when in fact we're looking for a subset of the population that's
90% of 5% (or 0.45% of the total population)?
> There is a difference. If you can't understand the difference, then
> I really don't know what else I can do.
See, now, here you seem to be saying "perhaps you're too stupid to
understand the difference". I know that you're not, but can you see how
what you've written could be interpreted as such?
> (Well, I have been emphasizing like that many times already, and it
> isn't
> helping, so I'm not very hopeful it will help this time either.)
If "like that" isn't working, then you need a different angle instead of
continuing to repeat something that you know is not being understood.
>> I and others have tried to
>> explain, both in a cultural context and in the context of how US
>> jurisprudence is supposed to work
>
> Yes, and I have many, many times written sentences along the lines of
> "(but I understand why this wouldn't work in practice because eg. people
> would get angry)", but once again it doesn't seem to register. Do the
> parentheses confuse the meaning or something?
No, actually, in *that* explanation you were clear. But of course the
reason people get angry is the important thing to understand, not that
they get angry. People get angry because of something, and to get to the
core of why something's a bad idea, you have to look at why they get
angry.
>> and you've pretty flatly rejected
>> those explanations instead of saying something like "that's not how it
>> works here, but I can understand why people in the US might feel this
>> way given the history".
>
> And now you are once again putting words in my mouth. I'm sorry I have
> to say that, but it's just true.
>
> I have never said anything even remotely resembling "that's not how it
> works here" when talking about racial profiling.
That was an example of a way to respond, not something that you've said.
Please reread what I wrote and let me know what's not clear about it,
because I don't know of another way to say "this type of response would
be better".
> What you are doing there is to mix two completely different contexts.
> The issue of "can a policeman check someone without probable cause?" was
> a completely different line of discussion which had nothing to do with
> racial profiling or anything. I did not discuss that in response to the
> Arizona law nor to racial profiling, nor anything relating to race. I
> discussed it purely on the context of "checking without probable cause"
> because that separate issue came up in a post.
But the two are related - the Arizona law requires cops to stop someone
they suspect may be an illegal immigrant. How are they to know that?
Based on how they look (not in the law, but something that has been
stated by people involved in writing the law).
If one makes the argument that one's race provides probable cause because
statistically illegal immigrants are more likely of a particular race,
then that does logically lead to a discussion of what constitutes
probable cause. One really can't disentangle the ideas because they are
intimately linked together in the context of the Arizona law and the
discussion of using race as a factor in deciding to stop someone for
breaking any law.
Similarly, you couldn't go in and ask for DNA samples from all white
males because a rape occurred within 5 miles of their location. You need
to narrow the field down by establishing more probable cause than "it was
a white male". Does that make sense?
> Now you are confusing my "in Finland the police can make sobriety
> tests
> on drivers without the need for probable cause, which is an example
> where it's sensible" with a completely different line of discussion of
> "is racial profiling to catch criminals acceptable?" They are completely
> different contexts.
Not really, I didn't think that particular example was germane to the
discussion, so I discounted it entirely. Here in the US, sobriety
checkpoints are set up on certain holidays as well, but the stop isn't
based on one's race - the troopers operating the checkpoint don't know
anything about the demographics of the people they're stopping until
they've been stopped, as Darren said (I believe). So the situation is
entirely different and not related to a discussion of the AZ law; at
least not that I can see.
> And yes, you are not talking about the driver sobriety test here
> because
> you started the paragraph with "you don't see why race shouldn't be used
> to identify illegals" and then immediately proceeded in the same
> paragraph to say ''I and others have tried to explain, both in a
> cultural context and in the context of how US jurisprudence is supposed
> to work, and you've pretty flatly rejected those explanations instead of
> saying something like "that's not how it works here"...''. So you are
> mixing up two completely different things here.
I don't understand what you're trying to say here at all. I didn't bring
up the driver sobriety test, I was talking about how law (in general)
works in the US when dealing with suspects (based on my own understanding
from having talked to lawyers, judges, and law enforcement professionals,
that is).
>> When you do that, you come across as having an air of superiority - not
>> you personally, but culturally certainly - and it is interpreted as
>> "we're better than you".
>
> I don't think that "I'm surprised that the police is not allowed to do
> random sobriety tests on drivers there" shows an air of superiority.
I wasn't talking about this specific item, I honestly don't know where
you got the idea that I was talking about this. I was talking in more
general terms of how you come across in your writing.
>> You need to understand and acknowledge that there is more than one way
>> to do things in the world, and the way it's done in Finland isn't the
>> way it's done in the US or other countries, and that perhaps there's
>> something you can learn from us.
>
> What makes you assume that racial profiling is acceptable in Finland?
> I have never said such a thing.
I didn't say that I made such an assumption. My assumption here is that
your experience is based on life in Finland, and when talking about the
law (or anything), your views are coloured by your life's experiences
(just as they are for the rest of us). It's important to be aware that
things (in general) are done differently in different parts of the world
and to be aware when saying/implying/setting someone up to infer
(intentionally or not) "our way is better" that other peoples'
experiences will differ because their background is different.
Jim
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On Wed, 05 May 2010 09:51:24 -0700, Darren New wrote:
> We're trying to figure out why you keep advocating "If X then Y" when X
> is never true, and to figure out if you understand that X cannot now or
> ever be true, regardless of what specific traits you plug into the
> formula for X.
Good clarification. :-)
Jim
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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> On Wed, 05 May 2010 07:32:46 -0400, Warp wrote:
> > The problem is that when you say "profiling based on race", you are
> > implying some kind of prejudiced discrimination and abuse based on race.
[...]
> Perhaps if you lived in or grew up in a country where racism was pretty
> extreme and practiced not just by "normal" people but also by law
> enforcement, your view would be different. It's not been so long ago
> that in parts of the US, just being black could get you killed by so-
> called "vigilante justice" and those who were supposed to actually
> enforce the law would look the other way.
A simple "yes" would have sufficed.
That's kind of my point: We are using different meanings for the term
"profiling". Your meaning assumes discrimination and prejudice. Mine
doesn't. That's the reason for this back-and-forth argument which isn't
really going nowhere.
> Go do a little reading on Jim Crow laws (which doesn't get into lynchings
> and the like, but is a starting point for understanding why institutional
> use of race as a differentiator is a problem here), for example - then
> maybe you'll understand better why it's such a hot button over here.
I know perfectly well that it's such a "hot button" over there. And it's
precisely why I wondered in the beginning whether the opposition to that
law was based on "racial profiling, baaad", or whether it has some logical
reasons. (Again: No need to respond. I'm explaining, not asking.)
> >> 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.
> Well, I could go back and find where you seemed to be saying that, but I
> don't have the time at the moment to do so. I could swear, though, that
> you said something to that effect.
To what effect? I think I don't understand what "you don't see race"
means. If it means "there are no races", then that's not what I have said.
--
- Warp
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On Wed, 05 May 2010 13:25:05 -0400, Warp wrote:
> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> On Wed, 05 May 2010 07:32:46 -0400, Warp wrote:
>> > The problem is that when you say "profiling based on race", you are
>> > implying some kind of prejudiced discrimination and abuse based on
>> > race.
> [...]
>
>> Perhaps if you lived in or grew up in a country where racism was pretty
>> extreme and practiced not just by "normal" people but also by law
>> enforcement, your view would be different. It's not been so long ago
>> that in parts of the US, just being black could get you killed by so-
>> called "vigilante justice" and those who were supposed to actually
>> enforce the law would look the other way.
>
> A simple "yes" would have sufficed.
Perhaps, but I'm trying to explain things.
> That's kind of my point: We are using different meanings for the term
> "profiling". Your meaning assumes discrimination and prejudice. Mine
> doesn't. That's the reason for this back-and-forth argument which isn't
> really going nowhere.
I'm using the standard American English term used in law enforcement
discussions pertaining to "racial profiling".
ie:
racial profiling n. orig. and chiefly U.S. selection for scrutiny by law
enforcement based on race or ethnicity rather than on behavioural or
evidentiary criteria (cf. offender profiling n. at OFFENDER n.
Compounds); (later, in extended use) discrimination or stereotyping on
racial or ethnic grounds.
(From the Oxford English Dictionary)
So that should make it clear (hopefully) what definition I'm using in
this discussion. Perhaps I assumed you were using the same definition
since you were using the concept (or seemed to be) when talking about
profiling based on ethnicity.
>> Go do a little reading on Jim Crow laws (which doesn't get into
>> lynchings and the like, but is a starting point for understanding why
>> institutional use of race as a differentiator is a problem here), for
>> example - then maybe you'll understand better why it's such a hot
>> button over here.
>
> I know perfectly well that it's such a "hot button" over there. And
> it's
> precisely why I wondered in the beginning whether the opposition to that
> law was based on "racial profiling, baaad", or whether it has some
> logical reasons. (Again: No need to respond. I'm explaining, not
> asking.)
Fair enough. My mind reading skills are not terribly good, so until this
point, I had no idea that you had knowledge about it being a hot button
issue here or the historical reasons for why.
>> >> 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.
>
>> Well, I could go back and find where you seemed to be saying that, but
>> I don't have the time at the moment to do so. I could swear, though,
>> that you said something to that effect.
>
> To what effect? I think I don't understand what "you don't see race"
> means. If it means "there are no races", then that's not what I have
> said.
To the effect that you don't 'see' race, by which I mean that you
consider it inconsequential (not that there are no races).
FWIW, I also think it is inconsequential - I try not to make judgments
based on race, ethnicity, religion, or other such factors. Sadly, there
are lots of people around the world who do. That's just it, though - it
is inconsequential, so shouldn't be used as a means of determining
probable cause for the commission of a non-specific crime (by which I
mean time/location of the commission).
Jim
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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> >> and you've pretty flatly rejected
> >> those explanations instead of saying something like "that's not how it
> >> works here, but I can understand why people in the US might feel this
> >> way given the history".
> >
> > And now you are once again putting words in my mouth. I'm sorry I have
> > to say that, but it's just true.
> >
> > I have never said anything even remotely resembling "that's not how it
> > works here" when talking about racial profiling.
> That was an example of a way to respond, not something that you've said.
> Please reread what I wrote and let me know what's not clear about it,
> because I don't know of another way to say "this type of response would
> be better".
I misread "instead of saying something like" as "instead you are saying
something like", which lead to the confusion.
(I suppose I'm getting a taste of my own medicine here, as I taunted
Darren about him confusing "outlandish" with "outrageous", and now I misread
something and reacted based on that...)
(And btw, that's not how it works here either. Things like racial
profiling *are* touchy subjects here as well and sources of heated
discussions, especially nowadays.)
> I don't understand what you're trying to say here at all. I didn't bring
> up the driver sobriety test
It was the only thing that I have written that resembled the "that's not
how it works here", so I assumed you were referring to that. Of course this
assumption was based on the misreading of your post.
> I didn't say that I made such an assumption. My assumption here is that
> your experience is based on life in Finland, and when talking about the
> law (or anything), your views are coloured by your life's experiences
> (just as they are for the rest of us). It's important to be aware that
> things (in general) are done differently in different parts of the world
> and to be aware when saying/implying/setting someone up to infer
> (intentionally or not) "our way is better" that other peoples'
> experiences will differ because their background is different.
Well, Finland isn't too different from the US in that if you are too
loud about these things, you will very easily get labelled as a racist.
This has escalated a lot during the last few years when the discussion
about liberal immigration and its possible problems have been brought up
more and more.
--
- Warp
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On Wed, 05 May 2010 13:16:36 -0400, Warp wrote:
> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> Because profiling based on race assumes guilt rather than innocence.
>
> Well, there's where we are using different meanings of the word
> "profiling". You are using a rather loaded meaning of the word.
See the post I just wrote with the OED definition of racial profiling.
That's the definition I'm using.
>> "The person is of hispanic descent, therefore they must (or even are
>> highly likely) to be in the country illegally."
>
> That's not profiling. That's prejudice.
Yes, it is - but making the decision to make the stop based on ethnicity
and statistical probabilities *is* profiling.
Jim
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On Wed, 05 May 2010 13:40:43 -0400, Warp wrote:
> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> >> and you've pretty flatly rejected
>> >> those explanations instead of saying something like "that's not how
>> >> it works here, but I can understand why people in the US might feel
>> >> this way given the history".
>> >
>> > And now you are once again putting words in my mouth. I'm sorry I
>> > have
>> > to say that, but it's just true.
>> >
>> > I have never said anything even remotely resembling "that's not how
>> > it
>> > works here" when talking about racial profiling.
>
>> That was an example of a way to respond, not something that you've
>> said. Please reread what I wrote and let me know what's not clear about
>> it, because I don't know of another way to say "this type of response
>> would be better".
>
> I misread "instead of saying something like" as "instead you are
> saying
> something like", which lead to the confusion.
Fair enough. :-) I thought that might be the case.
> (I suppose I'm getting a taste of my own medicine here, as I taunted
> Darren about him confusing "outlandish" with "outrageous", and now I
> misread something and reacted based on that...)
>
> (And btw, that's not how it works here either. Things like racial
> profiling *are* touchy subjects here as well and sources of heated
> discussions, especially nowadays.)
I thought that was probably the case (I have a good friend in Aaland and
he and I have discussed this in the past), but it's always good to have
confirmation. I would honestly have been surprised if it weren't a
touchy subject.
>> I don't understand what you're trying to say here at all. I didn't
>> bring up the driver sobriety test
>
> It was the only thing that I have written that resembled the "that's
> not
> how it works here", so I assumed you were referring to that. Of course
> this assumption was based on the misreading of your post.
Fair enough.
>> I didn't say that I made such an assumption. My assumption here is
>> that your experience is based on life in Finland, and when talking
>> about the law (or anything), your views are coloured by your life's
>> experiences (just as they are for the rest of us). It's important to
>> be aware that things (in general) are done differently in different
>> parts of the world and to be aware when saying/implying/setting someone
>> up to infer (intentionally or not) "our way is better" that other
>> peoples' experiences will differ because their background is different.
>
> Well, Finland isn't too different from the US in that if you are too
> loud about these things, you will very easily get labelled as a racist.
> This has escalated a lot during the last few years when the discussion
> about liberal immigration and its possible problems have been brought up
> more and more.
So, tell me a little bit about the issues there in Finland - I don't read
a lot of news from Finland, so I wasn't aware there was an escalation
regarding immigration laws there.
Jim
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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> > 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.
> There are logical reasons to oppose the law. The number of false negatives
> found by avoiding investigating those who lack feature X is unrelated to the
> number of false positives caused by investigating those who possess feature X.
I didn't ask what those logical reasons are because they have been
presented countless times already in this thread. I think I said that
in the paragraph above, but you left that part out.
> Do you understand that?
I have said countless times in this thread that I do understand why the
law wouldn't work.
> Because you still seem to be asking the question
Even though I *explicitly* say that I'm not?
> instead of going "Oh! I see now! I no longer have to ask the question,
> because you answered it."
How many times do I have to write "but I understand why it wouldn't work
in practice" before it sinks in?
(And how many times do I have to write that it doesn't change my original
point?)
> > 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.
> I completely understand. And I'm telling you "the math shows that there are
> no contexts in which crime could be more efficiently stopped by making the
> distinction," in any case where you don't already know something about the
> specific criminal you seek. And yet, you still haven't said you understand
> this. Do you?
No.
Firstly, I don't see how the math says that.
Secondly, it was not my point. My point *still* is "if it could make a
difference, it would make sense to use it".
> Even when you use race to find a mugger reported (say) to be a black man,
> you're not using race to decide who to question. You're using location (near
> the time and place of the mugging) to decide who to question and you're
> using race to *eliminate* suspects from questioning. You don't question all
> black men. You question all people *near the crime scene*, *except* for the
> people you know *cannot* be the mugger. Which is entirely different than
> "focusing your attentions on those of the right profile."
You talk like using a profile is mutually exclusive with using other clues.
If your clues have narrowed down the list of suspects to 100 people, 50
males and 50 females, and your profile says that the criminal is most likely
a male (for example, in rape cases it's pretty unlikely for the criminal to
be female), you reduced your list from 100 to 50.
For some reason you seem to think that "using a profile" means "discard
all other evidence and *only* use the profile" (in some past post you even
explicitly talked about profiles *increasing* the amount of subjects, which
at the time I didn't understand at all because it made no sense, but now I
think you were implying "using a profile *and* discarding all other clues").
I don't understand where you are getting that. It's certainly not something
I have said nor implied.
--
- Warp
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Warp wrote:
> Maybe if I emphasize it would help: *IF* race could be used as a trait
> to catch criminals more efficiently, *THEN* it would make sense to use it.
> The issue of "can a policeman check someone without probable cause?" was
> a completely different line of discussion which had nothing to do with
> racial profiling or anything.
Except, as I've tried to explain, these two features are 100% intertwined
and completely related. And we're trying to get you to understand why those
two are intertwined and related.
> I discussed it purely on the context of "checking without probable cause"
> because that separate issue came up in a post.
Except if you have probable cause, you don't need profiling. And without
probable cause, profiling doesn't help. So they're really quite related in
ways that you don't seem to be understanding.
>> When you do that, you come across as having an air of superiority - not
>> you personally, but culturally certainly - and it is interpreted as
>> "we're better than you".
>
> I don't think that "I'm surprised that the police is not allowed to do
> random sobriety tests on drivers there" shows an air of superiority.
Except they *are* allowed to do random sobriety tests. The problem is that
in the very same post, you went on to talk about doing profiling during
"random" sobriety tests to improve the efficiency of those tests. At which
point, it's no longer "random", but rather profiling. You see where the
confusion comes from?
--
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 13:41:01 -0400, Jim Henderson wrote:
> See the post I just wrote with the OED definition of racial profiling.
> That's the definition I'm using.
In digging through definitions for profiling (which led me to 'offender
profiling'), I think I see where there may be a disconnect here.
Racial profiling is what I previously defined it as (so I won't re-cite).
Offender profiling, however, is a compound usage that's common in
Britain, defined as:
offender profiling n. orig. and chiefly Brit. a system of analysing and
recording the probable psychological and behavioural characteristics of
the unknown perpetrators of specific crimes so they can be matched with
the known habits and personalities of suspects
This is something that is done in the US - the idea is basing the
criteria for a search based on common traits of offenders. This is not
the same as racial profiling, because offender profiling uses the
statistical characteristics of a known class of criminal and starts from
the traits of those who are known to be guilty of committing a class of
crime. It also focuses on psychology and behaviour rather than physical
traits.
Racial profiling starts at the other end of the spectrum - rather than
starting with a classification of the guilty, it starts with the
assumption that someone of a particular race must be guilty.
I can see how the two could be easy to confuse, though, especially when
popular culture presentations of offender profiling includes sentences
like "the suspect is probably a black male in his mid-30's [...]" which
isn't a behavioural or phychological trait that would be used for this
type of profiling.
Jim
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Warp wrote:
> Just because individuals can have mixed traits doesn't make the concept
> meaningless.
It makes the concept of assigning a single race to a person (especially
nowadays with global travel and all) mostly meaningless.
>> Why is Obama "black" but not "japanese"? I believe even you once pointed
>> out the absurdity there.
>
> I think that's more a political than a scientifical issue.
Exactly. You can't say scientifically what "race" he is, because the
boundaries of "race" aren't scientific.
>> Kenyans are tall, but not all of them, and some British are tall too. I'm
>> sure you know some people born where you are that have dark curly hair.
>
> Yet an anthropologist can easily distinguish whether a skull belongs to
> a Kenyan or a British.
No, they can't, any more than you can look at a person's race and tell
whether they're a legal resident or an illegal immigrant.
You can tell whether they have genetics more often associated with people
whose ancestors come from middle africa thousands of years ago, or more
often associated with people who come from northern europe thousands of
years ago. But you can't say whether they're from Kenya or Britain.
And *that* is the distinction people are trying to make. Other than for
information *about* genetics, "race" is a meaningless term. It's a statement
about genetics, and for anything outside the field of genetics, it's
meaningless.
You may say "Saying someone is Kenyan is a shorthand for saying they had
ancestors thousands of years ago who lived near what is now Kenya," but by
the time you actually *express* it that way, almost any assertion you make
about the person's behavior or location (especially classical "racist"
assertions) becomes obviously nonsense.
--
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:
> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> Because profiling based on race assumes guilt rather than innocence.
>
> Well, there's where we are using different meanings of the word
> "profiling". You are using a rather loaded meaning of the word.
>
>> "The person is of hispanic descent, therefore they must (or even are
>> highly likely) to be in the country illegally."
>
> That's not profiling. That's prejudice.
It's not possible to do profiling based on someone's appearance without
being prejudice about it. Hence, it is both.
--
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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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> So, tell me a little bit about the issues there in Finland - I don't read
> a lot of news from Finland, so I wasn't aware there was an escalation
> regarding immigration laws there.
There are many people here who are looking at Sweden and its immigration
problems (which are completely real, as even the Swedish press, which
has traditionally censored every immigration-related issue in the past,
is slowly opening a bit to report problems with immigrant suburbs, such
as riots, arson, ambulances and firetrucks being thrown with stones and
bottles, and other such acts of violence performed by immigrants), as
well as Britain (a bit of googling should give good resources) and France,
and are fearing that Finland is going down the same path, and trying to
raise consciousness about this.
At the same time the so-called "multiculturalists" are trying everything
they can to deny any such problems either existing or being significant,
as well as trying to "educate" the Finnish people that we are, allegedly,
extremely racist and that we need tons and tons of immigrants. The vast
majority of the media is on this "multiculturalists" side, sometimes even
to rather amazing extremes (such as launching systematic public loathing
campaigns against politicians who criticize the current immigration policy
trends).
There was a big commotion some years, especially on the media, when a
politician who is quite known and very vocal about is critique of the
current immigration policies and "multiculturalism" was almost elected to
the Finnish parlament (he was just some votes short of getting there).
Afterwards he got elected to the city council of Helsinki. Since then
there has been, basically, a coordinated attack against him by the Finnish
media. He has been systematically loathed, and even criminally investigated
(this got so far as a court trial for something he wrote many years earlier).
Of course he is not the only one, but he has apparently been selected by
the media as the main target.
Rather than the whole thing dying down, this has only escalated in the
last few years. Even to the point where other politicians cannot keep
quiet anymore, but are more or less forced to take public stances on the
immigration issue. (This puts many of them in a difficult situation because
a significant portion of voters are leaning towards the critical side,
and the politicians don't want to alienate them.)
--
- Warp
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Warp wrote:
> How many times do I have to write "but I understand why it wouldn't work
> in practice" before it sinks in?
Because I'm telling you why it wouldn't work even in theory. Even if you
*found* that statistical correlation, the answer is still "No, it wouldn't
work."
> (And how many times do I have to write that it doesn't change my original
> point?)
And that's why I think you don't understand what I'm saying. It completely
invalidates your original point, as well as all the rewordings of the
original point you've expressed.
Because your original point is *incorrect*, and there is *no way* to make it
correct, even by completely eliminating all prejudice and fear of racism and
profiling from the entire population. It's not that "it wouldn't work in
practice." It's that "the math says it wouldn't even work in theory."
>> I completely understand. And I'm telling you "the math shows that there are
>> no contexts in which crime could be more efficiently stopped by making the
>> distinction," in any case where you don't already know something about the
>> specific criminal you seek. And yet, you still haven't said you understand
>> this. Do you?
>
> No.
>
> Firstly, I don't see how the math says that.
Look up Bayesian statistics. It's a common misunderstanding of how things work.
As I've tried to explain, it's a difference between reducing false negatives
and reducing false positives.
http://betterexplained.com/articles/an-intuitive-and-short-explanation-of-bayes-theorem/
Your "test" is the ethnicity, and your "result" is whether the person
committed the crime. The number of people who are *not* criminals far
outweighs the number of people who *are* criminals.
That's why I've been pounding on this. You seem to not understand "it
mathematically cannot make a difference."
> Secondly, it was not my point. My point *still* is "if it could make a
> difference, it would make sense to use it".
OK. I don't know what else to say besides "It's impossible for it to make a
difference, so there's never any way in which it makes sense to use it."
> You talk like using a profile is mutually exclusive with using other clues.
Having a profile is unnecessary if you have other clues. You match the
person to the clues, even if that clue is a clue about the race or gender or
age of the suspect. That's not profiling. That's using clues to eliminate
suspects.
> If your clues have narrowed down the list of suspects to 100 people, 50
> males and 50 females, and your profile says that the criminal is most likely
> a male (for example, in rape cases it's pretty unlikely for the criminal to
> be female), you reduced your list from 100 to 50.
You understand that is eliminating false positives, right? By the time
you've already narrowed it from 300,000,000 people down to 100 people, you
have probable cause to suspect some of those people. You're not eliminating
the females because "in rape cases it's unlikely to be a female." You're
eliminating the females because you have genetics spilled all over the
victim telling you it's a male. That's no more profiling than "the rape
happened in Boulder, so let's not suspect people who were in Beijing that day."
If the victim got raped with a broomstick, you wouldn't be eliminating the
females, because there would be no *evidence* outside the profile that would
allow you to eliminate them.
> For some reason you seem to think that "using a profile" means "discard
> all other evidence and *only* use the profile" (in some past post you even
> explicitly talked about profiles *increasing* the amount of subjects, which
> at the time I didn't understand at all because it made no sense, but now I
> think you were implying "using a profile *and* discarding all other clues").
I said that using a profile based on the total number of criminals with
attribute X can increase the number of people you look for without catching
someone if there's an even *higher* number of people who have X that are
*not* criminals.
If you say "We should throw away the rotten fruit. 80% of the rotten fruit
is strawberries. Only 20% of the rotten fruit is blueberries. Hence, we
should examine the strawberries more closely." But if you have more than
five times as many total strawberries as total blueberries, you'll be
*increasing* your work by concentrating on strawberries rather than picking
fruit at random to examine because there's a lower percentage *of
strawberries* that are rotten. And it has nothing to do with racism or
prejudice. It's just math.
I know you'll say "but what if it helps?" I'm giving this as an example of
how my statement could make sense, not a reason why your statement was
incorrect.
> I don't understand where you are getting that. It's certainly not something
> I have said nor implied.
But if you already suspect someone of a crime, why do you need the profile?
--
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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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Having a profile is unnecessary if you have other clues.
I am curious about one thing: Why do you seem to have such a huge aversion
against profiling? You have insisted again and again that profiling, any
kind of profiling, is useless and unnecessary to catch criminals. (Or at
least that's how I understand your posts, as you don't talk exclusively
about racial profiling, but about other types of profiling as well, such
as one based on gender.)
This is rather odd given that criminal profiling is an important tool of
investigation especially in the US:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offender_profiling
If profiling is so unnecessary, why is it used nevertheless?
Maybe you are talking about something else than profiling?
--
- Warp
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Warp wrote:
> This is rather odd given that criminal profiling is an important tool of
> investigation especially in the US:
That's a different kind of profiling.
"Offender profiling is a behavioral and investigative tool"
It's for investigating, not arresting. It's based on behavior, not statistics.
As I said, I'm not against "profiling" someone who is driving erratically
and then checking if they're drunk. I'm not against "profiling" someone who
isn't paying taxes comparable to their lifestyle and finding out if they're
getting paid under the table because they're in the country illegally.
The profiling people object to is the profiling based on things that *don't*
have to do with the crime under investigation, such as genetics, age,
clothing, hair style, or car color.
Or, to sum it up again:
1) When doing offender profiling, you already know there's an offender involved.
2) The profile you develop is specific to the criminal, based on clues left
at a crime scene.
3) When doing offender profiling, you don't use the profile as a means to
determine who to arrest. You use it as a means to determine who to
investigate and what further clues to look for and what kind of traps to set.
In other words, you use the profile as a means of looking for more clues,
not as a means of identifying a person. If the profile says "He probably had
a vehicle", you ask the parking attendant for the video tapes of the cars
that went in and out of the crime scene. You don't stop everyone with a
vehicle and ask them for fingerprints. When the profile says "cunning" it
means you don't set an obvious trap and hope the criminal won't notice; it
doesn't mean you investigate lost of smart people who were around that day.
If the profile says "likes to kill blond teenagers", you don't send cops
dressed like little old black ladies walking around the park at night as
bait in a trap for him.
"Various aspects of the criminal's personality makeup are determined from
his or her choices before, during, and after the crime."
Offender profile is "this is what we think the criminal in *this* case is
like, because of the clues he left." It's also used mainly when someone is
committing *multiple* crimes in the same way. There's 500 murders this
year. But *these* six all had the victim tied up by their left ankle from a
tree and had their nose mashed in with a hammer left at the site. If we
catch someone doing that a seventh time, it's probably a good idea to ask
him about the other six.
Racial profiling is "a majority of the people who commit crime X have trait
Y that they can neither control nor change, but we're going to look
disproportionately at people with trait Y, presupposing that a
disproportionate number of them will commit crime X."
About the closest racial profiling for illegal immigration would come to
offender profiling would be "if you catch an illegal immigrant, check out
his family too." Or "if you catch an illegal immigrant working illegally,
check out his coworkers."
Does this clarify?
--
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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You all know that this thread has a time limit. After tomorrow
(Thursday) the election is over, I hope. <g>
--
Best Regards,
Stephen
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On Wed, 05 May 2010 14:18:38 -0400, Warp wrote:
> There are many people here who are looking at Sweden and its
> immigration
> problems (which are completely real, as even the Swedish press, which
> has traditionally censored every immigration-related issue in the past,
> is slowly opening a bit to report problems with immigrant suburbs, such
> as riots, arson, ambulances and firetrucks being thrown with stones and
> bottles, and other such acts of violence performed by immigrants), as
> well as Britain (a bit of googling should give good resources) and
> France, and are fearing that Finland is going down the same path, and
> trying to raise consciousness about this.
Interesting; I had heard that Finland was extremely difficult to
immigrate to, but hadn't heard about the potential for violence (I've
heard about the BNP issues in the UK). I hadn't heard about the problems
in Sweeden, though.
Jim
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On Wed, 05 May 2010 23:01:06 +0100, Stephen wrote:
> You all know that this thread has a time limit. After tomorrow
> (Thursday) the election is over, I hope. <g>
It seems lots of people hope so, but what are the real odds of a hung
parliament?
Jim
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On 5/5/2010 10:15 AM, Warp wrote:
> Many so-called "multiculturalists" are calling for getting rid of the
> whole concept of "race", but this is purely for political and ideological
> reasons, not scientifical ones. Personally I see this as some kind of
> attempt at orwellian manipulation (like in the novel "1984"): If you
> completely ban offending vocabulary, the "criminals" (in this case racists)
> won't have any way of expressing their views.
>
> Some anthropologists might have genuine and well-argumented scientifical
> reasons why they are advocating getting rid of the concept, but AFAIK they
> are a minority. I'm convinced that most people who do that are doing it for
> ideological reasons only.
>
On the other hand, the ideological reasons many have for keeping it are
as bad, or worse. There was even some clown a while back teaching
"diversity" at colleges, who had the gall to claim that you couldn't
expect Black people to be on time, because there was something inherent
in the "race" that made them always late, so you had to "work around"
this issue, if you wanted to properly deal with and implement
"diversity". He was a) also black, and b) completely serious about it,
and had a whole host of other "traits" he tried to claim other people
have, based on their race, and you had to adjust schedules, rules,
policies, etc., not to be inclusive of different ideas (what most people
call "diversity" in businesses, and which can sometimes be just as
stupid), but different "races".
As far as I know, the bozo is still wandering around the country side
babbling this BS at colleges.
--
void main () {
If 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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On 5/5/2010 10:58 AM, Warp wrote:
> For some reason you seem to think that "using a profile" means "discard
> all other evidence and *only* use the profile" (in some past post you even
> explicitly talked about profiles *increasing* the amount of subjects, which
> at the time I didn't understand at all because it made no sense, but now I
> think you were implying "using a profile *and* discarding all other clues").
> I don't understand where you are getting that. It's certainly not something
> I have said nor implied.
>
Somewhere I read something, I don't remember where, which stated that,
when profiles work, its because enough was known of the suspect to
already narrow the focus to someone that "fit" the profile, but that, in
cases where almost nothing is known, its a 50:50 hit or miss. The whole
FBI profile BS you see in TV, is just that, BS. It doesn't work, unless
you already know you are looking for someone that "fits" the profile. At
which point it acts as confirmation (sort of), but gives no other useful
information, most of the time.
In which case, the result you end up with is **not** profiling. By
definition, profiling means that you know where, when, but not who, did
something, so you make a "projection", as to who did it. If you know
nothing about the who, you can't make a useful bloody prediction, and
you might be 100% dead wrong, about **everything** related to that
profile, or avenues that result from it.
--
void main () {
If 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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On 5/5/2010 12:49 PM, Darren New wrote:
> Warp wrote:
>> This is rather odd given that criminal profiling is an important tool of
>> investigation especially in the US:
>
> That's a different kind of profiling.
>
> "Offender profiling is a behavioral and investigative tool"
>
> It's for investigating, not arresting. It's based on behavior, not
> statistics.
>
> As I said, I'm not against "profiling" someone who is driving
> erratically and then checking if they're drunk. I'm not against
> "profiling" someone who isn't paying taxes comparable to their lifestyle
> and finding out if they're getting paid under the table because they're
> in the country illegally.
>
> The profiling people object to is the profiling based on things that
> *don't* have to do with the crime under investigation, such as genetics,
> age, clothing, hair style, or car color.
>
> Or, to sum it up again:
>
> 1) When doing offender profiling, you already know there's an offender
> involved.
>
> 2) The profile you develop is specific to the criminal, based on clues
> left at a crime scene.
>
> 3) When doing offender profiling, you don't use the profile as a means
> to determine who to arrest. You use it as a means to determine who to
> investigate and what further clues to look for and what kind of traps to
> set.
>
> In other words, you use the profile as a means of looking for more
> clues, not as a means of identifying a person. If the profile says "He
> probably had a vehicle", you ask the parking attendant for the video
> tapes of the cars that went in and out of the crime scene. You don't
> stop everyone with a vehicle and ask them for fingerprints. When the
> profile says "cunning" it means you don't set an obvious trap and hope
> the criminal won't notice; it doesn't mean you investigate lost of smart
> people who were around that day. If the profile says "likes to kill
> blond teenagers", you don't send cops dressed like little old black
> ladies walking around the park at night as bait in a trap for him.
>
> "Various aspects of the criminal's personality makeup are determined
> from his or her choices before, during, and after the crime."
>
> Offender profile is "this is what we think the criminal in *this* case
> is like, because of the clues he left." It's also used mainly when
> someone is committing *multiple* crimes in the same way. There's 500
> murders this year. But *these* six all had the victim tied up by their
> left ankle from a tree and had their nose mashed in with a hammer left
> at the site. If we catch someone doing that a seventh time, it's
> probably a good idea to ask him about the other six.
>
Exactly. This is the real thing, which too much of the simplistic TV
gibberish you see "isn't".
> Racial profiling is "a majority of the people who commit crime X have
> trait Y that they can neither control nor change, but we're going to
> look disproportionately at people with trait Y, presupposing that a
> disproportionate number of them will commit crime X."
>
Precisely, and why, when it has been used, it fails as often as it works.
--
void main () {
If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
if version = "Vista" {
call slow_by_half();
call DRM_everything();
}
call functional_code();
}
else
call crash_windows();
}
<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models,
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>
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On Wed, 05 May 2010 18:33:46 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> On the other hand, the ideological reasons many have for keeping it are
> as bad, or worse. There was even some clown a while back teaching
> "diversity" at colleges, who had the gall to claim that you couldn't
> expect Black people to be on time, because there was something inherent
> in the "race" that made them always late, so you had to "work around"
> this issue, if you wanted to properly deal with and implement
> "diversity". He was a) also black, and b) completely serious about it,
> and had a whole host of other "traits" he tried to claim other people
> have, based on their race, and you had to adjust schedules, rules,
> policies, etc., not to be inclusive of different ideas (what most people
> call "diversity" in businesses, and which can sometimes be just as
> stupid), but different "races".
>
> As far as I know, the bozo is still wandering around the country side
> babbling this BS at colleges.
It sounds like this bozo may be projecting cultural norms on an ethnic
group. For example, I note that often when I schedule an appointment
with people in some countries in Africa (I have no idea what the person's
race is because I don't speak on the phone with them, see them, or
communicate in any way other than e-mail and chat typically), they may
arrive at the online session as much as an hour late. But I think that
is largely a cultural thing, due to poor transportation infrastructure or
other similar reasons that are environmental.
I guess what I may be trying to say is that this bozo has reasons for
thinking what he does, but he's applying poor logic and attributing
racial reasons rather than cultural or other environmental factors.
Jim
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