dukeimre

dukeimre t1_j8wm4kn wrote

He wasn't dragging himself 50 feet across a stage by his hands or something, shooing away would-be helpers. He just clambered up onto the stage (which is something mostly done with one's arms anyways), with the idea being that his wheelchair would be lifted (by others) onto the stage with him. But then they couldn't lift the wheelchair, so he had to come back down. So he did accept help.

I don't get why there are so many folks in this thread whose reaction to a guy in a wheelchair not getting the disability accommodations required by law is to blame the guy in the wheelchair...?

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dukeimre t1_j8p5be5 wrote

Yeah, I've had this problem as well. Part of the issue is, I really like reading and talking about "the issues of the day" (politics, etc.). But it's hard to find an online community that meets all the requirements I'd have to feel good about engaging, like:

  1. mostly respectful

  2. relatively optimistic in terms of looking for solutions rather than simply venting about how terrible the world is

  3. willing to listen to arguments and ideas that don't match their own

  4. Not so far away from my own positions that we simply cannot communicate productively (e.g., there's only so much time I can spend arguing with even well-meaning and polite objectivists)

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dukeimre t1_j8a3bwa wrote

Ohhhh, I missed the "even controlling for...". Sorry!

I do think it's possible that the original commenter is right because there might be other factors to control for besides geography and income. For example, perhaps black kids who live in a rich neighborhood and have a high income are still less likely to do well in school because of stereotype threat. So I wouldn't be surprised if there are performance differences between groups that remain after you control for geography and income... but I'd expect that the more additional factors you control for, the smaller the differences would become, until they eventually vanished (or, at least, almost vanished, to within a tiny margin).

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dukeimre t1_j88yqrb wrote

The point here is, correlation is not causation. For black people in America:

There was a series of policies that set them up for poverty. Slavery, sure, but more recently and relevantly redlining and other policies that set up black communities for failure. Black people were all forced into the same, poor communities (nobody would sell them homes anywhere else); their communities were ravaged at times by urban development ("where should we put this highway? Just stick it through the black neighborhood"); they were all put in the same schools that lacked basic essentials (and when they tried to go to other schools, white parents fled to the suburbs), they were discriminated against in hiring.

They were ravaged by the drug epidemic, and they were ravaged by the tough on crime approach that responded to the drug epidemic. For example, the consequences for possessing a small amount of crack were much, much greater than for possessing an equal amount of regular cocaine-- so, you wound up with poor black people getting ridiculously long prison sentences where wealthier people received relatively light consequences for the same crime. Likewise, there were many more police on black neighborhoods, with less oversight, so poor black people were much more likely to be caught and harshly punished for really low-level crimes, and noncriminal black youth were more likely to develop massive fear and distrust of the police due to antagonistic policing methods.

This in turn destroyed black families (imagine if a quarter of the men you know who ever did any illegal drug went to prison and their kids spent a portion of their childhood without a father).

All this taken together means that more black people are poor, more black people are less educated, more black people are in prison, etc.

But it doesn't mean black people are genetically inferior.

(Happy to provide a source for anything mentioned above upon request!)

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dukeimre t1_j5mrffv wrote

It sounds silly but honestly as long as they're not canceling people who say mummy it seems like a nice (incredibly tiny) step to take that can help society rethink some of this stuff.

I know for myself, as a kid, it never occurred to me that all the Egyptian stuff in museums was looted during occupation of Egypt by foreigners who saw the locals as savages. I think it's an ok idea for people who feel like it and really care about how society thinks about history to tweak the way they talk about these things!

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dukeimre t1_j5lcsoz wrote

Agreed that if OP were advocating for state violence against conservatives, he'd be acting out intolerance. That said, I think OP's personal intolerance would not invoke the paradox at all.

OP chooses not to associate with people OP sees as bad; further, OP tells others about how bad those people are on social media. None of these behaviors qualify as intolerance in the sense meant by these philosophers. (Unless OP is advocating for these others to be imprisoned simply for sharing their views, for example, which I don't think they are.)

From Rawls' perspective, unless the constitution of the state (written to preserve tolerance) is threatened, there's no need for the state to be "intolerant of the intolerant".

So, e.g., Trump's campaign of lies about election fraud and statements about how the constitution should be overthrown might put him on the wrong side of Rawls. By contrast, Ron DeSantis saying that African American history classes are racist is ludicrous but not "intolerant" in the sense of Rawls.

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dukeimre t1_j5l7ux6 wrote

It makes sense that you'd make the personal choice not to tolerate bigoted people, particularly those who advocate for your elimination from society!

That said, I don't think the linked article is talking about this sort of personal (in)tolerance. That is to say, I don't think any of the authors would have much to say on the question of whether you, a private citizen, are obligated to sit by quietly while another private citizen says something you disagree with, especially if they're attacking your identity. You could defriend every political conservative you know without any objection from these philosophers.

Instead, I think the article is arguing that we shouldn't demand that the State prevent intolerant people from ever speaking in public. So, e.g., if Ron DeSantis, wanted to publicly oppose trans rights (which he does), the State should not forcefully silence him or meet him with violence.

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dukeimre t1_iyo3i3q wrote

It's interesting - you'd think he wouldn't be embarrassed to say that he was drunk, right? And yet he denies it: "He'd had drinks on the Valor, but was not inebriated, Grimes told ABC. He doesn't remember leaving to find a bathroom, he said."

Possibilities:

  • He was ashamed to say that he was blackout drunk.
  • He was so blackout drunk that he has forgotten being blackout drunk.
  • Someone slipped him a roofie.
  • He was doing something else that was really risky (like climbing over the railing) or that he might see as shameful (like trying to commit suicide), so he chose to lie.
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dukeimre t1_iyckib5 wrote

In the long run, you'll be much better off financially trying to find ways to increase your hourly wage. E.g., if you went to college, community college, or trade school while living with your parents. Working more than 40 hours per week would make you a little money in the short run, but it may or may not help with this goal.

Check out this article, which mentions that the median salary of folks with college degrees is $26k/year higher than for folks without.

If your parents don't make a high income, you could be eligible for a lot of financial aid for college.

The risk with a 4-year college, if you don't get a ton of financial aid, would be that you don't finish and wind up deeply in debt without anything to show for it. In which case, community college or trade school is much cheaper and would still lead to higher-paying jobs.

But obviously school isn't for everyone -- and you can always come back to it later, if you need some time to decide what you want to do.

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dukeimre t1_iwziw2b wrote

If in fact the police officers had been robbed and the culprit had gotten away, that'd clearly be a failure. But if you try to catch a drug dealer and that drug dealer attempts to rob you and you catch him, you have now caught someone who not only deals drugs but robs their customers - seems like a success to me!

The perp was arrested for "possession with intent to sell". In other words, it seems like he had drugs and was offering to sell them, but in this particular instance he chose to instead attempt theft. The only indication I see of a possible error is that the officers put the confidential informant in danger -- that person presumably didn't sign up to get attacked.

(And obviously there are corrupt officers who make stuff up, so it's always possible that the perp didn't actually have drugs and they were planted on him, etc. etc. But I'm taking the article at face value for the sake of argument.)

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