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21st May 2020, 05:28 PM | #241 |
Penultimate Amazing
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For another, older example, 1985, look up Sagon Penn. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagon_Penn
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Any sufficiently advanced idea is indistinguishable from idiocy to those who don't actually understanding the concept. |
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21st May 2020, 05:49 PM | #242 |
Penultimate Amazing
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It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. -- JayUtah I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. -- Charles Babbage (1791-1871) |
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21st May 2020, 06:34 PM | #243 |
Penultimate Amazing
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I don't think that there are any rules about who should do research.
But if you are scratching your head wondering "what happened?" then research is an excellent way to get more information about it.
Quote:
This would have taken a lot less time than dreaming up scenarios that don't fit the facts. |
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22nd May 2020, 02:26 AM | #244 |
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This is a reaction I'm familiar with from the conspiracy theory forums. "You're supposed to be skeptics, why are you supporting the official story and why are you trying to suppress alternative theories?" Viewed in the most charitable sense, it's based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the difference between skepticism and denialism. Less charitably, it's an attempt to subvert the process of rational skepticism in support of an agenda. Skeptic Tank's stated his agenda quite openly, and strongly argues for a belief that black people are unfit for citizenship, so we needn't bother enquiring too closely about motives. But it's worth pointing out that skepticism only requires that conclusions are questioned, not that they're necessarily rejected. We're allowed so form working conclusions based on the evidence available, rather than having to wait till irrefutable proof of a conclusion is presented - in fact, outside of mathematics there is no such thing.
I'm being criticized for my provisional conclusion that racism played a part in this incident, so I'll explain what led me to it, and where I stand with respect to evidence. Firstly, we regularly see stories of black people in the USA suffering excessively brutal treatment at the hands of police officers, and my perception is that these stories are vastly more common than white people suffering similar treatment - though there are such stories, they are relatively few. The simplest and most parsimonious explanation, given the long and well-documented history of racial discrimination in the USA (please note: I'm not suggesting here that the USA is unusual in this respect), is that racism has not been eliminated from the law enforcement community, and the result is a preponderance of stories in which black people are beaten or killed by police when there is no rational cause. This is clearly exascerbated by the USA's attitude to gun ownership, which raises the perceived level of danger police work under to the point where the "warrior cop" attitude becomes prevalent. Police see their job as taking out the bad guys before they get taken out themselves, and some tend to associate black with bad. Even if that's based, as ST insists, on crime statistics, applying it to a situation like this, if that's what happened, is still racist; it's judging an individual on the basis of characteristics rightly or wrongly assigned to their race. The common counter to this is "You can't prove this specific instance was racist." This is equivalent to asking for the benefit of the doubt, but the overall picture seems too clear for there to be much doubt to benefit from. Now, I admit I may be wrong. It may be that white people suffer this sort of treatment at the same rate as black people, but the stories are not widely reported. I can think of three responses to this. Firstly, are the stories not reported because they're hushed up by police departments? Do municipalities offer generous settlements to white victims of police brutality that they don't offer to black victims, so only the latter become major issues? That would simply remove the racism one step, but I'd be interested to see evidence of it. Secondly, are the stories not reported because they're not considered newsworthy, that more or less innocent white people being brutalized by police is considered so commonplace that it's not worth talking about, but the occasional black person suffering the same becomes national news? This seems unlikely, because there are news outlets quite capable of reporting stories of brutality against white people; there should be links to post. Thirdly, is there a nationwide conspiracy to suppress stories of brutality against white people? I'd be prepared to consider evidence for this, but the burden of proof is pretty damned high. Fourthly, is Skeptic Tank right, and was every single incident of this sort brought on by the criminality of the victim? Was 68-year-old Marvia Gray a violent criminal who needed to be wrestled to the ground by armed officers? Was Philando Castile's exercising of his legal right to carry a weapon, and his notification of the police officer stopping him that he held one, a crime so threatening that it demanded his instant shooting? Was the supposed carer of an autistic man armed with a toy car presenting such a threat by lying on the ground with his hands up and politely asking a police officer not to shoot him that he needed to be shot, handcuffed and left to bleed for half an hour before receiving medical attention? The arguments offered so far in support of this interpretation have been weak at best, pathetically biased at worst. But I'm open to better evidence. But for the moment, simple, good old fashioned racism is the explanation that comes across as most compelling in this case, based on the overall picture. And the arguments I've seen for any other interpretation simply don't fit the facts as presented. As a middle aged white man, I'd expect on occasion to get rather annoyed with a customer services representative without being body-slammed, handcuffed and hospitalized. Yet when a black man and a black old lady get treated differently, we're asked to assume it can't possibly be racism unless and until it's proven beyond possible doubt. Skepticism doesn't work like that. Racism doesn't work like that. If you want to change my mind, give me something better. Dave |
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There is truth and there are lies. - President Joseph R. Biden, January 20th, 2021 |
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22nd May 2020, 06:15 AM | #245 |
"más divertido"
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22nd May 2020, 06:44 AM | #246 |
"más divertido"
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Buying a TV while Black
Wow - I just read the post above mine. Very well said, Dave Rogers.
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22nd May 2020, 07:41 AM | #247 |
Penultimate Amazing
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Very well said, indeed. I would only add that if one actually knows black people (and others who don't look white) and listens to them, stories of mistreatment by police - from regular, seemingly unmotivated traffic stops to physical abuse - are common.
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22nd May 2020, 07:55 AM | #248 |
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"Just believe the opposite of what I'm being told" doesn't make you a Skeptic, it makes you a Contrarian Idiot.
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"If everyone in the room says water is wet and I say it's dry that makes me smart because at least I'm thinking for myself!" - The Proudly Wrong. |
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22nd May 2020, 09:33 AM | #249 |
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- "Who is the greater fool? The fool? Or the one arguing with the fool?" [Uknown] - "The only way to win is not to play." [Tsig quoting 'War Games'] |
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22nd May 2020, 10:00 AM | #250 |
Penultimate Amazing
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Implicit in the denials in these threads of racist intent is the belief by the deniers that black people are untrustworthy when they claim that an incident in which they were the central participants was racist. That the black person who was there and experienced the discrimination just was too stupid or too angry to understand that no racism was involved. Whereas white people who only read about the incident and lived as members of the majority their entire life can more correctly blithely state that no racism took place. Frequently white people who believe that there is virtually no white on black racism in the USA. They certainly haven’t experienced any!
Sad and embarrassing. |
22nd May 2020, 10:23 AM | #251 |
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"If everyone in the room says water is wet and I say it's dry that makes me smart because at least I'm thinking for myself!" - The Proudly Wrong. |
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22nd May 2020, 10:48 AM | #252 |
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22nd May 2020, 11:01 AM | #253 |
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Again since so much of people's mentalities are a childish, spiteful "showing up" routine this is to be expected. For many people there is no greater joy then using someone's own values against them.
It's why we skeptics have to deal with so much "Oh I thought you were a skeptic" denialism, why argumentative standards have to deal with kneejerk contrarianism, why simple "All things being equal the solution with more freedom is preferable" desire for freedom has to deal with "I'm going to poke myself in the eye with a sharp stick, not because I want to or even think it's a good idea but just because someone dared tell me not to" Youcantellmewhattodoism. It's like these people can't achieve orgasm without perverting someone else's good idea into a twisted strawman version and using it against them. |
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"If everyone in the room says water is wet and I say it's dry that makes me smart because at least I'm thinking for myself!" - The Proudly Wrong. |
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22nd May 2020, 12:13 PM | #254 |
Penultimate Amazing
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I would also add how oddly specific the “True skeptics question everything!l” posts are to threads dealing with white on black racism. The impossibly high bar assigned to accepting the statements of black people is seldom applied by many of these same posters to other issues in other threads.
Frankly I don’t think they themselves even realize this. |
22nd May 2020, 12:27 PM | #255 |
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Gunter Haas, the 'leading British expert,' was a graphologist who advised couples, based on their handwriting characteristics, if they were compatible for marriage. I would submit that couples idiotic enough to do this are probably quite suitable for each other. It's nice when stupid people find love. - Ludovic Kennedy |
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22nd May 2020, 12:38 PM | #256 |
Penultimate Amazing
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This is way off topic, but I realized this with the OJ trial. 99% of black people said he was innocent, and 99% of white people said he was guilty (including me). I was happy to think that I had rational reasoning for concluding that he was guilty.
But then I started thinking about it. Does that mean I think that the black people who think he is not guilty are all irrational? Do I believe that all black people are irrationally biased and all white people are not? That can't be right. Clearly not all black people are irrational, and those who are not irrational have come to the conclusion that he is not guilty, just as I believe I have rationally come to the conclusion he was guilty. How can I claim they are all biased and I am not? How much of my conclusion results from an unconscious bias? Suddenly, I'm not so sure any more. I still know what I think, but I recognize that it might not be coming from as much of a rational position as I would like to believe. As a result, I'm not as confident in my conclusion. Make no mistake, Mark Fuhrman is a real piece of work and is enough to justify a lot of doubt. I am certainly to the point now where I more or less concur with the not guilty verdict, because there is at least a reasonable doubt. The short answer is, when opinions run so strongly along racial lines, it is irrational to put all the blame on one side. |
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Gunter Haas, the 'leading British expert,' was a graphologist who advised couples, based on their handwriting characteristics, if they were compatible for marriage. I would submit that couples idiotic enough to do this are probably quite suitable for each other. It's nice when stupid people find love. - Ludovic Kennedy |
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22nd May 2020, 12:43 PM | #257 | ||
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This is certainly true, but there's an aspect of it that I've often not seen discussed. It's the, "Oh come on, that's ridiculous!" reaction. As a white guy who hasn't seen a whole lot of in-your-face racism for myself, it used to be that a lot of these stories just sounded so ridiculous. Why would the store employees act like that? Why would Karen call the cops over something like that? Why would the cops shoot someone over something like that? It all seems so ridiculous; you think to yourself, "Yeah, there's got to be more to the story than that!" (notice what ST wants us to be asking ourselves? I'll come back to this) But then you see a story like one linked earlier - the guy who kept being arrested for "trespassing" while he was at work. And arrested not just once or twice, but dozens of times, often by the very same cops, and over the strident objections of the store owner who employed him. At some point, you realize these stories sound ridiculous, because they are ridiculous. They're ridiculous, because the racists doing all these things either are themselves ridiculous (your typical Karens), or are counting on this reaction to cover for their racism (your typical Klansman
The key is to realize that yes, it's ridiculous, because the racists are ridiculous. Once you embrace that, it becomes much clearer. |
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Obviously, that means cats are indeed evil and that ownership or display of a feline is an overt declaration of one's affiliation with dark forces. - Cl1mh4224rd |
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22nd May 2020, 01:36 PM | #258 |
Penultimate Amazing
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Racist apologetics? Surely you jest. I'm assured that there is no such thing to be found in this thread. Move along, sonny.
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Like many humorless and indignant people, he is hard on everybody but himself, and does not perceive it when he fails his own ideal (Molière) A pedant is a man who studies a vacuum through instruments that allow him to draw cross-sections of the details (John Ciardi) |
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22nd May 2020, 05:29 PM | #259 |
... and your little dog too.
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Man, it’s like someone turned on the lights in this thread and the roaches just scattered...
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22nd May 2020, 09:10 PM | #260 |
Penultimate Amazing
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If you're not a scientist but you think you've destroyed the foundation of a vast scientific edifice with 10 minutes of Googling, you might want to consider the possibility that you're wrong. Its TRE45ON season... convict the F45CIST!! |
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22nd May 2020, 09:17 PM | #261 |
Penultimate Amazing
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If you're not a scientist but you think you've destroyed the foundation of a vast scientific edifice with 10 minutes of Googling, you might want to consider the possibility that you're wrong. Its TRE45ON season... convict the F45CIST!! |
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24th May 2020, 04:54 AM | #262 |
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As human right is always something given, it always in reality reduces to the right which men give, "concede," to each other. If the right to existence is conceded to new-born children, then they have the right; if it is not conceded to them, as was the case among the Spartans and ancient Romans, then they do not have it. For only society can give or concede it to them; they themselves cannot take it, or give it to themselves. |
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24th May 2020, 04:56 AM | #263 |
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As human right is always something given, it always in reality reduces to the right which men give, "concede," to each other. If the right to existence is conceded to new-born children, then they have the right; if it is not conceded to them, as was the case among the Spartans and ancient Romans, then they do not have it. For only society can give or concede it to them; they themselves cannot take it, or give it to themselves. |
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24th May 2020, 04:57 AM | #264 |
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As human right is always something given, it always in reality reduces to the right which men give, "concede," to each other. If the right to existence is conceded to new-born children, then they have the right; if it is not conceded to them, as was the case among the Spartans and ancient Romans, then they do not have it. For only society can give or concede it to them; they themselves cannot take it, or give it to themselves. |
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24th May 2020, 05:00 AM | #265 |
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As human right is always something given, it always in reality reduces to the right which men give, "concede," to each other. If the right to existence is conceded to new-born children, then they have the right; if it is not conceded to them, as was the case among the Spartans and ancient Romans, then they do not have it. For only society can give or concede it to them; they themselves cannot take it, or give it to themselves. |
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24th May 2020, 05:02 AM | #266 |
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As human right is always something given, it always in reality reduces to the right which men give, "concede," to each other. If the right to existence is conceded to new-born children, then they have the right; if it is not conceded to them, as was the case among the Spartans and ancient Romans, then they do not have it. For only society can give or concede it to them; they themselves cannot take it, or give it to themselves. |
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24th May 2020, 05:15 AM | #267 |
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This has become one of their good-to's; a constant screaming appeal that we wait for the "whole story" or "both sides" with no context as to what that actually means or what information we're actually waiting on that will matter so they can keep writing fan fiction taking place in alternative universes where the black people did something wrong.
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"If everyone in the room says water is wet and I say it's dry that makes me smart because at least I'm thinking for myself!" - The Proudly Wrong. |
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24th May 2020, 05:38 AM | #268 |
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Oh. I take it you too missed the ling that was posted only two posts down from my original statement. Yes, true, that link was posted by someone else but if you need to believe that it doesn't/didn't exist then that's your problem, not mine. I suppose I could go back, get that link, which has been posted here twice already and repost it just to keep this Gong Show on the air.
https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/...2978b49b0.html Whoa...there's just one of the links that didn't exist. Now in that link there's a statement from Des Peres Department of Public Safety AKA, the cops. and in that statement the Des Peres Department of Public Safety presents a perspective that wasn't presented in the article linked in the OP. Now at one point I alluded to the possibility that the statement (which included the words " As one of our officers attempted to detain a male subject for the reported Larceny" ) might be questionable by using the statement "If you believe the cops" and still, there was this incessant instance that no such statement existed. https://www.facebook.com/DesPeresDep...526992/?type=3 As it turns out, the cops were making stuff up. Are we clear now ? |
25th May 2020, 03:53 AM | #269 | ||
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The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.Bertrand Russell Zooterkin is correct Darat Nerd! Hokulele Join the JREF Folders ! Team 13232 Ezekiel 23:20 |
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25th May 2020, 06:32 AM | #270 |
Becoming Beth
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There's a lot of variation in many cars, and it doesn't always reflect their actual capacities. Many years ago, nearly forty of them as it happens, my (then) wife inherited a '76 Cadillac El Dorado when her grandmother passed away. That car was huge. Immense. There was acres of it. The trunk lid alone could have sheltered a large family. (Okay. Maybe I'm exaggerating a little bit, but only a little bit.) It only took one trip for me to realize that I could back more and bigger stuff in the trunk of my 142 series Volvo than I could in the vast expanse of that El Dorado. A lot more. Subsequent journeys continued to make that apparent. (Once, when my dart league had a pig-pickin', I put three kegs of beer and a small hog in the Volvo trunk. With the lid down. And the pig was laying on ice in a little kiddie plastic wading pool. Try that with a Cadillac.) |
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"A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep." "Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation." |
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