If Mort Divine ruled the world

[CiG]

Imagine a debate between her and Ben Shapiro. Such an event might actually be the secret to time travel.

 

[rms]

http://www.13newsnow.com/news/local...ighborhoods-are-better-study-claims/313945959

academia is kind of ridiculous sometimes, right?

 

[Dak]

I know of the two Walmart supercenters in my town, the one on the outskirts is *more* frequented by college students and middle class families than the older one in a more central location. The newer one is also more up to date looking because obv it is newer. But I never noticed a lack of stocking issue. The parking lot is dirtier but maybe that's got more to do with clientele and age than Walmart skimping on anything. There's a reciprocal relationship between people and environment. If cleaning things up costs too much (for any number of reasons - including rapid re-trashing) and/or has no real effect on profit (some people don't care as much about a place being trashed), things are bound to go downhill. Trash doesn't just happen to people.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Walmart stores situated in low-income communities of color consistently get lower Yelp scores than those situated in wealthier, whiter communities. Moreover, when I conduct a similar analysis but work to untangle race from SES (by studying the impact of each controlling for the other), I find that race is more strongly related to low ratings than class. Figure 3 shows the relationship between race and ratings after controlling for income (and the relationship between income and ratings after controlling for race). The higher the percentage of Black or Latino residents in a zip code, the worse Walmart service becomes, regardless of whether this zip code is poor or wealthy.

The single word most highly correlated with reviews of Walmarts in communities of color is “ghetto.”

HMMMMMMMMMM.

Anyways, putting aside the politically incorrect possibility that they have correlation and causation backwards, one obvious and potential issue with this study is that they seem to assume that the same economic demographics fall out proportionately in various zip codes of different affluence. For example, it is well known that Washington DC is a bit of a shithole, but it obviously has some incredibly wealthy pockets. It's not impossible that poor people of color have to live and/or shop in overall more expensive zip codes, but that they disproportionately choose to shop at Walmart, whereas actual middle/upper-class people pick Whole Foods instead. They don't consider other supermarkets at all in their study, which is a big problem if they're going to assume this is Walmart's management decision rather than a management decision made by all supermarkets, or perhaps not a matter of management at all but rather population.

 

[rms]

I thought it was funny that this is what a graduate student spent his research on, at Columbia of all places. But I guess it's still controversial that wealthy areas have a better quality of life?

But that's sociology for ya.

 

[Dak]

I'm still hearing about "food deserts" even though last I heard, increased availability didn't lead to changes in purchasing habits. There's more to poor (or good) health habits than having a new Whole Foods around.

 

[rms]

At least that's a cause I think has some good involved, I see no functionality out of this report except another bullshit tirade against Walmart

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Just got back from school to find that my Hispanic neighbor, who had a Greenpeace sticker placed on top of the Ford logo of his hybrid Explorer until recently, now has a Trump/Pence sign in his front yard. Not sure if he's crazy, a miffed Bernie fan, did a political 180, or is a representation of Trump's broad anti-establishment support.

 

[CiG]

 

[CiG]

 

[The Ozzman]

And we've come full circle in less than 60 years

http://abc7.com/education/segregated-housing-at-csula-sparks-national-debate/1502106/

 

[CiG]

The horseshoe theory applied to racism.

 

[Einherjar86]

So, I have thoughts and feelings on this, and I obviously see the irony that commentators are pointing out. But I have to say that I think all of this hullabaloo about it being "segregation" is very, very misleading and entirely politically motivated.

It isn't segregation - segregation was a legal and institutional policy that mandated the separation of blacks. This is not the same thing at all. This is an optional space in which black students can choose to live as a community. Many universities already do this for various programs within the school, as well as for overseas students. Furthermore, fraternities have functioned in basically this way since their conception: there are black fraternities, Jewish fraternities... these are identity-based communities, but they don't mandate segregation.

As I think I've made clear before, identity politics troubles me in a metaphysical sense. Most models of identity fall back on a metaphysics of selfhood that I see as primarily ideological in nature - stemming, ironically, from the values of liberal humanism and the legal/philosophical foundations of industrial capitalism.

 

[CiG]

So, I have thoughts and feelings on this, and I obviously see the irony that commentators are pointing out. But I have to say that I think all of this hullabaloo about it being "segregation" is very, very misleading and entirely politically motivated.

It isn't segregation - segregation was a legal and institutional policy that mandated the separation of blacks. This is not the same thing at all. This is an optional space in which black students can choose to live as a community. Many universities already do this for various programs within the school, as well as for overseas students. Furthermore, fraternities have functioned in basically this way since their conception: there are black fraternities, Jewish fraternities... these are identity-based communities, but they don't mandate segregation.

As I think I've made clear before, identity politics troubles me in a metaphysical sense. Most models of identity fall back on a metaphysics of selfhood that I see as primarily ideological in nature - stemming, ironically, from the values of liberal humanism and the legal/philosophical foundations of industrial capitalism.

Actually I agree and I'm just having fun with the irony you mentioned. "Separate but equal" etc.

The only thing that I find creepy about it was the reasoning behind it, the whole "we want a black safespace away from whites on campus" mentality. I don't see it as a positive way forward with race relations at all.

 

[Einherjar86]

Yeah, I understand the creepiness, so to speak. Lots of universities already have black student bodies, black student unions, etc. I suppose dormitories are just another step; but the reasoning behind it should ruffle some feathers.

For what it's worth, in my experience blacks tend to be woefully underrepresented at universities. Obviously this depends on the strata of university: for example, my undergraduate institution (U of South Florida) had noticeably more black students than where I'm currently doing my graduate work (Boston U). I don't know much about the demographics at Cal State, but if we're talking about schools that tend to be more exclusive - BU, for instance - I can actually see the usefulness in having designated communities for black students, especially for students entering the university from areas where they perhaps have enjoyed a more cohesive and homogeneous community dynamic.

This carries the caveat, of course, that such university communities should direct themselves toward and participate in interactive, university-wide programs and groups. In other words, they should serve the purpose of acclimation, not isolation. I don't think that universities should preserve the exclusivity of identity-based communities, but I can see the purpose of such communities in helping students work toward feeling more comfortable in broader social settings.

I expect there's always the argument that "There aren't any safe spaces in the real world!" or some such rejoinder. My response to that is that no, there aren't; but I think that education isn't entirely about private knowledge, it's about social interaction. And that doesn't just mean throwing students into the fray wholesale. I think educational institutions have a limited responsibility to assist students that need assisting. Again, this doesn't mean simply providing spaces to which they can retreat permanently.

 

[Dak]

I believe in the importance of "safe spaces". However, that has very little relation to the common parlance. I also don't have an issue with these sort of "ethnic living areas", or however one wants to nicely term them. I do think it's amusing how once again, progressivism finds itself essentially undoing past "victories" in the search for new frontiers - showing ever more often that there's no underlying coherent framework or ultimate vision, just a need to signal via complaint.

 

[Phylactery]

Thought we'd better take this to this thread so we're more on topic.

From an objectively biological standpoint, yes. I keep seeing the argument that being gay is an observable phenomenon among many species in nature, but id still argue that it is an aberration that is detrimental to the fitness landscape. Considering that we are a widely successful species and are in no way endangered (quite the contrary to an extreme extent, actually), I see absolutely no problem with their abnormal way of life. If mankind was limited to one struggling colony, my perspective may perhaps change.

At least gay people dont feel like their body isnt their own and deny their own biology. I am torn between respecting the sensitivities of someone who believes that they are inherently a different gender, and enabling them to cause permanent physical damage and emotional distress in the illusion that they really can fully rectify their cognitive dissonance (when suicide rate stats show that post-op transgender people are just as suicidal as they were pre-op). It's a really tough judgment call given that science has not studied it thoroughly enough yet. I would encourage the community itself to dictate the most successful way to cope with this issue until a true verdict is established. The current trend of demanding acceptance and treating them like everyone else is the most pragmatic solution. Many unisex bathrooms exist, why should the small population of transgender people have to needlessly suffer emotionally over something as trivial as using a public restroom? While it may well be a mental condition, current science provides no solution to treat it as such.

Id say that the main difference between transgender and homosexuality is that gay people only need the social acceptance part of the equation to be comfortable with themselves. Needing to manipulate hormone levels and external appearances to find comfort seems a bit radical of a concept to sweep under the rug and blindingly accept as necessary. As a medical professional I am all for promoting health and emotional well-being in the population, but transgender people are suffering due to internal factors as well as the external ones.

Why does this issue come up so often here?

Can you explain what you mean by this bolded part? Are you talking about reproduction or something more?

 

[CiG]

So it isn't a mockery then, eh?

If you think men and women are interchangeable, then no it isn't. I don't happen to share that view, though I respect trans people enough to respect their pronouns and any trans person that knows me will tell you that I treat them with dignity. Exactly why I consciously avoid getting into identity politics with the LGBTQ+ community.

Fascinating. Since you just compared identifying as a different gender to the sex you were born as with being schizophrenic, do you also feel the same way about people who don't identify as straight? Do they have deep rooted mental issues and suffer from cognitive delusions?

That's a very dishonest false comparison.

 

[Mort Divine]

It's not a matter of interchangeability (or rather that doesn't matter in this case), I just don't see how it's a mockery.

 

[EternalMetal]

Thought we'd better take this to this thread so we're more on topic.



Can you explain what you mean by this bolded part? Are you talking about reproduction or something more?

'Fitness landscape' is an evolutionary biology concept that describes the relationship of a specific genotype or phenotype and its impact on the organism for survival. The fitness landscape is the analysis of various genes and traits in combination that dictate the survival success of an organism (each variable being given a numeric 'fitness' value). What I am saying is that the phenotype of 'homosexual' would have a negative effect on organism survival because it would interfere with reproductive success in such organisms. The reason why I made this point is because I often hear justifications for being gay based on it being an observable phenomenon in a number of species, which while very true, would still be an objectively negative trait in an organism that is required to breed to survive as a species. So yes, it does have to do with reproduction, but with the implications of species survival with regards to said phenotype. Note that this concept is not limited to Mendelian genetics, so im not trying to say that being gay is an inheritable trait; just an observable phenotype at this point in science.

To come full circle on the discussion, yes, being gay is inherently a deeply rooted mental condition (given that gay people cannot just stop being gay) that can objectively be viewed as undesirable because of its negative impact on species survival.