ITT we discuss intermediate steps between current situation, AA-free world

[The Thread Starter]

go.

[obamacon]

Anthony Kennedy.

[Miss P]

Anthony Kennedy.

You're stealing my lines again.

[7S]

racial and gender equality are utopian.

[Lindbergh]

racial and gender equality are utopian.

In other words unattainable?

[7S]

racial and gender equality are utopian.

In other words unattainable?

yep and so is the American Dream. Just because it's utopian doesn't mean it shouldn't be attempted.

[Lindbergh]

racial and gender equality are utopian.

In other words unattainable?

yep and so is the American Dream. Just because it's utopian doesn't mean it shouldn't be attempted.

Except, of course, that most Americans appear to be living the American Deam (high standard of living, personal freedom, etc.).  Which is presumably why millions of immigrants from around the planet strive to come here. 

If you believe the other thing, however, is unattainable, it's stupid to waste time pursuing it.

What might be worth pursuing (and is far more attainable), however, is a general equality of opportunity.  Maybe we should therefore strive for that.

[7S]

racial and gender equality are utopian.

In other words unattainable?

yep and so is the American Dream. Just because it's utopian doesn't mean it shouldn't be attempted.

Except, of course, that most Americans appear to be living the American Deam (high standard of living, personal freedom, etc.).  Which is presumably why millions of immigrants from around the planet strive to come here. 

If you believe the other thing, however, is unattainable, it's stupid to waste time pursuing it.

What might be worth pursuing (and is far more attainable), however, is a general equality of opportunity.  Maybe we should therefore strive for that.

Appear being the keyword. It's one thing to own a home; however, many Americans (nearly half of homeowners) are saddled down with mortgages, foreclosures rates are rising, and property rights are becoming weaker and weaker.  The American dream is utopian.

I wonder if you are a Christian. If so, explain sin to me. If sin is inevitable then why resist?

[UNAS]

racial and gender equality are utopian.

In other words unattainable?

yep and so is the American Dream. Just because it's utopian doesn't mean it shouldn't be attempted.

Except, of course, that most Americans appear to be living the American Deam (high standard of living, personal freedom, etc.).  Which is presumably why millions of immigrants from around the planet strive to come here. 

If you believe the other thing, however, is unattainable, it's stupid to waste time pursuing it.

What might be worth pursuing (and is far more attainable), however, is a general equality of opportunity.  Maybe we should therefore strive for that.

Appear being the keyword. It's one thing to own a home; however, many Americans (nearly half of homeowners) are saddled down with mortgages, foreclosures rates are rising, and property rights are becoming weaker and weaker.  The American dream is utopian.

I wonder if you are a Christian. If so, explain sin to me. If sin is inevitable then why resist?

Not bad

[7S]

Very bad. Christianity isn't equatable to logical choices, since it presumes an abandonment of logic in and of itself. The whole system is flawed from an arguing / legalistic perspective (though I don't personally claim that this gap in Christianity's logic somehow devalues acts of faith, as would do many Positivists and other Ayn Rand acolytes).

Here's a better one.

I presume you want to visit Mars. ... etc.

I agree that the level playing field is a good societal goal. If kids of all creeds / colors / socio-economic backgrounds were guaranteed some type of "minimum standard" and no extra-special help or "leg up" when it came time to compete for societal status (such as wealth, power, opportunity for leisure, hot chicks, whatever reward an individual chooses) well then we would be better off, and also could arguably say that our societal action toward those children had been more universally just. We would also (and to me, this is more important, since "justice" itself is just an abstract concept) be MUCH more likely to utilize our collective societal human resources MUCH more effectively.

For example, rather than relegating a brilliant potential rocket scientist to flipping burgers merely because he never received decent middle-school math training, we would instead be more likely to fulfill HIS aspirations as WELL as get better rockets for our society as a whole. Thus, better trips to the moon and / or missile protection defense systems, whichever our leaders (also selected from among a valid pool of people whose skills were fostered) best chose.

Obviously a utopian dream. Won't never happen. Right now it's even farther from happening than it need be: currently American public education just doesn't cut it, as we all know. There are some decent schools,  but the ratios are abysmal.

What all of this would have to do with skin color, I don't know. I prefer to never think in those terms. I tend to find females who have small bodies wrapped in tight skin and who show lots of that skin to me, to be attractive, in general. Otherwise skin doesn't interest me.

But no, I don't deny that the playing field is definitely not level. I did attend a public high school, but it was an excellent place and hence an unrepresentative anomaly. Further, it was populated largely by children of white middle class parents who had the time, inclination, and economic resources to attend to their kids' educations or even send those kids to private middle schools. I had attended a church-related grade- and middle-school, and found that when transferring to that high school, my classmates and myself were markedly better prepared than the kids who had come from public middle schools. Then, I attended a VERY expensive (by national standards) private college.

Can I rightly say I haven't taken advantage of the un-level playing field? Of course not! I know of very few people who would turn down a desk job in favor of a burger-flipping job merely because they would feel "guilty" for having had a more advantageous upbringing than the person who was rejected in the hiring rounds for that same desk job. Ideally, though, the utopianists' arguments would suggest that this should regularly happen -- that if Michael got to go to private college and therefore got hired as a secretary over Muhammad or Anfernee, then Michael "should" relinquish his job to one of those other guys. There are of course valid arguments against this, most of which are quite intuitive -- the damage to the office's productivity, the right of the office to choose its own employees, etc. But that is in fact the logical natural extension of any form of group-based selection practice, and is also a fair representation of what could happen under "socio-economically" rather than racially based Affirmative Action. Seems idiotic when you flip it into the reverse.

Some people effectively participate in this system, nevertheless, by (for example) attending costly private colleges but then 'doing service' in something like the Peace Corps, or the do-gooder social-services sector, after graduation. I was of that ilk. I had a decent  humanities education and went to work for non-profits in Chicago. Hated it. So many stuipd people that I couldn't get promoted. That led to a consistent downward spiral of opportunity (I appeared to be "bad" at my work and was consistently back-stabbed by those in greater power who resented rich white kids like me) and thus learned, that the poor and needy aren't always so thankful, altruistic, and kind as you might hope they would be when you wish to offer them charitable aid.

I learned the hard way. Being nice to others at your own expense sucks. Affirmative Action will never work BECAUSE of the essential human need to be selfish. Cf. Hume. Thank you. Soap box now available for storing, carting, standing, breaking up into kindling.

LOL. Good Post. Nice assertion at the bolded. But then doesn't that justify affirmative action because, as you put it, "the essential human need to be selfish?" Human bias is just a part of life. There is a reason there aren't more interracial couples in America. We are biased. We like what we're use to and that is problematic in a multi-cultural country.

And the religious arguement was not meant to be a legal argument. Furthermore, Christianity does not necessarily depend on an abandonment of logic. For me, it is illogical to believe that the universe was created by chance, but evenly illogical to deny evolution when the evidence stares me in the face. I believe it is possible to reconcile the two.