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User ID: 1483

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User ID: 1483

Fantastic question - I'm admittedly still undecided on exactly how to approach this issue. But here's my basic moral justification:

All people should have equality of opportunity

Discriminated groups have less opportunity

Privileged groups have more opportunity

Therefore, discriminated groups ought to have more opportunity so all people have equality of opportunity.

('Equality' in this case simply means 'as equal as is possible to realistically achieve')

As a simple hypothetical, I would support increased government funding to schools with predominately black student bodies. This would privilege the discriminated-against but is justified based on my value of equality of opportunity. (Edit: I would also support increased government funding for schools in poorer areas using this same logic as well).

I'm curious, what is your opinion/justification on the same issue?

Yes, Sowell used to be my guy haha. If you want to talk more about Sowell or why I longer find him persuasive I'd be down.

I'm not an HBD enthusiast on the grounds that I don't find its support convincing nor its utility to be of much benefit.

I'm not familiar with the two types of meritocracy that you provided. Meritocracy might be too strong a word in this sense too. Here's what I mean in simple terms: I believed that (in general) people could achieve positive outcomes if they worked hard enough. On the flip side, people who weren't achieving positive outcomes (or people who were experiencing negative outcomes) were primarily at fault for their own situation. The solution to most problems was individual in nature: If you wanted to improve your life, work harder and be better. And especially don't rely on government handouts or assistance in the meantime. We can take my previous beliefs on homelessness for example: In 99% of cases, being homeless was the fault of the individual (drugs, behavior, work ethic, etc). Therefore, the solution to homelessness was focused on the individual as well: Pick yourself up, get clean, apply for jobs, and get back on your feet (and don't mooch off other people while doing so). You can copy/paste that reasoning to just about every political issue (racism, sexism, immigration, income inequality, welfare, etc).

So what changed? The primary factor was one of my economics classes called "the economics of race, class, & gender" (trust me, my past self was NOT happy to see this liberal bullshit on the schedule lol). Growing up well-off (and in a well-off area), I was hilariously naive when it came to the economics of class in particular. Life's trajectory was simple: do well in school, do well in college, do well in your career, and you'll never have to worry about being poor. This class quickly showed me why my simple plan was highly dependent on where you grew up. I'd heard a similar story before but this was the first time that I saw real statistics & research to back it up. I saw similar evidence for things like racism & sexism.

I finally came to the conclusion that some people were much worse off than others due to no fault of their own.

I know, not exactly a mind-blowing conclusion (and really speaks to my ignorance and naivety more than anything). But this had a domino effect on almost all of my other beliefs. For example, welfare. Since some people are 'poor' through no fault of their own, I could no longer justify my disdain for government handouts. Morally, I don't want people to suffer due to something that is likely out of their control. Even if becoming poor was a personal choice, escaping poverty is a vicious cycle. Economically, I found strong arguments for buffing up welfare systems in order to turn poor people into economically productive, tax-positive citizens. Homelessness is another example: Moral reasons were the same as before. Economically, in addition to making homeless productive citizens, I saw decent evidence that aggressive left-wing solutions were more cost-effective in the long and short term. I came to similar conclusions on other issues regarding race & gender. Morally, I find it wrong for someone to suffer because of something they were born with. Economically, I concluded that protecting these groups leads to positive economic outcomes for everyone involved.

I want to stress that I still value hard work and individual responsibility highly. I do believe that hard work can and will solve certain individual problems and that bad decisions/lack of effort can cause certain individual problems as well. But overall, I think that external, uncontrollable factors are the root causes of many of the issues we see today. Since being on the left I've also become more sympathetic to the idea that we should assist others even if they are entirely to blame for their situation (given that said assistance is effective, addresses root causes, and comes at a reasonable economic cost).

It's quite a long story (and I can go into more detail if you want). Overall, I realized that certain beliefs I held weren't as supported as I was led to believe by conservatives. I attended a conservative Christian college but had two left-leaning professors in particular & a few new left-leaning friends who broke me out of my conservative bubble and challenged my previous beliefs. Growing up I was taught that issues like racism & sexism were issues of the past (and totally blown out of proportion by virtue signaling woke libtards). This new group of people gave me a different story via personal anecdotes (from my new friends) & substantial research (from my professors). Over the course of four years and lots of debating, I came to the conclusion that the biggest pillar of my ring-wing belief (namely the idea of merit, aka 'you can do anything as long as you work hard' & the inverse "If you're struggling it's primarily your fault") wasn't as absolute as I thought it was.

Trust me, I was not looking to turn to the left in the slightest. I mean, who wants to be associated with woke feminists (or worse, liberals)? Of course, I don't agree with everything the woke crowd believes nor do I have many positive things to say about Biden & other libs. But overall I'm now firmly planted somewhere on the left because the right just didn't have sufficient support for the biggest issues. Feel free to ask any other questions but that's the basic story for me.

I agree. This also seemed to successfully take some steam out of this story. He stopped the momentum and I'm sure that a large portion of people have forgotten about this. If it does pop up again, it'll be even easier to convince his audience that this is fake news Russiagate stuff again.

While registering, I indicated I was male. I was immediately shown what I can only describe as "anti-feminist" videos

I've had the exact same experience across all platforms (Tik tok, youtube, & instagram mainly). I used to be right wing but have solidly been on the left more several years now. Whenever I start any new account or social media I'm always bombarded with classic man-oriented 'right wing-ish' content (Peterson debunking feminists, gym bro complaining about girls, Shapiro clips, etc). Even now, after having these accounts for years, I'll still get random suggestions for this content.

What's even funnier is that if I watch a man-adjacent video (non-political workout vids or a video about guns) my algorithms get fucked up for weeks. I really do have to wonder if the right-wing influencers have a crazy high budget in comparison to the left. At this point they have to know my stats well enough to know that I'm not interested in those videos but they keep pushing. I admire the effort.

I think this is a very interesting point. I'm not too familiar with Dreher but I find his article quite interesting. Under his framework, does he expand any further into where he draws the line in terms of kinks? Nazi role play of course sounds gross, but even mainstream kinks (like BDSM) also sound pretty gross too. I just don't know where to draw the line at a point where it isn't completely arbitrary.

Not saying it hasn't happened, but that's also my point - We only care about Brinton because of their sexual identity and our current obsession with identity politics. Any other straight employee would never have faced this sort of spotlight.

I never said that? I did say that the media blew up this story and investigated his private life far more than any government employee due to their sexual identity. That isn't a false statement and I'm not claiming anything other than that.

Why are those dudes who go naked under their trenchcoats and then flash children on the subway bad? Do you agree that they're bad? What specific harm are they causing?

I can't believe this comment has 8 upvotes - you're telling me that you can't see what's wrong with directly exposing underage, nonconsenting children to sexual body parts? Or exposing themselves to any nonconsenting adult? Reading an article online about a kink is in no way comparable.

It undermines the norms of monogamy and private sexuality. Why isn't it bad? If you're the one proposing a radical change in public norms, shouldn't you bear the burden?

Why is undermining a norm a bad thing? Isn't that what humans have done for thousands of years to get us to this point? Sure, it's different, but that doesn't immediately make it 'bad'.

You're arguing that talking openly about the outsized Jewish influence has led to historically poor outcomes for Jews?

Are those the only options, outsized influence or death?

My point is very simple: Talking about the outsized influence of Jews has led to very bad things in the past. No, talking about it again does not mean that the holocaust will happen again. I'm not sure where you got that. All I was saying is that we ought to be more careful when talking about this issue because of the issues it has caused in the past.

Are you suggesting ethnic or gender nepotism as the reason for the white male presidents?

My point here was to simply show you that outsized influence doesn't always have a nefarious, conspiratorial narrative. Sometimes there's a clear path that shows how groups came to be.

Reads to me as a "no fuck you Dad!". I'm presuming there was already some tension there beforehand and this was the latest in a long line of actions intended to upset the parents or push back on their values or otherwise frustrate the rules of their house. That's the situation I personally see most often. "I don't like my parents so I'm going to make myself hideous and demand they respect it to get back at them/show they don't own me/whatever". It's the (de-?)evolution of bringing a black guy home, or having a fling with a same-sex partner, I guess.

That's an interesting experience of which I'm not familiar with. I'm sure this does happen but this seems to be quite a one-sided reading of these situations. As I get older I regret giving the benefit of the doubt to adults as much as I have in the past - Parents whose kids "magically, out of nowhere" became rebellious and attention seeking always had a very different story once they were able to speak freely about their situation. We can go back and forth on this of course due to our varying personal experiences.

Because the only things that happen are a person makes themselves ugly (usually, some go low effort and don't bother), and then starts demanding special treatment from everyone around them. This leads me to believe that the special treatment is the primary goal. The cheap and petty power thrill of making people stumble over their language for you. The constant reassurance to an insecure soul that people will inconvenience themselves for you. It seems parasitic, almost.

This is quite the one-sided take again. The only things that happen are people making themselves uglier? Uglier to whom? A woman might be uglier to you while becoming more appearing to a lesbian (no offense intended). Regardless, you're acting as though special treatment is the primary motivating factor here. What is your reasoning for that other than a personal assumption? I have to assume that you don't have much personal contact with these groups of people because this sort of reasoning is only something I read about in hypothetical right-wing publications. It's certainly not the norm.

Why do people get piercings or tattoos knowing they could be discriminated against in future?

This is a laughable comparison. You're talking about a group of people who think that sexuality is an innate trait and comparing it to jewelry that can be removed in a few hours.

You continue to make the assumption that that sexuality is as much of a choice as choosing to get a tatoo. Where are you getting this idea? Surely not from members of the LGBT community. I'm really curious to hear.

In this case, Brinton was suicidal in these camps and was so disgusted by them that they went on a nationwide campaign to ban them. You can read more about their personal experience as well. It's pretty tough stuff and certainly something that you'd think a teenage would push through for attention. I do understand where you're coming from though.

I understand that. I didn't want to get down to the nitty gritty of accurately defining or sizing the reference class since it's a fairly inexact and tedious thing to do.

Let's take the example of men who commit sexual violence - obviously 'men' is a large group. But studies show that a certain population of men - ranging from 1% to 5% - have committed some sort of sexual crime (regardless of prosecution). So even at the best estimates 1/100 isn't exactly the smallest proportion. I don't know the specifics of how large Brinton's group is nor do I know the estimated number of sexual crimes they commit. But I think you're giving the OP quite a pass to use assumptions about a group that they probably couldn't name as justifications for discrimination.

Getting wrong info often has spillover effects. Once you allow for that and start saying “only government approved sources because it is too dangerous” you have no free speech.

Right, but Twitter does things based primarily on how it will effect their specific platform. Twitter had to decide fairly quickly which information it would allow and disallow while also giving their users the most accurate info. It's easy to look back and criticize them now but that's a much more difficult decision to make in crunch time when lives are on the line. I know they also were facing concerns about legal action in regards to 'fake' covid news.

I only say this to try to remove as much of the narrative as possible. Clearly Twitter has a history of supporting one side over the other. But looking at their decision to tag (not even necessarily remove) unverified data sources can be explained without anything nefarious: They did the best they could given the time crunch, potential deadly consequences, and potential legal liability.

If I'm reading correctly, it looks like this was published in 2019. The commenter I was replying to specifically said that they were talking about this while also talking about their appointment to the DoE (which happened in 2022).

Burying what exactly? You're putting the cart well before the horse here. Strip all identity politics out of this story and here's what you get: A mid-tier government official claims to have accidentally stolen luggage on a business trip.

Why is that worth reporting on? A story this small rarely makes the news. The only reason this is news is because it involves identity politics. I thought we were against identity politics here?

You should be asking the other question: Why did right ring media jump all over this minor story? It's simple, it's because they knew they'd get easy clicks by sensationalizing a story involving identity politics. Again, I'm pretty sure most of us here are opposed to media outlets doing this. But now it's somehow not only ok but appreciated? Especially when we have no proof of what happened yet and have good reason to believe this was a stupid mistake? It's ridiculous.

Now we have people dragging us into their bedrooms, or rather putting their bedrooms out in the public square, in order to tell us all about what they do.

What? Where in this story is Brinton dragging you into their bedroom and forcing you to learn about what they do? Yes, there are articles that talk about Brinton's sexual kinks. Yes, you can find Brinton talking about these kinks on youtube as well.

But that is literally what people/media do: They talk about shit. If you don't like it, you don't have to click. Or read. Or listen. There is nothing being 'forced' here. Their beds aren't out in the public square - their story is in a link that you chose to click.

Since sharing your sexual kinks isn't illegal, this entire issue can be chalked up to personal preference. I read shit I don't agree with all the time and move along since it doesn't apply to me. I know you don't support this but that doesn't mean that it's automatically bad and should be done in your way. Make me an argument about why this is morally wrong and/or should be considered illegal. That's valid. But getting frustrated like this is the same thing as some Karen yelling at people blasting music in their cars. Move on.

Nope, they were the one who posted tweets about, and photos of themself with the pups online (though they seem to have scrubbed their Instagram now). It wasn't the media that went out and dug up private photos.

This is exactly what I mean by private life being made public by the media. This is usually how this sort of stuff happens - the media obtains photos (publicly available photos as well as nonpublic photos), write articles based on what they found, and then publish those photos to millions of people. The media blew this story up. Brinton merely posted about these on their personal social media channels as anyone else would do. Yes, the photos were still 'public' beforehand. But they are now hugely popular talking points because of media involvement, not due to Brinton. Now of course both sides of the media are making this a huge story for obvious reasons.

Of course, anything you put online has a chance to get out into public despite your personal intention. But that's not what I'm talking about here - you and other commentators are baselessly assuming that Brinton intentionally and willingly is using these sorts of photos to create a public persona for their brand. I'm just pointing out that the media are the ones doing this, not Brinton. The media wants us to think certain things about Brinton to drive clicks on both sides.

For sure, but I'm advocating for consistency. Your 'social norms' are probably very different than mine. I don't even think criticizing someone for breaking social norms is really acceptable either - Why is this specific action 'bad'? Should we cast judgement on someone because they do things differently? etc.

Can you name a single other government employee who has voluntarily talked to the media about their fetishes in comparable detail?

Can you name a straight government employee that was even asked about something like this? It's not a fair comparison because different groups get treated differently.

What passes for you as an example of a straight person doing something similar?

There's plenty of BDSM conventions, fetish clubs, and other things that straight people engage in all the time. Most of us don't talk about it too much because that's not the norm. Even if we did talk about, we don't get labelled as a sexual deviant. However, there are definitely exceptions to this rule as there is in the LGBT community.

This isn't about choice, it's about an action by an individual leading to a stereotype of an entire group. They could be talking about the type of person to wear a suit to a party for all I care.

I used to think like you so I know that I'm not going to convince you in a comment.

This kind of thing reminds me of the kid in my class who used to make stuff up for attention constantly.

But this is still very interesting to me - one of the reasons I changed my mind on this is because I saw people in my own life (real people) come out and it made me question this reasoning. These were people that I knew for decades, people who didn't need attention, and often people who came out at a great expense (their families kicked them out, etc). I knew them well enough to know that they weren't just totally bullshitting me.

I think it's naive to think that people will go to a conversion camp for two years all for.... attention? It doesn't really follow that older LGBT people in their fifties are still doing it for the attention either. So why do you think that this is primarily attention related? If it was simply a personal choice you could turn off and on, why risk getting kicked out of your home or being discriminated against in a job interview?

I never said they weren't an outlier? But 'freak' and 'outlier' are two completely different things with completely different social connotations, especially when talking about a person.

Yes, he is a sexual deviant.

Just to be clear, this is just your opinion. I'd like to hear more about why you think they're a sexual deviant with more reasons than 'I disagree'.

And I’m totally comfortable saying the government shouldn’t hire people who talk about how awesome it is to have sex with animals.

I'm not familiar with them ever advocating for sex with actual animals, rather just some sort of creative role-playing. Otherwise we'd be in jail when girls call us daddy in bed. Regardless, I'm still interested to hear exactly why you think this sort of role play is so bad as to justify the government knowing about it.

I'm not so sure this info becoming public was exactly voluntary but I digress. I guess I'm the type who doesn't think that one should make negative inferences without having good reasons. So I'd ask myself what exactly I dislike about them and if it is something that I should find to be morally bad.

Without that, anyone that looks or does anything differently than you just automatically becomes a freak. Seems like a reductive way to live but to each their own.