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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 28, 2022

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Conditional on being right about 2), no. If I’m wrong and Mx. Brinton was unable to control perverted urges...yeah, I guess.

Let's assume the worst: They stole the bag for sexual reasons.

Given that this single person's actions moves the needle for how you'll trust, hire, or promote other members of Brinton's group:

Does a story of a man repeatedly abusing and eventually murdering their young child move the needle for how you'll trust, hire, or promote other men?

Does the story of Sandy Hook move the needle for how you'll trust, hire, or promote other white men?

Does the story of Pittsburg Synagogue shooting move the needle for how you'll trust, hire, or promote other people with right ring beliefs?

Considering that all of these stories are far worse than the worst thing Brinton might have done, I'd hope that you'd have the same response.

You seem to be trying to compute probabilities by counting occurrences within a reference class, and then forgetting to divide by the size of the reference class. That's odd.

(# of sandy hook and synagogue shooters) / (# of white men) = small

(this one guy) / (# of transvestite puppy play wtf this guy is) = much bigger

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.

Lets actually roll with your example:

Does a story of a man repeatedly abusing and eventually murdering their young child move the needle for how you'll trust, hire, or promote other men?

Apparently it has, for professions where this is relevant. 89% of childcare workers are women and about 85% of elementary school teachers are. So it does appear that we, as a society, have decided that it's too risky to let men work around children.

https://www.zippia.com/child-daycare-worker-jobs/demographics/

This story discusses that the suspicion you describe is rampant.

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/men-teach-elementary-school/story?id=18784172

I would be curious to see your studies which claim 1-5% of men do sexual crime. A quick google search suggests that about 1.5% of America has ever been in jail and about 1/10 of violent crime is rape. Assuming another 1.5% of America got away with a crime, all criminals are men, and everyone in jail is a violent criminal, that gets us a ballpark of (1.5% + 1.5%) x (10% of crime is rape) / (50% of america is men) = 0.6% of American men did a sex crime.

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2020.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States

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.

Consider an experiment one might run:

  1. Allow gattsuru to select a person he considers central in this group.

  2. Put that person, along with 9 randomly selected other people of the same gender and race into a lineup.

  3. Me, an internet rando who believes he understands gattsuru's point, has to pick the person from (1) out of the lineup from (2).

With what odds do you think I'll get it wrong?

To be fair, if you can pick the reference class, you can do anything.

Guess what, you can pick the reference class. I'm giving you permission. "The reference class is left as an exercise for the reader," sounds far better than "I left it vague on purpose." So thanks for that phrase.

Given that this single person's actions moves the needle for how you'll trust, hire, or promote other members of Brinton's group

Well, what is Brinton's group? Who are we defining as their group? Non-binary people, genderfluid people?

Or people who make a big public declaration of "Ooh, I'm so unconventional, me! I'm smashing the gender patriarchy! I don't adhere to any of your dull boring conventional morality!"?

Because people who go on about how they're breaking taboos are going to seem like "well, if you're happy enough to be shocking about this and to break the rules on that, why shouldn't I think you might be looser on keeping other rules like 'not stealing' and such like?"

Look at our friend Sam Bankman-Fried: has he moved the needle on trusting, hiring or promoting guys who promise to save the world through charitable donations that come from vast profits via magic beans trading?

A person does not choose to be white, or male.

A person does choose to look like... well, what the subject of this discussion looks like.

Contrary to prevailing narrative, most of the time looks are an incredibly valid basis to judge people on. At least, when it comes to things a person obviously chooses for themselves. I would say that judging people on their choices is probably one of the best ways to judge people, even.

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.

Considering that all of these stories are far worse than the worst thing Brinton might have done, I'd hope that you'd have the same response.

I think I'm coming at it slightly different than @netstack, but I don't have the same response. Put simply, Brinton's group (defined broadly) failed in their duty to promote positive role models. This makes me distrust their judgement.

If you can find anyone who loudly supported Adam Lanza or Robert Gregory Bowers, then I'd lose some trust in them as well. I just don't think those people exist.

What an odd conflation of highly identifiable niche/deviant behavior and uselessly broad identity categories.

If a man with swastika tattoos applies for a job with you after several other men with swastika tattoos blow up a Jewish orphanage nunnery, and your coworker says "woah there, you can't be prejudiced against all men just because other men have committed crimes," I think it's reasonable to suspect that the coworker is simply trying to deflect from the swastika tattoos, yes?

What an odd conflation of highly identifiable niche/deviant behavior and uselessly broad identity categories.

Can you clarify why you don't think these examples are relatable? Specifically with men and sexual abuse - men are significantly more likely to commit sexual crimes and a large amount of them do so. We're talking men of all shapes and sizes. If this rare incident changes your perception of an entire group than surely the rather commonplace sexual crime committed by men should do the same?

I think it's reasonable to suspect that the coworker is simply trying to deflect from the swastika tattoos, yes?

This hypothetical isn't relevant. Swastika tatoos are historically and contextually related to violence and a highly specific type of person. It's impossible to compare that sort of history and baggage with something like a subset of the LGBT community.

To reiterate, these sorts of events are not as common as you think they are. These stories do get happily promoted by the media when they do happen because that's the society we live in. We aren't writing headline stories about yet another father molesting his daughter.

To reiterate, these sorts of events are not as common as you think they are.

No way, the media is burying this because it goes against their narrative. I don't see anything on either CNN or MSNBC about this. The OP's news link didn't even have his picture. If an official appointed by Trump had done this it would be front page on all of those sites and the tonight shows would be hooting about it for months.

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.

And a non-binary man who dresses like he’s trying to queer the joker, brags about pretending to have sex with animals, and can’t be normal for five minutes, is also a highly specific type of person.