Philosophical Vegan Forum

brimstoneSalad wrote:

knot wrote:IMO those people should probably just learn not to take things personally

Either profiling saves lives and has overall good consequences, or it doesn't. You have no control over others' actions, only your own.

You might as well say, "It should be fine for me to release a swarm of hornets into a crowded theater. Hornets should just learn to be less aggressive, and people should just learn to chill out and not swat at them."
You can always push off the supposed blame onto somebody or something else, and say IT should change instead of you, but what's important is the current reality of the situation.

This is the same kind of bad argument vegans make to promote hostile and adversarial vegan outreach, by blaming the recipient of the message for not being reasonable. That may well be a problem too, but knowing they aren't reasonable, you can choose how you approach the encounter; some methods are clearly more useful than others.

Yes, but presumably we can teach people about statistics and how not to take everything personally

EquALLity wrote:^I agree.

Knot, I can't really discuss PC issues with you given that you apparently think Cenk Uygur was celebrating the decline of white babies because he 'looks happy' in the video he did on it. If you're that biased, I don't think I can get through to you.

Joseph Goebbels' Ministry of Public Enlightenment was less racist and biased than TYT

knot wrote:

brimstoneSalad wrote:

knot wrote:IMO those people should probably just learn not to take things personally

Either profiling saves lives and has overall good consequences, or it doesn't. You have no control over others' actions, only your own.

You might as well say, "It should be fine for me to release a swarm of hornets into a crowded theater. Hornets should just learn to be less aggressive, and people should just learn to chill out and not swat at them."
You can always push off the supposed blame onto somebody or something else, and say IT should change instead of you, but what's important is the current reality of the situation.

This is the same kind of bad argument vegans make to promote hostile and adversarial vegan outreach, by blaming the recipient of the message for not being reasonable. That may well be a problem too, but knowing they aren't reasonable, you can choose how you approach the encounter; some methods are clearly more useful than others.

Yes, but presumably we can teach people about statistics and how not to take everything personally

Interesting. Perhaps you could define the parameters of the profiling. Everyone, knowingly or not, engages in profiling to some degree. But perceived threat is different from actual threat. More people are afraid to fly than drive, yet it is statistically more deadly to drive. http://www.meretrix.com/~harry/flying/n ... iving.html

I have to take my shoes off to fly, but only 1 person has been a "shoe bomber" . Is the ratio of one: billions justifiable to inconvenience millions of people, with the only actual effect of making them feel safer? http://www.airspacemag.com/daily-planet ... 19/?no-ist

knot wrote: Yes, but presumably we can teach people about statistics and how not to take everything personally

Seriously? How has teaching people not to kill cartoonists when they draw Muhammad worked out so far?
You overestimate the reasonableness of the target audience for this education, and underestimate the difficulty of that task. If it were that easy to educate, we might as well just teach them not to be terrorists to begin with. You sound like the, "teach men not to rape" crowd.

To be clear I was only talking about Muslims low on the radicalization scale who were wrongly profiled as terrorists, and how we can prevent them from getting saltier

brimstoneSalad wrote: Seriously? How has teaching people not to kill cartoonists when they draw Muhammad worked out so far?

Poorly, but I'd argue it has barely been tried. The Western media and education system seem in large part to have become a politically correct safe spaces for Islam, so dangerous religious sensibilities have ended up being nurtured instead of desenitized.

You overestimate the reasonableness of the target audience for this education, and underestimate the difficulty of that task.

As far as I can tell, most terrorists have average or above average IQ from middle-class families, but are just selectively braindead on religion, and have a Noam Chomsky version of world history. That suggests to me education can play a role, but it requires that the hate-preaching imams have their power removed and that self-flagellating liberal arts teachers stop spreading the meme that the West is the root of all evil.

If it were that easy to educate, we might as well just teach them not to be terrorists to begin with. You sound like the, "teach men not to rape" crowd.

No, I'm part of the "teach Muslim boys not to rape" crowd . If they're already men it's too late.. the neural plasticity is too low

knot wrote:That suggests to me education can play a role, but it requires that the hate-preaching imams have their power removed and that self-flagellating liberal arts teachers stop spreading the meme that the West is the root of all evil.

It's hard enough to convince people evolution is true, and that's uncontroversial hard science. Getting into politics makes things even more difficult.
I don't see changing the way these people operate as realistic.

How does one remove the power of hate preaching imams? How does one stop regressive leftist teachers from filling their students heads with anti-Western sentiments?

knot wrote: No, I'm part of the "teach Muslim boys not to rape" crowd . If they're already men it's too late.. the neural plasticity is too low

I've spent a lot (more than is probably considered healthy) of time researching Islam. I also have spent a lot (...) of time researching brain anomalies. We could debate Islam for days, And the effectiveness of anti-depressants. (Does being depressed increase chemical in your brain, or do chemicals in your brain cause you to be depressed?)

I am a fully grown and productive man. Is changing my beliefs/actions impossible? In relation to neural plasticity, just because the major highways are easier to follow, with a little effort and knowledge, it is possible to deviate from the map.

brimstoneSalad wrote:

knot wrote:That suggests to me education can play a role, but it requires that the hate-preaching imams have their power removed and that self-flagellating liberal arts teachers stop spreading the meme that the West is the root of all evil.

It's hard enough to convince people evolution is true, and that's uncontroversial hard science. Getting into politics makes things even more difficult.
I don't see changing the way these people operate as realistic.

How does one remove the power of hate preaching imams? How does one stop regressive leftist teachers from filling their students heads with anti-Western sentiments?

There are a few things that haven't been tried. For example, I'm interested in what has factored into American Muslims being less radical than European ones. But yeah, ultimately we will probably come to the conclusion that it's a problem without any solutions, and that we're wasting tons of money on all kinds of fancy and innovative social programs that achieve nothing.

In the end I think we can do much more good by keeping our cohesive and productive secular societies intact, stopping military interference in Muslim countries and instead aiding their reformist voices towards building their own civilized societies.

PsYcHo wrote:

knot wrote:

I am a fully grown and productive man. Is changing my beliefs/actions impossible? In relation to neural plasticity, just because the major highways are easier to follow, with a little effort and knowledge, it is possible to deviate from the map.

Sure you can, it just gets harder and harder with age. I think it's important to force the brain to do new and uncomfortable things on a regular basis... easier said than done though : )

About 15-16 of your topics are just YouTube links. This gets annoying when you just post a ink and then go into no further detail. In some of these topics, you don't even bother to write a response to anyone who posts on it!