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1) You've carefully chosen two examples of jobs that depend highly on physical attributes with well-understood genetic causes (height, muscular development), an

1) You've carefully chosen two examples of jobs that depend highly on physical attributes with well-understood genetic causes (height, muscular development), and you've extrapolated this out to technical employees at Oracle, whose skills are hardly defined by such well-understood genetic markers. This is faulty logic. 2) Just so we're clear, you literally just compared affirmative action to Nazi Germany and the Spanish Inquisition. I would call this "false equivalence", but I suppose it's useless to try to "use words until the end of time" (unless, apparently, those words are "moral principle").

wallace_f 10y ago
>you literally just compared affirmative action to Nazi Germany and the Spanish Inquisition. No, I didn't. That's your misunderstanding. Go back and read what I wrote. No one is saying they're equivalent. What I did say is that government sanctioned force always comes with an argument of moral outrage, even if what they are doing is undeniably immoral. I should expect more of these straw man, incorrect, borderline-troll-bait attacks. It's easy to just agree with what's politically correct. It's hard to fight for what's right and this is what you run into when you do.
- logandavis 10y ago
  Ah. My apologies for misreading. I went back and re-read what you wrote. Please correct me if the following interpretation is wrong: First, you said that moral outrage is the motivation for "racist" policies such as Affirmative Action. Next, you said that moral outrage also motivates state-sponsored violence. (I suppose this does not constitute a comparison per se.) I'm sorry, but I really don't see the point of bringing up the Nazis, if not to tar "state-forced equality" programs with the same brush of "moral outrage leading to moral impropriety". Can you help clear up my misunderstanding?
  - wallace_f 10y ago
    That's also not my intended meaning. I don't know how else to say it and feel that I'm being baited. I guess I'll quote myself: >I'd even reject it on moral principle: it is immoral for government to enforce racist or sexist policies that discriminate against certain groups of people. Yes, it's in the name of moral outrage (equality), but note government-sanctioned use of force always comes with an argument of moral outrage, even if it is almost undeniably immoral, i.e: (America funding Jihadists in the Syrian War, Vietnam, Nazi Germany, the Opening of Japan, the Inquisition, etc., etc.). This is not about doing what's right. This is about lawyers and political correctness. There are plenty of opportunities to make the world a better place and I don't see that many Glenn Greenwalds, Laura Poitras's, or Snowdens. In fact, the government has worked to undermine at least 2/3 of those people. We can't even provide everyone with healthcare or clean drinking water. We're funding jihadists in Syria. We have cities with murder rates higher than any country in Africa. The CIA has been caught distributing crack cocaine and the reporter who revealed it "died of suicide by 2 gunshot wounds to the head." The political correctness around equality all sounds and feels great, but the reality is that it's textbook Harrison Bergeron stuff leading us closer to that kind of dystopian future. It's hard to see that, harder yet to have the guts to say it, and much easier to just be politically correct and ignore reality.

wallace_f 10y ago

>you literally just compared affirmative action to Nazi Germany and the Spanish Inquisition. No, I didn't. That's your misunderstanding. Go back and read what I wrote. No one is saying they're equivalent. What I did say is that government sanctioned force always comes with an argument of moral outrage, even if what they are doing is undeniably immoral. I should expect more of these straw man, incorrect, borderline-troll-bait attacks. It's easy to just agree with what's politically correct. It's hard to fight for what's right and this is what you run into when you do.

logandavis 10y ago
Ah. My apologies for misreading. I went back and re-read what you wrote. Please correct me if the following interpretation is wrong: First, you said that moral outrage is the motivation for "racist" policies such as Affirmative Action. Next, you said that moral outrage also motivates state-sponsored violence. (I suppose this does not constitute a comparison per se.) I'm sorry, but I really don't see the point of bringing up the Nazis, if not to tar "state-forced equality" programs with the same brush of "moral outrage leading to moral impropriety". Can you help clear up my misunderstanding?
- wallace_f 10y ago
  That's also not my intended meaning. I don't know how else to say it and feel that I'm being baited. I guess I'll quote myself: >I'd even reject it on moral principle: it is immoral for government to enforce racist or sexist policies that discriminate against certain groups of people. Yes, it's in the name of moral outrage (equality), but note government-sanctioned use of force always comes with an argument of moral outrage, even if it is almost undeniably immoral, i.e: (America funding Jihadists in the Syrian War, Vietnam, Nazi Germany, the Opening of Japan, the Inquisition, etc., etc.). This is not about doing what's right. This is about lawyers and political correctness. There are plenty of opportunities to make the world a better place and I don't see that many Glenn Greenwalds, Laura Poitras's, or Snowdens. In fact, the government has worked to undermine at least 2/3 of those people. We can't even provide everyone with healthcare or clean drinking water. We're funding jihadists in Syria. We have cities with murder rates higher than any country in Africa. The CIA has been caught distributing crack cocaine and the reporter who revealed it "died of suicide by 2 gunshot wounds to the head." The political correctness around equality all sounds and feels great, but the reality is that it's textbook Harrison Bergeron stuff leading us closer to that kind of dystopian future. It's hard to see that, harder yet to have the guts to say it, and much easier to just be politically correct and ignore reality.