Post by pepperpot on Jul 29, 2023 15:35:36 GMT
I won’t take no response since last night as proof there would never have been a response, but maybe just as there’s nothing to the contrary that immediately comes to mind.
I’ll share what I think wrt 3) with a logical response, then with an emotionally charged response. But before I do, please remember throughout what the premise of this thread is, the ‘player’ in this instance is you the reader and in particular some of the contributors to this thread. Starting with the logical;
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If someone turns out bad due to their biological make up, are they to blame for how they turn out? If they are ‘bad people’ are they to blame for doing what ‘bad people’ do? Is a leopard to blame for not changing it’s spots?
If it’s an inevitability, or fairly certain due to biological reasons that someone turns out bad, that a personality can’t be ‘nurtured’ to an outcome of ‘nice’. That is a situation to be managed. Blaming them for their actions is superficial, but it’s convenient. It’s the easy route. It’s the simple thought of bad action = bad person. We’ve fixed the thought process in the childcare arena, as now we shouldn’t call a boy who’s been naughty ‘a naughty boy’ because the boy might be liable to thinking they are one of ‘those’ naughty ones, ya know… the ones that grow up into being ‘bad people’. The general rule now is to ask them, ‘why did you do a naughty thing’. Which denotes that it’s the thing that’s naughty, not the boy. Whatever the age, no-one contemplates the entirety of the ‘why’. Why, might be asked in a court of law, but that only scratches the surface of whatever circumstances happened in the run up to the bad act that brought them before the judge. It’s not possible to evaluate the entire back story of everything that person experienced in, say, their first 10 years.
Blaming someone for an inevitable, or even fairly certain outcome, is highly questionable.
In order to (for want of a better word) ‘conform’ to the accepted and existing rules and institutions, we’re swayed, from a very young age, into thinking in certain ways about various things.
A comic book, that describes interactions between heroes and villains, as a by product, is introducing or reinforcing that some people are good and some people are bad. When that info is coupled with the knowledge of prisons housing all the bad people, then a connection is made.
I’ll share what I think wrt 3) with a logical response, then with an emotionally charged response. But before I do, please remember throughout what the premise of this thread is, the ‘player’ in this instance is you the reader and in particular some of the contributors to this thread. Starting with the logical;
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If someone turns out bad due to their biological make up, are they to blame for how they turn out? If they are ‘bad people’ are they to blame for doing what ‘bad people’ do? Is a leopard to blame for not changing it’s spots?
The leopard or the ‘bad people’ have not made a choice, the reason was beyond their control, and also beyond the control of any experiential influence from nurture.
If it’s an inevitability, or fairly certain due to biological reasons that someone turns out bad, that a personality can’t be ‘nurtured’ to an outcome of ‘nice’. That is a situation to be managed. Blaming them for their actions is superficial, but it’s convenient. It’s the easy route. It’s the simple thought of bad action = bad person. We’ve fixed the thought process in the childcare arena, as now we shouldn’t call a boy who’s been naughty ‘a naughty boy’ because the boy might be liable to thinking they are one of ‘those’ naughty ones, ya know… the ones that grow up into being ‘bad people’. The general rule now is to ask them, ‘why did you do a naughty thing’. Which denotes that it’s the thing that’s naughty, not the boy. Whatever the age, no-one contemplates the entirety of the ‘why’. Why, might be asked in a court of law, but that only scratches the surface of whatever circumstances happened in the run up to the bad act that brought them before the judge. It’s not possible to evaluate the entire back story of everything that person experienced in, say, their first 10 years.
Blaming someone for an inevitable, or even fairly certain outcome, is highly questionable.
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The response that will raise emotions, another reminder to please remember the premise of the thread!!
So, with regard to 3)… We catch bad people. Yes? Some may slip through the net, but of the people caught, tried and convicted of doing a bad thing, if 3) is correct, the majority of them are biologically pre-disposed to be on the ‘bad’ spectrum. That means that the people in prison are therefore a proxy of what biologically bad people look like. People in prison are representative of bad, nasty and not nice people. There is proof of them being bad in the form of their conviction.
Are there any objections to the notion that the prison population, the people who are officially the bad ones. Have been convicted of bad things, are therefore according to 3), more often that not biologically bad… Being a proxy for what bad people look like?
To spell it out yet again. People in prison are bad. They’re convicted because they’re bad. They were biologically going to turn out bad ‘just because’. If you want to look at bad people, look in prison.
The response that will raise emotions, another reminder to please remember the premise of the thread!!
So, with regard to 3)… We catch bad people. Yes? Some may slip through the net, but of the people caught, tried and convicted of doing a bad thing, if 3) is correct, the majority of them are biologically pre-disposed to be on the ‘bad’ spectrum. That means that the people in prison are therefore a proxy of what biologically bad people look like. People in prison are representative of bad, nasty and not nice people. There is proof of them being bad in the form of their conviction.
Are there any objections to the notion that the prison population, the people who are officially the bad ones. Have been convicted of bad things, are therefore according to 3), more often that not biologically bad… Being a proxy for what bad people look like?
To spell it out yet again. People in prison are bad. They’re convicted because they’re bad. They were biologically going to turn out bad ‘just because’. If you want to look at bad people, look in prison.
Any objections to that notion?
I had a somewhat intrinsic idea about the ethnic make up of US prisons but I had to go and find out about our own here in the UK. I didn’t have any firm idea about what it looked like. I certainly have absolutely no idea whatsoever about Finnish, German, or any other. The reason for that, as I see it, is that US prisons feature in the news/media more often than anywhere else. Simply because they’re newsworthy. The news and mainstream media has influenced my thoughts of the ethnicity of prison populations. I only had one reasonable-ish idea of what they might look like, not the entire statistical reality in all countries around the world.
I had a somewhat intrinsic idea about the ethnic make up of US prisons but I had to go and find out about our own here in the UK. I didn’t have any firm idea about what it looked like. I certainly have absolutely no idea whatsoever about Finnish, German, or any other. The reason for that, as I see it, is that US prisons feature in the news/media more often than anywhere else. Simply because they’re newsworthy. The news and mainstream media has influenced my thoughts of the ethnicity of prison populations. I only had one reasonable-ish idea of what they might look like, not the entire statistical reality in all countries around the world.
Using stats from .gov and statista. England + Wales population is 82% white, so 18% ‘other’. The prison population is 75% white and 25% ‘other’. That’s close-ish, could be a margin of error, but there might be an indicator of something. What might the UK prison ethnic make up look like if the wider population was closer to, say, 50/50 white/other? I’m not sure my maths is quite up to the task, but my gut says the disparity would increase a bit.
The US has a grey area in the middle of around 10% of the population identifying as ‘white+’ but 60% identified as ‘white alone’. Therefore 30% non-white (+10% ‘white-ish’). The US reports the stats differently, but comes up with the figure that blacks are on average 4.8 times more likely to be imprisoned than whites. If the prison population is a proxy of bad people, are black people in America biologically predetermined to produce a higher rate of bad people? Is it a ‘fairly certain’ outcome that blacks will be, on average, nastier, badder, not nicer, than whites due to biological reasons?
Whoah… You can see now why I had some trepidation, also as to why I may have come across as a bit of a mess last year. The implications were finally sinking in.
The US has a grey area in the middle of around 10% of the population identifying as ‘white+’ but 60% identified as ‘white alone’. Therefore 30% non-white (+10% ‘white-ish’). The US reports the stats differently, but comes up with the figure that blacks are on average 4.8 times more likely to be imprisoned than whites. If the prison population is a proxy of bad people, are black people in America biologically predetermined to produce a higher rate of bad people? Is it a ‘fairly certain’ outcome that blacks will be, on average, nastier, badder, not nicer, than whites due to biological reasons?
Whoah… You can see now why I had some trepidation, also as to why I may have come across as a bit of a mess last year. The implications were finally sinking in.
institutional racism
noun
A form of racial inequality resulting not from conscious discrimination, but from the cumulative effect of subconscious racism and/or from the aggregate inertial discriminatory effect of individuals within a non-diverse group favoring like-minded individuals.
noun
A form of racial inequality resulting not from conscious discrimination, but from the cumulative effect of subconscious racism and/or from the aggregate inertial discriminatory effect of individuals within a non-diverse group favoring like-minded individuals.
That’s the first official description a search presented me with. But again, it doesn’t really deal with the ‘why’. I’m not sure it explains things entirely, because just like everything else it’s seeking where to place blame. It’s just another part of the blame game. The blame game that is personified by the legal system. If I were to use it as a prompt, I could now take the narrative down the route of;
I’m not asking you to search your cognitive conscious selves, but the sub-conscious biases we’re not always aware of. It’s a whole lot harder. And much more painful.
But I’m not going to take the confrontational stance that pervades all aspects of society and draws everyone into taking a side. Because I’m not seeking who is to blame. I’m seeking understanding. This is currently my best guess as to what I think is happening;
I’m not asking you to search your cognitive conscious selves, but the sub-conscious biases we’re not always aware of. It’s a whole lot harder. And much more painful.
But I’m not going to take the confrontational stance that pervades all aspects of society and draws everyone into taking a side. Because I’m not seeking who is to blame. I’m seeking understanding. This is currently my best guess as to what I think is happening;
In order to (for want of a better word) ‘conform’ to the accepted and existing rules and institutions, we’re swayed, from a very young age, into thinking in certain ways about various things.
A comic book, that describes interactions between heroes and villains, as a by product, is introducing or reinforcing that some people are good and some people are bad. When that info is coupled with the knowledge of prisons housing all the bad people, then a connection is made.
The ethnic disparity in prisons is either consciously or sub-consciously used as evidence that increases the chance of the ethnic majority, on average, viewing the ethnic minorities with increased caution. Different people will display different levels of caution, from none to a lot. It’s a subconscious bias that most people either never think about, or ignore. That undercurrent is picked up on by the ethnic minorities, and in turn makes them view the ethnic majority in certain ways, again to varying degrees. It’s a feedback loop that means institutional racism persists. Racism in America is in part a hangover from slavery, now that most ‘nice’ people think it should be eradicated, can it be? How quickly? It’s in effect locked in, because look at the colour of all the bad people in prison! Very simply, it’s a subconscious bias being subconsciously reaffirmed by the results from one of our societal structures.
The rules of the game were in existence long before any of us were born. We were all brought up using these pre-existing rules and institutions. They were just there like part of the scenery. We didn’t make an active choice to use them because we were far too young, and crucially, the same applies to the rule makers. The same also applies to the previous generation and their rule makers… the generation before that, and all preceding generations. All we see is that a justice system is necessary, but no-one has fully explored the ‘why’. Just like a French baby being brought up speaking French doesn’t question why, the why is obvious, it’s because everyone else is speaking French. It’s the entire social scenery including the backdrop, the fabric, the framework that we experience after we emerge from the warm tunnel that has a large contribution to how and what we think.
I, just like you the reader, have an interest in finding the flaw. Either the flaw is in the explanation or in the system it’s talking about. If you don’t agree with the conclusions, reread the thread again and see where the logic breaks down. You may decide that it’s time to stop the nonsense about the chlorine hand wash, which is totally understandable, but we all have a level of inquisitiveness that makes problems hard to ignore. I’m here to gain understanding. I’m here to discuss. I’m not here just for an argument, or to apportion blame, but to find the flaw. If something is not thought about, there’s no questions asked. With no questions, there’s no understanding.
Food for thought.
I, just like you the reader, have an interest in finding the flaw. Either the flaw is in the explanation or in the system it’s talking about. If you don’t agree with the conclusions, reread the thread again and see where the logic breaks down. You may decide that it’s time to stop the nonsense about the chlorine hand wash, which is totally understandable, but we all have a level of inquisitiveness that makes problems hard to ignore. I’m here to gain understanding. I’m here to discuss. I’m not here just for an argument, or to apportion blame, but to find the flaw. If something is not thought about, there’s no questions asked. With no questions, there’s no understanding.
Food for thought.
