There is a rising ultra-nationalist party in my country, and many nationalist or even blatantly racist parties or movements rise around the world. Yet I could not really say anything smart about it. Like most educated people, I believed that nationalism and racism are simply ape subroutines leading dumb people to think "we are good, they are bad" or "different = bad". However random stupidities rarely survive long, exactly since they provide no real results to the people. If I keep believing that the Moon is made of cheese, it won't give me anything, so I stop doing it, especially if everyone around me laugh or mock me for it.
Then I've read an article about a book, from the author. I did not read the book itself, so I can't judge it, but I assume the statistics in the article are true. It's about "whitopias", towns where the vast majority of the residents are whites, the public schools are at the level of good private schools, kids can stay outside safely, you don't have to lock the door. The book is about the rise of such towns, the huge white immigration to them. The statistics seem sound, they gained much more population than the average towns and majority of the immigrants escaped from multi-colored environments. These people definitely voted with their money, so it must be working for them. Leaving your home, changing jobs are hard decisions, there must have been a great reward in it.
I immediately thought of "mature guilds". Good players tend to seek such guilds, and it seems that it works. Most successful guilds are 18+.
Are the racists and the ageists right? My knowledge in biology says no. But if it works than something must be in it!
The solution is simpler than it seems and delivered by the "immature" players. No doubt that many kids have annoying traits, like begging, expecting hand-holding, making drama. Not all, but many. Also, these traits exist in several 18+ people, but it's without doubt that more kids are annoying than adults. Since everyone was a kid and most have or will have kids, I seriously doubt that there are any cultural "values" against kids. While we can (and liberals do) blame the white flight on "people being primitive racists and stick to their nonsense even for costs", we can't blame the "mature flight" from "social" guilds on anything like that. No one hates kids. We hate those annoying, begging punks.
In any community, part of the population is useless and annoying because of something they do, and usually because they produce no services to the others. In the perfect world we could define exactly what's annoying and would have the power to get rid of it. Either the useless people would change or we would expel them, segregate them from ourselves. But in our current world it's impossible, simply because we lack the measurement system to determine who is "officially useless".
Here comes the "X-ist"! The "X-ist" claim that people with trait X are bad. He can be (and usually is) completely wrong in the scientific sense. However if X correlates to "being useless", his nonsense starts to work (correlation does not mean causality). Let's say that in the population 40% are useless. Half of the people are "X". Among the X-people, there are 60% useless rate. So in 100 people we have:
The liberal "everyone are equal" is not the solution for racism. It's exactly the cause of racism. In the absence of proper definition of "useless, annoying people", the racist or nationalist nonsense can become the best available method for approximating uselessness. The solution would exactly be creating a divide between people that correlates better to usefulness than race. I believe the "tax-payer/welfare-receiver" division would be much-much better. Instead of looking at the color of the face, people would look at the color of the ID card (or driver license or whatever used for person identification):
Same way if Blizzard would implement some kind of "skill rating" that would properly measure how good the player performed in instances, no one would care about age or gear, the recruitments would be according this rating. Of course Blizzard won't do it, since if officially segregated, the annoying idiots would stop paying $15. Also liberals would never introduce such system, since they would lose big part of their voters (the useless people).
FTC (Frequently trolled comments, don't bother to read them unless you want to comment, commenting a FTC = delete):
Then I've read an article about a book, from the author. I did not read the book itself, so I can't judge it, but I assume the statistics in the article are true. It's about "whitopias", towns where the vast majority of the residents are whites, the public schools are at the level of good private schools, kids can stay outside safely, you don't have to lock the door. The book is about the rise of such towns, the huge white immigration to them. The statistics seem sound, they gained much more population than the average towns and majority of the immigrants escaped from multi-colored environments. These people definitely voted with their money, so it must be working for them. Leaving your home, changing jobs are hard decisions, there must have been a great reward in it.
I immediately thought of "mature guilds". Good players tend to seek such guilds, and it seems that it works. Most successful guilds are 18+.
Are the racists and the ageists right? My knowledge in biology says no. But if it works than something must be in it!
The solution is simpler than it seems and delivered by the "immature" players. No doubt that many kids have annoying traits, like begging, expecting hand-holding, making drama. Not all, but many. Also, these traits exist in several 18+ people, but it's without doubt that more kids are annoying than adults. Since everyone was a kid and most have or will have kids, I seriously doubt that there are any cultural "values" against kids. While we can (and liberals do) blame the white flight on "people being primitive racists and stick to their nonsense even for costs", we can't blame the "mature flight" from "social" guilds on anything like that. No one hates kids. We hate those annoying, begging punks.
In any community, part of the population is useless and annoying because of something they do, and usually because they produce no services to the others. In the perfect world we could define exactly what's annoying and would have the power to get rid of it. Either the useless people would change or we would expel them, segregate them from ourselves. But in our current world it's impossible, simply because we lack the measurement system to determine who is "officially useless".
Here comes the "X-ist"! The "X-ist" claim that people with trait X are bad. He can be (and usually is) completely wrong in the scientific sense. However if X correlates to "being useless", his nonsense starts to work (correlation does not mean causality). Let's say that in the population 40% are useless. Half of the people are "X". Among the X-people, there are 60% useless rate. So in 100 people we have:
- 30 useless X people
- 20 normal X people
- 10 useless non-X people
- 40 normal non-X people
The liberal "everyone are equal" is not the solution for racism. It's exactly the cause of racism. In the absence of proper definition of "useless, annoying people", the racist or nationalist nonsense can become the best available method for approximating uselessness. The solution would exactly be creating a divide between people that correlates better to usefulness than race. I believe the "tax-payer/welfare-receiver" division would be much-much better. Instead of looking at the color of the face, people would look at the color of the ID card (or driver license or whatever used for person identification):
- Those who pay more tax than they receive in government services (including their share of upkeeping the bureaucracy/army) would get green ID card
- Those who pay less tax than their share of services but receive no direct welfare would get a blue ID card
- Those who receive direct welfare (or committed crime and did not fully repaid the damage + legal costs) would get a grey ID card
Same way if Blizzard would implement some kind of "skill rating" that would properly measure how good the player performed in instances, no one would care about age or gear, the recruitments would be according this rating. Of course Blizzard won't do it, since if officially segregated, the annoying idiots would stop paying $15. Also liberals would never introduce such system, since they would lose big part of their voters (the useless people).
FTC (Frequently trolled comments, don't bother to read them unless you want to comment, commenting a FTC = delete):
- "You are a racist!": Can you read?!
- "The X-people are not responsible for having many useless people among them": I did not claim so. Everyone is responsible for himself and not for the other people like him.
- "The X-ists are making the life of X-people hard, that causes the high useless rate, I mean if you don't get proper schooling, last hired, first fired, it's pretty hard to be useful": I don't question this logic, I just say it's not my business. I'm not responsible for the actions of the X-ists, just because they wronged you, you have no right to wrong me.
- "While I don't think you are X-ist, your logic somehow approve them, while we should condemn them with all means we have!": they don't need my approval or yours. They don't give a damn about our opinions. They will exist as long as their "product" is profitable. Their product is the approximation method of useless people.
- "Income does not mean usefulness, lot of people get money without useful work and several have no money because of bad luck": I don't question that. I don't claim that more money makes more useful person. I say there is a good correlation between them. No method is without errors, mine is simply less bad than the X-ist.
- "Can't we respect everyone?": Check your pillow! Maybe the tooth fairy left you something!
- "You propose to treat criminals and welfare recipients equally!" No. Criminals would go to prison. After they served their time, they would have a debt to the society equal to the damage done, legal and prison costs.
74 comments:
There was a spider under my pillow.
I don't think I'll be sleeping tonight.
So your solution is a regressive tax policy. Awesome.
Gevlon, if you take it one step farther, and introduce an 'elite' gold ID card that costs the equivalent of 1 million USD, then you could use this system to pay for alot of good social services, without straining under the financial strain of socialism.
This would be the equivalent of vanity pets for charity =D
The problem with your solution, Gevlon, is EXACTLY the same problem with the far-right nationalist "solution". Their method of segregating people is more about primitive tribal ideas and less about objectively considered theories, but the end result is the same.
Any attempt to group people using a single rough approximation of their value is doomed to incorrectly classify most people. Sure, at least there is some rational basis for grouping people based on contribution to society in monetary terms, but that is hardly the only way I'd want to measure my neighbors. Making sure someone makes a lot of money is no better assurance than requiring them to be white in making sure that they are going to raise kids who won't beat up my kid on the playground.
The problem with filtering people based on broad traits is that the method explicitly drags along all the bad people who are part of the approved group. The flaw of white supremacy isn't just that it argues that non-white people are bad, but that it makes the implicit argument that every white person is better than every non-white person. Or to use Gevlon's example, would I really rather eat in a restaurant with the most elitist prick of businessman instead of someone polite, but less well off, guy?
I'm ignoring the arguments about percentages and probabilities regarding groups for one reason, we can do a lot better than slightly shifting the odds in our favor at the expense of a lot of good people who are in the "wrong" group. "Mature guilds" aren't the really successful ones. As Gevlon pointed out, being over 18 is no guarantee of mature behavior. Arguing that it makes it MORE likely isn't a valid argument, because there are more than two options (18+ or not). By having even a basic application and interview process, the "ipwnn00bz" DK played by an immature 13 year old is out, and so is the jackass won't-shut-up-on-Vent 27 year old. That gets a guild the kind of people they REALLY want.
@Brian: we use primitive classifications all the time. For example, if you are 18+, you are eligible to vote, if you are 17.99, you are not. Of course many 18+ people are so dumb that they couldn't name the running mates of the candidates but still can vote.
Also, if you pass the test to get a driving license you are eligible to drive. Of course not everyone will be a good driver. But still, there is a bigger percentage of good drivers among test-passers than among failers.
Rough approximations is all we have. We have to use the best available.
BTW I'm not suggesting classification based on money EARNED, but money PAID to the society.
It's also worth noting that the reason "Whitopias" could be higher quality places to live is NOT due to the skin color of the inhabitants. The communities in question arose mostly from people attempting to move away from bad conditions in cities. The people with the resources to do that were, at least up until very recently, white people. The reason the places are nice is because the people who live there were specifically looking for somewhere nice, and the help keep their community that way. I doubt you'd have the same result if you took a random group of white people and formed them into a community.
Which should tell you something about the wisdom of segregating people along ANY arbitrary lines. The likelihood that you've found the magic characteristic shared by all good people is pretty slim.
I see what you're saying Gevlon, and your rough approximation is much better than that used by the X-ist folks. But I'm suggesting that maybe it's NOT all we have. In many areas we COULD treat people as individuals instead of based on broad statistics, we simply choose not to. Regarding segregated restaurants, for example, we could instead have restaurants that are quick to kick out obnoxious people, or people who are causing trouble. That allows in people who are good but have the "wrong" characteristic, while keeping out people who are bad, but are in the "right" group.
Racism comes in where people don't actually make a proper observation or judgement call before deciding that group X is inferior. They just decide based on prejudices which may not be true.
There is a flaw in your logic that undermines one of your first points. You claim, "However random stupidities rarely survive long, exactly since they provide no real results to the people," yet there are people who carry on random stupidities for generations. One such example is that there are still people in today's modern world who believe the world is flat, despite all evidence to the contrary.
Any argument based on the idea that just because people keep doing a thing it must somehow have some value is fundamentally flawed. There may well be other factors at work that are producing the end result rather. (Such as the holes Brian poked in your "Whitopias" above.)
@SiderisAnon: people who believe in Flat Earth or Intelligent Design are NOT doing it, just saying. I mean believing in this does not require them to put their money where their mouth is. Believing in evolution or not has no effect to your personal life.
Being racist require you to DO something, like limiting your employee/friend/spouse base to whites, strike that, to racist whites. That has costs that limit your life. People don't do that without reward.
Yeah. But discouraging fox news audience from reproducing could quite easily lift the average IQ of the planet with 20 to 40 points. That is about creationism.
Gevlon, you should extend the concept of "how much money do you pay in tax" to a more general "services paid to the community".
Sometimes donating your own time to the community is more valuable than a huge amount of tax paid.
@Gevlon
"Being racist require you to DO something, like limiting your employee/friend/spouse base to whites, strike that, to racist whites. That has costs that limit your life. People don't do that without reward."
They don't do it without believing there's a reward. That's not the same thing as there actually being one. Given your countless posts about how dumb M&S are, I'm amazed that you don't consider the possibility that these people are simply idiots, acting on an irrationally held belief.
I live in an area that is probally about 25 to 50% Latino, it also happens to be a poorer area of town. as such the school in this area is poor and half of the students there are Latino, the state I live in is a very white area.
Not long ago we were able to get my kids into a Charter School (which is similar to a private school but its a public school that is simply ran like a private school with some area of emphasis, a better education then a standard public school)
First day of school my kids came home with the comment that wow most of the kids are white, i didnt know how to take it, i consider myself tolarant i dont want to see people as fat black white brown hispanic, maybe a lovey feature of WOW.
Ive came to the conclusion its not about race, whiteism or any thing else, nither is it with top guilds,
Its grouping with people who seek better, there is nothing stoping the Latino's from enrolling thier kids in charter school, they just as a rule don't its simply a cultural difference in the way they think about the education.
There is no law that says white people cannot be a janitor, but most janitors i know of are not white. Any one that seeks to set them selfs to a slighty higher standard are going to rise regardless of who or what they are, nothing stops a kid from not being an annoying beggar but them selves. Being a kid has nothing to do with skill just in genral they are more likely to be the annoying ones not in top guilds.
I expected to be leaving a massive angry rant calling you a racist. My fiance is of African and Carribean descent. She's also a lawyer, her mother and father are hardworking, high ranking public servants. I say this to let you know my expectations coming into this conversation.
And yet, I completely agree. There are many, many useless retarded white people and many, many incredible, amazing and fantastic non-whites (I chose white as the most representative example of the 'non-x' race/category/whatever you like).
I completely agree. There will be some 'false' negatives, students on welfare and the like, but if it is really false, it will change eventually.
The important recognition is the importance of not dehumanising blue/grey cards. They are humans and worth just as much as you or I. They just contribute less. That is all. Other than private businesses and communities establishing standards, they are entitled to the same treatment as green cards (i.e. green card goes on welfare, gets identical treatment to grey card. All public facilities are provided to green/blue/grey cards alike).
Basically, you are suggesting to substitute X-ism with some kind of usefulness-ism.
However, I doubt people would adopt that and stop their other X-ism. E.g. in the case of "Whitopias", they would not change their policy to accept all colors, they would start saying "only green cards & white people".
It would create an additional method of discrimination, nothing else.
If you segregate people based on their contribution to society wont that impede social mobility, and cause a long term increase in the number of useless people?
Valid, invalid.
Inner party, outer party.
Oppressor, oppressed.
@Anonymous above me.
yes it would, that's why this argument fails.
Judging 'usefulness' by material wealth does not accomplish anything.
I'm a "racist" against M&S.
I don't feel any pity for those who died on the road for not looking left-right; or blasted theyr house cause of gas leaks or whatever else cause, which they - a now confirmed M&S - left unchecked. Yes, thats alot of things to check in todays world, but thats what evolution and ntural selection is all about. Same with Gevlon's color-IDs - if you have "gray" one - then please get better or don't stand in the way. All this may sound cruel an inhuman today, but i doubt it will be so when Earth population gets to 15+ billions.
@Anonymous: actually it would INCREASE social mobility. The biggest problem is inherited poverty. The sons of poor will be poor. It's mostly because they follow the destructive behavior of their parents. It's sad, but normal, everyone likes his parents, family, neighborhood.
The card system would make the adolescent face that his parents are "just greys" and they are NOT good examples. The good example is the guy next door who broke out and now a "blue". It's very sad, but a poor kid's first step of getting out of poverty is saying: "my dad and mom are wrong and I don't want to be like them".
"Those who receive direct welfare (or committed crime and did not fully repaid the damage + legal costs) would get a grey ID"
So people who are on welfare are to be classified in society at the same level as child molesters, rapists, bank robbers and drug dealers.
And do you seriously think someone, lets say a nurse, on a basic icome supporting a family, couple of kids say, without the support of a partner, lets say they died, unexpectedly. Not their fault. whatever insutrance is usded to cover funeral expenses etc and help living cost for a little while.
She / He earns enough to get by, perfoms a undeniably essential service to the community, however, requires a little help from the state in the form of welfare or tax rebate due to rasing kids on low income. So in your system she gets blue card.
And then u have Mr Footballer, who essentially kicks a ball about a field, earns perhaps 10 times a month than our previous example the nurse. He provides etertainment, not essentail to society, but his earnings means he pays more tax than nurse above, and gets a nice shiney green card.
so someon who serves the community, helps heal people and generally is eassential to the running of society is a second class citizen, while mr footballer, gets to sit at the front of the bus.
And you think this is a good system compared to racism and not exactly the same thing? You would be judging people based on their earnings or economic contribution to society. prejudice is prejudice no matter how you word it. Pre-Judging a group or person based on skin colour, country of birth, sex or economic standing and not on their individual merits / personality is prejudiced.
Your system is nothing more than thinly veiled right wing nonsense. Would the little grey cards be shaped like stars and sewn into their clothes or would it be needed to access public buildings? No you have to go to the grey card swimming pool this pools for the green cards only.
What's the point of this article ?
If you agree that a lot of ppl don't need wellfare because of rich parents and ppl working hard sometines needs wellfare how can you propose to gives these peoples color cards accoring to their "merits" ?
The more I read you the more i see you are really focused on money only, you realise your proposal is to take the criminals and the wellfare recipients and put them in the same bag ?
You should consider the humanity factor in your reasonnings because 99% of the world will so even if you think you have the perfect logical solution for a problem you 'll always be wrong because the rest of the world is hopefully more concerned with human feelings than you are.
Once again wellfare is not the problem, politics spending billions on useless tasks and putting some int their pockets are bigger problem and represents far more money.
Thinking wellfare is the problem is as stupid as thinking skin color is the problem.
Spinks is totally right. Racism is prejudice, based on assumptions, not studies. Scientific conclusions and studied correlations are not prejudice at all.
@morningstar: indeed it would be pre-judgement. It would simply be a better pre-judgement than racism. Mr footballer surely give more to the society than a drug dealing gangster. In racism if he born black, he can't do anything. In this system he can choose to practice with the ball hard to become footballer and not drug dealer.
You CAN'T get rid of pre-judgement, simply because it's impossible to know everyone. 99.99999% of the world population are strangers and if I encounter them, I must use some very primitive heuristics to decide if I want to bother STARTING to meet them. Me, you, everyone turn down THOUSANDS of possible friends, coworkers, spouses every DAY. You will use a heuristics anyway. So why not use a better one than race or religion or nationality?
My biggest problem is the fact that my experience had thought me that once you start giving out colored cards for one thing, it would never stop there. Humankind has a tendency to over-do everything and push it to extremes.
in year 2020. you would have your "society utility" cards.
in the year 2030. women would be separated on those that had children, and those that didnt, after all, having a child is most useful thing a woman can contribute to society, isnt it? Who would care why they didnt.
in the year 2040. there would be cards marking all "useless time spent" on anything not considered work or rearing children.
you may argue that what I am saying now is totally sci-fi dystopian, but there are repercussions to simplifications. and there are reasons that politics are more than leftist bullshit dreams of economic equality at all costs.
Besides, your vision of meritocracy is more than prone to manipulation (how long before you can buy, fuck or steal your way to a preferred card color?) How long before the government body responsible for regulating and enforcing card colors is basically ruling each citizen's life? Because they already deal with *everything else* so mistake-free.
There is a reason that free market, and self-responsibility that comes from it are enough to maintain and guarantee political freedoms. and besides, if you live your life as a useful member of society, chance is you have already reached some degree of personal happiness. why would you need a card to prove that?
wickEd- arathor (EU)
Some questions about the practical aspects of the idea. Let's suppose we have a system like you described up and runnig. Who would decide about who gets which ID? Who will distribute them? Are they reliable persons? Should the „society” trust them?
You say that (social) usefulness equals more taxes paid than welfare received. You don't take into consideration the fact that a major part of the money paid in as taxes is simply - stolen. Yes, I'm talking about corruption here. Check the list, there is now snow-white here, only whiter shades of grey: http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi/2009/cpi_2009_table. (Also a blatant example from your country can be enjoyed here (unfortunately only in Hungarian): http://index.hu/belfold/2009/11/26/keviselok_is_feszegetik_az_mvm-ugyeket/ ).
What is my point, you ask? Billions of USD worth of money disappears every year globally in the pockets of the so-called white-collar criminals. I’m not talking about bank robbers or drug dealers, I’m talking about „stealing” from the state.These people are usually well educated, more intelligent than average. They usually can turn the flaws in the system to their advantage and/or they are able to „acquire” powerful friends helping them to achieve their goals. They usually already have more money that they can spend but since money is their god, they can never stop. National budgets get hurt at least as badly by these frauds as by the welfare leecher "useless" people. The difference is that those involved in corruption of unbelievable proportions 1.) will always have enough money to buy anything and anyone they want and 2.) therfore they will always have a (bought, faked or even completely legit) green card or whatever is the symbol of the "highest standard". You say more money correlates to being more useful but don't forget that more money will always mean more power and more privileges - in every sense of the word.
I don’t think there will ever be a „fair” system to deal with this. Either it will be a dictature (in which corruption will still abound – something like North-Korea nowadays) or it will be Rwanda during the civil war.
@Peter
Nice post.
Governments are worse "money eaters" than the worst mass of welfare leechers put together and multiplied by 174 (random number I pulled out of my ass ^^).
An individual can never spend as mindlessly as a Government.
wickEd - arathor(EU)
I've made a comment once including a quote containing the term liberal and conservative. I used it because in America it's considered liberal = leftwing = socialist, and conservative = rightwing = captilalism. And because that it, I was assuming that when writing in english, the point will come across better, and I couldn't change a quote of course. But what I meant was socialism vs capitalism. I'm not a socialist, but I'm definitely a liberal.
So, now I see the liberal term being used in this post again, obviously linked to the "leftwing, socialist" thinking, I feel I need to explain something about it.
Leftwing and socialism are more or less linked. Socialism is a left-wing thinking method. Liberalism is not. Liberalism simply promotes freedom, conservatism promotes keeping things as they are, they're both very literal in their meaning, but that seems more and more overlooked.
Interesting fact, one of the biggest and oldest right wing parties in my country is actually a liberal party. And one of the most outspoken socialist parties in my country is very conservative and nationalist (those two do go together quite well), though not in a racist way. We also have a rightwing conservative/nationalist party and ofcourse a leftwing liberal party, even though they like to consider themselves "centered", they're pretty leftwing.
Personally I never understood the american liberal+socialism and conservative+capitalism could even be considered a logical combination. I think liberal thinking and capitalism are far more complementary. Conservatism on it self doesn't really complement either left or rightwing, so does nationalism. I mean Nazi's were NAtional-SOcialists. Though they're considered extremely rightwing because of their racism (even though their claim of being socialists). In fact it has nothing to do with either right or leftwing, they were extreme conservatives/nationalists.
And now I've reached the racism/X-ism part. I've got strong ideas about it, but I've always had a hard time explaining them. I understand it's existence. Yes it's bad, but it's bad like "common sense" is too. It's just what we do: make links in our head. We link what our senses can tell us to possible outcomes. Just like "gearscore" is one of our ingame "senses". It's far from failsafe, but there is no better sensing system. Saying it's bad is correct, but it's still the best thing we have to predict possible outcomes. So just saying it's bad without giving a better alternative, is bad in itself, that's taking away the only grip people have. From a score of 1 to 10 a 2, though bad, is still better then a 1. If this was about life or death, everyone would choose the 2.
So yes, this probably sounds like promoting X-ism. Not really, but I'm saying that we should just accept X-ism as somthing that's a product of logical reasoning (calculation of chance) AND ape-routines (our inbuild background functions that already do this for us). Best thing we can do is to be aware of this though, and not accept it as the absolute truth, but don't deny it either. There is logic behind it.
P.S. There's so much more I can and would like to say about it, but that would reach book-size proportions. I just hope this get's across withouth being taken the wrong way.
Have you looked recently at the life of someone living of welfare?
So you spliced in 3 categories:
1. Green ID - pays more than he receives
2. Blue ID - pays some, but less than he receives
3. Gray ID - pays nothing
Check out the world around you and tell me exactly how the society should treat people according to their ID's versus how they are treating the ones falling into your categories?
"Mr footballer surely give more to the society than a drug dealing gangster. In racism if he born black, he can't do anything. In this system he can choose to practice with the ball hard to become footballer and not drug dealer."
Your dodging the issue here. Your comparing a drug dealer to a footballer to try to prove your point, but your comparing a scumbag to a good person shalll we say. and in simplistic terms it would appear to work but it falls apart when you compare two good people. Take the two I used a nurse and a footballer, the nurse would be a second class citizen in your system. regardless of colour or creed as it were.
And in fact, if your system is used, and using your examples of a drugs dealer and a footballer and my nurse,the drugs dealer who for the simple act of paying tax, via a simple "legitimate" cash based laudering business like sun tan studios or taxi company, would be classed as fine upstanding citizen and have a nice shiney green card to prove it as would the footballer while the nurse gets second class citizen ship.
so why be a nurse.
You would effectively bring back a class system going back to that of victorian england, where you have a rich upper class, a middle class and lower class and each would simply look down upon the others.
Anmd to be honest a class system does not get rid of racism, in fact a system of state regulated prejudice would only fuel further prejudices.You would still have White green cards would look down on black / asian hispanic green card carriers and it would be more prevelant than today, as it would be ingrained in the youth that there is nothing wrong with thinking someone is lesser than you because of their station and therefore it stands to reason that in the same sense if their a different colour they'd also be lesser.
In our society its a common held belief that racism is bad, sexism is bad, even if people still are, the majority condems them for it. If the majority are indoctorined into thinking one class of person is better than another at a state level thats when attrociites begin and we have a wealth of human history full of examples of what happens when one group of people believe they are better fundementally than another.
"It's good the world is protected from facist utopias (pleonasm, i know) like these... most of the time."
there is always a fucking imbecile (in this case gevlon) who thinks that he owns the TRUTH and that he knows how to keep the non-kind people (M&S in this case) in their place.
the only truth is that there is no truth, and that respect and love (yes i said love) would be the rules for a good coexistence. the society needs to get rid of people like gevlon as badly as needs to get rid of thieves, assasins, rapers.... only without this kind of people (people who cant love) the utopia can be reached. obviously you cant get rid of all of them, so thats why it is called utopia.
its some kind of funny/sad to see how gevlon doesnt realize that he is as bad for the society as M&S and he trys to kill'em'all. tbh, the people who cant see further than his nose-tip is the main problem of our generation. everybody thinks he is the best and the others are just scumbags.
for instance, despite that gevlon isnt skilled enough to be in a skilled semi-dedicated guild he insists in that it was a matter of bussines to be fired. it was a matter of skill (if he were skilled enough he would never got fired for not to pay), but he will never admit that. because he is the best, he knows THE TRUTH and the rest of the world are scumbags. /spit
the answer is not to meassure people and segregate them with gree/yellow/grei cards. the answer is well known since many centuries, the answer is love. until every single one of us do learn to love, we will not get the utopia. the way for this, is education. the problem is that not everybody is interested in educate the people. you know, the more M&S the more profit, you can see it every day in AH. thats why the world needs to get rid of people like you gevlon. /spit again
Yes, lets give Angelina Jolie a card that makes her officially better than most people in the world. Then she can go in a green-only -restaurant with that adopted kid of hers, 'cause she sure is making the world a better place by receiving hundreds of millions for showing her cosmetically altered face in some of the worst and most useless entertainment available to people.
Lets give those Bolivian kids in tin-mines a gray card. They don't care, because they wouldn't have enough money to eat in a restaurant anyways. They barely have enough money to stay alive and the "welfare" they are getting amounts to nothing. Doesn't matter, they'll die by 30 anyways.
You usually write smart posts, but this one you didn't think through. Your solution is JUST as useless and unjust as x-ism. Actually, it IS x-ism, the x is just replaced by salary & tax instead of color.
There are plenty of people in plenty of countries that do VERY important jobs with too low salaries. Teacher is a good example. A hard and important job that often pays too little. What color card would teachers receive? How about artisans that actually spend 10 years learning their trade (not all of them do, but some), but get subpar salaries because their job is "generally available to anyone and doesn't require studying or brains"?
@Jyi: I've never said that the system would be perfect. It just would be better than any kind of existing classification. You can't change your race, nationality and hardly your religion. But you could change your card color by simply working harder and spending less.
The previous Anonymous is not deleted simply because he is so stupid that should be shown in traveling shoes.
"@Jyi: I've never said that the system would be perfect. It just would be better than any kind of existing classification. You can't change your race, nationality and hardly your religion. But you could change your card color by simply working harder and spending less.
"
and you tell me that my post is dumb?. your stupidity is EPIC... E P I C.
come on, retarded, go to those bolivian kids an tell them your fucking shit. "hey, 8 years old kid, you can mine faster so that you can get a green card some day like angelina jolie". <<<---- this is EPIC stupidity. you fail hard gevlon, HARD.
and i stick in saying the same. education and love is the solution, people dont know how to love and that is the problem.
stupid? ok, then aristotle was stupid, then Nietzsche was stupid, schopenhauer was stupid... every one of them in someway admits that empathy and love ARE NEEDED, even the solution.
have you ever read anything about the shit you write? have you ever bothered in knowing what have been thought before you have thought that bunch of shit? no, you havent. you just make your blog and begin to spread shit all over the place about the perfect society showing off how retarded you are. /clap
I hate the internet. when you write a book and it is read still 2,2,4 hundred years before, it means something. when you make a blog and write the dumbest thing in the world it means nothing. you know?
all the shit you have writen here has been thought and proved to fail before you wrote it. even before you born. but, who cares? its my shit, i can put it in my blog. /clap.
As a Dreadlord, I couldn't care less how useful a given person is to the society. What really matters is whether the person in question is useful to me.
@Ephemeron: people who are useful to the society are useful to you too.
Many businessmen, when undermining/ corrupting the society/ government miss that, and usually pretty surprised when some extremist take power and turn on them. Stable, lasting power can only come from living in mutually rewarding relationships with other useful people.
The big difference between rational, selfish behavior and liberal bullshit is not how we shall treat the other useful people. It's how we shall treat the useless ones.
I cant help but smile when that last anonymous first states that the answer is LOVE and then starts spreading his verbal HATE all over... well done champ.
All in all, this topic is one that has been concerning me for a while now and your posts brings a few interesting variations to what I had in mind.
I liked it particularly when u subtlely call it "correlation not cause". It gives a nice perspective.
I also think Wooly has a wonderful point to which I 100% agree: Racism even if unpleasant, is connected to the way we think.
Not sure about the cards tho... I mean OFFICIALLY imposed discrimination? Well, IF it would stear attention for all other kind of discrimination and leave only this one, it could be a nice thing... but I fear it will only end up being an extra criterion for people to categorize with...
I'm still pondering about this... I might come back later with more insight
The idea that you can cure society's ills by getting rid of the 'useless people' is a common rallying point of the extremists.
Of course, deciding who is 'useless' is the priveledge of those exremists, and is often based on religious divide rather than any true assessment of people's abilities.
Whitopia = success, based purely on skin colour? I can't see it.
White people have been happily slaughtering each other for centuries.
It all comes down to the 'haves' and the 'have-nots. Inequality will always breed resentment and hostility. That is the nature of human beings.
@Brian
The "jackass won't-shut-up-on-Vent 27 year old" is probably, from my experience, the guy who set up the guild in the first place.
I won't go into the whole whitopia thing much other than to say that the wealth people who can move to these areas are wealthy because of the way they act, they do not act the way they do because they are wealthy.
You may not be in the UK but you might want to watch "Race and Intelligence: Science's Last Taboo" from Channel4:
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/race-and-intelligence-sciences-last-taboo
It intelligently identifies that black people don't have less potential for success, they just have less probability because of the average environment. The world has reached a point where, through history and circumstance, black people are in the main poor and badly educated. The social cohesion, family values and ambition have been eroded and this has resulted in a cycle of poverty.
If you are richer then you will statistically have a better chance at a good education and you are more likely to have attention from at least one parent. When you are poor you are more likely to be neglected and get into trouble. You can work your way out of poverty but you need ambition/determination to do that.
You aren't wrong with the card concept, however my only worry is that people are still more inclined to judge based on first looks and will people get a chance or will they be 'written off'. I think, now more than ever, people do need to know they can be 'better' and that it is good to contribute to society.
I think the concept of "paid" has confused some people. Teachers may not be paid very well (I have been one) but they aren't in general poor and plus, "key workers" such as nurses and teachers could receive extra benefit as they already do with banks and other organisations.
< In any community, part of the population is useless and annoying because of something they do, and usually because they produce no services to the others. In the perfect world we could define exactly what's annoying and would have the power to get rid of it. Either the useless people would change or we would expel them, segregate them from ourselves. >
Maybe we could round up the 'useless, the dumb, the M&S' and wipe them off the face of the earth?
But wait, there are others that are draining your resources or annoying you to, lets get rid of them as well.
Hell, while we're at it, lets do the same for those that are not like 'you'....
Cool, now we're left with 'useful' people.
Now lets do that again, because some of those useful people are now 'useless, dumb or M&S'.
Rinse and repeat.....
White flight? Lol... People I know that are moving because the schools suck. The people that are moving are concerned parents, whether they're white, brown, yellow or red. We have the best schools in the state in our town, and a crazy percentage of parental involvement, from ALL races.
The schools are better because parents give a crap.
There are <18 players in "mature 18+" guilds. While you can see the skin colour of your neighbour, you don't see the age of someone behind his virtual "toon".
There will be also "18+ IRL" M&S applying there, but they'll be denied or fired after trial.
Kids want to be a part of "cool ppl", are social in the meaning they want "acknowledgement from their peers". "Mature" guild means you're NOT cool for us if you speak "m8", spam anal [link], beg for gold and boosts, make drama and act like M&S in a raid.
Like in the example with the kid from poor neighbourhood... he sees people around living from welfare, drinking alcohol and committing felonies, he starts to living like this too, because 1) he knows nothing better 2) the surrounding people make an impression drinking alcohol, brawling, breaking law and cheating the welfare system is "cool" and those who don't do it are "wimps" and "dumbasses".
Gevlon has already written before that when you live among M&S they want you to believe they're "cool freindly hlepfull ppl" and that begging for boosts and gold is an accepted and encouraged behaviour among them.
"Mature" guilds are just a sign we aren't a guild for "cool m8s" accept this or go back to your M&S "m8s".
Here's why your solution would completely fall apart in the real world Gev.
People would deliberately make ladders and hurdles, families would deliberately hire their own children and provide them with just enough of a wage to get them to the appropriate card level.
People would attempt to defend their own status in group X by attempting to cut down the people above them, and push down the people below them. In their money hungry, ass-grubbing, very human manner, they would make the very system rot from within...
Hint : The same way the current system of a few major countries is now rotting.
Thats why i love cosmic operas like StarWars - theres no racism [shown]. Nobody cares how creatures look or what they breathe - only minds matters in interacting.
I would add population control to Gevlon's card system. For example, grey card holders can have 1 child (2 per couple), blues can have 1.5 children (3 per couple) and greens can have 2 children (4 per couple) maximum.
This would solve unsustainable population growth whilst encouraging intelligent people to spread their DNA more than the M&S, resulting in a higher level of intelligence in the gene pool and in the long term the removal of all M&S genes!
@MetaManu: you keep referring to the Nazis and the Fasists. That's not contradicting opinion, that's blatant trolling.
@Vlad: I DON'T call for their destruction or anything to stop them from reaching a higher color. If they CHOOSE not to, they can keep on living, just not in the same public places that I frequent. That's not a big deal, after all, they live from MY tax.
@Trolls: I inserted a clarification into the post since you really can't read: "it would not affect the rights of these people against the state or their equality before a court. Less would lead to Apartheid. Going to my party, my restaurant, my school on the other hand is not a constitutional right. Just like anyone can play WoW, but not anyone can be in my raid."
The colour card scheme could actually be an incentive to raise more revenue from taxes. At the moment if the government had an optional tax I would opt out as there was no conceivable benefit for me but at the moment I'd probably be borderline blue/green (probably green but not by a lot). It's quite hard to work out exactly how much public money I consume through services. If I found I was only just on the side of blue, the opportunity to pay a "top up" tax to become a green would be a very attractive option.
It's an interesting though experiment anyway.
There have always been people who "can" and people who "can't", "will"'s and "won't"'s.
The price of living in a multicultural society is compromise, which often means no-one is happy. We live in the middle of the Bell Curve; the best and the worst are the worst off.
The only feasible solution to the trials and tribulations of multicultural countries, is to punish crime more harshly (sorry, no beating your daughters for not wearing a veil in this country, off to prison you go), and to tie welfare to work (you want welfare, you will work for the local government/comnmunity to get it)
No allowances, no exceptions. The laws are the laws for everyone.
Your red/green card system sounds unimaginably complicated to implement.
How would you calculate how much a person receives in government services?
How would you calculate how much a person is contributing?
The idea sounds very simple… until you take a step back and try to figure out how to manage it.
It also splits your society into two distinct classes by some abstract calculation that is not only subject to, but wide open to corruption.
Cheers!
CK
I just thought that I wouldn't mention to the one poster that a drug dealer is worse than a professional athlete. If the drug dealer paid taxes equal to the amount of the pro athlete then I would say he has the same contribution to society as the pro athlete. No one forces you to buy drugs. No one forces you to eat Macdonalds. No one forces you to buy Starbucks despite the fact you could make it yourself for much less. Same with drugs. A drug dealer is the same thing as a pharmecutical company except that we've allowed someone else to decide which drugs are bad or good for us.
So if the color of your card did not have any effect on your rights as citizen or your standing before the courts then it would just be basicly a big peer pressure system where the reasons for changing your status would be purely 'social'?
I would assume that your 'card status' could not be used to deny you a job since that would be directly contra the intent of the system.
Also when you determine what your 'cost to society' is are we talkign about direct costs like welfare or indirect costs as teh fact that you are using public roads and sidewalks? So if your job was a truck driver your costs would increase since you used the public roads more than someone working from home?
You should read "The Diamond Age" Greedy.
To point out the complexity of your system I’m going to delve a bit into the weighting.
Positives:
Taxes Paid
Positional Bonus (Army…)
Negatives:
Municipal Government Responsibilities
Provincial/ State Government Responsibilities
Federal Government Responsibilities
__
How does the government calculate the cost that a person owes the system?
What if the local government makes a bad business decision?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIM_Park
What if the region you live in has an environmental oddity that unbalances their municipal responsibilities.
Eg. Town X gets 200 days of snow per year. They spend much much more than town Y to keep the roads clean. Since the roads are municipal the welfare people from town X are incurring more social dept than the welfare people from town Y. In this case the welfare people in town X will be forced to move to town Y to get back to even.
I’m not saying your opinion is right or wrong.
Which is easier to balance?
A WoW arena tournament with 100 different class types
or
Your proposed system
Thoughts?
CK
""Can't we respect everyone?": Check your pillow! Maybe the tooth fairy left you something!"
Dear Gevlon,
If you sold a t-shirt with this saying on it, I would buy it.
"Me, you, everyone turn down THOUSANDS of possible friends, coworkers, spouses every DAY. You will use a heuristics anyway. So why not use a better one than race or religion or nationality?"
I don't judge people neither by their nationality or what so ever nor by their income. My best friend isn't the smartest guy on earth, hack people even blamed me why the fuck I would rather hang around with him instead of going out with them! Both of us gave a rats ass about the opinions of our parents and hey after several years we are still best friends.
In your proposed system, neither of us would have found the other guy, but that's just a problem I would have to face.
It would be much harder for smart poor children to get a good education, because no-one would be willed to teach the lower class people. Poor Children will be mocked in the first place. Just take a look at India's caste system. I suppose you are probably aware of it.
In the end it would just be another way of racism and a step back to Middle Ages and hate between different races and cultures wouldn't vanish. You can't change the simple minded and stupid people, but you can change their children!
Just leave them behind you, but treat the children like you would do with any other child.
English isn't my first language which I suppose you recognise by only reading my text, but I hope I could express myself properly enough.
I'd like to point out an unintended effect of your scheme.
According to your definitions, a student pays less taxes than the services he receives (public education), so he is classified as blue. Therefore it is in his best interest to "go green" as soon as possible by starting to work as early as possible, as opposed to staying in school for higher degrees.
This leads to a society of hardworking blue collars and no PhDs.
Your utility-based status system would have to be enforced by the society it, um, improves. You posit that this society is composed of 60% "M&S." Is the system likely to function as you intend given the foolishness and corruption inherent in having 60% of it's participants be "M&S?" It's easy to think of exploitable edge cases and perverse incentives.
Also, you're proposing to classify and potentially punish the majority of your society in order to solve a problem created by a minority of it's members. History has many examples of this working poorly or not at all, and very few of it producing good results.
Sorry, got the ratio switched. Still, if 40% of the members are useless, the results aren't likely to be satisfactory.
Here lies the mistake.
Disabled people.
A lot of disabled people start life normally. Most in fact. Just because some punk who had a BMW ran you over and severed your spine, you become the underclass.
Its the punk living off his inheritance that is the drain on sociaty - they need to be removed.
The people who are poor and have the ability to work should also be the underclass as well.
Money has nothing to do with the issue - the real issue is lazy people. And they exist in rich and poor alike.
The main problem I see with this is actually the basic assumption that separating the "right" from the "wrong" people will make everything better (even just for the "right" people). Obviously this works on a small scale, like for a guild, but in the real world it would just lead to the creation of ghettos, and those are very hard to ignore. You can't really keep a large percentage of the population out of sight of the rest.
I would much rather see my tax dollars go to a eugenics program than this type of solution. You're always going to have to use tax money to deal with M&S unless you either kill all the M&S or phase them out through selective breeding and genetic engineering. I don't think killing them is humane since they didn't volunteer to be born or to have bad parenting. But I believe the right to reproduce is not a right at all, but a privilege; I mean, what are the odds that M&S parents will raise their children well, let alone have good enough genetic material for their children to have a good chance of being non-M&S? Or you could spend a bunch of money trying to segregate the M&S away from the non M&S but never come closer to any permanent solution.
"Everyone is responsible for himself and not for the other people like him."
This is true, but belonging to one of the cultural groups which encourage uselessness doesn't precisely improve one's odds of turning out useful.
I LOVED this article, though.
If you're in any need of a proofreader, I hold a Master's degree in English and will happily proof any entries you'd like proofed before posting.
"@Jyi: I've never said that the system would be perfect. It just would be better than any kind of existing classification. You can't change your race, nationality and hardly your religion. But you could change your card color by simply working harder and spending less."
I don't think it would be a better system. You can change your nationality and you can change your religion. Race you can't - yet (Michael Jackson almost succeeded). You also forget that your system is better - if I'd assume it's better - only on idealistic level. People would revolt if your system would be implemented. And "working harder" is not a solution. Currently wages are completely unjust: there is ABSOLUTELY NO JOB in the whole world that should make someone a billionaire. There should be no billionaires. There's just no justification for someone to have such ridicilously huge fortune. I'm not saying communism is the answer, a harder job should pay clearly more than something anyone can do - but the differences should be smaller than now and they should be based more on how difficult the job actually is. Hoarding massive amounts of money and material goods even if you pay more taxes than anyone still hurts the society overall.
What I'm getting at: your system would only work if wages would be evened first. Then, and only then, would working harder or learning actually matter. Right now being a dishonest and greedy bastard is the best way to riches - that doesn't necessarily require as much smarts as for example being a scientist. Learning and innovation should be encouraged more than fame, greedyness and backstabbing!
A better replacement for the current system would be to base green, blue or gray cards on the amount of work done AND amount of taxes paid in comparison to wages. If someone works 10 hours a day, doing a physically or mentally challenging job and pays 30% in taxes, he should get a green card rather than a bastard who won a lottery or acted in a bad movie. Systems implemented in societies should never be overly simplified, since they are too easy to abuse.
While some professions are measurable in their usefulness (Bin Men, Farmers, Post Men, Judges, Police, skilled laborers etc...) other things in society aren't so clear. For example artists, musicians, designers, performers etc... While they aren't making a direct contribution to all of society (only the members of society who like their work) they still pay a vital role in making the people who do like them be happier. And for another example, designers work on the products you use every day forks spoons etc... Recently a design student (note not an engineer) from the RCA London redesigned the plug to be a whole lot more efficient, something nobody had bothered to do since its original design in (I think 1939)
Who would measure what is "useful" in your society, and how would they be unbiased towards certain fields of work?
Why get so upset over this notion?
It already exists.
If I live on welfare, I may not be able to afford to eat out.
If I work part-time or for low pay, I may be able to eat out, but only at cafes and average restaurants.
If I work for good pay or forego other pleasures, I can eat out at four-star restaurants.
Grey card - anyone with less than $10 for a meal where I live.
Blue card - anyone with less than $25 for a meal where I live.
Green card - anyone with less than $40 for a meal where I live.
So average restaurants will just put up a "Blue Card only" sign, and 4-star restaurants will put up a "Green Card only" sign. Actually, that's a lie. What if a person with a blue-card income (me) saves up and wants to go to a green-card establishment? Doesn't this kind of system prevent people from doing exactly what the Whiteopians did - vote with their money for what they want?
I'd laugh if I saw a restaurant turn away business because they didn't pay enough taxes. Who do you suggest would actually be willing to discriminate on the basis of card colour?
I fail to see why this system would change anything at all. So you have a green card because you pay more taxes than you consume? Great! For all we know, you're a drug baron or sitting on inherited wealth. Go back to your Whiteopia, you don't need the card to get in, you can just buy your way in... because it's all the same.
I repeat: Gevlon merely suggests we formalise a system already in existence.
The golden rule:
Those who have the gold make the rules.
As an aside:
The statement 'if we all started equally (like in WoW) this system would be fair' has considerable merit. A person who has inherited a million $USD and invests it with even a modestly competent broker could live off the returns without putting in a second of real work, and probably gets that shiny green card to boot.
I suggest a progressive wealth tax would encourage social mobility far better than the prospect of a 'premium-citizen card'.
Many countries have some form of negative progressive wealth tax already. We call it 'welfare'. Why not merely extend the concept?
I would like to offer my oppinion on why the "whitopias" are successfull.
In short it is not because white's are statisticly more usefull than others, it's because it's only the usefull white's that have something to gain by moving to whitopia, and therefore they are the only ones who do. let me explain by a few examples of different types of white people moving to whitopia:
1: Working, and non-criminal man; will be surrounded by more of the same category and beeing around less "useless" people and not be victim of their crimes or pay for their welfare is obviously an advantage to him.
2: Unemployed, and non criminal; while this man will benefit from less crime like the first person, he will also be one of very few non-workers, this will increase the social stigma of beeing unemployed, and he will be less accepted/included in the society than if he stays where he is, as most people are socials this outwheighs the less crime, and he stays where he is.
3: Criminal (employed or not); This man has the less reason to move to whitopia, as there are fewer other criminals the police will have more recourses to spend on investigating his crimes, and increase his chance of getting cougth/punished for them. Criminals also often depends on other criminals for their crimes to pay. There is no point on selling illegal drugs if htere are no buyers, and no point in stealing if there is no fence or black market where you can turn stolen property into money.
My point here is that whitopias working has nothing to do with white's it has to do with usefulls, Gevlon has the same point, but comes to the conclusion that white's have statisticly better odds of beeing usefull (and there for white mathers), as my explaination completely removes the white part from the equation, meaning non-white-topia would work just as well.
Gevlon,
It appears that you are saying that racism functions as an (inaccurate) usefulness detector. This assumes that the targets of racism (eg, blacks) are, on average, more likely to be useless (whatever that means).
How does your view explain racism against groups that are less useless than the general population? If we use wealth as a measure of usefulness, there are several (often emigrant) groups that fit this description. If your idea can't explain this, it's a bullshit idea.
People unable to get the green card:
-Stay at home parents
-Orphans (running the orphanage costs the government big bucks)
-Disabled military veterans
-Doctors under the age of 50 (med school loans FTL)
Also, why the focus on individual income tax contribution and not corporate taxes? Is the tax system different in Hungary?
This reminds me a bit of my own guild's recruitment policy. Despite only raiding once or twice per week, we've managed to stay competitive (top 10 on the server). Which owes a great deal to the quality of members we've recruited. Initially, when we made the push for 25 man content there was discussion about a minimum age requirement.
We ended up deciding agaist it for two simple reasons.
A. If they prove to be annoying douche nozzle kids, then they will get a chance to change their behavior, if they don't they're out.
B. Though rare, there are the occasional diamond in the rough situations. For quite some time I ran with a Mage who was 16 years old, he turned 18 this year and went to College to get his business degree, and has since retired from WoW.
In the above example, he could have been just a barrens spamming fool like oh so many "kids" we encounter, if he had been he wouldn't have lasted long in the guild. It turns out though, we ended up with a good performer for two years because we gave him a chance.
Obviously, this is purely anecdotal and by no means the rule, in this case he was the exception. Comparatively we've had about twenty "under 18s" who have long since worn out their welcome, all for pretty much the same reason ... they needed to grow up.
Either way, interesting read Gevlon.
Replacing one X-ism with another is hardly a solution. The folley of X-ists lies in their search for over-simplification. There seems to be a correlation between X and being useless? "Eureka" says the X-ist, "we have an answer". But what you are proposing is simply a new X-ism, not an escape from this dynamic. Over-simplification invariably leads to unacceptably high levels of error, no matter the basis it is drawn on. Ultimately, case-by-case assessment cannot be dispensed with or replaced.
Well, I'm in a (mostly) mature guild. We basically boot the people who are assholes and cause drama (the latest being a 35 year old) but we're fine with anyone who is nice, and helpful, and isn't an asshole (notably a 15 year old who is one our top-ranked arena players). Maturity isn't necessarily based on age, but due to various factors, older players tend to be more mature. It's when you have people who are extremists and idealists trying to apply their philosophies to the game that things get dramatic and/or bizarre.
So wait, should we not be filtering people based on the trait of "is an asshole"? Because really, we don't want assholes in our guild, even if we're at risk of being labeled asshole-ist. Sorry.
I think most of the commentators miss the point. Gevlon basically stated an ugly truth that natural segregation by race, religion, nationality works. It worked for Black America until the great society, until which black communities were starting to grow and thrive with economies rivaling white communities of comparable size. There's a simple reason why it works, it's easier to live with those who share your values, and ideals. The funny thing is integration influenced by the government perpetuates segregation. If you look at Segregation among whites there were serious prejudices against Italians and Irish so much so that if you were Italian and went into am Irish neighborhood you would probably be jumped. This phenomenon in the united states has all but disappeared, Slavs, Germans, Irish, Italian, Iberian Spanish, are all considered white and while some stereotypes still exist there is no revulsion between these ethnic groups.
So why is this a good thing? Because when groups of people segregate to people like them they eventually and quite quickly find a Higher value to which they would like to be identifies. Workers want to be around other workers Whites will graviate to whites, liberbals to liberals. As the criteria by which someone seeks to be Identify changes and that person becomes more mature they old way of identifying himself becomes less important and must becomes less important so that he can find a suitable group to support his goals. Forced Integration only serves to reset this natural process of differentiation putting the focus back on the lowest common denominator telling people of that denomination that they are bad for being around people like them this automatically stops the process of growth. Race bating is the tool of the Fascist, the Fascist in this case is a political fascist a thought fascist, He wants others to think like him, to value what he values, in order to do this he must demonize and destroy what the individual values. When that happens and the individual is told in order to cleanse himself of his evil identification he must subscribe to a higher value. When that value proves to be false the individual regresses and falls back into his more primal value. restarting the cycle of differentiation at race. This continuous hammering of demonizing living with your same race restarts this cycle over and over again that's why it's impossible to get past racism.
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