Do you think discrimination requires uniform exclusion or something?

Like if I'm a mortgage broker and my subprime mortgages are "targeted at" blacks... but are not "exclusively for" blacks.. then I'm not discriminating?

Somehow I doubt you'd agree with that.

That is a great point that the other poster made too. I'm still not sure running the stop sign at low speed would make much of a difference, and the faster you go, the less you're able to check for traffic.

That, I'm familiar with. I actually was a biker for about 6 months when I was trying to lose some weight. That's part of why I feel a little comfortable expressing my doubts.. I have biked in those proverbial shoes.

I think it's pretty dangerous for the out of shape biker like you're talking about. We don't have years of experience and many hours per week of practice (or we wouldn't be out of shape). Slowing down and checking for traffic sounds great, but it would be tough to do well because that also means checking behind you. To me, the most dangerous thing I ever ran into is the car behind you that wants to quickly pass you and make a turn. Even at a red light, the car might want to go right on red, and assumes you're not going to just run through the light, so they pass you.

I'm equally paranoid about that as a walker/jogger. When I'm on the sidewalk and about to cross another road, or even worse an entrance to a parking lot, I always look behind me before crossing. I can't believe how many times I've done that to catch a car that thinks "Oh he's going so slow, I'll just sneak ahead of him and turn real quick."

That's interesting. I have no idea what the overall statistics are, but the most disturbing prostitution stories (to me) generally involve pimps. There was a good episode of "Vice News" about prostitution and they told the stories of girls who were being manipulated emotionally by pimps, and occasionally hooked on drugs or beaten... but mostly emotional manipulation and financial threats (kicking them out).

To me that's the bad part of prostitution. I'm not sure legalizing it would make it much better... you're still going to have very damaged girls engaging in it, even if it's legal. Who wants to be a prostitute after all?

What you're doing is called "begging the question." How do you know there isn't a connection between race and intelligence, when so many tests over the years show otherwise?

And why do you oversimplify race to "skin color?" You don't change races when you get a tan right?

Well there are a few in the Caribbean: http://www.examiner.com/articl...

Martinique has the lowest rate, with 4.2 per 100k. However, it's only 300k people, compared with 2.7 million in Jamaica (the highest murder rate), so I'm not sure it makes much difference to the overall crime rate in the Caribbean.

Hmm, are you sure about that? Murder rates for the Caribbean:

That's compared to about 4.7 per 100k in the US, which is considered high for the developed world.

I didn't bother checking African crime rates because I'm pretty confident you're wrong there.

By "majority places" were you referring to really small places like individual neighborhoods or something?

That study wasn't comparing income inequality to other drivers of murder so it's not evidence that it's the largest driver. Also the conclusion says:

So maybe countries with high homicide rates result in a breakdown of social trust, and that lack of trust results in lack of investment and achievement among certain groups, leading to higher income inequality.

Sorry, "why are they *arresting* the clients of prostitutes"

Of course police should apply more resources to high profile cases and areas where violent crimes are more rare.

My safe neighborhood, with zero murders ever, pays as much (or more) into the police budget as a violent neighborhood that has multiple murders a year.

If God forbid we do one day have a murder, I would expect cops to be all over that shit. We should be a much higher priority than the violent neighborhood because we've earned that priority.

That said, cops are largely idiots when it comes to dealing with problem areas. I don't know why they tolerate them so much, except the cynical view that they are more interested in making money than stopping crime. A great example is prostitution... why are they the clients of prostitutes? To make money. If they wanted to end coercive prostitution, they would do this:
1. Hire a prostitute
2. "Do it"
3. Refuse to pay
4. Wait for the enforcer/pimp/whoever to show up and make a threat
5. Shoot him (or arrest him)

There are far fewer pimps than prostitutes and clients. So attacking the pimps is the logical way to end it.

Instead their sting operations are to arrest the guys who DO pay as they're supposed to. WTF??

They could do something similar with drugs:
1. Buy drugs
2. Refuse to pay
3. Keep doing that
4. Wait for core violent element of the gang to come attack
5. Shoot them (or arrest them)

But nah, they'd rather set up a sting and arrest a couple users, or maybe a dealer so they can confiscate his property... pretty ridiculous.

I'm not sure how you call a program targeted at girls non-discriminatory. That's blatant discrimination.

I mean there are plenty of prima facie race-neutral programs that are then labeled as discriminatory based on things like disparate impact. What Google and Facebook are doing goes far beyond inadvertent disparate impact. I don't agree with disparate impact theory when applied too broadly, but if there is disparate impact plus a clear intention to discriminate, that's another story.

I can understand running red lights if it's a "smart" light and the bike doesn't trip the sensor and there's no pedestrian crossing button..

But why should bikers treat stop signs as yields? That seems dangerous and unnecessary.

Your definition of meritocracy is useless, because that's impossible. Even in the most perfect possible meritocracy, information only travels so fast (speed of light?), so not everybody can dump the erstwhile leader at the same instant. And of course, in reality, it takes much much longer. You don't know that GM's cars have suddenly become worthless for 5 or 6 years, because that's when they start breaking down.

Similarly, you don't know that Japanese cars have dramatically increased in quality because it took 20 years for people to start noticing "Hey there are all these 20 year old Toyota driving around, looking old and boxy, but still running great.. what's up."

How do you think you can get around the fact that measuring quality takes time? How does that fit into your definition of meritocracy having "no inertia?"

No, you misunderstood, I was saying that the (surviving) American car companies showed skill in managing unions and politics. Perhaps that is the meritocracy... not who makes better cars, but who can survive in a hostile world. It takes some kind of skill to get a bailout, which is why Lehman Brothers isn't around, Countrywide isn't around, but Citibank is, Goldman is, etc.

Business isn't all about making the best product, in other words. The guy who makes a great product but can't keep up with his taxes, or mismanages labor and has all his workers go on strike, can still fail. That doesn't violate the concept of meritocracy because those are integral skills in business.

Hmm "Social Justice Warrior" vs "Penis-Worshipping Douchebag"

Yeah that's about the same level of pejorative...

Actually there is a white studies class. Well, it's called whiteness studies actually.

Unlike the other ones, it's more about disparaging whites... that's why it's "okay" I guess.

Mother/grandmother/sister/niece is incest territory. Do you think that's normal? All the other examples, yes.

I think you understood OP differently than I did. You clearly think OP said that since some women use their charms to influence men, men assume ALL women (including their grandmothers, mothers, sisters...) use sexual charms ON THEM at all times.

I took it to mean that since some women influence men through flirtation, that men look for it and understand that it exists. It then becomes an issue of misunderstanding.. is that girl wearing a short skirt because she wants attention, or for some other reason? Some men will take it as an invitation, others won't.

It's compounded by the fact that many goals in life are a numbers game. The more job interviews you go to, the more likely you get a job. The more women you hit on, the more women you sleep with. That's indisputable.