These are odd hypotheticals for me as they don't evoke scenarios of malicious intent whereby the absence of profiling could theoretically allow terrorists, for example, to exploit the group that has been bypassed for scrutiny. Related to this is why grandmas might have to be subject to scrutiny at least some of time I guess.

WTF are you talking about? Men are profiled a ton for that very reason, and deservedly so, as you said yourself, men commit much more violent crime than women do.

Are we sure that "David Sklansky" isn't a Foldndark and/or Masque de Z gimmick account and this thread is really just another attempt to jumpstart the ever so sophisticated "how violent would these animalistic black teenagers have to get before we could just mow them down on sight?" discussion?

Really? When was the last time you were stopped and frisked?

It's certainly possible. I'd say 5% chance based on my read.

Does your response change depending on if you think OP believes 5% of blacks are dangerous or if he believes that 5% of potheads are dangerous?

Why should people make their decision using a risk vs reward equation?

You can fool 5% of the people 95% of the time and you can fool 95% of the people 5% of the time, but you can't fool 95% of the people 95% of the time.

So you say its black people I was referring to. Uke master thinks its obviously Muslims, and chezlaw suspects health workers from Africa. Even though in post 12 I explicitly said that none of these groups have have a five percent chance of an individual being dangerous.

As I already said I didn't write the OP because of a specific group. It is true that the controversies about them prompted me to think about the general question that I ask in the OP. Because these questions, whether people want to admit it or not, become pretty analogous to poker pot odds type of questions. (You can win safety 5% of the time but 95% you mistreat someone.) But it is only the general principles behind these questions that interest me. I have no opinion about whether the 5% threshold is high enough and I have no opinion as to what the percentages of various groups are. I can't believe people don't realize this.

PS One way to ameliorate the problem is to reward those who are being singled out. For instance in the case of health workers who are being quarantined for 21 days, some group of billionaires should get together and give each of them 100K.

Since that nurse is suing it sounds like some might be cutting her a check

Hard to sue the government and collect.

Sure, unless they "put you in a tent". That's some truly horrifying **** there man, gotta sue for that.

Of course it is and it makes common sense. Two caveats:
1) Those getting scrutinized should make efforts to remove the stigma so extra scrutiny is no longer needed

2) Those doing these scrutinizing should be punished if they act like bastards and to use their superior position with impunity

Ideally, things should be done in a pragmatic way without being personal.
In reality, the majority of total population are idiots, selfish, arrogant, self-absorbed bastards.

The best way to remain sane in this world is to profit from idiots.

If 5% of a group being dangerous justifies putting the entire group under additional surveillance, does that mean it is justified to put the general population under increased surveillance if 5% of the general population is dangerous? If you say no, would David Sklansky think you are being illogical?

The general population could decide in your scenario.

So you think that there are 80 million dangerous Muslims (5%) in the world, but only a million (0.05%) dangerous Christians in the world.

In a case like this 'We were trying to stop Ebola from getting loose' should be tough to get a jury to find objectionable.

Welcome back, mark2468!

They could decide, but is the general population always right?

Groupist thread, reported

I don't get how you can know that 5% of a group is dangerous? Unless you're defining dangerous in some weird way. The hypothetical implies a very clear prescience in gerenality but at the same time total ignorance in the specific. I don't see how that would occur.

I wasn't thinking about health workers btw. I had in mind a group quietly fleeing some epidemic. I can even just about imagine them not wanting to be screened but only if there's a policy of sending them back (or similar) if they test positive.

It seems a reasonable example of your hypothetical.

Maybe because he could get a temp ban if he said something logical, true and accurate but non PC!

obvious to some, not so obvious to the less credulous.

but on this occasion it probably qualifies as a slam dunk

DS Avery sneakily worded his post so that nobody can PROVE who he's talking about, CHECKMATE