Yeah I guess it's ok.

Suppose someone were to express an identical sentiment, with their ire directed towards blacks or jews. To what moral authority would you appeal in order to condemn their views, yet absolve your own about gypsies?

Forgive my poor spelling, grammar and vocabulary. I am unintelligent and naive, which is why I ask simple questions which require an answer spelled out and explained in full in order for me to fully understand them. Please have patience.

I don't know about moral authority. One can criticize aspects of every culture. You can criticize neo-nazis, racism, Christian extremism in white culture, you could criticize black and latino gang culture, Islamic extremism in Muslim culture, etc, etc.

It would be unfair to stereotype these entire cultures by the actions of their worst elements. In Gypsy culture, the stealing and begging part however seems to be so incredibly pervasive it really does appear to me that the bad outnumber the good and there is something rotten at the core of this culture.

As for my critique of your writing, you are neither unintelligent or naive and your vocabulary is fine, but you could do so much better if you tried to be more concise. I wouldn't care if you hadn't expressed your ambition to become a journalist. But since you have, I advise you to work on that aspect of your writing. My criticism is not meant to insult but to help, I see you could potentially be a good writer but you need some help.

Thank you for a thorough response.

I must clarify that I'm not trying to 'peg' you personally, but really just address the dilemma that what you've expressed has in my view, highlighted.

I'm afraid the bolded part of what you've said is really just a variant of "I'm not racist, this is just true".

I mean, if one were to say:

"It would be unfair to stereotype these entire cultures by the actions of their worst elements. In Muslim culture, the jihad, absolutism and submission of infidels part however seems to be so incredibly pervasive it really does appear to me that the bad outnumber the good and there is something rotten at the core of this culture."

...y'know?

As for being a journalist, meh, we'll see. I'll get what I'm given. I'm not really gunning for it hugely and I'm honestly not particularly intelligent.

Understood and I also agree with the second part, which is why I struggle with it.

The cause of prejudice is usually ignorance or confirmation bias. If you've never met a Muslim but the first time your attention was drawn to them was on 9/11, you may hold a negative view of them out of ignorance. If you have known Muslims your entire life and you see something like 9/11, you understand that it is not indicative of Muslim culture.

However, you can also suffer from confirmation bias, where you choose to ignore all positive interactions you may have with Muslims and only focus on the negative.

I want to believe my view on Gypsies is some combination of both, but when I see things like the reddit thread I linked above and my experiences seem to match everyone else's, it becomes increasingly hard for me to believe that is the case.

FYP.

Which is how confirmation bias works.

I am not denying there are challenges within traveller/gypsy/romany communities but the challenges the travelling community present are matched by the ones they face and there's often intransigence on both sides. There is a real need to address certain issues within these communities but there's also a real need to provision services in such a way as these communities can avail of them. You can't really do the former without the latter. But it will cost and spending on these services, such as halting sites, permanent housing and social care is unpopular because of the esteem these communities are generally held in. And so it goes on.

Thanks for your post dereds and providing a more nuanced view, which is what I've been looking for.

My woman is of Romani descent. She is pretty nice. The only cultural thing she has maintained is a willingness to follow me around from place to place with nary a complaint.

More to the point: When a group feels separated from the pack; that they are a "they"; why would they be concerned with the concerns of the pack?

My turn: When I see a CA license plate I have a great fear that the driver is going to do something extremely stupid. I do admit that I have observed that some people with CA license plates have not actively attempted something that looks like vehicular homicide 3 times.

Ostracism hurts most of us deeply. I read that the brain reacts to it as if it were physical pain. From a place of ego or pride or honour there wouldn't seem to be much upside to worrying about those who don't wish you well, but obv our evolution demanded it. Being kicked out of the tribe is such a blunder that our body feels pain to warn us. Food, mates, protection, yada yada.

I was going for more of an us vs. them sort of thing, but your point stands. "Us" implying a lack of ostracism from all groups

Hated minority status must feel pretty uncomfortable, and there is nothing particularly wrong with fighting those who act like enemies. I'd totally pick your pocket if I were a gypsy; it would be the rational thing to do.

This is not prejudice but solid fact. As evidenced from half this youtuberz' "high speed police chase" channel being mostly LA drivers.

Gypsy's aside, the crime as a rational choice argument is pretty interesting to me, but I don't think it holds water (at least for the vast, vast majority of criminals.) Most of them have (obv) callousness and stupidity in spades. Rationality, not so much imo. Being prosocial has much more of an upside for 99% of us (safety, tranquility, long term stability, no closed doors due to stigma and criminal records, no bars in the window to block the view.)

Prosocial only matters when you are included in those that benefit from it

May as well add acting ethically is acting rationally imo, especially when viewed from the long-term.

Living off table scraps and pickpocketing doesn't seem like a strong strategy.

You have to live with the cards you are dealt.

If you were never given a fair shake at the American (or European) dream, and never got a reasonable education, and have been discrimated and treated poorly by the in-group since the beginning of time, and can't figure out any other move to make in life, then I guess crime passes for a rational life strategy.

None of us are Vulcans, but we're talking about people who by and large don't weigh pros and cons in any normal sense (well...ya. Right?) They're more stimulus and response. I think most criminals are motivated by anger, ignorance, pain and desperation more than any rational decision making. They're as rational as their intelligence allows. It's important to many to instil fear in others, which they interpret as "respect." I guess a minority of the ones with average to above average intelligence have done the math of being bad, checked their moral compass, and decided it's the right thing for them to do. "Fair is foul and foul is fair" is such a perverse philosophy.

It is pretty rare for someone to feel morally obligated to treat their enemies as they treat their own.

Further, nearly no one sits down and weighs pros and cons. We primarily make up stories to justify how we feel rather than determine how we feel through rational means.

Rural drivers. Besides driving slowly and not understanding what the blinky light is for, they have this tendency to be "nice and considerate," stopping in the middle of the road without a stop sign to let someone else at a stop sign get in front of them. So they do a favor for one person while the ten cars behind them all slam on their brakes and wait. Idiots.

Also, stop correcting Rasta and telling him to be more concise or whatever. First off, English is his native language. It's not yours. And more importantly, he reads like Hugh Grant in my head, and I quite enjoy that. Thank you.

They got to show those ten cars behind them who's in charge though.

Ya, I buy that.

Upbringing and the environment is everything, and many (most) habitual offenders have had terribly unfortunate childhoods. They do and feel what they're capable of doing and feeling. Their actions often eventually lead to (repeated) incarceration, children are born along the way and are instilled with the same "values" that they were taught, and the cycle continues. I think criminality evolved with us as a species, it must have some advantages for a minority of social rule breakers to take advantage of the herd's (generally) straightforward nature. An adaptation for those who don't have the capability or urge to play the game of life like the majority. A ****-up in the primordial soup.

I drive slow, trollololol...

Though, I have never seen that variety of stop sign courtesy in my rural area.

How can you bitch about all that and not bitch about tractors, the slowest rural trollololols of them all?