i just spent a bunch of time responding and lost my enthusiasm, so deleted it.

hit me up in person if you want to talk more about it. that's an open invitation to everyone, btw.

I was just mocking LG which which was fair game although im not sure he is as willing to to take it as much as he likes to dish it out. Also I've never banned him for anything except temp bans for ignoring timeouts.

Still it's good to have him back, he definitely adds a certain something to the forum.

Nah, they're just dumb as absolute f**k.



























But also probably racist/sexist too.

all of you anons piss me off, but i'm probably just jealous.

I'm afraid not. You wrote:

There are a couple problems here.

1) "Empirical evidence" does not mean "direct evidence" in the way you are apparently using the latter phrase. The shortest definition of "empirical evidence" would be that it's "evidence acquired through observation or experimentation", as opposed to the conclusion of a purely deductive argument. (cf. here, here, or here, or see also the definition of empiricism). The point is someone didn't start out with some set of premises and then reasoned deductively to some conclusion. They went out and made measurements. All of the studies cited are empirical studies with experimental methodologies. Your assertion that they are not is simply wrong.

2) Your use of the phrase "direct evidence" isn't particularly well defined, but obviously you're concerned about the relevance of the measurements made to the research question. That's a perfectly legitimate methodological question, and clearly we can imagine that some ways of attempting to measure discrimination are going to be better than others. For example, AppleCrumb mentioned raw data on racial disparities in employment as a relatively poor measure of discrimination. Experimental measures like those used in these studies are unequivocally better.

So, the premise that not all measures are equally useful is fine. Being concerned with the adequacy of methods is fine. But, your understanding of the relationship between "direct evidence" and "indirect inference" is wrong-headed, precisely because almost all scientific knowledge is based in drawing inferences (either inductive or abductive) that are -- to varying degrees -- "indirect". For example, if you want to know the age of the earth, it can be inferred from the level of radioactive isotopes in rock. I expect you will want to call that "direct" evidence, but the logical process of inference is actually pretty complex. The relationship between theory and actual observed data in physics is no less complex, as a general rule.

The idea of a spectrum from "direct" to "indirect" is fine as a rough metaphor for the relative value of differing ways of measuring things, but what makes empirical evidence strong is not a lack of logical inference. Rather, usually terms like "reliability" and "validity" are used. The experimental designs used in these studies have proven to be fairly reliable: results have been reproduced a number of times in a number of different ways, with some instructive differences in the results. Validity, which is essentially what you are challenging, is established by the ability of the experimenters to reasonably establish the connection between the methods used and the question being asked, and to eliminate competing explanations for the results. This leads into another problem. You wrote:

To be clear, you asked for empirical evidence and I provided some. I didn't make any claims about the psychology of people who are either ignorant of the evidence or reject it for whatever reasons. I have not claimed that the issue is "scientifically settled". I have claimed that there is strong empirical evidence for employment discrimination. If you had read the post I linked, you would have seen that I discussed some of the limitations I think apply to conclusions drawn from the research.

A couple of other things:

First, I'm not a scientist.

Second, to repeat, the evidence provided is empirical evidence, and because of the experimental design is probably as "direct" (meaning "valid") as you can ever expect to see. This is why I challenged you to think of what sort of evidence would satisfy you given your perspective.

Third, while it is not necessarily either stupid or racist to raise concerns about the methods used to study questions like this, it should be clear that not everyone who doubts the existence of racial discrimination is engaged in some informed and rational exercise in skepticism. In my experience, it's far more common to encounter complete ignorance of the available data, rather than any reasonable criticism of it. That is hardly "smart and scientific."

Again though, you are asking me to defend a claim I haven't actually made. Instead, I answered your request for evidence and since then have merely been trying to correct your misconceptions about empiricism and science.

I haven't read that yet but did well named dunk on him? I have a dunkdotgif lined up.

Lou and Renodoc are right wingers and survive in the regular P forum. I like how our conservative posters on 2p2 are such special snowflakes with persecution syndromes that they can't comprehend they're just mostly bad posters and that's why Wookie runs them off.

It was like watching multiple dunks I think. In slow motion.

It's not my forum and I don't like echo chambers, but it's an indictment of the right that most of its representatives here are trolls or Trump supporters (or their Euro equivalents). I don't know what 2+2 used to be like but a knowledgeable reasonable righty should be able to argue cogently against the lefties here.

Maybe you are right (and I agree to some extent because the right has become so extreme and trump in particular is ridiculous as well) but when a place is so toxic towards posters on the right, we shouldn't be suprised at the lack of reasonable posters from the right.

I haven't seen much toxicity here towards mainstream Conservative posters, only towards trolls and racists/neo-fascists who in most people's opinion deserve the opprobrium they get and are no strangers themselves to creating a toxic environment.

Internet forums are not equivalent to real life face to face debates (where it's possible to expose an erroneously extremist set of views without their proponent running away and later claiming victory). Your tolerance for the expression of these views here only serves to normalise them and gives them credibility they don't merit.

Anyone listening?

Yea! B's!

No, you come here first. Im not ready for Vegas. Ill bring the bong ldo



Dont people call you racist round these parts?

Weird

Nah, I dont think its jealous

Whats this "dunk" bs? Why do you nerd mellenials need to come up with new words for everything?

LOL @ U

FYP




LOL

Ban 18ball

Extreme stuff isn't allowed but all this normalisation guff is just part of the method of making it toxic for the right.

Trump is far from normal imo but it's nearly half the USA electorate.

As I say, if you want a partisan, hard-left forum which censors opinions you disagree with then that's your choice and you're free to run with it.

Just don't be surprised when you find yourself hopelessly out of touch with the political mainstream.

As I say, conservatives have warned of this happening to the left for the past decade. We now have Brexit, Trump, a Conservative supermajority due in the UK and a return to popular civic nationalism across the West, with the leftist intelligentsia (because you're probably all relatively intelligent in a booksmart sense) at a complete loss as to how and why they're so ineffectual at shifting the political discourse.

The oversight you've made here is the fact that actually, its quite counterproductive to Conservative progress to actually disturb left-wing online bubbles. Conservative politics benefits from the increasing isolation and 'walling-off' of the articulate, intelligent left into slightly culty 'safe spaces' whilst they go out there speaking to normal people and taking control of the mainstream.

I know that sounds provocative, but it is actually true, and (clicheic) though it sounds, it really is what caused Brexit and Trump.

The rich and elderly always vote for the right-wing in their droves. To balance this out, the left simply has to more-or-less monopolise the young, downtrodden, depressed, frustrated and poor. The fact that someone who meets those criteria is almost just as likely to vote right as they are left is by far the biggest hole in the left's hull.

Imagine not hearing about pizzagate or how Seth Rich was a wikileaks operative murdered by Chelsea Clinton.

This is the point, the bolded is a matter of opinion. Logically I am perfectly free to simply dismiss it (as of course, you can the reverse).

I wasn't seeking to get into a debate about racism so much as point out to any fellow Conservatives as to why there isn't any point arguing with the left on the subject, but rather, encourage those who might have yet to make up their mind about these things to ask themselves a few pertinent questions.

Oh and for what it's worth, I'm not American.

Whatever strawman helps you sleep at night I guess.

I've already stated and shown by my willingness to debate with the rare cases of the more traditional right (eg Fold) that I'm very much in favour of conservatives having an uncensored voice here. I want to see and understand the conservative view because ultimately I want someone to convince me that fundamentally it's about more than just individuals being extremely selfish.

The 'alt-right' do not have a conservative mindset - they are a radical grouping on the far right that has a large overlap with white supremacy and pose a very real threat to democracy, social cohesion, world peace and the environment.

You are right that Trump is supported by ~ half the electorate, but that does not make his views "normal" any more than (sorry Godwin) the popularity of fascism between the wars makes that "normal". History has a way of defining normality that you should consider before describing it as guff.

Re. extremism, your view seems to be that racist views (as advocated recently by some posters here) aren't extreme, so I don't know what to say about your world view other than it should disqualify you from being a mod.

The bit about racism not bring extreme is too silly.

The normalisation argument is interesting but misguided. It's largely an excuse to avoid engaging with views that are mainstream and aren't just going away by shouting. It's part of the justification from those who oppose being civil and being reasonable.

Yes, you are free to dismiss history and the fact that racist people exist. Maybe no racist people have any say in hiring decisions or behave impartially if they do. That seems extremely unlikely.

But let's see what you actually argued:

So 2 was wrong. (FWIW the resume name study was the evidence I was thinking of, so WN was on top of it). We have experiments that control as much as possible for every other factor.

(There's another study that shows this kind of discrimination in mental health evaluations. Doctors diagnosed black patients with more serious mental illnesses than whites--but they did so based on identical profiles. Can't find this study now, maybe WN knows of it.)

While we're at it, 4 is also wrong. Obviously things like poverty or past discrimination can affect crime rates/test scores.

I'm not sure I understand you. Are you saying that you've taken action against posters for posting racist views?

No it really isn't. It's based on a very deep and justified fear of the place we will end up in unless before it's too late we make it clear to people who are intent on taking us there that their ideas are uncivilised. Your complacency/complicity is a big problem.

When I suggested "Too drunk to notice Hitler" as your undertitle, I was only half joking.

Of course and do report anything that needs attention.

There's no complacency at all. The idea that giving in to hatred, division and shouting at people will help doesn't become any truer because we are fearful.

You know very well I'm not advocating hatred or shouting at people (though these things happen from time to time). I'm saying that the extreme right posters here should have been told to cite evidence to support their crazy views (almost always about race and Islam) or banned.

We don't ban regular 2+2ers. Offensive posts can be reported if they have no credible citation - you donnt havve to ask for a cite as its against the rules if no credible cite is provided at the time. But either way they will be dealt with and the timouts get longer.