“Mentally Troubled” and “Assault”

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Doctor CamNC4Me
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Re: “Mentally Troubled” and “Assault”

Post by Doctor CamNC4Me »

Res Ipsa wrote:
Tue Nov 16, 2021 5:56 am
Doctor CamNC4Me wrote:
Tue Nov 16, 2021 12:55 am
I think you just provided an excellent new category we’ll have to consider when ensuring equity. For example, here in UT there exists a variety of Mormons, ex-Mormons, and everything in between. If Utah business X or Utah government agency Y have 100 positions to fill, I’m fairly certain it wouldn’t be fair to fill 100 positions with just temple recommend holding Mormons because we want representation more than we want positions filled on, say, competency. Wouldn't it be fair to hold 50 seats for non-temple recommend holding Mormons?

Aha, but what about ex-Mormons? Ok. 33/33/34.

Thanks, but what about Christian ex-Mormons? Ok. 25/25/25/25.

Well, what about non-Brighamite Mormons? And atheist ex-Mormons? What about agnostic Mormon? What about LGTBQA Mormons and ex-Mormons? What about Latino and Hispanic Mormons?

Ok. Say we finally hammer out 100 categories where people have been oppressed, repressed, or distressed. On person per category gets a position. Who determines the hierarchy from least to most disadvantaged? How does this person or commission determine it? And how do they determine annual rankings as categories of unfairly treated people shift around with regard to privilege?

- Doc
All you’ve done here is ignored almost everything in my post. Your slippery slope is based on what I specifically said I was not proposing.
I disagree that it’s a problem to point out that the complexity of the issue is a slippery slope. The solution to perceived inequity itself is rife with problems because it’s a massively complex system that’s being proposed in order to right wrongs both real and perceived. You create a double world, so to speak, where people operate using the color of your skin, your sexual preferences, your gender identity, and ethnicity to establish a new hierarchy - this new hierarchical world ends up being just as oppressive to every group that doesn’t occupy the top preferential position, and we’re expected to accept that this new hierarchy is going to avoid the pitfalls of gatekeeping based on race, ethnicity, gender, and other human fallibilities it’s supposedly trying to correct. The system itself is then designed not to correct historical wrongs, because let’s be honest, once a hierarchy is established it’s not just going to melt away because humans have reached color, gender, and ethnic blindness.

Why not design a system set to promote competency that removes these arbitrary standards? I know, I know, because marginalized groups aren’t going to measure up due to systemic inequalities. And that’s the crux of the issue. Once you determine the “system” is set up, by design, to promote one group over other groups there’s no fair way to promote equality of outcome because equality of opportunity never existed in the first place. in my opinion, creating a mirror oppressive system designed around arbitrary standards simply creates new oppression. It’s ill equipped to deal with a world that demands performance. I’m all for everyone getting a shot to be their best within whatever organization, but I’m opposed to sticking someone into an opportunistic position because of how they look, or what they believe. It’s disastrous when considered within the context of finding and selecting the best talent for one’s organization.

- Doc
Hugh Nibley claimed he bumped into Adolf Hitler, Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Gertrude Stein, and the Grand Duke Vladimir Romanoff. Dishonesty is baked into Mormonism.
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Re: “Mentally Troubled” and “Assault”

Post by Canadiandude2 »

You can disagree all you want but you need to demonstrate how each step along the slippery slope is a necessary and logical outcome from prior steps. Furthermore, the questions I proposed to you were not merely hypothetical.

I’m glad you understand my though processes. Now defend yours.Answer the questions I asked of you in my prior replies please. Otherwise, there’s no point in arguing further.

Competencies are not attained independent of the systemic advantages and disadvantages present within one’s society, nor are they currently the only qualities that matter in deciding who gets chosen for advantageous positions and other privileges.
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Re: “Mentally Troubled” and “Assault”

Post by Doctor CamNC4Me »

Canadiandude2 wrote:
Tue Nov 16, 2021 8:26 pm
Competencies are not attained independent of the systemic advantages and disadvantages present within one’s society
Exactly. Which is why developing a new hierarchy based on arbitrary indicators such as skin color or sexual preference makes little to no sense when, if we’re trying to establish canonical groups of oppressed people we have to ignore fundamental advantages such as cognitive ability, or physical ability, or even attractiveness. You’re arguing under the assumption that we can find enough people within each group with enough competency or ability to adequately fill positions without much of a problem. That’s a faithful assumption with little to no basis in reality.
nor are they currently the only qualities that matter in deciding who gets chosen for advantageous positions and other privileges.
Exactly. However you’re suggesting we can nail down equity by dividing people into, I dunno, four or five obvious differences, when in reality there are thousands of differences both apparent and not readily apparent in population groups that will either have to be ignored to their detriment or we create a fantastically clownish system that can never function well because it’s laboring under its own weight.

eta: I’ll go back through your prior post and input any thoughts I have.

- Doc
Hugh Nibley claimed he bumped into Adolf Hitler, Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Gertrude Stein, and the Grand Duke Vladimir Romanoff. Dishonesty is baked into Mormonism.
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Re: “Mentally Troubled” and “Assault”

Post by Doctor CamNC4Me »

Canadiandude2 wrote:
Tue Nov 16, 2021 2:52 am
Q: Would you be willing to compromise on competency or availability if the standard within your system is predicated on the physical features and sexual identity as you described above?

A: I don’t see why we’d have to compromise anything.

You’re argument (notice I didn’t say ‘you’) assumes that these bright, competent people don’t already exist in sufficient numbers, or be incentivized, trained, and supported to become sufficiently competent.

And you’re arguing that they do exist, which is just faith-based wish fulfillment. For example, oil field workers are predominantly male. Are we at the point where we arbitrarily fill oil field positions with a ‘diverse’ cast of workers simply based on their identities? The thought is absurd. We fill the positions with willing participants. What about HR positions which have an over representation of white women? Why is that the case with HR positions and not oil field workers? Do we mandate a nationwide diversification of HR positions, but not oil field worker positions? This gets wonky very quickly because there are so many factors that figure into a job’s desirability that parsing the job into arbitrary requirements is an exercise in banality.

Quotas can also be set at manageable targets or ranges that reflect a demographic’s general proportion of a population.

And they can also be set an unmanageable targets and ranges. This is just trying to turn fantasy into policy. At some point you’re going to have to create make-work jobs that begin to weigh down on the organization’s ability to function as designed.

Furthermore, are different standards necessarily unreasonable? For example, in the Canadian Armed Forces men and women must meet slightly different standards of physicality, and there remain many women and men able to surpass these standards all the same.

And I think that’s great. However, the demands of a military environment do in fact affect servicemembers differently, given the nature of the job, and will produce different efficiencies depending on the constraints of the group being represented. Where the physical requirements for the Infantry have little difference among racial groups, it reveals a huge difference for sex. Do we ignore that reality for representation, or do we just slot more people from Group A into Job A so we can ‘balance the numbers’? I’d argue doing that puts wholly unqualified people into positions of responsibility that puts the whole at risk of inefficiency. It’s better to have a job-related set of requirements, and design a more or less blind system that selects the people suited for the position. Is this not the true aim of an egalitarian society?

Are we so certain we don’t already have a complex hierarchy of needs, based on particular privileged group-interests, that’s not already breaking under the weight of its own making?

I dunno. What particular hierarchy are you talking about?

What (and who) defines these needs?

The people with a stake in the organization being successful. Why would you even ask a question like that?

What is the logical and necessary progression here between each degree of your slippery slope?

That’s actually my question for you. You’re arguing in favor of arbitrary representation. The “logical progression” is an increasing amount of absurdity that anchors the organization in mediocrity or worse, failure.

Are complex systems necessarily doomed to failure?

No. They’re “doomed” toward complexity, which is why facile fixes such as putting this or that person in a complex role is disasteous.

Can your argument [ref Harvard admissions] be substantiated with a link to a reliable and valid source for the data provided?

The example given was simply to point out that the unintended consequence of one fix leads to another problem that needs fixing. If Group B is gaining admissions to School B based on, say, skin color alone, that ignores the other problem of over representation by Group B’s ethnicity at the expense of Group B’s other ethnic groups. If you adjust admissions to be more inclusive of ethnicities within Group B it becomes infinitely recursive in its unfairness. You’re not solving a problem with Group B, you’re just creating more under the current screening process. This will eventually have a deleterious effect on the school’s hard earned reputation or effectiveness as talent moves elsewhere. Then you're caught in a ‘chasing the rabbit’ game where you’re now trying to make all academic institutions equitable which results in an overall order of magnitude greater absurdity as you chase equity at the expense of ability. If Harvard, from my aforementioned post, becomes a diploma mill in pursuit of equity its overall brand suffers, in addition to academia itself, which just becomes a mummer’s parade of pseudoacademics.
I’ll have to take a break because I have a few things going on right now. I’ll return to this shortly.

- Doc
Hugh Nibley claimed he bumped into Adolf Hitler, Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Gertrude Stein, and the Grand Duke Vladimir Romanoff. Dishonesty is baked into Mormonism.
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Re: “Mentally Troubled” and “Assault”

Post by Canadiandude2 »

Doctor CamNC4Me wrote:
Tue Nov 16, 2021 8:55 pm
Canadiandude2 wrote:
Tue Nov 16, 2021 8:26 pm
Competencies are not attained independent of the systemic advantages and disadvantages present within one’s society
Exactly. Which is why developing a new hierarchy based on arbitrary indicators such as skin color or sexual preference makes little to no sense when, if we’re trying to establish canonical groups of oppressed people we have to ignore fundamental advantages such as cognitive ability, or physical ability, or even attractiveness. You’re arguing under the assumption that we can find enough people within each group with enough competency or ability to adequately fill positions without much of a problem. That’s a faithful assumption with little to no basis in reality.
nor are they currently the only qualities that matter in deciding who gets chosen for advantageous positions and other privileges.
Exactly. However you’re suggesting we can nail down equity by dividing people into, I dunno, four or five obvious differences, when in reality there are thousands of differences both apparent and not readily apparent in population groups that will either have to be ignored to their detriment or we create a fantastically clownish system that can never function well because it’s laboring under its own weight.

eta: I’ll go back through your prior post and input any thoughts I have.

- Doc
I think you are misunderstanding the implications of your own argument then.

I’m not gonna repeat myself but some of your points remain grounded in assumptions that are not fact, or neglects to understand how competency is achieved, and difficulty in assuring that other things aren’t being the deciding factors involved.
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Re: “Mentally Troubled” and “Assault”

Post by Craig Paxton »

Rosebud wrote:
Sun Nov 14, 2021 6:54 pm
Interesting debate. I watched the explosive moment regarding me about half way through. RFM calls me “mentally troubled” and Kwaku claims I was “assaulted.”

Men have been using women to make arguments against each other since men first started fighting over women.

The problem is that I’m not “mentally troubled” even if the troubles I’ve faced would have given me every excuse to be. It’s pretty standard, from my perspective, to see men using character assassinations of women they’ve never met in an effort to protect other men they know well from character assassinations (whether the other men are apostles, prophets or podcasters).

I think you’d all have a pretty rough time selling “mentally troubled” to those who know me well. What’s frightening is that abusive men often count on treating women badly enough to make them “mentally troubled” so the abusive men can use the “mentally troubled” character assassination against the women they’ve abused in efforts to protect themselves. It’s standard textbook stuff.

Am I financially troubled? Definitely. And that is the fault of the way men treat women inside and outside the church. But I’m sure I’ll be able to fix the problem eventually.

And I never claimed “assault.” That’s a convenient sound bite for Kwaku and the Midnight Mormons, but it’s a gross oversimplification of the standard reality half of this planet faces on a regular basis.

I get that what needs to happen to resolve this ridiculousness is for me to speak in a bigger way. The problem is that I think both sides of this debate are dominated by limited paradigms that have little to do with the actually reality we’re all swimming in. That makes it hard for me to care about the things either side cares about.

I care about other things. Not this stuff…. although it is weird to know there’s and explosiveness surrounding the way I’ve documented this situation rather than disappearing as John wanted and tried to force.

And Jeez….. study a bit more European and African history, Kwaku, before making claims using the history of secularism v. spirituality to be the root cause of the troubles our nation is facing in 2021. I waited for RFM to address the problems with Kwaku’s arguments, but maybe RFM doesn’t see them. Or maybe he gets addresses them in the second half of the debate…. idk. It’s like the blind debating the blind.

From where I sit, I’m not the one who’s “mentally troubled.” There’s a lot more to understand than the foolishness you’re all spending your time on.

I’d like to think you’d all care about discovering more…… but you have to have the guts to really look. Nobody can force anyone to really search out reality. That’s on you.

And no RFM, I’m not going to read this thread and converse with you. You haven’t earned that level of respect. Be more honest with yourself and others. And make amends when they are due.

There are too many men talking about too much with too little insight into the lived experiences of 50% of the population.

———

My statement regarding “assault”: https://www.mormonrosebud.com/regarding-assault/
I've been a critic. That said, You've NEVER (to the best of my knowledge) ever provided a specific case of the so called wrongs that John Dehlin has done to you. What the “F” did he do to you and why can't you move on and let it go?

Perhaps I could be somewhat more sympathetic towards you were you able to answer that one simple question.
"...What many people call sin is not sin." - Joseph Smith

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away" - Phillip K. Dick

“The meaning of life is that it ends" - Franz Kafka
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Doctor CamNC4Me
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Re: “Mentally Troubled” and “Assault”

Post by Doctor CamNC4Me »

Alright, before I work my way through the rest of this post of yours I just want to note that, from my perspective, as we gain the tools to understand morality, within the scope of the human experience, we don’t need a god or a devil in order to contrast it against a problem or a solution. Couching complex or nuanced legal, technical, or moral problems within a broad brush narrative such as “The Patriarchy” (the devil) only serves to distract us from the problem at hand, and will most likely lead us down a disastrous path because simplistic sloganeering that evokes archetypal imagery is great for Catholic mass, but it’s terrible for, “I need to hire a software engineer to lead my dev team working on such and such client’s business need.”

Ok, back to the topic.
Do you mean Mormon or Latter-Day Saint? Not all of the former are the latter and many of the latter no longer associate themselves as the former.

Yes. I’m, talking about the inevitable not-representation of a group or identity that isn’t fairly represented by the arbitrary hierarchy that is created to right the perceived wrong of under representation.

Is there a special equity interest in representing white Latter-Day Saints at Yale or post-secondary institutions more generally? What about non-white Latter-Day Saints? Are Latter-day Saints marginalized within the United States? Are whites marginalized within the United States? In comparison to what or whom?

Exactly. Who gets to determine if a group or sub-group has been historically disadvantaged? Mormons view themselves as historically disadvantaged and oppressed, while I bet the population writ large doesn’t. We’re now stuck with the institution ignoring the claims of oppression because? What gives them special dispensation to confer protected or unprotected status on a group?

So, let’s say an institution gives special status to Racial Group C. How do we determine fairness within that group? Should we confer special status on Racial Group C -subgroup Women? Now we’re discriminating against Racial Subgroup C’s economically disadvantaged subgroup if we give preference to women based on their genitalia. What about subgroup LGBTQ+ if they’re slotted behind women, but in font of subgroup ‘economic disadvantaged’? What about subgroup LGBTQ+ men, or FTM, if they’re slotted behind subgroup LGTBQ+ women or MTF? What if TERFs complain? It’s an endless recursion of complaints, hard feelings, and a shifting away from the organization’s mission when this endless infighting happens.


At what rate do white Latter-Day Saints achieve post-secondary education in the US? How does this compare with non-white Latter-day Saints in the US.

Clearly it depends on the culture of each subgroup, and what it demands of the student. Utah has some of the lowest investments in their school systems in the nation, but manage to produce high rates of academic achievement. Is the answer to arbitrarily promote students based on external features because representation matters, or do we re-tool how we teach underperforming students without sacrificing their mastery of subject material? How do you overcome the cultural disadvantages they may face at home, church, or in their community? For example, I now live in a rural community. Would it make sense to give a student from my area a full-ride scholarship if they haven’t mastered their topics over an urban kid who is in the top 5% of their class? If we do that, give the rural kid a full-ride scholarship over the urban kid because of representation, what long-term effects does that have on the system? I’d argue you make the whole weaker for promoting the unprepared student over the prepared student.

What about between different ethnic backgrounds, and between race-based categories in the US more generally? Do the same, but with other variables: Income level; representation across high-income jobs; occupational mobility; life-expectancy; etc Is there something about being a white Latter-Day Saint that is disadvantageous in your country as opposed to being a non-white Latter-Day Saint? Caucasian compared to other ethnic backgrounds more generally in the US? Latter-Day Saints compared to other religious identities more generally in your country? What about level and degree of documented hate crimes?

Addressed above.

My goal was never homogeneity. Exactitude. Or even the absence of unfairness.

Well, that’s a problem when trying to right perceived wrongs. Exactitude is necessary unless you’re ok with inequity. Then we’re back to square one.

Policy furthermore is negotiable, adaptable, fluid.

It’s also rigid, inflexible, and permanent until it isn’t.

re: the lack of white Mormon representation at Yale?

I believe you racialized my example. Which. You know. Is a window into your soul, not mine. Whatever th case may be, we on a Mormon Discussions Board. It makes sense to keep things contextual.

Or the premise of challenging patriarchy, and other similar systems of supremacy, with improvement not nec perfection in mind?

Because I wanted to understand why you think patriarchy is bad. I think a patriarchal system is as susceptible to corruption as any other hierarchy. I don’t think you’re making a compelling argument for whatever system you believe will be implemented in the name of fairness.

Curious.

Indeed.

I think a lot of us have lived through some form of systemic discrimination, whether perpetuated by gatekeepers, or by people who belong to Group D ensuring their folks get and keep a choice position or assignment.
- Doc
Hugh Nibley claimed he bumped into Adolf Hitler, Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Gertrude Stein, and the Grand Duke Vladimir Romanoff. Dishonesty is baked into Mormonism.
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Re: “Mentally Troubled” and “Assault”

Post by huckelberry »

Doc, I hope not to simplify too much but I have some agreement with you here. I am pretty sure you are following the arguments of Jordan Peterson. The example of oil rig workers being male by choice is a good example. He also makes points about Sweden find that trying to even out opportunities resulted in continued difference in career choices reflecting sex. Aiming at equality of outcomes may simply strive against free choice of participants.

I guess in my mind it is pretty simple to say striving for equality of outcomes is absurd. Making some adjustments to counter clear disparities of opportunity makes sense as a limited strategy.

I find Jordan Peterson a bit of a puzzle. I think his passion for presenting some basic values is interesting and valuable. I keep thinking he may be overly paranoid about the neomarxists and such. He certainly has been attacked by some obnoxious narrowminded self congratulating students and academics. He may do some intentional provoking.(and that might not be all bad but serve some purpose)
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