The other day someone posted some ridiculous drivel on a Facebook website that I had “liked” so I responded with a kind of tongue in cheek response. The person sent me a facebook message presenting their opinions as facts, jumping all over without addressing the original subject at all in some strange attempt to convince me that I was “wrong”.
Here are a couple of thoughts that I tried unsuccessfully to explain to this brain dead liberal.
Some people have opinions that are more educated and some people have opinions that are less educated. No one has a “wrong” opinion. In my experience liberals research one side of an issue without considering alternate opinions or arguments. These are what I would consider less than educated opinions.
History repeats itself. Right now the pseudo-intellectual elite in the United States is trying very hard to repeat the mistakes Rome made; by making heros out of orators, by increasing social programs and impeding commerce to the point where the tax burden practically eliminates commerce, and by eliminating basic military ground forces in favor of “heavy cavalry”. People who refuse to learn history are doomed to repeat it and in my experience liberals typically ignore history that does not support their opinions.
The jobs created over the last two years have reduced the real average wage to $8.94 (BLS press release Feb 17 2011) with an average work week of less than 35 hours. Yep, these jobs are part time un-skilled labor that will result in near zero federal tax income.
People need to be able to tell the difference between facts and opinions. “John ran fast” is an opinion. “John ran 100 meters in 6 seconds” is a fact, well use of the term run in a factual statement is debatable even though I believe the velocity traveled does qualify as “running”.
People really need to understand logical fallacies. In my experience people who describe themselves as liberal democrats often ignore logic fallacies or incorrectly identify logical fallacies.
In the end the uneducated person messaging me told me I was being rude (typical, if you can’t win an argument attack your opponent for a perceived slight no matter how ridiculous, “you are insulting me”, “you hate Jews”, “you hate blacks”, “you hate women”, etc). Every time you hear someone accusing someone else of prejudice, bigotry, insulting behavior, etc, remember that those are logical fallacies designed to change the topic from the original issues, usually by the loser of the argument.
I explained that they were the one being rude for demanding that I accept their opinion as “truth” even though they supported their opinion with nothing more than indignation.
There are three important things I would like you to take from this blog, and one key factor in education.
1: No one has a “wrong” opinion, some opinions are just more educated than others.
2: Education is a process, not an achievement. Edu-snobs and pseudo-elitists will demand you recognize their academic achievements and concede your position based on those academic achievements while they ignore facts. This is the least educated opinion possible.
3: When someone claims you insulted them, ignore them, refuse to apologize and stay focused on the issue (unless you really did deliberately insult that particular person or group). Use of sarcasm is not an insult although some people will take it as insulting in an attempt to deflect from their ignorance and lack of education on a subject.
Key: Have fun exploring each others opinions and learning from each other.
Friday, March 04, 2011
Saturday, February 26, 2011
White Hot Anger, Stereotypes, Prejudice and Discussion
Sometimes friends of mine who are black become angry with me when I talk about prejudice and segregation. I don't blame them. I understand it. If you let yourself stay caught up in the injustice of bigoted stereotypes you can become so angry that there is nothing left except an ultimate explosion.
Teachers and school administrators cause these kinds of explosions. Psychological profiling is a typical tool these days for police and school administrators. What is psychological profiling? Essentially Psych profiling is the statistical analysis of behavior probability. That's a mouth full, what the hell does that mean?
To make it simple some people exhibit particular behaviors. Psychological or behavioral profiling is not racial profiling, HOWEVER, people of particular races, religions or cultural backgrounds are more likely to exhibit particular behaviors than people of other races, religions or cultural backgrounds.
Still not clear? Yeah, I get that. Suppose you know someone who looks down constantly, slumps when they walk, rarely makes eye contact. In a single instance of behavior this means nothing. If you see a person walking down the street one time and they are doing this it means nothing. If you see a person behave like this all of the time it means something. The problem comes when you see people behave like this sometimes.
The subjective analysis of a primary behavior mode is where the problem comes in. Suppose a high school kid sucks at gym and feels bad every time they leave gym so they typically leave gym slumped and looking at the ground. If every time a teacher observes this kid the kid is walking from gym to math class the teacher may determine that the slumping, no eye contact behavior is a primary behavior pattern. On the other hand, if the teacher observes the same kid for the majority of the day they may observe that this no eye contact slumping behavior is no where near a primary behavior pattern.
So the teacher notices this “primary” issue and the teacher starts talking and the next thing you know all these amateur psychological profilers are finding behavior patterns consistent with a troubled teenager. They conduct an intervention and the kid becomes bewildered, then angry that they think he is someone who might shoot up the school. The actions of the teachers exacerbate the problem.
This problem is even worse because most school shooters are victims of excessive bullying and the amateur psych profilers actually become bullies.
On the other hand some school shooters go completely unnoticed until after they shoot up a school because the amateur psych profilers missed the real signs.
So what does that have to do with black people, segregation and anger?
It is all actually the same problem, the systemic belief that stereotypes have a basis in reality and we can use those stereotypes to predict behavior.
Psych profiling is much more difficult than that. To develop enough of a probability to accurately identify a potential problem you need overlapping primary patterns of behavior.
Dime store psychics are amateur psych profilers. “The body will be found near water” and they find the body in the middle of the desert by an empty canteen. “See, that canteen held water”. The issue is probabilities. The more general the assessment the more likely it is to be accurate.
What is the primary psych profile of a serial killer? A white middle aged male near water.
Is that a joke? Yes and no. It is true, that is an accurate generalization of your average serial killer. Does it describe all serial killers? No.
The idea is to find multiple behavioral patterns and focus resources on those people who fit within those multiple behavioral patterns. This allows for resources to be used most effectively.
A properly trained, reasonably objective, person can improve the odds or reduce the number of potentials. CAN, not WILL.
Psychology is subjective analysis based on previous subjective analysis and all subjective analysis is filtered through a person's internalized experiences.
What does that mean? This is actually pretty simple. If a person is abused by their father they will be more likely to identify people who are similar to their fathers as abusers. Essentially they will find the behavior patterns they are looking for.
The majority of psychologists and social workers are victims of abuse by family members, typically abuse by their fathers and that father is typically going to be a white male. As a result the majority of social workers will incorrectly identify a white male as an abuser about 1/3 of the time.
Does that mean every white male identified as abusive by a social worker is not? Nope. It means that a large number of white males identified as abusive are not.
Social workers and psychologists know this. This ain't news. Want to hear something really arrogant? Even though they know they are internalizing their filters these psychologists and social workers typically believe that they are objective enough to overcome their internal filters EVEN though they know that statistically they are probably part of the problem.
Huh? Ever see the movie “A Time To Kill”? Samuel Jackson tells Matthew McConaughey that he is one of the bad guys, that he knows Matthew McConaughey does not mean to be a bad guy, but he was raised a bad guy and he thinks like a bad guy.
I realized that about myself back when I was in the Army. I wrote a blog about that and you can hunt it down if you like. Matthew McConaughey realizes that he does think like a bad guy and changes his closing argument and Samuel Jackson goes free. Nice story, ain't going to happen in real life. Most people are never going to accept that they are just one of the statistical probability who are going to incorrectly filter someone.
You have to be aware that you are going to, not might but WILL, incorrectly filter someone and most people are so arrogant that they never think of themselves as the bad guy.
So the CEO of a company I used to work for is a Christian. One day before a meeting some of us were talking about jury duty and punishment. He was upset because some guy got away from man's justice when he had served on a jury. I shrugged. I pointed out that there is no justice with people, but that God's justice is perfect and inescapable. The person will either repent and change their behavior or find themselves judged.
This is a pretty basic Christian belief, but, my CEO was filtering through his own belief system which included the justice system people had created as an appropriate justice system.
I filtered it through my belief system. Since Christ tells us no one is good, that we “being evil” are still loved by God I accept that people are evil and incapable of righteous judgment so it really doesn't matter if someone goes to jail here on Earth or not.
In my belief system prison should only be used for people convicted of multiple violent attacks which result in bodily injury to others. Once imprisoned we might as well execute them since they are only imprisoned after they have been convicted of multiple violent attacks which have resulted in bodily injury to others.
Drug dealers, car thieves, etc can all do community service. I think all crimes should be punishable by probation and community service rather than jail time. Jail time is a waste and we can't afford to keep wasting resources.
Sound's like I am off track? Not really. You probably have a different filter system and exposing you to mine has probably made you consider your filter system. Filter systems regarding punishment for perceived wrongs are typically very strong.
As a society we need to bring these filter systems out into the open and accept that we are applying them in our decision making process. Until we bring them out in the open we will continue to waste resources and incite bad behavior in others.
A friend with a doctorate applied at a research organization. His work was very good, cutting edge and applied directly to a major research initiative at the organization. His application for employment was denied.
Why? Was management stupid or bigoted? Truthfully I think they were both. I won't go into the issues which lead to my belief. I am sure that these people have what they feel are “good” reasons for rejecting my friend just as they had “good” reasons for refusing to do the basic variability calculations behind a primary process variable in their research initiative.
I have a simple filter for this though, I don't believe there is ever a good reason to do something stupid so when someone does something I know is stupid my internal filter kicks in and it is very difficult to convince me that they are anything except stupid.
I am aware of my filter though, and I will try and listen. Occasionally someone will make sense of their stupid reasons although they very rarely ever seem to be anything except stupid to me and I am sure that other people can say the same thing about decisions I have made that they feel are stupid.
No one talks abut this stupidity because everyone becomes angry and offended.
There it is. The white hot anger burning and corrupting our society from within based on our internal stereotypes, filters and prejudices that we refuse to discuss because it just makes us angrier.
Teachers and school administrators cause these kinds of explosions. Psychological profiling is a typical tool these days for police and school administrators. What is psychological profiling? Essentially Psych profiling is the statistical analysis of behavior probability. That's a mouth full, what the hell does that mean?
To make it simple some people exhibit particular behaviors. Psychological or behavioral profiling is not racial profiling, HOWEVER, people of particular races, religions or cultural backgrounds are more likely to exhibit particular behaviors than people of other races, religions or cultural backgrounds.
Still not clear? Yeah, I get that. Suppose you know someone who looks down constantly, slumps when they walk, rarely makes eye contact. In a single instance of behavior this means nothing. If you see a person walking down the street one time and they are doing this it means nothing. If you see a person behave like this all of the time it means something. The problem comes when you see people behave like this sometimes.
The subjective analysis of a primary behavior mode is where the problem comes in. Suppose a high school kid sucks at gym and feels bad every time they leave gym so they typically leave gym slumped and looking at the ground. If every time a teacher observes this kid the kid is walking from gym to math class the teacher may determine that the slumping, no eye contact behavior is a primary behavior pattern. On the other hand, if the teacher observes the same kid for the majority of the day they may observe that this no eye contact slumping behavior is no where near a primary behavior pattern.
So the teacher notices this “primary” issue and the teacher starts talking and the next thing you know all these amateur psychological profilers are finding behavior patterns consistent with a troubled teenager. They conduct an intervention and the kid becomes bewildered, then angry that they think he is someone who might shoot up the school. The actions of the teachers exacerbate the problem.
This problem is even worse because most school shooters are victims of excessive bullying and the amateur psych profilers actually become bullies.
On the other hand some school shooters go completely unnoticed until after they shoot up a school because the amateur psych profilers missed the real signs.
So what does that have to do with black people, segregation and anger?
It is all actually the same problem, the systemic belief that stereotypes have a basis in reality and we can use those stereotypes to predict behavior.
Psych profiling is much more difficult than that. To develop enough of a probability to accurately identify a potential problem you need overlapping primary patterns of behavior.
Dime store psychics are amateur psych profilers. “The body will be found near water” and they find the body in the middle of the desert by an empty canteen. “See, that canteen held water”. The issue is probabilities. The more general the assessment the more likely it is to be accurate.
What is the primary psych profile of a serial killer? A white middle aged male near water.
Is that a joke? Yes and no. It is true, that is an accurate generalization of your average serial killer. Does it describe all serial killers? No.
The idea is to find multiple behavioral patterns and focus resources on those people who fit within those multiple behavioral patterns. This allows for resources to be used most effectively.
A properly trained, reasonably objective, person can improve the odds or reduce the number of potentials. CAN, not WILL.
Psychology is subjective analysis based on previous subjective analysis and all subjective analysis is filtered through a person's internalized experiences.
What does that mean? This is actually pretty simple. If a person is abused by their father they will be more likely to identify people who are similar to their fathers as abusers. Essentially they will find the behavior patterns they are looking for.
The majority of psychologists and social workers are victims of abuse by family members, typically abuse by their fathers and that father is typically going to be a white male. As a result the majority of social workers will incorrectly identify a white male as an abuser about 1/3 of the time.
Does that mean every white male identified as abusive by a social worker is not? Nope. It means that a large number of white males identified as abusive are not.
Social workers and psychologists know this. This ain't news. Want to hear something really arrogant? Even though they know they are internalizing their filters these psychologists and social workers typically believe that they are objective enough to overcome their internal filters EVEN though they know that statistically they are probably part of the problem.
Huh? Ever see the movie “A Time To Kill”? Samuel Jackson tells Matthew McConaughey that he is one of the bad guys, that he knows Matthew McConaughey does not mean to be a bad guy, but he was raised a bad guy and he thinks like a bad guy.
I realized that about myself back when I was in the Army. I wrote a blog about that and you can hunt it down if you like. Matthew McConaughey realizes that he does think like a bad guy and changes his closing argument and Samuel Jackson goes free. Nice story, ain't going to happen in real life. Most people are never going to accept that they are just one of the statistical probability who are going to incorrectly filter someone.
You have to be aware that you are going to, not might but WILL, incorrectly filter someone and most people are so arrogant that they never think of themselves as the bad guy.
So the CEO of a company I used to work for is a Christian. One day before a meeting some of us were talking about jury duty and punishment. He was upset because some guy got away from man's justice when he had served on a jury. I shrugged. I pointed out that there is no justice with people, but that God's justice is perfect and inescapable. The person will either repent and change their behavior or find themselves judged.
This is a pretty basic Christian belief, but, my CEO was filtering through his own belief system which included the justice system people had created as an appropriate justice system.
I filtered it through my belief system. Since Christ tells us no one is good, that we “being evil” are still loved by God I accept that people are evil and incapable of righteous judgment so it really doesn't matter if someone goes to jail here on Earth or not.
In my belief system prison should only be used for people convicted of multiple violent attacks which result in bodily injury to others. Once imprisoned we might as well execute them since they are only imprisoned after they have been convicted of multiple violent attacks which have resulted in bodily injury to others.
Drug dealers, car thieves, etc can all do community service. I think all crimes should be punishable by probation and community service rather than jail time. Jail time is a waste and we can't afford to keep wasting resources.
Sound's like I am off track? Not really. You probably have a different filter system and exposing you to mine has probably made you consider your filter system. Filter systems regarding punishment for perceived wrongs are typically very strong.
As a society we need to bring these filter systems out into the open and accept that we are applying them in our decision making process. Until we bring them out in the open we will continue to waste resources and incite bad behavior in others.
A friend with a doctorate applied at a research organization. His work was very good, cutting edge and applied directly to a major research initiative at the organization. His application for employment was denied.
Why? Was management stupid or bigoted? Truthfully I think they were both. I won't go into the issues which lead to my belief. I am sure that these people have what they feel are “good” reasons for rejecting my friend just as they had “good” reasons for refusing to do the basic variability calculations behind a primary process variable in their research initiative.
I have a simple filter for this though, I don't believe there is ever a good reason to do something stupid so when someone does something I know is stupid my internal filter kicks in and it is very difficult to convince me that they are anything except stupid.
I am aware of my filter though, and I will try and listen. Occasionally someone will make sense of their stupid reasons although they very rarely ever seem to be anything except stupid to me and I am sure that other people can say the same thing about decisions I have made that they feel are stupid.
No one talks abut this stupidity because everyone becomes angry and offended.
There it is. The white hot anger burning and corrupting our society from within based on our internal stereotypes, filters and prejudices that we refuse to discuss because it just makes us angrier.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Psychology the fake science
Subjective Modality Assessment
I work in manufacturing so I work with statistics. To make manufacturing engineering really easy essentially manufacturing engineers manage process variability. When trouble shooting a process you break it down until you find the most variable portion of the process and then you break that section of the process down even further until you can accurately predict and manage the results and the time it takes to achieve those results.
If you cannot accurately predict a specific variability at any point within a process your process is out of control.
Period. No ifs. No buts.
Psychology is the weirdest mix of subjective and objective assessment that I have ever had the misfortune of coming across.
Science is OBJECTIVE. Psychology is called a Pseudo-Science because it is primarily subjective.
Let me break it down.
Essentially a psychologist develops a characterization. Multiple Intelligences is a good example. We could use the traits of the P-E-N model of personality. In both cases a specific researcher subjectively developed characterization profiles based on their education and experience. These are both easy to read about on the web.
I used to work in a plating plant. We needed to do statistical process control. Management decided to measure and statistically control the temperature of various plating solutions. My question: Does temperature change the time or results? Answer, if the temperature is not maintained within a specific window, yes. My question: Will controlling the temperature more accurately influence the plating results? Answer, no or we would have installed better thermal controls.
In manufacturing engineering you seek out the process variability. Why does one part have a thicker or thinner coating than another. Voltage, amperage, connections between racks and bars, between bars and conductive bar rests, position on a rack, surface area of the bulk plating material? They measured temperature because it was easy and looked good and it did influence the results.
In psychology there is always argument about the categories that are developed. It isn't as easy to determine or define the various variabilities in human behavior. The fewer the categories the more generalized the outcome. The more specific the categories the less generalized and the more difficult the categorization is.
Psychologists use a combination of training, experience and subjective assessment to develop categories and determine the categorization of a specific individual.
People filter things through their own individual experiences and out look on life. You typically cannot change a person's core beliefs, even with a sledge hammer. It literally takes an act of God to change a person's core belief system. Even when presented with insurmountable evidence people will refuse to change their core beliefs.
Anyone who studies History will tell you that the Democratic political party in the United States provided the political support for the genocide of blacks in the United States.
Ask people if NAZIs are bad and they will tell you “yes”, ask them why and they will mention the history of genocide and suppression-segregation of minorities.
Ask people if Democrats are bad and they will typically say “no” or they will respond with “individuals may be”.
Both political parties supported the genocide and segregation of minorities.
Since people are just going to believe what they want to believe how can we expect psychologists not to filter their subjective analysis though this ridiculous core belief system that every person has.
We can't.
Until psychology becomes totally objective, until psychology can observe remote events without participation and objectively define characterization modalities without a subjective and individual filtration it cannot be considered a science.
Does that make it useless?
No. Talking to people who listen is always useful.
Should we use it to identify kids who could go postal in our school system? NO.
We will though, because most people have a core belief that includes the idea that stereotypes are based in reality.
Some well adjusted son of a police detective shoots up a school without warning and the psychologists run and hide.
Some communist nut case shoots up a congress person because of a personal snub and psychologists demand funding for schools so they can help kids with obvious problems before they shoot people up. The media demands Sarah Palin apologize because she said “retreat and reload” and used camera style cross hairs on a map (not a scope reticle as is often cited).
Until psychology can become an objective science we can use it, but, we should not use it to harass people because the may fit a stereotype someone has developed.
We should talk to people and help them as much as we can.
I work in manufacturing so I work with statistics. To make manufacturing engineering really easy essentially manufacturing engineers manage process variability. When trouble shooting a process you break it down until you find the most variable portion of the process and then you break that section of the process down even further until you can accurately predict and manage the results and the time it takes to achieve those results.
If you cannot accurately predict a specific variability at any point within a process your process is out of control.
Period. No ifs. No buts.
Psychology is the weirdest mix of subjective and objective assessment that I have ever had the misfortune of coming across.
Science is OBJECTIVE. Psychology is called a Pseudo-Science because it is primarily subjective.
Let me break it down.
Essentially a psychologist develops a characterization. Multiple Intelligences is a good example. We could use the traits of the P-E-N model of personality. In both cases a specific researcher subjectively developed characterization profiles based on their education and experience. These are both easy to read about on the web.
I used to work in a plating plant. We needed to do statistical process control. Management decided to measure and statistically control the temperature of various plating solutions. My question: Does temperature change the time or results? Answer, if the temperature is not maintained within a specific window, yes. My question: Will controlling the temperature more accurately influence the plating results? Answer, no or we would have installed better thermal controls.
In manufacturing engineering you seek out the process variability. Why does one part have a thicker or thinner coating than another. Voltage, amperage, connections between racks and bars, between bars and conductive bar rests, position on a rack, surface area of the bulk plating material? They measured temperature because it was easy and looked good and it did influence the results.
In psychology there is always argument about the categories that are developed. It isn't as easy to determine or define the various variabilities in human behavior. The fewer the categories the more generalized the outcome. The more specific the categories the less generalized and the more difficult the categorization is.
Psychologists use a combination of training, experience and subjective assessment to develop categories and determine the categorization of a specific individual.
People filter things through their own individual experiences and out look on life. You typically cannot change a person's core beliefs, even with a sledge hammer. It literally takes an act of God to change a person's core belief system. Even when presented with insurmountable evidence people will refuse to change their core beliefs.
Anyone who studies History will tell you that the Democratic political party in the United States provided the political support for the genocide of blacks in the United States.
Ask people if NAZIs are bad and they will tell you “yes”, ask them why and they will mention the history of genocide and suppression-segregation of minorities.
Ask people if Democrats are bad and they will typically say “no” or they will respond with “individuals may be”.
Both political parties supported the genocide and segregation of minorities.
Since people are just going to believe what they want to believe how can we expect psychologists not to filter their subjective analysis though this ridiculous core belief system that every person has.
We can't.
Until psychology becomes totally objective, until psychology can observe remote events without participation and objectively define characterization modalities without a subjective and individual filtration it cannot be considered a science.
Does that make it useless?
No. Talking to people who listen is always useful.
Should we use it to identify kids who could go postal in our school system? NO.
We will though, because most people have a core belief that includes the idea that stereotypes are based in reality.
Some well adjusted son of a police detective shoots up a school without warning and the psychologists run and hide.
Some communist nut case shoots up a congress person because of a personal snub and psychologists demand funding for schools so they can help kids with obvious problems before they shoot people up. The media demands Sarah Palin apologize because she said “retreat and reload” and used camera style cross hairs on a map (not a scope reticle as is often cited).
Until psychology can become an objective science we can use it, but, we should not use it to harass people because the may fit a stereotype someone has developed.
We should talk to people and help them as much as we can.
What I want from readers of my blog
As some of my readers may have noticed I often blog about my pet peeves, Judgmental Christians, Annoyingly stupid propaganda and Segregation. I also blog about diet and things I care about and want to see become better. Positive blogs versus negative blogs.
Interestingly enough these are both important steps on toward the same goal. I always move forward. I'll explain.
Recently I wrote what is essentially a rant about Northern Segregation and how Michigan destroyed it's own economic prosperity by isolating it's primary urban development. At the end of my rant I pointed out how important it is to create racial integration on a professional level. This is something Michigan has not done effectively.
Whenever I rant about something I always define not only what I feel are the inappropriate actions but also what I feel are the appropriate actions.
I have written blogs about how Galileo was employed by the Catholic Church to do the research and how the Catholic Church published the books that eventually led to his trial. I have written about how even today we, as a society, reject new ideas in a similar fashion to the Catholic Church of the European Middle Ages.
I have written blogs about how ignorant people are when the argue that the closed source research conducted by the Western European Catholic Church for the exclusive use of the Western European Catholic Church resulted in a “World Wide Dark Ages”. What is really funny is that a very well educated and very intelligent 1st generation immigrant from India actually made this argument to me. Of course he became a little sheepish when I pointed out that far more open technological development was occurring in the rest of the world, the Middle East, India and China specifically, during this time period. I have pointed out that the closed source software development and the application of copyright law instead of patent law to these important technological developments threatens the world with a new “Dark Ages”.
I have pointed out particularly heinous propaganda and asked people to search out logical fallacies and the descriptive prose that separate objective from creative writing.
I have pointed out problems with FDA approval of dietary supplements and told people to constantly seek out better and less expensive sources for supplements that they take.
I have experimented on myself, posted the results and made suggestions about how people can objectively experiment on themselves.
I have pointed out that medical professionals often have really crappy educations, mediocre intelligence and give advice that might work for some people so you really need to do your own research and learn about your own body.
I don't want to think for you. I don't even want to educate you. I want to encourage you, whoever you are, to educate yourself. I want to encourage you to get out and learn however you can learn about whatever interests you.
You can't know everything. I do not expect you to. I can't know everything. I hope you don't expect me to. I want you to become the best you can be. I want you to make informed decisions and take responsibility for the world around you.
In the end I hope you make the choice to become a better person every day and in becoming a better person ever day I know you can make the world a better place to be.
Interestingly enough these are both important steps on toward the same goal. I always move forward. I'll explain.
Recently I wrote what is essentially a rant about Northern Segregation and how Michigan destroyed it's own economic prosperity by isolating it's primary urban development. At the end of my rant I pointed out how important it is to create racial integration on a professional level. This is something Michigan has not done effectively.
Whenever I rant about something I always define not only what I feel are the inappropriate actions but also what I feel are the appropriate actions.
I have written blogs about how Galileo was employed by the Catholic Church to do the research and how the Catholic Church published the books that eventually led to his trial. I have written about how even today we, as a society, reject new ideas in a similar fashion to the Catholic Church of the European Middle Ages.
I have written blogs about how ignorant people are when the argue that the closed source research conducted by the Western European Catholic Church for the exclusive use of the Western European Catholic Church resulted in a “World Wide Dark Ages”. What is really funny is that a very well educated and very intelligent 1st generation immigrant from India actually made this argument to me. Of course he became a little sheepish when I pointed out that far more open technological development was occurring in the rest of the world, the Middle East, India and China specifically, during this time period. I have pointed out that the closed source software development and the application of copyright law instead of patent law to these important technological developments threatens the world with a new “Dark Ages”.
I have pointed out particularly heinous propaganda and asked people to search out logical fallacies and the descriptive prose that separate objective from creative writing.
I have pointed out problems with FDA approval of dietary supplements and told people to constantly seek out better and less expensive sources for supplements that they take.
I have experimented on myself, posted the results and made suggestions about how people can objectively experiment on themselves.
I have pointed out that medical professionals often have really crappy educations, mediocre intelligence and give advice that might work for some people so you really need to do your own research and learn about your own body.
I don't want to think for you. I don't even want to educate you. I want to encourage you, whoever you are, to educate yourself. I want to encourage you to get out and learn however you can learn about whatever interests you.
You can't know everything. I do not expect you to. I can't know everything. I hope you don't expect me to. I want you to become the best you can be. I want you to make informed decisions and take responsibility for the world around you.
In the end I hope you make the choice to become a better person every day and in becoming a better person ever day I know you can make the world a better place to be.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
How Michigan Destroyed Itself with Segregation
I have lived in the Detroit area most of my life. As a child my parents constantly argued so I didn't get very much sleep and I would often lay in bed awake for hours. Sometimes I would read by flashlight, but, usually not since the batteries would wear out after a few hours and then my father would punish me for wasting batteries.
I remember laying in my bunk bed above my brother listening to the tanks drive down 8 mile during the 1967 riots. Did that really happen? Did I hear it or is it a memory my mind created after listening to my parents describe it. I was only 6 years old. My life was totally unstable with an abusive father and an alcoholic mother.
During the 1967 riots in Detroit my father organized a neighborhood group to protect our suburb from the gangs of marauding blacks. My father didn't use that word at the time. He used the N word and later, after our maid quit because my father was a racist, he beat me once for using that N word.
Psychologists tell us that kids typically grow up to be the person they are raised to become by their parents. The life of a young adult in their 20's is typically defined by the way they were treated by their parents as a child and an adolescent. The basic rule of thumb is, the worse the young person behaves the worse they were treated by their parents.
http://www.international.ucla.edu/cms/files/corak.pdf (Not quite exactly on point, but close and interesting because it compares the States to other nations)
I behaved pretty badly in my early 20's. By my late 20's I had dated a few women who were either majoring or had majored in Psychology and I had spent about a year in therapy discussing some of the issues that led to my marriage, my break-up and where I was in life. I had also accepted Christ as my savior.
My understanding of biology and psychology tells me that people have genetic predispositions toward some behavior and that those predispositions can be actuated by environmental situations. In other words, you can treat two people exactly the same and if one has a genetic predisposition and the other does not the one with a predisposition will begin acting out.
That was not my problem in childhood. My father loved my brother more and treated him much better than he treated me. My mother divorced my father, primarily to protect me from him, and spent the rest of her life loving him and hating him. My mother tried to offset my father's abuse with rewards. My Dad would beat me, my mother would reward me. I became a modern day human Pavlov's dog.
When I joined the Army at 17 I began learning that I was not the loser my father had convinced me I was. This is also when I figured out my father was racist. My father once asked me how many blacks were in my unit. I have always been proud of the fact that I didn't know and couldn't even guess. He told me that there were more blacks than whites and I should count them sometime. I never did, primarily because I didn't think it mattered and to believe it mattered meant race mattered and I am not a racist.
But I was raised by a racist father and so I had racist ideas shoved into my head at an early age. As I became older I realized that where I was very upfront with people, very out in the open about my ideas and beliefs because my mother created the belief in me that open dialog is the most important factor in developing a relationship, my father and my brother were very different. They would create situations where they were alone with someone before they would express their true feelings or beliefs.
I realize now that this is the way it is for 99% of people, black or white or orange or purple.
I suck at bluffing in poker. My mother raised a son who is about as up front about their opinions and ideas as they can be.
Over the years I have occasionally made stupid remarks that were taught to me by my father in the presence of others and some people have labeled me racist for those remarks. Sometimes they just make me look stupid.
Once when I was in Army I was talking to a black guy working on their car. They had a really great car and there were black mechanics in my unit. We were drinking beer and I was helping. I said something like “this is a really great car, I didn't think blacks did this kind of stuff”. He stopped and looked at me funny and did something really amazing, he turned back to working on the engine and asked, “why would you believe that?”. I said “I guess my father told me once that blacks make lousy mechanics”. He shook his head and said something like “You need to get rid of those racist ideas”. I said “I'm not a racist”. He said something like, “You are if you believe racist things like that. Hand me the ratchet.” I was insulted.
Over the years I have looked back at that and thought about it. He was right of course. As children we believe things our parents tell us and don't even understand how racist they are. We become insulted and we make up excuses for why we should segregate people based on race or religion or culture or even economics.
Quite often I will talk about this and other people, white or black, will engage in a Relativist Fallacy argument. Essentially people will say that may apply to you, but, it does not apply to me so I reject your belief.
As if people do not accept stupid things their parents say.
As we grow older many of us reject many of the ideas that we were taught as children. I have found that quite often people who “rebel” in their 20's end up being very much like their parents in their 40's. Sometimes we grow to reject some of the things our parents teach us.
Some people will claim that I am saying that this idea of learned racism is true because I say it is true when what I am actually doing is offering evidence from my own experiences. There are papers that describe the results of studies on this issue. You are welcome to hunt them down.
In the 1950's and 60's blacks moved into the city of Detroit. By the late 1960's the majority population in Detroit was black and the '67 riots occurred. White Flight ruled the next few years. Without the traditional white people “guarding” voting booths more blacks were able to vote and Colman Young was elected Mayor of Detroit.
Coleman Young was and may still be a Segregationist. As a Michigan Congressperson he presented an education segregation bill. Coleman Young was black and his politics taught me that some blacks wanted to be separate from whites as much as whites wanted to be separate from blacks.
There are differences though and I want to point out one of the essential differences.
In the 1980's when Detroit was trying to develop a metropolitan public transportation system the white suburbs refused to co-operate with the leadership in Detroit.
The leadership in Detroit built the People Mover, a very small system that runs around in a small circle in downtown Detroit. Basically a train chasing it's own tail.
Most of the white people in the suburbs were too stupid to understand the complex metaphor. A mass transit system built in such a way because white people refused to co-operate with blacks. I didn't get it until a black guy I worked with pointed it out.
You see, the Whites had isolated the Blacks in Detroit and were forcing them to chase their own tail around in a tiny little area. This is typical of white segregationist policies. In my experience Black segregationists typically want to maintain their own culture AND associate with Whites on a professional level. White segregationists typically do not want anything to do with Blacks.
If you go back and read about the People Mover there were plenty of “reasons” not to build a metropolitan Detroit public transportation system. I look back at them now and see them for the racism that it is. Ideas that spring from the same stupid well as the idea that “blacks make lousy mechanics”.
I came up from the shop floor. I have worked in many shops. Like many blacks I know I have held two and three jobs at a time. The difference between me and the blacks I know is my race. Because I am white I had opportunities to advance in manufacturing that do not exist for blacks. The higher up on the food chain I have risen the fewer black faces I see.
My father's question of me when I was in the Army taught me to notice when blacks are absent, not count them when they are present.
That isn't the point of my blog though. This has all just been lead up and explaining the experience that leads me to believe what I believe.
The primary economic draw in any area is and always will be the major Urban area. Without access to the resources that an Urban area provides, the population density and labor force, you cannot industrialize. Industrialization and urbanization come hand in hand.
http://www.dhr.history.vt.edu/modules/eu/mod01_nature/context.html
The state of Michigan destroyed it's own industrial economic future by doing everything it could to isolate a black community which also happened to be it's primary urban area and primary area of industrialization.
Across the United States Michigan is known as a hotbed of racism. NAZI's publish their filth in Michigan. McVeigh developed his plan of action in Michigan. Michigan Militia. People in Michigan wonder why and I can tell you right now that a lot is because of Detroit. People all over the world recognize Detroit for what it is, a deliberately segregated and impoverished black community.
It is not because Detroit is a primarily black city. It is because of the way the rest of the state has isolated Detroit, segregated Detroit and left it to die after it became a primarily black city and in doing that Michigan cut it's own industrial economic throat.
Some areas in Michigan have tried to build up enough of an urbanization to support industrialization. The Tri-City area of Grand Rapids, Holland and Grand Haven for example. I won't get into the logistical issues that make this a terrible idea and reduce the economic potential of the region as well as jeopardize the ecology of the Lake Michigan shore line.
I will just point out that fifty years ago Michigan was a thriving industrial state with one of the highest standards of living. Forty years after segregating Detroit and leaving the black community to chase their own tail in a tiny little region Michigan is a “third world” state.
We did it to ourselves. Not with the kind of bigotry that lynched Detroit Red's father in Michigan. We did it with an insidiously evil kind of bigotry that hides behind a thin veneer of acceptance and prevents blacks from leaving the poverty stricken shop floor, from moving into skilled trades and eventually into the white halls of industrial upper management.
We did it because our parents taught us stupid things like “blacks make lousy mechanics” or “it isn't because they are black, we just don't want hoodlums running around our little white oasis”.
We segregated Detroit and Detroit Red made an excellent observation of the why, prejudice is so ingrained in the white culture that white people can't even recognize it when they help build monuments, like the People Mover, to their own bigotry. Prejudice is so ingrained in the white culture that whites would rather destroy their own state than help blacks achieve economic prosperity.
Martin Luther King Jr. grew up in the South where blacks and whites often worked together in the lowest jobs available, picking. For hundreds of year land owners and their families have worked side by side with pickers. Martin Luther King knew Blacks and Whites COULD work together. Detroit Red grew up in the North where blacks worked FOR whites and not together WITH whites. Northern Segregation vs Southern Segregation.
Detroit Red made another observation near the end of his life. The same observation that Martin Luther King made. It is possible for blacks and whites to work together in harmony to accomplish a common goal.
We as a people have to start by working with segregated communities to integrate them on a professional and industrial level. First we learn to work together. Then we learn to live together.
I remember laying in my bunk bed above my brother listening to the tanks drive down 8 mile during the 1967 riots. Did that really happen? Did I hear it or is it a memory my mind created after listening to my parents describe it. I was only 6 years old. My life was totally unstable with an abusive father and an alcoholic mother.
During the 1967 riots in Detroit my father organized a neighborhood group to protect our suburb from the gangs of marauding blacks. My father didn't use that word at the time. He used the N word and later, after our maid quit because my father was a racist, he beat me once for using that N word.
Psychologists tell us that kids typically grow up to be the person they are raised to become by their parents. The life of a young adult in their 20's is typically defined by the way they were treated by their parents as a child and an adolescent. The basic rule of thumb is, the worse the young person behaves the worse they were treated by their parents.
http://www.international.ucla.edu/cms/files/corak.pdf (Not quite exactly on point, but close and interesting because it compares the States to other nations)
I behaved pretty badly in my early 20's. By my late 20's I had dated a few women who were either majoring or had majored in Psychology and I had spent about a year in therapy discussing some of the issues that led to my marriage, my break-up and where I was in life. I had also accepted Christ as my savior.
My understanding of biology and psychology tells me that people have genetic predispositions toward some behavior and that those predispositions can be actuated by environmental situations. In other words, you can treat two people exactly the same and if one has a genetic predisposition and the other does not the one with a predisposition will begin acting out.
That was not my problem in childhood. My father loved my brother more and treated him much better than he treated me. My mother divorced my father, primarily to protect me from him, and spent the rest of her life loving him and hating him. My mother tried to offset my father's abuse with rewards. My Dad would beat me, my mother would reward me. I became a modern day human Pavlov's dog.
When I joined the Army at 17 I began learning that I was not the loser my father had convinced me I was. This is also when I figured out my father was racist. My father once asked me how many blacks were in my unit. I have always been proud of the fact that I didn't know and couldn't even guess. He told me that there were more blacks than whites and I should count them sometime. I never did, primarily because I didn't think it mattered and to believe it mattered meant race mattered and I am not a racist.
But I was raised by a racist father and so I had racist ideas shoved into my head at an early age. As I became older I realized that where I was very upfront with people, very out in the open about my ideas and beliefs because my mother created the belief in me that open dialog is the most important factor in developing a relationship, my father and my brother were very different. They would create situations where they were alone with someone before they would express their true feelings or beliefs.
I realize now that this is the way it is for 99% of people, black or white or orange or purple.
I suck at bluffing in poker. My mother raised a son who is about as up front about their opinions and ideas as they can be.
Over the years I have occasionally made stupid remarks that were taught to me by my father in the presence of others and some people have labeled me racist for those remarks. Sometimes they just make me look stupid.
Once when I was in Army I was talking to a black guy working on their car. They had a really great car and there were black mechanics in my unit. We were drinking beer and I was helping. I said something like “this is a really great car, I didn't think blacks did this kind of stuff”. He stopped and looked at me funny and did something really amazing, he turned back to working on the engine and asked, “why would you believe that?”. I said “I guess my father told me once that blacks make lousy mechanics”. He shook his head and said something like “You need to get rid of those racist ideas”. I said “I'm not a racist”. He said something like, “You are if you believe racist things like that. Hand me the ratchet.” I was insulted.
Over the years I have looked back at that and thought about it. He was right of course. As children we believe things our parents tell us and don't even understand how racist they are. We become insulted and we make up excuses for why we should segregate people based on race or religion or culture or even economics.
Quite often I will talk about this and other people, white or black, will engage in a Relativist Fallacy argument. Essentially people will say that may apply to you, but, it does not apply to me so I reject your belief.
As if people do not accept stupid things their parents say.
As we grow older many of us reject many of the ideas that we were taught as children. I have found that quite often people who “rebel” in their 20's end up being very much like their parents in their 40's. Sometimes we grow to reject some of the things our parents teach us.
Some people will claim that I am saying that this idea of learned racism is true because I say it is true when what I am actually doing is offering evidence from my own experiences. There are papers that describe the results of studies on this issue. You are welcome to hunt them down.
In the 1950's and 60's blacks moved into the city of Detroit. By the late 1960's the majority population in Detroit was black and the '67 riots occurred. White Flight ruled the next few years. Without the traditional white people “guarding” voting booths more blacks were able to vote and Colman Young was elected Mayor of Detroit.
Coleman Young was and may still be a Segregationist. As a Michigan Congressperson he presented an education segregation bill. Coleman Young was black and his politics taught me that some blacks wanted to be separate from whites as much as whites wanted to be separate from blacks.
There are differences though and I want to point out one of the essential differences.
In the 1980's when Detroit was trying to develop a metropolitan public transportation system the white suburbs refused to co-operate with the leadership in Detroit.
The leadership in Detroit built the People Mover, a very small system that runs around in a small circle in downtown Detroit. Basically a train chasing it's own tail.
Most of the white people in the suburbs were too stupid to understand the complex metaphor. A mass transit system built in such a way because white people refused to co-operate with blacks. I didn't get it until a black guy I worked with pointed it out.
You see, the Whites had isolated the Blacks in Detroit and were forcing them to chase their own tail around in a tiny little area. This is typical of white segregationist policies. In my experience Black segregationists typically want to maintain their own culture AND associate with Whites on a professional level. White segregationists typically do not want anything to do with Blacks.
If you go back and read about the People Mover there were plenty of “reasons” not to build a metropolitan Detroit public transportation system. I look back at them now and see them for the racism that it is. Ideas that spring from the same stupid well as the idea that “blacks make lousy mechanics”.
I came up from the shop floor. I have worked in many shops. Like many blacks I know I have held two and three jobs at a time. The difference between me and the blacks I know is my race. Because I am white I had opportunities to advance in manufacturing that do not exist for blacks. The higher up on the food chain I have risen the fewer black faces I see.
My father's question of me when I was in the Army taught me to notice when blacks are absent, not count them when they are present.
That isn't the point of my blog though. This has all just been lead up and explaining the experience that leads me to believe what I believe.
The primary economic draw in any area is and always will be the major Urban area. Without access to the resources that an Urban area provides, the population density and labor force, you cannot industrialize. Industrialization and urbanization come hand in hand.
http://www.dhr.history.vt.edu/modules/eu/mod01_nature/context.html
The state of Michigan destroyed it's own industrial economic future by doing everything it could to isolate a black community which also happened to be it's primary urban area and primary area of industrialization.
Across the United States Michigan is known as a hotbed of racism. NAZI's publish their filth in Michigan. McVeigh developed his plan of action in Michigan. Michigan Militia. People in Michigan wonder why and I can tell you right now that a lot is because of Detroit. People all over the world recognize Detroit for what it is, a deliberately segregated and impoverished black community.
It is not because Detroit is a primarily black city. It is because of the way the rest of the state has isolated Detroit, segregated Detroit and left it to die after it became a primarily black city and in doing that Michigan cut it's own industrial economic throat.
Some areas in Michigan have tried to build up enough of an urbanization to support industrialization. The Tri-City area of Grand Rapids, Holland and Grand Haven for example. I won't get into the logistical issues that make this a terrible idea and reduce the economic potential of the region as well as jeopardize the ecology of the Lake Michigan shore line.
I will just point out that fifty years ago Michigan was a thriving industrial state with one of the highest standards of living. Forty years after segregating Detroit and leaving the black community to chase their own tail in a tiny little region Michigan is a “third world” state.
We did it to ourselves. Not with the kind of bigotry that lynched Detroit Red's father in Michigan. We did it with an insidiously evil kind of bigotry that hides behind a thin veneer of acceptance and prevents blacks from leaving the poverty stricken shop floor, from moving into skilled trades and eventually into the white halls of industrial upper management.
We did it because our parents taught us stupid things like “blacks make lousy mechanics” or “it isn't because they are black, we just don't want hoodlums running around our little white oasis”.
We segregated Detroit and Detroit Red made an excellent observation of the why, prejudice is so ingrained in the white culture that white people can't even recognize it when they help build monuments, like the People Mover, to their own bigotry. Prejudice is so ingrained in the white culture that whites would rather destroy their own state than help blacks achieve economic prosperity.
Martin Luther King Jr. grew up in the South where blacks and whites often worked together in the lowest jobs available, picking. For hundreds of year land owners and their families have worked side by side with pickers. Martin Luther King knew Blacks and Whites COULD work together. Detroit Red grew up in the North where blacks worked FOR whites and not together WITH whites. Northern Segregation vs Southern Segregation.
Detroit Red made another observation near the end of his life. The same observation that Martin Luther King made. It is possible for blacks and whites to work together in harmony to accomplish a common goal.
We as a people have to start by working with segregated communities to integrate them on a professional and industrial level. First we learn to work together. Then we learn to live together.
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