Philosophy Now Forum

Bernard wrote:I don't see why there should be laws stopping people from firing others on a whim, so long as there is no interference in such instances being reported - the company will earn a bad reputation and the business will not last.

This firing doesn't sound whimsical. Many people find homosexuality offensive and this may have been a result of offensive being received.

Here is a quote that could help us to discern if something is real harm or just imagined harm:


But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.

-Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782

artisticsolution wrote:I think the problem stems from an unreasonable desire to expect people to maintain a professionalism that has not been adequately described or one that is impossible to achieve at all times. What ends up happening is two sets of rules...one for the workers they like and another for the workers they don't like.

wisely said.

artisticsolution wrote: Here is a quote that could help us to discern if something is real harm or just imagined harm:


But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.

-Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782

But he was not talking about his business which represents his own views.
Winnebago understandably distanced itself from Jack Rebney.

http://youtu.be/WDQQfBrSUs0

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But then...I guess...that is how the free market works and why it is so successful. It rewards this behavior. It criminalizes humanity.




I LOVE THIS PERCEPTION. SPOT.ON.



Thank you.






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The Voice of Time wrote:

bobevenson wrote:For instance, if you refuse to hire a plumber because you don't like his looks, skin color or religion, that is your prerogative.

It is not really a socially acceptable reason. Though there are no laws for it as far as I know, there are indirect laws which defends people from being discriminated based upon their ethnicity, religion or race. Most people make their opinions based upon non-verbal criteria, and therefore we never get typically situations where such things happens that plumbers are sorted by that way as you mentioned, but if somebody were to openly verbally base their opinions solely on those criteria, they probably would've faced resistance and possible prosecution by law for racism or discrimination by religion and/or ethnicity.

I think that if you were to be the weaker part exploited in any such situation Bob, you would've had a less need to be so destructive towards people's need for social security founded in finances and law. You never deliver anything of value, Bob, you only ask for people to sacrifice, never do you actually give anybody anything that holds value in society, all you want is for the wolves to be allowed to eat the sheep if they are just powerful enough.

Just answer the question, do you think the government has the right to force you to hire a black plumber if you don't like blacks for whatever reason, yes or no!

bobevenson wrote: Just answer the question, do you think the government has the right to force you to hire a black plumber if you don't like blacks for whatever reason, yes or no!

No, but I do think it is the governments responsibility to see to it I learn how to reason. Because when society learns how to reason, all people fare better than if they do not. It is not reasonable to 'not like blacks for whatever reason'. It is a form of mental illness.

Discriminating against any group does not serve the overall well being of the entire population of citizens. Therefore, in order that I shall have the opportunity to "pursue life, liberty and happiness", I have to make sure my fellow countryman has the same opportunities. As if a country wants to use that as it's motto....then it has to uphold those words or fail in it's attempt to have them mean anything.

bobevenson wrote:Just answer the question, do you think the government has the right to force you to hire a black plumber if you don't like blacks for whatever reason, yes or no!

No. I do believe they have the right to force you to choose other criteria, however, and they do (or should, as we're not speaking of any actual cases here) have the right to force you to reveal those criteria in an objectively judge-able manner (if you had priorly revealed that skin-colour or human race was your criteria for choosing your plumber) so that it can be decided objectively who meets the criteria you are looking for. If you refuse to comply, your actions should fall under anti-racism laws.

Let me ask you Bob. Let's imagine you were poor, had a big family, your only real skill is plumbing and the job-market for unskilled labour is virtually non-existent and over-crowded with applicants. You live in a black-majority country where the wealthy people are all black. You recently got an job-application accepted into a local plumbing firm. You get paid by the amount of work you do. However, no customers want you, because you are white, and they don't like white people. This means you'll not be able to perform your job, even though you might be the world's most efficient and skilled plumber with the market's cheapest price, in other words: you are unmatched in pure plumbing services and your respect for your customers. Those people however, they don't care how good you are at your job, the sole single aspect about you that makes them turn you down and that prohibits you from getting the money you need to buy food for your family and provide school for your children is the colour of your skin... do you think this situation is fair? Do you think it should be like that? Do you think the suffering and wasting of that man is okay and just something which has to happen in the given situation?

artisticsolution wrote:It is a form of mental illness.

That is way beyond line. Racism is philosophy, it may be the evil side of it or whatever you want to call it, but it's still philosophy and no damn mental illness! It's no different than calling capitalists or communists or socialists mentally ill for believing in their respective ideologies ^^

This kind of thinking must be met with serious resistance.

The free dictionary by farlax: Any of various conditions characterized by impairment of an individual's normal cognitive, emotional, or behavioral functioning, and caused by social, psychological, biochemical, genetic, or other factors, such as infection or head trauma. Also called emotional illness, mental disease, mental disorder.


Wikipedia:A mental disorder or mental illness is a psychological pattern or anomaly, potentially reflected in behavior, that is generally associated with distress or disability, and which is not considered part of normal development in a person's culture. Mental disorders are generally defined by a combination of how a person feels, acts, thinks or perceives.


Dictionary.com: any of various disorders in which a person's thoughts, emotions, or behaviour are so abnormal as to cause suffering to himself, herself, or other people

Disliking a person for irrational reasons is a form of mental illness. It is my opinion that irrationality in humans is a form of mental illness because it can be cured. Rational thinking should be the ultimate goal for humanity. Healthy brains think rationally. Do you disagree with this?

artisticsolution wrote:Disliking a person for irrational reasons is a form of mental illness. It is my opinion that irrationality in humans is a form of mental illness because it can be cured. Rational thinking should be the ultimate goal for humanity. Healthy brains think rationally. Do you disagree with this?

This is all absurd and dangerous thinking. You are being as bad racists, trying to pick out who is a good brain and who is bad brain by your liking.

There's nothing "irrational" about racism anything more than it's irrational to not like vegetables. That is: you simply don't like it. Do you think we should call people who don't like vegetables mentally ill? What people like or dislike has nothing to do with mental illness. Mental illnesses are characterized by strict scientific criteria, and concerns not simple things like lack of knowledge or emotional preferences and the likes but more a person's basic abilities necessary to sustain a relationship with the world around them. You can be a racist and perfectly well sustain such a relationship. Cases where you cannot sustain such a relationship is when you perceive physical objects that do not exist or hear sounds that do not exist but you think exist (then the relationship between the sight and the sound and the thinking is the problem, but not necessarily just that you see something which isn't there or hear sounds which doesn't exist, you must also believe them for there to be mental illness. If you just hear the sound or see the object which doesn't exist but don't believe them you are suffering from non-mental perception illnesses, in the same category as "colour blindness").

Because you have a philosophical truth and somebody else don't believe that, that doesn't make them mentally ill, it just makes them people of a different opinion *colossal punctuation*.

VOT:There's nothing "irrational" about racism anything more than it's irrational to not like vegetables.

AS: Are you comparing people to vegetables? As in, I do not like this taste in my mouth? People are equal in their humanity. Vegetables are not human. Disliking people based on race is irrational. If you disagree with this please give me the reasons why it is rational to dislike people based on race.

I say there is no rational reason to dislike people based on race. If there is...then you should have no problem stating the rational reasons.

artisticsolution wrote:I say there is no rational reason to dislike people based on race. If there is...then you should have no problem stating the rational reasons.

Wikipedia wrote:In philosophy, rationality is the characteristic of any action, belief, or desire, that makes their choice optimal under a set of constraints.

Here's the set of arguments:

1) black people usually comes from comparatively underdeveloped places (statistical truth),
2) black people are usually poor (statistical truth)
3) poor people usually commit more crimes and are usually a bigger burden richer people than richer people are a burden to them (survival ethics)
3) black people hire more child soldiers and commit more mass-rapes and systematically intended genocides than white people in the 21th century (statistical truth, could also be interpreted as that they're wrongly developed in recent evolution)

here's the set of contraints

4) therefore, to get rid of these bad things, it would be easiest to just get rid of them altogether, than waste time and effort make them whatever (any racist individual saying "me") think they should be.

But basically, all this doesn't really matter. Because the vegetable example still counts, it may be irrational in your mind but there's nothing special about irrationality in and of itself, we all have it. You may simply not like vegetables (or a specific vegetable) because, let's say the corn makes you think of something nasty, so you don't like it. Black people make you think of something nasty, so you don't like them... liking and disliking are not mental illnesses.

The Voice of Time wrote:

bobevenson wrote:Just answer the question, do you think the government has the right to force you to hire a black plumber if you don't like blacks for whatever reason, yes or no!

No. I do believe they have the right to force you to choose other criteria, however, and they do (or should, as we're not speaking of any actual cases here) have the right to force you to reveal those criteria in an objectively judge-able manner (if you had priorly revealed that skin-colour or human race was your criteria for choosing your plumber) so that it can be decided objectively who meets the criteria you are looking for. If you refuse to comply, your actions should fall under anti-racism laws.

Let me ask you Bob. Let's imagine you were poor, had a big family, your only real skill is plumbing and the job-market for unskilled labour is virtually non-existent and over-crowded with applicants. You live in a black-majority country where the wealthy people are all black. You recently got an job-application accepted into a local plumbing firm. You get paid by the amount of work you do. However, no customers want you, because you are white, and they don't like white people. This means you'll not be able to perform your job, even though you might be the world's most efficient and skilled plumber with the market's cheapest price, in other words: you are unmatched in pure plumbing services and your respect for your customers. Those people however, they don't care how good you are at your job, the sole single aspect about you that makes them turn you down and that prohibits you from getting the money you need to buy food for your family and provide school for your children is the colour of your skin... do you think this situation is fair? Do you think it should be like that? Do you think the suffering and wasting of that man is okay and just something which has to happen in the given situation?

We are not talking about what's fair, my friend, we are talking about what's proper, and if you don't want to hire a black plumber because you're a member of the Klu Klux Klan, that's your goddamn business and not the government's.

Hi VOT,

You are not making sense to me and here's why:

You said:


"This is all absurd and dangerous thinking. You are being as bad racists, trying to pick out who is a good brain and who is bad brain by your liking."

Then you said:

"...liking and disliking are not mental illnesses."

Those 2 statements contradict each other.

You say I am exhibiting "dangerous thinking" by my 'liking' but then turn around and say that liking and disliking are not mental illnesses. Then what is "dangerous thinking" but a mental illness?

You say that this type of thinking must be met with resistance yet you criticize me for trying to "pick out' good and bad brains 'by my liking.' (I can assure you that I am making an personal argument here...please point to what I have said that made you think that.)

I am simply pointing out that irrational thoughts are not rational thoughts...duh.... and that I don't think we should set up our society to function under laws put in place to specifically cater to irrational thought and/ or procedure based on irrational though...as eventually....irrational thought is replaced by rational thought anyway. Unless you liked the salem witch hunts or keeping women barefoot and pregnant or segregation. To me those things were a detriment to our mental health....they kept people down and in a box. In other words, our humanity suffered.

Mind you...I am not arguing that we should outlaw irrational thought...that would be silly...as we all have irrational thoughts. What I am saying is we have the ability to explained through education why a thought is irrational and why it is not. That way people could start being able to discern and learn. I believe when one learns how to tell they are having an irrational thought it is easier to keep them in check by using reason to calm fear that often accompanies irrational thought.

For example, my mom fears that my oldest son's relationship will not work out because his girlfriend is Chinese and he is (for the most part) caucasian. She does a thing that she calls "planting the seed'. It is where she undermines a relationship by using the power of suggestion to "plant a seed" of doubt in the person who is in love.

So she will begin, "She is a lovely girl...but they are raised different than us. It is hard enough having a relationship with someone who has been raised in the same culture as you...much less someone who comes from a totally different culture. They (the Chinese) don't think like you."

Now this works on my sis very well. At first my sis will argue it down...but slowly and surely she succumbs to the weight of the suggestion in her own mind, and the relationship is doomed from the moment my mom opened her mouth. It is to the point my sis can no longer have any relationship because my mom does it with any guy....no matter who...could be jesus...and my mom would 'plant the seed.' It does not work on me and hopefully it will not work on my son because looks and heritage/culture/race does not mean a hill of beans when it comes to humanity. Humans fall in love...and no matter who it is with love can wane or love can grow stronger.

You can write all you want about how this or that race is less than in whatever food group you want but it doesn't matter...because a vegetable is a thing...it has zero humanity. It does not live and breath. Humans live and breath...the moment you devalue a human by discriminating you take away their humanity and yours...because you make it easy for someone else to be irrational and say..."well fuck that...since he wants to see me discriminated against...then I want to see him discriminated against!"

I could find statistics on 15 to 20 year olds of our world that would compare to your statistics on blacks and it still would not be reason to discriminate against youth because they are human....which is much different than being say...a piece of broccoli.

bobevenson wrote: We are not talking about what's fair, my friend, we are talking about what's proper, and if you don't want to hire a black plumber because you're a member of the Klu Klux Klan, that's your goddamn business and not the government's.

True, and it is also the right of the black plumber to tell the world how he was discriminated against. Probably why they wore those hoods....it's embarrassing to be a racist. Which brings me to irrational behavior again....IF the KKK thought it was rational behavior to be racists...they would have held their heads in pride for the world to see...but like most racists...they didn't. They hid their thoughts in hushed whispers and veils of ignorance.

It is because they know deep down it is wrong. It is their shame and they were embarrassed by it. Oh...and another thing...because of government influence through education....they are a dying breed.