[kenberg]

 Gilithin, on 2021-October-12, 14:46, said:

There is plenty of evidence to suggest that Neanderthals got a pretty unfair press and are much closer to homo sapiens in many ways than was originally thought. Having multiple Neanderthal genes is nothing weird considering the level of interbreeding that is now assumed to have taken place.

One thing I am interested in though - to my knowledge, I cannot recall any time that you have called out another poster for, well, anything. Without mentioning any names, are there any posters that you personally think have racist tendencies? or sexist? or religious intolerance or any kind? And are there any posters that you prefer to avoid? I see that you are not fond of conflict and avoid such but surely you must have developed some private opinions in the many years you have been posting, right?

I'll get started. I rarely call people names, I try hard not to put people in labeled boxes.

I think that in discussions, the most important thing is to present my own thoughts as clearly as possible. That's different from saying it is important to persuade someone to come around to my way of thinking. That's for them to decide.

Do I ever get upset with people? Yes. A friend is flying off to Nebraska for the funeral of her nephew. He died of covid. He has a wife, now a widow, and some kids. They also had covid. He was opposed to getting the vaccine. I got a bit emotional about this earlier today and was saying to Becky that the irresponsibility of this is just incomprehensible to me. He has a wife and kids and for some political or ideological reason he would not protect himself. But my anger is fueled by the total irresponsibility of his actions. Of course opinions and actions are at least loosely linked, but I mostly get fired up over actions.

Do I think some people are racists? A story, I've told it before. I grew up in the 40s and 50s in St. Paul. Very white, at least my neighborhood, I had no black friends. When I got to the University of Minnesota there were more options. I was often aware of someone being Black, or Asian. Or French, for that matter. It was all new. I worried about this awareness, thinking maybe it did not speak well of me. Anyway, I was playing chess in a coffeehouse (The Ten O'Clock Scholar) and this Black guy was standing behind me, commenting on the wisdom, or lack thereof, of my every move. After a bit I turned to him and said, not in a kind voice, "Look, you can play the winner. Until then shut up". I happily realized later that this was exactly the reaction I would have had if he had been a White guy standing behind me commenting on my moves. So I passed a test in my own mind. Still, I have never dated a Black woman. I have no objection to inter-racial dating or marriage, but I have never dated a Black woman. And in high school a friend was dating a Japanese girl. I was friends with her as well. After they broke up she made it pretty clear that any thoughts I might have about moving beyond friendship would be welcome. I never took her up on it. So am I a racist? Maybe. Not a severe one I think. But I try to work on myself rather than categorize others.

I said I thought the issues you raised are important. Not because I am important but because I think I am representative. I am like a lot of other people. One of my traits is that I don't like being called names. Probably a common trait. We need to spend most of our fault finding efforts on ourselves. You ask "And are there any posters that you prefer to avoid? ". Well, people who spend a lot of time explaining how they are morally superior to everyone else, they would certainly be high on any list of people to avoid.

I might return to this. I have a thought or two, here and there, about where the Democratic Party seems inclined to shoot itself in the foot.

[Winstonm]

I don't know about anyone else but I cannot tolerate the non-box-putters.

My best friend in college hailed from Kamakura, Japan. His name was Nobuho Hirooka. In Norman, my friends were an esoteric group that included the Italian owner of a pizza restaurant, a student from Iran, and a university policeman who was white. I had little chance for contacts with African Americans although I did try to get a date with a girl I met at the university - she, with good sense, declined.

I just never looked at races as anything other than equals. I could tell they didn't look like me but that never mattered. I still don't understand why it matters to some people.

[pilowsky]

I don't think it matters too much what the people writing on this forum think about racism.
We aren't affected by it.

I have trouble understanding the need for separate competitions (in mind games) for people that self-identify as female.

Yet there still seems to be a need for the American Bridge Association.

Quote

In 1967, the American Contract Bridge League (ACBL) removed the final obstacle to ACBL membership for African-Americans when it included in its by-laws that no person shall be denied membership because of race, color, or creed.[1]Historically, many states, particularly in the South, had laws that made card-playing between blacks and whites illegal.. Some of those were: [1] Texas, [2] Tennessee, [3] Mississippi,[4], Alabama, [5] and Huntsville, Alabama.[6] The ABA remains a predominantly, but not exclusively, black organization. It holds two national tournaments each year. The ABA has its own masterpoints system—similar to but different from the ACBL masterpoints system. https://ababridge.org/about-aba

I'll be a lot more impressed that there is a commitment to equality when Bridge is played as a single competition.
Discrimination is everywhere but we all still engage in it and tolerate it.

I don't think people suffering from discrimination anywhere are much concerned about the nuanced claims or feelings of a bunch of old white males (myself included).

That's isn't the racism that is systemically preventing some people from fully participating in a so-called equal society.

The preamble in the US D of I reads

Quote

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security

This preamble is often held up as evidence that the "Founders" thought that "all men were equal".
When read in context with the whole paragraph it is clear that they meant "all men are equal but some are more equal than others".
At the time it is apparent that white being = to black was not what they had in mind. Americans being = to British yes.
Black people didn't enter into the equation.

Quote

In his 1775 treatise, Taxation No Tyranny, British author Dr. Samuel Johnson rhetorically asked, "How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?" The paradox that Dr. Johnson called out in 1775, is a question Americans continue to grapple with to this day—the institution slavery. The institution of slavery had been a part of American society for more than 150 years when the Revolutionary War began in 1775. Slavery existed, and was protected by law, in all 13 American colonies when they declared their independence from Great Britain in 1776. https://www.battlefi...s-views-slavery

[Gilithin]

 pilowsky, on 2021-October-12, 23:33, said:

This preamble is often held up as evidence that the "Founders" thought that "all men were equal".
When read in context with the whole paragraph it is clear that they meant "all men are equal but some are more equal than others".
At the time it is apparent that white being = to black was not what they had in mind. Americans being = to British yes.
Black people didn't enter into the equation.[/font][/size]

You are not entirely correct in this. The topic of slavery in combination with the "all men are created equal" text was brought up well before the DoI was passed. Jefferson, whose original draft used the phrase "all men are created equal & independant, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent & inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness", and Franklin, who changed this to the final wording, knew where this would eventually lead. That Congress did not is shown by another clause that was in the original draft but was voted out before signing:

Quote

he has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it's most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. this piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce: and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, & murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them; thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.

So while there is certainly criticism to be thrown at many actors from that time, I think it is unfair to include TJ in the larger part of that, slave owner or not. Now move the discussion onto the subject of sexism in the DoI and we can have a completely different discussion...

[kenberg]

Sexism in the DOI? So I googled DOI and it seems to be either Digital Object Identifier or Department of Interior.

Otherwise put, there are both practical issues and theoretical issues. Most people, including me, are not prepared to discuss sexism in either version of DOI.Still, we might have opinions.

I sort of, but not completely, agree with Pilowsky "I don't think people suffering from discrimination anywhere are much concerned about the nuanced claims or feelings of a bunch of old white males ". Opinions can have consequences, but yeah, they are probably not paying rapt attention to my every thought.


Earlier, when discussing vaccine mandates, I mentioned religious objections to injections. I'll say a bit more. If a hospital administrator tells the staff "If you want to continue working here you must get a covid vaccination before the end of next week" and someone replies "My religion forbids it" I would like it if the views of the hospital administrator would prevail. To me, this is another simple matter. If God tells you you should not get a shot, then fine, don't get a shot, but we have a practical problem regarding health and the practical solution is that you either get vaccinated or we terminate your employment". Those who want to argue about the Bill of Rights and religious freedom can argue, but the practical nature takes precedence as far as I am concerned.


I put a fair amount of time and effort from age 14 to about age 19 thinking about religion. I finally decided I would stop thinking about it, I would live s I thought right and let others live as they thought right, but when practical problems come up we would look for practical solutions.


That spills over to race issues and gender issues. We probably all believe in equality, who would say "I don't favor equality" but then what do we mean, exactly? I went to the University of Minnesota, Department of Technology first in EE, then I changed to Phys, then I changed to Math. I started in EE because I was told that since I am a boy and since I am interested in Math I should go into engineering. I did not know there was such a thing as a Math major so I looked through the engineering courses to find the one that required the most Math. There were very few young women in my classes. That has greatly changed, and I am very glad that it has. Still, Fermat's Last Theorem was proved by a man (with help from another man and built on the work of other men) and the Poincare Conjecture for n=3 was proved by a man. And Fermat and Poincare were men. Should we now set as a goal that in the future half of all famous conjectures will be solved by women? It would be great if that were to happen but I will not be staying awake nights figuring how we should make it happen. There are many projects in life that are worth doing, and it is good for both individuals and society if people are free to choose. As I have mentioned before, after my daughter got an A in Calc 1 I encouraged her to take Calc 2. Her reply was "I wanted to prove to some people that I could do this, now I will be doing what I want". Bravo.




People get to choose. That's critical. I have limited interest in exploring how these choices do or do not demonstrate equality. My wife is much better at crossword puzzles than I am. She does a lot more crossword puzzles than I do. What can we deduce from that? Which is cause, which is effect? I don't care.

[Winstonm]

 kenberg, on 2021-October-13, 10:06, said:

Sexism in the DOI? So I googled DOI and it seems to be either Digital Object Identifier or Department of Interior.

Otherwise put, there are both practical issues and theoretical issues. Most people, including me, are not prepared to discuss sexism in either version of DOI.Still, we might have opinions.

I sort of, but not completely, agree with Pilowsky "I don't think people suffering from discrimination anywhere are much concerned about the nuanced claims or feelings of a bunch of old white males ". Opinions can have consequences, but yeah, they are probably not paying rapt attention to my every thought.

Earlier, when discussing vaccine mandates, I mentioned religious objections to injections. I'll say a bit more. If a hospital administrator tells the staff "If you want to continue working here you must get a covid vaccination before the end of next week" and someone replies "My religion forbids it" I would like it if the views of the hospital administrator would prevail. To me, this is another simple matter. If God tells you you should not get a shot, then fine, don't get a shot, but we have a practical problem regarding health and the practical solution is that you either get vaccinated or we terminate your employment". Those who want to argue about the Bill of Rights and religious freedom can argue, but the practical nature takes precedence as far as I am concerned.

I put a fair amount of time and effort from age 14 to about age 19 thinking about religion. I finally decided I would stop thinking about it, I would live s I thought right and let others live as they thought right, but when practical problems come up we would look for practical solutions.

That spills over to race issues and gender issues. We probably all believe in equality, who would say "I don't favor equality" but then what do we mean, exactly? I went to the University of Minnesota, Department of Technology first in EE, then I changed to Phys, then I changed to Math. I started in EE because I was told that since I am a boy and since I am interested in Math I should go into engineering. I did not know there was such a thing as a Math major so I looked through the engineering courses to find the one that required the most Math. There were very few young women in my classes. That has greatly changed, and I am very glad that it has. Still, Fermat's Last Theorem was proved by a man (with help from another man and built on the work of other men) and the Poincare Conjecture for n=3 was proved by a man. And Fermat and Poincare were men. Should we now set as a goal that in the future half of all famous conjectures will be solved by women? It would be great if that were to happen but I will not be staying awake nights figuring how we should make it happen. There are many projects in life that are worth doing, and it is good for both individuals and society if people are free to choose. As I have mentioned before, after my daughter got an A in Calc 1 I encouraged her to take Calc 2. Her reply was "I wanted to prove to some people that I could do this, now I will be doing what I want". Bravo.


People get to choose. That's critical. I have limited interest in exploring how these choices do or do not demonstrate equality. My wife is much better at crossword puzzles than I am. She does a lot more crossword puzzles than I do. What can we deduce from that? Which is cause, which is effect? I don't care.

Just curious, Ken, but would it surprise you to find that many people were nowhere near as mature in thought processes as you were in your teenage years?

[kenberg]

 Winstonm, on 2021-October-13, 13:13, said:

Just curious, Ken, but would it surprise you to find that many people were nowhere near as mature in thought processes as you were in your teenage years?

There is no simple answer. Psychologists tell us that girls mature more quickly than boys and that matches my own experience. Karen's boyfriend Wes told me I should really ask JudyM out, a friend of Karen's. Sounded promising so I took Judy to see The High and the Mighty. After the movie I explained about all the errors in judgment John Wayne, the pilot in the movie, had made. For some reason she never went out with me again. Later another girl that I was just starting to date suggested that we see the French version of Lady Chatterly's Lover. I forget what I actually chose. I can be seriously oblivious.Still true.

I was given considerable freedom from a fairly young age. It was a different era. A list of mistakes I have made would be long.

So in some things yes, I was mature. In others much less so.

St.Paul was a fine place to grow up, both for places to bike to when I was 10 and for educational opportunities when I was 16. Everyone should be so lucky.

Anyway, thanks for the comment. but the truth about my maturity, or lack of it, is more complicated.

[Chas_P]

 Winstonm, on 2021-October-13, 13:13, said:

Just curious, Ken, but would it surprise you to find that many people were nowhere near as mature in thought processes as you were in your teenage years?

I think Ken is a lot like Forrest Gump in reverse. He IS a smart man. But he still knows what love is.

[kenberg]

 Chas_P, on 2021-October-13, 18:43, said:

I think Ken is a lot like Forrest Gump in reverse. He IS a smart man. But he still knows what love is.

Forrest Gump? Me? Take that back or my seconds will be calling on you to arrange for a duel!

[kenberg]

I did not intend to be quite so much the focus of discussion. Maybe I can change that. I looked up the HC speech where she spoke of the basket of deplorables. There was a second part that gets forgotten:

[quote]
Now, some of those folks — they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America. But the other basket — and I know this because I see friends from all over America here — I see friends from Florida and Georgia and South Carolina and Texas — as well as, you know, New York and California — but that other basket of people are people who feel that the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they're just desperate for change. It doesn't really even matter where it comes from. They don't buy everything he says, but he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They won't wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroin, feel like they're in a dead-end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well.[/color]
[ /quote]

I ask: How are we doing with that? This is the sort of thing I had in mind with my responses to gilithin.

[Winstonm]

As for the "deplorables", this comment I made on another site I think sums it up:

Quote

....They each seem to be a version of Harvey Updyke, Jr., the rabid and criminal Alabama football fan who plotted, planned, staked out, and then poisoned two famous oak trees at Toomer’s Corner at Auburn University because he wanted Auburn fans to hate him as much as he hated them.

And that explains the Trump supporters. There is no great underlying dogma. They’re just pissed they lost the game.

As for the other 50%, I think we are making headway. It gets frustrating, though, as people have to change their views themselves and do it in their own time. It is so clear to us that it is frustrating someone else doesn't see it as clearly - but they obviously don't. We have to plough ahead - and this is the great strength of Biden, the knowledge that nothing will be done quickly, that only a steady speed with steady pressure will alter the course without creating damaging waves.

[Chas_P]

 kenberg, on 2021-October-14, 07:24, said:

Forrest Gump? Me? Take that back or my seconds will be calling on you to arrange for a duel!

Please notice I said "in reverse". Forrest said, "I'm not a smart man." I said Ken IS a smart man. I have the greatest admiration for intelligence. I have the greatest derision for arrogance. Here's what I was referring to.

[kenberg]

 Chas_P, on 2021-October-14, 17:45, said:

Please notice I said "in reverse". Forrest said, "I'm not a smart man." I said Ken IS a smart man. I have the greatest admiration for intelligence. I have the greatest derision for arrogance. Here's what I was referring to.

I had always hoped to go through life without "Ken Berg" and "Forrest Gump" appearing in the same sentence. You can gather that it was not a favorite movie.

But I was joking about the duel.

I think.

[Chas_P]

 kenberg, on 2021-October-14, 18:01, said:

I had always hoped to go through life without "Ken Berg" and "Forrest Gump" appearing in the same sentence. You can gather that it was not a favorite movie.

But I was joking about the duel.

I think.

Just know that it was intended as admiration, not as derision.

I'm not much for duels anymore either. I got rid of some of my pistols.

[y66]

Quote

“In a new statement, former President Trump is suggesting that unless the issue of election fraud is addressed, Republicans should not vote in 2024. Democrats heard and were like, ‘Let’s get this guy back on Twitter.’” — JIMMY FALLON

[kenberg]

Quote

“In a new statement, former President Trump is suggesting that unless the issue of election fraud is addressed, Republicans should not vote in 2024. Democrats heard and were like, ‘Let’s get this guy back on Twitter.’” — JIMMY FALLON

Apparently what Trump actually said was

Quote

“If we don’t solve the Presidential Election Fraud of 2020 (which we have thoroughly and conclusively documented),” Trump’s statement read, “Republicans will not be voting in ‘22 or ‘24. It is the single most important thing for Republicans to do.”

The difference being that Trump said "will not" rather than "should not". It's not a trivial difference. "should not" suggests he will try to persuade them, "will not" suggests they don't need persuasion, this is where they already are. They are so focused on the false claims of fraud that if the matter isn't settled in their favor then they will just give up on voting. Basically he is saying that his supporters are insane. Who knows what else they might do? Maybe they are so crazy that they would even refuse to be vaccinated. Oh. Yeah. I guess that's a settled issue. Or perhaps physically attack Congress, try to hunt down Mike Pence for his role in certifying the election. Nah, they couldn't be that crazy.

[Winstonm]

 kenberg, on 2021-October-15, 08:38, said:

[/size][/color]

Apparently what Trump actually said was
[/font]

The difference being that Trump said "will not" rather than "should not". It's not a trivial difference. "should not" suggests he will try to persuade them, "will not" suggests they don't need persuasion, this is where they already are. They are so focused on the false claims of fraud that if the matter isn't settled in their favor then they will just give up on voting. Basically he is saying that his supporters are insane. Who knows what else they might do? Maybe they are so crazy that they would even refuse to be vaccinated. Oh. Yeah. I guess that's a settled issue. Or perhaps physically attack Congress, try to hunt down Mike Pence for his role in certifying the election. Nah, they couldn't be that crazy.

Actually, I think he was as usual fumbling his thoughts and what he was trying to say was Republicans' votes won't be counted due to cheating.

The "single most important thing" was meant to be correcting the 2020 fraud. It was not about voting in 22 and 24.

When you remove the superfluous, it becomes obvious what he meant:

Quote

If we don’t solve the Presidential Election Fraud of 2020, Republicans will not be voting in ‘22 or ‘24. It is the single most important thing for Republicans to do.

As usual, all he was doing was peddling his Big Lie that the last election was stolen. That's all he knows to do. He keeps trying to keep all the Harvey Updykes riled up enough to poison the tree of democracy. And he does so by claiming the referees and the Auburn Tigers Democrats conspired to steal the game.

[y66]

Paul Krugman said:

So what should guide policy? I’d suggest that we heed the advice of Oliver Cromwell: “I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.” where "you" includes himself apparently.

Edit: https://messaging-cu...896ed87b2d9c72a

Good grief. It seems everyone is sucking up to the man from Minnesota these days.

[kenberg]

 y66, on 2021-October-15, 10:38, said:

Good grief. It seems everyone is sucking up to the man from Minnesota these days.

You betcha. I'm goin fishin in the crick.

[Winstonm]

 kenberg, on 2021-October-15, 10:46, said:

You betcha. I'm goin fishin in the crick.

I’m not sure I agree a hundred percent with your police work there, Lou.