[ExI] Status as human motivator

[Olga Bourlin]

Mike, I was being sarcastic, you know?  I don't believe in "free
passes," especially not the ones written by the largely "pale and
male" crowd among the Extropian libertarians here.  How accommodating
not to have to discuss real-world issues by passing them off as
irrelevant now due to alleged immateriality in the future.  How
special:

"Racial and ethnic prejudice is notably uncommon [among hackers] and
tends to be met with freezing contempt."



On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 10:43 PM, F. C. Moulton <moulton at moulton.com> wrote:
>
> Concerning racism
> On 04/26/2011 09:24 PM, Olga Bourlin wrote:
>> But, hey, here everybody gets a free pass.
>
> Allow me to disagree.  I do not think that anyone should get a free pass
> on issues of race, gender, etc.  I was actually considering how to
> structure a reply on the topic of race but got distracted by a small
> leak in my sink (now fixed) and the other intrusions of life.
>
> Talking about race or gender or similar matters is not easy particularly
> if we each have different conceptual frameworks and different
> backgrounds.   Further we have different modes of discourse when
> discussing certain topics.  Plus there is the problem of how we
> consciously perceive the actions of ourselves and our social group and
> the unconscious and unobserved actions.  I am not accusing anyone of any
> thing and I am not excusing anyone of anything.  I am just urging us to
> be careful in our communications so that we do not express things which
> we later regret.
>
> One the things that I have come to realize over the past couple of years
> is that there is a vocabulary about race and gender as well as
> conceptual framework which is common in some circles but is not common
> in the tech and most other circles that I frequent.  While I do not
> agree in all aspects with the framework I have found it instructive to
> at least be aware of it and to be at least minimally conversant in that
> framework when someone else is using it to discuss a situation.  Just as
> it is useful to have a basic understanding of economics, physics,
> chemistry, philosophy and computers to follow many of the discussions we
> have here.
>
> To get a brief idea of the kind of thing I am referring to I suggest the
> following as a starter:
> http://www.nymbp.org/reference/WhitePrivilege.pdf
> I am not endorsing it whole heartedly but I think it is a reasonably
> short starting piece for those who are interested.  It was written in
> the late 1980s so it is over 20 years old and thus might be a bit
> dated.  But I do recommend it as a starting piece.  I expect that some
> will read and say what rubbish and reject it out of hand as a personal
> insult.   As I said above I am not saying it is totally correct; what I
> am saying is that by reading the document it might be easier to
> communicate on this topic with people who have that view point since
> there will be greater familiarity with the viewpoint.  Of course this
> will lead to meta-level discussions but at least it will be easier to
> find the points of agreement and disagreement.
>
> I suspect that Olga and Keith are really not as much in disagreement as
> it might seem rather I suspect that it is a difference of focus and a
> difference in modes of expression as well as a sincere difference of
> perception of our daily situation.
>
> Sorry about how long this message turned out.  I was trying without
> success to keep it short.
>
> Fred
>
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