[ExI] Status as human motivator

[Olga Bourlin]

On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 11:15 PM, Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 10:56 PM, Olga Bourlin <olga.bourlin at gmail.com> wrote:

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

> Do you recognize where this comes from or how old it is?

I know!  I know!  This comes from the Elephant in the Living Room, and
it's as old as time immemorial.


On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 11:15 PM, Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 10:56 PM, Olga Bourlin <olga.bourlin at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 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
>
> I have not met more than a few, I think only 3 of the current posters.
>  You could not get me to even say what species they are for sure.  Do
> you know they are "pale and male"?  Or could some of the be of
> intermediate gender, dark green and lots of tentacles?  Or AIs
> hopelessly trapped in 386 computers running under MS DOS 5.0?
>
>> among the Extropian libertarians here.  How accommodating
>> not to have to discuss real-world issues
>
> I happen to be rather up on a lot of "real-world" issues.  Have you
> ever butchered a hog?  Heated a house with wood?  Testified before
> Congress?  Put a cryonics patient on cardiac bypass?
>
>> 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."
>
> Do you recognize where this comes from or how old it is?
>
> Keith
>
>> 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
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> extropy-chat mailing list
>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>>>
>>
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