Discrimination is good

[Greatest I Am]

I have debated discrimination from both sdes and one of my arguements even I don't like to answer but I eventualy do.
In a sence answering positively or negatively can be correct. One is more correct than the other.
Have Fun

You find yourself on the outside of a space ship.
Two space people are floating away by accident and you can only save the life of one.
They are the same distace away and all other conditions are identical.
Except that one of the space people is of the same race as you. The other is not.

Which one will you save, remembering that all other conditions are the same.

Regards
DL

P.S.
I did not use the polling function because I would like a brief explanation for your decision with your reply.

[SpikedLillac]

I have debated discrimination from both sdes and one of my arguements even I don't like to answer but I eventualy do.
In a sence answering positively or negatively can be correct. One is more correct than the other.
Have Fun

You find yourself on the outside of a space ship.
Two space people are floating away by accident and you can only save the life of one.
They are the same distace away and all other conditions are identical.
Except that one of the space people is of the same race as you. The other is not.

Which one will you save, remembering that all other conditions are the same.

Regards
DL

P.S.
I did not use the polling function because I would like a brief explanation for your decision with your reply.

I don't know why race is the main factor in your post. We live in a society that pushes for equal rights for all people. Its not like we're living in civil war times when african americans were treated like property or when they can only use "black restrooms" or "black restuarants." If all conditions are the same except for race I would have to choose the one on the right because my right arm is stronger than my left.

[ManBearPig]

This question is impossible to answer truthfully because the hypothetical premises are so wildly unimaginable.

Even so, if someone answered "the same race as me", are you using that do demonstrate that, as your subject says, "discrimination is good"?!?

[Greatest I Am]

All I am saying is that we should recognize that it is a natural tendency and quite alright to chose our own peer group over others. This applies to any peer group. Your team, your town, your political party etc.
You can chose positive discrimination as a good without guilt.
Equal rights is good but if it interferes with my ability to chose my friends and family or peers to favor others then it becomes evil.

Regards
DL

[Furrowed Brow]

All I am saying is that we should recognize that it is a natural tendency and quite alright to chose our own peer group over others. This applies to any peer group. Your team, your town, your political party etc.
You can chose positive discrimination as a good without guilt.
Equal rights is good but if it interferes with my ability to chose my friends and family or peers to favor others then it becomes evil.

Regards
DL

But what is your peer group? I am white. So is my son. I have no siblings but I regard my six cousins as near as damn as such. Three have either married or chosen a life partner, or had children with afro-caribbeans. I regard each as a member of my family and their children equally so. As a family we go from freckles, blond and blue eyed, coffee and dark skinned. But frankly I don't usually think of us in those terms.

A recent statistic I read only this week has mixed race (afro-caribbean/white) as the fastest growing minority group in the UK. My extended family give evidence to that trend. Within three generations we have gone from being white to 50% mixed race.

[upallnite]

I wouldn't think about it. I would just react and save whoever I save. I would not know that everything else was equal. That doesn't even matter. And by saving time this way I might be able to try to save them both.

If I sat their trying to weigh the options or calculating the time it would take to save one of them then I am a jerk regardless of who I save.

Have you ever had to choose who lives and who might die? It is a quick (on the fly) decision. If you stop to think about it you lose everything.


SGT. USMC

[The Persnickety Platypus]

All I am saying is that we should recognize that it is a natural tendency and quite alright to chose our own peer group over others. This applies to any peer group. Your team, your town, your political party etc.

I have been thinking about this same thing lately. The more I think about it, the more that discrimination seems to fulfill a crucial role in the survival of an animal species.



The evolutionary motive for every organism on the planet is to pass on it's genes. This is a selfish, egotistical motive- and rightly so, for this is the engine that makes life on earth possible. Were it not for the ego-centric competition that takes place amoung populations, life on earth would never have progressed beyond the single-celled amoeba.

Competition is essential in the animal world, for it not only ensures that the strongest survive, but also gives the individual organism an incentive to better itself. An animal community that has no aspect of competition will stagnate, and the individuals of this community will perish when another species fighting for survival comes along.

Humans have always had to compete. The thing to consider in terms of this debate is the scale upon which such competition takes place.

Original humans, by all indications, were solitary creatures, competing on a one on one basis. The birth of human society came about when certain humans began to seek an advantage by banding together into units. This is where discrimination comes in. A group of humans has an obvious advantage over a single person, but only if the individuals of this group show favoritism for the members of their respective clan. By aiding and cooperating with members of ones own group, the group has a better chance at gaining an advantage over outside individuals/groups, leaving the members of this group to more easily fulfil their central motive (self-propagation).

Over time, these groups have gotten bigger. For example, clan A, who might have once discriminated against clan B, may now seek to assimilate the members of clan B in order to gain an advantage over clan C. Under this principle, human society has gone from an individual basis, to a family basis, to groups, to communities, to tribes, and finally to nations.

I don't expect many people to greet a viewpoint such as this with much fanfare, given the selfish, egocentric nature that it describes. "Selfishness" and "Egotism" are words that have been engrained into us since youth as having nothing but negative connotations. I would argue that they are in fact quite moral, applied within reason.

While ruthless competition may seem grisly on the surface, I believe that the scenario that I have described has very rosy implications for the future of human society. The trend over the centuries is that tolerant societys typically win out, and social structures have become bigger and bigger over time. What sort of social structure is both bigger and more tolerant than the current human society unit (the nation-state)? A unified global state.

It is all ready happening. The European Union and United Nations are two prime examples of nations cooperating towards similar goals. Thanks to Globalization and mushrooming technological capability, companies are now collaborating with individuals on seperate continents, and many of my own friends are not even US citizens. This was unheard of in past decades. Cooperation is becomming more and more advantageous to competing individuals. Discrimination is becomming a concept of the past. National boundaries are becomming obsolete.



I would conclude that to show favoritism to members of one's own peer group is indeed both natural and morally acceptable. However, it is becomming less and less necessary. The time to start giving up old partialities is now.

[The Persnickety Platypus]

I suppose I should put the principle in practice...


In answer to your space scenario, the person who would recieve my help would be the person best suited to help me get home alive. The motive behind my choice is a selfish one, as nature intended.

Since race would not likely play a factor in my choice, I cannot answer the question any further than that.

I would like to note that those backwoods rednecks of our current day and age (those who would make race a factor in their decision) have all but died out. Case in point, membership to the KKK used to guarantee one a free ride into an elected office. Now even the slightest hint of racism will destroy a man's political aspirations (RIP George Allen).

In line with my earlier post, discrimination applied in the wrong place and setting can destroy ones selfish aspirations just as easily as serving as a survival tactic. It appears that racists will not survive natural selection much longer.

[methylatedghosts]

I would flip a coin.

Wouldn't work.....

You'd be dead before the coin got back to you (remember, you're in space.....) :p

And presumably, so would the person you'd have to save.

Unless you got someone on earth to flip the coin for you - but then they might tell you heads or tails according to who they want saved. So I think we might have a dilemma with flipping coins....

Random number generator? To generate a number less than 10, anything above 5 is the white guy, less than, and its the black guy. hmmmm

[Goat]

I would flip a coin.

Wouldn't work.....

You'd be dead before the coin got back to you (remember, you're in space.....) :p

And presumably, so would the person you'd have to save.

Unless you got someone on earth to flip the coin for you - but then they might tell you heads or tails according to who they want saved. So I think we might have a dilemma with flipping coins....

Random number generator? To generate a number less than 10, anything above 5 is the white guy, less than, and its the black guy. hmmmm

Why are you assuming that the two people are 'black and white'. It could be black and hindu, or back and arabic, or black and asian. or white and native american,
or any one of various variations.

[methylatedghosts]

I would flip a coin.

Wouldn't work.....

You'd be dead before the coin got back to you (remember, you're in space.....) :p

And presumably, so would the person you'd have to save.

Unless you got someone on earth to flip the coin for you - but then they might tell you heads or tails according to who they want saved. So I think we might have a dilemma with flipping coins....

Random number generator? To generate a number less than 10, anything above 5 is the white guy, less than, and its the black guy. hmmmm

Why are you assuming that the two people are 'black and white'. It could be black and hindu, or back and arabic, or black and asian. or white and native american,
or any one of various variations.

Indeed it could have. But I wasn't assuming. I was... suggesting.

I didn't mean anything by it