hahahahaha

@Delta I'd like to have a talk sometime about your abortion position, if you're interested.

Not interested, thanks

@Delta Awesome

Given the fact that essentially everyone (like, almost everyone) is vaccinated as a child, it’s utterly unsurprising that your autistic nephews were members of that group. @Deleted User.

Everyone’s schizophrenic uncles, cancerous grandfathers, mentally retarded cousins, and otherwise physically afflicted relatives were almost certainly all fully vaccinated as well. @Deleted User.

Honestly, can we just put an end to this insufferable buffoonery? There is no link causal link between vaccines and autism - despite the fact that dozens of studies have looked for one. This fanciful notion that there is an exercise in imagination and idiocy of the highest order. What on earth would it mean to “show that vaccines are safe”? How about this: They conclusively and demonstrably provide protection against deadly diseases without resulting in any meaningful complications in >99% of cases - extending life expectancy and helping to ensure against the violent retirement of our species at the hands of a viral agent. How on earth does that not qualify as “safe” to you? The fact that these claims are so pervasive, and that non-vaccinations are on the rise, is an indictment of stupidity on the human race. These vacuous, imbecilic, vexatious, nonsensical claims endanger the lives of others and undermine our robustness as a species. I’m sorry to be so vituperative, but I have little patience for people fanning the flame of infectious disease by frightening gullible parents into denying their newborns one of the greatest advancements in the history of the human race . It’s appalling, repugnant, irresponsible sophistry devoid of reason and rationality and fueled by foolishness and lunacy, and has the inevitable result of endangering the lives of human beings and degrading immunity.

@Deleted UserI am genuinely sorry that any member of your family is experiencing suffering, but you are actively contributing to the probability that more and more children will suffer and die from entirely preventable diseases by engaging in this loathsome nonsense and propping up insane conspiracies and pseudoscientific codswallop that has been debunked time and time again.

Country Music?

@squid No. You’ve moved the goalposts completely. “Systemic racism” is NOT 1 or 2% of the variance caused by racism. That could be any old schmuck in charge of a hiring process somewhere. That isn’t systemic racism.

If any schmuck being a racist in his hiring policies anywhere is now “systemic racism” - than the term has lost all meaning. Systemic racism cannot be “any racism, anywhere”. That’s insane. That’s not what the word means, and you know that. This is why I accused you of moving the goalposts, quite frankly.

To say that “unless 100% of the bias is explained by something else” that “that’s the only way this isn’t evidence of systemic racism” is just false.

Again, if its 1 or 2% of the variance, that isn’t “system wide”. That could be any idiot anywhere. I’ll agree with you that some asshole somewhere isn’t hiring black people. I deny that such a thing qualifies as systemic racism, “system-wide” racism, or anything of the sort. I’m sure that someone somewhere got fired for being female last year, and so, some % of last year’s layoffs is explained by sexism. That isn’t “systemic sexism” or “system wide-sexism”. Sure, I’ll agree that you could probably explain some of the variance in that study via racism. But now the goal-posts have moved from “this study shows system-wide, systemic racism” to “there’s probably some racism tangled up in here, somewhere” - and we need to point out the fact that that’s where we are at this point in the discussion.

Oh no no no. No you don’t. This isn’t about labels - this is about the *the actual thing* the label points to. Instances of racism and systemic racism aren’t the same - that’s why we were arguing about whether there is systemic racism, when we all agree that there exists some racism somewhere. Because we all know that we are talking about two distinct *concepts*. YOU adduced that study specifically as evidence for “systemic racism”. The entire subsequent argument revolved around that point. Now that you’ve realized there’s all sorts of confounding variables in there, you are trying to cheekily change the thing you were trying to establish from “system wide racism” to “some racism tangled up in there*, and then accuse ME of being overly concerned with language. Poppycock. We were talking about whether or not their is system wide racism - call it Shlagenflarm if you’d like. That’s the thing we are arguing about. I’m telling you that 1-2% of the variance doesn’t qualify as that thing that you very clearly claimed it did. This is an argument about *concepts* not labels.

This is analogous to the difference between “some racist cop shot some black person” and “cops are racist across the US and are more likely to shoot black people.” Those are different claims - *substantively* different claims. One is a claim about an observation, or a few observations, and the other is a claim about a population statistic. You made a claim about a population statistic - that’s what *systemic racism* is, and you know that. Now you are conflating it with the observational claim and accusing me of arguing semantics. This isn’t semantics - these are wildly distinct concepts.

A few racist cities in Alabama and Louisiana could make up that 1-2%. - and every other employer in the US could still be color blind. The concept of system wide racism would not apply in this case, and that’s why your claim here: *the only way the results of the study do not imply some level of systemic racism, is if the results are explained 100% by something else. This is fact* - is utter codswallop.

@Delta I was reading it haha

Indeed @squid nothing personal whatsoever, but this is the *war* of ideas....not the gentle, flirtatious pillow-fight of ideas, so...yanno.

@squid. Honestly, I’d thought you’d defined systemic racism already. Check your post at 23:30 where you defined what you meant by systemic. System wide. Not confined to any locality. If 95% of a variable’ s coefficient is actually explained in terms of an omitted variable “classism”, it’s easy to imagine how 5% of the variance could be coming from one or two regions...or just a spurious correlation lacking statistical significance at that point.

@therealdandan By ‘white collar’ do you mean civil? If it’s a ‘white collar’ criminal case, the burden of proof is still going to be beyond reasonable doubt.