+56 It's bullshit that if you have two viable options, one disadvantaging a majority demographic and one disadvantaging a minority demographic, you have to disadvantage the majority, causing problems for many more people, or be labelled as discriminatory, amirite?

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Are you referring to positive discrimination?

by Anonymous 11 years ago

No. If you choose the 'anti-minority' option, you will be labelled as discriminatory against them.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

only if your motivation can be proved to be so

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Sadly, this sort of thing usually follows the guilty until proven innocent model, and its impossible to PROVE innocence here. Especially when most of the minority's arguments (in the cases in which this post applies) are bitching about increased efficiency.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

OK i'm still not sure i'm totally with you on this - can you give me a for instance?

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Okay... lets say in the US there is a debilitating viral outbreak. Two cures are found that work by altering a certain gene. One alters a gene only Whites have, and the other alters a gene only Blacks have. There are a hundred and fifty million Whites and fifty million Blacks (for the sake of simplicity, we assume there are only two races) The cures are highly reactive to one another, so only one can be released or else everyone will develop cancer due to airborne particles. A utilitarian would release the cure for Whites, but he would probably be labelled a racist by mathematically-impaired people. There is a better example involving the O Level exams, but it's very hard to explain fully.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

This is a rather extreme example - but I guess it illustrates the point...but it's hard to judge with such an unrealistic for instance.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Care to give an example that has actually happened? The disease/gene thing is a little too out there.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Why does it matter if it actually happened? The point of an example is to demonstrate a point, that's what they did.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Because if there is no real life or plausible examples, what's the point of making the point?

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Just because they used an example that didn't happen doesn't mean there are no real life examples. And because this is an opinion website for people to share ideas. How about this as an example: people expect Americans to learn Spanish but if you expect someone who came from Mexico to speak English you're labeled as a racist. It's really not that hard to apply hypotheticas to real life.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

You see, I couldn't think of any examples on my own for some reason. I'm not really exposed to too much of that sort if thing, so I needed a real life example to understand. One unlikely "what if" just doesn't cut it, because anything can be justified with a "what if" statement if the statement doesn't have to be possible.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

That came out really bitchy I didn't mean it to, I'm sorry

by Anonymous 11 years ago

This is when a compromise is used! It's exactly like the great compromise. There is the minority ( the small state of New Jersey ) and the majority, the large state of Virginia.

by Anonymous 11 years ago