> I have. And you know what, civil rights laws did jack all to protect me.
I'm not you, and I can't imagine what your situation is, but I'll bet whatever precious little civil rights laws that are enforced wherever you are has probably has helped you more than you know.
Some people thought pandemic response teams are a waste of money, until a pandemic happened, then they realized perhaps there wasn't a pandemic previously because that team was doing their job.
In the mid 80s, My parents took me to a diner, specifically BOB AND EDITH's on columbia pike, in Arlington VA. During the 80s, Asian Americans were very rare in the Washington DC area, and moreover, there was a trade war going on between the US and Japan. It was fashionable at the time for short fiction to feature dystopian US futures where the active currency was the Yen. We arrived at the diner, and sat at the diner for three hours before leaving without having been served. I'm not sure that I would have preferred being served and had my food spat in, which I know happened, because friends in high school told me stories of that kind of stuff happening in the food services industry.
What else do you want to know? Do you want to know that while working for the federal government, my Father was basically ignored and had zero work friends except for the only Jewish coworker, and so I grew up in the DC area observing Jewish holidays and attending Bar and Bat Mitvahs?
Do you want to know that I was rejected for admission to MIT, despite having gotten AP CS and Calculus scores of 5 in the 9th grade, and placing at the International Science Fair, though someone else at my school (a friend, btw) got lower grades than I did and did get admission to MIT [0]? Do you want to know that my father pressured me to ask a family acquaintance (who happened to be the chair of the House Science and Technology Committee, I carpooled with his kid to elementary school) but I told him not to (and thus don't owe anything to the author of the PATRIOT act?)
Do you want to know that my father was passed over from promotion "no leadership potential" within that same government unit (the Veterans Administration) despite, in his part-time job with the US Navy, he rose to the rank of captain (O6) and in his last stint was in charge of a group of programmers (despite not being one himself) who implemented the US Navy's first fully-digitized inventory database, ahead of schedule and underbudget?
Do you want to know that while working for the VA, he identified that asian american veterans in hawaii, some of whom were medal of honor recipients, disproportionately did not seek the benefits they were entitled to and initiated outreach to them (via his personal desk) make sure they got the care they were entitled to, then was slammed for being racist, despite the fact that his personal outreach also helped black, white, and latino veterans in Hawaii? Is it also ironic that this was brought down by Democrat appointees and he found redress and correction of the situation by a Republican appointee?
Do you want to know that my father identified elder neglect and a dangerous health situation (black mold) at a veterans facility (long before the very public scandals at Walter Reed, btw), and instead of having the issue dealt with he was rubber-roomed into a windowless room in the same veteran's facility, exiled across the campus from the main office where decisions were being made?
Honestly for all of the secondary effects that systemic racism had on my dad, and indirectly, on the stress it put on our relationship, I at least got some solace when a (white, not that it matters) marine corps colonel that I'd never met before got up at his funeral and gave a fire and brimstone speech about how my dad was a victim of low grade corruption and racism in the federal bureaucracy and in was ultimately a hero in the American spirit, in his military job and more importantly in his activism in his civilian job as a bureaucrat.
Look, the primary issue of racism that Asian Americans have to deal with is not the same as the racism that African Americans have to deal with, which is that to get what we want we have to work twice as hard. That's not in the same league as worrying about not coming home because of an asshole cop. But we do face similar situations in the "not being served" at private establishments. And having to work twice as hard, or, for African Americans, "having to code switch", or for both our classes, being taken seriously in leadership roles, is not something any legislation is going to correct.
And forgive me for having low trust that this is a problem that government can solve, since quite literally government can't get its own shit straight.
[0] there's a good chance thinking "oh there weren't any extracurriculars, this guy just looked like every other Asian American candidate" but also I performed on stage with the Washington Shakespeare company and directed/produced a full-length play.
Imagine if in addition to all you also couldn't even live in the place you do, because until recently it was legal to write on a deed of property that said an Asian-American couldn't own that property or live there.
The fact that racism exists doesn't mean that civil rights protections are useless to you.
You've listed an impressive set of adversities associated with being Asian American, some of which I can also relate to as an Asian American, but then the motivation behind your posts becomes clear with:
> Look, the primary issue of racism that Asian Americans have to deal with is not the same as the racism that African Americans have to deal with
and then making the following wholly unsubstantiated statement:
> which is that to get what we want we have to work twice as hard
How do you know how hard an African American has to work to get the the same place as you? How do you know how hard it is to work against the type of racism that is so much greater than that faced by Asian Americans, that it is in your own words "not in the same league".
I'm not saying you've had it easy by any stretch, but your attempt to blur the lines between the experiences of Asian and African Americans in an attempt to cast aspersion on efforts to provide protection under the law for African Americans' human rights - which is what Black Lives Matter is advocating - seems to show that you value "freedom from legislation" more than you value their human rights.
I'm saying we have to work twice as hard as white people, not African Americans.
You're missing my point. I'm saying that I don't trust government to make "black lives matter". There might be a chance that government can self intervene and stem the bloody police abuse against African Americans (I'm also not terribly optimistic about this since cops are abusive to plenty of non African American citizens, too, e.g. Kelly Thomas, albeit at much lower relative rates). In general, if we want black lives to matter, we have to do the hard work in communities and among individuals, and, separately IMO, asymptotically with racial admixing to make the whole thing pointless, not paper it over with legislative interventionism, though at least in the realms where government tries to regulates itself I'm not opposed to giving it the old college try, as they say.
Look what I'm saying is scary right? I'm saying there is no easy "just make racism illegal" solution to racism. Well so let's get to work on it.
> I'm saying we have to work twice as hard as white people, not African Americans.
The point still stands. How do you know you have to work twice as hard as white people? Which white people? Wealthy who got admitted to elite Private universities on legacy? How about working class white people with non college educated parents?
This question does not deny it all that there is workplace discrimination against Asian Americans, and that depending on educational institution, admission may have a higher bar, but your use of blanket hyperbole doesn't help advance a critical discussion of whether or why that should be the case.
> Look what I'm saying is scary right? I'm saying there is no easy "just make racism illegal" solution to racism.
That's a straw man. Nobody is suggesting "making racism illegal", because it is impossible for legislation to achieve. Racism itself is a cultural issue.
What people are suggesting is removing legal protections that allow law enforcement to disproportionately violate the human rights of African Americans. That is very possible. That is exactly how you get started on tackling the problem of racial injustice in policing.
I think if you read what I wrote carefully and with a clear mind, you will see that I very much support efforts by the government to self regulate and reduce violence against African Americans, even if I'm pessimistic that it will work in the case of police violence. Indeed, I've been following the subject for over a decade now and have also put my money where my mouth is on this subject.
It's government regulating private citizen's racism that I abjectly disagree with because I think there will be very bad unintended consequences for a strategy that will not work.
So summarizing, a waiter was terrible 30+ years ago, and your dad ran into tons of politics in the VA, and you didn't get into the school you think you should have in your otherwise extremely privileged upper middle class life that had you interacting with high level government officials as a child, so protected classes were a mistake?
> The great thing about this, is that someone else will realize there is now an under-served market, and create a business to fulfill that need.
Except that every other business can now refuse to serve that business services, because that business serves people nobody else likes.
Given even time and systematic discrimination, that business owner and everyone they serve will be driven to destitution and cease to be a meaningful market segment. They, along with the people they serve can't afford to buy anything anyways.
Should society should just let them die because of the magic of capitalism and (???) rights?
If this type of situation happens, I think these would be symptoms of a much larger issue.
I think there will always be places that exist that help everyone. First in mind are churches, who often will help people even if the people they help have differing views.
Unless, say, they're trans, in which case plenty of those will turn them away.
At some point you will run down all these dead-end alleyways and you will realize that the perfect spheroid does not exist. For your moral sake I'd hope it's sooner than later.
In a your version of a free society, what happens when everyone refuses you EVERY single service because random-reason? They sure as heck aren't murdering, stealing, nor threatening you. They're just refusing to sell you anything because of random-reason, forever. Those services include sales of any food, water, shelter.
Taking it further, what if a majority of businesses gradually decide to be racist and refuse all services just because they can? Not serving minorities wouldn't really impact their bottom line all that much. The minorities would literally die off.
It's easy to talk about "rights" as if they exist in a vacuum i.e. my rights are mine and they do not affect anyone else, ergo my rights should be absolute. They are not, and should not.
Reality is usually a tenuous balance of rights (usually tilted towards the majority) that people participating in civil society share.
> what happens when everyone refuses you EVERY single service
If I'll ever find my self in a situation like this - I'll pack my things and run. I'm not going to be happy in a place like this even if government will force those people to tolerate me.
> if a majority of businesses gradually decide to be racist and refuse all services just because they can
That means anyone entrepreneurial enough will have access to an underserved niche market.
Unfortunately, packing your things and running is basically impossible for most people anywhere close to that situation because borders are enforced and countries will find any excuse possible to avoid granting refugee status. The "you could've slept in a forest, never interacted with anyone, and foraged for plants for survival" kind of excuse that LGBT folks fleeing from countries where they're likely to get murdered get.
An underserved niche market of people who have significantly less money because they can't find work - and your company won't hire them because your other customers who actually have money will boycott you - isn't worth much.
I think your parent comment is neither here nor there on actually leaving, but rather just using hyperbole to demonstrate that this isn't a problem easily fixed with laws.
A food establishment forced to serve you might serve you food that's gone bad, a mechanic might not fully tighten the nuts on your brake pads, or any other variety of horrible things that people could do to harm you while leaving room for plausible deniability.
At least if they can legally deny service to you, you know that the ones serving you aren't a risk to your wellbeing. And to that end, I think it's a bit unfair to suggest that less money means there would be no businesses to serve that group of people. If every restaurant is discriminating, the singular restuarant that serves the less wealthy group would have plenty of business, simply due to the lack of competition.
The "pro-regulation" argument is valid with regard to a less commoditized market though, which is interesting. For example, I wouldn't want the only company that makes a life-saving drug to be able to legally discrimate who they sell it to.
It's a challenging problem and I certainly see both sides. My gut goes to regulations affecting large businesses but not smaller ones. It feels like there are probably some difficult edge-cases within there though.
> At least if they can legally deny service to you, you know that the ones serving you aren't a risk to your wellbeing.
Assuming that refusal-of-service is a sort of relief valve is wildly optimistic.
Overt but relatively passive forms of racism effectively give pervasive comfort and encouragement to those who would engage in more active acts. Indirectly, this is also why "dog whistle" speech is so dangerous.
Per your example, in an environment where simply refusing service to you was common and widespread, you might find that someone who does agree to serve you is doing so just for the opportunity to spit in your food (at best).
> If every restaurant is discriminating, the singular restuarant that serves the less wealthy group would have plenty of business, simply due to the lack of competition.
Depends on how spread out the population is - black folk, maybe (but I don't have a simulation on me to work it out for sure and in what situations that theory might collapse), the subset of trans folk who're still working out how to blend in and not be seen as such in a rural area, not so much.
There's entire countries where some products are just not available commercially due to the lower income meaning nobody wants to put in the effort to work out how to provide them cost-effectively.
> running is basically impossible for most people anywhere close to that situation
AFAIK there is no strict control on US state borders, citizens are allowed to move freely. In many cases running away is as easy as purchasing Greyhound bus ticket. It's great that you deeply care about prosecution of LGBT people in places like Middle East, but it's not really relevant to a discussion of anti discrimination laws in US.
> isn't worth much
You don't have to be big to be successful. This scenario means that you have very low barrier to enter this market and will have to spend close to nothing on advertising. But what's more important - this scenario is unrealistic. If you live in a country where it's possible to pass anti-discrimination laws - you don't need those laws, since majority of your country already finds discrimination unacceptable.
US states share significant amounts of culture, including attitudes towards minority groups, and moving between them doesn't make as much difference as you'd expect if they did not.
The majority of a country finding discrimination unacceptable isn't necessary to pass anti-discrimination laws - just that most people don't care whether someone gets discriminated against or not. If you don't care (or need the job to survive yourself), you'll do whatever your boss tells you to do, and you're hardly going to boycott a store for discriminating against someone else, which means a subset of the population has disproportionate impact.
> I'm not going to be happy in a place like this even if government will force those people to tolerate me.
This is an important point that those in disagreement with these kind of arguments often under-emphasize or ignore entirely. When a government makes it illegal to behave in a racist way, the racists don't go away, and they might even be amplified within those communities in a similar way to the Streisand effect.
If everyone in a community is racist, you can't simply make it illegal to be racist to fix the problem. They have to make that decision on their own - anything else is fundamentally authoritarianism, which doesn't have a great history of long-term success.
In this fictional scenario every single community member has become a racist but the government legislative and enforcement bodies are immune from this trend?
Making something illegal may feel good, but if 100% of the population (by the terms of your scenario) are against it, legislation is hardly going to move the needle.
I would actually suspect that in this kind of society -- the state isn't there to enforce discrimination, but it's also not there to redress it -- there would still be civil rights movements, and protests would probably be pretty vigorous. Businesses that discriminate would find themselves, their customers, and their suppliers put under a great deal of pressure. Sit-ins. Blockades. Rallies painting them, specifically, as villains.
As an aside, the relative absence of that kind of movement in libertarian thought experiments has always bemused me; I think there's a somewhat utopian "everything gets better when you take the state out of the equation" notion at play. Everything doesn't automatically get worse, but it doesn't automatically get better, either. If the society still has discrimination, prejudice, and unequal justice, it's still going to face pressures to reform; most of us would rather see where we live be made "better" in our understanding of the term than be forced to move somewhere else to find that "better," even assuming we have the resources to make such a move.
DMCA was a reaction to the digitization of media. People were sharing pirated media faster than companies could take them down. Some of these people hid behind websites that provided varying degrees of anonymity.
How the tables have turned. Companies are now the ones hiding behind anonymized parties that use bots to scan and take down everything that might be related. In this case it's not even remotely related.
> Is the point that it's different than the rest of the world? I can see that point, but am I missing anything particularly bad about the Fahrenheit scale?
Mainly that it doesn't make any sense. Why was 32F made the magical number for the freezing point of water? The "well known" temperatures like freezing/boiling points of water are based on observations after the scale was invented. The secrets to the F scale died with Fahrenheit and today nobody knows for sure what 0F actually means.
52M km^2 of land on our planet is habitable, after forests, shrubs, rivers and lakes [0]. Total land mass is 149M km^2. So only 1/3 of the world's land is habitable. That's actually ~20M square miles. Your habitable land estimate is already nearly 50% off according to the source I found.
The circle covers 50.2M km^2 (4000^2 * pi). I'm going to assume the 2/3 land quotes are good enough an estimate. That makes the land mass inside the circle 33.5M km^2 (2/3 * 50.2). That means that the circle contains just 22.5% (33.5M/149M) of ALL land mass.
I couldn't find any quick data source on how much land inside the circle is actually habitable. So I'll apply a few ratios:
The idea of everyone repeating themselves over and over again seems to be almost desirable amongst the community. The concept of DRY is essentially dead as far Go is concerned.
Why exactly can the core team not write this tooling? Why should thousands of independent people do it all themselves to varying degrees? It's a laughable situation.
Just taking the parent comment at face value, does it really qualify as racist / slur?
Yes, it invoked a country and a race, followed by unflattering statements. Are those statements factual? Unfair generalisations or politically incorrect?
I'm leaning towards it being politically incorrect.
It's just repeating a tired stereotype. India is becoming a less corrupt country over time as institutional arrangements (not "culture" which is irrelevant to the issue) improve. It's already less corrupt than many of its neighbors.
Saying that certain Indian companies do things is fine; it becomes an unfair generalization when you try to to extrapolate that to being because of their country's culture to be dishonest.
I'm not you, and I can't imagine what your situation is, but I'll bet whatever precious little civil rights laws that are enforced wherever you are has probably has helped you more than you know.
Some people thought pandemic response teams are a waste of money, until a pandemic happened, then they realized perhaps there wasn't a pandemic previously because that team was doing their job.