Posted: Sep 16, 2012 9:31 am
Dickens wrote:Mr.Samsa wrote: Ignoring the significant practical and ethical issues with profiling, the problem is that the people carrying out the practice are using your irrelevant criteria (i.e. skin colour) instead of socioeconomic status. If people were targeted on the basis of their income level, then it would still be ethically horrific, but at least they'd have some justification for their action -
Is their income printed on their foreheads?
It could be - if profiling was such a good idea, then surely you'd support tattooing foreheads? If not, then the information could be easily made accessible to, for example, security at airports to refine their searches before boarding.
I'll take your lack of argument as agreement with my position.
Dickens wrote:Mr.Samsa wrote:Also, going by your logic, there's no need to target blacks or SES level, as the best indicator we have of whether someone will be a criminal is whether they are male - as men, of course, are over 10 times more likely to be murderers, rapists, thieves, etc. Why did you bring up the example of black crime rates, when male crime rates are far higher and more obvious?
What are you suggesting to do? To arrest all men? Who will do it? You and Regina? Of course you will round up 90% of the murderers but also half of the population. You will do 2 times better than by doing random arrests. While if you arrest only black men you will do 7 times better than random.
You don't need to arrest them, just harass them and profile them - like you were suggesting we do with black people. If you're suggesting that we actually just arrest all black people, then well, that's pretty fucking insane even given the ridiculous argument we're having about profiling people based on vague generalisations.
But let's look at the situation honestly. Why is it so abhorrent and absurd to you that we target the entire group of 'men'? Because you belong to that group. Good to see your position is based on purely objective standards, with no hint of bigotry or racism.
Dickens wrote:And, of course, I did mention the men - women murder rate difference when I wrote that black - white murder rate difference is comparable.
Comparable? You're twice as successful by profiling men.
Dickens wrote:I didn't drop anything. Check out my post about South Africa.Mr.Samsa wrote: It's almost as if you were indicating that black people are inherently more likely to be criminals... I'm glad that you've dropped the Lombrosian notion of genetic criminality following my earlier post though.
Oh my bad - I was hoping you had rejected the pseudoscientific notion that even your own sources thought was nonsense.