Re: A further poll about prejudice and discrimination
 

There is a great episode of the original BBC series 'The office' (which was way better than this new American version btw) that reminds me of this conversation with you.

A training day is held at the office and all the staff are gathered together. In one of the training sessions, pairs of two a asked to solve a hypothetical. In the hypothetical, a farmer must get a fox a chicken and a bag of grain across a river in a boat but can only take one at a time, and cannot leave the fox with the chicken, or the chicken with the bag of grain at any time.

One funny character, Gareth, cannot see the question for what it is and keeps asking silly questions like "why does the farmer need a fox? Farmers hate foxes!" or "why doesn't he put the bag of grain up high when he leaves it with the chicken?", "how come he has such a small boat? I've never heard of a boat that small!".

You know what I am asking here, and you know that if I had to, I could concoct some weird circumstance in which you'd need to either make this decision, or at least structure a similar decision. The stupid details are not important unless you think that all similarly structured problems somehow suffer from the same kinds of loopholes in the question.

Regards
Brad S

Re: A further poll about prejudice and discrimination
 

to some degree, everybody is prejudiced even if they refuse to admit it

Re: A further poll about prejudice and discrimination
 

[ QUOTE ]
There is a great episode of the original BBC series 'The office' (which was way better than this new American version btw) that reminds me of this conversation with you.

[/ QUOTE ]

If nothing else then I'm glad I have reminded you of the genius of Gervais.

[ QUOTE ]

A training day is held at the office and all the staff are gathered together. In one of the training sessions, pairs of two a asked to solve a hypothetical. In the hypothetical, a farmer must get a fox a chicken and a bag of grain across a river in a boat but can only take one at a time, and cannot leave the fox with the chicken, or the chicken with the bag of grain at any time.

One funny character, Gareth,

[/ QUOTE ]

He is funny.

[ QUOTE ]

cannot see the question for what it is and keeps asking silly questions like "why does the farmer need a fox? Farmers hate foxes!" or "why doesn't he put the bag of grain up high when he leaves it with the chicken?", "how come he has such a small boat? I've never heard of a boat that small!".

You know what I am asking here, and you know that if I had to, I could concoct some weird circumstance in which you'd need to either make this decision, or at least structure a similar decision. The stupid details are not important unless you think that all similarly structured problems somehow suffer from the same kinds of loopholes in the question.

Regards
Brad S

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May I ask you a question Brad?

Was it Brent who proposed the hypothetical? (keep in mind if you answer yes, the correlation you have drawn between myself and Gareth, also draws one to you and Brent, and we all know what happens to Brent in the end)

Checkmate. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Re: A further poll about prejudice and discrimination
 

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Was it Brent who proposed the hypothetical?

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No

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Checkmate.

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Not quite

Regards
Brad S

Re: A further poll about prejudice and discrimination
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Was it Brent who proposed the hypothetical?

[/ QUOTE ]

No

[ QUOTE ]
Checkmate.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not quite

Regards
Brad S

[/ QUOTE ]

I must verify these statments. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Re: A further poll about prejudice and discrimination
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Was it Brent who proposed the hypothetical?

[/ QUOTE ]

No

[ QUOTE ]
Checkmate.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not quite

Regards
Brad S

[/ QUOTE ]

I must verify these statments. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

The training guy they brought in to the office brought up the hypothetical problem.

Not to bust your balls, but you are acting a little bit like Gareth in that episode... you're just supposed to pick one of the options because picking an option is a given with the exercise. It doesn't matter that no option is desirable. Besides, there is no wrong answer.

Re: A further poll about prejudice and discrimination
 

Are you saying that your own observations of the world have no reliability at all!? Surely you will want to get off that leash at some point, no?

An apt quote from paragraph 26 of the Unabomber's Manifesto:

"The oversocialized person cannot even experience, without guilt, thoughts or feelings that are contrary to the accepted morality; he cannot think "unclean" thoughts. And socialization is not just a matter of morality; we are socialized to confirm to many norms of behavior that do not fall under the heading of morality. Thus the oversocialized person is kept on a psychological leash and spends his life running on rails that society has laid down for him. In many oversocialized people this results in a sense of constraint and powerlessness that can be a severe hardship. We suggest that oversocialization is among the more serious cruelties that human beings inflict on one another. "

Full text: http://www.thecourier.com/manifest.htm

Re: A further poll about prejudice and discrimination
 

[ QUOTE ]
to some degree, everybody is prejudiced even if they refuse to admit it

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True...some people are so prejudiced as to think races are equal despite seeing compelling evidence to the contrary.

Re: A further poll about prejudice and discrimination
 

If you cant see that the odds are clearly in favor of the middle eastern guy being the terrorist than you are an idiot.

Re: A further poll about prejudice and discrimination
 

Here's a question:

If we are at war with Japan, which is scarier, a white surfer, or a Japanese male? If we are at war with Russia, which is scarier, a white surfer, or a Russian male? Repeat with any nation with a particular ethnic population and you realize that the question isn't so significant and not really at all about discrimination.