🎓 Doc Freemo 🇳🇱 @freemo@qoto.org

@amerika

For me it isnt entierly lazyness, though it is in part.

For me the ideal is some very short (like 1 mm) scruff.. I dont like the look of no hair at all, and when it gets too long it is annoying. But right at just a little scruff (what you see in this picture and shorter) I like from both a comfort and look perspective.

Only reason i say its lazy is because instead of shaving it to my exact length every day i just go through the 2 week cycle, and shaveit clean to buy me a few extra days. I mean im happy anywhere in the range so why not.

@Humpleupagus @penguin

@amerika

I actually hate wearing a beard. This is as long as it gets. Most of the time its short ans scruffy. I usually shave it off completely every week or two once it annoys me.

@Humpleupagus @penguin

@amerika

The style worked. We are required to get dressed up for our Freemasonry meetings, so the suit and tie was a requirement. That said I do wear a tie often since I run a decent sized company.

@Humpleupagus @penguin

@Humpleupagus

I couldnt care less about gruff, you want to enjoy yourself and throw around some crude nonsense by all means go for it. I just have no interest in being involved in a toxic and childish conversation with someone who cant help but resort to personal attacks because he cant bother to actual articulate a meaningful discussion.

@amerika

@amerika

By using a personal definition that is in contrast with the actual definition, and engineering that definition so it excludes most counter examples of poverty as "not real poverty according to my definition" is effectively the same thing... you are just defining what is real by manipulating the definition and letting it have an effect.

It is indistinguishable from no real scotsman fallacy IMO.

> By your definition, I pulled myself out of poverty a few times too. It's not relevant to a policy discussion.

It isnt **my** definition. It is the universal definition people who speak english use. And yes you pulled yourself out of poverty a few times then, how is that not relevant?

@Humpleupagus @amerika

> Please don't don't ever write law or be a judge. 😒

This statement is getting dangerously close to that toxicity I mentioned... keep it classy.

@Humpleupagus @amerika

When did I claim that my position was that they should be given exceptions? I said that their cirtcumstances should be considered to ensure we have effective rehabilitation in our response to a crime. That is not the same as saying they should be excused and let free to roam when they commited a crime simply because there is a reason for it.

@amerika @Humpleupagus

> I don't believe that being drafted into the military turns people into violent sociopaths. They had to have that trait in them.

Regardless if they had that lingering trait, the point is before the army they did not exhibit violence, after the army they did. So the fact that the army caused a latent trait to become active would still be at the blame of them being drafted.

@amerika

So your definition of poverty is one where a person remains in poverty for their whole life, so my example of over 70% of people getting out of poverty isnt poverty by your definition by virtue of the fact that they got out of it?

We call that a "No true scotsman" fallacy. By simply stating anyone who ever gets out of poverty was never in it, no matter how poor they were, effectively is just denying the counter evidence and creating a circular definition that says nothing useful.

@amerika

That is certainly one very primary role, to prevent harm to good people.

The problem is that by simply taking the stance that anyone who does harm shall be cast into the sea in itself does harm and therefore does not cause your intended goal.

If a government for example forces against their will someone to be a murderer for 4 years (what we call drafting someone), and that person winds up being a violent person due to their traumas inflicted upon them, and then the consequence of that violence is for them to be cast into the sea.. then we have not prevented good people from harm, we have in fact infliced harm on a good person.

So unfortunately this mentally is contradictory to its own purpose when applied universally.

@Humpleupagus

@amerika

When did we say we didnt consider the reason why? All I said is we determined the person was at a disadvantage, that is an objective fact in andof itself. I said nothing about this being the **only** thing one should consider.

Of the 12 people I helped get out of poverty 58% of them successfully got out of poverty with my help and stayed out of poverty for the rest of their lives. The others had mental health issues that were too extreme and ultimately were not able to be helped.

To put objective numbers to it.. Of all the people who enter poverty over 70% of them eventually get out of poverty. The average amount of time for most people in poverty is a little under 3 years.

Both my personal expiernce and the objective facts suggest your statement of "most will never get out of poverty" is patently false and in fact the opposite is true.

Keep in mind I myself Grew up in and started my life in poverty. Now as a 40 year man I'm a multi-millionaire. Even I am the exception here.

@Humpleupagus @amerika

First off, i dont find language that suggests absolute truths helpful at all.. There are **opinions** about what the purpose of penal law should be, there arent 3 fixed reasons that are some ultimate correct answer to such a question.

Your wording is suggestive (I hope im wrong and will give you the benefit of the doubt) of an incoming toxic engagement, if that is the case I am not interested. That said I will for the moment give you the benefit of the doubt and answer you.

I can think of far more than 3 reasons for penal law. Some reaasons I can think of why a society might want penal laws (some of which i may agree with some I may not):

* Deterrant to crime - If there is a consequence and punishment to crime then it would discourage people commiting crimes. Crimes should be things that generally are harmful to society or personal rights.

* protect the public from harm - since crimes are harmful, and punishment is a deterrant to crime (as above) if effective it would reduce harm

* Rehabilitation - By arresting someone and taking away some of their freedoms allows us to force rehabilitation on a person who might otherwise not seek it. Thus allowing them to reenter society without causing harm later.

* Justice - This one (which i strongly disagree with personally) is almost spirtual in nature for many. There is just some divine cosmic rightness in the idea that someone who harms someone else gets harmed back. Its just "fair" to some people.

* Consolation to victims - By harming someone who does harm to you a victim might feel someone consoled by this fact.

* To avoid public unrest - When someone causes harm people are angry, by punishing them it may avoid things like riots or other civil unrest resulting in the lack of justice

I could easily list a dozen more reasons if i really wanted to, but those are some of the broad strokes.

@amerika

> This is not objective per se, since it does not consider IQ and mental health issues.

Sure it is... people with high IQ and are poor have a harder time getting out of it than people with a high IQ and not poor.. same as people with health issues. So the statement that a person being poor will have a harder time getting out of it than if that person were not poor is objectively true. There is no situation where being poorer would not be harder to get out of then if you werent poorer.

> And what if the answer is simply mental health problems and low IQ stemming from biological unfitness?

If someone is poor due to being mentally incapable of working, or some other health issue then that person would still have a much harder time getting out of their shitty situation than a person who has low IQ but happened to inhereit a trust fund worth a billion, no matter how stupid they may be the person with the money will still have as good a life as possible while the poor low IQ person will almost certainly die.

> Most people who are poor are poor for a reason.

As someone who has taken in about a dozen poor people from the streets and invested in them to get them back on their feet I can say this logic is not entierly true. Yes ther eare many people who are poor for a reason, for most those reasons are a lack of oppertunity, lack of access to schooling or good parenting, or traumas experienced from war. There are some people who are poor out of sheer luck.

Not sure how it changes anything i said just because there is an explainable reason for many people to be poor, reasons that often are out of their control, or if it is in their control they havent had access to the resources to know how to control it (like financial education).

> Equity tends to mean equality of outcome, to use your phrase, because that way the individual is subsidized.

Not at all, the people who started using the term Equity in the context of social unfairness specifically coined it as a contrast to equality of outcome. See the meme i posted, which is the meme that started the whole "equity vs equality' conversation. As you can see they very distinctly show that equality and equity are different concepts (though i dont think the meme clearly explains what they are)

> I think the subsidies accelerate the self-destruction of a society.

As discussed it would depend ont he subsidies. If you are giving money to someone solely based on their age or race I'd agree. If you are doing it based on poverty then it would depend on how that money is used. If all you do is hand a poor person a sack of cash it wont fix the underlying problem, so i agree that is not a good approach.

@amerika

While these people arent equal and i can understand not treating them equal, since equity is defined as "unbiased fairness" im not sure why you wouldnt treat them with equity.

Equity here would mean that we consider what actually made these people criminals and if they had the same oppertunities and chances in life.. in other words, considering the nuance and context.

For example an equitable response might be "Yes you are a career criminal, you have in 20 other cases been violent in a bar and got arrested. However because you are a veteran who was drafted and forced to server in a war you didnt want to, and developed extreme PTSD we will be a little more understanding in our sentancing"

Since the person simply didnt have the same opportunity to be a healthy well functioning person society in this case would consider that and effect his sentencing accordingly. Thats what equity is.

@amerika

Well depends, for many things it can be... lets play with an example.

"You are poor, poor people have a harder time getting out of it because they dont have the resources to fix their situation. If you cant even take a shower or buy cloths how can you expect them to get a job even if they want to and are willing"

This is all objective facts and reasoning used to reason about why someone needs help.

Subjective reasoning equivelant:

"You are black, Ive seen a lot of poor black people so I just assume most black people are more poor than is fair, so you should get help just because you are black regardless of any other details"

@amerika

I think in being fair considering the nuance and characteristics of a person can often be a requirement, yes.

@amerika

Impartiality would be treating someone the same if they are black or white. IF you think this is not good then we clearly disagree.

Impartial doesnt mean everyone is treated the same, it means the characteristics you use to determine what help you should give someone is not due to subjective bias but rather objective reasoning.. facts and realities rather than feelings.

This seems like a pretty horrific thing to be against.

@amerika

> I don't see equality and fairness being the same.

I think you misread what I said. Equality (of outcome) and fairness are **not** the same.. Equity and fairness are the same. Equity is also not the same as equality since equality can mean equality of outcome or equality of oppertunity. Equity would effectively be the same as equality of oppertunity, or close to it, but distinctly different from equality of outcome. The reason for this is that while equality of outcome requires an unfair bias for people based on race or sex equality of oppertunity only requires people have the same oppertunity in an unbiased way.

> People need someone who understands their situation and why it is not an average or generic.

I agree on that, though im not sure it is in anyway contrary to what I am asserting here. Obviously equality of outcome would require some generic responses, but im not sure equity, or equality of oppertunity would.

> But, there are also people who are dysfunctional and need to be removed so the others do not have to subsidize them.

What does "removed" mean, and dysfunctional how? Obviously we put violent people away, so to an extent society seems to agree with you. But obviously this can be a dangerous power when abused.

I myself would agree with this to the extreme, even to the point of disagreeing with societal norms. We shouldnt simply remove someone from society, though that may need to be a temporary measure. We need to help rehabilitate people, which takes resources.

@amerika

Well equity and fairness are literally synonyms except that equity specifically includes impartiality whereas fairness is more general.

So while i can understand an issue with equality of outcome, I'm not sure why that is the same as saying you have an issue with equability, or the act of being fair and impartial.