Racism, Equity, & Power

I thought this was a great podcast highlighting some nuances in PC culture as well as real environmental concerns that go beyond "climate change."

Context of the podcast - A liberal professor of "evolutionary biology" is deemed a racist for not absenting himself on a day of racial appreciation at his college. He says, "It is a world of difference for a population to absent themselves from a shared space versus a population to absent another population from a shared space."

Key-points of the podcast: "Racism", "'Equity' Movements"

• In regard to being called a racist, (I think this is also relevant to being called a sexist): "Many of the terms that are being used have been redefined, but they haven't been fully redefined... A term like racist has been redefined so that the bar for being a racist is so low that you couldn't help but trip over it. But once you've tripped over it, and accept that you are a racist, the stigma goes back to the original definition. It is the dodging and weaving between the definitions that actually does the heavy lifting."

• People who have been historically disadvantaged in someway, but who are currently successful in some sense, are excluded from affecting "real equity" (i.e. Asian men, white women, Jews". The goal is subordination to groups that have been historically disadvantaged and are currently unsuccessful. The result is "reverse oppression."

• A real equity movement is different from a movement for "reverse oppression". There is a mob mentality and an echo chamber effect that is divorced from logic and reality. Through ideological "bullying," any opposing argument, no matter how slight or nuanced, is shut down with disparaging, undefined terms.

• "Ideological mobs" have infiltrated and now operate through colleges because colleges cannot defend themselves. Specifically, postmodern ideas have "formed a core of ideas that college kids are fighting to bring about." These ideas must either be fought or capitulated to. Science, logic, and rationalism, in postmodern ideology, are viewed as tools of oppression.

Side topics of the podcast: "Environmental concerns", "Sustainability"

• The system is built to frustrate any real change towards a more sustainable, healthy society. Why did we have such lousy candidates for the last US presidential election? Because the system filters out anyone who will use that power for "destabilizing" purposes. This doesn't necessarily involve "conspiracy," but is just how the system is built. That said, the Democratic National Convention openly defended conspiring against Bernie Sanders.

They also talk about nuclear energy, its' harmful by-products, expensive maintenance, and potential for long-lasting disaster. (Think Fukushima.)

This wasn't in the podcast, but in regard to whether "climate change," here are some issues that would have to be dealt with first or alongside any legitimate environmental concerns.

• Cheap, abundant oil. Whether you look into the topic of "peak oil" or not, the reality is that we will eventually run out of it. There is a documentary titled, "Collapse," that may be over the top, but illustrates our dependence on oil well.

• Food. Our food is tampered with for purposes of mass production. This has lots of unhealthy side effects including cancer. It would be more sustainable and healthy to grow our own food. (I wish I could do more justice to this one, but let google be your friend.)

• The Military Industrial Complex. Eisenhower warned about this. This is a really big one and has a lot of history. I'm linking several sites to the same topic of how the US military can't account for anywhere from 6.5 - 10 trillion dollars.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/23/politics/us-army-audit-accounting-errors/
http://nation.foxnews.com/2016/08/18/trillions-go-missing-military-pentagon-cant-account-65t-taxpayer-cash
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2016/07/31/Pentagon-s-Sloppy-Bookkeeping-Means-65-Trillion-Can-t-Pass-Audit
http://www.activistpost.com/2017/03/10-trillion-missing-pentagon-no-one-not-even-dod-knows.html

I apologize if the last part seems like a wild tangent, but those are just my thoughts. This was a really great podcast and I encourage you to listen to the whole thing.

Cheers.