poli-sci@ucbvax.ARPA (01/08/85)
From: JoSH <JoSH@RUTGERS.ARPA>
Poli-Sci Digest Fri 21 Dec 84 Volume 4 Number 111
Contents: Two Candidates For New Topics
Wealth and Poverty
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue 18 Dec 84 11:40:07-PST
From: Terry C. Savage <TCS@USC-ECL.ARPA>
Subject: Designer Genes
An interesting topic for discussion: custom organisms. If research
with recombinant DNA continues its current rate of success, we will
soon (in an evolutionary sense) be able to design organisms with
almost any characteristics we want. What are the moral implications
of this? What restrictions, if any should be placed on the
use of these techniques? Our legal/moral systems make a big
distinction between animals and humans. What if that distinction
becomes entirely arbitrary? Some examples:
1) A great assembly line/janitorial beast might be somthing with two
human hands, a couple of octopus tentacles, and the intelligence of,
say, a dog. What is the legal/moral status of this beast?
2) Closer to home, what about "humans" that have
reduced intellects/emotions/"souls" a la Brave
New World?
In the not-too-distant future (20-50 years), it will be possible to
have a continuous spectrum of organisms from virus and other basic
things through humans, and more advanced things. It will be necessary
to define "humans" and "rights" in more operational terms, or
accept the fact that the distinctions and rights are entirely
arbitrary.
Anyone care to take a stab at defining "human", given these
conditions?
TCS
------------------------------
Date: Tue 18 Dec 84 22:44:40-EST
From: FIRTH@TL-20B.ARPA
Subject: New Topic
May I raise a new topic for the winter solstice?
Exhibit A: US News & Word Report, 1984 December 24, p 65
TAX SHELTERS. Taxpayers claiming deductions for investments
in tax shelters suspected of being abusive will find their
refunds withheld until the Internal Revenue Service decides
whether the shelter deductions are valid.
Exhibit B: Constitution of the United States of America, Amendments,
Article V
No person ... shall be deprived of life, liberty, or
property, without due process of law; ...
Can these two exhibits be reconciled? Comments, please
Robert Firth
[I have an almost infinite faith in the ability of the Supreme Court
to reconcile them... The Court has demonstrated a willingness to
interpret laws to mean exactly the opposite of the literal meaning
of the words of the statute, *explicitly admitting this*, in order
to meet what they consider the "spirit" of the law. --JoSH]
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 19 Dec 84 20:34:13 est
From: Larry Kolodney <lkk@mit-eddie>
Subject: poverty stats.
THe following is resent from "another network".
-larry
From: glosser@ut-ngp.UUCP (glosser)
Subject: Re: A statistic on poverty
Date: Sat, 15-Dec-84 13:26:30 EST
In a recent article Alien (alien@gcc-opus) was trying to make
the claim that entitlement programs (especially food stamps)
where helping as far as the war on poverty is concerned. I will
agree with him in that sense, because without entitlements things
would be worse. However, when he makes the following statement about
including benefits (food stamps, etc.) when determining who is
below the poverty level (8.8% of the population below the
poverty level if benefits are included, 22% if not.) he shows
a great misunderstanding of what the issues are vis a vis the
incidence of poverty in this country:
>What does this mean?
>
>First, Poverty in the US is not as bad of a problem as
>some people would want you to believe. Clearly, 8.5% is
>not as bad as 22%. (Did you ever stop to wonder where
>those 22% were? I mean, if there were that many, wouldn't
>you know a lot of them?)
First, it might enlighten people to see what the %'s of people
below the poverty level have been from 1970 through 1982 for the
total population as well as the white and black population:
% of Persons Below the Poverty Level
(source Economic Report of the President - 1984 Page 252)
Year Total White Black
1970 12.6 9.9 33.5
1971 12.5 9.9 32.5
1972 11.9 9.0 33.8
1973 11.1 8.4 31.4
1974 11.2 8.6 30.3
1975 12.3 9.7 31.3
1976 11.8 9.1 31.1
1977 11.6 8.9 31.3
1978 11.4 8.7 30.6
1979 11.7 9.0 31.0
1980 13.0 10.2 32.5
1981 14.0 11.1 34.2
1982 15.0 12.0 35.6
Also, consider the following data for families below the poverty
line. (source Economic Report of the President - 1984 Page 252)
Where:
Total = Total % of all families in the USA
Female = Total % of all Female headed families in the USA
White = Total % of all White families in the USA
White F. = Total % of all White Female headed families in the USA
Black = Total % of all Black families in the USA
Black F. Total % of all Black Female headed families in the USA
% of Families Below the Poverty Line
Year Total Female White White F. Black Black F.
1970 10.1 32.5 8.0 25.0 29.5 54.3
1971 10.0 33.9 7.9 26.5 28.8 53.5
1972 9.3 32.7 7.1 24.3 29.0 53.3
1973 8.8 32.2 6.6 24.5 28.1 52.7
1974 8.8 32.1 6.8 24.8 26.9 52.2
1975 9.7 32.5 7.7 25.9 27.1 50.1
1976 9.4 33.0 7.1 25.2 27.9 52.2
1977 9.3 31.7 7.0 24.0 28.2 51.0
1978 9.1 31.4 6.9 23.5 27.5 50.6
1979 9.2 30.4 6.9 22.3 27.8 49.4
1980 10.3 32.7 8.0 25.7 28.9 49.4
1981 11.2 34.6 8.8 27.4 30.8 52.9
1982 12.2 36.3 9.6 27.9 33.0 56.2
>From the above, issues such as what the poverty incidence
would be without food stamps, horror stories of people
spending all their entitlement money on soft drinks and hard
liquor, etc. detract from what I consider to be one of the main
issue associated with poverty in this country: The incidence
of poverty shows that RACISM and SEXISM is alive and well in
the United States!
In other words, when: roughly one out of two black female
headed households are below the poverty line; three times
as many female headed households as compared to male headed
households are below the poverty line (this also means three
out of ten female headed households as well); as well as three
tenths of the black population living below the poverty level,
something is seriously wrong!
Stuart M. Glosser
[This is a stupid, egregious, self-indulgent fallacy, which has been
paraded as social dogma for so long that it has come to be considered
proof of it merely to repeat it. I am referring to the assumption
that there is a causal link between prejudice and a low level of
economic performance for a racial (or other) group. This particular
idiocy has been responsible for so much misdirected crusading
that I feel duty-bound to call its name and point the finger of
shame wherever I see it. --JoSH]
------------------------------
Date: 19 December 1984 23:04-EST
From: Steven A. Swernofsky <SASW @ MIT-MC>
Subject: wealth and poverty
Thank you for posting the statistics on wealth distribution, Larry.
Would you ask your sources to answer a question for me? I have been
told that 80% of all people with incomes above $50,000 are registered
Democrats. Is this true? Or is it just someone's disinformation?
-- Steve
[ Moderator -- Please don't edit or append to this message. Thanx. ]
$$
------------------------------
End of POLI-SCI Digest
- 30 -
-------poli-sci@ucbvax.ARPA (01/08/85)
From: JoSH <JoSH@RUTGERS.ARPA> Poli-Sci Digest Tue 8 Jan 85 Volume 5 Number 1 [No, you haven't missed anything, last ish was v4#111] Contents: Designer Genes Poverty stats etc Socialism ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed 26 Dec 84 10:44:31-PST From: LUBAR%hplabs.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa Subject: re: designer genes I heard recently that there is a growing gene-pool crisis on this planet. Even without recombinant DNA, we humans have been doing selective breeding for so long that we have lost the rich diversity our planet's gene pool once had. This is a concern because, for example, if some disease or climactic change were to obliterate our (single) strain of some staple, we could experience famine on a global scale, with potentially no solution (except to train people to grow and eat different foods, which is no simple task). Aside from any moral issues of gene manipulation, we are endangering ourselves by putting all our eggs in too few baskets. How much more will this be true when we can cut through the slow and somewhat haphazard breeding process with genetic engineering?! Maybe one of the restrictions on genetic engineering should be some minimal diversity of genes within a species. As for Terry's question about defining "human" (as a creature with a higher legal/moral standing), I'll make a suggestion that is somewhat influenced by the fact that I just saw "Dune" (a very disappointing movie, incidentally). A human is anything that can sublimate urges and desires by intellectual process and will. I suggest this definition because such creatures are capable of socialization, and since they will make concessions to society, society owes them greater rights. Also, such creatures appear to have more free will, a term which suggests a "higher order" of being to me. I realize this definition has a problem (which I'm willing to bet will be common to all definitions of humanness), namely, how do we test for it? (I don't think Dune's box is yet available.) I also realize that this definition leaves out young children and some mentally disabled persons, but then, our existing society treats these people as somewhat less than human anyway. annette ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 Dec 84 18:55:50 cst From: Mike Meyer <mtxinu!ea!mwm@Berkeley> /***** ea:fa.poli-sci / ucbvax!poli-sci / 6:57 pm Dec 21, 1984 */ > In the not-too-distant future (20-50 years), it will be possible to > have a continuous spectrum of organisms from virus and other basic > things through humans, and more advanced things. It will be necessary > to define "humans" and "rights" in more operational terms, or > accept the fact that the distinctions and rights are entirely > arbitrary. > > Anyone care to take a stab at defining "human", given these > conditions? > > TCS Sure - having been down this route before. First, though, note that being "human" isn't the right measure. The question should be or not a race/creature is sentient. Something is sentient if it meets either of: 1) It convinces me it is sentient. 2) Someone else convinces me it is sentient. In addition, if a being is a member of a race that meets 1 or 2, the being is assumed to be sentient until it proves otherwise. So, right now, all homo sapiens are assumed sentient; though some have shown otherwise :-). No other species is sentient, though cetaceans, and the higher primates are considered by some to be sentient. Note that an ability to communicate is inherent in the definition. After all, a rock could be the brightest, most sensitive creature in the universe, but it matters not a whit if it can't tell anybody about it. Minimally, a race can show that it is sentient - and deserving of being treated as such - by objecting vigorously enough when it isn't so treated. This is how the American Indian and Negroid races are doing it. Along these lines, for the 20-50 year future, how about a test? Not blood, or chromosome, or any such, but a sentience test. If you can pass it, you are sentient/human, and if not, you aren't. Beings belonging to a race some of which are sentient are considered sentient as minors until such a time as they pass the test. Failure to pass the test keeps such creatures in the minor status. I predict, though, that such creatures will be denied the rights of human beings, and such rights reserved to "True Humans" - even in the face of the obvious superiority of some of the "False Humans" - for a long time. Just look at the resistance to granting those rights to "natural" humans. <mike ------------------------------ Date: Fri 4 Jan 85 03:30:38-PST From: Mike Vincenc <Vincenc@USC-ECLB.ARPA> Sundry thoughts about the last issue. > From: Terry C. Savage <TCS@USC-ECL.ARPA> > Subject: Designer Genes > An interesting topic for discussion: custom organisms. If research > with recombinant DNA continues its current rate of success, we will > soon (in an evolutionary sense) be able to design organisms with > almost any characteristics we want. What are the moral implications > of this? What restrictions, if any should be placed on the use of > these techniques? Our legal/moral systems make a big distinction > between animals and humans. What if that distinction becomes > entirely arbitrary? > In the not-too-distant future (20-50 years) ... It will be > necessary to define "humans" and "rights" in more operational terms, > or accept the fact that the distinctions and rights are entirely > arbitrary. > Anyone care to take a stab at defining "human", given these > conditions? Doesn't this question sound a bit familiar? Think back to your lessons on the Constitution, to the Three-Fifths Compromise, which dealt with the method by which the number of Citizens would be deter- mined for the purposes of allocating Congressmen to the States. Re- call that, for this purpose, "slaves" counted as three-fifths of a Citizen, and other people counted as one Citizen each (I should say, "As I recall", since my copy of the Constitution is at the office). After the Civil War, the States amended the Constitution, so that everybody counted as one Citizen each. As I remember my Civics lessons from high school, the Founding Fathers developed the Three-Fifths Compromise simply because nobody really knew what was going to happen with the "slave question". Some dele- gates felt that the slaves should be counted as one whole Citizen each; some felt that, since slaves were supposed to be "property", they shouldn't be counted at all (they must've felt that it would be like counting cows or chickens for the purposes of representation); some felt that they should be counted for everything but representa- tion; and, everybody else just wanted to stop arguing about it; thus, the Compromise. Apparently, we have a precedent (of sorts) upon which to base our de- cision. I get from this precedent that, originally, the Founding Fathers arbitrarily decided the issue; later, the Nation changed its collective Mind. To apply the precedent to the current question, we can decide anything that we want, realizing in the process that, what- ever we decide, the decision is arbitrary. Or, we can simply not bother with the question, until our Creations force us to do something about it. How about an even better question: What if these Creatures decide that _we_ are lower forms of Life than they? What happens then? > From: FIRTH@TL-20B.ARPA > Exhibit A: US News & Word Report, 1984 December 24, p 65 > TAX SHELTERS. Taxpayers claiming deductions for investments > in tax shelters suspected of being abusive will find their > refunds withheld until the Internal Revenue Service decides > whether the shelter deductions are valid. > Exhibit B: Constitution of the United States of America, Amendments, > Article V > No person ... shall be deprived of life, liberty, or > property, without due process of law; ... > Can these two exhibits be reconciled? Comments, please > [I have an almost infinite faith in the ability of the Supreme Court > to reconcile them... The Court has demonstrated a willingness to > interpret laws to mean exactly the opposite of the literal meaning > of the words of the statute, *explicitly admitting this*, in order > to meet what they consider the "spirit" of the law. --JoSH] I must agree with JoSH on this question: The Supreme Court has shown that its interpretation of the Law will not necessarily correlate with the literal meaning of the text of the Law. Cases before the Court regarding Social Security exemplify this behavior, and, indeed, in these cases, the Court admitted that they did so for "the spirit of the Law." In this case, clearly, the question is not "How do we reconcile these exhibits"; it is, instead, "When somebody reconciles these exhibits for us, will we accept their decision; and, if we do not, what will we do about it?" (No flames about the inability of the Governed to affect its Government, please.) > From: Larry Kolodney <lkk@mit-eddie> > Subject: poverty stats. > > From: glosser@ut-ngp.UUCP (glosser) > > Subject: Re: A statistic on poverty [ Lots of text and statistics, all leading up to ... ] > > The incidence of poverty shows that RACISM and SEXISM is alive and > > well in the United States! ... In other words, when: roughly one > > out of two black female headed households are below the poverty > > line; three times as many female headed households as compared to > > male headed households are below the poverty line (this also means > > three out of ten female headed households as well); as well as > > three tenths of the black population living below the poverty > > level, something is seriously wrong! JoSH appended his reply: "This is a stupid, egregious, self-indulgent fallacy, which has been paraded as social dogma for so long that it has come to be considered proof of it merely to repeat it. I am referring to the assumption that there is a causal link between prejudice and a low level of economic performance for a racial (or other) group. This particular idiocy has been responsible for so much misdirected crusading that I feel duty-bound to call its name and point the finger of shame wherever I see it." Fine: The Finger has been pointed, and all persons who have used this "pseudologic" in the past now bear the Mark of Shame. Nevertheless, the statistics remain, the correlation is real; more important, though, is that a politically significant segment of the Nation's pop- ulation (which, by the way, may not necessarily be a _numerically_ significant portion) believes that this correlation is a "leading in- dicator" of the effects of prejudice in the form of "inequal opportu- nity". Further, those people apparently don't like the current values of that indicator, and apparently want to do something about them; thus, our current bevy of entitlement programs, all funded by every- body else's money (i.e., our taxes). You and I, and your secretary Frances, all know that entitlement pro- grams "don't work"; and, while we don't much pay attention to those statistics (they're just numbers, anyway), we still feel bad about them. But, the Finger of Shame has been pointed: We can no longer talk about those numbers; they're meaningless, and who does anything about meaningless things? /mv "Life is _still_ nothing but a very large optimization problem." [The numbers are largely meaningless, because they have been abstracted in order to prove a pre-believed point (example: statistics show that female faculty members make less than male faculty members; scream sexual discrimination! but take a closer look: within any given field, women not only approach but exceed parity with their male counterparts. The explanation is of course that more women go into sociology and more men into engineering, more women into English and more men into math, etc--*a matter of personal choice*.) However, let us assume for the moment that the numbers are valid in their implication that there are racial or sexual groups which are statistically below others in economic performance in valid breakdowns that do not reflect matters of choice. Let us be careful in what we are talking about: a measured correlation between two observable attributes, ethnicity (or race or sex) and income. Let us also be careful about what we are not talking about: *non-observables* such as racial prejudice or bias in personal likes or dislikes, and racial prejudice or bias in hiring. No one has shown that there is any connection between these. Civil rights activists always *assume* that a measured correlation implies "discrimination", and that discrimination implied prejudice. Both steps are taken for granted, and are part of the conventional wisdom; *neither is necessarily true*. I challenge you (or anyone else who wants to) to show that they are. --JoSH] ------------------------------ Date: 21 Dec 84 10:24:45 PST (Fri) Subject: Re: poverty stats. From: Martin D. Katz <katz@uci-icse> From JoSH's Rebuttal: This is a stupid, egregious, self-indulgent fallacy, ... I am referring to the assumption that there is a causal link between prejudice and a low level of economic performance for a racial (or other) group. I think that it would be interesting if you (JoSH) described exactly what you mean here. First, ethnic and racial prejudice do exist (live in the wrong neighborhoods and experience it), the question is how much of the economic problem is explained by prejudice. I think that that the causes of the economic disparaties cited include active prejudice in hiring, economic inertia, number of children, cultural differences, and geographic differences (e.g., it is harder to find a good paying job close to home if you live in a slum). The figures are also skewed because they reflect family income rather than per adult income. The best direct statistical evidence of economic effects of active prejudice in hiring are "equivalent wage" comparisons (even if you suspect the figures, the qualitative disparity is almost unquestionable), and the statistical distribution of two parent families in which the mother is able to find work, but the father is not. For the equivalent wage comparisons I suggest the NOW reports, the University of California Systemwide Report on the Status of Women in the University, and the report a few months back in IEEE Spectrum comparing salaries in Electrical Engineering between men and women with virtually the same educational and employment experience. From JoSH's Rebuttal: This particular idiocy has been responsible for so much misdirected crusading ... I would appreciate your being more specific on this. Are you talking about lobbying, ineffective government intervention, M.L. King jr.'s activities, the ACLU, private outreach programs, or what? I think that reasoned discussion of what types of efforts are reasonable to "correct the injustice of birth" would be interesting (and maybe useful). [A statistical variation in racial representation among employees is presumptive evidence of guilt of discrimination, a felony under federal law. By the 95% confidence test used, this makes 5% of employers felons by definition, even though they be absolutely colorblind. Much similar foolishness is part of the federal "civil rights" code (and more is part of the court decisions which interpret it). In particular, most of the government action is based on the incorrect assumptions that a correlation between income levels and race (or sex) implies discrimination implies prejudice on the part of the employer. The social policies based on such a broad, sweeping assumption cannot fail to have broad, sweeping ill effects when the assumption turns out to be wrong. --JoSH] ------------------------------ Date: Saturday, 5 January 1985 23:39:22 EST From: Hank.Walker@cmu-cs-unh.arpa Subject: Re: family income and sex To conclude that since households headed by women, especially black women, have a high poverty rate, that racism and sexism is rampant is nonsense. There are simpler explanations for at least most of the difference. All those unwed teenage mothers count as families headed by women. Since the illegitimacy rate has reached something like 67% in places like Washington DC, this is pretty significant. Think of all those families headed by divorced women whose ex-husbands have been holding out on alimony and child support. They often wind up in poverty too. ------------------------------ Date: 31 Dec 84 09:42:11 PST (Mon) Subject: Liberalism and Socialism (Re: Cuba, references, biases, etc.) From: Martin D. Katz <katz@uci-icse> From Jim Giles (Dec. 20) in Arms-D V2 #82, Dec. 28, 1984 ... (I always wondered how an educated person could develope a liberal bias in the first place. Personal and, especially, economic freedoms tend to disappear in direct proportion to the degree to which a country socializes. What is there about liberalism that people find attractive enough to uncritically embrace it?) The following is personal opinion (I assume that references are not needed): I think you may be confused by stereotypes. Those who take the Soviet side of an arms discussion are not necessarilly liberals, or socialists. In this list, people often will take the Soviet position in order to better understand the Soviet point of view -- even if they do not believe that the Soviet actions are necessarily correct. Even if people didn't take hypothetical positions, to assume that a person who justifies a Soviet action or who takes Reagan to task for his "Evil empire" phrase is a supporter of Soviet idiology is unfair. There are many reasons, other than personal bias, for supporting a particular ethical position on a particular question. Certain actions on the part of the U.S. government can be questioned on the basis of assumptions which are widely (although not universally) shared. Such unstated assumptions include: a) Direct (or at least nuclear) confrontation with the Soviet Union is not in the best interests of the U.S. b) Military strategy should avoid the loss of more friendly lives than enemy lives. c) Soviet take-over of friendly countries is greatly undesireable. On the other hand, take-over of countries which are friendly, but not directly aligned, might not be worth direct retaliation against the Soviets. The threshold is nebulous. The list goes on and on. I also wish to draw attention to your connection of "Liberal" with "Socialize." Strictly speaking, a socialist economic system is one in which the government owns all means of production and service, and in which all citizens are employed by the government. Socialism is NOT a "Liberal" goal. Rather, it is an "Egalitarian" goal. Strictly speaking, liberal means "Not restricted" (Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary), and its political meaning derives from this goal of liberty. Egalitarianism is best described by the motto "All men are created equal," and therefore supports equal opportunity (some people would say equal achievement) for everybody. A third social force involved is the concept that "Each man is responsible for the life of his neighbor," meaning that one should not let ones neighbor starve. When emergency maintenance becomes the role of the government, this becomes "Social welfare," but this should not be confused with "Socialism." Many who support one of these positions also support the others to some extent. Liberals include radical liberals (who support socialism as a mechanism to achieve social welfare, and egalitarianism). But, liberals also include libertarians (who support liberty and to some extent egalitarianism, but do not strongly support social welfare). It is my opinion that these economic positions can be distinguished from Soviet idiology. Soviet idiology may be historically based on the liberal, egalitarian, and social welfare goals of Marx and Lenin, but is strongly affected by many other factors (conservatism, personal needs and goals of leaders, preservation of position, physical security, distribution of idiology, etc.). Thus, ones support or attack of a position or action in international politics should not be confused with ones positions on national politics. Of course, people (and party platforms) may tend to form clusters of opinion (e.g., those who believe that physical take-over of the U.S. is an active objective of the Soviet Union may tend to oppose social welfare programs) -- in fact, I would think that current stereotyping tends to encourage this clustering of opinion). In summary, it is my opinion that we should try to avoid confusion of positions on the national level when discussing international issues. It might be helpful to try to identify the implicit assumptions when writing (and reading) about ideological and international issues. ------------------------------ End of POLI-SCI Digest - 30 - -------