From: Harvey Newstrom (mail@HarveyNewstrom.com)
Date: Thu May 23 2002 - 13:43:01 MDT
On Thursday, May 23, 2002, at 03:05 pm, Wei Dai wrote:
> My example is not contrived. Consider a fireman who runs into a building
> and sees five people, and he has to prioritize who to save first. That
> seems quite realistic and fits my example.
Fireman save as many people as possible. Therefore, they choose the
closest and easiest to save first. They do not try to evaluate people's
value based on gender and race to decide who "deserves more" to be
saved. This is not an example of using groupism to judge people. A
fireman who saved one gender or race over others would not seem
appropriate to me. Unless some racist group hired fireman to hire one
race over others, I would think the fireman was replacing his job
mandate with an alternate secret agenda that was not compatible.
> Or consider a security guard
> who is deciding whether or not to search someone.
As a security professional, I really must insist that standards require
search of everyone or random searches. You cannot let guards try to
detect the possible "guilt" of people by looking at them. They do not
have that skill, and it is not effective enough to base a security
policy on. Security profiling must be based on individuals, meaning
behavior or situation. Groupism that includes or excludes whole genders
or races will instantly fail because the bad guys then have a magic
profile that will let them through. Just choose a person who looks
right as your agent, and you get through security. Such a security
policy would be invalid according to any security standards I know.
>> Why is it so important to invent a scenario where racial prejudice,
>> pre-emptive attack, or undesired coercion is OK? Where is this
>> leading? Why are we trying to justify things through convoluted logic
>> that we reject on the face of them? If you don't have time to make an
>> informed opinion or gather sufficient evidence for your claims, why not
>> admit that you have an unsubstantiated view? Why try to prove some
>> sort
>> of moral authority for making hasty or unsupported decisions when
>> necessary?
>
> Why do you assume I'm trying to justify something? Is it not possible
> that
> I'm interested in a moral problem and want to know how Extropian
> principles can help?
I am sick of these "theoretical" problems with no purpose. If this is
really leading nowhere and is just an intellectual exercise to see how
people react, then you are nothing but a troll trying to get a reaction
out of this list.
Is there a purpose for this discussion or not? You answered my question
with more questions.
If you have a point to make, then make it. Stop leading us down the
garden path that supposedly leads nowhere and serves no purpose.
If you really think that racial profiling and gender bias are just
"interesting moral problems", then let's drop it and move onto something
more constructive. Most of us aren't interested.
Why not work on real problems and real solutions?
-- Harvey Newstrom, CISSP <www.HarveyNewstrom.com> Principal Security Consultant <www.Newstaff.com>
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