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April 17th 2016, 12:42 AM
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yeoldetoast
Peasant They/Them Australia
LOOK UPON MY DEFORMED FACE! 
I took too long to reply and now everyone has taken my spot. I originally started writing stuff simply to keep the thread going. It seems to have worked which is nice, but everyone is free to jump in and reply to me if they'd like.

As a physicist, you'd know of the law of conservation of energy and what it consists of. Similarly, power as we've described it, that is as a way of changing the world around you, is the same. Therefore one cannot claim to have negative power, as power must always be quantifiable or zero. Either you can change the world around you in a little way or maybe a much larger way, but ultimately in order to have power, you must either take it from somewhere else, such as becoming the company's new CEO (thereby taking it away from the old CEO), sharing it with another (such as in a business partnership), or by inhabiting a power vacuum (a teacher leaves a classroom and the children take over things) or something else like that where the total power is either split or redistributed. Therefore if power is the ability to change the world around us, then in order to do that one must have power (or not have it) which means that negative power is invalid.

Power doesn't care if your life sucks or if it's truly wonderful so this cannot be some sort of claim that one "deserves" more simply because their circumstances are worse than another. If a black person gains a little power, he has a little more power. Much like in a tug of war, one person's step forward is a step backwards for another, and the power is shifted from one side to another. Your claim for a "negative power" seems to be your own moral valuation of how people have and use power which is entirely your own moral judgement based upon intentions rather than the overall consequences. As an aside, it's interesting that you seem to think that the problems of these "minorities" is entirely extrinsic, as that effectively removes power from those individuals by making it so that their problems are first of all not their fault, and secondly only solvable by someone who isn't them. I think this is where your faulty belief in a form of negative power comes from, as power is always an amoral force which you don't seem to be able to look objectively at.

If one looks at Jews during and after World War II who came to the USA with absolutely nothing in many cases, you'll notice that they're now one of the wealthiest and influential groups in the country with a disproportionately high amount of Nobel Prize winners and overall political influence despite the discrimination they received. The Irish are similar in that they were heavily discriminated against in terms of hiring for positions (Catholics need not apply lasted up until the 1980s in Australia) yet they've similarly managed to do very well in the face of adversity. If these two groups can solve their own problems on their own without external help, then ideally no group should have special external help regardless as to what "discrimination" they may experience. Propping someone up is unfair to all of those who aren't helped in the same way.

The reason I brought up Egypt is because you seemed to have not found the conditions there particularly amicable which you have accepted. Now assuming you're not a US citizen, or at very least you're a native Dutchman, why is it that you go to the USA and openly criticise things there instead of accepting that these things are "your problem" in a similar fashion to Egypt? Would you not tell me to shut up if I went to The Netherlands and criticised Zwarte Piet or bicycles?

Again you seem to be attributing blame for radical Muslims to external factors rather than the individual's choice. People's beliefs are ultimately their own choice, and a pissed-off Muslim such as the one in your hypothetical example who chooses to believe propaganda on web sites and then go off and shoot people is guilty of doing that. If you are to accuse me of criticising all Muslims then I may as well wear it and say that yes, they are all to blame for this by being incapable of criticising their own theological underpinnings in their holy book as well as the actions of Prophet Mohammed as being a major inspiration for the horrible actions they commit.

I am tempted to strawman with how Christians are treated in the Middle East currently or how Greeks were treated under the Ottoman Empire but I will save that for another day. However I didn't really want to talk about Islam much in the first place. I have talked to several Muslims over the years and have found that in many cases that male Muslims are easy enough to talk to, however female Muslims tend to run and hide because it's haram to talk to or look directly at someone of the opposite sex without a male relative.

My rather scathing and sceptical view of Islam was heavily contributed to by what a school friend of mine eventually ended up doing. I used to see him regularly after university every Monday during my second year, and we would catch the train home together. He never seemed hugely happy about his personal circumstances and had had a few minor incidences with the law. After a while, he disappeared and I stupidly forgot to get his phone number. After about a year I saw him on the TV having been charged with destroying a police car after converting to Islam. I don't know why the heck he did any of it, but I was in utter shock for a while and it stayed with me. This guy was a typical Australian as well rather than a Bosnian migrant or similar. I know anecdotes don't trump facts and figures but they do definitely alter how you see things.

Now, I know Scratcher has picked you up on this point, but you've stated that no particular person is to blame for how the world is, but then you go on to say that it's fair to deliberately disadvantage a blameless "white" person to forward the interests of a black person entirely along racial lines. There are entire countries built around this principle such as Zimbabwe and South Africa which you should definitely research to see how well it works out (hint: not very well). How can you say that it is fair to disadvantage a blameless individual without strawmanning with your own personal moral judgement of "negative power"?