Is white supremacy normal in the USA?

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Ecurb
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Re: Is white supremacy normal in the USA?

Post by Ecurb »

Burning ghost wrote: December 21st, 2017, 1:12 am

Ecurb -

I don't assert it. I merely provided links which support what pretty much ALL social scientists know about. They talk about the correlation and how it can be measured over any population size and give the same results. The higher the rate of male homicides the greater the level of economic inequality (meaning the distribution of wealth between rich and poor is skewed - which I highlighted in the links I provided in previous post and asked people to look at the differences where they take the top and bottom 10% and 20% of the population into account.)

If you won't take my word (which I am happy you are questioning, as you bloody well should if you've never heard about this before!) have a looksee here (I think the first 3-4 mins covers it well enough) :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3XYHPAwBzE
A quick glance at the video you posted is utterly unpersuasive. I've never heard of the talking head in the video, and he says some things which seem blatantly incorrect. For example (from memory, I'm not going back and forth) he says that we can look at GINI coefficients for ANY given area (country, neighborhood, street) and the correlation between violent crime and economic inequality is strong. What about domestic violence? Is there economic inequality within a family, and is this correlated to the likelihood of domestic violence? If families share money, shouldn't domestic violence be non-existent?

In addition, without knowing the methods of the social scientists who ALL know about this correlation, a quick glance at the stats does not bear out the correlation (much less the causation, which the video blathers on about). Sweden has the highest GINI coefficient in Western Europe, and its murder rate is 50% lower than that of France, which has a lower GINI. The U.S. has the highest GINI of any large, rich country in the world, but Russia has more than twice as many murders per capita. I don't think social scientists are stupid (I have M.A. in Cultural Anthropology, and I'm pretty stupid, but I may be an outlier). So (assuming you are right and they ALL agree) there are probably explanations for my objections. Nonetheless, the recent popularity of seeing economic inequality as one of the horrors of modern capitalism leads me to believe in the possibility that the facts are fitted to the theory, and not vice versa.

A quick glance at GINI stats (by country) and murder stats (by country) does seem to show that there is some correlation -- but it hardly appears as strong as you suggest. (I haven't done any formal analysis of the stats -- but its clear there is NOT a 1:1 correlation between GINI and murder rates, or even close to it.)
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Burning ghost
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Re: Is white supremacy normal in the USA?

Post by Burning ghost »

Ecrub -

You dismiss the facts because you're tired of people riling against Capitalism? In way am I expressing that Capitalism is to blame for inequality; I think I have said, more than once, that the world is currently at its highest level of inequality (I would attribute this very much to Capitalism.) I have no problem with inequality. I was simply stating that the data tends to show that inequality can be too great and this leads to higher murder rates among men (which it does.) On the flip side of extremely high disparity between richest and poorest, we'd be faced with communist ideologies ... we all know how volatile that can be!

I am assuming you either made a typo or misread the stats? I am guessing you meant Sweden has the LOWEST Gini coefficient, which would be fitting for a low murder rate.

I am also a little baffled by your statement about household incomes? I am guessing it was tongue in cheek, but if not I may as well reveal the problem and ask some unrelated questions which interest me.

You really think this was meant to measure domestic violence depending on the different level of income between partners? That would be an interesting study. I am sure someone has already looked into this, and I would be curious to see what pattern plays out between men and women in the same household on drastically different incomes that are not pooled together ... notice the problem with your rather bizarre extrapolation? The fact that family money tends to be pooled together for the whole family unlike the whole neighbourhood of families pooling their collective money together. Which you know, so we're talking about a separate and isolated system.
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Ecurb
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Re: Is white supremacy normal in the USA?

Post by Ecurb »

I didn't "dismiss the facts". Instead, I looked at them. Sweden (surprisingly, given its reputation as an egalitarian country) has the greatest economic inequality in Western Europe (acc. to GINI, which, I admit, I don't know much about). It also has a slightly higher murder rate than average for Western Europe, but a lower murder rate than that of France (and some other European countries).

My statement about households was simply meant to prove that the talking head you linked was clearly incorrect when he said that economic inequality was correlated to murder in any geographical region, however small. (I think he mentioned "neighborhoods"). Clearly, if this is accurate, "however small" would also include the family. I was simply trying to show that he was making claims that seem dubious. After all, countries, cities, and neighborhoods are also "separate and isolated systems".
Ecurb
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Re: Is white supremacy normal in the USA?

Post by Ecurb »

Correction: Sweden is the most unequal country in Western Europe according to a 2017 Allianz report, not according to GINI. I imagine these things are difficult to measure, and different statistical techniques may yield very different results in terms of which geographical areas are most unequal. This makes me even more suspicious, however, of the complete statistical agreement among social scientists suggested by Burning Ghost.
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Burning ghost
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Re: Is white supremacy normal in the USA?

Post by Burning ghost »

Ecurb -

Look again. Sweden has a LOW level of economic inequality, not a HIGH level.

It is not 1:1 ratio, but it is a STRONG correlation. Of course it doesn't look string if you read your stats upside down (which I pointed out you had.)

The stats I referenced showed that Slovenia, Denmark, Hungary and Sweden had the GREATEST EQUALITY not the highest INEQUALITY.

HERE : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... e_equality

Note: I was looking at the stats comparing the top and bottom 20% of the distribution in order to get an idea of the kind of slope we're talking about. It was here that the difference between the US and other European nations really stuck out.

What is interesting is the difference between the ranking for the top and bottom 10% where the US and the UK are not so far apart. When we skew the data to look more toward the middle ground of the population though (for the top and bottom 20%) then the difference is quite clear don't you think?
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Burning ghost
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Re: Is white supremacy normal in the USA?

Post by Burning ghost »

Ecurb wrote: December 21st, 2017, 1:56 pm Correction: Sweden is the most unequal country in Western Europe according to a 2017 Allianz report, not according to GINI. I imagine these things are difficult to measure, and different statistical techniques may yield very different results in terms of which geographical areas are most unequal. This makes me even more suspicious, however, of the complete statistical agreement among social scientists suggested by Burning Ghost.
Show me where it says that in the report please? I have been talking about the disparity between income. That is likely where the confusion lies. There are TWO different measures of inequality. That is why I specifically referred to the top and bottom 20%

There are obviously some strange outliers, but if you look further they can be accounted for. Denmark is one. Once you look at the population distribution between the levels of income it becomes startlingly clear that it is not a nation of economic inequality. The Scandinavian countries are pretty much economically stable in regard to income distribution (The slope is a manageable climb.)

I am willing to accept that the US is a unique nation too in many respects. The reason I looked at differences between the top and bottom 20% was to factor out the extremely rich to some degree (there will always be extremely rich in the top section.) The disparity between the top and bottom 20% is clear enough.

And I repeat, I am saying this because I think it could be partly the cause for people looking to more radical political ideologies. I was not suggesting it is the singular cause of all humanities woes, only that it is a intuitively and statistically verifiable. If you're working your socks off and getting nothing back for your blood and sweat whilst those directly above you are getting paid double then you'll get annoyed. It will feel unfair. Rich people living with rich people does not cause conflict, but the wider the gap broadens the more confliction will show.
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Ecurb
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Re: Is white supremacy normal in the USA?

Post by Ecurb »

If you google "economic inequality by country" this list shows up:

Here's the list of the countries with the highest wealth inequality, according to the Allianz report.

U.S.A. — 80.56.
Sweden — 79.90.
U.K. — 75.72.
Indonesia — 73.61.
Austria — 73.59.
Germany — 73.34.
Colombia — 73.18.
Chile — 73.17.

It;s from a Fortune magazine article reporting on the Allianz report (whatever that is):

http://fortune.com/2015/09/30/america-w ... nequality/

The direct quote from the article:
"Ironically, the second highest Gini score overall in the Allianz report was found in Sweden, a nation long thought of as egalitarian."

So I guess it is based on Gini score, after all, although when I google GINI score Sweden doesn't show up as high on the list.
In any event, just glancing at the stats, there seems to be a greater correlation between geography and murder rates than between economic inequality and murder. The murder rate in the Americas in general is 5 times that of Europe (16.3 per 100k people, compared to 3.0 in Europe and 4.8 in the U.S., which obviously means the rate for the Americas excluding the U.S. is even far higher). Here' a link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... icide_rate

I suspect (although I haven't researched it) that the Allianz report listed only big countries, or some small ones would be on the list. I believe economic inequality studies can compare incomes or can compare wealth, which may yield different results.
Ecurb
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Re: Is white supremacy normal in the USA?

Post by Ecurb »

By the way, based on the WIKI pages for both GINI and murder rates, the correlation seems less than exact. Costa Rica for example, has more economic disparity than El Salvador, but 1/10th the murder rate (El Salvador is the world murder capital). The lowest murder rate in South America is Chile (3.6) and the highest is Venezuela (57.1), but Chile has high economic inequality (51) compared to Venezuela (39). Of course I don't know how these stats are gathered, and I'm no expert, but a quick glance seems to suggest that economic inequality is not directly correlated to murder rates.
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Burning ghost
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Re: Is white supremacy normal in the USA?

Post by Burning ghost »

I skimmed through the report. I mentions Sweden a fair amount, but shows nothing to back up your claim.

Did you read what I wrote? I was referring to INCOME. Wealth and income distributions are two completely different things, but the Gini index is used for both because it measures the overall disparity (explained in link below simplistically.)

Just found this (which funnily enough mentions the top and bottom 20% in the US) :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xMCWr0O3Hs

I think that pretty much covers everything. I am arguing that the inequality promotes radical views. That is all. If you wish to discuss this further I am happy to in PM's or another dedicated thread. I am not happy about talking about and tangential subject here though (because that is the way I am.)

If none of this satisfies you PM me or create a new thread on this subject so we can discuss it please. I am more than happy to look further into this kind of thing because I am no expert and reasonably new to economics as a field of personal interest.
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JMTelevideos
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Re: Is white supremacy normal in the USA?

Post by JMTelevideos »

White supremacy is not normal in the USA if white supremacy is defined as "white domination over non-whites because whites are superior", which seems to me to be a fair characterization of the original intention behind historical white supremacy; on the other hand, the new "alt-right" movement, which does not consider itself, according to Richard Spencer, to be a white supremacist movement, retains some characteristics which might be appealing to white supremacists such as 1) Implied separation based on ethnic identity 2) Ethnic identity is more important than the individual 3) White people can achieve an ethno-state only by struggle 4) Anti-immigration of non-whites into white countries. Given the popularity of the "Alt-right" movement in many YouTube channels, with thousands of viewers, one can imply that the "Alt-right" seems to promote some of the ideals of white supremacist with a more intellectual (arguably) tone; furthermore, "alt-right" movement does not intend to create a hierarchy where whites are necessarily at the top.
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Burning ghost
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Re: Is white supremacy normal in the USA?

Post by Burning ghost »

JMTelevideos wrote: January 3rd, 2018, 1:30 am White supremacy is not normal in the USA if white supremacy is defined as "white domination over non-whites because whites are superior", which seems to me to be a fair characterization of the original intention behind historical white supremacy; on the other hand, the new "alt-right" movement, which does not consider itself, according to Richard Spencer, to be a white supremacist movement, retains some characteristics which might be appealing to white supremacists such as 1) Implied separation based on ethnic identity 2) Ethnic identity is more important than the individual 3) White people can achieve an ethno-state only by struggle 4) Anti-immigration of non-whites into white countries. Given the popularity of the "Alt-right" movement in many YouTube channels, with thousands of viewers, one can imply that the "Alt-right" seems to promote some of the ideals of white supremacist with a more intellectual (arguably) tone; furthermore, "alt-right" movement does not intend to create a hierarchy where whites are necessarily at the top.
Over all I agree. It seems the OP was asking the question "If people agree with SOME points espoused by a certain group does that make them part of that group?" Of course not. It is like saying all vegetarians are evil because Hitler was a vegetarian.

Even the most heinous groups and ideologies possess some reasonable ideas. If they did not they would never gather any kind of following. What they usually do is latch on to some common social gripe and attach their own twisted view to it and exaggerate the connection/causation/correlation.

The points I have made on this thread are mostly looking at the general environmental factors (the condition of the society) that allow such ideologies to take hold more prominently.
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Steve3007
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Re: Is white supremacy normal in the USA?

Post by Steve3007 »

Burning ghost wrote: It seems the OP was asking the question "If people agree with SOME points espoused by a certain group does that make them part of that group?" Of course not. It is like saying all vegetarians are evil because Hitler was a vegetarian
An interesting point about groups and generalisations. Obviously every individual person has a different mix of views. So we place people into groups/categories for the same reason that we do that for other things - to manage the complexity. But, of course, there's a trade-off. Clearly for any group containing more than one person each person in that group will not be entirely defined by the views by which the group is defined. The question of how many of the group's views a person has to hold in order to be placed in that group is arbitrary. It's part of the trade-off between managing the complexity and describing people accurately. It depends on our purpose. So I disagree with your statement:
"If people agree with SOME points espoused by a certain group does that make them part of that group?" Of course not.
It can make them part of that group, depending on how broadly we wish to categorise people. It's not like saying "all vegetarians are evil because Hitler was a vegetarian". That's simply a logical error. The two categories in that case are "vegetarian" and "evil". If Hitler is a member of both categories and vegetarians are (by definition) members of the first category, it doesn't logically follow that vegetarians are members of the second category, although they might be.
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Burning ghost
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Re: Is white supremacy normal in the USA?

Post by Burning ghost »

Steve -

You disagree with plain logic and then, without irony, think people are going to listen to your claims about what "doesn't logically follow"?

Is this a clever attempt to cover up the first fallacy by producing an obvious truth. If so you're attempt failed quite dramatically. If you set yourself up to fall then I am curious to see why would do such a thing?

Why would you say you disagree with the statement "because people agree with X it doesn't necessarily make them Y", then say, "because someone is X it doesn't make them Y?"

All you've done is disagree with the statement I made and then reiterated it as your own statement of truth. It is a farce to say you only agree with a statement if you are the one stating it.
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Re: Is white supremacy normal in the USA?

Post by Steve3007 »

Burning ghost wrote:Why would you say you disagree with the statement "because people agree with X it doesn't necessarily make them Y", then say, "because someone is X it doesn't make them Y?"
I didn't either agree or disagree with either of those two statements, did I? Neither of them occured in your post or in my reply to it.

I disagreed with this proposition:
"If people agree with SOME points espoused by a certain group does that make them part of that group?" Of course not.
and I proposed that it is logically different from this one:
All vegetarians are evil because Hitler was a vegetarian
Note the different form of wording. To make the first proposition more logically similar to the second, I'd put it like this:
"If people agree with SOME points espoused by a certain group does that mean that they agree with all of the other views of the other members of that group?" Of course not.
I would then agree with it. I guess it's really a pretty minor semantic point.

As I explained, my point was that the purpose of placing people into groups, based on their views or any other characteristic which they share, is to manage complexity. i.e. it's often not possible to consider all of the views/characteristics of every person individually. If they share SOME views or characteristics, they don't have to share ALL of them in order to be placed in the group, for the sake of categorization. As I said, there's a trade-off between accurately describing large numbers of individuals and simplicity/brevity.

Personally, I tend to dislike broad categories of views because of the type of error that people often make which you illustrated with your vegetarian/evil/Hitler example. But I accept that they are necessary.

For example, for convenience and brevity I (usually) consent to being categorized as an atheist and a materialist, but if there is no need for brevity then I prefer a more nuanced description.
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Maldon007
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Re: Is white supremacy normal in the USA?

Post by Maldon007 »

4% of people in the poll supported neo-nazism, i think that is probably accurate and telling. The marriage one... It's beyond me to understand, maybe people construing the question to mean, SHOULD people of different races marry, that I could believe.
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