tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7351793404873095589.post6897597025890666006..comments2024-02-28T01:18:28.672-08:00Comments on Zach Freitas-Groff: Did Confrontation Really Work in the Civil Rights Movement?Zach Freitas-Groffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09856283828701618783noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7351793404873095589.post-53326903224647785092017-10-03T09:04:24.426-07:002017-10-03T09:04:24.426-07:00Good points re: segregation and mass incarceration...Good points re: segregation and mass incarceration. To be clear, I think they were probably less severe than racial injustice would have been without the protest movement, but I have less confidence in that then I did before.<br /><br />I agree with the claims re: bans (it would be great if we had hard evidence on how one can actually create cultural transformation), although I think in this context the bans actually did take effect in many cases. Explicit employment or accommodation discrimination is quite rare now. Worse are the things left completely unaddressed by the law.Zach Freitas-Groffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09856283828701618783noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7351793404873095589.post-16559569626059490842017-10-03T09:01:14.319-07:002017-10-03T09:01:14.319-07:00Yup, I think that's probably a good proxy. Of ...Yup, I think that's probably a good proxy. Of course, sometimes the backlash is worth it, and it probably was in this case. I do understand EAs who make that claim more though. (I've seen it most in the X-risk space when people talk about Elon Musk.)Zach Freitas-Groffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09856283828701618783noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7351793404873095589.post-30180022444557492392017-09-30T09:16:10.698-07:002017-09-30T09:16:10.698-07:00My (uneducated) impression is that mass incarcerat...My (uneducated) impression is that mass incarceration <a href="http://image.absoluteastronomy.com/images/encyclopediaimages/u/us/us_incarceration_timeline.gif" rel="nofollow">got dramatically worse</a> in the 1970s/1980s. But of course it's hard to say how much this would have happened anyway....Brian Tomasikhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10510289096715716609noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7351793404873095589.post-25747398256160907492017-09-29T20:09:19.193-07:002017-09-29T20:09:19.193-07:00It's not really clear whether the mass incarce...It's not really clear whether the mass incarceration or de facto residential and school segregation were exacerbated by white backlash to the Civil Rights Movenent or rather were about the same as without the Movement, or were attenuated by the Movement. <br /><br />In any event, one lesson we might glean is that bans affect official policies but not people's actions on their sentiments outside of official contexts. This is a familiar point from Prohibition: alcohol was no longer served at official venues but was prevalent enough elsewhere. Similarly, official Jim Crow impediments to voting and official school segregation were mostly ended, but racist policies and behaviors were prevalent elsewhere (white flight, unequal treatment from police, "redlining" by banks, etc.).<br /><br />We might expect the same with a meat ban---and it is what happened with Chicago's 2006-2008 fois gras ban---underground black markets. I don't think the lesson is that bans are bad or that they are not worth passing but rather that bans aren't the end-all. They need to be accompanied by cultural transformation, e.g. the stigmatization of notions like racism and speciesism and public calling of attention to scenarios where they occur, even subtly. Jay Quigleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13589884102835587064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7351793404873095589.post-72927892796451075012017-09-29T15:37:21.149-07:002017-09-29T15:37:21.149-07:00Very interesting! I wonder if one proxy for future...Very interesting! I wonder if one proxy for future backlash could be how polarizing a message is? Maybe if people can be gently convinced of something without turning it into two-sided debate, the idea will encounter less resistance. I guess this is partly what people have in mind when they say they "don't want to politicize" some topic like climate science or effective altruism.Brian Tomasikhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10510289096715716609noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7351793404873095589.post-11006945043952069322017-09-26T13:06:18.010-07:002017-09-26T13:06:18.010-07:00It's not really possible to know without repla...It's not really possible to know without replaying history. I still think more likely than not it was an inevitable side effect, but my read of it is that there's a non-negligible chance it's either the direct action/confrontation OR the atmosphere around the changes.Zach Freitas-Groffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09856283828701618783noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7351793404873095589.post-22838349059381404522017-09-26T09:51:07.722-07:002017-09-26T09:51:07.722-07:00Was the backlash to the direct action/confrontatio...Was the backlash to the direct action/confrontation or to the legislative changes? Amy H-Lhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05355186815178915182noreply@blogger.com