(And how you can't say who is better off, a person who experiences, x1y1z3, vs x2y2z1 vs x1y4z1.5)

_____

Actually I think that some forms of privilege not only can be quantified, but should. In fact, quantification is what allows us to determine whether a given social category is a form of privilege or oppression, and this has real consequences.


Examples:

When people want to deny trans women access to women's resources like emergency shelters, they usually argue that trans women have too much male privilege. Without quantification, this can only be contested through an ideological argument that ultimately has no measure of falsifiability (it can't be proven to be wrong) and thus is irresolvable. This then leads to a decades-long stalemate between the (thankfully increasingly rare) women's organizations with moderate to low resrouces and trans people with low to no resources. If, instead, we ask what the criteria are for admission to this shelter (limited income, risk of violence from partner, in society and in men's shelters) we can establish that trans and cis women both need to get into these things - actually, trans women, on average, need them more. Were the people trying to exclude trans folk to actually listen to this form of argument, access would improve and with it, quality of life.

Another example is the frequent claim in politics that indigenous people have it easy and clearly have a form of privilege over white people - due to band bursaries, reduced taxes and government programs. If one quantifies the very limited value of these (frequently slow) bursaries (which are limited to people with membership of a band that can afford them), the marginal gain from buying goods tax-free less the opportunity cost that comes from living on reserve (which is necessary to get these discounts), and the actual value of these government programs, and then if one compares it to the cash value of white employability, reduced police harassment and the average intergenerational wealth transfer, one can conclude that the average's individual's person's experience, it is actually the case being white that is a form of privilege versus being indigenous. This has policy implications. And it has numerous parallels in other discussions over equity measures.

While many incidents of privilege are still hard to quantify, the social categories through that determine when and how they occur often track with quality of life data, and from this, you ca get a picture of what's easier. This can allow apply within one form of privilege - for example, the 1965 book The Vertical Mosaic quantified different forms of racial privilege in Canada, and this ranking of racial ancestry versus life outcomes and political power still holds. From this, one can also state that, for example, all forms of neurodiversity (mild ASD vs Schizophrenia) are not equal burdens - and this too can be quantified, as is done with physical ability in the Paralympics.

Using this method, you actually can answer the questions above. You can do so holistically, or for each variable or combination thereof as experienced differently by two people of differing social situation. When the numbers are so close as to be swayed by small difference in interpretation, you can conclude that both can expect roughly equal but different outcomes. But when there is no reasonable equivalence, you can say who has it worse off in a given category (and the situations in which it has an effect), or overall.



I had a good conversation on the bus about externalities in business and cities, journalism, social structures, missteps of academic assumption, and working to make the world better. When I say "good," I mean "interesting and engaging." It's been awhile since I've found this in someone new at school, or that snap in anyone, anywhere, really.

I'm glad that I can still find run into people like this. I'll have to see more of her.
The red elvises were a lot of fun. See my flickr for photos and lizard-on-a-stick.

At the club, Ryan complimented me on my attire. I really apprecate this: I have trouble with some social things (a good quality in a politician, much like like wearing totalitarian regalia and crossdressing), and really benefit from reminders. Examples: "Good table manners, but you never wipe your mouth when you're done." or "Your shirts are all huge." or "I like it when you bow, I feel acknowledged."  - These sort of things, the keep-doing-this, stop-doing-that and don'-worry-about-the-other-thing I really benefit from and always appreciate.

I am reading a book on behaviour modification and One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. I hate it when books have the movie picture on the front, especially here, where Jack Nicholson has the wrong colour of hair. Can you imagine if they did this for Shakespeare? Look! Leonardo diCaprio and Claire Danes stare out at you from the cover of Romeo and Juliet!

The hidden storm that is the terminus of a romantic relationship is mostly over. Mostly. Still blowing now and then. I need to learn to talk to poeple about this sort of thing. Hell, I need to learn how to have emotionally close conversations as a matter of course.

I am filled with optimism, confidence and a sense of mild confusion.

My plan with the Rhino party is to concentrate on making a local presence and let Brian "Godzilla" Salmi run the federal show. I think a meeting is in order.
Were were born yesterday?

Or should I say, "decanted and programmed?"

Are you sure?

I've known most of the people reading this for very little time, usually less than a year. Perhaps I met you earlier but the odds are that I didn't really know you.

It feels longer, more significant, but it's all temporary, you see. A beat of a butterfly's wings.
                                  "final score on the fluttering exhibition: 9.8, 9.6,
                                   9.9, 9.6 and 9.2 from the East German Moth"


I walked in some dozen or sixteen weeks past wehn this familiar set of social microcosms coalesced from dust and sweet water. I simply presumed they'd always been there, like great pillars in the Earth (and the concrete is not yet dry).

This life is new to me. And strange. Being social that is. It's not all good all the time and there were parts of being in the cave that I miss but this is...
This is what?
                 Nice?
                                  It is.
                                                   I am.
Defined in part.


Good to know y'all.

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August 2017

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