Spoiler Alert

This doesn't seem like the best deployment of scarce resources, even if we could one day stand to benefit.

This is classic Skadden.  It also makes me think I'm doing something way wrong...

Get your paint cans ready.

I thought this was a nice response to the anti-prayer folks out there.

I like the term "sweat equity" to describe this.

Mark Zuckerberg's big donation of his stock is a bit different from the usual mode of philanthropy.

Responses:

1. That's not that morbid.  It recalls the no-zero-days mindset.

2. I might be able to tolerate that flight. :P

3. I can identify with what she said.

4. How does it relate to privilege?

5. The first one describes my schools from pre-school to 12th grade (at least the use of fear).  The second one is fantastic.

6. Your bear is around the corner, bunny!

R2R:

1. I suspect if 100 people die in China, somewhere in China someone picks up the story.  That said, I've never read Chinese media, so maybe not.

R2R2R:

5. Yes!

R2R2R2R:

1. I am not pro-bank.  But I'm also not anti-bank, and I suspect that there are many people out there who would say, "Maybe that was unfair, but they had it coming."  In the same way that I would object to the IRS or DOJ jerking an individual around for no reason, I object to the CFPB or the Fed jerking a bank around for no reason.  The bank - indeed, any corporation - is just people.  To be sure, I would also object to a bank jerking around an individual for no reason, although my objections would look different since it wouldn't be government abuse of power.

R2R2R2R2R2R2R2R2R2R:

1. The last statement proves too little or too much.  For starters, it's not about judging other people.  It's about observing the world and coming to conclusions about what works and what doesn't, for your own benefit and for the benefit of the people in the world with whom you interact.  Yes, there is a harm principle element that governs when we do judge people (e.g. if you slap me for no reason, I judge you insofar as I tell you that your actions are inappropriate).  But as much as I make fun of Swan for her position on what it means to be a Christian, I do so not because I think it's inappropriate for her to say that to her friends, but rather because she's wrong on the merits.

This isn't about judgment as much as it is about forming opinions.  It seems inappropriate to go up to a stranger and explain to him why he's living his life incorrectly, but how is that different from proselytizing?  In my view, the primary difference is the merits.  But more to the point, the differences between being judgmental and having and expressing opinions are humility and empathy.  It's the humility to consider that the world from someone else's perspective might look different, as well as the empathy to try to put yourself in the person's shoes.  So if you encounter a non-believer, you don't walk up to him and say, "You're going to hell if you don't do what I, oh and I guess God and Jesus, say."  You instead find a way to understand what he is about (i.e. empathy), and you find a way to overcome his reasonable skepticism about the implicit notion that somehow you have the answers and he does not (i.e. humility).

Returning to the issue regarding idiosyncratic dating preferences, it certainly makes sense as an initial matter to assume that people structure their behavior in the face of information and a worldview that is formed by their experiences, and thus to presume that the decision to date or not to date a person because of some quirk is not necessarily wrong.  But you would stop there, and I don't think that makes sense.  We have the ability to make observations about the rationale of a person's decision, as well as to consider the all-too-true fact that many people have only a partial understanding of their own decision-making.  We also have the ability to place the decision into our worldview, as well as place our decisions into theirs.  We can reasonably evaluate these decisions even if we don't have all the information, as long as we reasonably investigate and remember that we don't have all the information (to the extent that we don't).  And we can reasonably form conclusions about all of this, whether or not we think it prudent to share such opinions with the parties whose decisions we are evaluating.

As to whether a racist person should be more open-minded about his dating choices, I think the answer has to be yes because that means he is being less of a racist.  I would not conclude that sincerely harboring racist feelings and nonetheless dating a person whom you hold in contempt for racist reasons counts as being less of a racist.  But maybe the answer for that person is to take a step back from the question of whether he should keep dating approved-race people while he works through his racism and instead try to deal with the question of how to understand his feelings of hate, contempt, etc., for a whole class of people and how such hate juxtaposes with his alleged feelings of love towards the approved-race people.  But I don't agree with the implicit idea that we should treat racist people as though they have a fixed mindset, or even assume that the only way to conclude that racism makes sense is if you have evil in your heart.  I think that in itself is an unfair judgment without more.

So yes, I agree with the sentiment of your last sentence (indeed, in my previous post, I said, "...I think it's important that we acknowledge that we should not sit in judgment of others..."), but the belief that someone has made a bad decision is not judgmental without more.

B