@Maniac: I only said favour those in need, not take everything from everyone and reallocate it based on needs. I wouldn't do anything nearly as radical as you say, but rather raise 'house tax' (in this limited hypothetical situation, in reality it doesn't matter as long as wealthy people pay more) and make sure the tax ends up helping those in need.

And I'm with Octavious, although doing it again completely makes more sense when more balls are stolen. That's a matter of where you draw the line and I really don't care where the line is drawn in this hypothetical situation.

http://imgur.com/5qUfTzy

If you whites were really against racism, you would argue to abolish inheritance as a practice. All it does is perpetuate historical injustice and accidental possession of wealth. Even bootstraps libertarians ought to agree - everyone should make their own way, no? So why do we let the descendants of slave-owners continue to hold slave money?

Thucy-- go pick oranges.

I don't understand...

Slaves had money?

hey there thucydides
I agree with your position on how western society shun the "3-rd world countries" from gaining a status similar to themselves. However, I believe that your convictions are slightly misplaced, as we have to have a balance between our ethical morals and real life applications.

I respect your ethics that what was done was injust in history, however following your logic we would be repeating that "historical injustice" once again.

Also, this mindset wasnt constructed through just racism, but a collection of

Because otherwise the state would inherit everything, and the state usually doesn't know what's best for the people.

Also, I don't descend from slave owners, I descend from hard workers that worked hard and saved money to give their children a better life. No one is going to work hard and save money to give the state a few extra bucks, especially since it would all end up with the state anyway.

You take away a shitload of incentive to work and save and you give the state full ownership, which is really really stupid IMO.

If we lived in a world where everyone worked for a better future for everyone in future generations and where we have governments that can be fully trusted and don't suffer from any corruption, that might work.

Also, what prevents someone from giving everything to his/her children before his/her death?

@octavious - by allocating only the new balls to some of those without does nothing to address past inequalities. And in effect continues them. Reallocating all the balls is likely to result in 40% of the balls going to red wearing children. Allocating the new balls ONLY to red wearing children will result in about 28% going to red wearing children but allocating the new balls to all those without is likely to result in 23% of the red wearing children. If we wanted to be fair, then 40% of population getting 40% of resources is the fairest, if that can't be achieved then 28% of resources going to 40% of population is next best and the up fairest system sees only 23% go to 40% of population.

If you disagree that's fine, and I can see your rational. But I think you would agree that all systems are unfair to somebody. What opponents of AA want us to believe is that AA is unfair (racist) and therefore should not be considered, without realising that doing nothing is also unfair (racist). Argue about the merits or demerits of the alternative solutions by all means, but don't pretend that doing nothing is, as draugnar put it, the opposite of racism. It isn't.

@steephie - you don't care where the line is drawn because you are presumably on the right side of it. If you had suffered and ended up on the other side of the line, through no fault of your own, your perspective may be different. Look at my hyper theatrical example again and try to put yourself in a red coat and then a blue coat and you may get a better understanding of the problem.

Cannon rush,

You are absolutely right. All of life's action and content consists in bridging the gap between morals and real life

There have been no past inequalities. The children have had the balls for no more than a few minutes. But lets ignore that for a moment and focus on what I believe is the important point of your ball example.

There is no difference between red shirted children and blue shirted children. Whatever happens 70% of the children will have balls and 30% will not. 100% of the population without balls have no balls. 100% of the population with balls have balls. The only person who makes the shirt colour an issue at all is you because you are choosing to discriminate on shirt colour. You are saying to any blue shirted child without a ball that he will never have a ball because he has a blue shirt. You are also showing every child with a blue shirt who has a ball that he must never give it up because there is zero chance of him getting it back again. By using this system you create division and hate and envy between "groups" that in reality have no difference between them

I just don't get why you care about the colours of the coats, Maniac.
I forgot the numbers and don't care too much, but here's my reasoning: a bunch of kids have something. There's one distinguishable group, including some kids who have something, and various people of that group 'rob' the other group. Not all the people in that group are to blame, and not all profited. Some still don't have a ball and others already had a ball, after all.

At this point, I distinguish 2 groups: those who have balls, fair or not (can't be distinguished from eachother), and those who don't have balls, either because it was stolen or because they never had one (indistinguishable as well).

I see absolutely no reason to split that second group based on coat colour. They all don't have a ball and you don't know who had their ball stolen.

So since there are only 2 real groups IMO, there's 3 options: reallocate everything at random, give the new balls to the group without balls (assuming you don't want anyone to get 2 balls) or take away all balls from the people with balls and give them to all the people without balls.

Third option is shit IMO because you are punishing some people for catching a ball. So I think the decent choices are one and two: completely random screws the people who catched a ball and held on to it and letting the group with balls keep the balls while giving the rest to the group without balls rewards the people who stole a ball.

Choose whichever you think is the lesser evil.

So my point: the solution doesn't ever involve the colour of their clothing, and I don't see how one could possibly justify that rather than one of the 2 options I mentioned above.

"There is no difference between red shirted children and blue shirted children" I agree so if you have to allocate finite resources why not allocate all the balls by lottery. Every child has a 7/10 chance of getting a ball. The colour of their shirt is then truly irrelevant.

Every system is unfair and some are more unfair than others. Again, I'm happy to debate merits of which system is the less unfair, but do you accept that doing nothing isn't the opposite of fair?

Assuming I'm innocent, I would probably be biased to option one if I don't have a ball and want one and option two if I have a ball and want to keep it. Again, no other options make sense to me unless you want to completely ignore 'justice'.

I think both Octavious and me agree that you can debate merits of various systems, but NOT BASED ON THE COLOUR OF THEIR CLOTHING. That's our point. You can argue for various systems as being most fair, but in any case, basing it on clothing is most certainly more unfair than the alternatives.

For the record, I would give everyone the same amount of time with a ball. I know that's sort of cheating since splitting is apparently not an option in your hypothetical situation, but in reality, it is.

Steephie - you are absolutely right. Let's look at the example again without reference to coats. 100 children. 50 catch balls, fights break out and balls get passed around. When the teacher walks back in should they allow the existing balls to remain in hands of those now holding them or should give every child an equal chance of catching a ball? I think giving every child equal chance is the fairest solution, even though some children who originally caught a ball will lose out. The overall result will be fairer.

If we agree on this issue then no one needs to even think about the colour of ones coat.

The trouble with that line of thought, Maniac, is that it takes the ball scenario too far from the race scenario to make it applicable. The people who nicked the balls are long dead, and a new group of children have arrived. Some have picked up the balls left behind by the dead ones, some have new balls, some have none. There are a variety of different shirt colours, which still don't matter in the slightest.

The toilet isn't a fair analogy because there are also men only toilets. In this instance separate but equal is acceptable, but it is not a fair comparison to say a UNCF as having a UCCF would be slammed by the black community as racist yet they feel it is fair to have one that caters to their needs. *Any* service providing exclusivity must legally be allowed to have a counterpart for the majority.

@Maniac: yeah, so? Do you then agree with me that race should be no part of the equation? If so, what point are you trying to make?

Or colour of shirts.

Thucy said the most sensible thing in this thread: Abolish inheritance. Inheritance is intrinsically unjust. Society would benefit hugely by ending inheritance altogether.

Oh give it a rest. Parents provide for their children. No matter how old or young those children may be. Inheritance is a part of this, and always will be. Don't try to tell me what I can do with MY money and MY properties, you shiftless politically correct ninnies.

@Jamiet99uk: please explain to me how you want to do that without leaving any loopholes, increasing corruption or creating an authoritarian state.
Surely we can agree that we can speak of a failure if one of those 3 things happen?

Oh, crossposted with mapleleaf and I'm on his side this time. Funny how things go.

Getting rid of inheritance is a ridiculous idea...

Maybe authoritarian is the wrong word. If that's the case, you can probably guess what I mean though.