I find this wildly amusing since my father’s family was from Hungary and had, shall we say, strong feelings about both groups. Therefore, the only correct answer can be, stay away from the damn Ukranians.
lot of cute answers. Let say you wanted to start up a company with either one (remember this is an X or Y situation, a random person from either group).
What would be your choice?
For me the choice is ever so easy
How about - and I realize this is a revolutionary idea - we look at the merits and the individual people instead of their ethnic group?
I can hear this song in my mind now. It’s actually got a pretty good rhythm to it.
It wouldn’t be easy for me.
Can we at least give them similar resumes? Picking random people is a stupid exercise. I could pick a mentally-handicapped Jewish person and uber-intellectual Roma person doing a random draw. So at least let’s put the people on a level playing field. Same basic skills, same educational level, same achievements, similar recommendations. That’s only fair, right? Unless you just want to say something about Jewish people being disproportionately college-educated and monied compared to the Roma, which no one here has argued against.
OK. So we’ve got two fellas that appear the same on paper, except that they are different ethnic groups. Who do I start a business with? Well, I could go with the Jewish guy, because it might be safe to assume he’s got more connections than the other guy, and that he’s got the business acumen and intelligence needed to run a business.
But maybe he’s a trust-fund baby who’s never had to work a day in his life. Maybe he knows economic theory through-and-through, but he’d be lost if you thrust him into real world situations. Maybe he’s a brainaic but he doesn’t have much charisma. Maybe he has really bad BO and he funks up the place.
Now the Roma guy. Maybe it’s safe for us to assume he doesn’t have all the connections that the Jewish guy has. Maybe, despite his college diploma, he’s not the brainaic that the other guy is. But he may work harder, because he’s worked hard his entire life disproving the stereotypes that exist about his people. Maybe he’s done some hustling in his life because he’s not a trust-fund baby, and because he wasn’t born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Maybe he’s just the guy you want because he’s charismatic, smells good, and knows how to drum up business by any means necessary.
All these “maybes” make this an uneasy choice for me, even if I give credence to some of the stereotypes. People have a tendency to buck stereotypes, just as easily as they fulfill them.
But I expect this will fall on deaf ears. You’ll just come up with another ridiculous hypothetical.
Are you being deliberately stupid?
No, you see, he said he would *rather *lend money to a Jew than a Roma. Truly, he is a Righteous Gentile.
Good work everybody. Scamartistry is trying to get people to engage in argument within the racist framework he believes in. Then in his mind you, become just like him, and just rooting for a different team, and thus hypocrites for criticizing him.
Romans…are houses?
I’ve got the album,
Vunderful, Vunderful Wiemar; Songs that didn’t quite make the cut for Cabaret.
CMC fnord!
Go watch The Life of Brian. And be ashamed.
I’d avoid starting a company with the bigot.
What’s the other group?
“People called Romans, they go home?”
It is racist, but I won’t condemn you for it. It’s a matter of fact that certain cultures are more likely to act certain ways than other cultures. Some cultures are more prone to petty thievery, others to violent crime and others to more “high brow” crime. There are also a million other variables.
But, to answer your question, I would rather lend my money to a random selection of Jews as opposed to a random selection of Gypsies. Is that bigoted of me? I’m sure it is. But, if it makes you feel any better, you guys can lend your money to the Gypsies and I’ll pick up lunch tomorrow.
It’s not my fault that they have a deeply ingrained viewpoint in which they justify stealing from outsiders as being acceptable. I’m just using that knowledge to protect myself. I’m a man of statistics - everything I do is a calculated risk. And, if I know I can minimize my risk by following what I feel is common sense, then you’re darn right, I’m going to do it.
One thing I can say is that my bigotry is not limited to races and cultures other than my own. I’m a white man. If I were driving down the road and saw a hitchhiker, I would be more like to to pick up a black man in any amount of “thug” attire than a white man in dirty camo. Why? Because I don’t want to end up chopped up in a ditch somewhere.
Look - I’m not criticizing anyone here for feeling the way they do. If you can look at the world through rose colored glasses and assume that everyone is exactly the same, then that’s fantastic. I wish I were so unjaded. But, experiences in my life have caused me to view every potential situation with a calculated eye.
Thoughts?
Anecdote: A couple years ago, I was waiting for the train with a Roma woman. She got to telling me her life story, which I have to say I didn’t understand completely, as her Bulgarian was heavily accented and she was missing a lot of teeth. But she told me about how she had 14 grandchildren (she was in her 40s) and one of them had died and how she’d never been to school and so forth.
Anyway, for some reason I was telling her about a trip I’d taken to Istanbul and she told me how she wanted to go there but she was too afraid of being robbed.
I assured her that it was unlikely that anyone was steal from her, but she insisted that yes, people were terrible thieves.
When the train arrived, the conductor harassed her and eventually kicked her off at the next stop.
Not at all, I think you’re very sensible.
I mean, what have they ever done for us?
This is what the OP wanted. A discussion about lending money to random groups of people. How often do you do that? How often does the OP do it?
Who is a gypsy? A cab driver without a medallion? Irish con men? Egyptians?
Who is a Jew? Go ask some Jews. Get back to me when you get a consistent answer.
Yes, bigotry *is *easy.
Also, if you’re willing to go into business with a random person, the odds are you’re simply stupid enough to lose your shirt whoever you choose.
Yea, it never is your fault…
It isn’t the Nazis fault the jews are vermin… they just are; they were just pointing it out for those people with less commons sense.
It isn’t the slave-owners fault that negro are dumb animals… they just are, it’s just takes a bit of common sense to notice it and point it out.
Thoughts… not really, besides the fact that I’ve heard enough white power apologists in my time to recognize the bullshit as what it is. Big smile! Big Smile!
In America, the Roma because he or she is going to have contacts on the street and in the underground economy that no raised in the suburbs middle to upper middle class American Jew can match. It’s after the company is in the black that you hire the Jews to keep the accounting and legal work legitimate.