Check Your Privilege!

rutger5000

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LetalisK said:
rutger5000 said:
Yet that's exactly how it works. The human digest system is a funny thing. The energy in those chips is pure fat, and will be very effectively be transformed in your own fat. The energy in those 7 pieces of fruit is in natural sugars. They converted to bodily sugar if your body is low on them, or simply pass through your body if they don't.
But perhaps there's a cultural-economics difference here. I've had American orange juice (basically liquid sugar), chicken (2 words hormones and antibiotics, don't eat them) and bread (O my f*cking God, I wouldn't even eat that again if I was paid for it). Yet you consider this as healthy, quality food. If that is what passes for healthy food in America, than I suppose there is a case to be made for quantity over quality.
That's only true if you're taking some sort of medication to force everything through you quickly or you have a digestive disease that prevents you from adequately absorbing fructose. The body simply passing fructose through your body would actually lead to lactose intolerance-like symptoms as the bacteria in your digestive tract now has something to feast on that isn't getting absorbed. Not to mention it would mean traditional sodas would no longer make you fat as their primary sweetener is fructose based(high fructose corn syrup). Your liver will break down and absorb all the fructose you take in[footnote]and fructose toxicity can occur if too much fructose is taken in, though I suspect it's a bit harder to reach that threshold[/footnote] and if it has to break down more than you need, it gets turned into fat.

Though like a disclaimer, I feel the need to tack on that it is less likely to happen if the fructose is coming from something like an apple, where it has more time to digest, than a soda or a juice(juice actually isn't that great for you if you're trying to lose weight, though moderately better for you than soda).
If I said that quantity was completely irrelevant, than I misspoke. But it's much less important than quantity. I'm responding to the comment of the Lunatik (that's his alias, I'm not insulting anybody) who claimed:
"Being fat has pretty much nothing to do with what you eat, it's about how much of it you are eating.
You can never be fat and healthy, but, it's entirely possibly to be appropriately sized and unhealthy due to poor nutrition. People have lost weight eating nothing but twinkies and hot pockets, it's just a case of not overeating."
And that's utterly and completely false. The exact opposite perhaps isn't completely true if you take it to the extreme. But in all normal cases it really is.
Eating enough fruit will eventually make you fat, but you'll have to eat shit loads of it. For example bananas are a rather fatty fruit, but you'd have to go rather bananas on bananas to make you gain you gain the fat you'd gain from a typical happy meal. And I challenge you to eat so much fruit in a day that you intake the same amount of fructose as you'd from a tall glass of soda. That'd take you a lot of effort.
The stuff you mention about bacteria in your digestive tract gives food for thought. But isn't whatever passes to your digestive tract supposed to still have some nutritious value? Those bacteria aren't there for no reason, and they do need to be fed.
Honestly if you stick with a healthy vegetarian diet than you eat your belly full, and you'll keep a healthy weight. But I'm not a diet expert so I'm not capable of explaining the fine details of the how and why of the matter. I could ask around if you want, but if you're so confused about eating habits that you truly think that quantity is more important than quality, than I suggest you'll do some researching on your own.
 

zf6hellion

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generals3 said:
63/100... But i have to note this questionnaire has questions that are useless depending on where you live. For instance "You don't have a student loan" or "your parents paid for your tuition", since tuition over here costs around 500-1000? per year (and the poorest get some extra aid) i don't think many people have student loans or aren't subsidized by their parents. Same goes for healthcare questions, we have State Healthcare insurance, if someone cannot afford medication they must be doing something wrong :S

And what about "There is a place of worship for my religion in my town." (and other similar questions), i'm an agnostic, what's a place of worship for my religion supposed to be :/
Yeah, its focus is on the American side of things mostly.
 

agent9

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Dec 5, 2013
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28/100, sums everything up. I wouldn't change anything even if I could. I've worked for what I've got and I'm proud of it.
 

Twoflowers

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rutger5000 said:
Yet that's exactly how it works. The human digest system is a funny thing. The energy in those chips is pure fat, and will be very effectively be transformed in your own fat. The energy in those 7 pieces of fruit is in natural sugars. They converted to bodily sugar if your body is low on them, or simply pass through your body if they don't.
But perhaps there's a cultural-economics difference here. I've had American orange juice (basically liquid sugar), chicken (2 words hormones and antibiotics, don't eat them) and bread (O my f*cking God, I wouldn't even eat that again if I was paid for it). Yet you consider this as healthy, quality food. If that is what passes for healthy food in America, than I suppose there is a case to be made for quantity over quality.
Nope, especially the fructose metabolism is controlled very poorly (compared to for example the glucose metabolism). Actually a lot of research points to carbohydrates as the components that make one fat.
 

ShadowKatt

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Mar 19, 2009
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21/100, and I am white, and male and...somewhat straight? However, I wouldn't give this quiz ANY credence. I've never been a supporter of the idea that there is this extreme privilage gap because of race or sexuality. The area that you live in, absolutely, but not because you're born black in todays times.
 

Deadcyde

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Jan 11, 2011
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Vault101 said:
Deadcyde said:
30 out of a hundred.

Guess being white, straight and male doesn't pay off as much as it should. Not that any self respecting feminist would think that means a jot compared to women's issues. Clearly because I'm a man I should have used some sort of masculine magic to change that score. One of the questions was even "are you a man?".

*rolls eyes*

I blame myself for falling for this clickbait
oh don't start please...privilege does not mean free ice cream and mercedes for the chosen few..its not zero sum...its cross sectional

I am female, men have certain privileges I do not
I am white, I have certain privileges other ethnicities do not
I am from a good income family I have certain privileges poor people do not
I Identify as female I have certain privileges trans people do not
I am straight I have certain privileges Gay people do not

make sense?
Females are encouraged to be employed in "male dominated workforces".. this isn't the other way around
Females have rape counsellors medical facilities dedicated to the treatment of rape, men do not..
Majority of homeless are male, the vast majority...

See where I'm going with this? Gender is not an estimate of privilege, there is no standard for privilige... you're part of the problem if you think it is.

Zachary Amaranth said:
I'm curious as to where that rant came from. It seems at best tangentially related to the "quiz." So...One question asked if you were a man and it's OMG FEMINISM? That doesn't track. One says "I am white." You may have noticed it. IT's the first one.

So...Ummmm...Yeah?
Hmmm, guess it's because women aren't less privileged then men where I am. Racism is still rife and so is homophobia, but male privilege is a twitching corpse of nothing but archaic social values. No laws exist to further it and in fact some laws exist to make sure it doesn't occur. So yeah, that question in particular doesn't belong.
 

kasperbbs

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Dec 27, 2009
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Only 50%, Huh? And here i thought that i was basically cheating by being born and surrounded by mainly white people who don't really give a crap about the fact that i'm a straight atheist.
 

ImperialSunlight

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Nov 18, 2009
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43/100. Not terribly surprising as a gay pagan agnostic (it's a thing) with all kinds of psychological problems, bullying etc. who is generally on the poor side, but honestly most of the things that I didn't check off were technicalities. I wouldn't say that I'm half as underprivileged as it makes me out to be.
 

Therumancer

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Nov 28, 2007
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26 out of 100, I don't think I missed anything. I'm a straight, white, Christian. I also happen to be (currently) obese, have a degree of physical,psychological and social problems due to brain damage. Not to mention unpopular political position.

That said I do think this is rather biased, since the undercurrent seems to be that certain things that are discriminated against or are "privileged" really aren't. That said, I rated pretty close to where I expected, I'm
kind of a wreck.

Without going through the code I'm not sure which way they were trying to lean. Whether it was an effort to basically say "if your a Black, Gay, Muslim your privileged because society has all kinds of special programs and protections for people just like you" or if your privileged if your say "White, Straight, and Agnostic" or whatever. Perhaps both sides of the spectrum. At any rate, I wouldn't take it too seriously.
 

Griffolion

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Aug 18, 2009
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You're not privileged at all. You grew up with an intersectional, complicated identity, and life never let you forget it. You've had your fair share of struggles, and you?ve worked hard to overcome them. We do not live in an ideal world and you had to learn that the hard way. It is not your responsibility to educate those with more advantages than you, but if you decide you want to, go ahead and send them this quiz. Hopefully it will help.
White heterosexual male with 43/100. They really need to phrase their questions better. For instance, I have heard the phrase "you have been selected for secondary passport control". I just haven't heard it being said to me. I do know what Sallie Mae is, but I've never had any business at all with them, I just read the news occasionally.

I've actually had a really good, privileged life. But their questions just didn't capture that. I've a feeling a better worded questionnaire would put me at around 80/100. Of course, this is Buzzfeed doing a test from some thing that came out of Tumblr. So this already bad idea of "privilege checking" is being dragged through two different pig sties before being presented to us in a poorly worded questionnaire.

Also, I just want to re-quote this:

It is not your responsibility to educate those with more advantages than you, but if you decide you want to, go ahead and send them this quiz. Hopefully it will help.
How sanctimonious do these people want to get?
 

Aramis Night

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Mar 31, 2013
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16/100

I'm sure it would have been lower if it didn't count simply being white/male or straight as some privilege on its own despite how my experiences seem to match up with the most allegedly marginalized peoples experiences. The religion part was tricky since I'm agnostic but everyone tends to immediately assume I'm a Devil worshiper which has lead to all kinds of unpleasantness. Or the sexuality part. I'm straight but people seem to assume I'm gay. Even my own parents growing up thought I was since I didn't act interested or have a stash of porn. I also liked the college loan question. I got to answer that I don't have any college loan debt.... because I wasn't able to go to college. Guess that's privilege for you.

This probably would have been a lot better of a test if it didn't make the same assumptions about straight, white men that seem so in vogue these days as being automatic indications of privilege.
 

LetalisK

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rutger5000 said:
The stuff you mention about bacteria in your digestive tract gives food for thought. But isn't whatever passes to your digestive tract supposed to still have some nutritious value? Those bacteria aren't there for no reason, and they do need to be fed.
The best way I can explain it is that pointing out that it's basically the same thing as lactose intolerance, but for fructose. All the discomfort and digestive problems a lactose intolerant person experiences is because the lactose doesn't get absorbed and the bacteria uses it instead(in addition to what they normally use), which leads to lots of waste and such from the bacteria, causing things like cramps, diarrhea, etc. Same thing happens with fructose if your body doesn't absorb it.

Honestly if you stick with a healthy vegetarian diet than you eat your belly full, and you'll keep a healthy weight. But I'm not a diet expert so I'm not capable of explaining the fine details of the how and why of the matter. I could ask around if you want, but if you're so confused about eating habits that you truly think that quantity is more important than quality, than I suggest you'll do some researching on your own.
I'm already intimately involved with nutrition and exercise due to my job(s) being very physically demanding and requiring a high level of physical fitness and health. Mind you, I never claimed curbing quantity over quality was an ideal way of losing weight, just that quantity was a bigger problem for Americans than quality(which is still a problem, but quantity is a larger and easier issue to tackle, imo). An ideal diet would have control of both quantity and quality.
 

James Crook

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Jul 15, 2011
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Welp, I got a bleedin' 78/100, and I'm not even entirely white. Didn't even check the "elite" college checkbox. I didn't know if I shouldn't have checked the mental disabilities box, because I have a bit of OCD.
Also, I got 50/100 on the "How White Are You" Quiz, which sounds about right.

I'll raise more criticism to this test, as it doesn't seem to account for expatriation (you as a kid joining your parents who work overseas) or even living in a country where higher education is free -- such is the case of France, where I live, and where even the most elite schools like the École Polytechnique are free, even if the entrance exams are pretty damn tough.
 

DrOswald

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Apr 22, 2011
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47, not privileged at all. Which is a real surprise since I am a white heterosexual christian male. Guess being fat and poor really makes up for a lot.
 

Pseudonym

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75/100

You?re among the most privileged people in the world. We don?t live in an ideal world, but you happened to be born into an ideal lot. This is not a bad thing, nor is it something to be ashamed of. It just means a lot of other people in the world don?t live life with the advantages you have, and that?s something you should always be aware of. Hey, the fact that you took the time and effort to check your privilege means that you?re already trying.

Yeah, that doesn't surprise me much. I expected a much higher score. Being a white, non-religious, intelligent european with fairly rich parents life has been pretty good so far with only minor hick-ups here and there. Like some other people mentioned the questionairre has some odd questions. It also seems to give low scores rather easily. I mean if people in this thread have gotten scores under 20 while living in the first world that seems kind of odd. I know we have enough problems here that need fixing but it still hardly compares to being a female rape victim in pakistan or being a person in a north-korean concentration camp. I already feel some 30 points of privilege should be awarded for not being those people even if you do have your own problem.

"The religion part was tricky since I'm agnostic but everyone tends to immediately assume I'm a Devil worshiper which has lead to all kinds of unpleasantness."

I find the assumption that you are evil just because you believe or disbelieve or doubt something not very tricky. That just sounds like outright bigotry to me. I'm glad you didn't experience it as much of a problem but it is bigotry nonetheless.