I see a lot of ethical problems with this sort of thing [1].

It's basically original sin [2] in reverse.

If you go back far enough, just about everyone's a descendant of someone who's been wronged by a government, and just about everyone's [3] a descendant of someone who has blood on their hands as a participant in those wrongs.

Why are some groups more deserving than others?

Why does anyone deserve anyone else giving them anything today for stuff that happened hundreds of years ago?

If you say that today we should give back stuff that someone unfairly took from someone else, doesn't that mean the government of Spain should turn in its keys and put somebody else in charge? Depending on which historical period you pick, Spain might rightfully belong to France (Napoleon), Algeria (Muslims), Italy (Roman empire) or the Basques (as the descendants of Spain's pre-Roman tribes).

[1] Reparations for slavery in the US is another example.

[2] Original sin is a doctrine in some religions that says it is okay for you to be punished for stuff your ancestors did long before you were born.

[3] Genghis Khan is an ancestor of ~0.5% of humanity: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2015.16767

edit:

> [1] Reparations for slavery in the US is another example.

This is gross. My mother was arrested for going into a whites-only Pizza Hut as a child. My grandmother and the rest of that side of the family were kicked off of their family farms because the US wouldn't give out farm loans. Black people didn't get the GI Bill, and The Greatest Generation went to fight Nazis with a segregated military. Jim Crow lasted until my grandparents were in their thirties. I went to a defacto segregated grammar school where we had to share textbooks. Black people have slightly more than the amount of wealth they had when they were kicked out onto the highway after 300 years of work from birth to death.

I think you're choosing the window that's most convenient for you. You don't want anybody to be able to make claims on what you yourself have, so you want any claims made before you were born dismissed. There's no reasoning about why you should have all the benefits and none of the liabilities from your parents, other than spurious associations with other things you don't like.

> This is gross. My mother was arrested for going into a whites-only Pizza Hut as a child.

Are you talking here about reparations for slavery or reparations for much more recent events (segregation, Jim Crow, etc)?

I think it is easier to make the case that people deserve some compensation for wrongs done in living memory, than for wrongs done over 150 years ago.

There are plenty of children who have (great-)(great-)grandparents on both sides of major conflicts. In our specific example, my children's great-grandfather $foo fought for the Allies in WW2, their great grandfather $bar "fought on the other side" [trying hard not to fall foul of Godwin's law here].

However I typically advise my kids to look forwards, not backwards.

As US reparations is the first example let's use that.

it's less "screw those white people because they don't deserve it after what their ancestors did" and more "this group of people are actively struggling because some assholes decided they weren't going to treat them as people for 300 years, we as a society are somewhat responsible for that so let's try and give them a hand up to where they would have been"

Also, in case the "yes but white people struggle also" argument is in the forefront of your mind, yes they deserve help too. Helping the lees fortunate isn't a zero-sum game.

Original sin is indeed bullshit, but that's not what this is.

Continuing with the US slavery example... if systemic oppression and inherent handicaps exist, is a direct transfer of funds really a solution? It's a one-hit-wonder that might appease some voters in the short term but doesn't get at the root of any current problem.

Blacks in US are largely less able to obtain health care (for myriad reasons - less money, worse insurance, mistrust of the medical profession, etc). A lump sum of $15k to every Black person in the US doesn't fix the problem. $15k buys them one major medical treatment, if that.

Same for education. A lump some might put a single generation through college. But, if there are systemic impediments to Blacks attending college (money, quality of primary and secondary education, etc), a lump sum transfer doesn't fix it. At best, it creates a generation of better educated Blacks who might push their kids into college, but all the other structural problems still exist.

Basically, we should address those problems head-on and with solutions that solve the problem permanently (or as close as possible).

Systematic oppression and/or long term ramifications of period of oppression is provably true.

ignoring the politics of it i don't think a straight up cash injection would be an efficient means of solving any of the mid to long term problems, but it is certainly an effective measure in helping short term survival.

The difference between "better access to education and employment for my kids so they can live better lives" vs "food and medicine so my children don't die this month"

> A lump sum of $15k to every Black person in the US doesn't fix the problem. $15k buys them one major medical treatment, if that.

Though i think i know what you mean, "15k to every black person" is fairly broad and i think a bit reductive in this case, it would probably need to be something weighted against need and how much the person was affected by the situation being addressed by the funds.

Problem is it's really difficult if not impossible to do that effectively, think of it like a whole society version of a class action lawsuit, except the payout amount is directly tied to the level of effect the original issue has had on each person, individually.

To be clear, this doesn't mean "non-black person X" doesn't get support and help. Ideally this would need to be something on top of an already working support system for everybody.

Everyone gets equitable support up to a certain level, certain groups get additional support where needed because to get them to an equitable level they need additional support as they've started at a lower starting point due to whatever fuckery occurred way back when

This is some utopia-level idealism though and I'm not expecting it to happen in the real world, but a good faith attempt would be nice.

> Same for education. A lump some might put a single generation through college. But, if there are systemic impediments to Blacks attending college (money, quality of primary and secondary education, etc), a lump sum transfer doesn't fix it.

It doesn't fix all of it, but it might fix some of it in an incidental way, though as i said, lump sum probably isn't a good strategy for long term fixes.

> At best, it creates a generation of better educated Blacks who might push their kids into college, but all the other structural problems still exist.

Yes, but the overall bump in education (assuming education is a reliable means of measuring future quality of life) would go some way to beginning to fix the structural problems.

> Basically, we should address those problems head-on and with solutions that solve the problem permanently (or as close as possible).

Agreed, but that should also be part of a plan to alleviate the short and mid term problems as well.

If reparations are direct transfer to hand-picked individuals (or groups thereof) and granted in a vacuum, that's bad policy.

If reparations are means-tested transfers to the neediest individuals (or groups thereof) and accompanied by meaningful changes to the rest of our social programs (including not just "welfare" but a whole host of other programs and systems), then that might be good policy.

Sort of a "5 Why's" for "why do certain minorities struggle with [system/policy]?" If the answer to the 5th Why was "slavery", that's solved. What's the 4th Why? Then the 3rd. And on. The generic discussion of reparations that we sometimes see in the news appears to be stuck on "slavery". Not always, but often.

Yes, it is, and it's fine to be honest about that.

I'm not less fortunate.

I support helping the less fortunate more.

And I realize doing so is going to require sacrifice on my part -- I'm going to have to pay more in taxes/redress to fund that help.

The difference is that morally, I find it hard to have a roof over my head, a bed to sleep in at night, security provided, and food every day... and quibble over my marginal tax rate, versus someone who doesn't have those things.

But then, I've always looked at income as society's money rather than fundamentally mine. I am able to earn what I earn because I exist in a broader organization and society.

Many paths more commonly taken by the less fortunate are themselves net negative to society as a whole. Like crime or drug addiction/disease that socialized programs end up paying for.

So if we could be effective in redirecting people from those paths to healthily contributing ones instead, we could get to positive-sum. I'm already paying a lot of money for "today's result" things like property insurance, incarceration, and first responders for people, in the long run is taking action to fight the root problem more expensive?

(One of today's problem is that we mostly try to intervene at adolescence or later, at which point a ton of damage has already been done.

Look how often even SNAP gets shade, and that's literally about feeding people.

But democracy worst form of government, except for all the other ones, etc. etc.

No it isn't , it's usually framed that way for politically derived reasons.

Helping one less fortunate person doesn't have to take directly take from another less fortunate person, there are more than just the less fortunate in the game.

it's an often parroted point right now, but if the ultra rich were taxed at the same rate as everyone else ( in whatever region was appropriate ) there would be a large influx of money that could be used to improve public services, support networks, education etc.

I personally don't think it would be used for that in any meaningful way, the system as a whole is broken, but it could in theory.

> I'm not less fortunate.

> I support helping the less fortunate more.

Agreed, same

> And I realize doing so is going to require sacrifice on my part -- I'm going to have to pay more in taxes/redress to fund that help.

Also agreed, in principle, but what you can personally provide pales in insignificance when compared to the sheer grinding machine that modern capitalism has become.

It's similar to "no plastic straws to stop climate change", yes, but also how about the 80+ % of actual climate change caused by the fossil fuel industries. less of a "whataboutism" and more of a yes, but also fix the bigger fucking problem.

It's a zero sum game, and it's the morally right thing to do.

Part of the annoying thing about the modern progressive movement is how they'll twist themselves in knots to market something, when they could just say "Yes, this sucks for some people. But it's better for everyone."

(Which, don't get me wrong, what passes for the modern conservative movement is even loonier about their marketing)

But christ, just call a thing what it is.

That two things can be true makes sense.

> It's a zero sum game, and it's the morally right thing to do.

These two things can be true, they aren't in this case, but they can be.

In case it's a misunderstanding i'm going to state clearly, with emphasis:

> Helping the ~ [less] fortunate ~ isn't a zero-sum game.

Helping all people everywhere might be ( i haven't really considered that enough to have a solid opinion ) but helping a subset of people without impacting another subset of people isn't zero sum when the sum of those subsets isn't the whole.

In numbers:

The whole = 10

-----

Less fortunate group a = 2

Less fortunate group b = 2

Others = 6

-----

It's possible to get group a to 3 without bringing group b down to 1, because helping the less fortunate groups isn't zero sum.

I'm simplifying here because the whole being a fixed 10 isn't accurate either, but it does illustrate my point.

> But christ, just call a thing what it is.

I will, thanks ?

edit: my tiny maths failed me, updated numbers

But what about the givers? Do you think there's universal ethical problems that apply to any particular group that chooses to give a benefit to others that were harmed in the past? Is there no possibility for legitimate benefit - even if only symbolic - to the givers?

If I knew my ancestors were active or complicit in a certain atrocity, do I need to worry about Genghis Khan in order to try to offset that?

You don't have to take anything from anyone to give citizenship to people that should have had citizenship.

It's bad policy, but the motive might be fake. I have neither read the law nor I intend to read it, but I suspect that it's just literature. The real reason must be culture, mostly the language.

Most immigrants here are from Hispanic America. They already speak Spanish so it's easier for them to adapt, also there's a common history and blood, we're family.

Also lots of Romanians, they learn the language really fast.

This is the fallacy of gray.

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/dLJv2CoRCgeC2mPgj/the-fallac...

“Knowing only gray, you conclude that all grays are the same shade. You mock the simplicity of the two-color view, yet you replace it with a one-color view . . .”

"Original sin is the Christian doctrine that holds that humans, through the fact of birth, inherit a tainted nature in need of regeneration and a proclivity to sinful conduct"[1]

Religious specifics aside, that seems like a fairly accurate assessment of the burden of being born human: mortality and both a capacity for and tendency toward evil.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_sin

I was also surprised to see the article cite, as reason for opposing reparations for this decree, that it did not extend the same courtesy to the Moorish invaders - all without mentioning they were invaders, or that there had been any invasion or occupation. It even implores Spain to "reconcile with its past", when reconciliation with the past is what brought about the Alhambra decree in the first place.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconquista

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Spain#Slavery_in_Al...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Spain#M...

In 418, [Western Roman emperor] Honorius rewarded his Visigothic federates by giving them land in Gallia Aquitania on which to settle ... and eventually were invited into Spain by a Roman usurper in the autumn of 409 .... This was probably done under hospitalitas, the rules for billeting army soldiers. The settlement formed the nucleus of the future Visigothic kingdom that would eventually expand across the Pyrenees and onto the Iberian peninsula. That Visigothic settlement proved paramount to Europe's future as had it not been for the Visigothic warriors who fought side by side with the Roman troops under general Flavius Aetius, it is perhaps possible that Attila would have seized control of Gaul, rather than the Romans being able to retain dominance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visigoths

I am introducing that complexity. It is the article that omitted it to tell a simple bad guys oppressing good guys tale.

> 1492 Spain as such didn’t exist. The Moors invaded the Visigoths! It was no more a rightful invasion that what the Visigoths themselves did when Rome fell.

So you should have no trouble or qualms justifying the colonization of the Americas or India using that same logic, correct? It's strange how fluid and complex identity is in some cases, but straightforward in others. The Alhambra decree wasn't passed by "Spain" either, but by Castile and Aragon, yet we have no trouble drawing a line between these entities, at least when we want to assign blame.

It is valid to point out the discriminatory nature of inviting back only Jewish descendants but not of the Muslims they expelled and murdered. It is not simply about colonialism, as Al-Andalus became a very mixed up place, in many ways a bright example of tolerance at times, of scientific progress at times, and cultural refinement. Not to mention that the people ruled by the Visigoths invited Tariq bin zayed when he invaded across Gibraltar, so that he would remove king Rodrick. Today a country like Castile would be viewed as a more undeveloped, “barbarian” radical neighbor thwarting a more prosperous & enlightened yet divided realm.

The popular thought in Spain on “invasion” and Reconquista is completely colored by the politics of the country occupying Iberia today. With names like “matamoros” belying a history of contempt for the Moors. But it does not erase the crimes perpetuated by the historical Castile successor states, which still affect the descendants of those mistreated today. And one day, as they tend to, the tides of history change again they will.

You can check out for yourself, most of the Muslims in Andalusia were from converts from Hispania by the later periods.

>Half of the Christians in Al-Andalus are reported to have converted to Islam by the 10th century, with more than 80% by the 11th century. Many Christians who did not accept Islam as their religion became increasingly Arabized in terms of culture.

[1].

When the emphasis is on the word invasion of Hispania by the Moors, but not on the invasion of the Christian kingdoms to the north (often termed the “Reconquista”), it is part of a politically biased narrative to support the idea that the Kingdoms like Castile, Asturias, Aragon, etc were merely retaking what was theirs. But in reality this was its own invasion and propaganda was used to justify a “Reconquista”. They forged an imaginary connection to the Visigoths in order to create the idea that Iberia was all theirs for the taking.

You can look this up, for a long time the term Reconquista was not even mentioned, it was used as a political tool to grab more land & claim a fight for Christendom. But the truth of Al-Andalus is that it was much more mixed up than this simple dichotomy. Even Castile had a religious edict of tolerance until they chose to revoke it following the establishment of control over Granada.

A lot of Spanish nationalist thought and the historical Catholic narrative constructs the idea that the Moors were merely foreigners. But Al-Andalus featured intermarriage and largely voluntary conversion of natives of the land.

There are even documentaries about the Moriscos who went in hiding in mountains and various ways they worked around the Spanish oppression at the time & attempt to root out their culture and religion.

For more on details of the original entry of the Moors into Iberia and how minorities like Jews welcomed the new rulers, see [2].

1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_and_cultural_exchange...

2: https://hispanicmuslims.com/andalusia-when-it-was/

- The law had an expiration date for sure (don't know why). Maybe to avoid convenience nationality acquisitions?

- "Why would the descendants of Spanish Muslims not have the same opportunity if the objective is … to reconcile Spain with its past?" Because the Moriscos[1] rebelled against the Crown[2], while the Sephardic Jews were expelled because of their faith (the last Jews of being expelled of Europe).

- "This hypocrisy led Cembrero and other commentators to speculate the law for Sephardim was proposed for economic reasons, or as an effort to appease Israel after Spain voted to recognize Palestine in the United Nations, or as a retaliation for the Catalan separatist movement." This is speculative from my point of view. There was an earlier law that allowed the Sephardim to get the Spanish Nationality but with the condition of residence created by a dictator in the first quarter of the XX century Miguel Primo de Rivera[3].

- All Hispanic-American citizens can acquire the Spanish Nationality after 2 years of residence. You can see that there are a ton of Spaniards of Hispanic-American origin in Madrid, for example.

- Calling the PP (Partido Popular)[4] "a party with Francoist roots" is a bit of stretch. PP is the typical center-right party like the German CDU, Les Républicains in France or the Democrats in USA. However, Vox[5] would be to the right of the PP and that Party could be seen as an inheritor of Franco's dictatorship.

- I'm sorry that there are racist judges, like this one, that asked tricky questions to void the nationality request of some people. He was investigated by the Judges Control Institution but they saw no wrongdoing in 2010 (a dog does not eat other dogs).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morisco

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebellion_of_the_Alpujarras_(1...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_Primo_de_Rivera

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Party_(Spain)

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vox_(political_party)

Edit: sources and format

Wait? What? Every Muslim woman, child and man in Spain rebelled against the crown? Going to call bullshit on that.

But let’s say for a moment you might even be passably correct? Why did they rebel? Was it because they were being violently subjugated by the crown?

(Keep in mind that crown went on to do a lot more subjugating in the New World. The Spanish crown loved murdering people who weren’t Catholic.)

> But let’s say for a moment you might even be passably correct? Why did they rebel? Was it because they were being violently subjugated by the crown?

They were subjects of the Crown, as the things worked that way then, if you rebel against the Crown you were killed. Obeying the Crown in the XVI century meant to follow the official religion. The Muslims did the same some centuries earlier so I can imagine that "forcing people to practice a religion" was a common practice during that era.

> (Keep in mind that crown went on to do a lot more subjugating in the New World. The Spanish crown loved murdering people who weren’t Catholic.)

Well, of course the Spanish Empire was subjugating its subjects the same way English or French were doing. That was a common practice during that time (not that I'm defending that). In the case of the Spanish Empire, they were lucky to find people that were slaved by the Mexica (common known as Aztecs by us) and they rely on their help to conquest what is now Mexico. You can guess the other parts of Hispanic-America suffered a similar fate.

I don't get your point, you are using current culture and values to judge facts that happened 5 centuries ago. Of course they were evil and inhumane, what did you expect?

This is generally not true for Al-Andalus. In general Christians were not forced to convert to Islam under the initial Umayyad rule and by the later periods almost 80% of Al-Andalus’ Muslim population was estimated to be from converts from Christianity to Islam, called the Muladi. This was by and large voluntary. And the remaining Christians were given a protected Dhimmi status which preserved their religious practice and conducting their internal affairs via Christian courts.

Castile also had an edict of tolerance that was revoked when they decided to expel the Moors and took a very extreme approach of convert or leave or die.

It’s not equal at all, the Kingdom of Castile which later became Spain committed in what modern day we would term a genocide against Moriscos and Conversos. Some Moriscos fled to mountains or adopted cryptic ways of preserving their traditions and religious practice under the Spanish oppression centuries after the fall of the Emirate of Granada.

1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_and_cultural_exchange....

Of course, most of the Muslims of Iberia were converts. Arabs were the nobles and ruling class, but the workers came from the same population that was already there. Because of the taxes that Muslim rules forced upon the non-Muslims[3] (Mozarabs mostly[4]), most of them convert to Islam. It had already happened in the past when most of Celtiberian converted to Roman religion, most of Romans converted to Christianity, Arianism Visigoths converted to Catholicism, and of course Christians converted to Islam once their rules pushed them to do so.

> Castile also had an edict of tolerance that was revoked when they decided to expel the Moors and took a very extreme approach of convert or leave or die.

Yeah sure, after the Moriscos rebelled. Sadly, rules pushing for a "state religion" was nothing new.

> It’s not equal at all, the Kingdom of Castile which later became Spain committed in what modern day we would term a genocide against Moriscos and Conversos. Some Moriscos fled to mountains or adopted cryptic ways of preserving their traditions and religious practice under the Spanish oppression centuries after the fall of the Emirate of Granada.

Well, as I said, that was common practice during that era. At least, the ruling class gave them the opportunity to convert to other religion (it's something). Moriscos rebelled against the Crowns (Castile and Aragon) and took arms against the Kingdom, what would you think it could happened to them?[5] A contemporary example, what did happen to the Byzantine population when Constantinople fell to Ottomans?[6] Let me tell you, 50k slaved people.

My point here is that you are nitpicking and isolating facts and not seeing the historical context where these events happened:

- There were no human rights at that time.

- Racism and discrimination were commonplace and assumed at the standard way of life.

- What Castile, Aragon, Navarre, Iberian Muslim Taifas or whatever other medieval ruler on what we know today as Spain were brutal and fierce.

- The situation of most of the population was dire (it didn't matter who was the ruler).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1066_Granada_massacre

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martyrs_of_C%C3%B3rdoba

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jizya

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozarabs

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_the_Moriscos

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Constantinople

The point I was conveying in my previous comment was that they are not equal and the same. We have much evidence that the Christian kingdoms in Iberia were much more brutal to the inhabitants of Al-Andalus. Partly this had to do with the dogmatism of the Christian kingdoms which refused to allow other beliefs to settle once things like the Spanish Inquisition really set into motion.

It is disingenuous to claim they are the same. The Muslim empires extended relatively much tolerance to their Christian minorities, as part of doctrine also, compared to the reverse in a Christian dominated realm at the time.

The jizya taxes were a way for minority religions to obtain protection under Dhimmi status, which enabled them practice of their religion. Compare this to how the Christian Kingdoms in Iberia after completing their “Reconquista” began forced conversions and even new converts were treated with suspicion to the point they were forced to perform litmus tests like drinking alcohol and pork, which both Jews and Muslims do not eat. In fact, religious rulings were issued specially for the remaining Muslims in Iberia which allowed them to outwardly confirm to Christian faith under duress [1] while still practicing their own religion.

The fall of Constantinople was limited to three days of looting, which was lenient considering the prominence of obtaining the capital of old Roman Empire. Additionally, the nature of slavery within the Ottoman Empire slaves were an answer to dealing with prisoners of war instead of massacre or mass rape & were not forcibly converted except in case of the later Devsirme system which gave rise to the Janissaries.

1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oran_fatwa

Al-Andalus was not a particular tolerant kingdom. Some examples:

- Almanzor campaigns were famous for his cruelty and slavery of civilians [1] - Civil wars among the Taifas were crucial for the Reconquista [2]

I'm afraid I see you are nitpicking facts that match your agenda. Medieval times in the Iberian Peninsula where cruel, nightmarish, and a time where human life had no value. You are also forgetting the fact that Muslims were very fond of sexual slavery[3]

There was no particular difference in social or equalitarian behaviour between Christian and Muslim kingdoms, even sometimes they were allied warring against a third-party![4]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almanzor#Loot_and_slaves

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconquista#Muslim_infighting

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_concubinage_in_the_...

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emirate_of_Granada#Formation_a...

Which would be odd public policy; but OTOH would make a fine premise for a very funny Adam Sandler/Sacha Baron-Cohen movie.