Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Truth in stereotypes

aeon.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 93 posts

Re: Truth in stereotypes

#71

Post by carsongross »

sevenless wrote: post #70
carsongross wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very few people have lost their job for being skeptical of anthropogenic climate change. "Racist" has been a career-ender and guarantee of social ostracism since the 1980s, at least. It is perhaps the most powerful meme that has ever been invented.

More accurately, complaining about left-wing political correctness has won the Right votes for decades, while even Hillary Clinton has done the odd bit of racist dog-whistling. > It is perhaps the most powerful meme that has ever been invented. "Heretic", "heathen", "infidel", "unpatriotic", "traitor", "communist", "un-American"... Religious and nationalist political correctness is so pervasive it's hard to even reco…

Has anyone been fired in the last 50 years for any of those epithets?

Re: Truth in stereotypes

#72

Post by sevenless »

carsongross wrote: post #71
sevenless wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More accurately, complaining about left-wing political correctness has won the Right votes for decades, while even Hillary Clinton has done the odd bit of racist dog-whistling. > It is perhaps the most powerful meme that has ever been invented. "Heretic", "heathen", "infidel", "unpatriotic", "traitor", "communist", "un-American"... Religious and nationalist political correctness is so pervasive it's hard to even reco…

Has anyone been fired in the last 50 years for any of those epithets?

Have you seen any prominent politicians propose substantial cuts to the military budget lately? Or evaluate Christian beliefs negatively, or say the USA is anything other than the greatest nation in the world?

There's a bit more at risk than being fired, too. How about being willing to criticize Islam in public?

Re: Truth in stereotypes

#73

Post by carsongross »

sevenless wrote: post #72
carsongross wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has anyone been fired in the last 50 years for any of those epithets?

Have you seen any prominent politicians propose substantial cuts to the military budget lately? Or evaluate Christian beliefs negatively, or say the USA is anything other than the greatest nation in the world? There's a bit more at risk than being fired, too. How about being willing to criticize Islam in public?

There are plenty of critics of military spending on both the left and right in the U.S. and it isn't a career ender for a normal human to advocate it. Nor is it a career ender to say you are a marxist or to criticize America. If you talk about The Bell Curve, however...

Islamists being willing to kill for their religion is its own thing, and doesn't (or, at least, didn't) have much to do with the western intellectual environment.

Re: Truth in stereotypes

#74

Post by [deleted] »

js8 wrote: post #48
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #41

I think that this article highlights the left's version of climate change deniers. The climate change deniers on the right perceive that if climate change were true it would require significant government intervention in the economy (carbon tax, cap and trade, subsidies for clean energy, etc). Because that outcome is something they do not want, they try to deny the truth of climate change. On the left, because they p…

I am leftist and I agree with the last paragraph, and I think many leftists would. And that's the point - the stereotypes are useless in policy and decision making, and studying them is unscientific. They are factoids perhaps good for cocktail parties. I don't think that existence of correct stereotypes poses a great risk for ideology of the left, unlike global warming, which actually is a risk for completely free ma…

[deleted]

Re: Truth in stereotypes

#75

Post by [deleted] »

sevenless wrote: post #33
lomnakkus wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's usually much more variation between individuals within a group (say, all white people) than between groups (say, white vs. asian people), nevermind individuals from different groups. Judging individuals based on aggregate statistics about their group would be foolish in the extreme. (Not to mention morally dubious, at best.) Or course it depends on the size of the group, and you can construct artificial group…

> There's usually much more variation between individuals within a group (say, all white people) than between groups (say, white vs. asian people), nevermind individuals from different groups. This is statistically illiterate. Let's say you have two sets of random variables X and Y, both from Normal distributions with standard deviation 2, where the mean of X is 0 and the mean of Y is 1. Knowing whether a measurement…

[deleted]

Re: Truth in stereotypes

#76

Post by jomamaxx »

ebfe wrote: post #69
jomamaxx wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A smart ML system wouldn't put any weight on race. Because we know it's not causal. Also - it's probably illegal, and surely immoral.

>Because we know it's not causal. How do we know that?

How do we know that skin-colour is not 'causative' to bad credit?

Are you really asking that question?

Re: Truth in stereotypes

#77

Post by ebfe »

jomamaxx wrote: post #76
ebfe wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Because we know it's not causal. How do we know that?

How do we know that skin-colour is not 'causative' to bad credit? Are you really asking that question?

Not skin color, but race, yes. We already know that there are genes that make certain races predisposed to certain types of behavior. [1] How do we know that no similar genes exist that influence creditworthy behavior?

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monoamine_oxidase_A

Re: Truth in stereotypes

#78

Post by jomamaxx »

ebfe wrote: post #69
jomamaxx wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A smart ML system wouldn't put any weight on race. Because we know it's not causal. Also - it's probably illegal, and surely immoral.

>Because we know it's not causal. How do we know that?

FYI - 'race' is a social construct that humans use which basically boils down to skin colour - not much more.

In reality 'African American' or 'Black' should not be though of as a 'race' - rather, as an 'ethnic group' - which is a collection of behaviours, ideals, attitudes etc..

Tell me, what 'race' is Barack Obama?

What 'race' is someone from Sudan wherein people look a mix of 'Middle Eastern' and 'African/Black'?

What 'race' are most Mexicans who have both Aboriginal and European backgrounds?

Genetically, obviously there are some differences beyond skin colour, but it's pretty impossible to pin down 'race' when talking about genes.

The dude doing your credit score is not going a gene test. He's looking at the colour of your skin.

It's insane to think that has anything to do with anything.

If anything 'ethnic group' would be a better correlation, but that's an impossible thing to determine in America.

It's also racist, and I don't mean this in a 'PC' left-wing sense. I mean it in the most basic sense. Which is why it's illegal.

Re: Truth in stereotypes

#79

Post by ebfe »

jomamaxx wrote: post #78
ebfe wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Because we know it's not causal. How do we know that?

FYI - 'race' is a social construct that humans use which basically boils down to skin colour - not much more. In reality 'African American' or 'Black' should not be though of as a 'race' - rather, as an 'ethnic group' - which is a collection of behaviours, ideals, attitudes etc.. Tell me, what 'race' is Barack Obama? What 'race' is someone from Sudan wherein people look a mix of 'Middle Eastern' and 'African/Black'?…

Obama is half white, half black. Sudanese people are a mix of Arabic and African.

Does the existence of gray disprove the notion that black and white are colors?

Re: Truth in stereotypes

#80

Post by [deleted] »

sevenless wrote: post #33
lomnakkus wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's usually much more variation between individuals within a group (say, all white people) than between groups (say, white vs. asian people), nevermind individuals from different groups. Judging individuals based on aggregate statistics about their group would be foolish in the extreme. (Not to mention morally dubious, at best.) Or course it depends on the size of the group, and you can construct artificial group…

> There's usually much more variation between individuals within a group (say, all white people) than between groups (say, white vs. asian people), nevermind individuals from different groups. This is statistically illiterate. Let's say you have two sets of random variables X and Y, both from Normal distributions with standard deviation 2, where the mean of X is 0 and the mean of Y is 1. Knowing whether a measurement…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN