The Strange Case of Dr. Ho Man Kwok (2019) • Hacker News Board

Re: The Strange Case of Dr. Ho Man Kwok (2019)

#331

Post by starkd » Mon, Dec 21, 2020, 4:07 PM UTC

cnst wrote: post #236

starkd wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the point was whether or not it is unhealthy. It asserts most definitely that it is not. The story was about how the claim went viral. The story was introduced in 1968 by the New York Times picking up on the NEJM article. It's an amusing tale, but rather unsettling how easily fooled we can be. I remember (growing up as late as the '80s) people legitimately wondering whether an MSG allergy was responsibl…

> The story was introduced in 1968 by the New York Times picking up on the NEJM article. And I think that's ultimately the culprit for this hoax. Just because a reporter at a NYTimes lacks the most basic scientific knowledge to understand that this "letter to the editor" was merely a joke, doesn't mean that it's the fault of the scientific/medical journal -- with a very specific audience, mind you -- for taking a com…

Oh, of course, they are allowed mistakes and an occasional humourous aside. But it did say in the article that the NEJM refused to correct it or elaborate upon it for quite some time. Probably just an oversight, in my opinion, but was posed as a serious letter to the editor, and in order to get the humor, you had to be able to pick up on the subtle clues. What the motivations were for the New York Times Reporter were can only be guessed here. Probably just eagerly looking for some novel bit of news that would be interesting. Based on how these things generally go viral, I think it's unfair to blame any single person or entity.

Re: The Strange Case of Dr. Ho Man Kwok (2019)

#332

Post by rayiner » Mon, Dec 21, 2020, 4:07 PM UTC

JohnBooty wrote: post #302

reitzensteinm wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It totally is systemic racism. But I wish there was another word for it, or that racism were not used interchangeably with systemic racism. There's a hell of a difference between "you're racist" and "you're spreading misinformation that only exists because your grandparents were racist". The latter will get a reaction from the vast majority of people like "oh shit, I had no idea, that's awful". The former will cause…

But I wish there was another word for it, or that racism were not used interchangeably with systemic racism. I understand both sides of the argument. Many people learned an overly simplistic definition of "racism" at some point. Essentially, "overt racism" or "active racism" -- using slurs, joining the KKK, refusing to hire people of a certain race, etc. Anything less overt than this is not "racism" to them. Having g…

The distinction isn’t between overt and passive. The traditional definition of “racism” still includes “implicit bias.”

The recent distinction is between “prejudice” and “effect on racial equity.” Ibram Kendi distills the view quite clearly. He explains that the lower tax rate for capital gains is “racist.” He doesn’t say it’s motivated by racial prejudice (either overt or implicit), or deny that it’s nearly universal in the developed world, including in non-white countries. What he means is that the tax preference has the effect of delivering more benefits to white people because white people are more likely to own capital assets.

In the traditional view, by contrast, racism is a mental state—it’s an attitude that’s held by people, whether consciously or unconsciously.

Studies show that these attitudes, what’s now called “prejudice,” is probably overstated and isn’t the dominant driver of racial differences: https://www.chronicle.com/article/can-we-really-measure-impl....

The recent approach has been to reuse “racism” to refer to systems that create or perpetuate racial disparities whether or not they’re motivated by what’s now called prejudice.

An example of this usage is saying that “standardized testing is racist.” To people familiar with the traditional definition, this implies that test makers have racial prejudice and, consciously or unconsciously, designed tests to hinder minorities. Under the new definition, this just means that the practice of using standardized tests perpetuates racial disparities because it hurts students that have suffered disadvantages.

Of course we had words for this before. I studied what would now be called “environmental racism” in law school. We would say “minority communities suffer disproportionately negative effects from the siting of coal plants.” We don’t need to come up with a new term for this, as you speculate. That’s a concept I could easily explain to my Trump-voting in laws and they’d get it. But when you call that “racism” that implies (not only to my in laws, but to my Biden voting non-white dad) that people involved in the siting decisions were motivated by racial prejudice. They’d say, “no, they’re just putting the coal plant where the land is cheapest.” Under the traditional view, a decision like that based on purely objective, relevant, non-race factors can’t be “racist” because that concept refers to a state of mind (whether overt or implicit).

Now, there is a logic to academics and activists using the term “racism” for that. As you observe, the effect on the groups themselves is similar. Most important, by framing “racism” in terms of effects rather than mental state, it forces a consideration of racial equity impacts on otherwise race-neutral policies.

Re: The Strange Case of Dr. Ho Man Kwok (2019)

#333

Post by chanakya » Mon, Dec 21, 2020, 5:55 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #324

chanakya wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd go even further and say that just because America has a history of racism and racist ideas does not mean that racism continues to be a major factor today. I've read Kendi, and he offers scant evidence that it is.

Why would you expect a scholarly 500-year history of racist ideas to offer evidence of racism's existence today?

I didn't mean his books on history. In the last 15 months or so, he's also published 3(!) books on racism in contemporary society.

Re: The Strange Case of Dr. Ho Man Kwok (2019)

#334

Post by rayiner » Mon, Dec 21, 2020, 6:09 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #325

rayiner wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m really not sure there is a sound conclusion to be drawn from comparing the Tulsa Massacre to people being skeptical of food from a different culture. The former is something that’s a unique and very ugly aspect of American history. The latter is pretty much universal.[1] You can squint and lump both things under the umbrella of “racism” but they’re so different as to be two completely different kind of things. An…

Good thing that's not what I said, then. I pointed you at an endemic, centuries-long pattern of widespread American racism. You reduced it to one landmark event and then dismissed it. It is also true that people are skeptical of different foods period. But more than one thing can be be happening at once.

You pointed to a book that focuses on racism arising out of the enslavement of Black people in America and subsequent events over 500 years, in an article addressing the MSG myth. My point is that whatever inferences you can draw from that aren't usefully generalized to Americans being skeptical of what Chinese restaurants put in their food.

Skepticism of foreigners and the food they eat is universal to human societies. Enslavement of a distinct minority group, amounting to 1/8 of the population, for hundreds of years, and the social and economic consequences that remain when slavery ends and the groups must subsequently live alongside each other, is sui generis. It's not analytically useful to look at both things through the same lens. The causes, consequences, dynamics, and solutions are more or less completely different.

Skepticism of Chinese food ingredients is much better understood through the lens of the experience of prior generations of immigrants: Germans, Irish, Italians, etc. Anti-German antagonism in World War II accelerated uptake of English in German-speaking communities in the midwest and caused people to change their names; JFK's candidacy was met with charges of Popery; and people were actually quite skeptical of Italian food and unfamiliar ingredients like garlic.

Re: The Strange Case of Dr. Ho Man Kwok (2019)

#335

Post by wpietri » Mon, Dec 21, 2020, 6:32 PM UTC

mechnesium wrote: post #232

wpietri wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans are also naturally violent, but me saying "Hey, I'm going to stab you because I'm just human" is probably not something you'd shrug off. In particular, what you're indulging here is the naturalistic fallacy, or the is/ought fallacy. What's natural tells us nothing about what's good. Tooth decay is natural and your toothbrush is artificial. But I'd bet you're not going to stop brushing your teeth just to stay p…

Yeah, but you can’t put an end to violence, and violence serves an incredible biological purpose. Racism will never cease to exist, nor should society try to force it away, since that will only make things worse. Perhaps racism even serves some meritable biological purpose. Come to think of it, racism is like a social heuristic. Antivirus software uses heuristic analysis to quickly group certain classes of malware ba…

So what if you can't put an end to violence or racism? In both cases, we can work to minimize them. We can and should.

Re: The Strange Case of Dr. Ho Man Kwok (2019)

#336

Post by Thorrez » Mon, Dec 21, 2020, 6:34 PM UTC

radicalbyte wrote: post #22

This American Life did a great podcast on the origins of this myth; I strongly recommend listening to it. Here's the transcript: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/668/transcript TLDR: it started as a bet/prank and became an accepted truth thanks to racism and people being simple. EDIT: this article is literally based on the podcast. Just listen go it, it's a good one :)

>EDIT: this article is literally based on the podcast.

The article was from Feb 6, 2019. The podcast was from Feb 15, 2019.

Re: The Strange Case of Dr. Ho Man Kwok (2019)

#337

Post by wpietri » Mon, Dec 21, 2020, 6:34 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #334

wpietri wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good thing that's not what I said, then. I pointed you at an endemic, centuries-long pattern of widespread American racism. You reduced it to one landmark event and then dismissed it. It is also true that people are skeptical of different foods period. But more than one thing can be be happening at once.

You pointed to a book that focuses on racism arising out of the enslavement of Black people in America and subsequent events over 500 years, in an article addressing the MSG myth. My point is that whatever inferences you can draw from that aren't usefully generalized to Americans being skeptical of what Chinese restaurants put in their food. Skepticism of foreigners and the food they eat is universal to human societi…

I pointed to two books that helped me understand a pervasive phenomenon in America. I agree I can't generalize two books to all of everything. But then, I didn't do that. There's an ocean of scholarship on this.

That you keep building straw men out of what I say makes me think this is not a great use of my time.

Re: The Strange Case of Dr. Ho Man Kwok (2019)

#338

Post by wpietri » Mon, Dec 21, 2020, 6:38 PM UTC

chanakya wrote: post #333

wpietri wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you expect a scholarly 500-year history of racist ideas to offer evidence of racism's existence today?

I didn't mean his books on history. In the last 15 months or so, he's also published 3(!) books on racism in contemporary society.

Ok? None of them look like books whose goal is to prove that racism exists. With a book title like, "How to be an Antiracist", I would think anybody would understand that the target audience is people who are well past questioning whether racism is still a thing. It's like expecting a cookbook to open with studies on why meals are a good idea.

Re: The Strange Case of Dr. Ho Man Kwok (2019)

#339

Post by rrauenza » Mon, Dec 21, 2020, 7:04 PM UTC

throwaway2245 wrote: post #315

rrauenza wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A reminder of the HN guidelines and I'll assume in good faith you didn't mean me by "you." -------- Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community. Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling na…

My "you" followed grammatically from your own use of the word.

Thanks for clarifying.

Re: The Strange Case of Dr. Ho Man Kwok (2019)

#340

Post by bobthepanda » Mon, Dec 21, 2020, 7:46 PM UTC

newen wrote: post #109

bobthepanda wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hysteria is no longer a valid mental diagnosis according to the APA, so yes.

And they removed it as a valid mental diagnosis because it has sexist connotations? I doubt it though considering current political climate, I wouldn’t be surprised. His point still stands, however.

It was removed as a mental diagnosis because it only applied to women and basically functioned as a catch-all for "we don't understand why women are freaking out." It was overly broad as to be unhelpful.

The diagnoses that have succeeded it do not only apply to women, and they also have more specific requirements.