The Data of Hate
nytimes.com
The Data of Hate
1–10 of 115 posts
Re: The Data of Hate
#2"Why does hate exist?"
Good question. I wish we knew so that we could end it.
Re: The Data of Hate
#3Why would anyone register for a site like this?
Doesn't everyone know by now that putting your name on a list of white supremacists might not be a good move?
I guess white supremacy and intelligence may be negatively correlated? Or maybe they just don't care.
I sometimes picture a secret room at the FBI with poor clerks running around trying to avoid being buried under ever growing lists of suspicious people being spit out of printers with the advent of the internet.
With all the druggies, the communist sympathizers, the insurance fraud researching, the radical environmentalists, the anarchists, the bomb curious, the pedo interested, the racial supremacists.... heck, they probably barely have time to watch all the Muslims any more. It was probably a whole lot easier when they only had a few people to keep an eye on.
Re: The Data of Hate
#4I find it really interesting that at a micro level on forums like this there is the same goodness and kindness to one another. People doing each other favors, people encouraging one another, etc. I mean, I guess it makes sense. People are essentially the same no matter what weird, dark beliefs they hold, but it just always boggles my mind that, out of some fundamental goodness and bond with their fellow human, someone will go out of their way to help someone else find some article or another on why all Jews should be shot or why Anders Breivik was a hero or whathaveyou.
Re: The Data of Hate
#5Love the closing line.
That said, I have to be skeptical about this assertion:
> The states with the most members per capita are Montana, Alaska and Idaho. These states tend to be overwhelmingly white. Does this mean that growing up with little diversity fosters hate?...Probably not. Since those states have a higher proportion of non-Jewish white people, they have more potential members for a group that attacks Jews and nonwhites. >
> The percentage of Stormfront’s target audience that joins is actually higher in areas with more minorities. This is particularly true when you look at Stormfront’s members who are 18 and younger and therefore do not themselves choose where they live....Among this age group, California, a state with one of the largest minority populations, has a membership rate 25 percent higher than the national average.
California is a HUGE state. Just because it's diverse overall doesn't mean that there aren't certain pockets that are very non-diverse...and being close to "The Others", while not mingling with them, may even exacerbate the tendency towards bigotry.
I don't think people in New York are naturally more tolerant in some genetic sense...if you're someone with a preoccupying hatred of a certain race or group, your biological stress levels will go haywire, as on any given subway ride, you can pretty much expect to be sitting or standing next to someone of that group. Chances are, you just get over it, especially if your workplace and neighborhood are equally diverse. And if you don't get over it, chances are the city life won't be for you.
It's often not so much a conscious choice to be tolerant versus intolerant...if something "scares" you at first, but you see it every day, and most days, your interactions are benign or even net positive, your body/mind is going to logically reason, "Meh, these people aren't bad at all".
And if you have a certain fear implanted in you, and never get a chance to confront it on an every day basis? What kind of logical process, absent first-hand, everyday experience, would reverse that fear?
Re: The Data of Hate
#6A shame he didn't go deeper. The analysis here is very superficial, basically consisting of him browsing the forum for a while and doing some number crunching on profile data. A bit disappointing for a NYT article, even if it is just on their website.
It would have been much nicer if he did a proper data analysis of forum posts. If we've ruled out social economic class and education, what big factor remains? I suppose it would be friends and family. Perhaps a linguistic analysis could reveal how connected these people are to each other. Perhaps some psychological analysis could reveal something about their personalities other than "a perfectly nice and intelligent young woman".
If we could locate the source of these ideas, perhaps there could be a way of battling it. From my experience, people who post on forums are just the tip of the iceberg of the people who share their opinions and beliefs. For every person who voices an opinion there could be hundreds who share it.
Perhaps you could use the linguistic analysis to track their beliefs to key influencers.
Re: The Data of Hate
#7Why would anyone register for a site like this? Doesn't everyone know by now that putting your name on a list of white supremacists might not be a good move? I guess white supremacy and intelligence may be negatively correlated? Or maybe they just don't care. I sometimes picture a secret room at the FBI with poor clerks running around trying to avoid being buried under ever growing lists of suspicious people being sp…
You "guess that white supremacy and intelligence may be negatively correlated" but the article explores how that's probably not exactly the case. "[...] Economists Roland G. Fryer Jr. and Steven D. Levitt found that Ku Klux Klan members were actually better educated than the typical American."
Re: The Data of Hate
#8Why would anyone register for a site like this? Doesn't everyone know by now that putting your name on a list of white supremacists might not be a good move? I guess white supremacy and intelligence may be negatively correlated? Or maybe they just don't care. I sometimes picture a secret room at the FBI with poor clerks running around trying to avoid being buried under ever growing lists of suspicious people being sp…
You "guess that white supremacy and intelligence may be negatively correlated" but the article explores how that's probably not exactly the case. "[...] Economists Roland G. Fryer Jr. and Steven D. Levitt found that Ku Klux Klan members were actually better educated than the typical American."
http://www.nber.org/papers/w13417.pdf
So they were. In the 1920's. Not the people registering on Stormfront.
Incidentally... sticking reference to this paper in the article without noting the time period it researched is a bit duplicitous.
Re: The Data of Hate
#9Why would anyone register for a site like this? Doesn't everyone know by now that putting your name on a list of white supremacists might not be a good move? I guess white supremacy and intelligence may be negatively correlated? Or maybe they just don't care. I sometimes picture a secret room at the FBI with poor clerks running around trying to avoid being buried under ever growing lists of suspicious people being sp…
The article itself says white supremacist beliefs and education level are positively correlated. It's a mistake to think that someone who is intelligent is naturally capable of making good or even ethical decisions.
Deriving good decisions from our surroundings is much too complex for our rational thought to be working on constantly. This is why we derive most of our decisions not from careful consideration but from experience, upbringing, instinct and our peers.
Re: The Data of Hate
#10Why would anyone register for a site like this? Doesn't everyone know by now that putting your name on a list of white supremacists might not be a good move? I guess white supremacy and intelligence may be negatively correlated? Or maybe they just don't care. I sometimes picture a secret room at the FBI with poor clerks running around trying to avoid being buried under ever growing lists of suspicious people being sp…
The article itself says white supremacist beliefs and education level are positively correlated. It's a mistake to think that someone who is intelligent is naturally capable of making good or even ethical decisions. Deriving good decisions from our surroundings is much too complex for our rational thought to be working on constantly. This is why we derive most of our decisions not from careful consideration but from…
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A paper showing supremacists in the 1920's were more likely to be educated (not intelligent, educated, which makes sense... the KKK was a prominent social organization in some parts of the country at that time and the locally wealthy and movers and shakers who could afford education belonged.) This doesn't tell us much about the intelligence of supremacists today. I am still guessing supremacists today are less intelligent than average.... because, supremacy is a stupid philosophy. That's my gut feeling.
Edit: Response to the below... I guess I should clarify... There are probably a good number of intelligent people who hold racist views.
The specific people I'm talking about though are people who would join a supremacist organization or register on stormfront. I believe most of these are probably not particularly intelligent.
What you say about feeling that people disagree with you are stupid makes sense. But I maintain most people who overtly hold a supremacist philosophy enough to join a supremacist organization, in this day and age have not carefully considered the issue nor the reality of their situation and are thus probably more emotional, reactionary, and...... less intelligent. I've known people like this and I bet you have too.