Prejudice is just Bayesian reasoning. What's wrong with it?
$200M market for a product catering to prejudice. If you had a similar product idea or implementation that could make you rich; would you still execute?
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Re: $200M market for a product catering to prejudice. If you had a similar product idea or implementation that could make you rich; would you still execute?
#12Yeah, like deodorant, diamonds, Armani, the Model T, cruise ships, tanning salons, makeup, corsets, diet pills, jumbo mortgages, health spas, and The Great Vowel Shift of the 1600s. Nearly everything is marketed by making you seem like a person of higher social status. If people were comfortable with who they were, we wouldn't need 90% of the goods on the market (and the remaining 10% would likely be much cheaper). I…
Re: $200M market for a product catering to prejudice. If you had a similar product idea or implementation that could make you rich; would you still execute?
#13I would not be willing to spend years getting inside the heads of customers whose mindset I oppose. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet lose his soul?
I find it interesting that you're okay with opposing someone but not understanding why they think the way they do. Isn't that a bad sign?
I'm not sure that racism is worthy of deep contemplation.
Re: $200M market for a product catering to prejudice. If you had a similar product idea or implementation that could make you rich; would you still execute?
#14Re: $200M market for a product catering to prejudice. If you had a similar product idea or implementation that could make you rich; would you still execute?
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think there is a basic difference between a skin lightener and a tanning product. A more apt analogy would be 'hair relaxers' that were popular in the 1960's and 70's, these products helped African Americans straighten their hair. There is a pretty rich dialog about these products that I think would be worth reading to get a better appreciation of the context and controversy here. I personally would not want to mar…
It seems to me that as long as ethnicity correlates with appearance, and beauty means a certain kind of appearance, then some ethnicities will be more 'beautiful'. Italian muralists painted pale fat women even though such women were probably more common in Germany -- it was a standard of beauty that happened to favor one ethnic group over the group that promulgated it. Similarly, I don't think the people who decided…
It correlates with socioeconomic status. During the middle ages, fat women were considered attractive because it indicated that you had ample food available, a sign of wealth. Now thin women are desirable because it shows you have time to exercise, money for a gym membership, and don't eat at McDonalds.
Same goes for many other physical attributes. In much of Africa and Asia, whiter skin is attractive because white foreigners have all the wealth and power. In the U.S, tanned skin is attractive because it shows that you spend all day on the beach, which means you're wealthy enough to live near the ocean and leisured enough to spend time in the sun.
Humans seem biologically programmed to favor mates that are wealthy and powerful. However, the specifics of "wealthy and powerful" aren't hardwired in, so we take our cues from physical characteristics that appear correlated with wealth and power. When I was a kid, the girls would make fun of all the geeks. Now that geeks tend to be millionaires, they've reversed their tune.
Re: $200M market for a product catering to prejudice. If you had a similar product idea or implementation that could make you rich; would you still execute?
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
It seems to me that as long as ethnicity correlates with appearance, and beauty means a certain kind of appearance, then some ethnicities will be more 'beautiful'. Italian muralists painted pale fat women even though such women were probably more common in Germany -- it was a standard of beauty that happened to favor one ethnic group over the group that promulgated it. Similarly, I don't think the people who decided…
It correlates with socioeconomic status. During the middle ages, fat women were considered attractive because it indicated that you had ample food available, a sign of wealth. Now thin women are desirable because it shows you have time to exercise, money for a gym membership, and don't eat at McDonalds. Same goes for many other physical attributes. In much of Africa and Asia, whiter skin is attractive because white f…
That's true, but I was noting that these 'wealth' and 'power' physical attributes can be genetic.
Re: $200M market for a product catering to prejudice. If you had a similar product idea or implementation that could make you rich; would you still execute?
#17I'm sorry to say, but it really seems like many people here are talking right out of their ass.
For people who actually lived in India for an extended period of time:
1. what is the driving force behind this market? is it purely aesthetics, like tanning creams, or does race play into it?
2. how large is the phenomenon? is it something common that many people think about or just a fringe market?
3. how is it viewed by the locals? are people who do this kind of thing ashamed to admit it?
Re: $200M market for a product catering to prejudice. If you had a similar product idea or implementation that could make you rich; would you still execute?
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
It seems to me that as long as ethnicity correlates with appearance, and beauty means a certain kind of appearance, then some ethnicities will be more 'beautiful'. Italian muralists painted pale fat women even though such women were probably more common in Germany -- it was a standard of beauty that happened to favor one ethnic group over the group that promulgated it. Similarly, I don't think the people who decided…
It correlates with socioeconomic status. During the middle ages, fat women were considered attractive because it indicated that you had ample food available, a sign of wealth. Now thin women are desirable because it shows you have time to exercise, money for a gym membership, and don't eat at McDonalds. Same goes for many other physical attributes. In much of Africa and Asia, whiter skin is attractive because white f…
>In much of Africa and Asia, whiter skin is attractive because white >foreigners have all the wealth and power.
This is not true, at least not the way you think. Attraction to (bias for) fair skin is a very very old tradition in India. If you look at Ramayana - one of the two Hindu religious epics which is at least thousands of years old, Sita, the main female character is described as fair many many times.
It has been argued that the fascination with fair skin came about because of the Indo-Aryan migration (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Aryan_migration) though some people have argued that Aryans were indigenous to India as far back as the Harappan civilization. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_Aryans)
That many of the ruler classes (The Chitpavan Brahmins in Maharashtra http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chitpavan and the Moghul Nawabs) had fair skin may also have contributed.
Re: $200M market for a product catering to prejudice. If you had a similar product idea or implementation that could make you rich; would you still execute?
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
I find it interesting that you're okay with opposing someone but not understanding why they think the way they do. Isn't that a bad sign?
I'm not sure that racism is worthy of deep contemplation.
This is not exactly racism. It is a different kind of bias based on the same physical feature but you will see it between members of the same family. So for e.g. if there are two sisters in a family and one has darker skin, she is very often subject to discrimination. So also with brothers though to a lesser degree (so this is not entirely gender based).
In short this is bias, and it is horrible, but it is not racism. Interestingly this bias does automatically RESULT in racism, so you would typically see people of African origins depicted as goons in older Hindi movies. This has changed slowly. I am quite sure the rising popularity of rap and Hollywood has contributed to this change.
Re: $200M market for a product catering to prejudice. If you had a similar product idea or implementation that could make you rich; would you still execute?
#20I'm sorry to say, but it really seems like many people here are talking right out of their ass. For people who actually lived in India for an extended period of time: 1. what is the driving force behind this market? is it purely aesthetics, like tanning creams, or does race play into it? 2. how large is the phenomenon? is it something common that many people think about or just a fringe market? 3. how is it viewed by…
1) It is pure aesthetics, but the bias against darker skin, while not based on race, is deep rooted and does result in people with darker skin being discriminated against. It is not to the degree of dark skinned people not being allowed in X places, but it is bad enough that a groom would very often choose a fairer bride to a darker one.
2) It is very wide spread.
3) Not really. It has been around for thousands of years and has very little to do with recently developed fascination for or admiration for Europeans. Conceivably it could have it's roots in the "Aryan invasion" theory or a another time thousands of years ago when the ruling class had fair skin, but you will see references to "fair princesses" in mythological Hindu texts thousands of years ago. It is important to note though that there are references to "dark skinned beautiful women" also in some of these texts. So the bias could have been regional inside India. I don't know of anyone who has studied this extensively.