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$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?

#31

Post by juwo »

axiom wrote: post #28
juwo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) I hate to say it but often lower castes have dark skin and african features. You will also find most of the brightest students in a University are brahmins - the highest caste - just ask your friends their caste and correlate with their intelligence. The caste system is racist. You cannot change your caste. Period. You were born with it. It is interesting but sad. Forced hereditary occupations lead to differences…

This is interesting. What stops people from just lying about their caste? or is it something that's actually recorded right on their birth certificate? Also, I wonder what it is that makes black-white marriages taboo, while asian-white marriages are almost becoming the norm in some places.

many Asian/Indian men find white women more attractive - that is why models in these countries tend to look caucasian. It works the other way, too. My wife said that she observed in Africa, that white women only married Africans if they were highly educated, handsome and wealthy.

"what it is that makes black-white marriages taboo"

Black Americans are a lower caste - Unfortunately. How many wealthy intellectual white-black marriages do you see? Few. But now Hispanics are the new ------ in America today. (a certain word that I wont use)

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?

#32

Post by nailer »

juwo wrote: post #25
axiom wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for your response. One more question, is there a movement in India to counter this trend? kind of like the civil-rights movement in the US 50 years ago? Also, a related question, how prevalent is the caste system? are people discriminated against based on their caste? I hear it's not a significant factor anymore, but what's your experience been?

1) I hate to say it but often lower castes have dark skin and african features. You will also find most of the brightest students in a University are brahmins - the highest caste - just ask your friends their caste and correlate with their intelligence. The caste system is racist. You cannot change your caste. Period. You were born with it. It is interesting but sad. Forced hereditary occupations lead to differences…

I think you've been modded down as noting the differences between races is seen to be discriminating against them in the US.

There could be a number of factors that determine the difference between university entrance scores for different racial groups. While those places are free, lower caste groups may be too worried about feeding themselves, or trying to protect themselves in rough environments, to worry about studying. They could also be, in general, less genetically gifted.

Though unpopular, it is no more racist to state the second options than it is to analyse the difference between African and European performance in athletic sports. People once though that a more athletic society was responsible for the generally better performance of Africans. these days most sports physiologists will acknowledge that African people have a genetically higher percentage of 'fast twitch' muscles.

Just because something is unpalatable does not mean it shouldn't be discussed.

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?

#33

Post by juwo »

nailer wrote: post #32
juwo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) I hate to say it but often lower castes have dark skin and african features. You will also find most of the brightest students in a University are brahmins - the highest caste - just ask your friends their caste and correlate with their intelligence. The caste system is racist. You cannot change your caste. Period. You were born with it. It is interesting but sad. Forced hereditary occupations lead to differences…

I think you've been modded down as noting the differences between races is seen to be discriminating against them in the US. There could be a number of factors that determine the difference between university entrance scores for different racial groups. While those places are free, lower caste groups may be too worried about feeding themselves, or trying to protect themselves in rough environments, to worry about stu…

"African people have a genetically higher percentage of 'fast twitch' muscles"

wow. did not know that.

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?

#34

Post by rms »

juwo wrote: post #30
ingenium wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but you can't get into the universities without a good education before that. I work with many people from India from all age ranges, from 22 to their 50s who are all MDs or PhDs, and they all tell me that before a child is even born they have to begin bribing school officials to get them into one of the better schools. This continues every time the child/student goes to a different school until the university l…

the people you met were simply making excuses and misleading you. (there is always scope for corruption in school admissions everywhere). It is like saying, if you studied in public school in small town america, you cannot get into Harvard.

But it's pretty much impossible. I went to a very good public school in a wealthy suburb and the valedictorian didn't get into Duke, let alone Harvard/Yale/Princeton/MIT/Stanford.

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?

#35

Post by gommm »

nostrademons wrote: post #15
byrneseyeview wrote: post #9

Earlier 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 china and in japan, I don't think it's related to the wealth of white foreigners but more to the fact that peasant who work all day in the field will be more tanned...

Hence, not being tanned was the same as being fat. It showed that one had wealth and didn't need to work hard to get it.

Another possible explanation (at least in japan) is a question of geography. The center of power in japan has usually been around Tokyo or Kyoto and people there tend to be more lightly skinned as people from the south.

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?

#36

Post by ingenium »

juwo wrote: post #30
ingenium wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but you can't get into the universities without a good education before that. I work with many people from India from all age ranges, from 22 to their 50s who are all MDs or PhDs, and they all tell me that before a child is even born they have to begin bribing school officials to get them into one of the better schools. This continues every time the child/student goes to a different school until the university l…

the people you met were simply making excuses and misleading you. (there is always scope for corruption in school admissions everywhere). It is like saying, if you studied in public school in small town america, you cannot get into Harvard.

Why would they make excuses and mislead me in a way that makes their country look bad? We were simply talking one day comparing the educational systems of India and the United States, and they said they favored the system here and thought it worked much better, despite receiving degrees from prestigious Indian universities such as AIIMS.

Your small town analogy doesn't work. A better analogy is if you went to a poor inner city public school, then you can't get into Harvard. This is basically true, since you don't receive a good enough education to get the scores to get in. Also, if your family is poor, especially in India, you have to work to support your family and self rather than focus on your school work, which leads to lower grades and test scores.

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?

#37

Post by ingenium »

rms wrote: post #34
juwo wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the people you met were simply making excuses and misleading you. (there is always scope for corruption in school admissions everywhere). It is like saying, if you studied in public school in small town america, you cannot get into Harvard.

But it's pretty much impossible. I went to a very good public school in a wealthy suburb and the valedictorian didn't get into Duke, let alone Harvard/Yale/Princeton/MIT/Stanford.

I agree with this. I went to a private school because my family could afford it, and as valedictorian I got into every school I applied to and received full scholarships to most. The valedictorian of the public school didn't get any scholarships, not even to the local community college. Anyone who could afford to send their kids to private school did.

It's just a fact that people with more wealth have better socioeconomic opportunity than people with less wealth, not that they're more intelligent. This means better schools and better education.

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?

#38

Post by ingenium »

juwo wrote: post #25
axiom wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for your response. One more question, is there a movement in India to counter this trend? kind of like the civil-rights movement in the US 50 years ago? Also, a related question, how prevalent is the caste system? are people discriminated against based on their caste? I hear it's not a significant factor anymore, but what's your experience been?

1) I hate to say it but often lower castes have dark skin and african features. You will also find most of the brightest students in a University are brahmins - the highest caste - just ask your friends their caste and correlate with their intelligence. The caste system is racist. You cannot change your caste. Period. You were born with it. It is interesting but sad. Forced hereditary occupations lead to differences…

Your comment that forced hereditary occupations lead to differences in IQ. I fail to see the selecting force that would drive a lower IQ. If there are generations of manual labor as an occupation, that would be a selection force in favor of being stronger and bigger, but would not select AGAINST intelligence.

Other than that, there are clear differences in race genetically. Caste, in the Indian sense, is much harder to argue and would have to say the differences are minimal since it is more recent on an evolutionary timescale. Exceptions are when there was forced selection, such as with the slave trade which lead to the descendants of slaves being larger and stronger than those still in Africa. If there is a physical difference in appearance, then there is a high probability of other genetic differences. A perfect example is the distribution of immunity to HIV. It's really only in Europe, specifically Northern and Eastern Europe. Different geographic areas have had different selecting forces over thousands of years, so the populations are different.

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?

#39

Post by michaelneale »

nostrademons wrote: post #10

Yeah, 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…

Not so sure about deodorant. Maybe it was once, but damn, I hope people don't use that as an excuse not to use it (and claim that their smell is natural or that they can't smell 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?

#40

Post by ajju »

juwo wrote: post #25
axiom wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for your response. One more question, is there a movement in India to counter this trend? kind of like the civil-rights movement in the US 50 years ago? Also, a related question, how prevalent is the caste system? are people discriminated against based on their caste? I hear it's not a significant factor anymore, but what's your experience been?

1) I hate to say it but often lower castes have dark skin and african features. You will also find most of the brightest students in a University are brahmins - the highest caste - just ask your friends their caste and correlate with their intelligence. The caste system is racist. You cannot change your caste. Period. You were born with it. It is interesting but sad. Forced hereditary occupations lead to differences…

Regarding (1) - Have you ever been to South India my friend? So many of the Brahmins from South India I know, the Aiyyars and the Aiyyangars have dark skin. I was born a Brahmin myself and > 75% of my family members have "dark" skin.

The caste system is definitely racist and a much much bigger problem but this whole linking of skin color to castes is just not true.

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