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cjet79  1yr ago (text post)   2511 thread views

The Case for Ignoring Race

The Case for Ignoring Race

There are two arguments I want to push forward. The first is about ignoring race in your personal life. Ignoring your own race, and ignoring the race of others around you. And the second argument is to ignore race in the policy space. Ignoring race in college admissions, immigration, crime, etc. I also don't want to make the case that only white people should ignore race. I think it is generally beneficial for everyone to ignore race, but I'm guessing that most of the racial identitarians (people who place great importance on racial identity) that are here on themotte are white racial identitarians.

Ignoring Race in Your Personal Life

This is perhaps the less culture war loaded argument so I'll start with it first. I consider this section mostly good advice, and none of the advice is what I'd call "original". Smarter people than me have provided free advice to the masses, and this just feels like a synthesis of that advice.

Taking Responsibility

There is a certain mindset that treats genetics like destiny. And the mindset does not just apply on matters of race, but on broad characteristics like intelligence, athleticism, and charisma. I think this kind of mindset is harmful for the individual and those around them. Genetics does have an impact on your life, you aren't gonna be in the NBA if you were born with some short genes. You are still human, you are going to be similar to your parents in many ways. But it is most helpful to think of genetics as creating a set of boundaries around a wide field of possibilities. Where you wind up within that wide field of possibilities is up to you, and the field is probably much wider than you realize. In any field you look at you can often find surprisingly examples of standout performers that violate the expected norms. Like Stephen Curry being not very tall for the NBA, but being a star player. Or professors that are not that smart/brilliant, but still having prolific writing outputs of interesting material. The advice here is to take personal responsibility for where you end up within a large field of possibilities, and to stop blaming the often distant fences of genetics.

The restrictions placed on people by race are mostly imaginary social constructs. Somewhat facetiously: Rachel Dolezal is the story of a white girl becoming a respected black professor and NAACP member. Race has a loose relation with some of the very real limitations imposed by genetics, but most of the limitations of race come from social constraint. A person of a given race is not expected to do x, y, or z, and the person internalizes those expectations and lives up to them. What is important to remember here is that like with traffic, you are not just in a society, you are society. You are a part of creating and accepting the limitations that are merely social constructs. My simple advice is to stop doing that.

Information and Stereotyping

Our racial makeup is often one of our most visible characteristics, with the most visible characteristics often being clothes, gender, and age. I'd suggest to everyone that race is a mostly useless piece of information about people, and almost all of the information people claim to get from race is actually information that they get from other sources.

There are many variations on a joke about a race blind man refusing to cross the street as a black youth is walking towards him, he then gets mugged by the black youth. In more recent times the joke is often subverted to turn the race expectations on their head. Anyways, it is a good example for my purposes. Let us break the situation down:

  1. Context - Walking down a dark street at night in a bad section of town.
  2. Age - young, teen to late twenties. A time when humans are often physically at their peak, and a time when males are more prone to violence.
  3. Gender - male, as mentioned above more prone to violence and physicality.
  4. Clothes - You are often left to paint the picture for yourself in the joke. But imagine a dark hoody and well worn jeans.
  5. Demeanor - fixated at you, arrogant walk, one hand holding something in their hoody pocket.

At this point, without race ever being a factor, you can make an informed decision that interacting with this person is a bad idea. If you can't tell their race, and then are suddenly able to see it at the last moment, no result should change the informed decision you already made.

I won't make the very strong claim that Race is never a useful deciding factor. But I am making the claim that it is rarely useful. It is rarely useful because as I mentioned above it is mostly only a limitation by being an imaginary social construct. The actual correlations between race and very real limiting genetic factors are not very strong. The usefulness of race as a piece of information is proportional to the degree to which race is a commonly accepted limitation. The less people accept race as a limitation on their behavior, the less useful it is in predicting their behavior.

In general if you want to get better at reading situations with other people I would never suggest doing an in-depth reading of all the various stereotypes associated with different races. Instead I would suggest:

  1. Learning some biology related to human aging and gender. (I do believe gender stereotypes are very useful)
  2. Learning about clothing and fashion. In the above mugging example if the person you see happens to be wearing a dark Taylor Swift concert hoodie, and the jeans appear artificially aged then you might significantly downgrade the threat they pose.
  3. Learning to read body language. In the mugging example, maybe they are holding a phone, and maybe they are fixated on something behind you.
  4. Being more aware of context. Maybe before you start walking at night in the bad neighborhood of town you should realize how the situation might end up, and try to find a way to avoid it altogether. Some young people can sort of have their head in the clouds, and I'd suggest they play a sport that requires better situational and contextual awareness.

Policy

This is the more culture war laden section of this argument. I'm not going to claim this section is exhaustive or comprehensive. I simply picked two policy topics that are heavily enmeshed with racial politics. The college section will probably not be controversial to anyone on themotte. The immigration section will probably be very controversial here on themotte.

Universities

Universities and Colleges have been using race as a criteria for admission for quite some time now. I believe this is a bad policy, and doesn't accomplish their goals. One of their stated goals in doing this is to promote diversity on campus, which makes for a more interesting learning environment, and a better college experience.

I think race is a lazy selection criteria for diversity. It continues to be used because it is easily legible on a college admission form, and has somewhat of a correlation with diversity.

It is helpful to see how this approach is lazy, by imagining a stark contrast: a college that wants diversity and what approach it would take while expending the most amount of effort.

This imaginary college admissions would want to know as much as possible about their prospective students, and they would not want the students themselves to be the sole providers of that information. The admissions process might look more like the security clearance process. The student would fill out an exhaustive set of forms about their past life circumstances. Every sport, social group, vacation, and major life event would all be fair game. The university would assign a case worker for each student, who would then go interview the family and friends of that student to build an exhaustive profile of who they are. Then the students would be evaluated for their personalities, political beliefs, and viewpoints. With tens of thousands of profiles in hand the university would then run an exhaustive set of statistics and winnowing on the student profiles. Any prospective students with rare experiences or backgrounds would get additional weight. In this imaginary admissions process race would be almost a useless criteria, because there would be multiple other criteria that would make it obsolete or redundant.

Back to the real world. There are obvious problems with race based admissions when it comes to producing a diverse campus. As I said in the personal section, race is not actually a hard and fast genetic restriction, it is only loosely correlated with those genetic restrictions. So it is quite easily possible that you could have two suburban candidates that are next door neighbors and nearly identical in every category except race. Taking both of these students would not make the campus more diverse, except in the most superficial and meaningless sense of a skin color diversity. Imagine the opposite scenario of two identical twins separated at birth. One into a rich family of doctors in a big city, and another into a poor farming family in a small town. Admitting both of these students would not alter the racial diversity of campus at all, but it would make for a more interesting and diverse student body.

A lazy solution for colleges that want diversity and don't want to use race: create categories that you want to fill. For example, "person that has lived in a different country", or "person from a rough neighborhood", or "person from a big city", or "person from a small town", or "person that has lived in both". Then get students to fill in which categories they fit into. Then try to fill out the incoming class with a range of diverse experiences and backgrounds. This would be a slightly superficial take on 'diversity', but it would still be way better than a race based admission criteria. (some universities already do minor versions of this for other purposes, like asking if they are alumni / military child / etc.)

Immigration

If you have read the rest of my post some of what I'm about to say will be unsurprising. Race is generally an indirect sorting mechanism for the things we care about from immigrants, and more direct sorting mechanisms exist. I'd claim that the main things we care about in immigrants are: Intelligence, hard-work, cultural fit, criminality, and "buy in". Most of those are self-explanatory. I'd consider language skills under cultural fit. The "buy in" is how willing any immigrant is willing to engage in joining a country.

I think the easiest way to determine an immigrant's fit is to just look at their country or citizenship of origin, and ask for their reason for immigrating. Which is generally what the US immigration policy already does. Certain countries are better fits, and though Race correlates highly with country of origin it is not the same thing. And although there could be potential gaming of the system by asking people why they want to come to the country, some reasons are transparently obvious. For example, marriage into the country is an obvious reason for immigration, as well as a decent signal of some degree of "buy in".

Some quick thought experiment that suggests Race is a bad proxy measurement:

Imagine two immigration candidates. From two hypothetical nations. Candidate 1 is of the green race, but coming from redstan. Candidate 2 is of the red race, but coming from greenstan. They have both been in their countries for a full generation. Redstan is a war torn mess it has a failed government and the streets are regularly the sight of sectarian violence. Redstan is also ideological enemies with your country, Tealstan. Greenstan is your country's fatherland. Tealstan used to be a colony of Greenstan, but they peacefully split apart. They share a people, a culture, and are on friendly terms with one another. I would think Candidate 2 from Greenstan is clearly the better candidate.

Imagine two other immigration candidates. One is of your exact race. In fact they are your distant ancestor frozen in ice and revived in the modern era, but they have a cultural mindset from 200 years ago, they hate what the nation has become, and their lack of modern skills makes them highly likely to resort to crime. The other candidate is your neighbor, but a race very different from yours. They have been living next to you for five years, they had planned to just stay here a bit for work and then leave to their home country. But they fell in love and the prospect of marriage and starting a family has made them want to stay. I would think the second candidate is clearly the better choice.

Summary

Race is clearly a thing that exists. Genetic differences exist across races. The simplest proof is in people's skin pigmentation. However, genetics doesn't have to dictate anyone's destiny. Genetics can be barriers to unlimited possibilities, but your final place within a large set of possibilities is up to you.

And because race and genetics do not fully dictate who a person is, those characteristics do not provide good information about an individual that isn't obtainable in a myriad of other more reliable ways.

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I feel like this post is assuming answers to questions that are more interesting than the ones it's answering itself.

Instead of, "Should we consider the race of a potential immigrant," I would ask, "Why do we need or want immigration?"

Instead of, "Should we consider the race of a potential student at a university," I would ask "What is the purpose of the university in the first place?"

Now, I can agree, on a person to person basis, race isn't something that should be considered. I could have friends, lovers, and collegues of any racial background. I really believe that. But, when we talk about immigration or — yes — even university admissions, we're no longer talking about a person to person scenario. We're now talking about the fates of nations and institutions.

There is a certain mindset that treats genetics like destiny. And the mindset does not just apply on matters of race, but on broad characteristics like intelligence, athleticism, and charisma. I think this kind of mindset is harmful for the individual and those around them.

Okay, that's true unless you can modify genetic traits. But ... you can. We have embryo selection, we have mate selection, and gene editing (and AI!) is coming in the future. This argument proves way too much!

I agree that ignoring the effect of race on IQ is reasonable when dealing with an individual, just because there are more accurate methods of guessing intelligence after interacting with someone for a bit.

I agree on immigration. All sorts of far-right people will claim that different races have different innate qualities that are somehow fundamental to civilization, or something. But whenever specific claims of that sort are made, they are just clearly nonsensical, so I think these are more eloquent fantasies than they are true. That doesn't mean such qualities don't exist, but it sure does hint at it.

We tried it and it doesn't work.

The problem with this system is that all it takes is one person or group noticing and it falls apart. There are even incentives to defect.

People 0-998: Race doesn't matter, people are all basically the same and race doesn't impact their potential.

Person 999: Here are well sourced statistics showing blacks are x times more likely to be murdered, blacks are x times more likely to be imprisoned, poor, etc.

Those stats being provably true gives the persons argument more weight and gives them a path to political power. While at the same time ignoring reality has left a huge ideological weak point in your system. Even if you pivot to pointing out that blacks have far higher murder rates and mostly interact with blacks, which explains the increased chance of being murdered, you are now a hypocrite because you've spent years saying race doesn't matter and your system of polite white lies has ended.

Why does it necessarily fall apart? If I'm a poor person, and I notice that poor people do worse than rich people ... there isn't a communist revolution in $current_year. Ditto for the cultural group that is lower-class whites. Why can't the same work for races? Just take an IQ test and accept your place.

There might not be a communist revolution every time, but there is a constant churn of people offering fixes to the supposed problem of inequality. They then obtain sinecures for themselves and waste tax payer dollars on a problem that we wouldn't have if people accepted hbd and didn't ignore differences in iq or things like time preference.

Also, accepting is different than ignoring. Accepting explicitly requires you to not ignore. You have to first admit that race differences exist to then accept them and move on. After that yeah you can just behave as if they don't exist if you want, but that awareness has to be there in society. Otherwise someone can defect and say, "Did you know black people are poorer than whites?" In the world where people are aware of and accept but otherwise ignore race differences people will simply point out the 1 SD iq differences. In a world where race differences are entirely ignored that person becomes the mayor of Chicago or something.

You ignore race at the expense of living in and experiencing reality. I would love to have the luxury of ignoring race all the time, but I don't have that luxury. It doesn't really stop at race either, any time you distract yourself from any kind of material reality you are doing yourself and those around you a disservice. You can tell yourself that men and women are exactly the same and redefine the definitions all you want a la Judith Butler but it's as incoherent at the end of the day as telling yourself that Vietnamese men and men from Ghana are the same thing. I've been all around the world and it's simply not true. Black men are more prone to violence and aggression and are more sexually threatening and intimidating than East Asian men, for example. It's so simple that people don't want to look at it. Just go to the fair and look at the chickens. There will be small meek chickens and big aggressive ones. Look at dogs. There simply are differences. Advocating for race blindness on the backdrop of BLM riots is absurd, this just feels out of step with reality at this point.

Racial blindness is a great ideal to work toward, especially in times of peace and little social unrest, but right now it's just so ridiculously out of step with the times that it seems kind of incoherent. It doesn't seem in effect very far removed from the liberal anti-racist position which is also glaringly out of touch.

I specifically said race is a real thing with real differences. I do believe that in many cases the differences you might see are minor. There is a huge amount of internal variation among people within the same race. Even just looking at the children from a single set of parents there can be a huge amount of variation. Realize, that however much you judge someone based on their parents, you should judge them based on their race far less. Simply because the mechanism for both relations is genetics, but that relation is much stronger for parents.

I was trying to point at the spiritual toll of ignoring race in my comment. I think it's more empathetic and kind to simply look at people and the groups they belong to and make broad observations about them and accept that they have differences that make them unique in the same way that white people have differences that make us unique. Trying to ignore that does a disservice to your own judgment as well as the shape of reality and the path of nature.

You dodged @Ben___Garrison's psychoanalysis downthread but really I think it's a valid point to examine the underlying motivated reasoning for your position rather than to pedantically try to dissect whether some group's traits are due to like, racial group genetics or their specific parents. Personally I do find it irritating to dissect race in a competitive way, as most men are prone to doing- seeing men who are more fit in ways that I am not is grating but accepting it is part of being a mature and respectful person. Race blindness appeals to me in theory because it absolves me of having to see the lack within myself and those around me, but it's at the expense of coming to terms with my own inadequacies and the traits of others. We focus so much in this thread on the hypothetical violent black males which can make us feel superior in terms of peacefulness but so few of us want to focus on the traits of black males that we can feel jealous of- sexual virility, domination, and so on.

Universities and Colleges have been using race as a criteria for admission

I think race is a lazy selection criteria for diversity.

In this imaginary admissions process race would be almost a useless criteria

Criterion.

I'll echo @MathiasTRex regarding university admissions not wanting real diversity; they can tolerate anything except the outgroup. I won't go so far as to say they don't believe their own rhetoric - plenty do - but there is a substantial sense in which the whole "diversity" movement is false consciousness and would be abandoned if it actually did produce real viewpoint diversity.

Regarding immigration, there is the issue of ethnic tension to consider. In theory that should be solvable via societal means, but we tried that and it didn't work amazingly well. There's a degree of generative instinct involved there, and it's awfully hard to suppress that.

I think America has much less ethnic tension than any pre-1950s society and most existing countries, which makes the "immigration causes ethnic tension" argument suspect. I think that liberalism and modern society have done a better job of dissolving ethnic tension than immigration could cause, and the econometrics studies that find immigration causes ethnic tension are probably not finding actual generalizable causality.

Fair.

I'll echo MathiasTRex regarding university admissions not wanting real diversity; they can tolerate anything except the outgroup. I won't go so far as to say they don't believe their own rhetoric - plenty do - but there is a substantial sense in which the whole "diversity" movement is false consciousness and would be abandoned if it actually did produce real viewpoint diversity.

Thank you for reading other people's responses. It is helpful when responding to a bunch of people if they don't all make the same point. I mentioned this in other responses, but yes I forgot to address racial spoils in my original post. I'll summarize and say I think it creates an unhelpful mindset in those receiving the spoils, and that after a generation or two I think there tends to be some bad backlash.

Regarding immigration, there is the issue of ethnic tension to consider. In theory that should be solvable via societal means, but we tried that and it didn't work amazingly well. There's a degree of generative instinct involved there, and it's awfully hard to suppress that.

There is often ethnic tension. I think America actually was quite good at solving ethnic tension. Still good at it in many places, but maybe not everywhere. Melting pot idea seems to have worked. Cultivating shared civic pride seems to have worked. It is frustrating that the main political faction in the US that wants more immigration seems to also want to stop doing the things that have made immigration work well in the past. I think integration has its own sort of momentum though, it is personally beneficial to the immigrants, so even if its not encouraged at a policy level it is still encouraged through economic incentives.

Thank you for reading other people's responses. It is helpful when responding to a bunch of people if they don't all make the same point. I mentioned this in other responses, but yes I forgot to address racial spoils in my original post. I'll summarize and say I think it creates an unhelpful mindset in those receiving the spoils, and that after a generation or two I think there tends to be some bad backlash.

Perhaps my mention of echoing him was a mistake; I wasn't really driving at "spoils system". I'm driving at "the people setting up this system want Virtue Points for encouraging diversity but don't want actual diversity, so the equilibrium is a diversity system that barks up the wrong tree and race is a convenient wrong tree to bark up". Like I said, though, I don't think this is mostly a matter of fraud so much as a matter of false consciousness and memetic evolution.

(And yes, I realise the gravity of making a false-consciousness accusation and the difficulty of replying to same.)

Melting pot idea seems to have worked. Cultivating shared civic pride seems to have worked. It is frustrating that the main political faction in the US that wants more immigration seems to also want to stop doing the things that have made immigration work well in the past.

The question is how stable the melting pot can be against salad-bowlers in a society that isn't comfortably dominated by a single race. A solution that works when implemented but can't stably be implemented is useless.

Suppose you have two chip fabrication plants. One produces 97% functional, working chips, 3% are broken. The other plant produces 6% of their chips broken.

The majority of both plant's products work. If you have applications that need only a few working chips of a certain type, or individual working chips, you can use chips from either company without much bother.

But say you need 10 working chips of the same type, from the same factory. A single failure means the product is worthless. 0.97 x 0.97... = 0.74

0.94 x 0.94... = 0.54

The difference between a 54% chance of success and 74% is huge, way more significant than 94% vs 97%.

The point of this semiconductor metaphor is that small differences matter at large scales. We care about groups as well as individuals. In fact, groups are the most important determinants of state success and the strength/capabilities of the state is the most important determinant of individual welfare. Being poor/stupid in Denmark and poor/stupid in South Sudan are very different concepts. If it takes 10 quality, honest people to make a successful company or to run an electricity grid without blackouts... Or if it takes five stupid, dishonest, violent people to ruin a neighbourhood...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_United_States_by_household_income

Forget contrived stories of individuals and look at groups. At the top are East Asians, Indians and Europeans, at the bottom are blacks. There are exceptions and oddities - Appalachians are at the bottom for instance. Selection effects matter. But in general the obvious trend holds, the same trend you see in criminality, in health, science and so on. You see it in different countries - East Asia and European countries tend to be rich and advanced. If they're not, they have excuses.

Do you want a huge population of Afghans, Ethiopians and Sub-Saharan Africans coming to your country? Income of course doesn't tell the whole story - even those we'd expect to be inclined towards refugees throw up their arms with the Afghans we've been getting recently (there's probably a negative sorting effect going on here): https://nationalinterest.org/feature/ive-worked-refugees-decades-europes-afghan-crime-wave-mind-21506

In my country we have problems with Sudanese youths stealing cars and joyriding with them at grossly disproportionate rates. All this without a history of redlining, lynching and so on. And unlike Appalachian Americans, there do not seem to be non-economic gains from these populations - Appalachians have a history of military service.

Putting aside raw performance, there's also great value in homogeneity in itself. You might well say 'well let's skim off the most talented Chinese, Indians, Nigerians, Ethiopians with our high wages and boost our country's GDP'. What happens to your country if you do that? It becomes an empire as opposed to a nation-state and that invites disaster. Some ethnic group will find their way to the top and others will be jealous. What has happened to every empire in history? Nationalism tears it apart! Nationalism, competition for spoils, factionalism, cultural and religious tension - these are the most powerful forces in the world. We saw this quite clearly in Afghanistan. Nobody told the Taliban they needed a high GDP to beat us. They had nationalism and religious fervour, a culture standing firmly behind them, a force that proved stronger than a global superpower.

On all conventional measures of strength, NATO was far ahead of the Taliban. Yet we were trying to do something very difficult (massively changing a people's culture) and we were doing it in a stupid way (without forcibly indoctrinating or concentrating the population). What China did to its Uyghurs, that's how you change cultures from outside. If we're not prepared to do that (and how can we to people we invite to our countries), we will incur a disaster eventually. Few soldiers are prepared to die for feminism, for the political fortunes of the leading political dynasty, for liberal democracy or gay sex in Botswana. Many more are prepared to die for their nation, to make sacrifices for their nation. That's what people fought for in WW2.

Why can't the US fill the ranks of its army if its GDP is so high? Why is US politics such a disaster zone that there's an ongoing culture war? Because each passing day it becomes less and less national, more and more imperial. It becomes a hollow economic zone run by major corporations, media figures and ethnic leaders. Divisions (economic, cultural, ethnic) multiply and leaders start profiting from division, fuelling it for short-term advantage. There's a gigantic racial spoils apparatus devoted to papering over the cracks, trying to retain a modicum of stability even as it further undermines it. Destination: Lebanon.

His response is obvious. "Just test the chips lol" And we can do that! IQ-selective immigration, literally give every immigrant an IQ test. (before you say "politically impossible", any sort of racism is also politically impossible)

It becomes an empire as opposed to a nation-state and that invites disaster

A quarter of our 'elite' are already jews and another quarter are a smattering of other international ethnicities. Even before that, "french" and "anglo" and "german" and "italian" were rather separate nations until they all blended together in america.

The majority of both plant's products work. If you have applications that need only a few working chips of a certain type, or individual working chips, you can use chips from either company without much bother.

But say you need 10 working chips of the same type, from the same factory. A single failure means the product is worthless. 0.97 x 0.97... = 0.74

0.94 x 0.94... = 0.54

On the flip side, if you have a test for chip quality which can diagnose bad chips with sensitivity and specificity of 75%, you can use that test to get from a 6% bad chip rate to a 2% bad chip rate if you're willing to throw away a little over a quarter of your chips. (Math: out of 1000 chips, there will be 705 good chips the test says are good, 235 good chips the test says are bad, 15 bad chips the test says are good, and 45 bad chips the test says are bad).

Even pretty crappy tests (0.75 is a terrible number for both sensitivity and specificity) can get you massive advantages over just relying on base rates.

So, by that thought process

Do you want a huge population of Afghans, Ethiopians and Sub-Saharan Africans coming to your country?

If we are capable of having the sort of process that is capable of predicting, not necessarily very well, just a bit better than chance, which particular applicants have an elevated risk of being a problem, and we're willing to use that process even if it unfairly rejects a significant fraction of applicants, then yes, I do want a huge (selected) population of immigrants from those countries coming here.

That said, I live in a country where the vast vast majority of residents have immigrant ancestors within the last 10 generations, and a solid quarter of them within the past generation (i.e. they are either themselves immigrants or their parents were). The "the country has a strong sense of solidarity because everyone belongs to the ethnic group that's always lived here" ship has not sailed, because that ship never arrived in the first place.

Tests are good. Indeed my country actually uses tests and gets a higher quality of immigrant, refugees aside. Nobody else seems to bother with this though and people can cheat, unlike passive objects. Employers naturally want cheaper labor, as cheap as they can get. There'll always be pressure to water down tests, endless economic arguments. To beat an economic argument, what about a social argument?

The "the country has a strong sense of solidarity because everyone belongs to the ethnic group that's always lived here" ship has not sailed, because that ship never arrived in the first place.

What happens if there's a crisis and the bulk of the population is economic migrants? Would they stay and fight for their country or go back home or find another country to move to?

The pioneers of China's ballistic missile program have a lot of credentials from US universities. National solidarity is very important and we undermine it at our peril. Maybe you don't need it ever ten years, or even every fifty years but you do need it and you never know when.

What happens if there's a crisis and the bulk of the population is economic migrants?

Empirically national solidarity seems to increase when there's a crisis. Unless the crisis is economic, I suppose - if lots of people moved to your country because of the promise of prosperity, and then your country started doing worse economically, those people might go seek their fortune elsewhere.

But yeah, losing the possibility of national solidarity based on centuries of common ancestry is a cost, at least for places where that was ever on the table. I expect the benefits are generally worth that cost, especially in a context where you can only control immigration and not emigration, but it is a cost.

If it's not politically possible to take both the factory of origin and also the test results into account, it would be worth doing the math to see whether the "use only priors" approach or the "assume uniform defect rates across all factories and calibrate your test accordingly" will yield better results.

Though it would definitely be worth checking if that constraint actually binds you. For example, if you live in a country that sets immigration quotas on a per-origin-country basis, that is not a constraint your country is operating under.

Why can't the US fill the ranks of its army if its GDP is so high?

If anything, it is because GDP is high; potential recruits have better options. It is in poor countries that people are eager to seek public employment, including in the military.

Nobody told the Taliban they needed a high GDP to beat us

The Taliban did not beat us; the beat their internal rivals.

You might well say 'well let's skim off the most talented Chinese, Indians, Nigerians, Ethiopians with our high wages and boost our country's GDP'. What happens to your country if you do that? It becomes an empire as opposed to a nation-state and that invites disaster.

  1. You are completely misusing the term, "empire."
  2. There are forms of nation-states other than ethnic nation states. And the US is a classic example of civic nationalism
  3. If your definition of empire is correct, the US has been an empire since before its founding. Yet, so far, the results have been rather good.

If anything, it is because GDP is high; potential recruits have better options. It is in poor countries that people are eager to seek public employment, including in the military.

If you can't get people to fight for their country, you won't have a country for very long. If you see an army like a mercenary organization that attracts its recruits with competitive remuneration, you're not going to beat goat-herders in AKs who are fighting for something more. People fight hard for nations, not for money.

The Taliban did not beat us; they beat their internal rivals.

Our puppet government? The puppet government we imposed by force of arms, propped up for 20 years and disintegrated the moment that we left (making the Soviet puppet government look like a paragon of stability, outlasting the Soviet Union itself)?

You are completely misusing the term, "empire."

I don't think so. "A political unit having an extensive territory or comprising a number of territories or nations and ruled by a single supreme authority." This certainly fits the US. And it becomes more imperial the more diverse it gets, the more nations it rules over.

the US is a classic example of civic nationalism

The US is an empire that relied upon being largely homogenous, founded and ruled by Protestant Englishmen. And sure it's had a good run. But there's only one ending to this story. The Hapsburgs ruled many nationalities for a very long time and were pretty successful. Yet they're gone with the wind. It only takes one big loss and empires disintegrate back into nation-states.

If you can't get people to fight for their country, you won't have a country for very long

Perhaps. But that is not the claim I was addressing.

Our puppet government?

No, as I said, their internal rivals. Who were fighting the Taliban long before the US decided to back them in 2001.

This certainly fits the US. And it becomes more imperial the more diverse it gets, the more nations it rules over.

What do you think "nations" means in that context?

The Hapsburgs ruled many nationalities for a very long time and were pretty successful.

Again, what do you think "nationalities" means?

nations

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation

I don't buy the 'civic nationalism' stuff there though. I have no doubt many identify as Soviet citizens, many probably still do and then... their 'civic nation' is not around anymore, it dissolves into smoke and mirrors unlike a real nation.

OK, I messed up when I said nationalities and meant nations.

Ok, that is kind of what I thought, but then I don't understand what you meant when you said that the US is ruling over nations. Because while Germans constitute a "nation," German-Americans do not. Ditto re Chinese (or perhaps merely Han) and Chinese-Americans. African-Americans certainly are not a nation, given that Africans are not a nation. Ditto re Hispanics.

Why don't Chinese-Americans constitute a nation? The moment a Chinese man signs a piece of paper to become American, his nation changes? What about all those people who don't even speak English, are they part of the American 'civic nation'?

Nations can change, German-Americans are very watered down now. But the very notion that there's a distinction between American (which brings to mind a white man) and African-American must mean there's some kind of significant biological difference there. This is a national difference to my mind.

The US has many nations within it - there are Ethiopians, Mexicans, Chinese, Indians, Filipinos, Jews, African-Americans. African Americans might not have a state but how are they not a nation, if you can draw a distinction from them that is rooted in race as opposed to social characteristics? What is the word for this? If it's not nation, surely it's a word with very similar meaning?

Africa is a geographic area inhabited by many peoples. You have Arabs, Berbers, Bantus, Igbos... That's not quite what we mean when we talk about African-American though. Elon Musk is not really an African-American, nor is he terribly African IMO.

The moment a Chinese man signs a piece of paper to become American, his nation changes? Remember a minute ago when you said you meant "nation" when you said "nationality"? You are repeating that mistake. As you are using it here, you mean nationality, not nation, because in this context a nationality is an attribute of an individual. That is what you are referring to when you talk about the Chinese guy. (And, by the way, yes, by definition, his nationality changes when he becomes a US citizen. But that is beside the point). In contrast, nationhood is an attribute of groups.

The US has many nations within it - there are Ethiopians, Mexicans, Chinese, Indians, Filipinos, Jews, African-Americans. African Americans might not have a state but how are they not a nation, if you can draw a distinction from them that is rooted in race as opposed to social characteristics? What is the word for this? If it's not nation, surely it's a word with very similar meaning?

The word is "ethnic group," which, as the source you linked to notes, has a very different meaning than "nation." The US has many different ethnic groups in it, not many different nations.

Africa is a geographic area inhabited by many peoples. You have Arabs, Berbers, Bantus, Igbos... That's not quite what we mean when we talk about African-American though. Yes, that is my point. Here, by the way, your use of "peoples" is very close to a synonym of "nation." Indeed, the preamble to the UN Charter refers to the "peoples" of the world.

I wasn't talking about nationhood, which again is different from nations existing. A Chinese man is part of a Chinese nation regardless of his nationality. Ghandi in 1900 was Indian even if there was no sovereign Indian state.

Nationality can change, since nationality is decided by pieces of paper. You can go to space a Soviet citizen and return to Earth as a Russian or whatever. But nation isn't changed by pieces of paper, where nation means national community. Nation is decided by birth, culture, language and upbringing... not pieces of paper.

And why are we quibbling over definitions anyway? It doesn't significantly relate to my broad point whether we call it a nation, a people or an ethnic group in so far as my point is that diversity in this factor (national community, nations, ethnic groups) is bad for state cohesion and a source of instability that should be minimized.

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The US has many different ethnic groups in it, not many different nations.

I think that quite a few (572 federally recognized ones) Native American tribes consider themselves nations.

I like Bloom's definition of a nation - the same people living in the same place. The Native American tribes on reservations definitely have this character.

I do not know if any other groups in the US are sufficiently segregated to count as a nation. I think in Canada, the Quebecois would have obviously been a nation had they split in 1995, so presumably, they were close to being one at the time.

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Do you want a huge population of Afghans,

probably not a good example of genetics, this country is worse than African poor and one of 2 (IIRC) countries than still do have wild poliomielitis. They probably could do about as well as Albanians given better circumstances.

Why can't the US fill the ranks of its army if its GDP is so high?

on the other hand, does it need to?

On all conventional measures of strength, NATO was far ahead of the Taliban.

So US Army did won against Taliban. Army doesn't decide what happens after this.

So US Army did won against Taliban.

If the Afghanistan War was a victory, what would defeat look like? Their goal was to destroy the Taliban, something, something, liberal democracy... These goals were definitely not achieved! If you don't achieve your goals and the other guy does (control Afghanistan) then he beat you!

Afghanistan is famous for being full of extremely tough, stubborn, independence-minded warriors. They gave Alexander problems, they gave us problems, they cause everyone problems. Thousands of years of war surely have some kind of effect, the unending tribal feuds breed a certain kind of aggression and preparedness to die that is hard for us to match. More literary-inclined souls probably did not fare so well in the mountains.

They completed the military goals with professionalism and aplomb, but the political goals were fucking stupid because Bush Lol.

The Army is a contractor here: they received a dogshit plan for a moronic project, executed it in detail chapter and verse, and then the building fell down because it was stupid to begin with.

The neocon playbook where you shoot people in the mountains/deserts/jungles until they love you just doesn't work.

Was it even a military victory? Surely a military victory would mean destroying the Taliban, defeating all the people who kept blowing themselves up, laying IEDs. But the Taliban persisted and fought on to ultimate victory.

I'm as eager as anyone to call neocons and politicians idiots but the Army can't escape blame. They sold Obama on a 'Surge' to achieve victory and beat the Taliban around 2008. Certainly, Obama didn't give them 500,000 troops for five years as they asked:

On 23 September, a classified assessment by General McChrystal included his conclusion that a successful counterinsurgency strategy would require 500,000 troops and five years.

But is that realistic? If Field Marshall Rundstedt asked Hitler for 4 million men and 6,000 tanks to secure the Western Front and prevent D-day, I have little doubt D-day would've been impossible. But who cares, they didn't have armies lying around. It's pretty unrealistic for the US to sustain 500,000 troops in Afghanistan, a landlocked, mountainous country. It reads more like some kind of internal ass-covering game 'you didn't give us a ridiculous amount of resources so it's not our fault if we fail'.

They concealed their failures from the public, saying everything was going great even as internal secret reports said it was all FUBAR (from the Afghanistan Papers).

Fair enough.

I count their looooooooooong tail of post conflict fuckups as an extension of being assign the stupid mission in the first place; but a truly perfectly successful army would have invaded, set up, tried once, then gone back to the executive and said "Shits fucked bro. It's not gonna happen".

Same problem that comes up in any hierarchical organization I suppose; that failure is worse than success. Shit, pulling out of a bad plan is usually worse than just fading to the back of the room, shutting up, and letting it burn.

I think you're using motivated reasoning here to work backwards from a position you wish were true, and selectively looking for evidence that supports your view. It's extremely unfashionable in high society to notice racial differences in any negative way (at least towards blacks), and the fact that your position ends up agreeing with this is a bit too convenient. It would be one thing if your arguments were convincing, but it's pretty easy to see the cracks.

Your "guy walking down the street" example doesn't explicitly say why stereotyping based on race is bad, but you heavily hint at either one of two conclusions: You believe either that stereotyping is bad because race adds no new relevant information, or that it's just morally repugnant in and of itself and we usually have enough other data to make predictions from. But you don't actually do any work to justify either of these. The former is blatantly untrue with how massively inflated the violent black crime rate is compared to other races. The latter is a problem when someone simply asks "why"? Why is it so terrible to stereotype based on race, but not gender, or age, or body language, or clothing, or anything else? In either case, walking in a bad part of down will always be risky, but I'd feel pretty different if I knew the guy was, say, Asian instead of Black. Asians do commit violent crimes, but at vastly lower rates than blacks, so I'd automatically feel a bit less threatened by an Asian. I'd think he was maybe delivering food or perhaps coming home late from studying at the library or something along those lines.

I think you are right on the statistical level and practical level as it comes to specific context like walking on the street - the looks - which include race, but not only - would convey you a lot of useful information, the looks + location + other context clues would convey even more.

The bad part comes when you isolate the racial component from the rest of the context. If you are statistically likely to be right that a black young man in shabby clothing walking up to you in an arrogant way at night in the middle of "bad neighborhood" may be dangerous, are you also justified to say a well-dressed middle-aged black man that you are interviewing for a position of financial analyst is likely to be dangerous? Should you be more concerned about a black guy in this context than about a white guy or an Asian guy? I'd say probably not, and in any case the context is completely different, and the heuristics should be different. And that illustrates the difference between using race as an input for certain heuristic model, or making the race determine the whole model. For some models, race may not be a significant input and there are likely much better ones (I'd say most hiring contexts and also university admissions are likely to be such contexts), for other models it may be a good one (like being at bad neighborhood in America at night - if you're at a bad neighborhood in Russia, for example, a black man is likely to be a foreign student or a businessman and likely won't do you any harm).

I think you're using motivated reasoning here to work backwards from a position you wish were true, and selectively looking for evidence that supports your view. It's extremely unfashionable in high society to notice racial differences in any negative way (at least towards blacks), and the fact that your position ends up agreeing with this is a bit too convenient.

Please cutout the attempts to psycho-analyze my position. It is annoying to defend against, because it just invites more psycho-analyses from you, or requires that you take my word on something, which you have already demonstrated you are unwilling to do if you are psycho-analysing me.

I don't believe race adds a ton of information over other available pieces of information.

Consider two scenarios:

  1. An old man in a suit on the phone is walking toward you. You are in a nice area of town with lots of offices during the day time.
  2. A young man in a hoody and tattered jeans is walking toward you. You are in a bad area of town, with high crime stats, and it is late at night.

My suggestion is that the race of the man in either case barely adds any additional useful information. You are fine in the first scenario, and you are in more danger in the second scenario.

In America, I agree seeing an Asian guy instead of a black guy would add some useful information in the second scenario. But I wouldn't say this is true in all areas of America (asian neighborhoods are not devoid of gangs or criminals), and certainly not all areas of the world (asian countries certainly aren't devoid of crime). The US has been able to engage in selective immigration with Asian countries for over a century and a half, and we can see the results. We did a form of anti-selective immigration with Africa, the losers in internal conflicts were sold as slaves.

I think it is a minor bad to impose unnecessary social expectations on others. Mostly I feel this way as a sort of "golden rule" guidance. I don't want tons of expectations imposed on me because of my race, so I'm not willing to do it to others.

Genetics is not destiny. If you believe that who your parents are dictates who you are going to be then that is a fundamentally unhelpful mindset.

A young man in a hoody and tattered jeans is walking toward you. You are in a bad area of town, with high crime stats, and it is late at night.

My suggestion is that the race of the man in either case barely adds any additional useful information. You are fine in the first scenario, and you are in more danger in the second scenario.

I think p(crime|black) > 2p(crime|white) in the second scenario?

I don't believe race adds a ton of information over other available pieces of information.

What's your response to FBI crime statistics like these? There are about twice as many Blacks in the US compared to Asians, yet Blacks commit over 50x the amount of murders that Asians do. That is absolutely a relevant datapoint.

In your examples there's enough info to make a decision regardless, but the real world isn't cleanly split into perfect examples like the ones you listed.

In America, I agree seeing an Asian guy instead of a black guy would add some useful information

Ah, so you're agreeing with me then? Race is a useful proxy, at least in general terms in the USA. If it's useful there, then why can't it be useful in other contexts? No reasonable person says race should be the only proxy for behavior; it's just one of many including the ones you listed (like which part of town you're in, the person's body language, their sex, etc.).

If you're agreeing with me, it seems like the central premise of your post ("The Case for Ignoring Race") is turned on its head.

My suggestion is that the race of the man in either case barely adds any additional useful information.

Right, but this is assuming your conclusion. As far as I can see, you've made no attempt to prove this. You have made a principled argument that you don't necessarily need this information, because you can get it in other ways, and that it is unwise to use this information because it leads to a world where everyone (including you yourself) judges you by your skin colour.

We know that crime rates vary hugely by race (8x in London*). There is a spectrum along which that can manifest described by two extremes:

  1. If you find yourself walking down a street late at night in a bad neighbourhood and you get accosted by a young man in a hoody and tattered jeans, that neighbourhood is 8x more likely to be black and the young man is 8x more likely to be black.
  2. A random young man is 8x more likely to randomly attack you if he's black.

In Scenario 1, the race of the young man technically gives you no extra information that you couldn't get otherwise. However, it strongly suggests that your first mistake was going to an area with lots of poor black people late at night.

In Scenario 2, the race of the young man is the only useful data.

The reality is likely to be somewhere in between, but I don't think that either scenario supports your contention that race is rarely useful for making decisions.

*https://www.theguardian.com/law/2020/jul/08/one-in-10-of-londons-young-black-males-stopped-by-police-in-may. Black people are eight times more likely to commit homicide, says Cressida Dick, chief of the Metropolitan Police.

In any field you look at you can often find surprisingly examples of standout performers that violate the expected norms.

The reason they stand out is because they're so rare. I was hothoused as a child, so I have strong feelings about this, but it's very cruel to expect people to jump bars they probably can't jump. First world countries would be a much happier place if most people accepted that (by definition) they're normies, they're going to live a normie life and die a normie death. Outsized potential is usually pretty obvious. Telling 300 million people that they could be president one day is setting 2,999,990 of them up for heartbreak.

they are your distant ancestor frozen in ice and revived in the modern era, but they have a cultural mindset from 200 years ago, they hate what the nation has become

He/she and I would get on famously. My dearest wish is that we import as many of these people as humanly possible.

I should say that I'm grateful you took the time to make a long-form effort post. I'm just irritated by the blind refusal of society to admit that there could be anything different about a group of people, who, again, murder at 8x the rate of everybody else.

I can respect a principled desire to avoid judging by group characteristics, provided that principle isn't forced on me. But peoples' eyes-shut fingers-in-ears insistence on making an 'is' from an 'ought' and destroying anyone who points out otherwise infuriates me.

Affirmative action isn't about maximizing some general differences within the student body, but it is specifically a compensatory measure for past slavery.

Affirmative action is specifically not a compensatory for past slavery, because compnsating for past slavery is illegal and "bringing the benefits of diversity to everyone" is (or was) legal. It may have been intended as compensation for slavery behind the scenes, but universities have had to deny that.

You are right, I did miss out on addressing racial spoils systems. I'd meant to address it originally, but it slipped my mind. I had a longer section planned, but I'll give you the short summary, because I'm trying to respond to a bunch of messages.

I believe such spoils systems fundamentally bad for the race receiving the spoils. It creates an unhelpful mindset, and is likely to backfire in the long-term.

I don't believe most people want different people around them. I also don't believe most companies want competition. And I don't believe most politicians want to have an opposition. I do think all of these things are made a bit better by having the things they don't want foisted upon them.

I won't nitpick at the optimal street-crossing policy.

You know, this reminds me of a certain article by a Russian emigre that I've lost, about his experience in Netherlands, I think. The gist of it was: «These people are Calvinists. They are not religious, they laugh at religion, but they are essential Calvinists; Calvinism has reached their bone marrow and the root of their tongue, it is in their gait and their gaze and the way they shake your hand. They are genuinely modern, tolerant and open-minded. You are free to be Russian, Muslim or gay, or even all those things at once. So long as you live and breathe like a fellow Calvinist in all respects which matter, they won't give you any trouble».

Ignoring kinship is a white thing. It's not generic human decency.

Your proposal is identical to «let us assume only white people exist, and the morality of white people is the objective morality; then we needn't deal with the problem of race. Just divide people into good and bad, where good = white». Many people want to move into the Netherlands. Vastly more into the US. For many of them, race means something. For a growing proportion of Americans, it means the world. They won't just accept that being a good white person is the pinnacle of generic human existence.

What does Calvinism even mean here, if they are secular?

(speaking as a religious Calvinist)

«These people are Calvinists. They are not religious, they laugh at religion, but they are essential Calvinists; Calvinism has reached their bone marrow and the root of their tongue, it is in their gait and their gaze and the way they shake your hand. They are genuinely modern, tolerant and open-minded. You are free to be Russian, Muslim or gay, or even all those things at once. So long as you live and breathe like a fellow Calvinist in all respects which matter, they won't give you any trouble».

I know this comment is ancient, but I strongly resonate with this as an Appalachian Southerner who grew up in the middle of nowhere outside of the church (in my family's case. Presbyterian). I am deeply, embarrassingly ignorant of theology. My ignorant working man's take on religion based on the people I've known is that "Church of Christ" means that they mean it, and I respect them for it. I was, embarrassingly, an internet atheist in the mid-late 2000s. I made my peace with God, like Lieutenant Dan in Forrest Gump. My point is that, somehow, all that conservatism rubbed off on me. I might not speak the language of the religious right that I grew up around, but I feel it, and empathize with it.

Is this difference mostly cultural or mostly genetic? If the former, then cjet is just advocating for a, he'd claim, better set of values that the nonwhites will probably end up accepting. And there seem to be plenty of nonwhite universalists in positions of power in the US.

Ah, but culture isn't all that amenable to change; and depriving a people of their culture is a genocide too. Even if it were entirely cultural, what makes you believe a policy can be devised and implemented which processes the bulk of Black in the US people (since they can't be removed like ill-fitting Russians from the Netherlands) into culturally-White-enough that the racial conflict mellows out? Do they want to be so changed? What would be the form of a legitimate political process which ends up with them accepting this influence?

Ah, but culture isn't all that amenable to change; and depriving a people of their culture is a genocide too.

Some call it genocide, some call it nation building.

Do they want to be so changed?

Did Neapolitans, Sicilians, Calabrians, Ligurians, Venetians etc... wanted to be changed into Italians?

Did Provencals, Gascons, Bretons, Normands etc... wanted to be changed into French?

Did Bavarians, Saxons, Franconians, Westphalians etc... wanted to be changed into Germans?

What would be the form of a legitimate political process which ends up with them accepting this influence?

Ordinary democratic European process.

Just have all blacks pass test of knowledge of white language and culture, and deport to Liberia those who repeatedly fail.

I don't think it is a white thing at all. It is just that white people are currently on top of the empire heap. At various times muslim empires, chinese empires, monghol empires, and persian empires have all adapted a mindset of "any race can be part of the empire, as long as they serve the empire". And it wasn't a matter of human decency, but practicality. God knows, the Monghols weren't big fans of "human decency", they were too busy creating mountains of skulls.

If your empire and your culture has won in all the essential ways that matter then extermination is not just unnecessary it is wasteful. Integration is better. I see western civilization as having "won" a global competition at the moment. They can't grow further through birth rates, and they don't have the energy or desire for outright subjugation. Its a memetic war at this point, and if you have ever listened to Imams or cultural leaders in non-western nations they all complain that the West is winning that war. Winning it easily without even paying attention to the fact that others are even fighting back (or at least not paying attention until that desperate flailing graduates to the level of actual death and destruction via terrorism).

Would be great if everyone agreed to do the same and followed through, but absent that it seems like a repeat of color blindness that brought us here.

I'm trying to read all of the responses of people that wrote things on here. That leaves me little time to go read someone else's writing on another website.

I don't believe color blindness has ever been a major problem.

I am sympathetic to lowering the salience of race, but totally ignoring it just willfully deprives one of relevant information. One should approach things as a good Bayesian and updating their priors as new information becomes available.

Let’s consider your example of walking down the street. Yes, I would try to avoid that person regardless of their race, but that’s because they are over-the-top signaling that they’re trouble. Not all trouble is the same, though.

Rather than the binary “should I or should I not avoid this person,” consider trying to assign a probability that they are going to rob you. Regardless of race, this percentage exceeds the threshold necessary to justify avoiding them, but that doesn’t mean the probability is equal. Unless some deity tells you exactly that number, there is signal in race.

The only cases in which race, or any other available information, should not be included in your Bayesian assessment of probability is a hypothetical case of absolute certainty, which just doesn’t exist.

So, yes, be a diligent Bayesian who actually updates priors based on other available information, but there is signal in race, as there is signal in everything.

I never claimed race cannot add any useful information.

I'll maybe put it this way:

If you $100 to pay for each piece of information you received you must divide the hundred dollars based on how useful you think the information might be. I think in most every day situations I'd never pay more than a dollar or two to learn the race of someone.

and in general when acquiring information you are spending limited resources. Thinking time, things you can notice, etc. Race is often very easy to notice, so I realize as a Bayesian you'd always quickly check it. But I see it as low cost information and low benefit information.

You can notice almost nothing else without noticing race. It has no cost of acquisition.

I also disagree that race is low benefit; with gender, it probably carries the most information density of any heuristic. Race+gender would cause dramatic updates in estimates of height, weight, temperament, intelligence, etc. etc. You’d be hard pressed to find another single piece of information that informed as many predictions outside of the sequence of one’s DNA.

If I were to rank what I think are the most valuable pieces of information to make accurate predictions about an individual, they would be, in order:

  1. Race
  2. Gender
  3. Age
  4. Socioeconomic Status
  5. Place of Residence

Again, I agree with the general premise that the salience of race is probably too high with Mottizens. We incorporate so many different data points about individuals that a Bayesian should lower the weight placed on race, but your notion that it isn’t the single, or even one of the most valuable data points seems detached from empirical reality.

I guess this all depends on how you weight different predictions you’d want to make, but it’s hard to imagine what blend doesn’t end up with race near the overall most predictive single factors.

Race above gender and socioeconomic status? Why?

You can predict vastly more about a person based on their religion/religiousity, their job, their cultural background, and many other factors before race. I've met churchgoers of all races that were tailor-made for conservative ads about "real Americans".

A black military officer tells you more about himself by his profession and standing than his race.

It's just common sense that if one race commits murder at 5x-10x the rate of other races that you should be more cautious around those people.

There is plenty of white trash in America, and living in some American cities. My argument would lead to more caution, not less caution. Don't let your guard down in a bad section of town just because the gang-banger look-alike walking towards you is white instead of black. The giveawayis the gang-banger look, not their race. If instead its a black man in a business suit walking towards you, then yes you are paranoid for thinking he is about to mug you.

I don't think you made the case for why it's beneficial. Black people get extra college spots, better chances at government contracts, preferential hiring at practically every job and extremely favorable representations in pop culture. That's all because they banded they banded together and pushed for their racial interests as a group.

This does remind me that I missed a section I meant to add for the college part. Both opportunity and execution matter. Being given opportunities that you can't execute on is not a benefit. I think people that get a racial boost outside of their achievable range are done a disservice. If your race is winning a spoils system, people tend to know, and they discount everything you have done with that in mind. Long-term I don't really think it is a benefit. I somewhat prefer my current position as a race and gender that is not clearly winning a spoils system. People know that what I have done and what I have earned I have done so through mostly my own effort.

I'll take this guy without a moment's hesitation. I reject the premise that they wouldn't have any skills and would turn to crime, people don't steal to eat in America they do it for drugs or luxury goods. Plus his kids will be exactly like mine but immigrant's kids are more likely to revert to the genetic mean.

Intermarriage and procreating with your own descendants is not advisable. It is far more likely to lead to genetic deficiencies than procreation with a person of a different race.

Even if they don't they will almost certainly adopt memes about how oppressed by white people they are and vote accordingly.

They will adopt those memes to their own detriment. A degree of belief in your own self-determinism is more helpful to your success than a belief that you have been oppressed.

I've lived in some pretty bad neighborhoods. The criminals dress like all of the other teenagers. There's not some big divide between normal people and 90s gangster rapper caricatures where you can instantly tell who the bad guys are. I've also lived in poor white neighborhoods. People left trash on their lawn and got into domestic disputes but I never heard of anyone being mugged.

That is because they mostly are just like other teenagers. Young male violence and criminality is widespread. Career criminals don't generally exist as teenagers, because no teenagers have been doing anything long enough to have a career. I was physically assaulted in highschool three different times (not counting the times I playfought with friends). It was just young guys, none of them went on to be criminals, and they didn't dress any different than their peers. But I knew to avoid groups of young men out on the town, a mugging might have been preferable to a physical assault with no purpose but to show off.

I don't think that's true in general. If you're white or asian then most people will think anything you have is because of your privilege. Most people discount the achievements of black people because of AA, instead they find them even more impressive because they believe they overcame racism. Knowing how big of a difference affirmative action makes is for internet weirdos, just because it's common knowledge here doesn't mean that's what most people believe.

There are different update rates before everyone knows the same information. If some know it now, more will know it in the future. Eventually common perceptions will flip. They've arguably only the advantage of AA for a single generation. That is not enough time.

because race and genetics do not fully dictate who a person is, those characteristics do not provide good information about an individual that isn't obtainable in a myriad of other more reliable ways.

What if I am trying to assess groups? Such as your walking down the dark street example. Am I supposed to treat a group of Asian males hanging out up ahead the same as I would treat a group of black males? Or, suppose I have successfully taught for years in an all-black school, and have relied heavily on class participation as a pedagogical tool. If I transfer to an all-Asian school, should I not think about changing my pedagogy? Or if I am in HR at a school district, and am placing a teacher who tells me his greatest weakness is classroom management, should I not use him for a vacancy at an all-Asian school rather than sending him to an all-black school?

What if I am trying to assess groups?

Groups are composed of individuals. And it is very unclear what signals you are supposed to take from a racially non-homogenous group. Clothing, disposition, gender, current activity, and age all seem like better stereotyping options.

Am I supposed to treat a group of Asian males hanging out up ahead the same as I would treat a group of black males?

I'd say you shouldn't really bother assessing the race, because a bunch of other characteristics about the group will give you a much better sense. What activity do they seem to be doing? Are they laughing and joking around? Do they seem drunk? Is this an area known to have gangs? Are other people avoiding them? Honestly I tend to avoid any group of drunk young males.

Or, suppose I have successfully taught for years in an all-black school, and have relied heavily on class participation as a pedagogical tool. If I transfer to an all-Asian school, should I not think about changing my pedagogy?

You should always be thinking about your pedagogy. Socio-economic class and general school culture should be learned before you start teaching. Ask other teachers what they do. At no point should you be like "oh they are all of x race, therefore teaching method y will work." If you do that you are probably a terrible teacher.

Or if I am in HR at a school district, and am placing a teacher who tells me his greatest weakness is classroom management, should I not use him for a vacancy at an all-Asian school rather than sending him to an all-black school?

Typically race correlates with things that matter. But it is rarely if ever the actual thing that matters. What if the teacher would be teaching the flunkies, dropouts, and mis-behaving kids at the asian school, and the honors students at the all black school? And what assumptions are you supposed to make if the school has and classroom has a mixed racial makeup like all American schools are mandated to have.

I don't think I'll be litigating any more specific examples. All of your new examples still point to Race being a weak correlate with things that matter. And typically in real world scenarios you have much more access to easier acquire pieces of information, and higher quality sources of information.

What if the teacher would be teaching the flunkies, dropouts, and mis-behaving kids at the asian school, and the honors students at the all black school?

Such use case does not exist in practice. Martina Navratilova once made a restaurant for vegetarian lesbians. Britain had many of either category, but intersection is small.

That intersection also requires they are interested in the restaurant and know about it.

Mis-behaving asian kids don't exist and black students in honor classes don't exist in large enough numbers for a single class among 1000 students?

They exist in large number if you want to pick a few bad Asian American students and a few good Black students. But how many teachers in real life had to work with a class made of 25 of the former and at same time, with a class of 25 of the latter?

I'd say you shouldn't really bother assessing the race, because a bunch of other characteristics about the group will give you a much better sense.

That is not the issue. The issue is whether assessing race gives me a better sense than not assessing race.

You should always be thinking about your pedagogy.

You are avoiding the issue. If I have reason to think that pedagogy A works better with Group X than with Group Y, then taking race into account = thinking about pedagogy.

Typically race correlates with things that matter. But it is rarely if ever the actual thing that matters. What if the teacher would be teaching the flunkies, dropouts, and mis-behaving kids at the asian school, and the honors students at the all black school?

Again, you are avoiding the issue, by changing the hypothetical

And what assumptions are you supposed to make if the school has and classroom has a mixed racial makeup like all American schools are mandated to have.

??? American schools are not mandated to have a mixed racial makeup. For example, Locke High School in Los Angeles has essentially zero Asian kids and 6 white kids. Birmingham High School has 114 white kids out of an enrollment of 3000. Taft High School, which is 5 miles away, is 40 percent white.

I do not disagree that it is possible to construct hypothetical scenarios where race becomes the determining factor in making a decision. As I said in the original, I am not committed to the strongest possible stance that race is never a useful source of information.

The mixed racial comment was about busing. I mispoke in a semi-hurried comment.

I think for most cases you can mostly ignore race. I would only really consider race in the case of being followed in dark Alleys personally, and this is mostly because the false negative isn’t necessarily something that a person of my size and gender can really afford. For much of the rest, unless you’re making a potentially life changing decision (like an ER surgeon) chances are that a person’s intelligence and moral behavior will make itself known long before you need to put yourself out there on whether or not to trust this person.

I would advise avoiding all young males in dark alleys, regardless of race. The relevant information there is Age, Gender, and Context.

Those carrying (or riding) Nordic skis with them are probably safe.

Yes, unless there are reports of time traveling vikings raping and pillaging.

I don't think vikings used skis when raiding British Isles

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