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Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

> He was definitively not a member of white people in Georgia during the 50's and 60's.

It didn't just happen in Georgia, it happened all over the country. And it's reasonable to believe some of Josh Green's ancestors were in the group that voted special privileges for itself. So the question comes back to: do you carry around the guilt of your ancestors? I think you do, especially when you benefit from the ramifications of their actions. And Green is benefiting from segregation: that neighborhood would've been a lot more expensive for him to buy into had it not been for segregation.

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I'm glad you explicitly stated that you believe people carry around the guilt of their ancestors, because I've always wanted to ask a related and very personal question. It happens to be particularly relevant to this discussion. Please know that my question is something I've wondered about for years and entirely sincere.

I was born in the Soviet Union; I am white. I moved to the US state of Georgia as a child. I assume you'd say I benefited from segregation; in any case, just assume that I did. Should/Do I carry this same guilt you feel that "native" white Atlantans carry?

Should people who bought cheap houses in foreclosure in the aftermath of the financial crisis feel a little guilty? I think so: you're getting a good deal because of a bad thing that happened to someone else. Obviously, though, you shouldn't feel as guilty as the guys who caused the housing collapse in the first place.

It happened all over the country before he was born.

Should the children of murderers and other criminals feel guilt over the actions their parents have directly engaged in?

If your parents stole a bunch of money and then immediately gave if to you would you feel guilty about that?

If your parents stole a bunch of money and then you got it when they died would you feel guilty about that?

If your grandparents stole a bunch of money, your parents inherited that money, and then you inherited it from them would you feel guilty about that?

Where exactly does the "statue of limitations of guilt" end? I'm honestly not sure.

If you're still benefiting from those criminal actions, then yeah you probably should feel guilty.

Redlining had a very direct and profound (http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/05/the-raci...) effect that's still seen to this day.

Are they somehow profiting from those actions?

That's a point you seemed determined to dodge here, just as when you ask if your friends who have never been to the US are somehow implicated in US segregation.

I'm not dodging anything. From my very first reply to Rayiner:

As for the problems you bring up, if low prices are the problem, he's contributing to the solution by increasing demand. I segregation is the problem, he's bringing his nordic white family into the neighborhood and reducing segregation.

Insofar as he's benefiting from these problems semi-directly it's because he's helping to solve them.

As for me, I've passed through Georgia once on a family road trip when I was 11. Insofar as more diffuse benefits like "well those actions caused a good economy that you benefit from", I work for a Indian SAAS with American customers. How's that any different from an Indian guy working for an Indian SAAS with American customers?

It obviously does not follow logically that simply doing something to help solve a problem necessarily outweighs the moral problem of benefiting from that wrong.

That also moots your earlier dodge of "doing something to help with a problem is better than the nothing I personally do", because that nothing you personally do is not offset by profit you are reaping from the misfortune of others.

I don't have a strong opinion about this debate, and I am also skeptical of anti-gentrification narratives, but the logic you're deploying here seems very sketchy.

Well I personally don't think it's bad to benefit from harms. I think it's bad to cause harms and good to mitigate them; benefiting from them or not is irrelevant.

A surgeon who reattaches limbs is a pretty ok guy, even if he's benefiting from horrible accidental amputations. So is an Uber driver who drives into a surging area.

I've even personally benefited from the holocaust, the Kosovo wars and the Rwandan genocide; I've met interesting people who would probably never have crossed my path under better circumstances. Is it really reasonable for me to feel guilt over that?

I personally think you should weigh the magnitude and the determinism of the benefit against its cost. Meeting a new person is nice, but it is a tiny benefit compared to the holocaust. And there is virtually no way anyone could predict you'd make a serendipitous connection as a result of the holocaust. The connection is trifling. At a certain threshold, you stop giving a shit about those kinds of connections.

None of that is true of well-off white people taking advantage of a market inefficiency caused by decades of segregation. In fact: providing opportunities for well-off white people to profit in the real estate market is an incentive for segregation, and an incentive along the same vector as one of the most important incentive systems supporting 19th and 20th century segregation: internal economic protectionism for favored ethnicities.

At this point in the discussion I think reasonable people can start disagreeing. That wasn't true given your earlier examples, which simply didn't connect logically to the conundrum Rayiner proposed.

But this is still a pretty trifling connection. People voted for segregation so that 52 years into the future, lower income upper class people could live in cheap mixed race neighborhoods? That's really also not something that was very predictable.

None of that is true of well-off white people taking advantage of a market inefficiency caused by decades of segregation....and an incentive along the same vector

Segregation was a "you must discriminate" law to prevent greedy folks like the author of this article from exploiting the market inefficiencies.

It seems like I've got 3 choices here. (+1) Violate the spirit of that law, reduce the market inefficiency, and make money. 0) Live in Asia. (-1) Make the inefficiency worse by moving into a nice white suburb, pay more money, and obey the spirit of that now absent law.

To me it seems like "guilt follows benefit" implies I need to do (-1).

I think you're the only one in this thread suggesting that well-off white people simply shouldn't move into these neighborhoods, man.

People should choose the best of all available options and still feel guilty about it?

Not really sure what you are advocating for here.

None of this is responsive to what I just wrote.

Ok, so let's all go trace back our family trees. If you find one of your relatives, even 400 years ago, committed a crime, you better go to everyone that was affected (which could be millions of people by now!!!!!) and give them back what was rightfully theirs. Maybe your great great great grandfather broke into their house and stole their life savings, which caused the patriarch of the house to go into debtors prison. So the young boy of the house didn't have a father for much of his life. As such, he turned to pickpocketing, robbing hundreds of people over the course of his career. Eventually he went too far and robbed someone who fought back and killed him. But none of this would have happened if your great great great grandfather hadn't been a thief.

But YOU'RE responsible. Your group was responsible for the death of this kid, who knew no better than to steal. Should you be guilty? Should you go to jail? Should you live worse to repent?

Don't be silly. You're not responsible for any actions other than your own.

> You're not responsible for any actions other than your own.

If everyone started from scratch, I'd agree with you. But in Atlanta, you get water from pipes built by people just after the civil war. Residents of Atlanta inherited the infrastructure and benefits of what their ancestors built. I think it's absurd to say that they can inherit the benefits, but don't inherit the obligations.

Residents of Atlanta did not "inherit" anything. The city government inherited public works and uses them to provide city services to residents. It charges residents taxes to pay for those services and probably lots of other silly things as well. The residents pay for water and receive it. Done.

This is like saying I "inherited" something from Tata and Aditya Birla and that I'm also responsible for their crimes. That's silly. I pay 300rs/month and IDEA gives me voice+data and runs MITM attacks on unencrypted connections. That's the end of our relationship.

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