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Comment by postgeographic | Hacker News Reader

That's a pretty bullshit generalisation about Russians. Or as it's. More colloquially known, racist.

My words are true. Our (russians) colloquial lexicon have tremendous amount of words from thieves jargon. Constitution in Russia have less meaning than thieves' laws. Our users, even programmers/hackers are trying to get free any software - it's kind of snobbery to use paid software in Russia. Maybe it's something wild for you, but it's reality in Russia.

I don't get your point. Why generalize over 140M people with your assumptions about illegal software usage and "thieve laws" in Russia in the topic about reverse engineering the Skype client? How does it even relate to Russia?

My reply was to comment about hacking culture. And it's not "assumptions" but experience.

Generalizations are useful, because they allow us to efficiently reason about the world. Eschewing them because of the content-free statement that "everyone is unique" leads us to a worse, not better, situation. Of course, this does not mean we should allow blatant racism, but in the real world it is useful to say things that are true but not necessarily nice.

Or, if you want, you can stay in Katie-land:

https://youtu.be/b47wP_yMCf4

> it's kind of snobbery to use paid software in Russia

Perhaps there's a big percentage of people who feel the same, but there are also many people who pay for software:

http://www.pcgamer.com/gabe-newell-on-piracy-and-steams-succ...

I'm not saying it's good, of course, I regret about such level of evolution. I use paid licenses :)

"Russian", is not a race. We should find another word for this kind of prejudice.

There's the old and not as often used "stereotype". But it doesn't have the emotional impact like racist does, so... Anything that doesn't hit squarely at the pathos is right out.

Yeah. I guess I was saying that we, the Anglophone world, need to pick an equally effective word for this meaning. I think probably “xenophobic” is more accurate than “racist” in this case, but still not quite right.

Not right at all if a Russian poster is talking about Russians.

The word "xenoracism" has actually been applied, but it strikes me as a make-do lashed-together word. "Xenotyping" is no good because it already has a precise scientific definition. "Stereotyping" ends up the best description, though it's less than satisfactorily insulting.

> "Stereotyping" ends up the best description, though it's less than satisfactorily insulting.

Why does it have to be insulting? Rather, why do you have to import shame from an unrelated activity to make your point? It seems to me like that trivializes racism and doesn't do very much to bolster this argument.

> Anything that doesn't hit squarely at the pathos is right out.

Otherwise known as appeal to emotions. I think I'm going to start finding examples of avowed racists who criticize lynching so I can do the 'not all racists' thing.

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