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Comment by babesh | Hacker News Reader

There is both a pipeline problem and a bias problem and they are intertwined.

Historical discrimination has left black families much poorer than they would otherwise be. Poverty discriminates in myriad ways: lack of good role models and mentors, poor educational environments, lack of nutrition, lack of opportunities for enrichment, etc...

Discrimination is also still present and different ethnic groups are affected differently.

The negative effects of poverty and discrimination compound over time such that when you get to a tech company's hiring process, the pipeline would have shrunk massively. The students in this pipeline are competing against upper middle class kids who have been groomed their entire lives to compete in the system designed by people like them.

As to the recruiting pipeline, there is class elitism/narrow mindedness in tech companies that does narrow recruiting. Some interviewers don't countenance views or attitudes other than their own just as some recruiters favor certain universities far more than others. This seems to be changing at least at the recruiting level.

As to why some ethnicities still succeed or fail despite discrimination, that is at least partly cultural and partly selection bias and these in turn have also been affected by discrimination past and present.

Lastly, I suspect the beef some poorer whites have is that they too have been discriminated against due to poverty and they feel that another group now has a leg up on them and that discrimination against them isn't acknowledged.

I hope that we come up with a just system for everyone.

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> Historical discrimination has left black families much poorer than they would otherwise be. Poverty discriminates in myriad ways: lack of good role models and mentors, poor educational environments, lack of nutrition, lack of opportunities for enrichment, etc...

While this is true in some cases, and you do point out that "discriminiation is also still present", I can strongly recommend "Reflecting on the Color of My Skin" by Marques Brownlee: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-_WXXVye3Y

Regardless of the material differences between black and white people, I think white people (including myself) tend to underestimate the effect of constantly being treated as "the first black guy who..." -- that's racism too, and while not always toxic, it holds up a lot of other discriminatory practices by being the foundation of differentiation.

I have already seen that video. I think not having a first doesn’t have to be discriminatory. The courage to not be dissuaded by that is actually a positive character trait.

See this interview https://youtu.be/3RG5pXTpLBI 18 minutes in. He was short and was failing out of spacewalk training so he figured out a way to make it work.

>I think not having a first doesn’t have to be discriminatory

What do you mean by this more specifically? If you're a part of a minority with a history of oppression, which I hope we can all agree is true for black people in the US, are you saying there's zero things questionable about constantly pointing out that someone is black when they enter a "typically white" area of sports or other activity?

I have always taken for granted that the definition of "racism" is not necessarily the same as "hating someone due to their race", but more generally "defining someone primarily by their race in a situation that does not call for it and only secondly by individual attributes". Examples of where it may be "called for" is obviously up for debate, could be highly relevant in medical trials for example.

I mean that there are two groups of people involved.

The first is the person or people who is/are potentially the first of a particular ethnic group to achieve a position. If you are that person or people, you will need courage to not let that dissuade you. I don’t see any discrimination there. If you are dissuaded because there is no one before you, then you need more determination because for most people bad things happen in life and you need to deal with it.

The second is everyone else. It would be discriminatory if others defined the first by their race in that situation. But that discrimination doesn’t necessarily happen.

It's little bit like the tragedy of the rich people's kids: No matter how brilliant you are, many people would simply assume that you have been given the easy route thanks to daddy.

Surely it is annoying and may make achievers to prove themselves over and over again, I don't think that it is big enough of an issue to dismiss programs that are designed to tackle real issues in the society. It's just that people should know where to stop and don't try to implement these in communities where less than perfect but good-enough status is achieved.

I honestly don't have much sympathy for that particular plight. Living in the shadow of your parents is the tax you pay for being born into tremendous wealth? Sign me up.

See, you assume that just because they are kids of rich people, they must be some kind of leech. It's deeply similar to all kind of discrimination but at least they can cry in their summer mansion sipping some nice French wine.

It's well known fact that kids of alumni traditionally get accepted in their fathers ivy-league alma matter, but god forbid if few minority kids get an easy way in, then you have viral videos about how it's impossible to get into SOMETHING unless you are black asian gay.

Apple makes a summer coding camp for girls, and you have men crying all over the internet that it's now impossible for men to make career tech anymore.

I mean, I myself have some macho pride(in a sence that men should have some qualities, like not crying when something is not happening the way they want and so on) and makes me cringe when I see an able bodied man crying about how a school girl got an easy way and she is not better than him but he got left out. I think Greta Thunberg struck a cord there, it was hard to watch grown up men having their egos crushed by a teenager.

Look, I think you have an axe to grind and I'm probably not the right person to talk to about this. Yes, I think sipping wine in the Hamptons is better than worrying about your next rent payment in the Bronx.

Everything is relative, worrying about your next rent payment in bronx gives you tremendous security, opportunity and wealth compared to most people in the world.

Oh come on

This has to be a joke.

I have no sympathies for people like that; they live risk-free and can live comfortably off their parents' money. A lot of the role models / founders / Trump got kickstarted into their career because of money from parents + the social safety net they offered.

If you have nothing, and if your parents have nothing, you can't risk it on a new venture.

Yeah, this is a seriously under appreciated effect in Silicon Valley founder culture. “Just send it bro,” and “failure is totally cool,” are both much easier beliefs to hold when you’re getting an allowance and, in the absolute worst case scenario, could get your rent, phone bill, and healthcare paid for by mom and dad for even a few months.

It seems to me, despite the issues we're seeing with their offerings, that society gained a lot of value from what those lucky few were able to do. It is an unacknowledged reality worth thinking about, but I hope the discussion centers around how more people can be afforded the opportunity to fail.

> No matter how brilliant you are, many people would simply assume that you have been given the easy route thanks to daddy.

Probably still easier to pretend that you come from nothing than being successful while actually coming from nothing.

It can be put simply like where the struggle for rich kids start; that is the zenith of success for poor kids.

I think it's a good summery. Just remember that, when interpolated more widely, it applies to everybody in all kind of settings. Getting into a position where they can worry about paying the rent in Bronx is the dream of many people who have much more serious things to worry. It doesn't even need to be about material things.

There seems to be a real tradeoff in how the Americas vs the old world see 'coming from a good family'. Our mythology on this side of the pond is so focused on the idea that everyone is inherently equal and capable of achieving great things, that we celebrate and even embellish when someone successfully changes their social class.

The downside is that we lack a sense of nobless oblige. the idea that much will be demanded of those to whom much is given doesn't mesh well with our values of universal humanism - people born to privilege on this side of the pond seem to have more of a sense of guilt than duty about that fact.

That video reflects purely on skin colour and I feel that can be harmful. My skin is white but I'm descendant from the Australian Stolen Generation (google it if you want to see more). I was raised in a poor country town and I literally joined the military to escape that life. Compare that to the experience of this Youtuber. He was a golfer at 10 years of age... I don't even know how you could ask parents to spend that sort of money on you at that age. His story screams privilege (professional ultimate frisbee for one). I make decent money now since I used the military for a CS education but when I go shopping I choose to go to the low socioeconomic area. I don't fit in culturally at the upper middle class shopping centers. I don't dress the same, talk the same, hold the same values, etc. Not feeling like you don't fit in isn't just linked to race.

That being said, poor black African Americans (and Aboriginal Australians) have horrible life outcomes, far worse than any I could expect. Second generation black immigrants from Nigeria and Ethopia have better life outcomes than the general US population so it's not just about skin colour. I feel that there is a whole host of intergenerational related issues impacting the African American community. In addition, I feel that mainstream culture is quite hostile to African American culture.

You are accurately identifying that he uses his identity to hide his class in order to increase his profits. This is what modern corporate diversity initiatives are in a nutshell.

The is intersectional analysis and has been a core part of activism for decades. Race is a huge and essential component to systems of oppression in the US but it is not the only component.

But people working on this problem already know this at a deep level. This does not take away from the importance of understanding how race fits into the systems of oppression.

My issue is the way the media talks about "white" and "non-white". Being born white isn't some ticket to a silver spoon, and with so much emphasis on purely race there are negative repercussions.

i.e. I just googled it [1]. The fourth link talks about the relationship between usage of White Privilege and how it impacts peoples view of poor white people. There is so much emphasis on skin colour that the guy in the Youtube video literally won the privilege lottery at birth (compared to ~95% of other Americans) and still feels oppressed enough to make a video about it.

If his video had of been purely about solidarity for the Americans born porn and black I would have supported it since that demographic needs solidarity to help get out of the hole they were born into. Instead, he made it about himself and his rich boy problems.

[1] - https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2019-22926-001

> Being born white isn't some ticket to a silver spoon, and with so much emphasis on purely race there are negative repercussions.

This is also not new information. Again, this is the basis of intersectional analysis. Activists have been talking about this and working on this for decades, yet people use this as some sort of argument that modern analysis is broken. "White Privilege" only means "being born white is a ticket to a silver spoon" to people who haven't been involved in this discussion before.

I'd argue that it's the way the term is being used every day in both the media and social media. The academic term might be different but it's not that definition that's driving discussion.

I've checked wikipedia and it seems that affirmative action that was designed to remove all those inequalities was introduced something like 30 years ago, so one generation lives in the environment without discrimination. Has this affirmative action failed?

For at least 10 years all big companies have "equality & inclusivity" departments that are taking care of giving equal opportunities to "oppressed minorities" members. Is that just PR or something substantial?

>I've checked wikipedia and it seems that affirmative action that was designed to remove all those inequalities was introduced something like 30 years ago, so one generation lives in the environment without discrimination.

The conclusion ("one generation lives in the environment without discrimination") doesn't come from the premise (that affirmative action was introduced 30 years ago).

Yes, affirmative action was introduced 30 years ago. But it hardly put an end to discrimination (among other reasons, because even if affirmative action was great, well applied and totally effective, discrimination is not constrained in the domains that affirmative action affects).

These equality & inclusivity departments do work. Not by including minorities mind you. They work by excluding white people, making them feel unwelcome by constantly reminding them how everything bad in the world is their fault, and firing them when twitter demands it.

Even if this is true (I don't think they have that much power), why do you think this is what minorities would want? They don't want to be treated as equals and have opportunities, they want to make white people feel bad?

The issue is that D&I had no power to do things that actually matter. I've complained to D&I teams before and they really exist to placate people internally because leadership will never change. When something gets out that seems like a bad PR problem ("twitter"), then the leadership team will take acute action and fire someone and pin it on inclusion.

It's a bad system for everyone but it's born out of cyclical system where white people do nothing about racism until it reaches some breaking point, then they insist on taking immediate action to "fix it" for a month, then they go back to the same old.

It’s born out of a system that seeks to protect the owners of capital by scapegoating the workers and making it the workers problem, rather than the problem of the people with the political power and money to make meaningful change.

Affirmative action is hamstrung in many ways and also is fighting against one of the strongest social forces in US history. Why would we expect it to fix everything in a generation if it works? The fact that racial bias remains a huge problem does not prove that affirmative action is useless.

>Historical discrimination has left black families much poorer than they would otherwise be.

What about immigrants that arrived to the US with a suitcase and $100 in pocket?

You really can't compare the two cases. When you're born into that type of system, where your skin color is seen as less desirable, it's easy to develop inferiority complex and a lot of insecurities that will hinder ones will to reach for the top. I'm from a third world country where a lot of emigrants to the US tend to be more successful than the average Black American. It is easy to jump to the conclusion that they are lazy and all, but I have come to realize that we were not born or have parents that have been demoralised by the systemic racism common in the US

At least you admit that the root cause is not poverty, but the mindset.

I don't think this hypothesis holds much water to be honest. The most effective way to get better jobs isn't to have the right mindset (although it helps), it is to know the right people who will think about you when something comes up. This is also where I could imagine race (and similar things play a huge role).

Let me leave you in the projects at age 10 with a poor family. Let's see how far your mindset takes you.

Exactly. But the mindset behind the above comment to be precise.

“it’s just a mindset”, takes all responsibility off of the ruling class and places it all on the backs individual. While I’m all for taking responsibility for oneself in a rigged system, I’m not going to pretend the system isn’t rigged and shouldn’t be fixed. Imagine if we promoted approaching flawed and broken software architecture like this.

> Imagine if we promoted approaching flawed and broken software architecture like this

We do. All the time. It's why half the shit we work on is covered in a thick layer of technical debt and the other half is written in self contained microservices.

A software stack from a company that's been around long enough is going to be more random, redundant and glued together than the processes in our evolutionary biology.

Agreed. That’s why I put “promoted approaching” rather than “approached”. But you’re 100% correct.

I use the 'promote better' ideas when dealing with people in poverty. Usually most of what happens is what I call 'bad choice' economics. Usually do one thing or another. One is not 'fun' the other is. The 'fun' one gets you right now but usually hurts you weeks from now. The not fun one helps you long term. Usually the excuse of 'oh I have money coming later' with no idea of what if 'later' does not happen.

One guy I had to talk down from having his car detailed (150 bucks) vs paying the 2 month late car payment. He literally did not think of the idea of they will take the car away from you if he did not make the payment, until I pointed it out to him. He was very fixated on the 'clean the car'. That is but one small example. I have hundreds of examples like that.

That short term thinking is absolutely acidic long term on you, your family, and friends. It can create a spiral that is very hard to get out of. Being poor costs substantially more long term as well. I as a wealthy person can buy things ahead of time when on sale because I know I will use them in the future. Being poor means you buy in the 'now'. You do not buy for the future because you do not have the means to do so. So on average simple things cost you more. But being in the 'now' can hurt you even worse by giving you fun vs not fun choices. But not being able to see you have been give an bit of 'luck' to make your future better.

The short term thinking was exacerbated by historical discrimination. There were cases where black businesses became successful but then were forced out by whites who wanted what they had. Such a system doesn’t promote long term thinking.

> When you're born into that type of system

The trouble is that the way out is not easy. We can no longer keep talking about "you're at a disadvantage because you're born into x." Even if it's true, mentally it paints a victimization culture that brings people down. If you tell someone the major of their problems are due to their class, or the history of their people, or police or some other bogeyman (both real and imagined), how are people going to see a way out?

We can't keep blaming. Maybe the narrative needs to be, "Yes, the scales are not as fair as they could be. Maybe they're super unfair. But fuck em. Show them what you can do, and don't stop until you beat them at their game!"

I don't know if that's naive or overly simplistic, or if it's just some form or noble lie or noble truth.

A lot of it is luck too. My father grew up during a war, his family lost everything and had to start from scratch. He made it through University where his two brothers struggled to learn English. They all grew up in the same situation, and he's told me he didn't know what made him different. Higher IQ? Stronger drive? Who knows.

> A lot of it is luck too

Yeah it is. But if you model it as a statistical likelihood and you start two populations at different distributions you would see how long it would take for them to "catch-up" as a group.

What you're telling people is "keep at it, you'll get there in a couple decades". Meanwhile the disparity continues, leads to more prejudices (because yeah, statistically they're poorer/underrepresented) and counteracts some of the "pure luck" gains.

I hate to break it to you, but it is a noble lie. Black people in America were born into these disadvantages long before people were talking about them. There wasn't a victimization culture, but they were still being brought down, because the culture isn't what is bringing them down, but rather the system that was designed and implemented to keep them poor and disadvantaged.

Weren't many of those kids coming from India, for example, "born into that type of sytem"? Isn't that exactly why they are here and not there? I would dare say that racism/classism in modern day India is much worse than it is here in the contemporary US.

Another wrong analogy. If you look at the statistics correctly, you will notice a lot of emigrant from India to to the US tend to be from the upper class

The difference here is an immigrant is coming into the system of their own volition, while black people in the USA are born into the system. Both immigrants and black people (and many other groups indeed) suffer greatly but one has been pushed down for centuries and, while the methods are less obvious now, the economic inequality is rooted deep in the system and will affect people for generations to come.

Lots of them make it nowhere great (though nowhere great in the US could still be vastly better than the conditions they came from).

In any case, you’re acting like this is a sure path to a good life. It’s not. It’s a cultural trope.

They didn't have a large majority consider them inferior for long, or being bitter that they are not longer their slaves (like they were for their grandparents and earlier) and thinking "how dare they not know their place".

Those immigrants also didn't have seggregation laws against them until the 70s...

> They didn't have a large majority consider them inferior for long

Arguably untrue, ask a Trump voter of your choice about whether they think Chinese or Latino looking people are inferior to whites...

> seggregation laws against them until the 70s

All the SV hiring we are talking about is people born in the 80s and 90s. How are those worse off than the SE Asian or middle eastern first/second generation immigrant who also possibly gets racially stereotyped in some places but doesn't have preferential privileged college admissions and special scholarships?

> ask a Trump voter of your choice about whether they think Chinese or Latino looking people are inferior to whites

They are not. There you have your answer.

I would posit you have created a 'hallucination trump supporter' that does not exist.

Consider the internment of Japanese during World War 2.

"...we find large place effects on individual economic outcomes like income, education, socioeconomic status, house prices, and housing quality. People assigned to richer locations do better on all measures. Random location assignment affected intergenerational economic outcomes as well, with families assigned to more socially mobile areas... displaying lower cross-generational correlation in outcomes."[1]

[1] https://scholar.harvard.edu/shoag/publications/long-run-caus...

That was during war, lasted only a few years, and with endless "we're sorry" afterwards.

Hardly the same as 400 years of slavery, and 150 years of Jim Crow, lynchings, redlining, racism, seggregation, and so on...

> What about immigrants that arrived to the US with a suitcase and $100 in pocket?

What about them? You haven't given the reader anything in the way of argument yet; you've just pointed at another group.

What about them? The majority of immigrants do not arrive at the border with a suitcase and $100. But it makes a great story for the bootstraps demographic.

Immigrants are a very self-selected group don't you think. Would you think that 100% of the people you know would either

* have the ability to pass the legal immigration process of the US if they weren't citizens

* have the courage and drive to fight for a better live by abandoning their status-quo situation and move to another country

>Historical discrimination has left black families much poorer than they would otherwise be. Poverty discriminates in myriad ways:

>Lastly, I suspect the beef some poorer whites have is that they too have been discriminated against due to poverty and they feel that another group now has a leg up on them and that discrimination against them isn't acknowledged.

What is needed is to break down issues caused by racism from issues caused by poverty and fix each on their own. Fixing an issue caused by poverty (which itself may be a result of racism) as instead having been caused by racism means the solution is not correctly targeted.

If we target the problems caused by poverty based on poverty instead, you would have a solution that will help minorities more as they need more help, but at the same time help non-minorities who are in poverty and prevent resentment from building that ends up harming the attempts to fix those inequalities.

For issues directly caused by racism, solutions would be based on race (but race should likely be replaced by race and ethnicity, as I've personally seen racial equality initiatives forget that Hispanic whites face injustice very similar to racial minorities, despite the technicality of being racially white.

Last, fixing issues of race, class, and gender (which I haven't mentioned but which should work the same) discrimination should be seen as the starting point, not the goal. These are the big three that cause people the most discrimination, but are not the only three. As they are big three, they should have priority, but others shouldn't be forgotten. For example, discrimination based on LGBT+, on disability, on looks, on height, on neurotypicalness, and other factors still exist in our society: in private life, school life, and professional life. The goal should be that once the inequality from discrimination on the big three are reduced to the size of the level of discrimination these other factors cause, they too become a focus (and to be more pedantic, it wouldn't occur all at once as these other issues are by no means equal, such as LGBT+ discrimination being one of the largest forms of discrimination once you take race/gender/class out of the comparison).

I think understanding each issue makes sense. Then you can trace each issue into their side effects. It’s possible that the issues have a common side effect that can be addressed with a single solution.

For example, unequal understanding of career possibilities is a common side effect. I had a favorite class in middle school where a professional (in my case an accountant) would come to our class every two weeks to teach us about their profession.

I think many more members of the tech community should do the same. Furthermore, they should serve as ongoing contacts for the kids such as providing opportunities for internship, for tech presentations, etc...

We need to do this not just for the urban poor but increasingly for the rural poor as well.

If like the army, companies were forced by need to develop pipelines, things would improve. But, if you can hire from abroad and short circuit the hard work necessary, what choice do you think companies are going to make?

This is not particular to companies either. People most affected by offshoring will support offshoring by buying cheap goods produced by offshored work ensuring a positive feedback loop that will come and get them.

If companies were forced to develop local talent because they cannot short circuit the labor market, they would.

As a male Asian American I have been attacked by the system from both a discrimination standpoint, a biased standpoint and a class elitism standpoint.

Where I stand right now even my own race, asian females prefer to date white males over their own race. If you don't believe me watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJ8LzkIfmxw. That's just one aspect of the extent of racism we suffer from. It's so bad that females of our own race are disgusted with males of the same race.

I've seen a lot of racism, I've had to battle a lot of the challenges of simply being an asian in a white dominated country, my parents had an even harder time with the language barrier when they first jumped off the boat with literally a dollar in their pocket.

Despite all of this, from my own personal experience I will say this:

The lack of diversity in tech is mostly a pipeline problem. Certain races or cultures or sexes simply don't want to go into tech or aren't willing to put in the effort. You don't even need to go to college anymore to get in, the financial barriers of entry for tech are extremely low.

That is not to say racism is not a problem in tech, but it is by far a pipeline problem by a huge margin. As a member of a minority who has experienced a lot of racism, I will say that for tech specifically, the racism/sexism problem is overblown. If you don't trust my anecdotal experience then google which race has the highest average income in the United States: Asians.

It can be difficult to “put in the effort” when most of your energy is spent to survive. Not everyone enjoys the luxury of being able to focus on school and extra curriculars from 14-22.

Hmm... maybe my view is skewed coming from extreme poverty, but shouldn't

>Not everyone enjoys the luxury of being able to focus on school and extra curriculars from 14-22.

"Most people don't get to enjoy the luxury of being able to focus on school and extra curriculars from 14-22." ?

"enjoys" can mean "gets to".

Meaning of the comment was that "most people" entails a higher percentage than "not everybody" (IMO, atleast) though I can see how you interpreted it the way you did. I didn't word it very well, nor did I this. Perks of pandemic sleep schedule.

I haven't walked a single step in your shoes, and I don't know what racism you yourself have experienced.

However, having been in predominantly Chinese and Korean social circles, I have had more than a few conversations on the subject and have observed quite a bit of racism towards Asian-Americans.

The racism I've seen against Asians from whites is primarily mistrust, not fear. A racist hiring manager is likely to look at you and think you'll do good work for the company, but they'll have to keep an eye on you. I think it's rare that racist idiots look at your skin and think you're dumb, lazy, and violent.

I think the racism against black people in the U.S. is different both in kind and degree vs. the racism against persons of East Asian or South Asian decent.

As far as dating, as a white guy over 6 feet tall, I've run into a lot more Asian women who seem primarily interested in dating guys over 6 feet rather than Asian women who seem primarily interested in dating white guys. Maybe that's a common convenient lie because it's more politically acceptable. However, at least 2 of them later married 6-foot tall Chinese guys, and I think the majority were being honest about their preferences.

On a side note, my wife was asking me about bullying in the US, and then stopped and said "oh, but you would have been the smartest one in the class, so the bullies would have left you alone". Bless her heart, she figured American bullies worked like bullies in Asia.

If you're smart, went to a top school, and have a good job, most Asian cultures will tolerate a lot of nerdiness out of you.

>The racism I've seen against Asians from whites is primarily mistrust, not fear. A racist hiring manager is likely to look at you and think you'll do good work for the company, but they'll have to keep an eye on you. I think it's rare that racist idiots look at your skin and think you're dumb, lazy, and violent.

I agree this exists but I think most white people in general are just really afraid of being called racist and would never consciously do something racist. Overall, I think the racism that is most prevalent in Tech is subconscious. White people have a bias towards white people that they aren't aware about... that's all. Most white people keep friends that are also by majority white and likely they did not choose that outcome deliberately. So yeah, a "racist" hiring manager might keep an eye on an Asian, but they will likely not be aware they're doing it based on race. Again, not saying this is 100% the case and there are definitely people who consciously discriminate, but I believe that for the majority of white people, it is subconscious. I don't know your opinion on that, as a white person I'm sure you may have a better perspective.

>However, having been in predominantly Chinese and Korean social circles, I have had more than a few conversations on the subject and have observed quite a bit of racism towards Asian-Americans.

Racism is prevalent for sure, but again, I was just emphasizing a very specific thing: the lack of diversity in tech. I'm not saying racism doesn't exist. But for diversity in tech I believe it's mostly similar to the pipeline problem for ballerinas. There is an extreme lack of males trying to become ballerinas... I think we can both agree that the disparity exists not due to extreme sexism by females trying to put a complete stop on all males from entering the industry.

>I think the racism against black people in the U.S. is different both in kind and degree vs. the racism against persons of East Asian or South Asian decent.

It is different, no question. However I would say that the a great portion of the differences in treatment actually stem from a generalized reputation that is an exaggeration of very real statistical difference between races. You may look at a random Asian stranger and a random African American stranger and predict the Asian stranger is more affluent. This assumption isn't just a baseless stereotype... it stems from an actual statistical reality. Asians are statistically more affluent than African Americans. Is it racist to make predictions about individual people based off of probabilities? We use probability to predict all kinds of outcomes for all kinds of things... but it becomes immoral when we use it on race? I have no answer for what's the right way to deal with this moral conflict, but I feel it is important to pose the question nonetheless.

>As far as dating, as a white guy over 6 feet tall, I've run into a lot more Asian women who seem primarily interested in dating guys over 6 feet rather than Asian women who seem primarily interested in dating white guys. Maybe that's a common convenient lie because it's more politically acceptable. However, at least 2 of them later married 6-foot tall Chinese guys, and I think the majority were being honest about their preferences.

There's a very real race thing going on here. Just watch that video I posted, those women are clearly talking about race, not height. There's other videos as well...:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52dQSX-DCN0

While most women do have a huge bias for height and white males tend to be taller than asian males I do believe there is a separate phenomenon going on here in terms of race.

You need to stop referring to women as "females".

No one needs to adjust his speech at all. Where does that idea come from? 20th century style oppressive socialism?

What is oppressive socialism?

I'm guessing they mean USSR- or CCP-style totalitarianism.

Ah, don't know why I didn't think of that.

I used to think that "female" was just a slightly offensive synonym for "woman", but in a world where transgender people exist, it seems useful to be able to distinguish between "male/female" (someone's biological makeup)", and "man/woman" (someone's gender identity).

And in the context of dating and sexuality, it might well be the biological differences that are relevant.

The video talks about women.

Few people care about sex but not gender.[1][2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attraction_to_transgender_peop...

[2] https://www.them.us/story/cis-trans-dating

> Few people care about sex but not gender.[1][2]

I don't think your sources support that statement. For example, [2] says:

> Surprisingly, among the 127 participants open to dating a trans person, almost half selected a trans person of a gender incongruent with their stated sexual orientation. For example, 50% of the trans-inclusive straight women and 28% of the trans-inclusive gay men were willing to date a trans woman, even though one wouldn’t expect either straight women or gay men to be attracted to women. Similarly, 50% of trans-inclusive straight men and 69% of trans-inclusive lesbians said they’d date a trans man, even though both groups are presumably only attracted to women.

This suggests that for between 28%-69% of people, it is the persons sex rather than their gender which is important for their sexuality. This result is unlikely to be due to transphobia as these are people have specifically indicated they would be interested in dating trans people.

The article says "even though both groups are presumably only attracted to women". It seems to me that this presumption is simply wrong. For many people, their sexuality is defined by sex and not gender.

11.5% of gay men said they would date a trans person. 28% of 11.5% said yes to trans women but all of them said yes to trans men too.

29% of lesbians said they would date a trans person. 38% of 29% only said yes to trans men and 31% of 29% said yes to both.

The article doesn't have the same information for straight people but only 1.8% of straight women and 3.3% of straight men said they would date a trans person at all. So 0% of gay men, 11% of lesbians, maybe 0.9% of straight women, and maybe 1.7% of straight men would consider sex but not gender. Probably the real percentages are lower. Probably some straight people said yes to both. Many straight men attracted to trans women wouldn't date one.

Porn with trans women is much more popular than porn with trans men. The primary demographic for porn with trans men is gay men[1] even though at least 10x as many men are straight.

The other studies also found few men only attracted to trans women and cis men.

[1] https://www.ibtimes.com/transgender-porn-best-seller-it-good...

No he doesn’t. We all know what he meant and don’t need a moral microscope on every word everyone says.

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