Hacker News Reader

Comment by dnissley | Hacker News Reader

That's no longer true unfortunately. Denialism on the left about certain things is becoming rampant:

- Blacks commit far more crime than other racial groups. There are sociological explanations for this, but that is currently a fact, and one that people on the left do mental backflips to avoid acknowledging.

- Gender pay gap in most industries is small or non-existent once you adjust for experience and other factors. Not to say that there is no discrimination at all, but this is another thing people on the left can't or don't want to acknowledge.

Those are just two among many.

View on HN

Hmm. But what if you reframe the data? Instead of "Blacks commit more crimes than other racial groups", you're more likely to get on the path of finding constructive solutions by framing it as "People who grew up in predominantly black neighborhoods commit more crimes than those who grew up in predominantly non-black neighborhoods."

I mean, I think we've pretty well established that crime isn't genetic. It's environmental. So why frame it as if the opposite were true?

I haven't studied the demographic data at length recently, but fairly sure that your assertion does not hold for high income blacks.

I have no comment on the pay gap, I don't know much about it.

I think you're proving my point. Can you just state the fact? You can even add some qualifying statements like I did. But for christ's sake just say it first! No need to go out of your way to find a subset that is (no doubt) excepted from the average. It's politically inconvenient, yes. But it's also the truth, and one that might help explain why african americans are more likely to have interactions with police (a group I have no love for, tbh).

My own mother can't do this. She goes on about how the fbi crime statistics are probably "biased" in some way, though has no interest in finding out if or how that's the case. "It's obvious" she says. This greatly upsets me. How can we deal with problems if we can't look them straight in the face?

> I think you're proving my point. Can you just state the fact? You can even add some qualifying statements like I did. But for christ's sake just say it first! No need to go out of your way to find a subset that is (no doubt) excepted from the average. It's politically inconvenient, yes.

It's not just politically inconvenient, it's also lacking a lot of nuance. Native Americans commit crimes at an even higher rate than African Americans do. The two groups share a long history of violent disenfranchisement. Taking the statistics in isolation, yes Native Americans and African Americans do commit crime at higher than average rates. But ignoring structural issues is just as disingenuous as ignoring the data.

> But it's also the truth, and one that might help explain why african americans are more likely to have interactions with police (a group I have no love for, tbh).

Can you prove this cause and effect chain? The rate at which African Americans encounter the police is much greater than the rate at which violent crimes are committed. I'm not saying you're wrong, but I haven't seen any causality research here, but the way you've juxtaposed these claims implies that you believe there's causality here.

I can acknowledge the statistics. Can you acknowledge that they're often misappropriated and decontextualized for the purposes of propaganda[1]?

[1] https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/1352-1...

Absolutely. F* those people.

> I mean, I think we've pretty well established that crime isn't genetic. It's environmental.

In reality, twin studies and adoption studies have shown a large genetic component.

We don't even need twin studies to know this. It must be true unless you're a young-earth creationist. If there wasn't genetic variability in criminality, humans wouldn't have been capable of evolving to be so much less violent than other primates.

(And of course, disparities in male/female behavior is obviously biological.)

> I haven't studied the demographic data at length recently, but fairly sure that your assertion does not hold for high income blacks.

In fact, it does hold in higher income brackets too. And I'd bet whites are more violent than Asians after controlling for income, too.

I'll just say this comment screams "deceptive reasoning" / "flawed use of sources" to me. Triggers my sensors from a mile away.

Like, there is tons of research on this. This isn't up for dispute, except for people who ignore the science.

The gender pay gap is a statistic that requires some nuance to evaluate and I think your analysis is reductive. Yes, if you add in controls it lessens, but why? Why do women as a population have systematically lower levels of work experience? The pay gap is an assessment of how well our society is structured to allow people of both genders economic opportunities.

Shouldn't choosing to raise a family account for the experience gap? Yes, this is an example of one way that we've structured society so that women tend to have fewer career opportunities. IMO, there is not a good reason men (as a demographic) shouldn't be spending an equal amount of time raising children.

> The gender pay gap is a statistic that requires some nuance to evaluate

If only nuance were present when politicians on the left make misleading or false statements like "women (are) paid 77 cents on the dollar for doing the same work as men".

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2012/jun/21/barack-oba...

> Shouldn't choosing to raise a family account for the experience gap?

Edit: I think I misread your second paragraph. Choosing to raise a family likely does account for the existence of the experience gap, if that's what you mean; but raising a family isn't equivalent to on-the-job experience.

You are not going to find racial activists who deny the first fact. The second "fact" seems to fly over the whole "and other factors". That's the entire point of the statement.

Not sure of your point?

Here are the major factors I've looked at: The previously mentioned (and most significant by far) years of experience (which for many women is affected by having children), hours spent at work, self-rated confidence, (personality trait) agreeableness, etc. etc.

The _entire_ point is that maternity, preconceived biases on women's behavior in the workplace, and expectations of women to do housework are factors that are to be contemplated and analyzed in their systemic causes.

There's a reason why in European countries parental leave is split between both parents and there's effort to make it easier for men to be caretakers.

If women are statistically likely to need to take more time off work than men due to being a parent, then I would argue this is effectively a systemic pay gap. Whether or not that needs fixing is another question but it's totally bizarre to say "if you ignore all the reasons why women are often in positions where they receive less pay that men don't have to deal with, there isn't a gap".

(To be clear: whether or not this pay gap needs addressing is its own question entirely. It makes total sense to me that a woman needs time off to recover from giving birth or from health complications during pregnancy.)

A fetus is a human life.

EDIT: I'd ask for valid science showing a fetus isn't alive, doesn't feel pain, etc., but the science is clear here. The question isn't in the science but in the implications. Like it or not (here... apparently not), the conservative position on abortion had a lot of hard science to back it up.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com