Hacker News Reader

Comment by like_any_other | Hacker News Reader

> I'm not sure if that's really true or just a stereotype

Stereotype Accuracy is One of the Largest and Most Replicable Effects in All of Social Psychology - https://spsp.org/news-center/character-context-blog/stereoty...

In fact, quite shockingly to many, that prevailing twofold sentiment, which sees stereotypical thinking as faulty cognition and stereotypes themselves as patently inaccurate, is itself wrong on both counts. - https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/insight-therapy/2018...

Most stereotypes that have been studied have been shown to be approximately correct. Usually, stereotype accuracy correlations exceed .50, making them some of the largest relationships ever found in social psychology. - https://www.cspicenter.com/p/the-accuracy-of-stereotypes-dat...

View on HN

It's not that I don't believe it is likely, it's more like I don't like spreading an unqualified stereotype that I haven't actually validated in any way other than personal anecdotes. It's not like it's a terribly harmful stereotype (at least, I don't have anything against day laborers at all) but just as a matter of good hygiene I believe it's good to hedge a bit when you're spreading information that is essentially folklore. (In this case the point was to spread the folklore part, so I didn't feel it necessary to go and try to validate it with data myself.)

There is a far cry between "Stereotypes are generally accurate" and "being able to make a specific measured claim on the basis of a stereotype."

You also don't actively prove this claim, which means that we may know that it's "more likely to be true than not" based on your shared information, but could still absolutely be false.

Which leads me to my question, "Why would you make a comment about the correctness of stereotypes, rather than just finding actual data about the stereotype in question?"

Because the phrasing "true OR a stereotype" implied the concepts are opposed, when they are anything but.

You have not disproved that the concepts are opposed in this instance. Which matters much more than whether or not "stereotypes might generally be true." Like, at best stereotypes are a distraction for the actual data we'd like to have discussions about.

> You have not disproved that the concepts are opposed in this instance.

Nor did I aim to. I only wanted to dispel the mistaken belief that stereotypes are mostly false in general. That you think I should have instead addressed some other point that in your opinion matter more is irrelevant - you are free to address it yourself.

The wider claim doesn't actually change anything about the discourse. You have not contributed to the discussion, because you've provided no additional information about whether or not the underlying claim is true. We are no closer to truth because of your comment. So you have not "dispelled the mistaken belief that stereotypes are mostly false in general" because we can't make an active assumption about this stereotype without directly proving it.

So... Their original point stands without direct evidence against it. As you have not provided direct evidence, your point is moot.

Very interesting papers. However, the last link:

> Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology

> some stereotypes are malevolent and destructive:

> ...

> Jews as grasping hook-nosed Nazis perpetrating genocide on innocent Palestinian babies.

Very underhanded way to paint the widely held accusations of genocide in Gaza as antisemitic...

Looking into it further: the CSPI is a right wing think-tank headed by Richard Hanania (from the website's bio, a thinker on the Right interested in culture wars, who has published vile stuff on Palestine, and has the infantile authoritarian viewpoints on politics that have unfortunately become synonymous with the "new right"). So take some salt with you if you're visiting that website...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com