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"what makes race special?"

It's unchangable, it's easily measurable, and it has one of the most extreme biases.

There are many unchangable, easily measurable traits that result in bias by other humans. Affirmative action for short ugly people?

Ugly

[ ] Unchangable

[ ] Easily measurable

[ ] One of the most extreme biases

Short

[x] Unchangable

[x] Easily measurable

[ ] One of the most extreme biases

Many forms of ugly are unchangeable except with extreme medical interventions - the only major exception is fatties. And it's certainly easy to measure.

Note that sex is changeable, so I guess we can take it off your list. In fact, one can also pull a michael jackson for race.

So all you've really got to stand on is the subjective "extreme" criteria. Ok.

>>If not, why not? I.e., what makes race special?

What makes cancer special? Ebola? AIDS/HIV? Why/how does anybody focus on anything? btw, these are the kinds of specious debates on HN that derail the main topic into oblivion. Having to redefine & rehash all kinds of things you, as an adult, should already know about society. I'm not going down this path again. You should already know racism & sexism is a serious enough problem that merits focus. Not knowing that is a symptom of arrogance/ignorance/stubborness that can't be resolved in an HN thread. It's just a waste of time and detracts from the main issue at hand that wiser(employees of hackerschool.com) people already have a grasp on and wish to address.

EDIT: And off the front page this article goes. I want that comment-endorsing system to come back.

You seem to be suggesting that the question is absurd but it's not. It's not only meaningful, it's completely obvious and natural. People who focus their research on a particular topic are routinely asked why. Same with company founders or even hobbyist. "Why this" has to be the most human of questions right after "how are you".

I, too, find the fixation on race/sex/class weird when there are many factors that seem much more important. I wrote about it before https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8160608

Are you white male?

Your previous writing is simplistic rationalisation of racist attitudes. "People aren't racist, the problem is black people for not inheriting hard work nor intelligence".

How can you call my writing simplistic when next to a crude classification of people into a handful of racial categories? Anyway, the original post was about a white guy. There's even a picture[1] in the article. Which is the point: that he was a white guy didn't matter very much.

Those categories (like race or sex) seem not only arbitrary but not even very good. Yet, commenters here insist that they are obvious and the question why those and not some other doesn't even require (deserve?) an answer.

How so? For those who, like me and yummyfajitas, missed that social insight.

[1] http://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/08/10/sunday-review/0810...

The concrete reasoning for Ebola is:

1) Positive claim: Ebola causes death.

1a) Death due to Ebola are probably easier to prevent than a random sample of death. This is because we can probably find a single procedure to prevent { ebola death 1, ebola death 2, ... }, while we cannot find a single procedure to prevent {shooting death 1, drowning death 2, ebola death 3, cancer death 4}.

1b) Thus, preventing death due to Ebola will likely be cheaper than preventing a random selection of deaths.

2) Normative claim: Death is bad.

2a) Preventing death cheaply is better than preventing death expensively.

3) Preventing ebola will reduce incidents of death by (1), and that will be good (by claim (2)). It will likely be cheaper to prevent deaths due to ebola than due to a random sampling of causes (1b). Preventing deaths cheaply is better than preventing deaths expensively, by (2a).

It's not remotely difficult to justify the normative claim that stopping Ebola is good. And you can now see my normative principles - if you believe death is good, we know why we disagree.

If we want to come to agreement, we now know we need to debate moral philosophy rather than empirical claims like "is ebola really a single disease".

Most of this conversation is me asking "what goes into slot (2)" and a bunch of people repeating to me what they put in slot (1).

The Sasha Obama thing is not even close to what parent said. Parent's point was in the first sentence. Let me quote:

> Because, and honestly I think you know this, in America a disadvantaged white person is still better off than a disadvantaged black person.

The point is that sexism and racism are sufficiently institutionalized in America so that members of either group will struggle solely because they belong to that group. Ideally all people of lower socioeconomic statuses could be lifted up by these types of initiatives, but minorities and women especially have the deck stacked against them.

If a non-disadvantaged black person is not better off than a disadvantaged white person, why do you want to favor them?

That's the core question and it's a normative one. If you give me a positive answer (e.g., citing statistics about group averages) you are ignoring the question. Telling me about group averages does not address this question at all.

I am asking what normative principle you are using to derive your normative claims like "it's ok to discriminate against disadvantaged white people in favor of advantaged black people".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normative

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_statement

Per rayiner's response:

Your attempt to create equivalencies between poor blacks and poor whites misses one crucial fact: our government did not systematically oppress and deny opportunity to the ancestors of poor whites. If the government burns down my house, then my neighborhood suffers flooding because of a hurricane, I am not made whole by the government addressing the flood damage. I am not satisfied with the government's attempts to "forget the past" and treat my case as no more important than that of every other person affected by the flooding. That makes no sense.

Do governments have persistent identity? Does it break after a revolution? What about a constitutional Monarchy like England's? If its a democratic government does having ancestors who voted for an oppressive government make them responsible for the past?

"Do governments have persistent identity?" What kind of a thing is that to say?

I could have said that in response to me looting a store... I shouldn't be handed punishment, because the rules of the government that were up 2 weeks/years/decades ago when I robbed the store don't apply today now that I've been caught.

That's a meaningless response. The fact of the matter is, injustices were once done (effects of which we still see reverberating today), now it's time to put the dollar on the line to make up for those past injustices. And, you know, it wasn't that long ago that these things were happening... it was merely a generation ago. Black folks you see walking and talking outside -- it's them, and their sons and daughters who couldn't drink from the same fountains as others. I don't think a lot of people really get this. Imagine your mother and father were subject to this kind of horror... how badly this would break them, what effects it would have on their parenting...

I understand where your coming from but "injustices were once done" is a pretty terrible reason for aid. If you go back far enough every group has committed some atrocity on another, Europe on most of the world for instance (also 2 generations ago)