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Comment by anthonymartinez | Hacker News Reader

I would push back on that view and say other people are absolutely at fault here. if thats not something we can't or won't own up to as a society, then we will have to continue to live with the consequences of stereotyping which, good and bad, harm us all in many subtle and not-so-subtle ways. difficult, but necessary.

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Are generalizations really not allowed? Do we have to handicap our brains?

I actually worked for the progressives and saw campaign analytics first-hand. It was one of the most racist things I've seen.

And it works.

Ok. So why is it legal for insurance companies to increase price for young drivers, but not for men* (*at least in some countries)? Both groups cause more accidents than average,but it's legal to "stereotype" against one group but not the other? To anyone shouting that it's not "stereotyping" but true statistic, then I would reply that it's also true that Jamaal is mostly used by black men, therefore the probability of someone with that name being black is very high, and not a stereotype, but merely an observation.

It's asking much to not generalize, generally. Like, are you going to ask why you go on green and stop on red every time you come to a light? Not all red lights mean stop.

I think we can artificially not think of ethnicity when hearing names, but simultaneously realize people can choose non ethnic names or ethnic, not withstanding new immigrants. And, it's not clear that when people do internalize ethnicity and name associations that it results in negative outcomes. There was a recent study which contradicted previous studies when they controlled for other factors.

In any event, people make all kinds of assumptions and are often wrong, but we don't call them out because we have not become 'conscious' of them, till someone points them out.

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