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As long as resource scarcity exists racism/*-isms are inevitable. Its the simplest strategy human mind can conjure - divide and conquer, divide up some resource

As long as resource scarcity exists racism/*-isms are inevitable. Its the simplest strategy human mind can conjure - divide and conquer, divide up some resources with members of my group, and use them. Extremely cheap energy (fusion power maybe?) might solve it for good by alleviating survival worries in the human psyche, no amount of regulation or rules can. Edit: resource scarcity from the perspective of the human psyche, which affects worries about survival. The unconscious worries about there not being enough stuff, so that you might as well divide it up with your group.

monochromatic 10y ago
What? Resource scarcity should discourage things like this by encouraging people to maximize profits. If I only rent my house to whites, it limits my market. My neighbor who's willing to rent to anybody is more likely to be able to get bookings and more likely to get more money.
- weberc2 10y ago
  Discrimination in business is likely predicated on the belief that people of group X are more likely to damage your property than people of group Y, and that the risk is great enough to avoid doing business with group X altogether, even though it means a smaller pool of potential tenants/customers.
- api 10y ago
  That would be a rational response. The psychology here is not rational and is based on evolution under conditions where small tribes competed for scarce resources over a wide area. Scarcity -> Identify a vulnerable out group -> Attack out group and steal their hunting grounds Our brain stems don't know what millennium they are in.
- googletazer 10y ago
  In the long term your prediction will be correct - those willing to rent to anybody will acquire more money, and eventually might be able to boot out the other more "choosy" party. A virtuous monopoly of sorts. I was talking about the unconscious worry about resources and survival, not the rational economic kind.
civilian 10y ago
No? Your understanding of racism is wrong, I think. It's not a "I'm going to reserve my airbnb for my racial group only!" it's: "I'm uncomfortable letting someone of another race rent my house, because I am not familiar enough with their culture to know if they're going to wreck my house or not." Racism & sexism are bad business practices. *-ists have to operate in a smaller labor or customer pool in order to operate. The AirBnB operator lost 30 minutes of organization in this blog, so you're either wasting time or you end hiring a lower-quality member of your own racial group. I'll make the claim that: as long as resource scarcity exists, there is an economic pressure to be less racist.
- googletazer 10y ago
  Rationally - yes absolutely. If there is a scarcity of tenants, why would you want to turn them away for any reason. I was talking in the terms of the human unconscious - the knowledge reaffirmed your entire life, and for as long as humans existed that stuff is scarce. And if stuff is scarce and that affects your survival - you might as well secure it for yourself and your group (the reason being that your immediate group is more likelly to support you, e.g arabs got a proverb about this - me against my brother, me and my brother against the men of our village, our village against another village, and so on). If resource scarcity could be alleviated through cheap energy, that might modify this base human survival mechanism which is a reason for in-groups/out-groups.
typon 10y ago
Race isn't even a well-defined concept, so I'm pretty sure your evo-psych hypothesis doesn't apply.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  "Race" is a fairly arbitrary name for one axis of socially constructed perceived in-group/out-group distinction, but the hypothesis suggested above can equally plausibly apply to any perceived in-group/out-group distinction regardless of whether the basis for it is in a "well-defined concept", so I don't see your challenge as particularly effective.
  - typon 10y ago
    They never said "As long as resource scarcity exists otherness is inevitable.", they specifically mentioned race. I don't believe 'racism' in the traditional sense (especially institutional racism) is inevitable at all. Sure you can change the argument and argue about a different thing, but we are specifically talking about race here.

monochromatic 10y ago

What? Resource scarcity should discourage things like this by encouraging people to maximize profits. If I only rent my house to whites, it limits my market. My neighbor who's willing to rent to anybody is more likely to be able to get bookings and more likely to get more money.

weberc2 10y ago
Discrimination in business is likely predicated on the belief that people of group X are more likely to damage your property than people of group Y, and that the risk is great enough to avoid doing business with group X altogether, even though it means a smaller pool of potential tenants/customers.
api 10y ago
That would be a rational response. The psychology here is not rational and is based on evolution under conditions where small tribes competed for scarce resources over a wide area. Scarcity -> Identify a vulnerable out group -> Attack out group and steal their hunting grounds Our brain stems don't know what millennium they are in.
googletazer 10y ago
In the long term your prediction will be correct - those willing to rent to anybody will acquire more money, and eventually might be able to boot out the other more "choosy" party. A virtuous monopoly of sorts. I was talking about the unconscious worry about resources and survival, not the rational economic kind.

civilian 10y ago

No? Your understanding of racism is wrong, I think. It's not a "I'm going to reserve my airbnb for my racial group only!" it's: "I'm uncomfortable letting someone of another race rent my house, because I am not familiar enough with their culture to know if they're going to wreck my house or not." Racism & sexism are bad business practices. *-ists have to operate in a smaller labor or customer pool in order to operate. The AirBnB operator lost 30 minutes of organization in this blog, so you're either wasting time or you end hiring a lower-quality member of your own racial group. I'll make the claim that: as long as resource scarcity exists, there is an economic pressure to be less racist.

googletazer 10y ago
Rationally - yes absolutely. If there is a scarcity of tenants, why would you want to turn them away for any reason. I was talking in the terms of the human unconscious - the knowledge reaffirmed your entire life, and for as long as humans existed that stuff is scarce. And if stuff is scarce and that affects your survival - you might as well secure it for yourself and your group (the reason being that your immediate group is more likelly to support you, e.g arabs got a proverb about this - me against my brother, me and my brother against the men of our village, our village against another village, and so on). If resource scarcity could be alleviated through cheap energy, that might modify this base human survival mechanism which is a reason for in-groups/out-groups.

typon 10y ago

Race isn't even a well-defined concept, so I'm pretty sure your evo-psych hypothesis doesn't apply.

dragonwriter 10y ago
"Race" is a fairly arbitrary name for one axis of socially constructed perceived in-group/out-group distinction, but the hypothesis suggested above can equally plausibly apply to any perceived in-group/out-group distinction regardless of whether the basis for it is in a "well-defined concept", so I don't see your challenge as particularly effective.
- typon 10y ago
  They never said "As long as resource scarcity exists otherness is inevitable.", they specifically mentioned race. I don't believe 'racism' in the traditional sense (especially institutional racism) is inevitable at all. Sure you can change the argument and argue about a different thing, but we are specifically talking about race here.