11 ms·

USPS Discrimination Against Atheism? A Study by Atheist Shoes (2013)

113 points by franze 10y ago

daveguy 10y ago
This post is from (2013) but I doubt there has been any change in the past 3 years. It is concerning that there is any difference at all in shipping times when tape with the word "atheist" on it is used. The difference was significant (p<0.001). I would love to see a similar study with a variety of packing tape ("Atheist", "Christian", "Muslim", etc).
- Declanomous 10y ago
  I'd be interested in trying "Happy Holidays" vs. "Merry Christmas". I assume this only happens with hand-sorted mail as well. I'd be interested in breaking it down by zip code too. I have a related anecdote. I live in Chicago, which has the slowest mail delivery in the country. I've lived in a number of zip codes, and I've never found the mail to get lost, merely delayed. However, I recently moved to a new place, and I've started losing mail. I've generally liked my mail people, but I'm convinced that the mail people at my new place are lazy. I've had issues with mail getting rained on because they never shut the top of the mailbox, I've had mail go missing. They have "signed" for certified mail for me. They'll leave a package on my steps, but they won't close the gate on the way out. They ignore the name printed on the mailbox and deliver mail for old tenants, despite mail regulations forbidding them to do so. Plus, I've tried talking to my mailperson, and she is always on the phone and refuses to talk to me. I know delivering mail isn't the most glamorous job, but have some pride.
  - acomjean 10y ago
    They're generally good and I like to use them to ship since they have keys to my building and can drop boxes in the lobby. However a few weeks ago they marked a package "delivered" when it wasn't (I got a text saying it was delivered which was nice). It came a 2 days later marked 3 minutes after the delivery was due. I figured it was stolen but the shipper indicated that this happens frequently and they wouldn't consider it missing for a couple days. A relative works for the postal service, its a good gig, good benefits etc.. but they have to realize that for packages at least, the competition is formidable.
  - LeifCarrotson 10y ago
    >Plus, I've tried talking to my mailperson, and she is always on the phone and refuses to talk to me. As much as we like to try to fix problems systemically, and place blame or praise on organizations as a whole, an awful lot comes down to the bottom of the pyramid/the top of the tree. I would blame most of those complaints on the one person who actually brings the mail to your house when the giant machine spits it all out. I am fortunate to have a great relationship with our mail carrier. If you're reading this, Patricia, thank you!
    - Declanomous 10y ago
      > I am fortunate to have a great relationship with our mail carrier. In all fairness, this is the first time I've had problems with my mail carrier. Normally I've found my mail carriers friendly, helpful and conscientious. I appreciate how hard the job can be, especially in Chicago, where the weather is all over the place, and the traffic is a nightmare.
  - int_19h 10y ago
    Post offices certainly vary widely in terms of quality of service. The recurring problem that we have is that the delivery person won't actually attempt to deliver, even if you're at home and the package requires signature - they don't even knock on the door, just leave a sticker outside saying that you weren't there to sign, so please go pick it up. I don't know if there's a good system in place to deal with it. So far, complaining, either directly to the supervisor over the phone and in person, or filing complaints on the USPS website, have resulted in no improvement. I think it's because they have a shortage of applicants for those jobs, and so are very reluctant to fire anyone; and reprimands just aren't working.
    - alasdair_ 10y ago
      I have a camera on my front door with a mobile app to view it. I recently had out mailman do exactly this (while I was home and only a few feet from the door). I had to chase him down and he told me flat out that he had knocked, waited and I wasn't home. I showed him the camera footage and I've never had a problem since (and I'd have weekly problems with this beforehand ).
- Anechoic 10y ago
  This post is from (2013) [..] The difference was significant (p<0.001) Just as an FYI, USPS closed and consulted a bunch of distribution centers from 2011 through early 2013. These closures were (according to postal employees I spoke with) the cause of lots of delivery problems. At that time, my business was shipping many hundreds of packages annually domestically and internationally and we would have problems with maybe 2 or 3 every year (which were promptly resolved by the USPS claims process). During the period of around 2012-2013, we were dealing with 3 or 4 delivery problems per month. Things have subsequently improved dramatically. There may very well have been a discrimination problem (it certainly doesn't seem random and I can imagine a scenario where consolidating a distribution center might allow an employee to have a greater affect at disrupting traffic) but I just want to point out that was an especially problematic time for USPS so I wouldn't be surprised if it was a symptom of another problem.
- LeifCarrotson 10y ago
  I would like to see a study with a comparison with non-religious, ostensibly non-discriminatory words. How about just "Shoes"? Then compare that to a few other packages. One plain brown cardboard with clear tape and a large, crisp shipping label. I expect that will sail straight through all the automatic sorters. A few with various words (some, perhaps, more likely to be found offensive than "atheist", some less) on tape in high-contrast black and white. In addition to "Shoes", you could write "Merry Christmas" (in mid-January, of course), "Green", "Cleveland" (note: the box doesn't need to go to Cleveland), "Dildos", "FedEx" (sending the box by USPS, of course), "Kittens", "Kidneys" (the box shouldn't contain kittens or kidneys, just have the word on it). Then one with a complete coverage of wrapping paper with a variety of words, fonts, barcodes, receipts, invoices, and colors all over the box, and a little smudged shipping label on the bottom of the box. It would be like a Where's Waldo for postal workers: Find the one complete shipping label. See how long that takes to get through!
  - tropo 10y ago
    Some more: Anthrax, Plutonium, Guns, Gasoline, Cocaine, Cobras, Ivory
  - ourmandave 10y ago
    Like when Puzzle Magazine would feature envelopes from letters they received where their address was in the form of a puzzle for the post office to solve.
- ourmandave 10y ago
  In Chicago, maybe 10 years ago, they found a warehouse full of undelivered mail that the mailman was just dumping there. And recently, 22,000 pcs were not delivered because the mailman was unhappy about a transfer or something. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/mail-carrier-charged-not-delivering-22-000-items-article-1.2302367 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/mail-carrier-charged-n...
  - Shivetya 10y ago
    well what most people don't realize is that unless its first class it really never has to get there. My mother used to publish a dog breed magazine for the national club. So they used the special rates reserved for magazines and such. there were times where the bins she brought to the PO were left on the loading docks. Once an entire bin was waterlogged so the PO just tossed it. Let alone no guarantee what state the magazines arrive in, hence its why you find some plastic wrapped or with a brown paper wrapper. even your local distribution centers and individual post offices can affect the timeliness of deliveries. even most two day mail is not really a guarantee. You are more likely to get an Amazon package delivered by the PO on a Sunday than two day priority or similar.
- tjr 10y ago
  Not directly related, but I am reminded of this fun classic: http://www.improbable.com/airchives/paperair/volume6/v6i4/postal-6-4.html http://www.improbable.com/airchives/paperair/volume6/v6i4/po...
silveira 10y ago
Although I agree with their conclusion, I'd like to see how it would go with other names rather than "atheist" as a group control to eliminate the possibility of a difference between branded and non-branded differences.
- daveguy 10y ago
  I agree. If you could add the same tape with different words it would eliminate the possibility that the worded tape was interfering with some auto-sort functionality.
  - gregshap 10y ago
    also were the boxes otherwise identical? were the unbranded boxes obviously empty while the branded boxes always had shoes in them?
    - daveguy 10y ago
      From the article it looks like these were all regular shoe deliveries and they chose either to add the branded tape or leave it off. So from a weight/contents perspective there shouldn't have been much difference.
      - johnfactorial 10y ago
        The article does not say that. It says that every person was sent two packages.
        jonsen 10y ago
        One shoe in each.
        rtkwe 10y ago
        Do they actually say that anywhere? It's a pretty logical way of doing it but it's still an assumption about a pretty important facet of the experiment.
dlbucci 10y ago
While this is an interesting story, and it's sad to see this sort of stuff happening, I'm kind of more focused on what makes a shoe atheist. Are holy shoes blessed in some manner, or are all shoes naturally religious and some process is applied to the atheist shoes to make them secular? Based on what I can tell from the site, atheist shoes really just need to say "I'm an atheist" on the sole, but I want to believe there's more than that, because what sad individuals are buying shoes just for that. (And if people only buy the shoes because of the style, why do the shoes need to have such sacrilegious soles?)
- leereeves 10y ago
  People buy clothes with religious, political, and identity writing all the time. Why would you call atheists "sad individuals" for doing the same?
  - dlbucci 10y ago
    That's a fair point: I got a little too snarky at the end of my comment. I guess I just view 'atheism' more as a lack of religion, rather than a religious option along the lines of Christianity, Islam, etc. Along that logic, I don't feel like I'd ever wear/display symbols of my atheism, but I guess that shouldn't deter others from doing so.
    - mikeash 10y ago
      I don't get it either, but it's better than paying Nike for the privilege of wearing their advertising.
  - sushid 10y ago
    As an agnostic, I wouldn't call them "sad," but it's like Neil deGrasse Tyson said. [0] It's fine to see people interested in golf congregating and talking about it, but it'd be stranger to see a bunch of anti-golfers congregating and talking about how they don't like to play golf. [0] https://twitter.com/jonathan_blow/status/273582094448476161 https://twitter.com/jonathan_blow/status/273582094448476161
leephillips 10y ago
The results are interesting. But as a godless guy, I don't get it. Why would I care about the theological stance of the people who make my shoes? Why would a shoemaker want to advertise its religion, or lack thereof, on its shipping boxes? We can't leave tribal politics out of shoes now, even?
- andrewpe 10y ago
  Sounds like people that buy these shoes are the people who want to be different and really stand out.
- DINKDINK 10y ago
  >I don't get it Let's say you're gay. You shoe maker belongs to the Mormon Church. When you purchase shoes from her, 10% of her income typically goes to the church[1]. The Mormon Church then uses that money to lobby the government to deny your civil rights, and succeeds[2]. It's not rational to contribute to your own oppression. That's why some people don't want to "leave tribal politics out of shoes". You're asking someone to leave politics out of politics. [1] https://www.mormon.org/faq/church-tithing https://www.mormon.org/faq/church-tithing [2] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/15/us/politics/15marriage.html http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/15/us/politics/15marriage.htm...
  - abandonliberty 10y ago
    I suspect what you fund has an impact similar to what you vote. Like movies? Ethical companies? Give them money. Dislike what a corporation is doing or donates to? Don't give them money. I'm just about to attempt switching my soap supply to Dr. Bronners. Family owned business with a 5X earning cap from the lowest paid employee to the CEO. They do some neat stuff: http://www.triplepundit.com/2016/09/dr-bronners-says-bye-bye-to-organic-trade-association/ http://www.triplepundit.com/2016/09/dr-bronners-says-bye-bye...
    - nerdponx 10y ago
      I used their soap for years. As much as I like the company and what they do, I just don't like their soap for saily use. It's great for camping trips, though.
davidgerard 10y ago
(2013)
Animats 10y ago
(2013), please.
zaidf 10y ago
They only state the average when they should also state the median along with the entire data set. Let's say they sent 10 shoes of each type. Nine shoes of each type took exactly the same time. But one pair of Atheist shoe was delayed by 100 days. Now, on average, atheist shoes take 10 days longer to arrive because one of the pairs took 100 days longer to arrive.
tokai 10y ago
I wonder if printing a tv on the box would help. Or maybe it only works for large boxes.
- FuckOffNeemo 10y ago
  Are you referring to the article where a Bicycle manufacturer put "Television" on the box and saw a considerable change in the number of damaged goods received by the customers? :D
petre 10y ago
Just use non branded tape. Problem solved.
- jasonkostempski 10y ago
  A better solution would be to shut down the USPS.
  - joemi 10y ago
    How is that a solution?
    - mcguire 10y ago
      Nothing is expected to get through; nothing gets through. No problem.
- gnashville 10y ago
  Just use coloreds only drinking fountains. Problem solved.
- appleflaxen 10y ago
  Indeed, that's exactly what the post says they did.
desdiv 10y ago
The Pew Research Center surveyed 3,217 randomly selected U.S. adults[0] and asked them to rate how positively they viewed each belief group. Here's the ranking from most positive to least positive: 1. Jews 2. Catholics 3. Evangelical Christians 4. Buddhists 5. Hindus 6. Mormons 7. Atheists 8. Muslims Surprisingly (at least to me), Atheists is second to last. Interestingly enough, the low ranking of Atheists persists across party lines. Both Republicans and Democrats rank Atheists only slightly higher than Muslims, and by similar margins too: 2 points in the former and 1 point in the latter. [0] http://www.pewforum.org/2014/07/16/how-americans-feel-about-religious-groups/ http://www.pewforum.org/2014/07/16/how-americans-feel-about-...
- golergka 10y ago
  Since they didn't seem to specify religious jews, their survey is just mixing ethnic with belief group, which doesn't make much sense.
  - dsr_ 10y ago
    They are measuring perceptions, which are all inside people's heads. If they had included "lizard people" and "foreigners" on the survey, that would also be a valid way of measuring perceptions even though one group represents 7 billion people and the other zero.
  - irrational 10y ago
    Isn't this the case with most of the groups? I would imagine even atheist Jews have been to synagogue at least a few times. I would consider Catholics who only go to Easter and Christmas mass to not be religious.
    - jedberg 10y ago
      The difference is that Jewish is actually an ethnic group as well as a religious group. There is some overlap between them of course, but for example there are Asian Jews and Jewish Catholics. The Jewish ethnic group are people historically descended from the people of Eastern Europe and the Middle East who practiced ancient Judaism (the religion). That's why 23andme can identify someone as X% Jewish.
joemi 10y ago
I've been shipping over 1000 packages per month (mostly domestic, within US to within US, but probably about 10-15% of those are from the US to other countries) for the last several years. Always via USPS. The USPS loses a lot of mail, in my opinion... At least 1% though probably closer to 2 or 3%. But even worse, their delivery times can be _extremely_ erratic. Delays/losses vary _heavily_ depending on location, especially with international mail. So 178 items sounds like a ridiculously limited amount of shipments to consider. The Atheist post seems to imply that they only sent 1 package to Michigan. At best, on average, 178 shipments is a shade over 3 shipments per state. Hardly enough for good statistics, and definitely not enough to draw any strong correlations. Also, it's important to note that in the comments, Atheist mentions that they did not have tracking on their packages. In my experience, more people lie or are mistaken about their package delivery than packages actually being lost. Year after year, I'm continually surprised by how many people end up finding their packages after you tell them "According to the tracking number, it's been delivered. Could you check with anyone in you live with or share a building with who may have accepted it?" TLDR: As bad as the USPS is, 178 packages sent internationally without any tracking seems like _far_ too few to draw any correlations about wide spread religious bias in the USPS. Edit to add: Just to be clear, I'm not arguing that atheists aren't discriminated against in the US. (I'm pretty sure we're quite a few years away from even the possibility of a POTUS being an atheist.) I _am_ arguing that the post by Atheist (the company) doesn't indicate discrimination.
- scotty79 10y ago
  Why would the packaging tape make recipient lie (or err) more about not recieving a package? And if there's no conceivable reason then why have you brought it up? I know your point is that USPS has high variance but I think statistical tests should account for this.
  - joemi 10y ago
    I definitely missed that each customer was sent one of each. Sorry. Really embarrassing considering it was first paragraph of the picture-y part.
- 10y ago
ramgorur 10y ago
it's completely understandable, especially for those missing cases, angel Gabriel took them by the lord's command. eat those stinky shoes, you atheist scums, none can escape the lord's wrath.
pipio21 10y ago
Oh, man!! you accuse other people of having prejudices about yourself while making prejudices yourself. Your control experiment was "we put labels and we did not put labels". That is a very weak one. People in customs anywhere are going to stop and look at anything out of the ordinary. That is their job because drugs, diamonds and so on use to be in out of the ordinary packages. We send 3d printer pieces around the world. We are part of an engineering NGO that promotes education using new technologies, specially in poor countries. At first almost anything we sent was stopped, opened and inspected(and delayed). Now everything goes smooth. Difference? We asked customs or people in other countries the actual reasons for being delivered late and the reasons made a lot of sense. Reasons like terrorism in Colombia for example. They also teach us ways to improve our packaging so next time we send it much better. Around the world there are different conventions for putting serializing address for example. You put it in wrong order and the postman will have serious problems. There is also people there(in customs or in the companies), when they know you it is way easier. Not because you are atheist or not, but because you can be a drug dealer and they could lose their job if they don't detect it. Seriously, you are not that important. They have bigger problems to worry about.
aikah 10y ago
No surprise, it's a well known fact that Americans in general despise atheists, left to right. No amount of PR bullshit will change that fact, US is a extremely religious country.

113 points by franze 10y ago

This post is from (2013) but I doubt there has been any change in the past 3 years. It is concerning that there is any difference at all in shipping times when tape with the word "atheist" on it is used. The difference was significant (p<0.001). I would love to see a similar study with a variety of packing tape ("Atheist", "Christian", "Muslim", etc).

Declanomous 10y ago
I'd be interested in trying "Happy Holidays" vs. "Merry Christmas". I assume this only happens with hand-sorted mail as well. I'd be interested in breaking it down by zip code too. I have a related anecdote. I live in Chicago, which has the slowest mail delivery in the country. I've lived in a number of zip codes, and I've never found the mail to get lost, merely delayed. However, I recently moved to a new place, and I've started losing mail. I've generally liked my mail people, but I'm convinced that the mail people at my new place are lazy. I've had issues with mail getting rained on because they never shut the top of the mailbox, I've had mail go missing. They have "signed" for certified mail for me. They'll leave a package on my steps, but they won't close the gate on the way out. They ignore the name printed on the mailbox and deliver mail for old tenants, despite mail regulations forbidding them to do so. Plus, I've tried talking to my mailperson, and she is always on the phone and refuses to talk to me. I know delivering mail isn't the most glamorous job, but have some pride.
- acomjean 10y ago
  They're generally good and I like to use them to ship since they have keys to my building and can drop boxes in the lobby. However a few weeks ago they marked a package "delivered" when it wasn't (I got a text saying it was delivered which was nice). It came a 2 days later marked 3 minutes after the delivery was due. I figured it was stolen but the shipper indicated that this happens frequently and they wouldn't consider it missing for a couple days. A relative works for the postal service, its a good gig, good benefits etc.. but they have to realize that for packages at least, the competition is formidable.
- LeifCarrotson 10y ago
  >Plus, I've tried talking to my mailperson, and she is always on the phone and refuses to talk to me. As much as we like to try to fix problems systemically, and place blame or praise on organizations as a whole, an awful lot comes down to the bottom of the pyramid/the top of the tree. I would blame most of those complaints on the one person who actually brings the mail to your house when the giant machine spits it all out. I am fortunate to have a great relationship with our mail carrier. If you're reading this, Patricia, thank you!
  - Declanomous 10y ago
    > I am fortunate to have a great relationship with our mail carrier. In all fairness, this is the first time I've had problems with my mail carrier. Normally I've found my mail carriers friendly, helpful and conscientious. I appreciate how hard the job can be, especially in Chicago, where the weather is all over the place, and the traffic is a nightmare.
- int_19h 10y ago
  Post offices certainly vary widely in terms of quality of service. The recurring problem that we have is that the delivery person won't actually attempt to deliver, even if you're at home and the package requires signature - they don't even knock on the door, just leave a sticker outside saying that you weren't there to sign, so please go pick it up. I don't know if there's a good system in place to deal with it. So far, complaining, either directly to the supervisor over the phone and in person, or filing complaints on the USPS website, have resulted in no improvement. I think it's because they have a shortage of applicants for those jobs, and so are very reluctant to fire anyone; and reprimands just aren't working.
  - alasdair_ 10y ago
    I have a camera on my front door with a mobile app to view it. I recently had out mailman do exactly this (while I was home and only a few feet from the door). I had to chase him down and he told me flat out that he had knocked, waited and I wasn't home. I showed him the camera footage and I've never had a problem since (and I'd have weekly problems with this beforehand ).
Anechoic 10y ago
This post is from (2013) [..] The difference was significant (p<0.001) Just as an FYI, USPS closed and consulted a bunch of distribution centers from 2011 through early 2013. These closures were (according to postal employees I spoke with) the cause of lots of delivery problems. At that time, my business was shipping many hundreds of packages annually domestically and internationally and we would have problems with maybe 2 or 3 every year (which were promptly resolved by the USPS claims process). During the period of around 2012-2013, we were dealing with 3 or 4 delivery problems per month. Things have subsequently improved dramatically. There may very well have been a discrimination problem (it certainly doesn't seem random and I can imagine a scenario where consolidating a distribution center might allow an employee to have a greater affect at disrupting traffic) but I just want to point out that was an especially problematic time for USPS so I wouldn't be surprised if it was a symptom of another problem.
LeifCarrotson 10y ago
I would like to see a study with a comparison with non-religious, ostensibly non-discriminatory words. How about just "Shoes"? Then compare that to a few other packages. One plain brown cardboard with clear tape and a large, crisp shipping label. I expect that will sail straight through all the automatic sorters. A few with various words (some, perhaps, more likely to be found offensive than "atheist", some less) on tape in high-contrast black and white. In addition to "Shoes", you could write "Merry Christmas" (in mid-January, of course), "Green", "Cleveland" (note: the box doesn't need to go to Cleveland), "Dildos", "FedEx" (sending the box by USPS, of course), "Kittens", "Kidneys" (the box shouldn't contain kittens or kidneys, just have the word on it). Then one with a complete coverage of wrapping paper with a variety of words, fonts, barcodes, receipts, invoices, and colors all over the box, and a little smudged shipping label on the bottom of the box. It would be like a Where's Waldo for postal workers: Find the one complete shipping label. See how long that takes to get through!
- tropo 10y ago
  Some more: Anthrax, Plutonium, Guns, Gasoline, Cocaine, Cobras, Ivory
- ourmandave 10y ago
  Like when Puzzle Magazine would feature envelopes from letters they received where their address was in the form of a puzzle for the post office to solve.
ourmandave 10y ago
In Chicago, maybe 10 years ago, they found a warehouse full of undelivered mail that the mailman was just dumping there. And recently, 22,000 pcs were not delivered because the mailman was unhappy about a transfer or something. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/mail-carrier-charged-not-delivering-22-000-items-article-1.2302367 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/mail-carrier-charged-n...
- Shivetya 10y ago
  well what most people don't realize is that unless its first class it really never has to get there. My mother used to publish a dog breed magazine for the national club. So they used the special rates reserved for magazines and such. there were times where the bins she brought to the PO were left on the loading docks. Once an entire bin was waterlogged so the PO just tossed it. Let alone no guarantee what state the magazines arrive in, hence its why you find some plastic wrapped or with a brown paper wrapper. even your local distribution centers and individual post offices can affect the timeliness of deliveries. even most two day mail is not really a guarantee. You are more likely to get an Amazon package delivered by the PO on a Sunday than two day priority or similar.
tjr 10y ago
Not directly related, but I am reminded of this fun classic: http://www.improbable.com/airchives/paperair/volume6/v6i4/postal-6-4.html http://www.improbable.com/airchives/paperair/volume6/v6i4/po...

silveira 10y ago

Although I agree with their conclusion, I'd like to see how it would go with other names rather than "atheist" as a group control to eliminate the possibility of a difference between branded and non-branded differences.

daveguy 10y ago
I agree. If you could add the same tape with different words it would eliminate the possibility that the worded tape was interfering with some auto-sort functionality.
- gregshap 10y ago
  also were the boxes otherwise identical? were the unbranded boxes obviously empty while the branded boxes always had shoes in them?
  - daveguy 10y ago
    From the article it looks like these were all regular shoe deliveries and they chose either to add the branded tape or leave it off. So from a weight/contents perspective there shouldn't have been much difference.
    - johnfactorial 10y ago
      The article does not say that. It says that every person was sent two packages.
      - jonsen 10y ago
        One shoe in each.
        rtkwe 10y ago
        Do they actually say that anywhere? It's a pretty logical way of doing it but it's still an assumption about a pretty important facet of the experiment.

dlbucci 10y ago

While this is an interesting story, and it's sad to see this sort of stuff happening, I'm kind of more focused on what makes a shoe atheist. Are holy shoes blessed in some manner, or are all shoes naturally religious and some process is applied to the atheist shoes to make them secular? Based on what I can tell from the site, atheist shoes really just need to say "I'm an atheist" on the sole, but I want to believe there's more than that, because what sad individuals are buying shoes just for that. (And if people only buy the shoes because of the style, why do the shoes need to have such sacrilegious soles?)

leereeves 10y ago
People buy clothes with religious, political, and identity writing all the time. Why would you call atheists "sad individuals" for doing the same?
- dlbucci 10y ago
  That's a fair point: I got a little too snarky at the end of my comment. I guess I just view 'atheism' more as a lack of religion, rather than a religious option along the lines of Christianity, Islam, etc. Along that logic, I don't feel like I'd ever wear/display symbols of my atheism, but I guess that shouldn't deter others from doing so.
  - mikeash 10y ago
    I don't get it either, but it's better than paying Nike for the privilege of wearing their advertising.
- sushid 10y ago
  As an agnostic, I wouldn't call them "sad," but it's like Neil deGrasse Tyson said. [0] It's fine to see people interested in golf congregating and talking about it, but it'd be stranger to see a bunch of anti-golfers congregating and talking about how they don't like to play golf. [0] https://twitter.com/jonathan_blow/status/273582094448476161 https://twitter.com/jonathan_blow/status/273582094448476161

leephillips 10y ago

The results are interesting. But as a godless guy, I don't get it. Why would I care about the theological stance of the people who make my shoes? Why would a shoemaker want to advertise its religion, or lack thereof, on its shipping boxes? We can't leave tribal politics out of shoes now, even?

andrewpe 10y ago
Sounds like people that buy these shoes are the people who want to be different and really stand out.
DINKDINK 10y ago
>I don't get it Let's say you're gay. You shoe maker belongs to the Mormon Church. When you purchase shoes from her, 10% of her income typically goes to the church[1]. The Mormon Church then uses that money to lobby the government to deny your civil rights, and succeeds[2]. It's not rational to contribute to your own oppression. That's why some people don't want to "leave tribal politics out of shoes". You're asking someone to leave politics out of politics. [1] https://www.mormon.org/faq/church-tithing https://www.mormon.org/faq/church-tithing [2] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/15/us/politics/15marriage.html http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/15/us/politics/15marriage.htm...
- abandonliberty 10y ago
  I suspect what you fund has an impact similar to what you vote. Like movies? Ethical companies? Give them money. Dislike what a corporation is doing or donates to? Don't give them money. I'm just about to attempt switching my soap supply to Dr. Bronners. Family owned business with a 5X earning cap from the lowest paid employee to the CEO. They do some neat stuff: http://www.triplepundit.com/2016/09/dr-bronners-says-bye-bye-to-organic-trade-association/ http://www.triplepundit.com/2016/09/dr-bronners-says-bye-bye...
  - nerdponx 10y ago
    I used their soap for years. As much as I like the company and what they do, I just don't like their soap for saily use. It's great for camping trips, though.

davidgerard 10y ago

(2013)

Animats 10y ago

(2013), please.

zaidf 10y ago

They only state the average when they should also state the median along with the entire data set. Let's say they sent 10 shoes of each type. Nine shoes of each type took exactly the same time. But one pair of Atheist shoe was delayed by 100 days. Now, on average, atheist shoes take 10 days longer to arrive because one of the pairs took 100 days longer to arrive.

tokai 10y ago

I wonder if printing a tv on the box would help. Or maybe it only works for large boxes.

FuckOffNeemo 10y ago
Are you referring to the article where a Bicycle manufacturer put "Television" on the box and saw a considerable change in the number of damaged goods received by the customers? :D

petre 10y ago

Just use non branded tape. Problem solved.

jasonkostempski 10y ago
A better solution would be to shut down the USPS.
- joemi 10y ago
  How is that a solution?
  - mcguire 10y ago
    Nothing is expected to get through; nothing gets through. No problem.
gnashville 10y ago
Just use coloreds only drinking fountains. Problem solved.
appleflaxen 10y ago
Indeed, that's exactly what the post says they did.

desdiv 10y ago

The Pew Research Center surveyed 3,217 randomly selected U.S. adults[0] and asked them to rate how positively they viewed each belief group. Here's the ranking from most positive to least positive: 1. Jews 2. Catholics 3. Evangelical Christians 4. Buddhists 5. Hindus 6. Mormons 7. Atheists 8. Muslims Surprisingly (at least to me), Atheists is second to last. Interestingly enough, the low ranking of Atheists persists across party lines. Both Republicans and Democrats rank Atheists only slightly higher than Muslims, and by similar margins too: 2 points in the former and 1 point in the latter. [0] http://www.pewforum.org/2014/07/16/how-americans-feel-about-religious-groups/ http://www.pewforum.org/2014/07/16/how-americans-feel-about-...

golergka 10y ago
Since they didn't seem to specify religious jews, their survey is just mixing ethnic with belief group, which doesn't make much sense.
- dsr_ 10y ago
  They are measuring perceptions, which are all inside people's heads. If they had included "lizard people" and "foreigners" on the survey, that would also be a valid way of measuring perceptions even though one group represents 7 billion people and the other zero.
- irrational 10y ago
  Isn't this the case with most of the groups? I would imagine even atheist Jews have been to synagogue at least a few times. I would consider Catholics who only go to Easter and Christmas mass to not be religious.
  - jedberg 10y ago
    The difference is that Jewish is actually an ethnic group as well as a religious group. There is some overlap between them of course, but for example there are Asian Jews and Jewish Catholics. The Jewish ethnic group are people historically descended from the people of Eastern Europe and the Middle East who practiced ancient Judaism (the religion). That's why 23andme can identify someone as X% Jewish.

joemi 10y ago

I've been shipping over 1000 packages per month (mostly domestic, within US to within US, but probably about 10-15% of those are from the US to other countries) for the last several years. Always via USPS. The USPS loses a lot of mail, in my opinion... At least 1% though probably closer to 2 or 3%. But even worse, their delivery times can be _extremely_ erratic. Delays/losses vary _heavily_ depending on location, especially with international mail. So 178 items sounds like a ridiculously limited amount of shipments to consider. The Atheist post seems to imply that they only sent 1 package to Michigan. At best, on average, 178 shipments is a shade over 3 shipments per state. Hardly enough for good statistics, and definitely not enough to draw any strong correlations. Also, it's important to note that in the comments, Atheist mentions that they did not have tracking on their packages. In my experience, more people lie or are mistaken about their package delivery than packages actually being lost. Year after year, I'm continually surprised by how many people end up finding their packages after you tell them "According to the tracking number, it's been delivered. Could you check with anyone in you live with or share a building with who may have accepted it?" TLDR: As bad as the USPS is, 178 packages sent internationally without any tracking seems like _far_ too few to draw any correlations about wide spread religious bias in the USPS. Edit to add: Just to be clear, I'm not arguing that atheists aren't discriminated against in the US. (I'm pretty sure we're quite a few years away from even the possibility of a POTUS being an atheist.) I _am_ arguing that the post by Atheist (the company) doesn't indicate discrimination.

scotty79 10y ago
Why would the packaging tape make recipient lie (or err) more about not recieving a package? And if there's no conceivable reason then why have you brought it up? I know your point is that USPS has high variance but I think statistical tests should account for this.
- joemi 10y ago
  I definitely missed that each customer was sent one of each. Sorry. Really embarrassing considering it was first paragraph of the picture-y part.
10y ago

ramgorur 10y ago

it's completely understandable, especially for those missing cases, angel Gabriel took them by the lord's command. eat those stinky shoes, you atheist scums, none can escape the lord's wrath.

pipio21 10y ago

Oh, man!! you accuse other people of having prejudices about yourself while making prejudices yourself. Your control experiment was "we put labels and we did not put labels". That is a very weak one. People in customs anywhere are going to stop and look at anything out of the ordinary. That is their job because drugs, diamonds and so on use to be in out of the ordinary packages. We send 3d printer pieces around the world. We are part of an engineering NGO that promotes education using new technologies, specially in poor countries. At first almost anything we sent was stopped, opened and inspected(and delayed). Now everything goes smooth. Difference? We asked customs or people in other countries the actual reasons for being delivered late and the reasons made a lot of sense. Reasons like terrorism in Colombia for example. They also teach us ways to improve our packaging so next time we send it much better. Around the world there are different conventions for putting serializing address for example. You put it in wrong order and the postman will have serious problems. There is also people there(in customs or in the companies), when they know you it is way easier. Not because you are atheist or not, but because you can be a drug dealer and they could lose their job if they don't detect it. Seriously, you are not that important. They have bigger problems to worry about.

aikah 10y ago

No surprise, it's a well known fact that Americans in general despise atheists, left to right. No amount of PR bullshit will change that fact, US is a extremely religious country.