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You think that it was OK for Southern businesses to ban blacks during the Jim Crow era? After all, they were likely to have less money and thus be less profitab
by woah 9y ago
You think that it was OK for Southern businesses to ban blacks during the Jim Crow era? After all, they were likely to have less money and thus be less profitable customers.
Your statement implies that you would support this.
These businesses were using mental models that had a high predictive value. Do you feel that it was worth it to "sacrifice this accuracy" with civil rights laws?
- klipt 9y ago> After all, they were likely to have less money and thus be less profitable customers. By that logic, there'd be no business catering to poor people at all.
- Afforess 9y agoCorrect. Many businesses ignore the poor, explicitly or implicitly. Luxury apartment price rates are often high, not because the services they offer are valuable, but because high prices exclude the classes their clientele want to avoid. Alternatively, try walking into a Nordstrom's with obviously dirty clothes and see how the staff treat you. The businesses that do cater to the poor classes exploit them. See fast food restaurants, payday loan lenders, casinos, etc. None of these businesses exist to improve people's lives, but exploit a weakness at a particular moment.
- woah 9y agoHuh? You've somehow interpreted that to mean that no business would serve a poor person ever? That doesn't make any sense, and isn't what I said. Let's try again: If there is a business that is at capacity, is it appropriate for it to use racial criteria that may have some ability to predict how much a person will spend, if this increases profitability? Is not doing this "erasing inconvenient facts"?
- perl4ever 9y ago"Jim Crow" referred to laws, not just spontaneous capitalist behavior, didn't it?
- UncleMeat 9y agoBoth, to a degree. Massive resistance maintained segregation through private business.
- perl4ever 9y agoYou seem to be identifying capitalists with their customers and community in general. That is not generally accepted as self-evident, and in particular seems to clash with what I was replying to. The context is important.
- gowld 9y agoThe laws were part of much much larger cultural context. Racist laws weren't imposed from authoritarians. Some intro reading for the tip of the iceberg: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockbusting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockbusting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montgomery_bus_boycott https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montgomery_bus_boycott https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sit-in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sit-in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Negro_Motorist_Green_Book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Negro_Motorist_Green_Book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_United_States
- perl4ever 9y agoI'm not sure how a law can be imposed other than by authoritarians. Laws are formal descriptions of how authorities operate, no? Also, you seem to be implying capitalists aren't authoritarians. But that certainly isn't self-evident in the context of what I replied to. Context isn't something you impose in the middle of a conversation; it's something you should evaluate before jumping in.
- landryraccoon 9y agoI don't know why you're being downvoted. You're absolutely right. If (unsophisticated) AIs were in charge, the civil rights movement might never have happened. Black Americans were the victims of institutionalized racism. That racism was self reinforcing: Society did not support the education of blacks, which caused them to be uneducated, which reinforced the stereotype that they were stupid, therefore making it obvious that educating them is pointless, which caused society to not support the education of blacks. How would an AI controlled system reason to understand that the rules of society itself are creating the conditions of inequality? Will it merely strengthen positive feedback loops, reinforcing stereotypes and preventing reform?