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If they are a higher risk, it's just risk mitigation. If English teacher foreigners are 25x more likely to break their lease than a Japanese person making the s
by ericdykstra 8y ago
If they are a higher risk, it's just risk mitigation. If English teacher foreigners are 25x more likely to break their lease than a Japanese person making the same salary, then it's not worth renting to them for the same price.
You can call it whatever you want, but it's part of being a foreigner. If you don't like it, then stay in the country of your citizenship/heritage.
- yathern 8y agoIf in the US, a black man is 2X more likely to have committed a murder than a white man, is it not worth associating with them? This is absolutely the root of racism. Acting out of fear and self-preservation in a self-sustaining loop. The most insidious kind of racism to me isn't the mindless hatred that you sometimes see. It's the thoughtful, logical-sounding explanations that justify the behavior.
- toomuchtodo 8y agoInsurance companies charge men more than women for car insurance because the data shows they're more risky. Is that gender discrimination? There's a line somewhere between -isms and data driven decisions.
- moate 8y agoIs it gender discrimination: Yes. Is it legally protected gender discrimination: Also yes! Welcome to systemic problems! "Data Driven Decisions" are almost always about "this consumer/user group will probably do X". This is discriminatory against people in the group who don't/won't do X. Insurance companies (and college admissions boards, and police deciding where to send officers) do their best to try and remove broad categories (race, sex, etc) and tailor their data to a specific outcome, but that doesn't mean data can't be used to discriminate. "Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics" after all. There is a line, but it moves, and it's blurry, and sometimes it's not really a line but more of a circle. The point is, sometimes these things are bad/discriminatory but they're allowed to keep happening because that's how we've always done things or something to that effect. Dealing with people as groups is at the heart of -isms and stereotyping/discrimination. It's also how data/statistics tend to treat people.
- ericdykstra 8y agoI don’t really care who you choose to associate or not associate with regardless of the reason. If a landlord doesn’t want me because I’m a foreigner, that’s fine with me. If I ask why and he explains the risk profile, I can offer to pay for my 2-year lease up front to mitigate the risk.
- zhengyi13 8y agoYes, but you won't even get that opportunity. It's flat out not an option.
- ericdykstra 8y agoIf the landlord won’t take 2 years payment up front, that’s her prerogative and I’ll find a different place. I don’t understand the obsession with wanting to force people into economic transactions they don’t want to participate in. Fortunately for me, I’ve literally never been denied an apartment or a service or anything at all due to my race in Japan. But hypothetically, I wouldn’t have a problem with it. Discrimination laws are a violation of freedom of association and they increase the cost of transactions because people can’t state their prejudices publicly.
- oh_sigh 8y agoReplace foreigners with "black people"
- oh_sigh 8y agoI'll just note for posterity that I was arguing that these stereotypes about 'foreign people' are just as toxic as stereotypes about 'black people', not that I believe in these stereotypes about black people or foreigners.