5 ms·

Now correct for socio-economic status and watch those racial disparities almost disappear.

alchemist1e9 2y ago
You sure about that almost part? I don’t really know but I want to make a different point. Stop collecting race and ethnicity data! It’s really that easy. France long ago outlawed the very collection of such information. Why? because use socioeconomic analysis and variables that exclude race to have compassionate policies that treat all humans equally. Once you inject race and ethnicity into policies it does nothing but harm, it either provides excuses or fodder for racists, just outlaw the collecting of that information, France has for a long long time. Collecting anything else, any other socioeconomic variable is fine and can be used to create policy without such negative consequences.
- cgannett 2y ago
  Its almost as if the policies produced by racist conclusions create the conditions that perpetuate the misleading data. /s Humans are an "INBRED" species. By this I mean we have little genetic diversity compared to most other species on the planet. Race isn't even real genetically speaking. It is real in a socioeconomic sense because people believe its real and that has real consequences. But outside of human belief and behavior, race is a load of imaginary divisions.
  - packetlost 2y ago
    I have zero evidence to support this, but I would be more inclined to believe that (sub) cultural environments impact these stats way more than genetics. None of the data or even logical reasoning supports a genetic component.
  - slibhb 2y ago
    > Race isn't even real genetically speaking If you map every human genome in some space, there will be clusters. This is race. You can argue that there are no clear boundaries between clusters but that's true for everything. You can use that argument to say there's no difference between trees and bushes (and so on, applied to every distinction).
    - Chabsff 2y ago
      Genetic clustering segregates people into a different set of groups than the ones that are involved in discussions such as this one. It's a different definition of "race".
    - mcphage 2y ago
      > If you map every human genome in some space, there will be clusters. This is race. There isn't a reason to think that those clusters would in any way map on to how we culturally, currently talk about race. Nor is there a single, well-defined way to cluster human genomes plotted in some very high dimensional space. > You can use that argument to say there's no difference between trees and bushes That's actually a perfect example. We have a word in English—"tree"—that refers to a large number of different species of plant. And you could plot plant genomes, and do a cluster analysis on them. But there will be no cluster that corresponds to the english word "tree". Genetically, there isn't a single "tree" ancestor, that all trees descended from. Instead, what we call "tree" evolved repeatedly at different points in time, and so no matter how you cluster the genes, what we refer to as "tree" will always be spread out among different clusters.
      - slibhb 2y ago
        > There isn't a reason to think that those clusters would in any way map on to how we culturally, currently talk about race. Of course there is. However loosely, "cultural race" is linked to "genetic race". Regardless, the post I replied to said "Race isn't even real genetically speaking". > Nor is there a single, well-defined way to cluster human genomes plotted in some very high dimensional space. There's very clearly an simple way to talk about genetic differences between groups. I don't know if there's a "single, well-defined way" but there doesn't have to be. > That's actually a perfect example. We have a word in English—"tree"—that refers to a large number of different species of plant. And you could plot plant genomes, and do a cluster analysis on them. But there will be no cluster that corresponds to the english word "tree". Genetically, there isn't a single "tree" ancestor, that all trees descended from. Instead, what we call "tree" evolved repeatedly at different points in time, and so no matter how you cluster the genes, what we refer to as "tree" will always be spread out among different clusters. The point I was making with the trees/bushes aside had nothing to do with whether we define trees genetically. It had to do with the fact that "fuzzy boundaries" or "lack of a single, well-defined boundary" isn't a good reason to discard a distinction. Moreover, humans only evolved once.
  - bitcharmer 2y ago
    > Race isn't even real genetically speaking I was expecting a flood of these types of comments but also "facts are racist" and "you can't be racist against white people" and I'm not disappointed. This and seeing the post flagged just speaks volumes about where HN is heading.
joey443 2y ago
[flagged]
- KittenInABox 2y ago
  So socioeconomic status doesn't apply but all the things we associate with socioeconomic status like segregated neighborhoods and underinvestment of communities do? Very confusing report.

You sure about that almost part? I don’t really know but I want to make a different point. Stop collecting race and ethnicity data! It’s really that easy. France long ago outlawed the very collection of such information. Why? because use socioeconomic analysis and variables that exclude race to have compassionate policies that treat all humans equally. Once you inject race and ethnicity into policies it does nothing but harm, it either provides excuses or fodder for racists, just outlaw the collecting of that information, France has for a long long time. Collecting anything else, any other socioeconomic variable is fine and can be used to create policy without such negative consequences.

cgannett 2y ago
Its almost as if the policies produced by racist conclusions create the conditions that perpetuate the misleading data. /s Humans are an "INBRED" species. By this I mean we have little genetic diversity compared to most other species on the planet. Race isn't even real genetically speaking. It is real in a socioeconomic sense because people believe its real and that has real consequences. But outside of human belief and behavior, race is a load of imaginary divisions.
- packetlost 2y ago
  I have zero evidence to support this, but I would be more inclined to believe that (sub) cultural environments impact these stats way more than genetics. None of the data or even logical reasoning supports a genetic component.
- slibhb 2y ago
  > Race isn't even real genetically speaking If you map every human genome in some space, there will be clusters. This is race. You can argue that there are no clear boundaries between clusters but that's true for everything. You can use that argument to say there's no difference between trees and bushes (and so on, applied to every distinction).
  - Chabsff 2y ago
    Genetic clustering segregates people into a different set of groups than the ones that are involved in discussions such as this one. It's a different definition of "race".
  - mcphage 2y ago
    > If you map every human genome in some space, there will be clusters. This is race. There isn't a reason to think that those clusters would in any way map on to how we culturally, currently talk about race. Nor is there a single, well-defined way to cluster human genomes plotted in some very high dimensional space. > You can use that argument to say there's no difference between trees and bushes That's actually a perfect example. We have a word in English—"tree"—that refers to a large number of different species of plant. And you could plot plant genomes, and do a cluster analysis on them. But there will be no cluster that corresponds to the english word "tree". Genetically, there isn't a single "tree" ancestor, that all trees descended from. Instead, what we call "tree" evolved repeatedly at different points in time, and so no matter how you cluster the genes, what we refer to as "tree" will always be spread out among different clusters.
    - slibhb 2y ago
      > There isn't a reason to think that those clusters would in any way map on to how we culturally, currently talk about race. Of course there is. However loosely, "cultural race" is linked to "genetic race". Regardless, the post I replied to said "Race isn't even real genetically speaking". > Nor is there a single, well-defined way to cluster human genomes plotted in some very high dimensional space. There's very clearly an simple way to talk about genetic differences between groups. I don't know if there's a "single, well-defined way" but there doesn't have to be. > That's actually a perfect example. We have a word in English—"tree"—that refers to a large number of different species of plant. And you could plot plant genomes, and do a cluster analysis on them. But there will be no cluster that corresponds to the english word "tree". Genetically, there isn't a single "tree" ancestor, that all trees descended from. Instead, what we call "tree" evolved repeatedly at different points in time, and so no matter how you cluster the genes, what we refer to as "tree" will always be spread out among different clusters. The point I was making with the trees/bushes aside had nothing to do with whether we define trees genetically. It had to do with the fact that "fuzzy boundaries" or "lack of a single, well-defined boundary" isn't a good reason to discard a distinction. Moreover, humans only evolved once.
- bitcharmer 2y ago
  > Race isn't even real genetically speaking I was expecting a flood of these types of comments but also "facts are racist" and "you can't be racist against white people" and I'm not disappointed. This and seeing the post flagged just speaks volumes about where HN is heading.

joey443 2y ago

[flagged]

KittenInABox 2y ago
So socioeconomic status doesn't apply but all the things we associate with socioeconomic status like segregated neighborhoods and underinvestment of communities do? Very confusing report.