4 ms·

Red and Gold are the Chinese lucky colors. India values gold disproportionately as well. Those are such well known facts, maybe the authors didn't think they

Red and Gold are the Chinese lucky colors. India values gold disproportionately as well. Those are such well known facts, maybe the authors didn't think they needed to explain them https://www.google.com/search?q=gold%20in%20asian%20culture https://www.google.com/search?q=gold%20in%20asian%20culture http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Importance-of-Gold-in-Chinese-Culture&id=4126178 http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Importance-of-Gold-in-Chinese-... http://heryyansen.hubpages.com/hub/The-significance-of-the-colors-red--gold-in-Chinese-culture http://heryyansen.hubpages.com/hub/The-significance-of-the-c... In India, gold is usually part of dowrys. (I read a great National Geographic article which I can't find online) Edit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6431446 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6431446 and the sibling comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6431521 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6431521

mikeash 13y ago
Which of these is supposed to support the idea that it's disproportionate? Of course they love gold. Everybody loves gold. Americans are going crazy over the gold iPhone too. But nobody's talking about that, because they'd rather talk about Asians. If it can be demonstrated that cultural preferences have translated into a disparate demand for gold iPhones in Asian countries, then and only then can this claim be made with a straight face. As it stands, it's just uninformed discussion about people who are "different".
- tokenizer 13y ago
  > Americans are going crazy over the gold iPhone too. That's racist! ^ This is what you sound like ITT...
  - mikeash 13y ago
    What's your point?
    - tokenizer 13y ago
      That you're just making threads toxic with your white knight attitudes. Saying that BI is racist because they generalize the Asian market is what's wrong with the world. Not only do you generalize an entire continent by reducing it to race (racist against all Asian races?), but you then go on about how they can't generalize. Almost all markets generalize. They need to. It's how you do business. If target age 24-32 female, white, etc... Stop being such a white knight and attempt to read the article and bring valid points up for discussion instead of derailing it and wasting many a programmers time.
      - mikeash 13y ago
        "White knight"? Sure, because I couldn't possibly be directly affected by issues like these. Until and unless the assertion is actually supported, it's racist BS. I read the article. It completely fails to support its assertions. It talks about behavior the entire world appears to be engaging in, but singles out Asians for no reason. They're telling a story they've basically made up, and are taking advantage of the "mysterious other" to do so. This story would not pass muster if it were about black people. The author would get run out of town! I believe that my points are perfectly valid. There's been a whole slew of articles about "Asians love gold" with absolutely no data to back them up, which are clearly based on a racist narrative rather than anything rational. How is that invalid? "Wasting many a programmer's time"? That's hilarious. Even if the story is completely true, it's a waste of time to read and to comment about. Personally, I think pointing out how casual racism is tolerated and ignored in certain situations is quite a bit more useful than the other comments on this article.
        jiggy2011 13y ago
        They're talking about geographical markets, not categories of people. Saying "X is popular in africa" would not be racist either.
        tokenizer 13y ago
        Thanks for the ray of logic. Personally, I find it more offensive when people get offended by non offensive things than by ignorant generalizations, like grouping all Asians into a race, by grouping all black people into a culture, by mixing up culture and race (this one is tricky however), etc..

mikeash 13y ago

Which of these is supposed to support the idea that it's disproportionate? Of course they love gold. Everybody loves gold. Americans are going crazy over the gold iPhone too. But nobody's talking about that, because they'd rather talk about Asians. If it can be demonstrated that cultural preferences have translated into a disparate demand for gold iPhones in Asian countries, then and only then can this claim be made with a straight face. As it stands, it's just uninformed discussion about people who are "different".

tokenizer 13y ago
> Americans are going crazy over the gold iPhone too. That's racist! ^ This is what you sound like ITT...
- mikeash 13y ago
  What's your point?
  - tokenizer 13y ago
    That you're just making threads toxic with your white knight attitudes. Saying that BI is racist because they generalize the Asian market is what's wrong with the world. Not only do you generalize an entire continent by reducing it to race (racist against all Asian races?), but you then go on about how they can't generalize. Almost all markets generalize. They need to. It's how you do business. If target age 24-32 female, white, etc... Stop being such a white knight and attempt to read the article and bring valid points up for discussion instead of derailing it and wasting many a programmers time.
    - mikeash 13y ago
      "White knight"? Sure, because I couldn't possibly be directly affected by issues like these. Until and unless the assertion is actually supported, it's racist BS. I read the article. It completely fails to support its assertions. It talks about behavior the entire world appears to be engaging in, but singles out Asians for no reason. They're telling a story they've basically made up, and are taking advantage of the "mysterious other" to do so. This story would not pass muster if it were about black people. The author would get run out of town! I believe that my points are perfectly valid. There's been a whole slew of articles about "Asians love gold" with absolutely no data to back them up, which are clearly based on a racist narrative rather than anything rational. How is that invalid? "Wasting many a programmer's time"? That's hilarious. Even if the story is completely true, it's a waste of time to read and to comment about. Personally, I think pointing out how casual racism is tolerated and ignored in certain situations is quite a bit more useful than the other comments on this article.
      - jiggy2011 13y ago
        They're talking about geographical markets, not categories of people. Saying "X is popular in africa" would not be racist either.
        tokenizer 13y ago
        Thanks for the ray of logic. Personally, I find it more offensive when people get offended by non offensive things than by ignorant generalizations, like grouping all Asians into a race, by grouping all black people into a culture, by mixing up culture and race (this one is tricky however), etc..