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How did you manage to deduce that from his statement? As a statistician, it seems like the obvious issue is that if the US is obviously different from other co

How did you manage to deduce that from his statement? As a statistician, it seems like the obvious issue is that if the US is obviously different from other countries (having a large minority population that disproportionally commits crimes), then its crime rates cannot be compared with other nations without taking this into account. You have precisely demonstrated the bias that I referred to earlier. You assume that Heston is saying something that he is not (that Blacks are more prone to crime, genetically, rather than the simple fact that they commit more crime), because Heston is not qualified to speak on these issues. Unless you have some other reason to believe this about Heston, in which case please elaborate.

mikeash 13y ago
I have a few reasons for saying what I said. First, my personal experience when discussing crime in America is that "demographics" is always a code word for "black people are inferior and it's unfortunate that we have so many of them". Although looking up the actual quote, it was "mixed ethnicity." I think that would fall into the same category. Second, Heston was at the time a conservative Republican and gun nut, both groups which heavily lean towards subtle racism. Finally, Heston himself has a history of subtle racism. In his autobiography, he states his dislike of the term "Native American" and claims that he himself is one because he was born here. He made statements about a "culture war" in which WASPs are being oppressed, which I find to be racist as it completely ignores the massive advantages that white people still have in American society, and generally tends to be slightly-veiled pining for the good old days when minorities knew their place. He said, "Why is 'Hispanic Pride' or 'Black Pride' a good thing, while 'White Pride' conjures shaven heads and white hoods?" Either he was very, very, very stupid and doesn't understand why generations of KKKers murdering minorities in the name of "White Pride" might give that term a certain stigma, or he thinks that minorities should just ignore systematic oppression and let white people keep on enjoying their advantageous position.
- yetanotherphd 13y ago
  What you are saying is not really that different from my original point. I claimed that ordinary people were not allowed to reference certain facts, because they had not proven that they would interpret these facts in the right way. E.g. an ordinary person cannot say that Black people commit more crime, because they cannot be relied on to believe that the cause of this is not, for example, genetic. You on the other hand think that it is reasonable to extrapolate from things people say (e.g. crime rates are due to the America's "mixed ethnicity") from things that you imagine that they think, provided that you know that person is a conservative. In both cases, the problem with this reasoning is that we think better of people who have wrong opinions, which sets up some perverse incentives. While the particular facts that a person chooses to focus on do indeed say a lot about their political beliefs, we should only discourage people from saying things that are wrong.

mikeash 13y ago

I have a few reasons for saying what I said. First, my personal experience when discussing crime in America is that "demographics" is always a code word for "black people are inferior and it's unfortunate that we have so many of them". Although looking up the actual quote, it was "mixed ethnicity." I think that would fall into the same category. Second, Heston was at the time a conservative Republican and gun nut, both groups which heavily lean towards subtle racism. Finally, Heston himself has a history of subtle racism. In his autobiography, he states his dislike of the term "Native American" and claims that he himself is one because he was born here. He made statements about a "culture war" in which WASPs are being oppressed, which I find to be racist as it completely ignores the massive advantages that white people still have in American society, and generally tends to be slightly-veiled pining for the good old days when minorities knew their place. He said, "Why is 'Hispanic Pride' or 'Black Pride' a good thing, while 'White Pride' conjures shaven heads and white hoods?" Either he was very, very, very stupid and doesn't understand why generations of KKKers murdering minorities in the name of "White Pride" might give that term a certain stigma, or he thinks that minorities should just ignore systematic oppression and let white people keep on enjoying their advantageous position.

yetanotherphd 13y ago
What you are saying is not really that different from my original point. I claimed that ordinary people were not allowed to reference certain facts, because they had not proven that they would interpret these facts in the right way. E.g. an ordinary person cannot say that Black people commit more crime, because they cannot be relied on to believe that the cause of this is not, for example, genetic. You on the other hand think that it is reasonable to extrapolate from things people say (e.g. crime rates are due to the America's "mixed ethnicity") from things that you imagine that they think, provided that you know that person is a conservative. In both cases, the problem with this reasoning is that we think better of people who have wrong opinions, which sets up some perverse incentives. While the particular facts that a person chooses to focus on do indeed say a lot about their political beliefs, we should only discourage people from saying things that are wrong.