Comment by cheesecracker | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cheesecracker | Hacker News Reader

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We were discussing good vs evil, though, not "strong light makes things white". Sure, there are probably some basic properties that make white a likely choice for purity - after all, you see dirt stains on white clothing much better than on dark clothing.

I don't know what you mean by "judging people by appearances", how is that relevant? I haven't read the bible, I personally ma not a Christian. I just grew up in Christian culture. And infosec presumably also predominantly developed in that culture, as it was dominating the Western world for wuite a while.

I don't think the bible says brides should be dressed in white, nevertheless it seems to be a common Christian tradition.

So no, it was not "picked out of nowhere", after all Christian religion was what has defined good and evil for hundreds of years now, in the world in which infosec developed.

Infosec developed globally but even just in the west, it's hard to call Finland and Denmark for example having a Christian culture. Even in the US, it's less than 50/50 chance even in the 80s to find and an infosec person raised in a Christian household.

The color white as I am sure you know is not a color, it's what you see when all spectrums of visible light are observed. Similarly, black is the lack of reflected light. You're typically at increased danger when you lack visible light, that said human skin is never actual pure black. To an European person it is relatively much darker but with african societies you will hear lighter skinned peoppe called white. Treating people worse because their relative skin tone approximates lack of light more than your skin is not unique to west european culture.

We are talking about hats, old western hats. It was never a religious thing. Saying religion has something to do with it even when similar patterns of color preference are seen throught most cultures makes me think you have an adverse bias against religion affecting your opinion. But to your point, this bias is not uncommon within infosec or western tech in general. I criticized you simply because I find the ignorance and justification of blaming entire groups even for other people's biases without a modicum of factuality was something I felt was unfair and to be honest less than what I expect of well studied intellectuals such as the typical HN user. That said, apologies for coming of snarky and judgy.

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