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Comment by majormajor | Hacker News Reader

The "but what about these stats" question has been asked a million times. Any population-level stats for crime rate, income, education, etc, are affected by unequal starting positions, and in the US those unequal starting positions were enforced by racism in leadership for decades. And in some places still are.

You can't punch someone constantly until they're covered in bruises and then say "look, they aren't in pain because of anything bad anyone did, they just have more bruises."

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> The "but what about these stats" question has been asked a million times. Any population-level stats for crime rate, income, education, etc, are affected by unequal starting positions, and in the US those unequal starting positions were enforced by racism in leadership for decades. And in some places still are.

Agreed, but frontend disparities are an entirely different cause than the "police are racist thus more black people are killed by police" argument that conservatives (and others) are pushing back against. Notably, a hypothetical police force that is perfectly unbiased and which never ever uses force inappropriately would still kill more blacks than whites for the simple fact that, provided that blacks commit more crimes (even though the reason blacks commit more crimes is a history of systemic racism).

racial comments from throwaway accounts really ought to be disallowed. I recommend well-meaning people just flag and move on.

It's just a username. I'm probably every bit as active on this forum as you are. Is there something in this thread that makes you think I'm posting in bad faith?

Well. Your username didn't help for a start!

EDIT - in hindsight would you like to change your username (leaving aside whether that's even possible or allowed)?

Genuinely curious.

I don’t feel super strongly, but I kind of like that people don’t know which “throwaway” I am. They don’t recognize my username from prior conversations, so they’re less likely to think, “Oh that guy agreed with me last time, I’ll give him an upvote or an agreeable comment” or the inverse. People are more likely to consider my arguments on merit, the GP notwithstanding.

Despite the account name, that particular user has been here for over three years, and has 3900 karma. They're not just some drive-by troller.

Also, you should judge their comments by the comments, not by the username. Those were some fairly thoughtful comments, even if you don't agree with them.

> Also, you should judge their comments by the comments, not by the username.

Partly yes and partly no. I spotted what appeared to be a throwaway. That led me to believe the poster had less "skin in the game" and that influenced me to some degree. Was that unreasonable?

No, of course it wasn't. If you can't put your internet handle behind your thoughts, it doesn't say much for your argument. Period.

"To some degree"? Surely. It could have influenced you to spend a few seconds checking whether the account was a throwaway. I think that would have been entirely reasonable.

But it didn't influence you "to some degree". We can be more specific than that. It influenced you to accuse the account of being a throwaway without spending a few seconds to check.

I do think that was mildly unreasonable. Not super unreasonable, but mildly.

Welp, on a second look it turns out it wasn't you who made that accusation. I, uh, could probably have spent a few seconds checking that.

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