I upvoted him because it's difficult to read what he wrote (and I routinely upvote grey comments). HN should decide whether a downvote means ‘I disagree’ or ‘this isn't worth reading’ — ‘I disagree therefore this isn't worth reading’ is incompatible with reasoned discussion.

It's one thing to have a different opinion - I often upvote people with whom I have a different opinion.

It's entirely another to make a claim about facts which is not supported - in this case by evidence that is not controversial.

It's simply not so that black people commit crimes in proportion with the representation in the criminal justice system. In fact, if poverty and geography are controlled for, ethnicity and race seem to be non-determiners of criminality.

This is explained, among many other places, here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kim-farbota/black-crime-rates-...

If you want to read a faded comment more easily, simply click on its timestamp. Please don't vote for that reason.

"Disagreeing" on facts is not compatible with reasoned discussion too, especially when one couches their opinion in such clearly unreasoned ways such as "go ahead and downvote me." This person knows that they're trolling, and does it anyway.

> I upvoted him because it's difficult to read what he wrote

Does this mean that you upvote greytext comments because it makes the text too difficult to read, and you find that upvoting such a comment not infrequently makes it easier for you to read it?

If yes, then you might be pleased to know that you can solve the contrast issue by selecting the text with your mouse or whatever other pointing device you use.

> HN should decide whether a downvote means ‘I disagree’ or ‘this isn't worth reading'

I can't speak for the community at large, but PG has condoned downvotes as a signal of disagreement.

Just hit ctrl-a.

Unfortunately, Hacker News has decided, and considers the censorship of comments for any reason at all (including no particular reason) to be not only compatible with, but vital to, reasoned discussion.

If you prefer to make your own decisions about what comments are worth reading, and use Firefox, here[0] is a userscript that will unfade them.

[0]https://gist.github.com/kennethrapp/5b5e413220afb93c9c93

Without providing a reference backing up your second sentence your claim is no more believable than the OP's.

The reason I mention it is that on average black people tend to be poorer and live in worse neighborhoods, and poor people in bad neighborhoods (of all races) tend to do more drugs. So my expectation would be black people tend to do more drugs than white people, but I still doubt it's enough of a difference to explain the difference in prison population.

http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-median-income-in-the-us...

Edit: Just to be clear before I'm downvoted into oblivion, I agree that the police and justice system are heavily biased against black people, I'm just not sure that sentence is true.

> poor people in bad neighborhoods (of all races) tend to do more drugs

This is not true. This matter has been thoroughly studied - have you a source to back up this claim?

Even though the drugs that are often consumed in poor neighborhoods are more likely to be criminalized, they are still used at comparable (and sometimes higher) rates in affluent neighborhoods (along with many other drugs in configurations that aren't prohibited).

I don't understand what you are asking me to source - you are the one making the claim.

Here's an easy read that lays this stuff out plainly (I already linked it from my other comment, below):

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kim-farbota/black-crime-rates-...

Correlations with race are highly suspect as well as self-reinforcing. I believe they should be abandoned because the damage they cause (by perpetuating a problem) may be greater than any possible benefit they provide.

Correlations with race are _facts_. Impartially collected data collated with robust statistical methods results in race falling out of the mix as an important correlate with all sorts of things; we then publish these correlations. Which part should we abandon? Impartial data collection? Robust statistics? Publication of the results? Are you suggesting that certain facts are too dangerous to know?

Correlations are never facts: they are interpretations of statistical measurements.

Correlations with eye color may also be _facts_, but this does not mean that they are important. And (hopefully by definition, since these are all just physical attributes), such correlations (as ridiculous as it sounds) should be no more, or less, important than racial, gender, age or other correlations. They're all just tools to oppress minorities and treat people as groups rather than individuals, which is good for a single brain trying to make sense of the world but bad for the individuals in the group.

Are you aware of the blue eyes/brown eyes experiment by teacher Jane Elliott? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Elliott

In any event, the problem, if any, is cultural and economic, NOT racial. I lived with a white Irish guy who grew up in an entirely black neighborhood, and if you closed your eyes you would have zero doubt he was black. One of the coolest (and most mind-blowing) guys I've ever met.

Have you read "Night" by Elie Wiesel? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_(book) The Nazis had plenty of correlations (I'm sorry, _FACTS_) to being Jewish, put it that way... and we all know how that ended up.

The only racial correlative that makes any sense to track, to me, is sickle-cell anemia, because it is helpful.

The problem is your brain (and my brain, and everyone's brain). As soon as you learn of an unfortunate correlation with race (or sex... did you know almost all rapists are men? Did you know most people interested in math and science are male? Etc.), you tend to lean on it too much to make judgments across ALL of the correlate, and therein lies the serious problem, because the outliers get _the_shaft_. The well-meaning black man experiences bias on a daily basis and gets worse jobs, the science-interested woman gets scoffed at and thus discouraged by male teachers, and the good gentleman never gets the girl because she crosses the street before actually meeting him out of fear.

So, fucking quit it, man. It's not helpful, in any way, shape, or form. It is disingenuous to all humans, to restrict a handful of them based on a correlation with a physical attribute. It's giving in to the laziness of your brain trying to oversimplify a complex world. It's actively evil, in fact, the equivalent of grouping all Koreans together and calling them "gooks" because the idea that you're shooting actual humans is just too distasteful a thought.

Don't you see? It's ENTIRELY easier for you to not hire an entirely qualified black man, if you're spouting this bullshit.