Or perhaps those doing the voting simply don't share that experience?

Race is so strongly correlated among friends (in the US, anyway) that it's unbelievable that people won't have observed this.[0] Average demographics:

* White Americans: 91% of social network are white; 8% black.

* Black Americans: 83% of social network are black; 1% white.

[0] https://www.prri.org/research/poll-race-religion-politics-am...

Some of that is normal population percentages - expected with random friends. Self-reported 'black' citizens are around 1-in-10 across the US.

And in Silicon Valley its different - the mix of international people of high education and achievement make it a skewed sample.

The vast majority of programming jobs in the US are not in Silicon Valley, though. It's a lot more homogenous outside the major cosmopolitan cities.

Not everyone visiting HN is from the USA.

You're right I should have alluded to that as well. But my point was maybe it wasn't worthy of a downvote is all.