Nope, I did the oposite: I already had a generalisation in mind, and used it to try to understand the posting of one persone with a Chinese name.

Mind you, cultural traits of nations are a reality. I'm a Franco/Brazilian guy living in Vietnam, and I have seen it well enough. It doesn't mean that since you're from country X you will do Y, but it helps in understanding general behaviors.

edit: excellent book on this topic: When Cultures Collide, by Richard Lewis

http://www.amazon.com/When-Cultures-Collide-Richard-Lewis/dp...

>I already had a generalisation in mind, and used it to try to understand the posting of one persone with a Chinese name.

So you admit you are just fuelling your confirmation bias.

Forgive me if I'm about to mis-characterize you, but it sounds to me a lot like you've seen one question and decided on that basis that the person in question must be racist. Then it looks like you've cherry-picked what he said in explanation to confirm your own beliefs.

It looks to me like you are more guilty of the charge you are levelling than is the target of your accusations.

I might be wrong, but I'd appreciate a clarification.

First you thought that if one culture has a particular trait, then it implies another cannot share the same trait. Then you changed your position 180º to maintain the same basic premise i.e. that the GP thinks in logical fallacies.

But the GP is simply applying inductive reasoning. That isn't guaranteed to produce a correct outcome, but generalisations from large populations are not inherently flawed. It's indicative of mature thinking; generalisations are part of life and inductive reasoning is part of progress.

If you think the generalisation is deeply flawed, then make your case. That would be an honest discussion. As it is, you're just embarrassing yourself.

The key difference is that the GP asked questions based on a reasonable (although disputable) premise, while you are making conclusive statements based on simplistic (and flawed) logic.