Bluebirds tend to prefer the company of other bluebirds

You mean, they don't create fictional 'races' of bluebirds and then spread hate about each other, including by asserting it's somehow inevitable? Oh, to be a bluebird rather than a Hacker News reader today.

Bluebirds tend to prefer the company of other bluebirds.

Lions prefer lions. Hyenas prefer hyenas. They coexist. But they prefer the company of their own. And that's ok. It is nature.

No need to add complexity. It's nature. Always has been. Always will be.

As far as real world examples, there does seem to be evidence of an unfortunate “safe city” axis requiring either racial/cultural homogeneity or extremely heavy handed authoritarianism.

Ironically, America in the 90s and early 2000s seemed to be approaching a sweet spot where cultural expectations and “mild” authoritarian policing were successful at crushing urban crime rates. This whole thread is full of longtime West Coasters bemoaning how much better city life was in “the good old days” of 10-15 years ago. Odd how there’s zero political will to simply go back to what worked.

So you point out that it doesn’t match your priors and double down on not exploring whether your priors are correct. I find it more useful to be curious whether the parent’s stats are correct.

Also worth pointing out that homogeneity isn’t only along an axis of race. Example: There are plenty of Mexican Americans who are extremely racist towards newer Mexican immigrants to their neighborhoods. LATimes has done several pieces about this dynamic. People will always find reasons to put other people in categories.

Also worth pointing out that the society in Japan is more overtly racist towards outsiders of any race. My source is a life-long friend (white American living in Japan for 15+ years) who overheard lots of conversations when the locals think he doesn’t understand their words.

America has been a “melting pot” for a while, so we have moved our racial/homogeneity issues at least one layer below polite discussion. Most Americans will put up a façade about not being racist, but don’t actually put any effort to align their behaviors.

>America has been a “melting pot” for a while, so we have moved our racial/homogeneity issues at least one layer below polite discussion

Sadly, I think identity politics has tossed the melting pot ideals aside. It encourages zero sum thinking where different groups are enemies and relative sucess is what matters. This means pulling others down is just important than lifting people up. Unfortionatly, it is easier to pull people down than lift them up.

Crab bucket mentality in practice.

Racism hasn't damaged melting pot ideals? It's really hard to overlook centuries of it, and the widespread increase in overt racism in the last 7 years - including on Hacker News.

I suppose it has, although I do wonder why now. It seemed like the ideal was strong enough to stand up before the civil rights movement.

My theory racism and identity politics have a positive feedback relationship. That is to say identity politics is counterproductive at bringing about a less biased society.

There are plenty of people who hate other people for various reasons. We have a hot war with hundreds of thousands of people right in now in Europe, without any racial component involved. I fail to see how this provides any justification for racism though.

Yes, Japan is a very high-conforming and ethnically homogeneous society. It is also a low-crime society. However, to derive just from that that absence of racial homogeneity alone leads to high crime makes no more sense than claiming that not using logographic scripts leads to violence - since Asian society are generally less violent than, for example, the US. You need to do much more work than just picking one difference and attribute everything to it.

Perhaps "Japan is one of the most culturally homogenous countries on earth" would have been more helpful? It wouldn't surprise me if that was the intent of the comment either. The way people discuss and conceptualize "race" and "culture" is quite complicated. They are often muddled together in a way that can be hard to untangle.

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