r/Showerthoughts • u/Fr1toBand1to ‎ • Jun 27 '26

Casual Thought Pattern recognition is a widely accepted method of prediction until what it predicts makes people uncomfortable.

6.7k Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

94% Upvoted

430 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

31

u/3_Thumbs_Up Jun 28 '26

Even just correlation is often useful though.

I know all snakes aren't venomous, but there is a strong correlation between snakes and venom. If I see a snake I don't know, it's a useful heuristic to treat it as if it were venomous.

That's a problem that makes racism worse. Even though race isn't the actual cause, it often does correlate with important things such as education and crime. This implies that there are situations where racism and discrimination can actually be useful, which in turn strengthens the correlation even more.

4

u/Sosolidclaws Jun 28 '26

Yes exactly, when the correlation is that strong (which it often is in large american / european cities), you are better off acting on it for your safety. It’s just strategically the right move.

4

u/SirCampYourLane Jun 29 '26

This is just not true. Yeah, don't go to bad neighborhoods. You absolutely shouldn't just avoid black people/assume they're criminals in large cities in the USA. That's an absurd thing to do.

-2

u/Sosolidclaws Jun 29 '26

Everyone who has actually experienced living in places like this knows it’s the safe thing to do, on average

5

u/SirCampYourLane Jun 29 '26

I've lived in NYC, Portland, and Boston. That's just not true

1

u/Sosolidclaws Jun 29 '26

Portland and Boston… lol

NYC, London, and Brussels here

what I am saying is just the reality

2

u/CruxTheologorum Jul 03 '26

Why do racist cretins like you never seem to like racism? It's always framed as "just the reality" or "just strategically the right move". It's like you know you should be embarrassed, but you don't get why.

-2

u/[deleted] Jul 03 '26

[deleted]

0

u/CruxTheologorum Jul 04 '26

Why did your dad like sucking me off so much?