Could Technology Create Modern-Day 'Leper Colonies'? 452
theodp writes "Back in the day, leprosy patients were stigmatized and shunned, quarantined from society in Leper Colonies. Those days may be long gone, but are our mapping, GPS, and social media technologies in effect helping to create modern-day 'Leper Colonies'? The recently-shuttered GhettoTracker.com (born again as Good Part of Town) generated cries of racism by inviting users to rate neighborhoods based on 'which parts of town are safe and which ones are ghetto, or unsafe'. Calling enough already with the avoid-the-ghetto apps, The Atlantic Cities' Emily Badger writes, "this idea toes a touchy line between a utilitarian application of open data and a sly wink toward people who just want to steer clear of 'those kinds of neighborhoods.'" The USPTO has already awarded avoid-crime-ridden-neighborhoods-like-the-plague patents to tech giants Microsoft, IBM, and Google. So, when it comes to navigational apps, where's the line between utility and racism? 'As mobile devices get smarter and more ubiquitous,' writes Svati Kirsten Narula, 'it is tempting to let technology make more and more decisions for us. But doing so will require us to sacrifice one of our favorite assumptions: that these tools are inherently logical and neutral...the motivations driving the algorithms may not match the motivations of those algorithms' users.' Indeed, the Google patent for Storing and Providing Routes proposes to 'remove streets from recommended directions if uploaded route information indicates that travelers seem to avoid the street.' Even faster routes that 'traverse one or more high crime areas,' Google reasons, 'may be less appealing to most travelers'."
no ghettos pre-internet? (Score:5, Insightful)
i've lived in NYC since the early 80's and if you were white you were dumb to go to the south bronx or harlem. especially at night. if your kid passes the gifted and talented test to get into accelerated kindergarten, the crappy schools will have spots open in their G&T classes because parents don't want their kids going there
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i've lived in NYC since the early 80's and if you were white you were dumb to go to the south bronx or harlem. especially at night.
I would like to point out that in any place that is poverty-stricken, not blending in is a big problem. A black guy wandering around a trailer park will attract just as much trouble from the people that live there. Race by itself isn't what causes this, it's the larger issue of tribalism. For example, if you're wearing a hoodie and carrying a bag of skittles and wandering through a gated community... you're also in it in a bad way. People need to be aware of their surroundings and know when they're not 'par
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I would like to point out that in any place that is poverty-stricken, not blending in is a big problem.
. . . um, any place in the world . . . or just in certain parts of the US . . . ?
I've been to some poverty-stricken parts of the world, where this has not been a problem.
Although, in the poverty-stricken parts of the US, the kids tend to be wearing $300 sneakers. In some rural parts of Turkey, the men wear traditional pants, which have crotches down around their ankles. That is some kind of mildly amusing comparison, for some reason.
Re:no ghettos pre-internet? (Score:5, Insightful)
Only if you start attacking the residents of that community when they ask you what you're doing there. If you're polite and deferential, you'll be fine, whether you're black or white.
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Don't forget the part about beating some guy's head into the pavement without checking to see if that guy was in a position to defend himself.
Don't forget the part about being followed at night by an aggressive stranger, who is considerably bigger than you and may be (and in this case, of course, was) armed. Also don't forget the part about how you live in a state where you have the legal right to stand your ground. But maybe you should forget that last part, because Terms And Conditions May Apply.
Re:no ghettos pre-internet? (Score:4, Insightful)
There's a difference between standing your ground and pounding someone's head into the ground.
Re: no ghettos pre-internet? (Score:2)
Didn't ZImmerman stand his ground by shooting Trayvon?
Re: no ghettos pre-internet? (Score:5, Informative)
The only eye-witness who saw the two of them before Zimmerman shot supported Zimmerman's version of events.
The only eye witness who contradicted Zimmerman's version of events got every relevant fact wrong. She claimed that Zimmerman shot Martin in the back and that there were three shots, neither of which were true.
Unfortunately, most people only heard the very biased fiction spread by Martin's family lawyer and various publicity hounds (i.e. Al Sharpton), and various distorted stories by mainstream media. This included NBC doctoring the Zimmerman phone call to make it sound as though he were spontaneously mentioning Martin's race, and ABC, which showed a badly degraded version of a video of Zimmerman, making it appear that he had no wounds.
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Also, the evidence supports Zimmerman's claim of being jumped. Besides the gunshot wound, Trayvon had no injuries besides bruised knuckles. Is that where we should suppose Zimmerman launched his sneak attack, butting his head into Trayvon's knuckles to bruise them?
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Re:no ghettos pre-internet? (Score:5, Informative)
We already get enough pointless 300-post threads with everyone arguing about how they apparently know exactly what happened that day every time there's an article related to the Martin shooting. Nobody's going to change their mind on the subject at this point. No need to try to turn unrelated threads into the same argument.
Re:no ghettos pre-internet? (Score:5, Insightful)
I have never understood how some areas can be so high crime that a white person walking late at night is 100% sure to get in trouble and the police can't do anything about it. The police can just have a white undercover agent walk at night and have a team stand by to arrest those that make trouble, rinse repeat until problem goes away. Perhaps I just don't understand the problem because I have never lived in a country with high crime.
Re:no ghettos pre-internet? (Score:5, Insightful)
That would be admitting that there's a problem, which seems to frequently be interpreted as racism. People need to get over the race thing and realize that there is a problem, but it's cultural rather than racial. Cultures can change, but people have to want to change them.
Re:no ghettos pre-internet? (Score:5, Insightful)
there is a problem, but it's cultural rather than racial.
Bingo. Nothing about being black means you must commit crime. The thug culture is the problem. And to get back to the original topic, a list of places to avoid would be just as useful to a black person who didn't want to be raped, robbed, and murdered as it would to a white.
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Said cop would stick out like a sore thumb, and not of the variety that's simply "this is obviously not you neighborhood." He'd stick out in the manner of "this is obviously a setup by the cops."
Huh? (Score:2, Insightful)
So how is this actually racism again?
In other news, companies simultaneously invent app than can predict areas of low income!
This is pure human nature. We try to isolate ourselves from anything that could negatively impact our standard of living, thereby reinforcing the things
that could cause it in the first place.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
It only racist when someone assumes there is a race factor associated with being a ghetto.
I've lived in Washington DC, and East Tennessee, Seattle - I've seen ghettos composed of every race there is.
So what does being a ghetto have to do with being racist?
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The people most likely to use this app are also those most nervous about crime, real and _imagined_.
If I was running it, I'd install user categorization. Classify the uses taste in neighborhoods and only report data from similar users, perhaps based on home zip code and local demographics. No benefit in cross reporting hipsters and suburban nervous mothers. They will both hate the others neighborhood.
I picked my neighborhood in large part because the lots are very large, no HOA and my neighbors like to
Americans and race; it's nuts (Score:3)
If all the neighborhoods where green people live.. (Score:4, Insightful)
have a higher crime rate and higher risk of $badthing, am I being racist against green people? I don't think so. Maybe when I'm in the good side of town, I see a green person and I greet them normally. I don't hate green people, I just am going to stay out of the part of town where most of them live because I don't want to risk $badthings happening.
Now, if I hate all green people and think they're a lower form of life because of $badthings that happen, then yes I'm being racist. But the distinction between the two cannot be legislated or governed.
Re:If all the neighborhoods where green people liv (Score:5, Interesting)
The first point is that racists seldom believe that they're being racist. Because that would be irrational and they all have very rational (to them) reasons for believing whatever they believe.
The second point is that you would be basing your opinion upon a visual characteristic when the real reason might be something you cannot see. Such as economics. Bad neighborhoods have low property values. So poor people live in bad neighborhoods. Not because they're bad people but because that is what they can afford.
Maybe. But if you're aware that you're greeting him "normally" then you're probably a racist.
When I see an old Chinese woman walking her poodle on the street I treat her the same as I would any other person who was not ...
Old?
Chinese?
Female?
Poodle-orientated?
Re:If all the neighborhoods where green people liv (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:If all the neighborhoods where green people liv (Score:5, Insightful)
Rather it is an example of "confirmation bias".
You can tell the false negatives - the people you thought were "good" turn out to be "bad".
But you have no way to verify the false positives - the people you thought were "bad" are really "good". So you do not believe there were false positives.
The result being that the number of "bad" category characteristics keeps increasing. But each one has a clear example that you can cite. Therefore, it is completely rational. And anyone who does not agree is being irrational (opposing that which is rational).
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Re: If all the neighborhoods where green people li (Score:2)
racists are calling it racist.
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If all the neighborhoods where green people live have a higher crime rate and higher risk of $badthing, am I being racist against green people? [...] I don't hate green people
If you do nothing about it, yes. Racism is not always an irrational reprehension against green people, it's usually a very utilitarian response to risk and asymmetrical information. If green people have more thieves and crooks among them, it's rational to watch your pockets around them and avoid their services. Not because all greens are crooks, but because by buying from whites reduces your risks.
Being green is a signal you are forced to send regardless of how good your skills are and how honest you are.
Safety takes Precedence over Ethnic concerns (Score:5, Insightful)
There are rough neighborhoods and bars in white neighborhoods that I would not expect women to go near at night in good cities.
Facts are facts.
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You've apparently never been to certain areas in the deep South if you believe there aren't very dangerous areas that are in areas populated entirely by "whites." I know of places where you need a local escort to avoid being beaten or killed.
And what the hell does (Score:3, Insightful)
race have to do with crime-ridden neighborhoods?
What the fuck /. ? Your summary is more racist than the technology you're referring to. Well done.
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Hilarious. Absolutely hilarious. What does race have to do with crime-ridden neighbourhoods? EVERYTHING, as you must obviously know, unless you've been living under a rock for the past fifty years. You idiot. Do you seriously think most white people are going to just carry on watching our countries being destroyed by third world parasites? If they're so wonderful, why are they here? Why aren't they making their OWN countries better? Because they're NOT wonderful, because they're parasites, because they've come to steal OUR countries from us, like the losers they are.
Did I mention that you were an idiot?
Blacks:
13% of the population
85% of the crime rate
64% of the prison population
Blacks.
This got modded insightful?
Did someone forget their history about how Europeans (multiple "races") and Africans (multiple "races") arrived in North America, and what happened to the people that arrived because they were nomadic, not because they wanted to exploit the land and get something for free? How about Rwanda, the one country in modern history that had races created arbitrarily?
The first line is partially right -- we can't separate race (which I interpret to be a combination of a person's genetic tr
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AC #1 could light casings on fire to kill himself with CO poisoning. If they invite AC #2 everybody is happy.
I'm not sorry. (Score:5, Insightful)
I value my safety over the feelings of others. Label it however you want, it is better than ending up dead, brain dead, maimed for life, or having my eye sockets reconstructed with titanium plates.
PC at its best (Score:5, Insightful)
I once asked in several forums about the neighborhoods of a city I was going to move into with my family. I didn't want to fall into bohemian neighborhoods (want rest at night, not party) or ghettos just because I didn't know the place. The answers were all about racism, how beautiful and diverse those places were, how much of a lousy father I was for denying my children such enriching experiences, etc.
I resorted to look around for external signs, such as crowded balconies, abandoned cars, how people dressed, etc.
I think I have the same right to be informed when I look for somewhere to live than when shopping around for stuff that suits my needs as precisely as possible.
Re:PC at its best (Score:5, Insightful)
The answers were all about racism, how beautiful and diverse those places were
To get a real answer from those people, ask them what area of town they live in as it will usually be quite nice compared to where they are directing you to.
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Would be useful if you could get an honest answer. Those people lie like rugs.
Re:PC at its best (Score:4, Insightful)
Generally true, but not always. Young, single, childless bohemian types sometimes do, in fact, choose to live lower rent neighborhoods and disdain those who do not do likewise. Priorities tend to change once one settles down, marries, has kids, and actually wants to own a little property.
Lesson: don't take advice about where to live from those who've less to lose than you.
Re:PC at its best (Score:4, Interesting)
That's when it's time to lie, lie, and lie again because getting what you want is what matters, not humoring anonymous shitbags on the internet.
For example, make up some psych excuse about a family member needing a very quiet neighborhood because they are under treatment for agoraphobia. Look for crime reports, and ask on forums where people won't defend toxic areas because the forum members don't give a shit about PC.
Don't be shy about where you look for info. If I wanted a quiet neighborhood, I would have no compunction about asking on the Stormfront forums! My security and my comfort and my property values are what matter to me.
It's every man or woman for themselves, and if you land in some shithole because you were lied to no one who lied to you will be there to help. While White Flight was an economic disaster for the Detroit tax base, it was pure unadulterated flawless win for the people who Got The Fuck Out as fast as they could. None of them could have changed anything by staying.
Real racism is pre-coloring crime (Score:5, Insightful)
How is bypassing neighborhoods with a high crime rate "racism", unless you yourself are saying high crime areas ALWAYS have people of a certain race...
There are criminals of every race. The desire to reduce the probability of crime is not a matter of race, but of common sense.
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Liberals show their racist ideology by making an automatic leap to race.
There are places in Boston where the thugs are quite Irish and white.
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There are places in Boston where the thugs are quite Irish and white.
Police HQ?
Re:Real racism is pre-coloring crime (Score:5, Funny)
Of course they don't. Take a look at Paris. The bad ones are full of arabs and the terrible ones are full of blacks.
If you go to Brussels it's completely the other way round.
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Of course they don't. Take a look at Paris. The bad ones are full of arabs and the terrible ones are full of blacks.
If you go to Brussels it's completely the other way round.
Or, go to Shanghai, where the bad ones are full of Chinese and the terrible ones are full of Chinese.
Guess what? you find them in the great areas too....
(I know, that takes it a bit far, but using Paris as an example made me laugh -- half the city is made up of first or second generation French, with a large portion coming from Algeria and Portugal)
Re:Real racism is pre-coloring crime (Score:5, Insightful)
When the bypass is based on actual crime stats, it is not racist at all.
The problem is when it is based on perceived safety and that perception is based on how many people of (race you don't like) can be seen.
Re:Real racism is pre-coloring crime (Score:4, Insightful)
Probably because the metrics are based on input from users (who are probably simply flagging any of the *them* neighborhoods) and not any rational data. You have to live a pretty sheltered life to think you're going to drive through any neighborhood and get dragged out of your car and robbed. I'm not saying it never happens, but the odds are damned low. I went to a city college in a "bad" KC neighborhood and the crime stats were really low. And, that's for kids walking around, living, and working there, not just driving through.
Maybe there are *bad* neighborhoods where this information is relevant, but my guess is the percentage of these neighborhoods is low enough to obviate an app like this. If you're staying out of dark alleyways populated by shadowy figures at 2am, you're probably safe on just about any street. If you take a look at crime maps for your city, the results are usually pretty surprising.
Re:Real racism is pre-coloring crime (Score:4, Informative)
I don't know about Kansas City, but in the Baltimore/Washington area, there are very definitely places where crime is a constant threat -- not just in a "boogeyman" sort of way, but in a "both my housemate and my officemate have been robbed at gunpoint and I had a crackhead constantly breaking my car windows to smoke crack in there" sort of way.
Re:Real racism is pre-coloring crime (Score:5, Insightful)
You have to live a pretty sheltered life to think you're going to drive through any neighborhood and get dragged out of your car and robbed.
On 4th year at the university, I got a place in a student dormitory in a bad part of the city. I lasted only ten days there, and got attacked seven times. For comparison, I've never been attacked elsewhere during my university times, and got attacked a total of three times elsewhere during my whole adult life.
I don't look out of ordinary, don't wear strange clothes, etc. I'm white and so is almost everyone around here (Poland). Now, guess what would happen if a black person walked through that neighbourhood.
It's not a matter of race, it's a case of tribalism. Race is just a convenient way to tell outsiders, if it's not a factor those oh-so-nice fellow humans will find a different reason to bash your face in.
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The people that will use this app will flag any neighborhood inside the belt freeways as 'bad and dangerous'. The data will be useless.
I grew up in that KC neighborhood, assuming I'm right about which college, it's got a strong gradient. East of Prospect there are some real hairy blocks. The projects just east of the Nelson Art Gallery are hairy as fuck. Hooker park aka Gillham park (so named for all the dead hookers found there) is also a boundary. Troost Ave is a hooker stroll north of 47th. Cops playi
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I'm curious where you lived in KC. A lot of KC is pretty bad, particularly at night. I would stop at the gas station on Emmanue
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The main point of a leper colony is to keep people in it, quarantine them. No one is trying to keep anyone in a bad neighborhood. If they move to a different place, no one will care.
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If the app was about high crime rates, you'd have a point. But it wasn't. It rated neighborhoods based on self reported subjective beliefs from both residents and non residents of the neighborhood.
It never felt so good. (Score:5, Insightful)
So now it's wrong, and even RACIST, to mitigate the risk of my family becoming victims by avoiding areas that have exceptionally high rates of crime?
Being wrong and allegedly racist never felt so good.
I don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't get why people are upset about this. If a neighborhood is crime ridden, people avoid it; why shouldn't they? High crime has lots of other negative consequences (outmigration, plummeting real estate values, decrease in tax base, etc.).
I don't see what this has to do with racism. If crime is higher in a neighborhood composed of some racial minority, that's incidental; people don't avoid it because of its racial makeup, they avoid it because of crime, and the correlation with race has other causes.
Furthermore, racial minorities have no reason to live in ghettos these days; if they do, it's by choice or inertia.
Re:I don't get it (Score:4, Insightful)
Martin used deadly force against someone. That has nothing to do with "being safer around black people"; that's related to "being safer around people whose heads you're not bashing into the pavement".
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It has nothing to do with rent. Black neighborhoods are not consistently cheaper than nearby white neighborhoods. And Asian neighborhoods, if anything, tend to be more expensive than nearby white neighborhoods. Racial ghettos exist these days because the people living in them choose to live there.
But it is n
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That's just rationalization. Black people with money don't generally live in 'black neighborhoods'.
Poor white people and poor black people mix a lot more then they did 30 years ago. Haven't visited a city parameter trailer park lately, but I suspect even those, most segregated, ghettos are mixing.
If there is utility... (Score:3)
If there is actual utility, then by pretty much by definition it's not racist. It's simply a statement of how things are.
How things got that way may be associated with racist problems, and racism concerns might be raised regarding how to change something, but to call the app itself racist is just stupid. Then again, a lot of how the US handles race issues is just stupid, so I suppose that's not unexpected.
Difference between the problem and the symptom (Score:5, Interesting)
As an analyst, to me it's a question of data cleanliness. Yes, people should be able to look at the facts (i.e., crime rate) and route around a higher risk area if they so choose. Trouble is, there's a partial racial component driving those crime statistics (i.e., minorities more likely to be arrested) which probably inflates the "true" crime rates for those neighborhoods. If people are going to get all bent out of shape, they should do so up-stream. Tackle the issues that inject a racial element to crime statistics and leave the people looking for an objective measure of risk assessment alone - they're only using the best available data to make a decision.
Easier said than done of course...
ghetto (Score:2)
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The affluent and/or "stay-out-of-trouble" citizens keep retreating away from these bad areas. They avoid the risk and dangers that are inherent in certain neighbourhoods. To call it racist just because a certain minority happens to be the only group that stays/moves in to that neighbourhood is pretty disengenuous. Currently,
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Soon, the only good neighborhood will be the orbiting city. The entire surface of the planet will be one big ghetto.
There are only 2 counties capable of putting someone in orbit, so I assume this city will have vodka and fortune cookies?
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The U.S can orbit stuff, they just don't have a vehicle approved for use to orbit people right now. 2015 or 2016 timeframe, that will be fixed -- there should be commercial options care of SpaceX and Boeing (NASA will not get Constellation or SLS or whatever they call it done, due to budgetary constraints that will eventually kill it. Again.)
But if you follow the money... the Chinese and Russians have the funds and the political willpower so they will be there too.
I think we've reached peak racist (Score:5, Insightful)
The word is just used too often, for too many things, that it is ceasing to have any meaning for me, besides "somebody doesn't like something".
This is "racist", that is "racist", the next thing is "racist", he's a "racist", she's a "racist", my car won't start because it's "racist", my program has a memory leak because it's "racist" . . . on, and on, and on . . .
It seems to me to be the hobgoblin of tiny little minds, who can't think of anything else better to say, when they've run out of all other arguments.
For me, now, it is akin to telling someone Jewish that they're cheap, someone German that they're evil because of the Nazis, someone Italian that they're in the Mafia, someone Spanish to leave those poor bulls alone, someone French that they're military cowards, etc, etc, etc . . .
Calling someone or something "racist" . . . is in fact as about as "racist" as you can get these days.
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... my car won't start because it's "racist",...
Only if it's got a white paint job. If it's painted black, brown, or red, it won't start because it's participating in an act of civil disobedience.
AC Overabundance (Score:3)
I find it quite a fair bit telling that the majority of posts currently visible on this article are written by AC's. Even completely non-racist and innocuous posts. To me, that says a lot.
And like another poster below mentioned. Why are people getting so uppity, when the app and it's users are just trying to make the best possible decisions for their own livelihood based on the best/only available data on the matter. If anything, such data would probably be less likely to be racist as it removes peoples' biases and interpretations (assuming the data isn't tainted by the stats, but then you're just opening up a can of worms).
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technology is only a tool... (Score:2)
headline should read,
Could Humans Use New Technology Create Modern-Day 'Leper Colonies'?
I love these discussions...how will a new tech affect human society? fun stuff...
But it is an engineering and cultural geography question...not a purely sociological or psychological concept...
Here's what I mean:
Engineering: when new tech is developed, the next problem is getting people to use it. "The last mile" so to speak. It's often a question of scale as well, handling 10^8 users on a system. The internet itself is
Leper colonies aren't "long gone." (Score:5, Informative)
But I have to say, in the many countries where leprosy hasn't gone away, there are still plenty of very real, non-metaphorical leper colonies. I know because I'm an eye surgeon who used to work in Africa, and I've been involved in outreach trips to operate on cataracts in leper colonies. If we hadn't arranged the trips, the people would have had no chance of getting their sight back. Nobody much cares about them.
Find another bloody metaphor.
Technology? Bwahahaha! (Score:2)
Take an existing societal problem.
Add technology to it.
Write an article about it as if totally new.
.
Profit?
As if this hasn't been happening forever and a day. Roman citizens were telling each other "That one area downstream from where the Cloaca Maxima empties into the Tiber is really bad.". When a diplomat came to Rome, I'm sure they'd ask the locals where a good place to put a house was.
The "technology": Word of mouth. And if you really wanted to be fancy, writing.
Leaping colonies (Score:2)
I think it is a distinct possibility. If you were for example to canvas a few acres of land with trampolines and bouncy castles you could construct a colony of people with impressive abilities to leap.
Reintegrating leapers from the colony back into non leaper towns could prove quite disruptive proposition for all concerned. Townsfolk may object to lack of toy stores to keep stocks of trampolines or the increased price associated with sudden demand spike. Townsfolk may also not appreciate right of ways be
The Principle of Disparate Impact (Score:2)
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It may be your operational definition of racism, but if it is, you're stupid. The standard definition of racism is:
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Why don't you read it:
In this case, the impact is most certainly justified.
Furthermore, just because that's currently a legal standard for employment doesn't mean that it is morally right, that it is justified, or that it is beneficial to the people it is intended to help.
And most importantly, it doesn't apply to anything other than employment.
!racist (Score:2)
Recently Shuttered? Still Up (Score:2)
leper colonies (Score:2)
It's worth pointing out that the analogy made in the headline doesn't indict the practice. "Leper colonies" were a rational and reasonable public health precaution at a time where no treatment was available and no epidemiological data was available. The reason we don't have them anymore in the West is simply that patients are isolated in hospitals until they have been adequately treated and become non-infectious. "Leper colonies" probably also didn't just house leprosy patients, but also people with more hi
That's not racism (Score:3)
It's not racism to avoid someone, and it's not racism to choose someone else. It's only racism if what you're doing hurts, stifles, or restricts the freedoms of someone. I can choose not to buy that house, or not to take those streets, or not to patron that restaurant. It's not racist. It's me having a preference.
So if I don't like greeks, and hence don't want to pay greek owners of a greek restaurant, I don't eat there, and it's not racist. If I picket the restaurant and stop others from going there and ask my political representative to tear down that restaurant, then that's racism.
Greeks have the right to not be hindered by my preferences. They don't have any right to my money. See the difference?
(Incidentally, I love greek food, and recently found two fantastically greek-family restaurants in Oshawa and in Whitby.)
That's not recism. (Score:3)
If I say "avoid crime ridden areas" I am not saying "avoid these races"... That crime ridden areas and given races happen to correlate is a coincidence and not actually something that people are intentionally trying to avoid.
The tendency to label things as racist has really gotten out of control. I think my favorite example of this was a greeting card from Hallmark that had an astronomy theme. It was a verbal greeting card that talked. And part of its little rant included references to "black holes" which is an astronomy term with no racial meaning. Regardless, the NAACP claimed that the cards really said "black hoe"... they didn't... and the NAACP also found the term "black hole" to be inherently racist which of course it isn't.
But this sort of thing happens because we give as a society these advocacy groups license to redefine what racism means to include pretty much anything including very innocent behavior.
If I am in a bad neighborhood is it racist to avoid packs of young men? Not really. What if they're also of some touchy minority race that like to turn everything into a civil rights issue? Doesn't matter. You're not avoiding them because of their race. You're avoiding them because its a pack of young men in a bad neighborhood.
People really need to learn the difference between causal and correlative statistics. Simply because you can show various variables correlating doesn't mean a given variable causes the other variable. Often there are third or fourth variables which themselves caused BOTH or even more correlative variables to all move in the same direction.
For example, why is it that certain races have bad neighborhoods? Does the literal color of their skin cause their crime to be higher? Unlikely. So there are other issues which ACTUALLY cause the crime. NOT the race.
Address those issues and the crime will statistically reduce to national norms. And what's more, once it gets known that the crime has gone down and people are statistically as safe... then suddenly people won't be so inclined to avoid those areas.
It has NOTHING to do with race and is therefore not a racial issue. Race is at most a correlative variable that is otherwise irrelevant to the situation.
It's Not Just Whites Avoiding Minorities (Score:3)
If these kinds of app provide data on racially-motivate crimes (anyone out there who uses them to shed more light on this?) it would go a long way to helping minorities avoid areas where they might find themselves in trouble with the law by virtue of not being white. It also might give them a better sense of security going into areas they might not normally frequent.
*The town I worked in had a population of about 4500 and I lived 30 minutes up the road in town of 1500. There was a college town of about 20,000 about 30 minutes east by highway. From the town I worked in it was 2 hours in either direction to a major population center.
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Re:Are ghettos really that bad? (Score:4, Insightful)
In many places, ghettos are where housing is no less expensive -- it's just paid for by someone else.
Re:Are ghettos really that bad? (Score:4, Informative)
I live in Vancouver BC, one of the most expensive places to own or rent a home in North America, and we have social housing. Social housing is affordable because it is on government land and the government can ignore market forces and just charge a rate that reflects the actual cost of building the homes, not the grossly inflated free market costs.
The free market isn't always reasonable. [thethirtiesgrind.com]
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Instead you pay in stolen cars and other items. I've never gotten why criminals steal from their own neighbors, who are also poor. Too lazy to go to better neighborhood? Just opportunistic and bad at weighing risk/benefit?
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Laziness and opportunism certainly play a part, but there's also the fact that a better neighborhood will probably have police response times that aren't measured in hours. It's also a bit more difficult for a ghetto criminal to blend in outside the ghetto, which increases the odds that the cops will be called in the first place.
Re:Are ghettos really that bad? (Score:5, Insightful)
The worst thing about living anywhere near a "bad" neighborhood are the endless car break-ins that the authorities can't do jack shit to stop. The Coconut Grove area of Miami, and the adjacent neighborhoods in Coral Gables (where I used to live) are a perfect example. Thanks to both explosive gentrification and the enduring legacy of old-south segregation-era zoning laws, there are plenty of areas where you literally have expensive homes back to back with housing projects that will never go away.
In those areas, you can never have guests come over to see you unless they park elsewhere and take a cab, because YOUR BUILDING's parking garage might have 2 layers of gates & security, but for obvious logistical reasons, the guest parking sits unprotected out in the open. Let me tell you... the only thing that sucks worse than getting your own parked car broken into is having friends come to see you, and getting THEIR OWN car broken into. Or god forbid, your parents' car. If your parents' car gets broken into, you will NEVER be allowed to forget about it. My parents STILL bring it up at least two or three times at family gatherings on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the Fourth of July, and it happened more than a DECADE ago.
Ask anybody who lives in an urban neighborhood what their #1 neurotic fear is, and they'll tell you -- "Friends coming to visit, and getting their car broken into". On the hierarchy of social shame, it pretty much tops the list. From that point forward, you no longer live in a nice, safe, gentrified urban neighborhood. As far as your friends and family are concerned, you live in the 'hood.
Re:Are ghettos really that bad? (Score:5, Insightful)
Stop leaving valuables in your car and it cuts down on break ins a lot. In bad areas I leave my car unlocked, open the glove box and spill the contents onto the car floor. It looks like it has already been robbed.
We had a terrible problem with car theft. What the police did is set up bait cars. These cars have video to gather evidence, gps, and remote controls to lock and stop the car. The bait car program in Vancouver BC reduced car theft 70% over 5 years..
Real policing can be effective.
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Ask anybody who lives in an urban neighborhood what their #1 neurotic fear is, and they'll tell you -- "Friends coming to visit, and getting their car broken into"
You're right, it's a neurosis.
My biggest concern living in an urban neighborhood is whether Ada's was open yet or not. Mmmmm!
White-bread suburbia (where I came from) is so damn uninteresting and bland. The only advantage was a private beach a 5 minute walk away. Fat lotta good that does you when you're a teen and it's winter.
Ada's:
http://www.u [urbanspoon.com]
get crime data and screw the race baiters (Score:5, Insightful)
High crime is high crime. The areas are what they are. Fuck Jesse Jackson. He's one of the reasons that areas with high black population tend to also have high crime rates.
(This statement has been approved by both my wife and me, who are caramel colored and slightly tan.)
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Is this app reporting 'high crime' or 'area makes me uncomfortable'?
I thought crime rate was already publicly available. Admittedly this data is gamed by all the local cops, trying to make their area's look safe. But assuming they are all cheating, you can squint at it, say apples to apples and only look at one, perhaps two, significant digits worth of data.
the whole thing is stupid (Score:2)
Yep, the whole thing is stupid. My "black" wife is lighter in color than our "white" friend Kristi, also known as Krispy because she tans often. So there goes the whole black/white thing.
There is such a thing as thug culture. In Boston, you'll find plenty of pale redheads engaged in that culture. It has little to do with race or color, and for Al Sharpton to tell "black" people that they should be part of thug culture is offensive.
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They avoid the more established "African American" parts of town with high crime rates just like anyone else.
A tale from a (white Russian Jewish) friend of a friend of a relative who married a black guy from somewhere in Africa (forget where exactly). Apparently the guy was the son or nephew or something of a communist-friendly dictator in said African country and had gone to school in the Soviet Union. Well, regimes change, dictators get overthrown, and the guy found his way to the US. So he had two choices: he could hang out with the local black people or the local Russians. Guess which one he picked?
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There is definitely a fine line between utility and racism in this case. How does one overcome cries of racism while still maintaining accurate data? One could of course discount race from the algorithms but I imagine having a user rate a neighborhood as 'safe' or 'not safe' or even 'dangerous' does from a technical point. Of course, the wetware inserting the rating could be using race as a reason for the rating.
There's no fine line; it's a Venn diagram, with significantly overlapping areas. If you're doing anything that involves social profiling, you're not going to avoid cries of racism, as even in this day and age, racial background is a strong indicator of social grouping. Just yesterday the article came out mentioning that people tend to become friends with people who have similar DNA. Race is nothing more than a combination of history and a few chromosomes; it'd be silly to think that sometimes, that might