Thanks for explaining; very helpful.

The point that failed to land was first thing I said, i.e. that we are poor judges of our own informed-ness.

Assuming discrimination were uniformly distributed it might be a reasonable position to suggest to people that they hold firmly to their own opinion (i.e. telling others to "piss off").

However discrimination is not evenly distributed, which means white men as a population will be disproportionately affected by overconfidence effects like Dunning-Kruger and fail to correctly assess their own informed-ness.

I can agree insofar as that. Although I don't think Dunning-Kruger applies, I do understand what you're trying to convey. But I don't feel it is a strong argument.

You would have to show that the individual is not "well informed" about discrimination in order to make that argument. Which is not an easy task and is also not what is commonly done. The common thing to do is to claim that they can't possibly be informed, because, for example "they are a cis, white male". It's just stereotyping using a statistic and is no less wrong than other forms of stereotyping based on statistics.

I'm not saying you do that, just that it's common and is where the "Oh, piss off" mentality comes into play.

> Although I don't think Dunning-Kruger applies...

Based on your extensive qualifications in behavioural science I assume? ;)

Sorry, that was a cheap laugh... but you don't get to brush it off without reasoning though, and Dunning-Kruger isn't the only confidence bias on the table. For example; system justification bias, state and national-scale in-group bias, and the ubiguitous availability of white male role models in almost any profession.

Confidence comes from many places. For example many police forces have trouble recruiting minority officers, even in areas where those minorities are majorities. This is usually not for want of trying, and neither is it because of qualifications. A complex web of motivating and demotivating factors affects conversion rates throughout the recruitment process that often results in unintentional systematic bias.

> You would have to show that the individual is not "well informed" about discrimination...

Not at all.

Caveman_Coder took it upon himself to issue advice to an entire demographic. I argued that demographic will be affected by disproportionate confidence bias. Caveman_Coder's advice specifically hinged on a self-assessment of informed-ness, which will be strongly influenced by confidence bias... making this advice likely to persist ignorance in a proportion of those people.

There's no reasonable obligation for me to look at individual cases of informed-ness.

Happy to discuss yours though.

I'm sympathetic to your story about your own experiences growing up, but I'm skeptical about your claims that you suffered equivalent discrimination to a minority in a white neighbourhood.

On a national level all of the following indicators show bias against minorities. To argue that discrimination against whites in your area is equivalent (in an informed way) you ought to be able to show that a good portion of these indicators are reversed in your neighbourhood... with data, or anecdotally if you that's all you have.

- What proportion of white men are shot by the police in your childhood neighbourhood, vs black or latino men? What are the stop-and-search statistics, and for death in police custody? What do the comparative conviction rates, sentencing, or parole rates look like?

- What's the data on employment by race? What do callback rates for black/white/latino résumés look like? Salaries, promotion, etc.

- What's the data on punishments issued to white/black/latino kids in school for comparable offences? Suspection & expulsion rates? Data on amount of help offered when kids struggle?

- To what comparative extent are white/latino/black votes devalued by gerrymandering in the area? What voter registration laws are in force, and what voter de-registration policies are in place?

What data/analysis do you have? Or if you tell me the name of the neighbourhood I'm happy to have a poke around.

Sorry for the late reply, but it seems you misunderstood what I meant about Dunning-Kruger in that it has to do with ability or perhaps knowledge in a defined field but not in something like a subjective experience.

It'd be confirmation bias or some other thing but not Dunning-Kruger.

So you're drawing a distinction between expertise and experience and saying Dunning-Kruger applies to one not the other. Huh. Perhaps we could dig into that at some point, but you can't ignore the parts of my comment that you don't like.

Can you demonstrate that a good portion of the indicators I listed in my previous comment are reversed to favour minorities over whites in white-minority areas?

If you can't, then your claim to have experienced equivalent discrimination is incorrect, and uninformed. Perhaps you have a deeper understanding of discrimination (personal or institutional) than being "beaten up" but so far you've not shown or hinted at it.

Without that evidence, your argument falls apart, and you come across as an uninformed white man arguing that uninformed white men should be encouraged to ignore others. It's an argument with no credibility.

Do you see the problem?

(I'm not being unreasonable, I know getting evidence is work and my offer to help with some legwork stands, although I suspect it'd be an eye-opening experience for you)

[Update - by all means reply and address these questions, but in the absence of that I'm going to interpret your silence as an admission that actually you're not as informed on the subject of discrimination as you initially argued. Which would kinda prove my point about overconfidence in your own opinion when you don't know very much. Wouldn't it.]

> ...but do know that statistics won't tell you...

I don't dispute that some or all of your childhood sucked. I understand and sympathise. You've landed that point.

> Do you agree that "growing up in the wrong neighborhood" where gangs are divided among racial lines means that you're far more likely to be discriminated against on the basis of your race?

The question is ambiguous. I'll break it out.

More likely to experience racially-aggrevated violence than a white kid in a white neighbourhood? Yes, I'd agree.

More likely to experience racially-aggrevated violence than a black kid in a black/latino neighbourhood? Not sure; you probably know better than I do. I'd need to see data. If I was forced to guess I'd expect it to depend on severity; higher chance of assault than a black kid, lower chance of fatality... but that's a total guess.

More likely to "be discriminated against" generally than a black kid in a black/latino neighbourhood? No, but it'd vary across the type of interaction so maybe some types of interaction might be equivalent... maybe.

More likely to "be discriminated against" generally than a black kid in a white neighbourhood? No way. Not even close.

Physical danger is one dimension, amongst MANY (and there's a significant difference between being afraid of criminals and being afraid of the state; you'd be comparatively less likely to be shot by the police, even assuming equivalent circumstances).

The USA is a country that only ended racial segregation within living memory. Evidence of significant bias against minorities at a federal and state level is still very strong. The specific demographic breakdown of an individual neighbourhood is a small part of a very big picture.

Even the existence of a black neighbourhood in Los Angeles is because of the black exodus from the South during the segregation era, when young boys such as Emmett Till were lynched for crimes like whistling at white women (turns out he was innocent even of that). Yes, that's somewhat historical, but it's still within living memory and you don't undo that kind of societal damage easily.