> The issue is that as a society we've (mostly) decided that unfairly classifying someone based on correlated but non-causal characteristics is wrong, EVEN in the extreme that you're right more often than you're wrong if you make that assumption.
That sounds like the wrong basis for calling it extreme. It's not at all extreme to say that classifying an interview candidate based on correlated but non-causal characteristics is wrong, regardless of the statistical significance of those correlations.
I just mean that I'd guess most stereotypes have a correlation nowhere near 0.50, but it'd be wrong to use them to screen candidates even if it was 0.50 or greater. I used the word "extreme" to convey the sense that such a scenario of stereotype accuracy is very unlikely.
I don't believe Fenty Beauty has been discussed on Hacker News before seeing as how it's a line of cosmetics, so maybe you could expand on what you know about its history that others may not have been following in as much detail?
In 2017, Fenty Beauty found an underserved market (dark-skinned women and high-quality makeup) and made a killing selling them what they wanted. If you relied solely on history and stereotypes, you would believe nobody could make $500 million dollars that way.
That sounds like the wrong basis for calling it extreme. It's not at all extreme to say that classifying an interview candidate based on correlated but non-causal characteristics is wrong, regardless of the statistical significance of those correlations.