Agree, and I think this is a really important and overlooked implication, that two tribes will talk past each other on. Unfair discrimination persists even with rational, non-racist, greedy capitalist. A less charged example would be life insurance policies. Almost everyone would agree that mortality tables are acceptable; almost everyone could also imagine themselves getting older, and could imagine themselves as above average with in their group. The insurer will rationally charge the older group more premium. Atypical healthier older people within this group have experience unfair discrimination and the insurer is rationally non-prejudiced. So when one tribe says that markets will punish racist, it doesn't fix unfair discrimination. And when other tribe says that there is unfair discrimination, that doesn't mean there is rampant racism. I personally feel a lot of compassion towards atypical individuals within a disadvantaged group, but how could we improve?

Thanks for the link, that's an interesting and useful article. Updated my probabilities in a few areas. Also an amazingly civil, rational comments section given the nature of the material. It didn't help me very much on police shootings though - lot of way-out-of-date data that points both ways depending on area. No racial bias in shooting recorded in New York, seriously significant effect in Tennessee. Given what I know about American racism-by-state that's almost disappointingly obvious. (Again though, out of date - relevant laws in Memphis have changed since). Okay, strap in, this is a long one. First I'm going to cheerfully steal a chunk directly from one of those comments on SSC for your consideration: [...] I'd be interested to see what you think of that. Now, speaking for myself - I find no flaw with your buggy-robot analogy. That would indeed in result in more shootings of innocent black people without any need for racial prejudice influencing the decision to shoot, simply because of disproportionate exposure given higher crime rates. My contention, however, is that racial prejudice is a factor in real-world police shootings/violence. So the question I ask as a half-decent wannabe rationalist is how my belief should constrain my expectation - how do I expect my world to look different from a non-racist buggy-robot world? How do I test it? Honestly I don't have a particularly satisfactory answer. Some attempts follow, feel free to skim if you're not arsed reading them. 1. I would expect the disproportionate impact of police shootings/violence upon innocent black people (innocent meaning unarmed/non-dangerous here, not necessarily innocent of any crime) to be measurably higher even when adjusted for the higher crime-rate/residential grouping effect as it was in the Memphis study. (Though not to such a degree - important to state I do believe that this problem is getting better). However, the way a shooting event or other incident of violence is record