You seem to be suggesting that the question is absurd but it's not. It's not only meaningful, it's completely obvious and natural. People who focus their research on a particular topic are routinely asked why. Same with company founders or even hobbyist. "Why this" has to be the most human of questions right after "how are you".
I, too, find the fixation on race/sex/class weird when there are many factors that seem much more important. I wrote about it before https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8160608
Your previous writing is simplistic rationalisation of racist attitudes. "People aren't racist, the problem is black people for not inheriting hard work nor intelligence".
How can you call my writing simplistic when next to a crude classification of people into a handful of racial categories? Anyway, the original post was about a white guy. There's even a picture[1] in the article. Which is the point: that he was a white guy didn't matter very much.
Those categories (like race or sex) seem not only arbitrary but not even very good. Yet, commenters here insist that they are obvious and the question why those and not some other doesn't even require (deserve?) an answer.
How so? For those who, like me and yummyfajitas, missed that social insight.
Comments
You seem to be suggesting that the question is absurd but it's not. It's not only meaningful, it's completely obvious and natural. People who focus their research on a particular topic are routinely asked why. Same with company founders or even hobbyist. "Why this" has to be the most human of questions right after "how are you".
I, too, find the fixation on race/sex/class weird when there are many factors that seem much more important. I wrote about it before https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8160608
Are you white male?
Your previous writing is simplistic rationalisation of racist attitudes. "People aren't racist, the problem is black people for not inheriting hard work nor intelligence".
How can you call my writing simplistic when next to a crude classification of people into a handful of racial categories? Anyway, the original post was about a white guy. There's even a picture[1] in the article. Which is the point: that he was a white guy didn't matter very much.
Those categories (like race or sex) seem not only arbitrary but not even very good. Yet, commenters here insist that they are obvious and the question why those and not some other doesn't even require (deserve?) an answer.
How so? For those who, like me and yummyfajitas, missed that social insight.
[1] http://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/08/10/sunday-review/0810...