The Off Topic Topic

[Valmy]

I don't think that every probability is the same, if that's what you mean.

True. I think it is probably fair to assume that a gay man is sexually attracted to men and an airline pilot is somebody who can fly an airplane.

[The Brain]

I don't think that every probability is the same, if that's what you mean.

True. I think it is probably fair to assume that a gay man is sexually attracted to men and an airline pilot is somebody who can fly an airplane.

That may well be, I haven't spoken on fairness.

[Barrister]

Stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason & while can be demeaning they will usually comme from a place of reality.

Also, the human mind loves confirmation bias.

My cousin, she's a cop. She says that the Academy (& the regular school before) was lesbian heaven. She was pretty happy about it too.

Your cousin is obviously mistaken - there is no correlation between someone's sexuality and their profession.  You can't make generalizations about people.

[HVC]

My cousins a lesbian cop too!

[Tamas]

I have a female relative who is a cop and I am fairly certain is not a lesbian.


Also see what I did there, linked this to the other discussion around the memespace being right-dominated. 

[HVC]

And to stick to stereotypes all my male cousins are in construction and my aunt was a housekeeper

[Valmy]

That may well be, I haven't spoken on fairness.

I didn't mean it that way.

What I was trying to say was that it is justified and correct to assume that a gay man is sexually attracted to men and an airline pilot is somebody who can fly an airplane.

[Grey Fox]

Stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason & while can be demeaning they will usually comme from a place of reality.

Also, the human mind loves confirmation bias.

My cousin, she's a cop. She says that the Academy (& the regular school before) was lesbian heaven. She was pretty happy about it too.

Your cousin is obviously mistaken - there is no correlation between someone's sexuality and their profession.  You can't make generalizations about people.

But I will continue to do so.

[Valmy]

But I will continue to do so.

You monster!!

[garbon]

Interesting how we managed to turn Beeb into a 

[Barrister]

I have a female relative who is a cop and I am fairly certain is not a lesbian.


Also see what I did there, linked this to the other discussion around the memespace being right-dominated. 

My wife was/is not a cop, but she was close/adjacent.  She worked as a commercial vehicle enforcement officer (think DOT, though that term is not used here), plus as a corrections officer, plus she was accepted to the RCMP but ultimately declined shortly before I met her.

Given that we have three kids I'm pretty sure she's not a lesbian.

So there you go - obviously you can't make any generalizations about people based on their careers.  The percentage of lesbian cops is almost exactly the same as the percentage of lesbian hairdressers.

[Barrister]

Interesting how we managed to turn Beeb into a 

Indeed.  Interesting.

By the way we really don't use enough these days.  I remember back in the day when I was a mod, and Jaron was trolling hard, and all I would do was use  in response to his nonsense - to suggest he might be speaking, but nobody was listening.

[DGuller]

That may well be, I haven't spoken on fairness.

I didn't mean it that way.

What I was trying to say was that it is justified and correct to assume that a gay man is sexually attracted to men and an airline pilot is somebody who can fly an airplane.

Generalizations don't always equal assumptions.  Generalizations are just about adjusting the probabilities based on observable factors.  "More likely" != "Is".  Depending on the use case, and depending on how overwhelming the probabilities are, you may go on to make an assumption, but that's not a necessary part of generalizing.  Information doesn't need to be deterministic for it to be useful.

[Jacob]

Generalizations don't always equal assumptions.  Generalizations are just about adjusting the probabilities based on observable factors.  "More likely" != "Is".  Depending on the use case, and depending on how overwhelming the probabilities are, you may go on to make an assumption, but that's not a necessary part of generalizing.  Information doesn't need to be deterministic for it to be useful.

The trick, of course, is how you use the information. It can be useful for many different things (some of which are at cross-purposes). And useful information (deterministic or not) can be used in ways that are essentially useless (or achieves a purpose completely orthogonal to the stated purpose).

[crazy canuck]

The big problem with making assumptions based on stats is often people will grasp the wrong stat and make the wrong assumptions.

A common one in the UK that fascists like to repeat that white working class men have it hardest of all. Statistically their school performance is lowest.... But what the stats actually show is crappy small towns, which for obvious reasons have never gotten much immigration, tend to perform worst. The white working class part is irrelevant. When you get a minority in those areas they are just as poorly served.

The problem is of course when people claim their views are valid observations when they are demonstrably false.

Like "Lesbians like sports more than straight women - on average"

I'm not sure this is demonstrably false. Gay women do tend to be pretty over represented in sports as compared to their numbers in the general population.

Does this mean if a girl is into sport she's probably gay? Of course not. The majority are still straight.
But the gay percentage does seem to be bigger in sporting circles - with men it being quite the opposite.

The reasons for this are where the interesting things to think about come. To what extent is it due to something "natural" to gay people vs the stereotypes themselves and over the years spaces associated with sports becoming attractive to lesbians and unattractive to gay guys.
It is my theory that the reason you don't see many gay male  pro footballers is at a grass roots homophobic viewpoints are too common so any who might have talent are just turned off.

The most recent research (which attempted to determine if there was a difference in order to make the case that more accommodations were necessary) have concluded participation rates are about the same as the percentage in the age group as a whole.

Now there may be some difficulties given the populations sampled - US collegiate athletes.  But for the purposes of our discussion, close enough.  The bottom line is there is not such a great difference that one could say, "hey I knew she would likely be a Lesbian because she liked sports".

The interesting data is that gay men are under-represented in sports.  I don't think that has anything to do with athletic ability - which would be the stereotype.  I think it has a lot more to do with bullying in the locker room that a gay athlete would have to endure so they avoid it.