One wonders if the fact that the customer is the one who has to arrange for the soap, paper towels, etc. to be refilled; rather than the one using the bathroom, has anything to do with the calibration…
The ones I’ve had the pleasure of running into all seem to err on the side of caution, to put it nicely.
I’m white and those things never work for me.
Now, I thought those things were based off ultrasonic or infra red?
Preach.
Yup. If your algorithm is tuned for white people, then black people tend to look the same. It’s true of human brains, and it’s true of machine learning. The best way to not be racist is to interact face to face with people of lots of different races, in both cases.
It’s hard to find a well-travelled racist.
Why, though? We have the ability to manufacture things that are much more variable in applications for variety of people. We create for any number of markets, and there is no reason those markets can reflect our ethnic and racial diversity. But in the case of a standard, why does that standard need to default to white (and depending on the product) male? Why is that the “standard or default” we’ve agreed upon? How did we get that standard in the first place?
Dragonglass kills them.
Well I didn’t say the default should be or has to be “White & male” did I? What I said is there has to be a default within a certain range for a product. Cars are not one size fits all. Shaq can’t really drive a Smartcar, and Peter Dinklage isn’t going to be buying a Chevy Suburban any time soon.
There are certainly opportunities for certain products and services to be variablized and customized for all possible people and scenarios; however, most products or goods that are manufactured are going to have some decided upon standards of variance.
I didn’t say what that default is SUPPOSED to be, please do not put words in my mouth. I just find it reasonable that some min/max standard exists for something like a soap dispenser.
but when the CotF made the first one…didn’t she push dragon glass into his heart? (I know we are off topic with this)
No, and I certainly didn’t mean to imply that you were. I’m saying that, more often than not, that white and male IS seen as the “default” human and asking you why you think it’s so.
Again, I wasn’t implying that YOU said it, but that this phenomenon exists as a fact of life.
Oh, I see. I think you’re correct in that.
I’ll always go off topic for some Game of Thrones! 
to the former, I was feeling like you were assuming that, apologies for making the assumption. Agreed, it often is that the default min/max seems to be within that. I like standard counter heights when I am cooking, I totally understand why Julia had her counters raised because of her height. It’s not something that I think was a gender specific standard, nor do I think race played into it…its just 36" was the standard decided upon to fit the majority of people in a certain height range.
I think was thinking more of that kind of innocuous standard. But I completely see your point and acknowledge it effects many other things (like perhaps a soap dispenser) that I am probably just oblivious to.
to the later: ME TOO! I just don’t understand how the scene played out. did the glass replace his heart or just is embedded in it.
But I think we have to ask ourselves, is that the case. I’m not sure that it’s universally true (as an average, I mean). Height varies by location on the planet. Of course height is less controversial than race or gender as setting standards for design. I think cameras are a better comparision, and we known for a fact that during the many years of its development, white skin was the default for testing the parameters for photographs and films:
It might not have been conscious, but entirely unconscious that these things were shaped in this way, but it’s still a thing.
But even things that seem innocuous can actually make other’s lives harder.
I think that’s the problem for all of us. We don’t understand something like this is a problem unless someone points it out, if it’s nothing something that impacts our daily life. I think that’s why the knee jerk reaction of “it’s not a problem!” some have when issues like this come up are so grating. Just because something isn’t a problem for a particular individual, doesn’t mean it isn’t for some other group of people.
There’s a sink at a local coworking facility with an infrared valve. And for a long time the sink water was set “too hot”, as in, hot enough that it kept triggering the infrared sensor until the system timeout kicked in. Every time you washed your hands the water ran for about a minute straight.
(As it turns out, the “too hot” temperature was actually quite pleasant for handwashing.)
What Ive discovered in talking to people of color on the internet, is that white people usually assume racism is a set of beliefs and ideas held by individual people. Where people of color see racism as a set of interlocking blind spots, lazy assumptions, and institutional inertia that combine in ways that work against people of color.
So whenever POC try to talk about systemic oppression, white folk are backing away saying, “thats not my problem” and refusing to engage.
If instead of assuming that a racist soap dispenser is a logical impossibilty, you ask yourself what racism might mean to different people… this wouldn’t be such a conundrum.
This pretty much nails it. It’s the same for sexism as well, its likely that the average guy doesn’t set out to discriminate against women. It happens though. Regardless if intentional or not, if a group is saying that they are experiencing discrimination the response shouldn’t be “Well that’s highly unlikely”. It’s very dismissive of the reality other peoples experience daily.
I am Latino, but i very rarely experience prejudice. Just because i feel that way doesn’t mean it can’t or doesn’t happen.
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