The New York Times Just Published Some Bizarre Race Science About Asian Women
The New York Times Just Published Some Bizarre Race Science About Asian Women
I guess the NYT no longer has an editor on staff? Who the fuck let that go to print, also who writes something like that into an article - that little paragraph where the NYT claims that "industry experts" said Chinese girls are better at assembling phones reads like cringe AI slop.
I feel like literally one person proofreading that should have been enough for them to go, "maybe don't print the stupid racist thing about small fingers."
Authors name is "Tripp" and if he's a real person he 100% used AI to write it.
I'm guessing his grandfather was/is loaded and connected. I've never met a man in my life who goes by "Tripp" and isn't an insufferable douche coasting off generational wealth.
The crazy part is he just "wrote" a book about Apple, and there's a good chance Apple execs he talked to really said that stupid racist thing.
He goes by tripp because, according to his personal image consultant, "Leopold reitbarth the third" didn't test well with under 30s in their focus groups
If it's children doing it then it's not racist anymore. -- NYT, probably
capitalist mutual masturbation and manufactured cognitive dissonance / distraction so they don’t have to actually change anything and effect profit potential. while they wait for daddy dictator trump to open their proposals in the form of a cotton sack with a dollar sign on the side.
They will fire the editor and writer (who are probably overworked and forced to use AI slop to meet deadlines), and the cycle begins anew.
"Grown ass men with sausage fingers are also out there painting tiny dolls using nail art brushes so they can play house... with their friends," Jeong joked. "American men have plenty of manual dexterity."
OH, man. I feel attacked. I'm going to cry onto my D&D minis now.
"Young Chinese women have small fingers," the article reads, "and that has made them a valuable contributor to iPhone production because they are more nimble at installing screws and other miniature parts in the small device, supply chain experts said."
Fucking what? Who are these supply chain experts? Did you pull them out of your ass?
This reads like AI. I've lost any speck of respect I still had for NYT.
So, NYT, do the Swiss all have micro hands? How do you explain Swiss watchmaking? For that matter, how about American watchmaking? America used to make all kinds of tiny wristwatches, including movements. There is also a few current American watchmakers, with a few building intricate movements.
I guess they can’t comprehend tweezers?
Owned by Bezos, or am I misremembering?
No, that's the Washington Post. The NYT did change ownership a few years ago and that's why it's gone to shit, but the owner isn't a household name.
Nyt has been weird for as long as I can remember, and that's a long time.
That's the Washington Post.
That's the Washington Post
People are just now waking up to realize a pro genocide & pro wealth disparity publication isn't moral?
Nyt is compromised
Does anyone else remember this fake commercial from a real life movie with actual brand names in it?
NYT is a science publisher?
Wait a second:
it’s hard for apple to manufacture devices in a country with robust labor rights.
Robust labor rights? The US?
We have child labor making a comeback here. It’s not that far fetched to imagine children working in hypothetical US factories if things keep going the way they’re going.
After China and India, yeah, the US has very robust labor laws
The use of "race science" in this headline has been bugging me and I only just realized why. Questionable race science would be claiming that e.g. asian women think in some particularly useful way, or any other specific claim about race that is hard to prove. But it's actually quite easy to show asian women have small hands, I assume -- at least, it seems to me like asian women do tend to have much smaller hands than men of other races. This is not the dubious claim. The dubious claim is whether those smaller hands are useful or not.
I am not really sure what to make of this, I'm still grappling with this one. Just thought I'd share my scattered thoughts.
What stood out for me was this line:
— so it could be, whether the NYT understood it or not, that its "experts" were simply winking at the reality that it's hard to build affordable gadgets in a country with robust labor rights.
Robust labour rights? An American is talking about "robust labor rights"!? If someone from the EU had written that I'd have gone "fair enough". But against an American employer?
Let's put it this way: I've worked in China for 25 years. I turned down a job in the USA shortly before moving here (about two years before). There's a reason for this (and it wasn't just the gun in the job interview).
Alright you hooked me, I want to hear about the gun slinging interviewer.
Yep exactly!
The worst garbage imperial propagandists pushing racist pseudo-science in service to capitalism? Genocidal fascists promoting colonialism? I'm shocked!!! SHOCKED!!!! \s
yall seriously need some media literacy classes. or basic reading comprehension classes.
NYT paraphrased some industry people who posited that Chinese manufacturing benefits from small lady hands. that’s literally just covering a story. they didn’t say “us can’t make stuff because we don’t have little china-fingers and only tiny-china-fingers can make the pocket computers.” they just reported that some unnamed assholes said that.
Follow your own advice then, you'll learn that it's the role of the journalist to qualify wrong and offensive statements reported, or it is implied that the journalist approves of the position.
Yeah, that's weird.
The reason iPhones are impractical to make in the US has nothing to do with anatomy or genetics, it's purely labor costs. You can hire someone to work for very little and for very long in China, you can't do that in the US. That's it. That's the only reason.
They've been known to literally lock people in their factories, and even put up suicide nets to prevent slaves from killing themselves.
Iqbal Masih
Google this boy if you haven't heard of him everyone. Two adult men assassinated a child for what he had to say
Manufacturing labour costs are far cheaper outside of China but the skills aren't available. While labour costs are always a factor, the US just doesn't have enough skilled manufacturing engineers or the supply chain you get somewhere like Shenzen.
Neither did China until Apple trained them
The US had and has plenty, which is why manufacturing started in the US and migrated out once processes standardized enough to bring in less competent labor. Then labor became more competent, so more companies moved their operations there. A lot of US manufacturing engineers work with Chinese manufacturing facilities, because that's where the labor is.
If the US wants to bring manufacturing back, it needs to be cheaper to do it domestically. That means automation, better materials transportation, and cheap raw materials.
I don't see the point. Instead of bringing back manufacturing, improve education and focus on higher value work.
What's important to note is all the pieces that get screwed together are still made over there...
We can pay tariffs on all the pieces and screw them together here, but that's going to essentially have the same tariff costs as a completed iPhone.
Having someone screw the pieces together here would also raise costs due to labor costs. But they're two completely different things.
Quick edit:
Times author is legitimately named "Trip" and started out as a sports writer before pivoting to "apple, bourbon, and beer".
These days it might just be AI, but if it's a human it's almost certainly a nepo hire...
They could even waive the tariffs and it would still be impractical to assemble in the US. The only way it's practical here is with near full automation, and even then it's probably still cheaper in China.
Labor and land are just so much cheaper there.
China ain't the cheapest anymore and has not been for a while.
No, but it's substantially cheaper than the US and cheap enough that moving operations isn't practical. Companies are moving to other south Asian countries, but China remains a staple for reasonably competent and reasonably cheap labor.
Well it's also about supply chains. All the components are also made in China so you'd end up ordering the parts and then having to wait a month or more for them to be shipped to the US. If you want to avoid delays that means maintaining a significant stockpile of parts in the US that you may or may not ever actually use.