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
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.
I think that's exactly where they were aiming with the small finger stuff. They want kids in factories again.
After China and India, yeah, the US has very robust labor laws
Gigaset produces in Germany.
"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."
This 100% reads like LLM output; it's confidently wrong, isn't using proper news copy syntax, and got weirdly vague as it trailed off ("the small device").
NYT is publishing AI articles.
Wasn't this also the argument for child labor? "Small children can fit into tight spaces easier, lets use them to unjam dangerous machinery"
But the children yearn for the mines!
Yes. For example I know in textiles especially, they were small enough to run under & between machines to get things without the factory having to them off. (Surprise surprise, guess how kids got maimed and/or killed...)
The right watched snow piercer and needed therapy after see all the horrible things that the back of the train did to their betters.
Probably scrapped articles with “labor in Asia” to get this spat out
China use child labor, so……
We can't claim that everything weird is written by AI, because there are weird human writers too. Although even if not AI, "experts claim" is such a dodgy source, that alone makes it untrustworthy.
Ah, NYT. Amongst all subscriptions that I have come across in my country, NYT is the most expensive. Since they haven't heard of region specific pricing and just multiply by exchange rate; it's only six times more expensive than YT Premium in India.
Atleast I was under the belief that they had decent editorial standards but looks like that ship has sailed away as well.
Yeah def what I was thinking. It’s strange that instead of admitting to this they’re just rolling with it saying it’s based off something they read.
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.
That’s it. That’s the only reason.
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 just doesn't have enough skilled manufacturing engineers or the supply chain
That's because it was all outsourced to China because they utilize cheap/free labor.
If we had started doing tariffs 30 years ago we could have prevented that. Or if we enacted tariffs as part of a larger plan to slowly transition that industry back over the next 20 years, we could probably do that as well.
But just slapping a 250% tariff overnight and expecting everything to sort itself out is the kind of a plan only the orange moron could come up with.
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...
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.
Sure, but I don't think supply chains are the critical factor here. You don't necessarily need local supply if you can break up delivery into small enough chunks, so whether it takes a day or a month to get a part isn't important once the flow is going smoothly. You only need local supply if there's a significant risk of disruption/delays.
Yes, it's probably a bit cheaper to assemble things closer to where they're produced, but I still think labor costs are the determining factor. US workers expect higher pay, more PTO, less hours worked per week, and more benefits, so even if all the parts were shipped in perfectly consistently, it would still be significantly more expensive to assemble iPhones in the US vs in China.
Terrible journalism. The author entirely neglects the fact that lemurs possess fingers even smaller than those of Chinese women. Why not have lemurs manufacture iPhones, given the particular daintiness of their digits? A true investigative journalist wouldn't leave such crucial avenues of inquiry unexplored.
Hahahhhaahahha
"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.
Their response is literally “he said it on a podcast,” and his comment on the podcast was the fingers statement plus “Apple engineers talk about this.”
Go suck a railroad spike bud, you might as well have said that foot binding is the reason for good workplace retention, because Apple workers said so.
You still had respect for it? It's owned by and has been pushing Bezo's agenda for ages now
Bezos owns the Washington Post not the NYT.
TLDR
"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." [...]
there doesn't seem to be a lick of evidence [...] that small hands are preferable for manufacturing small devices. The closest thing we could find was a paper that found that surgeons with smaller hands actually had a harder time manipulating dextrous operating tools, which would seem to contradict the NYT's claim that small hands are an advantage for small specialized movements.
(...so should they be hiring big white men instead? Not clear to me how this article thinks that's a rebuttal of the 'race science')
I don't really know what I'm talking about nor do I have a horse in this race, but could it be that small handed surgeons struggle with tools because the tools themselves are designed for big hands?
that does seem plausible.
A valid hypothesis
The size of the tools are dictated from the use of the tool, not the surgeon's hand size. You simply have the same tool in different size.
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.
Wait, wait, I've seen this one!
applies Netherlands flag sticker to 8 ft. ceiling by extending arm and making small hop
I wipe my ass with NYT these days. All they've been publishing is straight garbage
Wiping your ass with horse shit is not quite something to be proud of.
It's been the punchline of a dark joke for years.
You gotta get those little hands building the little toys.
We make the dark joke because we know it's true, but we can collectively point at a tech company and say it's their fault, and still enjoy the fruits of their labor at prices we can afford.
Globalism - hyperglobal capitalism - is all about externalizing the negativities and internalizing the positives.
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.
As with most news source, I take them with a grain of salt. Especially when the news sources are owned by billionaires who have financial incentive to twist public media
The comment section is all over the place gawd damn
"All the crap that fits, we print."
It takes tiny hands to fit all the type on the page.
I agree with the outrage, but I don't know that using race science to combat race science is the way to attack this horseshit. Futurism essentially says "the NYT says Asians have small hands, but what the race science actually says is that hand size is yada yada etc. etc."
Like, is race science silly or is it not? 🤷 If science said that, yes, Asian women have unusually small and "nimble" fingers, it wouldn't make a bit of difference; the entire concept is stupid and racist, not just the inaccuracy of the hand measurements. Needling over the microdifferences in index finger girth between Asians and Americans (who may well be of Asian descent themselves) is missing the whole-ass point.
Nyt is compromised
Never change, NYT. Wait maybe change a little.
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?
With all non-due respect, you're being dishonest & disingenuous.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/30/world/middleeast/gaza-medic-israel-shooting.html
Your first link is from 2018 titled, "A Day, a Life: When a Medic Was Killed in Gaza, Was It an Accident?" I'll quote from the article:
"An investigation by The New York Times found that Ms. Najjar, and what happened on the evening of June 1, were far more complicated than either narrative allowed... The Palestinians trying to tear down the fence are risking their lives to make a point, knowing that the protests amount to little more than a public relations stunt..."
Now let's see if they question Israel's narratives the same way?
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/03/technology/israel-hamas-information-war.html
Titled "In a Worldwide War of Words, Russia, China and Iran Back Hamas" and I quote:
"Iran, Russia and, to a lesser degree, China have used state media and the world’s major social networking platforms to support Hamas and undercut Israel, while denigrating Israel’s principal ally, the United States... Cyabra has documented at least 40,000 bots or inauthentic accounts online since Hamas attacked Israel from Gaza on Oct. 7. The content — visceral, emotionally charged, politically slanted and often false — has stoked anger and even violence far beyond Gaza, raising fears that it could inflame a wider conflict."
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/10/09/opinion/gaza-doctor-interviews.html
This is an opinion piece, right up there alongside:
The Genocide Charge Against Israel Is a Moral Obscenity: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/16/opinion/israel-hamas-war-genocide.html
The Reason for an Israeli Curfew: Palestinian Terrorism: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/01/opinion/letters/israel-palestinians.html
https://www.nytimes.com/video/world/middleeast/100000010140613/israel-gaza-medics-attack-idf.html
Where is the investigation? This is a video that wasn't even taken by NYT. Regardless, for every 10 Israeli propaganda article, maybe one or two being slightly critical doesn't mean jack shit.
https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/new-york-times-ignored-doubts-hamas-iran-october-7-documents
https://theintercept.com/2024/04/15/nyt-israel-gaza-genocide-palestine-coverage/
Let's look at this recent story:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/23/us/pro-palestinian-movement-embassy-attack.html
"The slaying of two Israeli Embassy workers cast a harsh spotlight on pro-Palestinian groups in the United States.."
Does anyone else remember this fake commercial from a real life movie with actual brand names in it?
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.
Okay but what about the Japanese people that have long torsos but very thick muscular short legs? I've noticed that in both men and women. Its counterintuitive for karate for example. Short legs don't help for high kicks and such. Bicycles would be awesome with short powerful legs though. Key cars would fit fine. Anyway its just a stereotype. I don't think all Japanese people have that body shape. I don't think the small hand thing actually helps. Its probably more like the people working tend to be kids maybe? And they want to cover it up or justify it somehow?
The worst garbage imperial propagandists pushing racist pseudo-science in service to capitalism? Genocidal fascists promoting colonialism? I'm shocked!!! SHOCKED!!!! \s
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).