&gt; Are you really postulating that because society categorizes something as a group, therefore members of this group suddenly act in a completely altruistic manner towards their groupmates?<p>Huh? No. Why do you think I think that? Social groups often have shared experiences (often because society views them as a group), and people with shared experience often have shared needs, and to get those needs you need power. If you don&#x27;t have the power, other groups have power over you, and they may not share your needs, and have their own, and as a result act less in your interest.<p>There is an interesting concept called ingroup&#x2F;outgroup[1] that is subject to <i>a lot</i> of current research in social psychology, which has found that kids at a very young age display ingroup allegiance and outgroup rejection even for made up groups (e.g. experimenters tell a kid, &quot;you&#x27;re in the blue group&quot;, and then ask them play the dictator game[2], namely decide how much and what kind of rewards to give to another kid they&#x27;ve never met, who they only know belongs to their made-up group or not. The group association makes a lot of difference (incidentally in boys more than girls, but that depends on age). Ingroup&#x2F;outgroup is a well-known, well-studied concept, but it&#x27;s not altruism, let alone &quot;complete altruism&quot;. It&#x27;s not entirely relevant to my view anyway, but since you brought up altruism I thought I&#x27;d explain the &quot;proper term&quot; for the &quot;feeling&quot; one has towards one&#x27;s own social group vs. others. Again, even ingroup&#x2F;outgroup is not directly related to the objective unequal distribution of power.<p>&gt; That&#x27;s a pretty remarkable claim. Interestingly, the only people I&#x27;ve seen making this claim besides you are the (normatively) racist side of the human biodiversity movement. You might find Jayman&#x27;s debunking of these folks enlightening - he&#x27;s focused on ethnic groups specifically, but social groups have even less motivation for altruism.<p>Remarkable indeed! Why in god&#x27;s name would you think I make that claim?[3]<p>&gt; Your real world choices are a) accept unequal representation or b) kick Asians out. Which do you favor?<p>I must say I&#x27;m surprised you think that. First -- this isn&#x27;t a zero-sum game. Groups that are underrepresented in power are often underrepresented because their ability to achieve a good social standing (and a good chance at power) through education, connections, familiarity with the business world or politics etc.. is very much reduced. That&#x27;s precisely where society&#x27;s economic potential lies. If they get better education, better connections and so on, the economy would grow very, very significantly (they will make more money to buy things <i>and</i> be more productive). Second, if you <i>think</i> it is a zero-sum game, you must accept the possibility (which is the reality) that the current state of things is <i>after</i> blacks have been kicked out. You&#x27;ve already kicked out a group out of the economic process[4], and all we want is to let them back in. So, yeah, if it&#x27;s a zero-sum game (it isn&#x27;t), the end result will be more-or-less equal representation in power (not tech alone -- I said that we have no problem in one community being overrepresented in one seat of power and underrepresented in another). Of course, it&#x27;s not a zero-sum game, because those who have no access to power are almost always in a state of &quot;untapped potential&quot; that benefits everyone.<p>[1]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Ingroups_and_outgroups" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Ingroups_and_outgroups</a><p>[2]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Dictator_game" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Dictator_game</a><p>[3]: In this particular case, the entirety of their contribution to the economic process for hundreds of years has been stolen from them, and then, with whatever money they could earn (without any inheritance or connections) you disallowed them from fully participating in the economy by preventing them from buying land, voting (and thus getting their interests heard and help from the government -- like other groups) and starting businesses with the same opportunities of white businesses. All this has sort-of ended as recently as 45 years ago.<p>[3]: BTW, out of curiosity I read the link, and I think it&#x27;s not a lot less ridiculous as the claims it wishes to debunk. The famous Price equation, which models altruism as kin selection was never meant to be a full explanation of altruism <i>in people</i> (although it bothered George Price enough to kill himself) but in slime-mold and ants. Altruism in people is probably a result of a completely different process, because it operates at a much higher level of abstraction. That guy&#x27;s analysis makes as much sense as tracing human ability to solve differential equations back to kin selection. Both (altruism and ODEs) are probably side effects of something else.