Mind you, I do think that ads targeted only to e.g. certain races are crappy and probably violate the law, but that certainly isn't as obvious from the links people are providing.

Its a hard truth to swallow.

The rest of this isn't directed just at you astura.

If this was some random Facebook or 4chan comment would you be so quick to come to that rationalization?

I feel we like to think the individuals we associate with on HN are like minded. To admit they aren't is almost a personal affront. To keep the disillusion going we must rationalize and make up excuses for them or how they behave.

But sometimes a duck is a duck.

Who did I accuse of racism? I stated people in the thread are being casually racist but didn't name any names.

Haven't we been learning as developers or operators that it's better to put processes and systems in place to prevent human error opposed to relying on human judgement alone? Why the slack with this issue?