USPS Discrimination Against Atheism?

[thejteam]

Not enough packages to make a real claim. The variance on package delivery times in the USPS is high. As an example, I recently had two identical packages shipped to me. They both left the same facility at the same time. They were identical weight(heavy) and dimensions. They were wrapped the same. They were shipped from in the same state as me. One arrived in 2 days. One arrived in 10.

Also, they mentioned that one of the packages in Michigan took 37 extra days. With that sample size it explains about 10 percent of the average right there.

[pflats]

n = 85 and p < 0.01. What's inherently wrong with that? (I have my own personal crusade against the 5% p-value, but this is under 1%.)

I agree that the sample size is far too small to criticize individual states, but 85 seems plenty large for the hypothesis of "Atheist-branded packages sent by the USPS are being delayed more than normal packages."

[AtheistBerlin]

You're welcome to see the data if you like - we ran it by two independent statisticians to make sure our sample size was large enough... n = 178, in a 2 condition study, really isn't too bad. The important point here is that the variance should have been equally spread across both conditions... and it wasn't.

[Jabbles]

I agree that a larger sample would be welcomed. In particular, spreading the experiment out over many days would help eliminate a "oh all these packages are the same, they probably go here" mistake. Whilst sending them all out on the same day eliminates some sources of bias, it may have made the experiment more susceptible to other errors.

[Retric]

Having high variance requires a larger difference to pass a statistical test.

[trotsky]

All of these are international packages going through Jamaica Bay in New York which is notorious for delays. A significant percentage of packages are selected for extra screening here, but no where near 100%. Those go into a set of queues that always mean randomized and often lengthy delays. Most of the packages chosen for the screening are picked by humans that I would almost guarantee are more likely to pick the packages that catch their eye for any reason.

Also, if you send through a package that weighs just north of a kilogram it is almost guaranteed to be subjected to extra screening. This is by no means a secret among international shippers, and would make it pretty easy to stack the deck if you wanted to. I bet a lot of shoes weigh around that much, no?

[AtheistBerlin]

Just to confirm, not all of the packages pass through Jamacia Bay and we were careful to ensure the packages were as similarly eye-catching as possible... but those selecting humans would be wiser than to only choose the most eye-catching packages. I'm not gonna put a flag on a package containing drugs, for example. And as the other commenter says, we only sent tote bags, not shoes.

[glyphobet]

These guys share an office with me, so I saw the packages. They all contained one tote bag and were nowhere near a kilogram.

[smarx]

What did the two kinds of packages actually look like?

If the illustration is accurate, the "atheism" tape is white with black text, while the other tape is perhaps standard brown packing tape.

Could it be that the standard packing tape is just better tape?

Could it be that black text on white tape confuses a scanner somewhere?

A better control might be identical tape but with a different word (something neutral like "shoes").

[glyphobet]

These guys share an office with us, so I saw the packages. The Atheist tape is standard packing tape, there's no difference in quality of the tape.

[NateDad]

For those that say this is just USPS sucking in general.... my wife runs a small business that sends thousands of packages per year both in the US and international. The number of packages that have been truly lost numbers in the single digits. Delays happen, but rarely (most delays are the individual post offices holding on to the package until the recipient comes to the post office to pick it up... we still don't know why they do that).

If she suffered 10% loss of deliveries, she'd go out of business. Luckily, that doesn't happen... though she also doesn't label her boxes with atheist tape.

[mich41]

some of our customers asked us not to use ATHEIST-branded packing tape on their shipments

We sent 178 packages to 89 people

4 participants didn't get back to us with their dates and so were not included in the analysis

So they used easily-spoofable data submitted by people who knew about the study and a priori believed to be discriminated against.

It may easily be just trolling by atheist jihadists from the US.

[AtheistBerlin]

if only that were the truth. sadly not, no data spoofing involved.

[marknutter]

I bet if you put "Allahu Akbar" tape on a package it'd fair much worse.

[UnoriginalGuy]

I'd legitimately be interested to see that tested.

[PaulHoule]

I don't know if it is just USPS. Mail between Germany and the U.S. has never been reliable in my opinion. My experience was that one of of two packages I sent to my Mom back in the states would disappear somehow.

I've had TSA people wrinkle my shirts and leave behind an apologetic yellow tag, but only in Germany have I had them carefully take apart everything in my cases, find something they didn't want me to have, remove it, put everything carefully back the way it was, and never say a word.

[bluedino]

Out of 89 packages (half of the 179), 9 went missing? That's 10%.

That is insane for the US Postal Service to be allowed that, but it follows my personal experience with them. I don't think I've ever had them lose a letter in my life, but when it comes to packages I don't know how they lose so many. I shudder when I get a USPS tracking email from an online seller because I know there's fair chance I will never see the damn thing.

[IgorPartola]

Where do you live? In MA, CT, and NC I have had a USPS package go missing exactly twice. In the first case I'm pretty sure the mailperson just left it on the wrong porch and the neighbor never admitted it. In the second, they had confirmed delivery, but the package was not there, so Amazon sent another item.

[oellegaard]

Wow, didn't expect this in a developed country :-(

[carlyle4545]

Perhaps its God Himself intervening..

[rdl]

God also apparently intervened against their webserver, perhaps by creating ten thousand bored hackers 15-50 years ago, who hit it from Hacker News today.

[edwinjm]

This makes the migh moral standards claim of believers staggering.

[cema]

Well, this is almost certainly illegal. (What is described by the article.) I wonder if any kind of investigation is going to follow. Perhaps not criminal, but journalistic. Freedom of speech is paramount to a broad spectrum of Americans, as far as I can tell, and I expect many would be interested.

[Strilanc]

The actual statistics are in teeny tiny print near the bottom. They don't give the raw data, unfortunately.

I'd copy-paste the text here, but everything is embedded in images. (Which is absurd.)

Also, one of the four comments I can see is not like the others. (It might be removed before you see it.)

[dictum]

Remember when televangelists raised funds and sold trinkets by telling people that "they" (the non-religious, secular institutions, other religions...) were plotting against them in nefarious ways?

You still can't gaze into the abyss without it gazing into you.

[daleknauss]

It seems to me that their control packages should have had tape with 'less offensive' text on them. This would ensure that it's not just a matter of the atheist packages being more eye-catching or out of the ordinary.

[claudius]

They should make similar experiments with Saudi-Arabia and maybe a few other countries :-)

[mooism2]

Because discrimination is perfectly fine so long as you're not discriminating as much as somebody more extreme?

Of course not.

And don't try to wiggle out of it by saying you were only joking. You are still perpetuating the viewpoint.

[616c]

I think it is funny people make such points about Saudi Arabia, as they are what we should compare to. However, I live in a Gulf country neighboring to KSA and trust me mail censorship is bizarrely complicated and we all laugh about it.

[_ak]

Why are you so apologetic about religious discrimination in the US? "But these other people are so much worse than I am" has never been a valid argument.

[VMG]

Maybe they discriminate against public display of private belief in general.

[codezero]

I'm pretty sure most people would not be OK with any kind of editorial discrimination by the handlers of mail.

[001sky]

simply a no advertising policy. easy, simple, effective.

[noonespecial]

They sent packages from Berlin to the US and found a bunch of variance in delivery times and their first thought was "its the tape"?

They have more faith than I do.

[leephillips]

If they were relying on "faith" they wouldn't have bothered to test their guess, would they have? Isn't that the very opposite of "faith"?

[PaulHoule]

A/B testing may be safe in the hands of Athiests, but would you want it in the hands of terrorists?

[bhauer]

I read this and was left wanting control tests using other couriers such as UPS and Fedex.