# Deterministic race ideology is wrong



## notimp (Jul 9, 2020)

I've grown up in a country close to germany, where the guy that is held responsible for all of the atrocities in the 1940s came from. We learn to identify the basis of that ideology in school, and never to stand for it if someone takes part of it, dissects it, and then starts to reimplement it as 'not everything about it was bad'.

This is the first time I've been accused of making a wrong accusation on identifying national socialist ideology - and the first time moderators of a forum actually protected people holding up a race deterministic ideology, genetically argued, as a valid stance.


So lets go through it - thoroughly.

1. That race would be genetically determined is not a dictionary definition for over 80 years now.
2. Someone can say that he 'also acknowledges a cultural aspect' of race, and still be a racist - one does not exclude the other.
3. Any argument that argues for 'race being a deterministic factor' because of 'cultural selection over generations' is fundamentally wrong, at most - we see factors like this coming in regionally, and even then they are not 'defining' traits - the idea that a socially dominant group would have an impact on 'race' that would be a defining characteristic over multiple generations is absolutely wrong.
4. Any argument that argues for cultural bias that leads to something 'social darwinism' would call natural selection is fundamentally wrong.
5. Anyone that argues, that family values, and racial traits would be the most notable key determinants for 'future development' of a person is fundamentally wrong.
6. There are no cultural differences, that are better explained racially.
7. How a person looks (haircolor, and skincolor), and how a person behaves are two completely unrelated things. (phenotype is not genotype)
8. If someone is trying to convince you with 'higher testosterone levels on one race, over the other' and then fails to mention, that that level is 2-4% higher, when corrected for age groups, their agenda is not to educate you.
9. Race more often than not is a hinderance, in sociology, medicine or applied governing (because of implied biases).
10. The only field where race is still actively played to - publicly is politics, where it is used as part of public story telling.
11. Race in todays world is almost exclusively determined by self definition.
12. There is no deterministic genetic definition of race.
13. As soon as you try to bridge racial traits with behavioral tendencies, and do so for an entire group, you have crossed the red line into a societal taboo on race ideology.
14. As soon as you try to bridge racial traits with generational behavioral tendencies, you've crossed the line into a societal taboo on race ideology.
15. As soon as you state, that you are 'happy, that we can finally discuss' race ideologies, without taboos, you've crossed the line into a societal taboo on race ideology.
16. If you are mostly arguing that peoples behavior would be racially motivated, you've crossed the line into a societal taboo on race ideology.
[All those taboos are longstanding and not up for debate, they are not a generational ideology, they are there for a reason.]
17. The reason we have taboos on racial ideology is - because people tend to attribute, good things to an ingroup, bad things to an outgroup or a bad outside actor, and then act on it. If you cant 'switch' places - event theoretically, this leads to unbridgeable differences, based on ideology.
...

And if you are an American, that has never in their life reflected on race ideology societally - I suggest you take it very slow, before you decide what could be called national socialistic ideology, and what not. I've studied historical racial ideology for two years in the country where most of Nazi ideology was formed in the 1930s and 40s. Chances are that you have not.

And while our definitions of when it is socially acceptable to call out national socialist ideology might differ, culturally I'm educated since high school to always call it out, when I see it, and to never hold back saying something - when someone tries to reimplement parts of that ideology as socially acceptable.

We could discuss any of the points above, and I'll do my best to provide scientific backing for each of the proclamations, but this is the societal default where I'm coming from, so please excuse me if I don't divert an inch from it. In our countries we are shown the atrocities those racial attributions lead to. At a very young age.


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## 0x3000027E (Jul 9, 2020)

notimp said:


> Anyone that argues, that family values, and racial traits would be the most notable key determinants for 'future development' of a person is fundamentally wrong.


True, however I'm _sure_ you don't share my stance that there is no "determinism" when it comes to the way a person will develop metaphysically_ at all_. (_metaphysically_ is a very important distinction here). 
So, I'm curious what are you suggesting the key determinant to the 'future development' of a person is exactly? _Another set _of genetics not involving race? And how would you know otherwise? Or is it environment, (or phenotype) then? Can you explain why two individuals raised in the same environment don't have predictable outcomes? 



notimp said:


> As soon as you try to bridge racial traits with behavioral tendencies, and do so for an entire group, you have crossed the red line into a societal taboo on race ideology.


I think most people agree with this, however some are quick to attribute _alternate_ sets of genetics to _other _behaviors, such as addiction, depression, anxiety, etc. Again, assigning genetics as a cause to these behaviors is okay, as long as it doesn't involve race? 

My overall point is why when it comes to _race,_ we are able to hold the view that it does not determine _behavior, _while other sets/networks of 'genetics' _are_ responsible for determining behavior. My personal belief is that this distinction _cannot_ be made, especially with our limited understanding of the genome and how it interacts.

My approach is to remove the_ entire _human genome from the equation, since a physically system cannot define metaphysical phenomena, such as behavior, emotion, thoughts. While we're at it, let's remove 'determinism' when describing human behavior _completely_, since determinism would suggest a purely physical phenomena, which is not adequate in describing the human condition.


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## notimp (Jul 9, 2020)

0x3000027E said:


> So, I'm curious what are you suggesting the key determinant to the 'future development' of a person is exactly?


I would argue almost entirely environmentally, so socioeconomic outlook, investment potential, education (not on a 'values' level - but rather on a 'level of education' (not because that person then 'becomes better', but because this factors into recruiting) the issue being, that most of this is determined by economic factors as well (parents education level, ...)).

On the the recruitment level there is another important factor, namely 'ambition and drive' - none of which by companies today is believed to be rooted in race.

While this is indeed a factor of value based family education, again - its mostly determined by family structure, and not by the education philosophy you pick (do you have brothers and sisters, ..).
-

On metaphysics - I'm mainly out.  I see no way the 'philosphical enlightenment' of a person would determine their 'socioeconomic outlook'.


0x3000027E said:


> I think most people agree with this, however some are quick to attribute _alternate_ sets of genetics to _other _behaviors, such as addiction, depression, anxiety, etc. Again, assigning genetics as a cause to these behaviors is okay, as long as it doesn't involve race?


Yes, if a a correlation is statistically viable. The entirety of individualized medicine basically is based on that.

The main issue with race categories is, that they are large, fixed size (hard to 'redefine'), and usually heterogeneous. So in a way, just making the groups smaller solves part of the attribution issue. The other main issue is that you cant 'determine' behavior based on statistical models - as applicable to the individual.

That is a problem that will never go away.

Or simpler - race is just a flipping dumb category for most things you'd try to determine. If you can find better categories, sure. Just know, that you will always be prone to selection biases.
-

Before this extends into a 'wow we can all write using scientific lingo' exchange - which would produce another 'powertrip' for me (look, I'm so smart). I'm probably more comfortable with this thread just existing for a while and then vanishing silently.

What my believes on most of those points (in the first thread) are, doesnt matter, what matters is that they should be mostly valid arguments for proper reasons.


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## FGFlann (Jul 9, 2020)

I doubt you will find anyone on this website that believes in racial determinism. The entire problem with the previous thread, and why it went off the rails, is that arguments were being raised against positions that were never taken. The entire discussion stemmed from a mistake like this. From there, everyone involved gets frustrated and everything becomes incoherent. The most important lesson for us all to learn from it is that we shouldn't go off on wild tangents and accuse each other of holding positions that were never expressed. An unintentional strawman is still a strawman, and they're bad for discussion.


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## FAST6191 (Jul 10, 2020)

notimp said:


> I've grown up in a country close to germany, where the guy that is held responsible for all of the atrocities in the 1940s came from. We learn to identify the basis of that ideology in school, and never to stand for it if someone takes part of it, dissects it, and then starts to reimplement it as 'not everything about it was bad'.
> 
> This is the first time I've been accused of making a wrong accusation on identifying national socialist ideology - and the first time moderators of a forum actually protected people holding up a race deterministic ideology, genetically argued, as a valid stance.
> 
> ...



1. Dictionaries are odd things but OK. Do we want to change it?
2. OK.
3. Put a pin in that one for now as that gets taken up in more depth later it seems.
4. Can you expand on that? As a general concept though heritable traits + isolation + stressors + time (and between various out of Africa and the advent of deep water navigation there was a lot of it) does make for differences.
5. I am not sure what you are going for there. Or if it is just the "most" part that bothers you. Grandparent effect is a noted thing in development of many higher life forms (kill the elder elephants and you mess the herd up big style).
6. I would say a general widespread lactose intolerance among those of the would be races (if we are usually the generally accepted informal definition) would explain a lot of food differences. Stands to reason there could be more (alcohol tolerance, medical requirements which could go down to what works best on a given hair type...). Anyway if genetics speaks to food choices and that is not culture does that mean cultural appropriation of food is even more bollocks than I thought it was?
7. Being a pasty white guy with fat over my body rather than concentrated in my arse means I avoid exerting myself hot African style sun and quite happily run around all day in the cold, as are many of my friends of similar disposition. Black guys I know despite also growing up here are routinely the opposite, or at least fare far better in the would be reverse situation. The black pygmy population tends not to favour trades revolving around strength and height either. Technology (we are tool using apes after all) can mitigate some of that but that still would speak to something.
8. That would speak to a failure in statistics. Correcting for it is there anything worth looking at?
9. Possibly. Has some uses though.
10. Maybe, certainly negatives as well with that.
11. To an extent and the amount of fuzzy edges makes determinations in some cases harder than they might be and otherwise obviated by other things. That said I will never be passing as an Australian aboriginal outside of serious genetic manipulation.
12. Even with the probabilistic nature of science and biology it is a hard one but give me a DNA sequence and I will place someone's ancestry and likely visual appearance (potential injury and what traits are dominant unknown or recessive being the main trouble) or categories thereof way more than chance would favour, and that is only getting better with more data. Get some epigenetics and I might even be able to account for location they grew up in even if they or their grandparents live far away from their, for want of a better term, genetic homeland.
13. Assuming there is one then is the taboo correct? If I go to various parts of Asia and leave my fan on at night that would be a taboo. There is no real basis for it.
14. 15. There are plenty of taboos. Even if we end up talking about utter drivel. Or if you prefer we can discuss phrenology all we like as it is pretty much without merit (or any merits are injury related -- measure someone's head that got caved in by they survived and some plastic surgeon did not do anything and there will probably be some tells).
16. Mostly. No. Partially? I fail to see how it would not be, especially over a population.
17. So it is a rule of thumb but there might be something if we look deeper.

As a general rule in life if you make too many assumptions about someone's race, especially negative (though positive is also not all that useful either or will be soon tempered by the Peter principle or worse -- I do find it amusing watching people wander into dangerous places under the auspices that we are all people and all good underneath it all), then you will miss out on good people and get your arse handed to you as well just as happily as if you assumed everybody is a clueless moron.


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## 0x3000027E (Jul 10, 2020)

notimp said:


> The other main issue is that you cant 'determine' behavior based on statistical models - as applicable to the individual.
> 
> That is a problem that will never go away.


Exactly. This speaks to a metaphysical aspect of the human condition (or soul; call it what you will). This _is_ significant and should not be ignored! Sure, statistics has a place in some fields of human study (like marketing, psychology, etc) but should be avoided in any discussion of the human condition.



notimp said:


> I would argue almost entirely environmentally, so socioeconomic outlook, investment potential, education (not on a 'values' level - but rather on a 'level of education' (not because that person then 'becomes better', but because this factors into recruiting) the issue being, that most of this is determined by economic factors as well (parents education level, ...)).


This list could be populated _ad infinitum, _and it falls outside the realm of human experience.
Think of it like this; you are facing a difficult decision. For simplicity, let's assume it is a decision with two choices ('do' or 'not do'). Now in your process of coming to a decision, you will no doubt imagine future consequences, think of past events and their consequences, etc, to assist you in coming to a decision with a preferred outcome. 
But ultimately, there is _nothing else _that will _make_ the decision. 
Sure you may consider_ influences _or advice, you may mimic another person you observed in a similar situation; but ultimately _you_ have chosen the influences, advice, _you alone_ are left with the decision to make, and you are left with the consequences of that decision. 
The rebuttal is always that somehow your _Physiology_ is responsible for your choice in influences, how you would imagine future consequences, etc. As if our genome somehow contains the ability to deal in a metaphysical realm, As if our archaic physical systems could somehow cross the border outside of the physical plane, and then _imagine _(like our consciousness), This is a silly assertion.
We can list_ all_ of the possible environmental influences and map out the _entire_ human genome, we would still never achieve a deterministic model of human condition. A thousand years from now they will still be trying.


notimp said:


> I see no way the 'philosphical enlightenment' of a person would determine their 'socioeconomic outlook'


Would _not _determine their outlook. _Nothing_ can do that (see above).


notimp said:


> ambition and drive


Not rooted in physiology_ at all_, I would argue.

Wait......, wasn't this entire conversation supposed to be about race? Um, so yeah judging someone's character on their race is a fallacy (support for this statement in all of my ramblings).

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------



FGFlann said:


> we shouldn't go off on wild tangents


Heh....


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## FGFlann (Jul 10, 2020)

0x3000027E said:


> Heh....


Remember the wise words of Gold 5, and stay on target.


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## FAST6191 (Jul 10, 2020)

0x3000027E said:


> Exactly. This speaks to a metaphysical aspect of the human condition (or soul; call it what you will). This _is_ significant and should not be ignored! Sure, statistics has a place in some fields of human study (like marketing, psychology, etc) but should be avoided in any discussion of the human condition.
> 
> 
> This list could be populated _ad infinitum, _and it falls outside the realm of human experience.
> ...



Stats in the human condition discussion is fine. It is just a lot harder and a lot more variables are involved.
Game theory only gets you so far (people are not exclusively rational actors) but allow people their favourite monopoly piece and realise they are going to trade favourably with their girlfriend and be a bit upset at that last roll of the dice that landed them on your hotel and all of a sudden we are back predicting things reliably such that we win far more than we lose (or at least know to quit the game as you are now potentially facing two players both gunning for you with similar abilities and that means losing is inevitable).

Physiology influences behaviour?
So I don't have colour vision to search for all those nice ripe berries?
So I am not the latest in a long list of people that checked behind the bush for a lion rather than walking around like I am immortal but also realised that if I never leave my nice cave that I am going to starve. Or indeed did they realise anything more than following endorphins you get when eating?

Nurture plays a huge role in things and deterministic (even assuming we could have initial states) is a very hard task (though whole brain emulation does seem within the realm of possibility). Physiology bubbles up though. Scale it over a population with the same stressors (possibly a different one to other parts of the world) and couple it with other things and you have both reliable patterns of behaviour, predictors and more besides.


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## 0x3000027E (Jul 10, 2020)

FAST6191 said:


> Physiology influences behaviour?





FAST6191 said:


> Nurture plays a huge role in things


We have to be careful here. I'm not suggesting that physiology/nurture does not _influence_ our decisions (certainly it can/does). I am merely suggesting it does not_ determine_ them. _Nothing _determines them.



FAST6191 said:


> So I don't have colour vision to search for all those nice ripe berries?
> So I am not the latest in a long list of people that checked behind the bush for a lion rather than walking around like I am immortal but also realised that if I never leave my nice cave that I am going to starve.


These examples can all be bypassed. I can even _imagine _myself ignoring the color of the berries, or taking my chances behind a bush.



FAST6191 said:


> reliable patterns of behaviour, predictors and more besides.


Never reliable. Ask anyone working in marketing or a social engineer. Even statistically, the so-called 'norms' are constantly changing. Once you scale these 'models' to larger populations, it becomes even more difficult and often nonsensical.

It is difficult for us to accept that we are alone in our being, I understand that. I think we often look for other reasons for our actions, beyond our self, so that we may pass the blame and responsibility away. 
Nature/nurture argument is old, and quite frankly rather tired.It is time to look beyond these concepts when describing the human condition, as is the goal of Phenomenology.


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## FAST6191 (Jul 10, 2020)

The nature of free will combined with various various quantum discussions gets all rather philosophical for my taste. Most things I see say we have rather less free will than we might imagine and even if an instance works or things are tempered down from extremes.
Also nature-nurture might be old but it explains an awful lot.

Marketing and social engineering still work though and at some level/the better practioners are intensely scientific. There are many unknowns but at some level everything still works much as it did. Get the message out there, determine your market, pretending to be an authority or position of trust.

I think in the end to get back to the topic at hand
As mentioned I don't give a flying fuck about where your ancestors were 500 years ago before this deep water navigation (and plane travel) lark took off and blurred the lines a bit.
Quite happy to have laws saying you can't not rent a house, deny someone services, not be considered for and will get slapped if you do.
If I am to teach people and shape minds then that is a principle I will attempt to instil. Not because it is moral according to someone somewhere but because it is logical.
As long as the opportunity is there to be pursued I don't give a fuck if the end result does not match population percentages. Social engineering of society is an interesting one (if more education makes for a better society then more education probably wants to be had) so yeah.
Humans are animals and subject to evolution just as any other. As such that means certain traits and adaptations will have cropped up in response to different pressures* (diseases, available foods, availability of foods at given times, available technologies, sizes of tribes sustainable, water conditions, weather and attendant things for all those and more). The ones that aided survival (usually tempered by how much energy they consume relative to reasonably extracted calories) would then usually spread among the population of a given area.
Speaking of given area these populations might migrate at times but were mostly still bounded by mountains, seas, deserts and the like leading to isolated populations after a fashion. Differences are fun but when they are blurred out of existence (see most successful empires and kingdom formations) then that makes life an awful lot easier both in general and when facing the equally large empire/kingdom next door.
By about 500 years ago this was a mostly settled affair, and provide us the basis of race as the vast majority of people understand the concept and will be able to articulate -- there are subdivisions, there are simplifications, there are poor simplifications (some sadly all too common) and all the blurry lines you could ever want but it does not change the general idea underpinning it all. The great genetic experiments that was the settling of the Americas by Europeans and mostly west Africans of Bantu and Khoi San and other Niger congo, themselves also subject to very interesting evolutionary pressures, does complicate some older models and there are some genetic oddities as various populations got isolated (Hungarians in Europe, small pockets of all sorts in Africa) or maybe some backwards colonisation in some cases -- see Madagascar. Anyway this is most people's basic understanding of race and ethnography and there are of course plenty of blurred edges there. There is nothing particularly special or sacred about these groupings -- if some want to mix it up for some kids then fine, if they don't then fine, if they vanish tomorrow then probably some individuals will be hurt as tomorrow is rather quick but if they ultimately blur into others then fine too (happened before many times) and I am of course interested in history and science of such things as a general intellectual endeavour.

*this can include social/cultural ones. Follow the leader is a popular activity in pack animals (which humans are) so whatever got the leader's juices flowing might well be represented in future generations.

As a general concept humans will play to what they are good at (indeed most of the more successful philosophies once specialisation crops up as a response to excess food production tend to say know your weaknesses but play to your strengths), physical and mental traits, both of which are heritable, playing into that. If your genetic pathline led you and most of those around you to being tall, muscular and able to eat milk as well as deal with the diseases of milk producing animals, store fat all over for the winter but not do so well in hot sun it is going to see things play to that, and the results of someone with different combinations of that will see different things be favoured. Evolutionary pressures (which can be cultural/societal) also change as to the likes of environmental factors -- a group focused on survival tends not to do much in the way of blue sky research or future planning. There is way more to unite such groupings than there is to divide them. I am happy to interact with those that can help me, and help them in turn, be their friends and otherwise not seek to hurt them, not to mention if you assume [other group] are a bunch of brutish thick bastards then you will miss out on good people (a hard to find resource) and come a cropper when they in turn outsmart or outgun you whereas "everybody wins" is a far nicer world to exist in.

If all that makes me an unpardonable cunt then so be it. As far as I can see nobody gets hurt with that approach to the world and it comports with observable reality, experimental results, general models of mathematics big and small, and the like. Hurting people is generally not done and denying observed reality is not a great look if that is to be the outlook on the world (and whether it is dodging the predator behind the bush or contemplating the nature of quantum mechanics you do usually start with observing reality) where "it just is, don't question it, because a wizard did it" is the hallmarks of religion that we have come far in casting off.
Further to the threads that led to this one then as far as I can see this is also the dominant approach in most parts of the world people want to live in (or at least those places where people don't starve, have the highest education counts/scores over the population and in general, do most of the research/development, have medicine that works, don't die from environmental conditions, have the most of their babies survive and live the longest), their governments and societal institutions at large. Claiming otherwise is then a ridiculous notion from where I sit, a notion also showcased by numbers participating and in foundational the basis of said things (though words is words is words according to some), not to mention none there have any kind of monopoly or great claim to suffering (save perhaps the poor in those places).


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## UltraDolphinRevolution (Jul 12, 2020)

I thought the other thread was closed for a reason.

This is my reply to a private message notimp had sent me after the closure of the last thread.


Spoiler: Clarification on the last thread



It is a misconception that Nazis regarded Jews as inferior (although some have tried). Jews were despised because of their success. By enforcing diversity at institutions (etc) you are the actual threat to my Jewish race and therefore more in line with the actual (not imagined) Nazis. What´s worse is that you even deny the existence of my race. If something does not exist, there is less of a hurdle to dispose of it. Furthermore this policy (Jews are overrepresented in xyz, let us limit Jews in those positions) is especially hurting my specific ethnicity (which I regard as a subset of race; but there is no general definition) within the Jewish race. We have to work harder than the Ashkenazi Jews, yet in the West we just count as "Jews". It is a lack of racial knowledge that hurts us!
I do not know the exact policy of specific institutions, but if they limit the number of "Asians", then they would also limit the number of South-East-Asians. Some of them, however, are not overrepresented - only if you lump them in together with "Asians" in general.



Notimp keeps justifying facts with emotions. Nuclear power does not exist because it could lead to nuclear warfare. Same logic.
His assertion that African-Americans (I guess that´s what he means by his racist term "black") have 2-3% higher testosterone levels has three problems.
1) If race does not exist, African-Americans do not exist. What is the point of clinical trials if it is based on self-identification? I could self-identify as a an African-American woman and suddenly increase the number of African-American women who have male genitals.
2) He does acknowledge the higher testosterone levels of African-Americans. It contradicts his world view.
3) The number 2-3% is inaccurate. When controlled for many factors (including age) African-Americans have 15% higher testosterone levels, which probably contributes to the significantly higher rate of prostate cancer.

_Mean testosterone levels in blacks were 19% higher than in whites, and free testosterone levels were 21% higher. Both these differences were statistically significant. Adjustment by analysis of covariance for time of sampling, age, weight, alcohol use, cigarette smoking, and use of prescription drugs somewhat reduced the differences. After these adjustments were made, blacks had a 15% higher testosterone level and a 13% higher free testosterone level. A 15% difference in circulating testosterone levels could readily explain a twofold difference in prostate cancer risk."_
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3455741/

As I told in the PM, ignorance about race can be deadly. Ignoring this data is immoral for health care workers (African Americans have a 2:1 ratio of prostate cancer compared to European Americans).

Does that explain crime differences?
No.
1) Even 20% higher testosterone levels seems insignificant when compared to e.g. the testosterone levels between men and women.
2) Testosterone does not lead to crime. I expect very low testosterone levels in notimp, yet he attacked me the most vicisiously.

Somebody on the internet made a funny comment regarding the taboo of the word race. He said from now on he will use the word
Regional
Ancestral
Cluster
Expression

It made my day.
I will probably use the words "origin" or "regional ancestry" instead of race if it makes virtue signalling people happy. Adjective forms remain a problem though ("original", "regionally ancestral").


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## SG854 (Jul 24, 2020)

There are Biological differences between Whites and Blacks, fact.

Like Blacks have denser bones then Whites. Saying this is not racist period. This changes the rate of certain conditions which affects our bones later in life. Which doctors know and better treat. This is a biological difference caused by evolution during the time the Black's and Whites were separated. Evolution is still in effect even in the human species. So one wonders what other evolutionary differences are between the races?



Why do people assume that if you say that there are genetic differences a racist person is saying it? Or only a racist person wonders if there are differences or making assumptions about differences? Why prevent and restrict yourself from that type of thinking because your main concern is if you'll be considered a racist? Why not understand those differences and use it to help people?



Not to long ago Doctors were called sexist because Men came out of Hospitals better treated and at higher success rates then Women. The reason they were treated better is because Women's biology and Anotomy were treated the same as Men's. So Doctor's only studied Men. Only after the acknowledgment that Men and Women's biology have differences that Women got better medical treatment. For example Men and Women experience strokes differently. But apparently saying men and women are different is sexist.

Imagine applying this same situation to race. Not studying and acknowledging the biological differences between the different races. What will happen is that a gap between how Blacks and Whites are treated medically will grow because with not acknowledging those differences will lead to less quality care for blacks. Which then people will call you and the medical field racist because whites have higher rates of success then blacks. But on the other hand acknowledging biological differences is racist too. So its a dammed if you do, dammed if you don't situation. No matter what you do you're a racist. Acknowledge differneces racist, not acknowledge differences racist too.

If there is differences of bones between the races, one wonders what other differences are there? If there is testosterone differences or stress hormone differnces or any other controversial thing about race biology? If there is research that comes out using the scientific method that is repeatable by many more studies, would you accept it as reality? Or will you deny it because your main concern is that you'll be called a racist? This was my main point in the other thread. Which I know you created this thread because of my comments in that thread.

If there are differences why do you assume only a racist person is acknowledging those differences? Or that the person will treat them any different because of those differences? Knowing those differences can be use to better help people. It doesn't always have to be used for racist reasons. And not acknowledging those differences is actually very destructive to the people that will greatly benefit from the help provided from someone aware of those differences. People with the mindset that it racist is a giant problem and will hold back medical advancement and race research by many decades like people that believe the earth was flat held back scientific research because it went against their beliefs.

There is a doctor that talks about race genetic differences which starts around 13:35. It is a fact there are biological differences. Anyone that denies it is living in a false reality. If you watch the whole video he also talks about men's and women's treatments in health care which is the points I brought up in this writing.


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## UltraDolphinRevolution (Jul 26, 2020)

Indeed. E.g. for medication women were just viewed as smaller men. Discriminating (which actually just means "to make a difference") does not have to be negative.

In the "hierarchy of evil" willfull ignorance is even worse than negative discrimination because it does not allow for the cherishing of differences. E.g. African American speak a different English dialect. You can either deny reality or you can study it and find out how interesting it is [e.g. the use of the infinitive "be"]. [Although this example does not have a genetic component]

Denying differences also denies identity (e.g. a woman is not a small man).
It is shocking that ignorance has penetrated academia to such an extent. In his books/videos Adam Rutherford argues there is no genetic reason why West Africans dominate sprinting. He asks why are they not also dominating swimming... such ignorance or malice... He must know better. His book "how to argue with a racist" has positive reviews. One of them literally said he/she was glad that science confims his/her worldview. Isn´t that nice...


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## SG854 (Jul 28, 2020)

UltraDolphinRevolution said:


> Indeed. E.g. for medication women were just viewed as smaller men. Discriminating (which actually just means "to make a difference") does not have to be negative.
> 
> In the "hierarchy of evil" willfull ignorance is even worse than negative discrimination because it does not allow for the cherishing of differences. E.g. African American speak a different English dialect. You can either deny reality or you can study it and find out how interesting it is [e.g. the use of the infinitive "be"]. [Although this example does not have a genetic component]
> 
> ...


I have a big problem with labeling those things as racist. It just shuts down discussion and we can't make scientific discoveries. Saying what differences there are isn't inherently racist, especially if you don't treat the person any different knowing these differences.

The big concern why people don't want to talk about this stuff is because they think it'll lead to racism, so we should run away and cover our ears and pretend they don't exist. That's the reason why people accuse it as racist in the first place, is because they don't want that race to be treated negatively. But if you talk about something like IQ, but don't treat the race any different, and still treat them with respect, then whats the problem? The main reason why you don't want to talk about this stuff is now not a concern. The races are still being treated with respect so you don't have to worry about racism. But ignoring science, history has repeatedly shown us that doing this always leads to negative outcomes, because you never get to the root of the problem, so the problem never fixes.

Lets take for example the Women example, if you blame it on sexist doctors then solution to get women better treatment is simple, get rid of sexism and women will be better treated. You try very hard, create legislation, pour lots of money, but the problem still exists. So you blame it that we still have sexism in the medical field. So you keep on targeting and trying to fix the wrong thing and the problem never fixes because you are still not getting to the root of the problem. Its a never ending fight and never fixing the problem. But you try to bring other solutions like maybe there are biological differences, but you keep getting shut down and death threats, and politicians de-funding research they believe is sexist or racist. So the problem never gets fixed. Apply this to any other scenario. The doctor in the video gave a good example as why we should acknowledge biological differences in men and women, because if you don't it'll lead to better treatment of men only which will leave women out, if they are treated as the same.

This is true for the IQ research at least the shutting down part. The only way researches can get funding is by using a loop hole, by saying they are doing IQ research for Down Syndrome people, because otherwise politicians wont fund it because they deem it racist. In the previous thread I talked about how I believe there is no IQ differences between Blacks or Whites when controlling for certain things, using information from Thomas Sowell's books. He does a good job debunking it. But we shouldn't be afraid to talk about it. Because what if new research comes out that is heavily supported in the scientific community by like 95% of scientists that there are IQ differences. That's a good first step to solve the problem, now we might need to readjust our teaching techniques to different teaching speeds to take into account people with lower IQ so that they can succeed as much as higher IQ people, or maybe create an IQ pill, or some type of brain enhancement technique.

If you don't get to the root of the problem then you"ll never fix it and gaps will be created because of it. I hate the whole its racist argument people bring when talking about science research to shut down discussion. They are a problem at holding back scientific advancement that can greatly help and benefit people.


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## UltraDolphinRevolution (Jul 31, 2020)

The point of treating women differently is to improve the outcome for women, not to artificially create parity/equity.
Other than that I agree with your statement.


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## notimp (Jul 31, 2020)

SG854 said:


> There is a doctor that talks about race genetic differences which starts around 13:35. It is a fact there are biological differences. Anyone that denies it is living in a false reality. If you watch the whole video he also talks about men's and women's treatments in health care which is the points I brought up in this writing.


OK, starting at 13:35 he talks about socio-economic (earnings, living conditions, ...) differences by far outweighing race differences as a death risk in the US, and I'm still listening 3 minutes later and now he is talking about treatment biases in the US.

In the middle he states twice that those gaps would have been decreasing (something we decidedly DINT see with Covid-19 death rates), but gives no reasons or even studies, and frankly I have issues listening to that guy for much longer, because all he currently added was a nice physique, a great hairdo, and emotions/his believes (great *smirk*).

Here is the argument once more.

"Race" usually is a category defined by self assessment. (You get form in hospital, you fill out race.) Categories analyzed by those medical studies, usually go by those categories as well, if at all. (They dont sequence your DNA to look for "race markers".) Most of the assertions in the video about race, are sociological.

Todays medicine to a fault doesnt even differentiate between men and women, much less between 'genetic race' (how ever that would be defined, because currently it isnt).

If the word race is used in a medical context as a "grouping term", it doesnt mean, that it is 'genetic or medical', just because 'a doctor used it'. Grouping is done by the individual, filling out a form. Not by the doctor testing their DNA.


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## notimp (Jul 31, 2020)

Here, my argument is harder to make in the case of forensic anthropology. And even there...

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1738862/

edit: also:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19226647/


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## SG854 (Aug 7, 2020)

notimp said:


> OK, starting at 13:35 he talks about socio-economic (earnings, living conditions, ...) differences by far outweighing race differences as a death risk in the US, and I'm still listening 3 minutes later and now he is talking about treatment biases in the US.
> 
> In the middle he states twice that those gaps would have been decreasing (something we decidedly DINT see with Covid-19 death rates), but gives no reasons or even studies, and frankly I have issues listening to that guy for much longer, because all he currently added was a nice physique, a great hairdo, and emotions/his believes (great *smirk*).
> 
> ...


Not would have. They did decrease. Since that video was posted before covid he's not talking about what happened after covid. Anyways my comment wasn't about the black and white gap.

My point was that there is biological differences and here's a video of a doctor saying that.


There are doctors that pretend to be doctors that don"t even work at a health clinic. This is the one doctor I know is legit that works at a clinic that I trust more then I trust your comment. He's done plenty of covid videos which matches what you've been saying about covid, and did tons of videos where he gathers many doctors for talks. So this guy is an actual doctor.



You can argue all you want about there's no such thing as race and the only reason someone identifies as black is cause that's how they self identify by self assessment. But you are not going to see a Black guy claiming he's Asian. This isn't some Transgender shit where I'm Black but identify as White. A black person calls themselves black because they look black. Other people calls him black because they see a black guy even without knowing what race that person identifies as. This is something that's obvious to everyone else. Call it what you want, social construct, or whatever, but we identify race for ease of communication and description. And don't even think you are going to get people to stop identifying race any time soon.


This is how doctors treat patients. There is differences between blacks, whites, Asians in the rates they get diseases and that they give medical treatments specific to their needs. Do you want these doctors to stop doing that? They would have to if there is no such thing as differences genetically, everyone is exactly the same. Really, you're now getting into semantics territory. Thinking you can bullshit yourself to continue believing in your beliefs by doing a little bit of word play, there's no such thing as race biologically, it doesn't mean its genetic or medical. Saying this and clearly seeing a doctor treating patients medically different. I'm just glad someone like you is not a doctor because you'll just say there is no such thing as race lets all treat everyone the same medically, which will lead to people not getting the best treatment they can get. I trust a doctor saying there is genetic differences between the races more then I trust you a non doctor. Even if there is no genetically different races using semantic wordplay, certain groups get certain rates of diseases more then others, and these groups tend to be similar, and race is used to identify these different rates these different groups of people get and used better tackle these problems.

You know I'm just tired of you. From calling everything racist, misrepresenting peoples arguments even after they explained to you what they actually mean and you continuing to ignore that, you just seem so self absorbed putting smiley faces all over the place. I just don't wanna bother you anymore, you're frustrating to deal with. If your goal is to debate people and change their opinions or have an engaging debate you're doing an awful job by making people want to not engage with you anymore and want to ignore you.


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## notimp (Aug 7, 2020)

SG854 said:


> Not would have. They did decrease. Since that video was posted before covid he's not talking about what happened after covid. Anyways my comment wasn't about the black and white gap.
> 
> My point was that there is biological differences and here's a video of a doctor saying that.


A doctor said so? Wow! 

Here is how science works: Prestige (at least over time) counts for nothing. Almost everyone is a doctor (or working towards getting a PHD). Thats your starting point. 

For the I believe 5th time in a row.

Yes there are genetic differences (*duh*), in fact there are so many of them, that you cant easily use them to define race (because there is more variability cross one race as well), if you are looking for 'genetic markers' it is almost impossible to find 'the dominant one' for 'a race'. In fact - it is statistically almost impossible. ("There are too many freaking edge cases", and those then would be more closely related to another ethnicity, but culturally they would still be part of the race they are maybe not so closely related to).

So this is what you are ending up with:

- Race is a stupid category, because people tell you which one you are from birth, which also ties you to a cultural background - but they mostly do it by the highly scientific method of 'looks like, and has a certain complexion, and look at those eyes'.

- Because that category to us is so culturally important, people are now interested to find ways to identify "a persons identity" without having to look or ask - maybe. So they look at genetic differences. But because the category is so stupid, you dont find the genetic marker that corresponds to 'social category' ("wait a minute, he/she clearly is a ..."), so you take many of them with the relevancy of "likes hello kitty stickers, bubblegum, maplesirup and chicken" mash them together, and say: With a high likelyhood this is a 'social category' that race.

Or you are only interested in _roughly_ differentiating black from other, like for the majority of US history (socially), and luck out and find, that some hipbone definition has a high likelyhood of -- which culturally we find almost useless (we dont call ourselfs those hipbone shape people). Given as a theoretic example,

- No one is interested in developing 'race specific medicine' (for individualized medicine (#trending) that gets created based on your DNA makeup), those categories are too broad (likes chicken, and bubblegum, and..), and in normal medicine you usually have optimized for 'tha human' (mostly white male (historically)), and nothing else - because getting huge amounts of data on any random grouping you came up with wasnt easily possible. In medicine you hardly differentiate between male and female on issues where both have the corresponding organs. 

- When a doctor talks about 'race differences' in medicine - and this is also the case in the video above, it is usually (in fact almost exclusively) in the social construct sense. Meaning: You fill out form with race checkbox on it. Doctor might make a statement about "how any social factor" (income, living conditions, education level, ...) reflects on medical statistics.

Because people still very interested in the social construct 'race' they might even ask them - "is my race more or less likely to.." but the answer given, almost never is given because "that race genetically is more so and so..." Because "doctors" dont look at it that way. ("Everything must have an explanation that factors down to race" is not their MO, and they almost never even have the data to. They have the checkbox data.)

If you are Black you might be less likely to get skin cancer. Sure. But the reason for it is not 'race' but melanin production. And melanin production varies within a race. And we dont define races by melanin levels alone (there are some pretty darkskinned ... *insert maybe racist attribution here*). And ah, you see the problem.

Race is just a stupid cultural grouping, we came up with, and now people try to find 'how long does your pinky have to be to qualify' measures to get around the subjective part of it. Usually out of a 'what god meant' mindset. (Proving something pretty esoteric, after the fact.)

In essence its as stupid as grouping all fruit by color, and then making a statement about how sweet a red one would be. The category is stupid, because the way we came up with it was stupid (looking at it, feeling 'thats different', then naming it - then telling us stories, about why those feelings are rectified). Race wasnt created as a scientific category - and all efforts to do so after the fact, actually led to historic atrocities.  (At least among humans, because group identification.).


And once more, why is it wrong to make race as a category very important in society, lets say by 'just demanding' it? Because it is easily openly attributed (anyone can 'identify it' (often at first glance) or 'attempt to - and then say, this is what they were going by' - and people cant change it. They are stuck with it. So if a prejudice forms (I know, never, ..) - you better win the birth lottery.

And thats not healthy for a society. ('I'm good, because look how I was born.')


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## FAST6191 (Aug 7, 2020)

So your main issue is race is a historically loaded term, possibly so much so that you reckon it should be abandoned as anything other than a historical concept, and you would rather us go by haplogroup (see attached picture, comes from https://blog.education.nationalgeog...reveals-undiscovered-ancient-migration-route/ ) and narrow things down further if going to contemplate differences in people that (or whose mostly isolated pockets of ancestors might have been from) a different place. At the same time why abandon and not redefine?
I would also note we do keep historical things around as a first pass categorisation -- Newtonian physics is completely wrong as far as a unified theory of physics goes (go very fast or very small and it is pointless, can probably demonstrate this with household items as well) but we still keep it around and teach it as we live in the real world and the simplification is helpful, indeed other than electronics it serves for most engineering and building purposes in the world today (nobody is contemplating quantum mechanics to build a bridge, saving that a sample is taken and pelted with electrons in an electron microscope).

I do agree that any one scientist purporting to be the be all and end all is dubious, indeed the chemist Berzilius (known mostly for his stuff with organic chemistry vs inorganic) often being looked at to show why we tend to go by data rather than more learned in the room these days.

Equally

"Looks like"
So inherited traits? In many cases ones that a different between populations and thus may serve to identify things?
Should I find someone's skull long after it has turned to minerals I can also use measurements on it to determine various things about them, including a way better than chance take on their race.

"the dominant one"
Traits that are the result of a single allele are rather rare as these things go (indeed historically as well as iffy data it was noted Gregor Mendel (the one doing the inherited colours of flowers) seriously lucked out by having his observations be that). Combinatorially though if we have a decent sample of DNA we can tell an awful lot about what they look like, their various medical conditions, what their responses to various foods/chemicals and stimuli (see first person sickness in various Asian populations, to say nothing of alcohol flush in said same) might be. Nurture (whether they ate well growing up, what injuries they might have taken) takes care of a lot of things but inherited nature still takes care of a lot.
Certainly there are many edge cases (usually literally on the edges of territories occupied, or in genetic experiments like the US/new world/colonisation era locations) but you can do very well for a lot of the world population and that only looks to be getting better with more samples.


"In medicine"
Does that mean I should make sure sickle cell treatment drugs are distributed in similar population relative volumes to rural Scandinavia to as west Africa?
Certainly modern medicine has the environmental/lifestyle considerations. If you are going to be a poor office drone/stand in a shop but eat like a manual labouring farmer, or manual labouring farmer with substitutions and the "benefits" of modern industry and advertising on your food because you are poor and possibly tainted by modern sensibilities* and can't actually afford to eat what said farmer would have eaten, you are going to end up malnourished, and probably fat too. If more people of one "race" might be poor or underserved by education in nutrition then you have something there too, not sure what it does to serve.
Back on skin cancer. Variation is there but usually not nearly so much as to another racial grouping, and said variation probably then speaks to "part of the puzzle" rather than defining trait.

*I love lamb liver, and while I usually don't bother to do it myself (the smell and all that) kidneys as well. In supermarkets and restaurants I have dealt with (including being the one to make spreadsheets) I only really see it purchased by older people. Muscle meats on the other hand, which has less nutritional value in a lot of ways (even more so if you take the fat off), and represent most meat sold are different matters entirely when it comes to sales volume.

Anyway I already went and stand by that still.

Picture mentioned in the opening post



From https://blog.education.nationalgeog...reveals-undiscovered-ancient-migration-route/
Shockingly close to what most people would probably go in for as well as far as informal categorisations.


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## UltraDolphinRevolution (Aug 8, 2020)

notimp said:


> Yes there are genetic differences (*duh*), in fact there are so many of them, that you cant easily use them to define race (because there is more variability cross one race as well),


There is more variability of height between men (roughly 1,50m to 2,20m = 70cm) than there is between the average of women and men (1,60m to 1,75m = 15cm).
Therefore men are not taller than women.
And the terms "man" and "women" are social constructs.




notimp said:


> If you are Black you might be less likely to get skin cancer. Sure. But the reason for it is not 'race' but melanin production. And melanin production varies within a race. And we dont define races by melanin levels alone (there are some pretty darkskinned ... *insert maybe racist attribution here*). And ah, you see the problem.


We have already been through this. The reason Sub-Saharan Africans are less likely to get skin cancer is genetic. It is not based on a social construct but genes. Genes means where one originally comes from, one´s ancestry.
Australian Aborigines and certain Indian groups also have higher melanin levels, but they are not of the same race / origin. When people say "black" they usually mean "of Sub-Saharan African descent" and when they say "white" they usually mean "of European descent". I advocate for more scientific terms but daily-life terminology does not negate the scientific truth behind it.

My race/ethnicity/origin is not a lottery by the way. I did not play the lottery of life, I am the product of my parents and their parents and so on. E.g. two people of European descent do not suddenly have an East-Asian baby. You still have not acknowledged this fact, by the way.
You have acknowledged, however, that your assertion that race is not based on genetics is due to consequences you perceive. Therefore your argumentation it is not truth-based.


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## notimp (Aug 8, 2020)

UltraDolphinRevolution said:


> There is more variability of height between men (roughly 1,50m to 2,20m = 70cm) than there is between the average of women and men (1,60m to 1,75m = 15cm).
> Therefore men are not taller than women.
> And the terms "man" and "women" are social constructs.


There is more variability in organs and hormones between man and women, and those are less of a social construct. 

But we are getting to the core of the argument, namely - those grouping terms are social constructs (not a 'higher truth'), now how much deterministic value are we willing to attribute to one, and why (scientific approach of 'determinating factors' or something else).



UltraDolphinRevolution said:


> We have already been through this. The reason Sub-Saharan Africans are less likely to get skin cancer is genetic. It is not based on a social construct but genes. Genes means where one originally comes from, one´s ancestry.
> Australian Aborigines and certain Indian groups also have higher melanin levels, but they are not of the same race / origin. When people say "black" they usually mean "of Sub-Saharan African descent" and when they say "white" they usually mean "of European descent". I advocate for more scientific terms but daily-life terminology does not negate the scientific truth behind it.


Dont you see the mismatch here? One definition is a definition "to the best of our current scientific knowledge (falsification based logic), and one is a term jokel and the hans came up with to indicate that they are different from the tribe next door (additive logic), the definition of a 'race' is just more random, less though out, less 'challenged', more doctrinistic, ... They wouldnt be the same grouping category.

(Talking about skincolor as a factor of genes, and skincolor as a factor of race. Why one would have more 'deterministic' qualities. And the other wouldnt.)

So I'm questioning if those are the same 'quality' of category. Similar thing in the comparison to man/women. One can have babies vs - ones skin is a bit darker, and the eyes are at a different orientation. That scientific - huh?

And before you move back to Mendel, societies will always be more willing to accept a difference between man an women (i.e. needed for the survival of the species) than a difference between races (i.e. send them where they belong "tendencies"). So while both are something you are arguably born with and thats so hard to change, one generally doesnt - looking at whats attributed to those groupings, one has by far more potential to be used as a negative prejudice. (Women (or men) are part of the ingroup 'our people', 'other race' maybe isnt so much.)

Remember, how I'm always arguing, that we cant make 'race' as a deterministic concept a 'more important construct in society' -- this very much has to do with peoples tendencies of behavior derived from group identities. If everyone would not care about race identities at all, but there would be a grouping definition called 'race' - we wouldnt have to have this discussion. But thats not the world we live in. So we construct a social taboo ("thats racist man, you cant act like that") for the purpose of race (as a grouping term) not becoming 'too important' societally. (As a rectification for believes.)


UltraDolphinRevolution said:


> My race/ethnicity/origin is not a lottery by the way. I did not play the lottery of life, I am the product of my parents and their parents and so on. E.g. two people of European descent do not suddenly have an East-Asian baby. You still have not acknowledged this fact, by the way.


Again, you are countering with 'pathos' ("the importance of ancestry"). Thats hardly better than a story. (In quality of argument.) But lets let this slide for once.

The "birth lottery" argument wasnt meant to indicate that your parents 'race' had no impact on yours - it was meant to indicate - if you let race be a 'more important factor' in society (because lets say you 'demand it' (activism)). And this gets to the point where it becomes a deciding factor if a person would be able to get a job or not, then as a human being, all you have is praying to a higher being, that you were born in the right body.

Because you wont be changing race.

Therein lies huge conflict potential. Hence - not good for a working society.

How do you get rid of this problem? You make everyone in your society white (f.e.) - and hilarity ensues (not so much). Or you make everyone of a certain complexion believe, that they are less then human, and we've already been through that.


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## FAST6191 (Aug 8, 2020)

So because you fear some morons in history, and possibly some morons in the current world, you reckon we can't/shouldn't discuss manifestly observable (at the regional population, personal and chemical level) differences in human populations and assign those differences, which are generally inheritable and demonstrably so for any number of things, a term? Or that we should forgo a generally accepted and understood term, or indeed fail to constrain it/seek to more rigorously define it, especially now we have better means of understanding the mechanisms for those differences and the means to more clearly measure and categorise.

From where I sit I try to fear nothing (you will get little done if you do), and it is observable, experimentally demonstrable, concordant with understood physics/chemistry/biology (which is very much in play) and with predictive capabilities as well.
Hard lines might be hard to draw and at some point "because that is the one I am using and I needed to start somewhere" might come into play but that seldom stops much -- as I sit here pondering things before I press reply I am looking at a periodic table poster on the wall, and all the colours, groupings and more that I know of, and how it only gets more complicated from there (combined things, different isotopes and the effects they have going up and down the scales, temperature fun, electronegativity and all the fun that causes), with all the fuzzy edges, with all the rather arbitrary categories and think well we still teach the basic overviews and still find it useful to have, or maybe chemistry is a social construct based on what we see as observable behaviours of subatomic particles and the concepts governing them, not to mention chemistry has caused some heinous stuff in history so I guess we will be abandoning that in short order if you had your way. Back on topic I fail to see the difference here with this, other than the degree of complication is a lot more but still within reason.


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## UltraDolphinRevolution (Aug 8, 2020)

You are still arguing from consequence, Notimp. And I do not even agree with you from a consequentialist point of you (i.e. that it is good to act as if there are not races). Without ingroup prefence, my people would not exist today. Western virtue signaling people fully understand the importance of idenitity when it comes to Tibet (though I do not know your stance on it) but disregard it everywhere else.

Yes, men and women have different organs. I was specifically talking about height. Everbody knows that men are taller than women. It is irrelevant that there is a higher variety within a group than between group averages. By pointing this out you are merely saying that "there are also tall women" or "there are also small Dutch people" (which nobody doubted to begin with). It adds nothing to the question whether average differences are genetic or whether grouping is justified.


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## notimp (Aug 8, 2020)

FAST6191 said:


> So because you fear some morons in history, and possibly some morons in the current world, you reckon we can't/shouldn't discuss manifestly observable (at the regional population, personal and chemical level) differences in human populations and assign those differences, which are generally inheritable and demonstrably so for any number of things, a term?


Depends on how civilized a discussion we are talking about. But essentially - yes. This is what the term taboo indicates.

Also, please note, that we are essentially engaged in talking about of 'societal defaults' can be moved, and why or why not. Which is something every generation has to do at one point.

I'm mainly arguing why this red line shouldnt be moved.

Next argument would be slippery slope, I guess.. 


Also - we have to acknowledge, that this leaves the 'realm' of engaging and thrilling discussion at one point, and has real world impacts.

So at least we would have to discuss those as well, and not always get stuck at 'but theoretically it is so unfair, that free speech has limits'.


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## FAST6191 (Aug 8, 2020)

notimp said:


> Depends on how civilized a discussion we are talking about. But essentially - yes. This is what the term taboo indicates.


In that case it sounds more like you are calling for the creation of a taboo, or the furthering of whatever group reckons there should be one.

I would say that flies in the face of rationality; give me a skeleton, give me a blood drop and I will tell you much (about where they are likely from, what they likely look like, what medical issues they might have, what medical issues their kids might have...), give me a photo and I will tell you much about what will likely come up in the other tests, such things are the results of demonstrable processes and have predictive abilities both in terms of looking back through time, forward in it and for the here and now.
In much the same way that a cosmologist will call anything heavier than helium a metal when it comes to stars, the average person not calling hydrogen a metal despite it demonstrably being one if you treat it right and chemistry having a dozen different categories of what counts as what for metals (never mind metalloids) then yeah you will have a clash between informal, legal and scientific but for the most part.


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## notimp (Aug 8, 2020)

Probably group psychology.

You do some historical atrocities, then people revolt against it in real struggle, then you are shocked, and dont talk about it for half a century. Hence a taboo is created.

Compare and contrast to "I'm bored, and want to rebell against not being able to mainstream racist believes ("because we could do racial differentiation "better"") - going on all day about how unfair taboos are".

Not very rational maybe, but very human. (Creation of, and maybe need for certain taboos. Not in a long theoretical conversation, but in practice. (For society to function.))

But now our problem becomes 'who is establishing them' and 'who can confront them', to which I'd say democratic principles (edit very idealistic, I know) and call it a day.  (Or argue a bit more, if I'd want to.)


Oh and btw, I tried to establish why it was rational that we ended up at 'racism' being a taboo, Based on past experiences. And limited alternatives.

Not based on ideology that says 'all expression of thought has to be free'. 

While still very high on my priorities list - its not at the topmost position of principals for me.


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