"... for race to be a biologically useful concept, there needs to be some robust structural feature or features that race identifies."
When the police send out an APB for a Caucasian, Native American, Black, Japanese, or Chinese male, that conveys useful information to the officers on the beat in terms of the appearance of the man for whom they are to look. A Native American male has a different appearance than a Black male and those differences are useful means of identification. What label should we give those differences? "Race" is verboten. Fine. Give us another word. Phylum, subphylum, ixnard, buglump, reciprocating torque baffle, anything.
Quite. There are physical markers, but beyond that, there are some differences in distributions of traits, which create some differences in tendencies, but it still ends up being pretty thin.
It may be “thin,” but it is also very useful for identification purposes. I’m reminded of a friend who was supposed to meet her brother’s roommate at a football game. Her brother detailed what his roommate would be wearing but neglected to mention that he was black, which would have been helpful. Afterwards, she asked her brother why he didn’t point out the fact that his roommate was black. Her brother replied, “Oh, I never notice the color of anyone’s skin.”
Basically, he was lying to himself and his sister. In the event, he made the meeting far more difficult than it should have been all to feed his affected image of himself as “color blind.”
I get the impression that the people who claim that race doesn’t exist are doing the same thing. “Oh, you silly ignorant, unscientific, little people. You simply don’t understand that race has no biological basis.” And at the same time, the very same people will declare that “Big Pharma” is “racist” because they don’t include enough biologically diverse people in their drug trials.
Part of the race grifting that goes on in the US is precisely the conflating of everyone of African ancestry as “Black”. This enables, for instance, a scion of a wealthy Haitian immigrant family who went to the top US private school to claim to be “marginalised” or “minoritised”. It is striking how much the affirmative action which is supposed to be for the descendants of American slaves gets creamed off by recent African migrants or their children. No descendant of American slaves has yet graced the Presidential ticket of either major Party and, on present trends, are not likely to, as they become an ever smaller proportion of the US population and ever less beneficiaries of the Diversity scam.
"It is striking how much the affirmative action which is supposed to be for the descendants of American slaves gets creamed off by recent African migrants or their children."
I notice this too but is just a glitch/Achilles' heel that no one will touch: conservatives may mention it, but as they are ipso facto "racists", they are always ignored on the grounds of moral pollution; liberals have been Clockwork Orange-d into becoming physically ill if they do or say anything that may harm (even hypothetically) a brown person, no matter the circumstances, so they will never speak up; and since the goal of all this social engineering via race is to make upscale liberals feel like righteous white saviors (their politics have become almost wholly symbolic), the results or unfortunate consequences will never be noticed or acknowledged.
I’m going to hazard that White People have become incompetent to rule, because we’re neurotic pussies. Clearly someone who’s not afraid to crack the whip or shoot should be in power. You can’t be a pussy and in charge.
OTOH the others can’t run our systems or machines.
The trains will run off the tracks - on time mind you. The planes WILL take off !! And “land” but only once.
It seems we’re caught between violent morons and intelligent but hopelessly weak and therefore ineffective cowards.
"Clearly someone who’s not afraid to crack the whip or shoot should be in power. You can’t be a pussy and in charge."
I feel the same way when i see my friends coddle their brats mid-tantrum when what they really need is a solid slap ;))
The problem here is decadence a la "strong men make good times etc"...people raised in a cocoon of safety and wealth become too soft to lay down the law (or enforce it)...
Western politics will see lots of strong men return once the $$ runs out, but those strong men will most likely not be whiteys...
Certainly some white people are unfit for political office. Just offhand, I can think of two leading presidential candidates who are unfit for any position.
Doling out special privileges on the basis of skin color (or on any other basis) is a completely different discussion than that of declaring for purposes of self-congratulatory BS that skin color (or race/buglump) is a social construct that has no basis in biology.
Yes, but elevating a thin biological differentiation into a thick sociological differentiation is precisely what is used to generate a whole set of false rhetoric about, for example, “White Supremacy” and “structural racism”, two claims blatantly contradicted by the success of African immigrants.
Agreed. External differences are useful for identification and little else. Progressives tell us both that race means nothing and that it means everything. It’s nothing but a social construct, yet it determines - or it should determine - how and what we think and believe. For the revolutionary left, race is the key to division and conquest, their way to tear down the “oppressor-oppressed” status quo and install a set of real oppressors, themselves.
Biological differentiation (aka race) has important implications for health. Race is a useful construct and is objectively real. If race didn't exist, we wouldn't have 23 and me. Appearance generally indicates racial origin, the same way that appearance also generally indicates sex.
Yep. We can obviously pick people’s broad ancestry pretty accurately. There is not nothing there.
Substack and other forms of social media act like University seminars are supposed to — you argue a case, get hopefully useful criticisms, adjust your thesis accordingly.
I am not even sure we can pick people's ancestry very readily. Examples from my life: woman with Fijian father/ Caucasian mother who by appearance might have been Dutch - very tall, big boned, blonde curly hair, white skin. Another woman with milky skin, very blue eyes, brown wavy hair - father Aboriginal, mother Caucasian. Third example: very tall woman with brown skin, brown eyes, and black straight hair. Her father was a tall Caucasian, her mother was a tiny half-Nepalese, half Scots woman. I think being able to pick out racial differences by eye was only true when there was segregation of the racial groups. Otherwise, it is extremely deceptive.
You are arguing that exceptions disprove the general rule. Sure, there are people who you wouldn't be able to accurately guess their racial/ethnic origin based on their appearance, but most of the time you can.
How do you know? The first two women mentioned above you would have unhesitatingly classified as thoroughly Caucasian and you would have been wrong. The third woman has quite dark skin but her heritage is 3/4 English/Scottish. My point is, you dont know when you are wrong unless you interview people (my conversational style). Classification by skin colour is a very blunt instrument and i doubt much research is done on this touchy subject. You really can't judge a book by its cover no matter how much you wish you could.
Do we have a "species" called length, with an ethnicity or race of English and one of Metric? Distinctive measuring tools and general geographic separation. But I suspect this thought process involving descriptive characteristics or parameters will not lead to anywhere useful, either.
Not when the two men are ethically “pure,” whatever that means. However, as the rate of intermarriage increases, distinguishing people along such lines will become increasingly difficult. Even today, the usefulness of such descriptions as “black” and “Chinese” likely varies by location.
Blasians remain quite rare, as compared to the absolute numbers of effectively pure-blooded Han or Bantu. In any case, a mixed breed is identifiable as such, and will generally not be mistaken for one or the other. It also isn't an argument against the existence of race; it's just the continuum fallacy, that because hills exist, mountains and plains do not.
If he cannot tell the difference between a Blasian, can he tell the different between Japanese, Chinese or Korean? Maybe they just all look the same.
I grew up in a heavily East Asian area and can generally tell the different between Chinese and Japanese/Korean. Distinguishing between the last two I find harder. I can sometimes (maybe even most times) tell if someone is from a different East Asian area, such as Cambodia, Laos, etc.
You have to spend time around other racial groups to see the differences, a bit like developing a level of competency at a job, of pysiognomy between 'similar' groups, to the untrained eye yes they all look the same.
To a keen eye the jaw line, shoulders, eye line, nose shape, ect will have and conform to general trends of for each ethnic and racial group whilst having some changes across said folk, but will still be noticable when looking across multiple ethnic and racial groupings.
Is it your view that the genetic differences between racial categories (as in location of origin based on genetics) result in minimal/immaterial trait differences? It seems like this is almost a blank state view with culture doing all the work.
Ethnic features are certainly useful if you need to distinguish between two 6' 275 lb men but is not sufficient. There are many distinguishing features among humans. Race is a construct that is more divisive than helpful.
But only to irrational people. A rational person simply accepts skin color and other features as useful descriptors and nothing else.
However, we’re humans not Vulcans, and none of us is completely rational on all issues. Given that, do you agree with the suggestion that some have made that police departments be prohibited from including race in their APBs? The downside is that fewer suspects are caught - suspects who may go on to commit more crimes and victimize more people (including more minorities). The upside is ...?
I'm working through these concepts on a book about AI where human conciousness is uploaded into AI. So what does race / genetics mean when the conciousness is divorced from a biological body? What does black or white mean when there is no more black or white? This essay lines up well with my own findings in that the delineation becomes cultural very quickly and not genetic.
You can not separate culture from the genes, how an Arab views the world is very different to how an African or European views the world, you sir have become de-racinated to the point you have confirmation bias to your own findings for your own research.
If youd like a succinct point of what I am referring to here is a link;
Is the Arab world driven by genes or culture? Are they so dramatically genetically different that culture can't transcend? Why did Thomas Sowell find that Black Americans are closer to Scotch Irish culture than Afro-Centric? Why is Ebonics Scotch Irish with almost no connection to African Languages?
There is more genetic diversity on the African continent than between any African or Northern European. Arabs are even closer to either but their culture is clearly not the same as either.
Before you claim confirmation bias, look in the mirror first.
"Are they so dramatically genetically different that culture can't transcend?"
Cultural choices select for radically different genes. Often these weren't even really choices, but simply the most functional approach to surviving in a specific environment.
50% of Saudi marriages are arranged ones between first or second cousins, and it has been this way (if not much higher) since time immemorial.
Dutch people have had a first cousin marriage rate of under 5% for at least roughly the last 1000 years as the Catholic Church explicitly banned cousin marriage within 3 degrees of separation.
When you marry within the family, you have a much reduced incentive to ever show altruistic behavior outside of it. So what happens when one society selects for non-kin altruism and the other for kin-altruism, for over 1000 years?
The genes and culture are not separate concepts the two are tied at the hip, to focus on one is to abstract both away from the larger picture to the point of absurdity.
The Arab world, as a domain, has underneath it's observable behavioral patterns and customs and rituals a DEEP nature how how they view the world, this can be lightly read via Spenglers work.
To transcend requires one is in a 'balance' with ones on DEEP nature of custom and ritual which is specific to ethnic and racial groups. How the Arab does this is different to the English.
To conflate the customs and rituals of the Scots with those of West African descent is a failure in analysis, just because they appear the same dose not mean they are.
To add to this I would sumise it will be due to African Americans being separated racial from their West African ancestry to the point they became lost and are currently going through a new Ethno-Genisis. One will see if this happens long term.
I am not able to provide an answer to the Ebonics, not a subject of interest I have had or remotely looked into.
As to the last statement, an average the differences are low, yet when compared a nother European is flat out not the same as an African. Just because some traits are shared does not mean they are the same.
A nice example is sicle cell, Europeans do not cary this gene mutation by default and only have an increased chance of so when interbreeding.
I am curious to continue the discussion but am unwilling given how I'm interpreting your tone.
I'm not creating a false dichotomy that there's not an interrelationship but I put a lot more weight on culture than genes (though genes do end up being a nexus of culture though I don't believe it's the originator) For example, Greeks and Arabs are genetically virtually identical. Yet one is Eastern and the other Western and have even different concepts of time.
But back to your comment, you perfectly made my point about culture, not genetics, when you said:
"To add to this I would sumise it will be due to African Americans being separated racial from their West African ancestry to the point they became lost and are currently going through a new Ethno-Genisis. One will see if this happens long term."
Further, I'm confused how my bringing ebonics into the conversation and your dismissal as having not studied it isn't falling victim to your own accusation of:
"focus on one is to abstract both away from the larger picture to the point of absurdity."
I'm pretty sure I broadened the context to an even larger picture while you dove in.
As I said, we can continue the conversation but it doesn't have to be accusatory or adverserial.
Why did Thomas Sowell find that Black Americans are closer to Scotch Irish culture than Afro-Centric?
West Virginia is where the Scots Irish settled, and has the lowest performing whites in the country with a median household income of $37,989 (2008). It's average SAT score was 1012 (Reading + Math).
The year before Black teenagers (nationwide) born to families with a household income of 200K or more scored 981.
If Sowell updated that book he would have to account for the fact that crime statistics and single motherhood statics in Black Brits and Black Americans are nearly identical.
Big fan of Sowell but he wrote those books before the 2020 reckoning and before the proliferation of Black diasporas into comparable Western democracies as a counterweight. What he would find is that the same behavioral patterns, on average, emerge in almost all Black diaspora populations in Western countries.
We can parse hairs on how much colonialism, slavery, etc. affected that but the “emulated culture” argument (as it relates to crime and parenting patterns) doesn’t hold weight anymore, unfortunately.
I'm mixed on Sowell, because I think the theory in the book was clearly insane to begin with. Even from a purely culturalist perspective, if you are gonna ask why a diaspora has the habits it has, it's *obvious* that you should look at their home countries.
At the same time, Sowell was willing to call attention to the early 2010 race mob attacks noted in Colin Flaherty's first book - "White girl bleed a lot" as 'pogroms'.
Yeah, well his inability to face the IQ and genetic temperament questions means he will / has always tread water.
But he’s written extensively on African (in Africa) dysfunction, so I don’t place it as trying to hide the football.
Overall, as long as the educated classes refuse to face the behavioral component of genetic differences between groups, their “culturalist” house of cards will always eventually collapse on its own ideological weight.
Doesn’t mean they don’t have some good points though - the Scots Irish stuff in Sowell’s work definitely has merit. Slightly different but related, I find it odd people don’t discuss more how clearly different Irish temperament is even from Anglo. Many obvious differences between groups that can’t even be broached.
To say that Greeks and Arabs are, as you stated, '... Genetically Virtually Identical...' is in of itself an admission that they are not the same, this via the useage of the word Virtually indicates that they are not the same otherwise it would be stated flatly "they are the same".
As I also stated their is a DEEP nature to Arabs, this is also present with other ethnic and racial groups, this is what influences the cultural differences when observed. You MUST go much deeper into territory that WILL make you uncomfortable as I myself have done.
As regards my other answer to your question regarding the African American and Scots Irish, I provided a context to that answer that MUST also be quoted with it as it prefeses customs and rituals, even if they are the exact same in practice, I would ask why the Scots Irish and African Americans live separately to one another if they are the same?
As regarding my answer about Ebonics, this is a admission that I am unable to provide an answer to that question you asked and so will not make speculations just to answer it, essentially I am satisfied with being wrong and or not knowing something.
We can't say they are the same but 99% is pretty dang close. There is a genetic component of temperment, gene expression through trauma, etc. but Whn you look at how fast culture can create dramatic differences that are not explained by genes means we need to step back and look a little more carefully.
Another example of dramatic cultural differences are the Polish to the Germans. Their cultures have split though genetically they are indifferentiatable. Culture trumps genes every time.
Poles and Germans are genetically very distinguishable, not a good example at all.
Poles are part of the Slavic R1A Y-DNA haplogroup, Germans are not.
If you lived in Central Europe you could quickly notice the temperamental differences between them almost instantly.
However, temperamentally, ethnic Germans and ethnic Poles act much more alike than a 4th generation Turk-German and an ethnic German, and so on.
This extends to almost all racial categories, it takes an amazing amount of self deception to not notice temperamental differences between groups regardless of location.
The race thing is a 3rd rail that makes people have to waste an amazing amount of time deceiving themselves on patently obvious behavioral patterns
A pole is not a German and an Arab not a Greek, they have different terms or more simply words for their folk, if they are the same you would not use a separate word for them, such as the term Western when describing large numbers of ethnic/ racial groups from Australia to Nort America and Europe.
Secondly I will state this for a third time, culture and genes are the same.
But those are influenced by a DEEPER NATURE that is neither genetic nore cultural, this is a spirit that one can sense and engage with but very difficult to measure and or put into words.
Please read Spengler, it would make a great addition to your work. I promise.
Ta can mean thanks, a symbol of tantalum, an abbreviation for teaching assistant or transactional analysis, or a noun for curvaceous women or entertainment.
Dear Lorenzo, thanks for noticing my comment. I don't know if you took my suggestion and watch the Chinese series, The Longest Day in Chang'An but I just noticed yesterday SBS intends to remove it in 30 days. I have just embarked on a binge viewing effort as it is very long, but totally rewarding. I have just brought home the latest Nexus Feb Mar 24 which contains the article by Matthew Ehret: Keys to Universal History - The Jews of Khazaria, the Himyarites, and the Gokturk Empire - which positions the Tang Dynasty and Chang'An - now Xi'An - in a global and historical context which is very helpful to me. It explains the presence of so many colourful and exotic characters within the time of the Tang dynasty. Hope you get to watch it if you haven't already.
I look forward to your writing, please don't stop!
I recommend reading Black Rednecks and White Liberals for Sowell's full view on it. His argument wasn't west Virginia which was a small contingent. But Ebonics is not Afrocentric... It's scotch Irish. Culture eats genes for lunch.
Not convinced by this argument. At the end of the day, the phenotypic differences between Australian Aborigines, Sub-Saharans, and Eurasians are striking and immediately noticeable. That each continental group can be further divided into more granular levels at which culture plays a larger role, i.e. nation, ethnicity, etc., has no bearing on these coarser distinctions. Put another way, it is perfectly irrelevant if a Bantu is adopted and raised by a Japanese family; biologically he will still be Bantu.
It seems to me that a similar argument could be made that dog breeds do not really exist.
That argument has been made about dogs John, it still is as regarding how to determine if you have a new dog breed or not.
I find this is a perfect example of intellectual abstracting of basic reality based concepts (ontological sense) of the world to deny or down play said reality.
I expect it was a great essay, but my hopelessly non-philosophical, non-intellectual , non-abstract, dully-concrete-oriented mind would have appreciated greatly some real-life examples and illustrations of the point. But perhaps real life examples would have refuted the point.
One problem with denying reality because we don't want to offend anyone is that useful concepts will continue to be, you know, used. For example, people who had lost the use of one or more limbs were once termed "crippled." When we decided that the word "crippled" was pejorative, they became "handicapped." But "handicapped" eventually came to mean "crippled," so it had to be replaced with "disabled," which, in turn, gave way to "differently abled." Words aren't magic. We can't restore the use of an arm or a leg by coming up with different euphemisms.
Race is useful for descriptive purposes. And because we insist on doling out tax money on the basis of race, the concept is necessary under law. We're informed by Lorenzo and others that the term should not be used. Fine. But another word or phrase will replace it as long as the concept is useful.
I am not actually arguing there is nothing to race. Just mostly not very much. I am also keen on distinguishing between race and ethnicity — the latter is a much “thicker” concept.
actually, the African Eve theory was pushed by christians.....and has no validity at all if you look at the DNA. Too many Ghost species in african that do not at all exist in northen europe. not even in the slightest. If we all came out of africa, it would be there. it's not.
That doesn’t follow. Only a relatively small subset of lineages left Africa. It is entirely possible to have archaic admixtures in Africa that do not show up in that small subset.
From the ancients until the interminable and ongoing mischief of the 19th century, in this case Parkman and Dalton “race” was LANGUAGE, culture, people, place.
Phylogenetic’s and DNA blow all the phrenology and visual taxonomy out of the water.
And one drop of blood ain’t cutting it in the 21st century, not for “science” 🤮
Unfortunately as people are lazy we like color coding, as people are wicked and greedy we like divide et impera and grift.
We need to quit the grift.
FFS it’s not even OUR GRIFT.
The British racial codes are an Imperial and political tool from 200 years ago... lets get an update.
I’d call it meritocracy but that’s fucked now too... let’s try “what can you do?”
Richard Fulmer
just now
"... for race to be a biologically useful concept, there needs to be some robust structural feature or features that race identifies."
When the police send out an APB for a Caucasian, Native American, Black, Japanese, or Chinese male, that conveys useful information to the officers on the beat in terms of the appearance of the man for whom they are to look. A Native American male has a different appearance than a Black male and those differences are useful means of identification. What label should we give those differences? "Race" is verboten. Fine. Give us another word. Phylum, subphylum, ixnard, buglump, reciprocating torque baffle, anything.
Quite. There are physical markers, but beyond that, there are some differences in distributions of traits, which create some differences in tendencies, but it still ends up being pretty thin.
It may be “thin,” but it is also very useful for identification purposes. I’m reminded of a friend who was supposed to meet her brother’s roommate at a football game. Her brother detailed what his roommate would be wearing but neglected to mention that he was black, which would have been helpful. Afterwards, she asked her brother why he didn’t point out the fact that his roommate was black. Her brother replied, “Oh, I never notice the color of anyone’s skin.”
Basically, he was lying to himself and his sister. In the event, he made the meeting far more difficult than it should have been all to feed his affected image of himself as “color blind.”
I get the impression that the people who claim that race doesn’t exist are doing the same thing. “Oh, you silly ignorant, unscientific, little people. You simply don’t understand that race has no biological basis.” And at the same time, the very same people will declare that “Big Pharma” is “racist” because they don’t include enough biologically diverse people in their drug trials.
Part of the race grifting that goes on in the US is precisely the conflating of everyone of African ancestry as “Black”. This enables, for instance, a scion of a wealthy Haitian immigrant family who went to the top US private school to claim to be “marginalised” or “minoritised”. It is striking how much the affirmative action which is supposed to be for the descendants of American slaves gets creamed off by recent African migrants or their children. No descendant of American slaves has yet graced the Presidential ticket of either major Party and, on present trends, are not likely to, as they become an ever smaller proportion of the US population and ever less beneficiaries of the Diversity scam.
"It is striking how much the affirmative action which is supposed to be for the descendants of American slaves gets creamed off by recent African migrants or their children."
I notice this too but is just a glitch/Achilles' heel that no one will touch: conservatives may mention it, but as they are ipso facto "racists", they are always ignored on the grounds of moral pollution; liberals have been Clockwork Orange-d into becoming physically ill if they do or say anything that may harm (even hypothetically) a brown person, no matter the circumstances, so they will never speak up; and since the goal of all this social engineering via race is to make upscale liberals feel like righteous white saviors (their politics have become almost wholly symbolic), the results or unfortunate consequences will never be noticed or acknowledged.
I’m going to hazard that White People have become incompetent to rule, because we’re neurotic pussies. Clearly someone who’s not afraid to crack the whip or shoot should be in power. You can’t be a pussy and in charge.
OTOH the others can’t run our systems or machines.
The trains will run off the tracks - on time mind you. The planes WILL take off !! And “land” but only once.
It seems we’re caught between violent morons and intelligent but hopelessly weak and therefore ineffective cowards.
What to do?
😉
"Clearly someone who’s not afraid to crack the whip or shoot should be in power. You can’t be a pussy and in charge."
I feel the same way when i see my friends coddle their brats mid-tantrum when what they really need is a solid slap ;))
The problem here is decadence a la "strong men make good times etc"...people raised in a cocoon of safety and wealth become too soft to lay down the law (or enforce it)...
Western politics will see lots of strong men return once the $$ runs out, but those strong men will most likely not be whiteys...
Certainly some white people are unfit for political office. Just offhand, I can think of two leading presidential candidates who are unfit for any position.
Doling out special privileges on the basis of skin color (or on any other basis) is a completely different discussion than that of declaring for purposes of self-congratulatory BS that skin color (or race/buglump) is a social construct that has no basis in biology.
Yes, but elevating a thin biological differentiation into a thick sociological differentiation is precisely what is used to generate a whole set of false rhetoric about, for example, “White Supremacy” and “structural racism”, two claims blatantly contradicted by the success of African immigrants.
Agreed. External differences are useful for identification and little else. Progressives tell us both that race means nothing and that it means everything. It’s nothing but a social construct, yet it determines - or it should determine - how and what we think and believe. For the revolutionary left, race is the key to division and conquest, their way to tear down the “oppressor-oppressed” status quo and install a set of real oppressors, themselves.
Biological differentiation (aka race) has important implications for health. Race is a useful construct and is objectively real. If race didn't exist, we wouldn't have 23 and me. Appearance generally indicates racial origin, the same way that appearance also generally indicates sex.
We’re ruled by the insane and this is their chief lever over us, their biggest club, don’t validate it for them Sir Richard.
What is the “club,” and how am I validating it?
Yep. We can obviously pick people’s broad ancestry pretty accurately. There is not nothing there.
Substack and other forms of social media act like University seminars are supposed to — you argue a case, get hopefully useful criticisms, adjust your thesis accordingly.
I am not even sure we can pick people's ancestry very readily. Examples from my life: woman with Fijian father/ Caucasian mother who by appearance might have been Dutch - very tall, big boned, blonde curly hair, white skin. Another woman with milky skin, very blue eyes, brown wavy hair - father Aboriginal, mother Caucasian. Third example: very tall woman with brown skin, brown eyes, and black straight hair. Her father was a tall Caucasian, her mother was a tiny half-Nepalese, half Scots woman. I think being able to pick out racial differences by eye was only true when there was segregation of the racial groups. Otherwise, it is extremely deceptive.
You are arguing that exceptions disprove the general rule. Sure, there are people who you wouldn't be able to accurately guess their racial/ethnic origin based on their appearance, but most of the time you can.
How do you know? The first two women mentioned above you would have unhesitatingly classified as thoroughly Caucasian and you would have been wrong. The third woman has quite dark skin but her heritage is 3/4 English/Scottish. My point is, you dont know when you are wrong unless you interview people (my conversational style). Classification by skin colour is a very blunt instrument and i doubt much research is done on this touchy subject. You really can't judge a book by its cover no matter how much you wish you could.
I’m going to adjust my thesis at the range tomorrow, thanks for the reminder. I think I’ll go for 81Meters. 🎯
I’m all for refining the debate, yes.
Or you could go for 88 yards :-)
Do we have a "species" called length, with an ethnicity or race of English and one of Metric? Distinctive measuring tools and general geographic separation. But I suspect this thought process involving descriptive characteristics or parameters will not lead to anywhere useful, either.
Oh well 81 meters = 100 yards.
Unfortunately the range in yards not meters. OTOH the new build is zeroed optics and side BUIS (backup iron sights)
Have you ever mistaken a black man for a Chinese man?
Not when the two men are ethically “pure,” whatever that means. However, as the rate of intermarriage increases, distinguishing people along such lines will become increasingly difficult. Even today, the usefulness of such descriptions as “black” and “Chinese” likely varies by location.
Blasians remain quite rare, as compared to the absolute numbers of effectively pure-blooded Han or Bantu. In any case, a mixed breed is identifiable as such, and will generally not be mistaken for one or the other. It also isn't an argument against the existence of race; it's just the continuum fallacy, that because hills exist, mountains and plains do not.
If he cannot tell the difference between a Blasian, can he tell the different between Japanese, Chinese or Korean? Maybe they just all look the same.
I grew up in a heavily East Asian area and can generally tell the different between Chinese and Japanese/Korean. Distinguishing between the last two I find harder. I can sometimes (maybe even most times) tell if someone is from a different East Asian area, such as Cambodia, Laos, etc.
You have to spend time around other racial groups to see the differences, a bit like developing a level of competency at a job, of pysiognomy between 'similar' groups, to the untrained eye yes they all look the same.
To a keen eye the jaw line, shoulders, eye line, nose shape, ect will have and conform to general trends of for each ethnic and racial group whilst having some changes across said folk, but will still be noticable when looking across multiple ethnic and racial groupings.
Is it your view that the genetic differences between racial categories (as in location of origin based on genetics) result in minimal/immaterial trait differences? It seems like this is almost a blank state view with culture doing all the work.
Ethnic features are certainly useful if you need to distinguish between two 6' 275 lb men but is not sufficient. There are many distinguishing features among humans. Race is a construct that is more divisive than helpful.
But only to irrational people. A rational person simply accepts skin color and other features as useful descriptors and nothing else.
However, we’re humans not Vulcans, and none of us is completely rational on all issues. Given that, do you agree with the suggestion that some have made that police departments be prohibited from including race in their APBs? The downside is that fewer suspects are caught - suspects who may go on to commit more crimes and victimize more people (including more minorities). The upside is ...?
As a descriptor, physical characteristics are useful; call them what you like.
It’s useful for Divide Et Impera
.... except the current system doesn’t conquer, nor rule.
It sows chaos.
So perhaps until Nihilism is defeated and gone, we resist taxonomy.
Put another way, when Lorded over by Arsonists, despoiled by their plots, one doesn’t give them fuel, matches or accelerants.
So let’s leave it with Science discredits race, we’ll discuss it later when we’re not under the boots of the insane.
I'm working through these concepts on a book about AI where human conciousness is uploaded into AI. So what does race / genetics mean when the conciousness is divorced from a biological body? What does black or white mean when there is no more black or white? This essay lines up well with my own findings in that the delineation becomes cultural very quickly and not genetic.
You can not separate culture from the genes, how an Arab views the world is very different to how an African or European views the world, you sir have become de-racinated to the point you have confirmation bias to your own findings for your own research.
If youd like a succinct point of what I am referring to here is a link;
https://youtu.be/48xJuQwzBUM?si=7Poj8pqwxd6tVKwR
Is the Arab world driven by genes or culture? Are they so dramatically genetically different that culture can't transcend? Why did Thomas Sowell find that Black Americans are closer to Scotch Irish culture than Afro-Centric? Why is Ebonics Scotch Irish with almost no connection to African Languages?
There is more genetic diversity on the African continent than between any African or Northern European. Arabs are even closer to either but their culture is clearly not the same as either.
Before you claim confirmation bias, look in the mirror first.
"Are they so dramatically genetically different that culture can't transcend?"
Cultural choices select for radically different genes. Often these weren't even really choices, but simply the most functional approach to surviving in a specific environment.
50% of Saudi marriages are arranged ones between first or second cousins, and it has been this way (if not much higher) since time immemorial.
Dutch people have had a first cousin marriage rate of under 5% for at least roughly the last 1000 years as the Catholic Church explicitly banned cousin marriage within 3 degrees of separation.
When you marry within the family, you have a much reduced incentive to ever show altruistic behavior outside of it. So what happens when one society selects for non-kin altruism and the other for kin-altruism, for over 1000 years?
The genes and culture are not separate concepts the two are tied at the hip, to focus on one is to abstract both away from the larger picture to the point of absurdity.
The Arab world, as a domain, has underneath it's observable behavioral patterns and customs and rituals a DEEP nature how how they view the world, this can be lightly read via Spenglers work.
To transcend requires one is in a 'balance' with ones on DEEP nature of custom and ritual which is specific to ethnic and racial groups. How the Arab does this is different to the English.
To conflate the customs and rituals of the Scots with those of West African descent is a failure in analysis, just because they appear the same dose not mean they are.
To add to this I would sumise it will be due to African Americans being separated racial from their West African ancestry to the point they became lost and are currently going through a new Ethno-Genisis. One will see if this happens long term.
I am not able to provide an answer to the Ebonics, not a subject of interest I have had or remotely looked into.
As to the last statement, an average the differences are low, yet when compared a nother European is flat out not the same as an African. Just because some traits are shared does not mean they are the same.
A nice example is sicle cell, Europeans do not cary this gene mutation by default and only have an increased chance of so when interbreeding.
I am curious to continue the discussion but am unwilling given how I'm interpreting your tone.
I'm not creating a false dichotomy that there's not an interrelationship but I put a lot more weight on culture than genes (though genes do end up being a nexus of culture though I don't believe it's the originator) For example, Greeks and Arabs are genetically virtually identical. Yet one is Eastern and the other Western and have even different concepts of time.
But back to your comment, you perfectly made my point about culture, not genetics, when you said:
"To add to this I would sumise it will be due to African Americans being separated racial from their West African ancestry to the point they became lost and are currently going through a new Ethno-Genisis. One will see if this happens long term."
Further, I'm confused how my bringing ebonics into the conversation and your dismissal as having not studied it isn't falling victim to your own accusation of:
"focus on one is to abstract both away from the larger picture to the point of absurdity."
I'm pretty sure I broadened the context to an even larger picture while you dove in.
As I said, we can continue the conversation but it doesn't have to be accusatory or adverserial.
I will apologise for the poor grammar in those sentences.
Why did Thomas Sowell find that Black Americans are closer to Scotch Irish culture than Afro-Centric?
West Virginia is where the Scots Irish settled, and has the lowest performing whites in the country with a median household income of $37,989 (2008). It's average SAT score was 1012 (Reading + Math).
The year before Black teenagers (nationwide) born to families with a household income of 200K or more scored 981.
https://www.jbhe.com/latest/index012209_p.html
https://www.victoriaadvocate.com/news/highereducation/w-va-s-2009-sat-scores-down-slightly-from-2008/article_c0f7b2d9-a46d-5c07-a2d1-e5a19fdb84bf.html
If Sowell updated that book he would have to account for the fact that crime statistics and single motherhood statics in Black Brits and Black Americans are nearly identical.
Big fan of Sowell but he wrote those books before the 2020 reckoning and before the proliferation of Black diasporas into comparable Western democracies as a counterweight. What he would find is that the same behavioral patterns, on average, emerge in almost all Black diaspora populations in Western countries.
We can parse hairs on how much colonialism, slavery, etc. affected that but the “emulated culture” argument (as it relates to crime and parenting patterns) doesn’t hold weight anymore, unfortunately.
I'm mixed on Sowell, because I think the theory in the book was clearly insane to begin with. Even from a purely culturalist perspective, if you are gonna ask why a diaspora has the habits it has, it's *obvious* that you should look at their home countries.
At the same time, Sowell was willing to call attention to the early 2010 race mob attacks noted in Colin Flaherty's first book - "White girl bleed a lot" as 'pogroms'.
Yeah, well his inability to face the IQ and genetic temperament questions means he will / has always tread water.
But he’s written extensively on African (in Africa) dysfunction, so I don’t place it as trying to hide the football.
Overall, as long as the educated classes refuse to face the behavioral component of genetic differences between groups, their “culturalist” house of cards will always eventually collapse on its own ideological weight.
Doesn’t mean they don’t have some good points though - the Scots Irish stuff in Sowell’s work definitely has merit. Slightly different but related, I find it odd people don’t discuss more how clearly different Irish temperament is even from Anglo. Many obvious differences between groups that can’t even be broached.
To say that Greeks and Arabs are, as you stated, '... Genetically Virtually Identical...' is in of itself an admission that they are not the same, this via the useage of the word Virtually indicates that they are not the same otherwise it would be stated flatly "they are the same".
As I also stated their is a DEEP nature to Arabs, this is also present with other ethnic and racial groups, this is what influences the cultural differences when observed. You MUST go much deeper into territory that WILL make you uncomfortable as I myself have done.
As regards my other answer to your question regarding the African American and Scots Irish, I provided a context to that answer that MUST also be quoted with it as it prefeses customs and rituals, even if they are the exact same in practice, I would ask why the Scots Irish and African Americans live separately to one another if they are the same?
As regarding my answer about Ebonics, this is a admission that I am unable to provide an answer to that question you asked and so will not make speculations just to answer it, essentially I am satisfied with being wrong and or not knowing something.
We can't say they are the same but 99% is pretty dang close. There is a genetic component of temperment, gene expression through trauma, etc. but Whn you look at how fast culture can create dramatic differences that are not explained by genes means we need to step back and look a little more carefully.
Another example of dramatic cultural differences are the Polish to the Germans. Their cultures have split though genetically they are indifferentiatable. Culture trumps genes every time.
Poles and Germans are genetically very distinguishable, not a good example at all.
Poles are part of the Slavic R1A Y-DNA haplogroup, Germans are not.
If you lived in Central Europe you could quickly notice the temperamental differences between them almost instantly.
However, temperamentally, ethnic Germans and ethnic Poles act much more alike than a 4th generation Turk-German and an ethnic German, and so on.
This extends to almost all racial categories, it takes an amazing amount of self deception to not notice temperamental differences between groups regardless of location.
The race thing is a 3rd rail that makes people have to waste an amazing amount of time deceiving themselves on patently obvious behavioral patterns
A pole is not a German and an Arab not a Greek, they have different terms or more simply words for their folk, if they are the same you would not use a separate word for them, such as the term Western when describing large numbers of ethnic/ racial groups from Australia to Nort America and Europe.
Secondly I will state this for a third time, culture and genes are the same.
But those are influenced by a DEEPER NATURE that is neither genetic nore cultural, this is a spirit that one can sense and engage with but very difficult to measure and or put into words.
Please read Spengler, it would make a great addition to your work. I promise.
A classic in the "nasty and nice" discussion of evolutionary [edit: kinship] group social structure:
https://sites.santafe.edu/~bowles/AltruistsAtWar.pdf
Lovely piece by the 3rd Viscount, nephew of Sir Steven Runciman, historian of the Crusades, ta again.
Oooh, ta.
Ta Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster
Ta can mean thanks, a symbol of tantalum, an abbreviation for teaching assistant or transactional analysis, or a noun for curvaceous women or entertainment.
Dear Lorenzo, thanks for noticing my comment. I don't know if you took my suggestion and watch the Chinese series, The Longest Day in Chang'An but I just noticed yesterday SBS intends to remove it in 30 days. I have just embarked on a binge viewing effort as it is very long, but totally rewarding. I have just brought home the latest Nexus Feb Mar 24 which contains the article by Matthew Ehret: Keys to Universal History - The Jews of Khazaria, the Himyarites, and the Gokturk Empire - which positions the Tang Dynasty and Chang'An - now Xi'An - in a global and historical context which is very helpful to me. It explains the presence of so many colourful and exotic characters within the time of the Tang dynasty. Hope you get to watch it if you haven't already.
I look forward to your writing, please don't stop!
The series is available on Viki! The Tang dynasty was very cosmopolitan. (E.g. the heir to the Sassanian Empire ended an imperial Guards commander.)
I notice that The Longest Day in Chang’An gets an 8.8 rating on My Drama List, whose ratings I have found fairly reliable.
https://mydramalist.com/shows/top
Glad its available somewhere else - too good to miss!
I recommend reading Black Rednecks and White Liberals for Sowell's full view on it. His argument wasn't west Virginia which was a small contingent. But Ebonics is not Afrocentric... It's scotch Irish. Culture eats genes for lunch.
Not convinced by this argument. At the end of the day, the phenotypic differences between Australian Aborigines, Sub-Saharans, and Eurasians are striking and immediately noticeable. That each continental group can be further divided into more granular levels at which culture plays a larger role, i.e. nation, ethnicity, etc., has no bearing on these coarser distinctions. Put another way, it is perfectly irrelevant if a Bantu is adopted and raised by a Japanese family; biologically he will still be Bantu.
It seems to me that a similar argument could be made that dog breeds do not really exist.
That argument has been made about dogs John, it still is as regarding how to determine if you have a new dog breed or not.
I find this is a perfect example of intellectual abstracting of basic reality based concepts (ontological sense) of the world to deny or down play said reality.
I expect it was a great essay, but my hopelessly non-philosophical, non-intellectual , non-abstract, dully-concrete-oriented mind would have appreciated greatly some real-life examples and illustrations of the point. But perhaps real life examples would have refuted the point.
What sort of examples are you after?
One problem with denying reality because we don't want to offend anyone is that useful concepts will continue to be, you know, used. For example, people who had lost the use of one or more limbs were once termed "crippled." When we decided that the word "crippled" was pejorative, they became "handicapped." But "handicapped" eventually came to mean "crippled," so it had to be replaced with "disabled," which, in turn, gave way to "differently abled." Words aren't magic. We can't restore the use of an arm or a leg by coming up with different euphemisms.
Race is useful for descriptive purposes. And because we insist on doling out tax money on the basis of race, the concept is necessary under law. We're informed by Lorenzo and others that the term should not be used. Fine. But another word or phrase will replace it as long as the concept is useful.
You can not change imutible behavior that 'humans' engage in by default it will always peicre through the wall of euphemisms. Agreed.
I am not actually arguing there is nothing to race. Just mostly not very much. I am also keen on distinguishing between race and ethnicity — the latter is a much “thicker” concept.
https://odysee.com/@Qwinten:b/Out-of-Africa-Theory-Debunked---ROBERT-SEPEHR:c?lid=1a7bcee1-568f-4152-b62f-f9d0f3401515
Modern genetics establishes pretty comprehensively that Homo sapiens evolved in Africa and spread from there.
actually, the African Eve theory was pushed by christians.....and has no validity at all if you look at the DNA. Too many Ghost species in african that do not at all exist in northen europe. not even in the slightest. If we all came out of africa, it would be there. it's not.
That doesn’t follow. Only a relatively small subset of lineages left Africa. It is entirely possible to have archaic admixtures in Africa that do not show up in that small subset.
https://academic.oup.com/gbe/article/15/4/evad054/7092825
From the ancients until the interminable and ongoing mischief of the 19th century, in this case Parkman and Dalton “race” was LANGUAGE, culture, people, place.
Phylogenetic’s and DNA blow all the phrenology and visual taxonomy out of the water.
And one drop of blood ain’t cutting it in the 21st century, not for “science” 🤮
Unfortunately as people are lazy we like color coding, as people are wicked and greedy we like divide et impera and grift.
We need to quit the grift.
FFS it’s not even OUR GRIFT.
The British racial codes are an Imperial and political tool from 200 years ago... lets get an update.
I’d call it meritocracy but that’s fucked now too... let’s try “what can you do?”