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Sexism, Racism, Etc.


Domarius

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I saw a documentary on the history of siphilis that was related to what you guys were talking about. Apparently the traditional story about Europeans bringing it to America, and when they brought it, was wrong on a lot of points.

Let me see if I can find a link; it was interesting. I recall that strained race-relations was part of the story.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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yea theres other theories that it came form asia into Europe over the silk road? (I think that was how but I don't really remember the other htoery). INteresingly enough through, It is one of the few types of antibodies common to native American. This could be from a common acnestor group earlier, but then were going to far back to be very accurate.

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Yeah, that was the issue. I had it backwards ... not whether the Americas got it from Europe but whether Europe got it from the Americas or not. Thanks for keeping me honest.

 

I always find these kind of documentaries a little humbling in that a few pieces of evidence have the potential to overthrow very old "established" ideas, and suddenly it's a different world (maybe not the history of siphilis as much as stufff like the big bang and plate tectonics, but you get my meaning.)

Edited by demagogue

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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I always find these kind of documentaries a little humbling in that a few pieces of evidence have the potential to overthrow very old "established" ideas, and suddenly it's a different world (maybe not the history of siphilis as much as stufff like the big bang and plate tectonics, but you get my meaning.)

 

 

This reminds me of the work of one of my favorite scientists of all time, Carl Sagan. I know, he wasn't one of the theoretical giants nor did he discover anything major that I know of. But his show "Cosmos" was a really powerful influence in my childhood and his books, although popular in nature, kept my interest going as I got older. I would have to watch the shows again to reevaluate them but back then, those images of deep space, ancient maps and mythical creatures, long dead civilizations that built observatories in temples, man it was a real good trip for the alert seven year old!

 

Now, back to the actual topic... :blush:

Edited by Maximius
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Found a great show on the topic of race:

 

http://www.kpfa.org/archives/index.php?arch=18652

 

I'm just doing this to repost the link. This show is really good, its a great overview of the current state of evolutionary genetics as well as a dismissal of the notion of "race."

 

P.S. I've discovered the perfect combination, snow day off with cocoa and whiskey! Weeeee! :wacko:

Edited by Maximius
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Domarius' problem is that he's just a big hippy. He'd never admit to such a thing as some humans being inherently better than others at certain things, or at men being inherently better than woman at certain things.

We're all just brothers and sisters in his marijuana affected brain.

However, even though I hold the view that white males are inherently superior to everyone else on the planet, I don't agree with discrimination of those others.

Judge everyone on their individual merits.

What I detest is positive discrimination.

Domarius probably even thinks that humans are responsible for the current 'global warming'.

Civillisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.

- Emil Zola

 

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I totally agree with oDDity that some people are better than others at creating functioning civilisations.

 

That's why many African countries are working democracies while Northern Ireland is run by a pack of religious terrorists who can't form a government.

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No No No No No No No. and No. There are a number of erroneous assumptions flying around here. So what that species may change faster in cooler climates? This in itself says >nothing< about what particular characteristics those environments demand and whether or not they can be considered superior is an entire other ball of intertwined questions.

 

So who has tallied the COMPLETE list of such characteristics of the differing groups of people involved and then who has constructed the theoretical frameworks to try to analyze the data and then who has sat and put the pieces of theory back together with the empirical data to see where they work and where they don't? Anyone here? No? Because thats whats implied by the claims I'm reading in some of these posts, that someone has done all that necessary analysis. Anything less is in the kindest terms jumping to vast conclusions.

 

And this fails to note the reality that different genetic traits come and go at different rates. Some, like binocular vision, opposable thumbs, or abstract reasoning seem to be universal to the species and have been in evidence in some of our earliest ancestors in varying degrees, others, much more superficial in fact and this is noted in the evidence of their much more recent appearance in the genetic record, are things like skin color, height, hair. White skin is an adaptation to cloudier climates, to help the body produce Vitamin D and probably some other important processes. There is no evidence that it has anything to do with intelligence or any mental abilities. Get over yourselves, you honkies.

 

Its always a pleasure to read the writings here of those who have discarded religious thinking about religion in their lives. Now its time for some to discard religious thinking about race and Social Darwinism and evolutionary standards of superiority. This smacks of a perfect job for the Dark Mod book club.

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Sometimes you don't need the exact details to hold a point of view. If everything had to be proven 100%, you'd never believe anything.

 

about what particular characteristics those environments demand and whether or not they can be considered superior is an entire other ball of intertwined questions.

Don't start up the philosophy about 'what really is superior' again.

We all know what that is, and which race and which gender of that race has done the best, no description of it need be made. That's why you choose to live in modern society instead of a mud hut in the jungle.

Civillisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.

- Emil Zola

 

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Sometimes you don't need the exact details to hold a point of view. If everything had to be proven 100%, you'd never believe anything.

 

 

Don't start up the philosophy about 'what really is superior' again.

We all know what that is, and which race and which gender of that race has done the best, no description of it need be made. That's why you choose to live in modern society instead of a mud hut in the jungle.

 

Bureaucrat: "Scientifically proven this evening!

White people are the supreme race because it's cold up north!

Read all about it!"

 

I'm cheesed at the two of you.

 

Yes, points of view rarely call for exact details. Thats why we look to the sciences, mathematics, history, and philosophical questions in order to form theories about the world, highly informed and self critical best guesses. I will be happy to provide lists of reading materials that non specialists like you or I can develop a decent understanding of these questions with. You, sir, who has so amply proved the abilities of your focussed mind with that fucking Centaurette statue that looks like its going to laugh aloud and bound off of the screen, you are going to reject the standard I described above? You demand the aching best from one area of yourself but allow another to wallow in a point of view that rejects significant portions of humanity as being deficient, that the mighty weight of the evidence leans against?

 

You too Bureaucrat, how can you as an engineer reject the vast body of academic evidence against these views? If you were sampling a material or testing a system or analyzing any body of data, would you ignore the evidence that had been collected, organized, and discussed before in favor of retaining a point of view? You would have to start every new project as if what came before had not taken place. Is this rational? Its out there to be read, from histories that show how racism was created by governing elites to control populations of workers to the genetic anthropology that shows the shallow nature of "racial" differences and the deep, old commonly held ones. When will you apply the same standard you do towards your work to other areas of investigation?

 

oDDity, your standard for what is considered best is highly questionable. For one, whats "best" can be a function of many things. How many synthetic substances are in your safe, cozy Western style home? Mines full and they are all decaying, producing carcinogenic waste products that could conceivably kill me someday, before my time so to speak. Mud houses don't burn down, they are cheap and if well constructed can last literally thousands of years.

 

Here in the US the new style of cancerous home growth has brought the advent of the McHouse and the McMansion as well. These wonders of the West fall apart fast, are unsustainable in terms of the resources they use and the waste they produce, and the fucking things contribute to the high rates of cancer in the West. I would be happy to live in a mud house versus such an abomination, I've seen some that are spectacular and apparently pretty efficient to heat and cool to boot.

 

But your idea of Western civilizations superiority relies on a more fundamental assumption that is also incorrect. That somehow all these white males were in some sort of control of this process, as if they pushed a switch or a long series of switches and made it happen in so many words. This is a view known as "mechanism", describing social or historical processes with detail erasing cause and effect lines of argument, as if in human affairs events take place like billiard balls rolling around a table. That school of thought's heyday was somewhere between the 18th and 19th centuries IIRC.

 

This process of the rise of Western civilization altered white males as much as those they exploited, many certainly benefited but many more white men did not. Thats why class is a better lens to view these things through than "race" or even biology. But the real point is that human societies are much, much more prisoners of the historical process than they are its masters. Even the ones who rule the world must turn as it does. Humans make history, but history along with environment makes up humans.

 

(And there is still free will too.)

Edited by Maximius
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If we're sticking to scientifically-provable theories supported by evidence, I am not entirely sure that there is.

 

 

We would not be able to stick to scientific theories at all to describe a thing such as the will or any of the conscious aspects of our lives, they can only describe processes and parts and functions and such. These are all parts, not the whole, of the thing under examination. Another part of that thing is the immaterial world of our conscious mental landscapes, the interplay of ideas and emotions and such that has a root in the physical half of the world buts its branches and leaves in the mental half.

 

This makes it impossible to approach such an understanding merely through science because much of what is under discussion will >never< be available for direct scientific inquiry, as it will never be available for the kind of experimentation necessary to study it scientifically. Only philosophy and the humanities have the apparatus necessary to bridge this empirical gap, by posing questions which do not necessarily depend on observation for theory construction but also allow for logical, semantical, narrative, and other kinds of truth. Science only produces one kind of knowledge, incredibly important and influential but incapable of answering certain questions, blocked from doing so by its own rules. So there are other kinds of truth we turn to.

 

But wait, what separates this from superstition or religious thinking?! The fact that these disciplines have a method, similar to the scientific one and generally highly influenced by it but with fundamental differences as well. Methods come and go, many are questionable, but the crucial difference is that one exists. Its as much the attempt as the result.

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We would not be able to stick to scientific theories at all to describe a thing such as the will or any of the conscious aspects of our lives

 

Why not? Can this be proven?

 

Another part of that thing is the immaterial world of our conscious mental landscapes, the interplay of ideas and emotions and such that has a root in the physical half of the world buts its branches and leaves in the mental half.

 

What evidence is there that the "mental half" as you describe it, is actually anything but a consequence of the physical processes that govern our brains? We can understand computers in terms of transistors, so why not brains in terms of neurons?

 

This makes it impossible to approach such an understanding merely through science because much of what is under discussion will >never< be available for direct scientific inquiry, as it will never be available for the kind of experimentation necessary to study it scientifically.

 

That sounds like a faith position to me.

 

Science only produces one kind of knowledge, incredibly important and influential but incapable of answering certain questions, blocked from doing so by its own rules. So there are other kinds of truth we turn to.

 

When I hear people talking about "other kinds of truth" my woo detector starts making noises. Of course I know from previous discussions that you are not into superstitious thinking, but still this statement seems more a position of faith than evidence.

 

The fact that these disciplines have a method, similar to the scientific one and generally highly influenced by it but with fundamental differences as well.

 

What are the fundamental differences? Either a method is scientific or it isn't, in my view.

 

My own position is that free will does not exist. Human minds are merely vessels which house a cacophony of competing thoughts, just like competing genes in a biological population. Sometimes one of these thoughts will "bubble to the surface" and influence an action, and while the actor will believe that "he" made a conscious decision to commit such an action, it was just a consequence of that particular thought achieving dominance at that particular time.

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Given that there is even less evidence to support a lack of free will, I think we can stick to the conclusion that free will is more probable.

 

Only the strictest definitions of free will require non-causal thought. Most only require non-deterministic or undecidable processes. Both have been demonstrated in the real world, through quantum physics and chaos theory respectively. As we do not have a full understanding of the human brain yet, we cannot assume that these processes have no effect whatsoever on human thought.

 

Furthermore, emergent behavior may be analogous to free will even though it may not be free will in a strict ontological sense. (I would argue that the difference is semantic, however.) As emergent behavior is strictly non-reducible, prediction of another's actions cannot be reduced (although it could still be done faster).

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So who has tallied the COMPLETE list of such characteristics of the differing groups of people involved and then who has constructed the theoretical frameworks to try to analyze the data and then who has sat and put the pieces of theory back together with the empirical data to see where they work and where they don't? Anyone here? No? Because thats whats implied by the claims I'm reading in some of these posts, that someone has done all that necessary analysis. Anything less is in the kindest terms jumping to vast conclusions

That's what I'm talking about.

 

The stuff oDD said about me is rubbish. He's entitled to his "opinion" - all I'm saying is that there isn't any scientific data to convince me.

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Furthermore, emergent behavior may be analogous to free will even though it may not be free will in a strict ontological sense.

I agree, and I'd argue that it doesn't really matter since it's not like we can tell the difference. :)

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