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Sexism, Racism, Etc.


Domarius

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I'd add that there is a climate effect to innovation. Rapid technological development tends to occur in situations where the future is unpredictable. When people have to work like crazy today to save up resources because there is a null period in their availability coming in the future, they worry incessently and build technologies to help them hoard during the good times. Most technological development early in civilizations is driven by that and tends to occur in: flood plain regions, temperate climates, along animal migration routes. People who live somewhere where the food supplies are similar all year long are at a disadvantage because they don't have to develop complicated technologies to maximize productivity during the food availability season. It doesn't have anything to do with the people themselves, however.

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As I spent 20 minutes catching up in this discussion, I've evidenced a chinese girl across from me trying to stick a usb flash memory device into the back-side usb port for 10 minutes. the front ports work on that computer, they are clearly visible, and these computers have been in this room for over 2 years already. I don't know what that means, just an observation which seemed relevant.

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"One Chinese girl is bad with computers, therefore all Chinese are bad with computers." That's a classic fallacy right there.

 

Heck, I've got white people of British descent at my workplace (I do IT support for a faculty at a university) who don't even know what a USB port is. Whenever they need to get some files off "the doohickey" they come and ask us to do it. (Repeated attempts at educating them in this matter have failed.)

My games | Public Service Announcement: TDM is not set in the Thief universe. The city in which it takes place is not the City from Thief. The player character is not called Garrett. Any person who contradicts these facts will be subjected to disapproving stares.
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PPPPPPPPPPPAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRPPPPPPPPPP

PPPP....God that feels good.

 

I was in Dubai recently and they have quite stringent security checks there. Virtually everyone gets bleeped through the scanner and usually have to put their shoes in for XRay. Everyone, White, Black, Brown, Oriental etc were complying in a state or harmony, except for one German fellow who made a huge song and dance about it. The security fellow pointed out that everyone else were following the rules so he has to. His wife and friends were following the rules. The odd thing is that though it was an individual person being difficult, my father and a few other people I were with were saying that he was being racist and was being dismissive of another country's ways of doing things. Either way he was a prick.

ZylonBane's confession about himself:

"What can I say, I'm a jerk. A three times all American Jerk, from Jerksville, Kentucky. Yee Haw"

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I'd add that there is a climate effect to innovation. Rapid technological development tends to occur in situations where the future is unpredictable. When people have to work like crazy today to save up resources because there is a null period in their availability coming in the future, they worry incessently and build technologies to help them hoard during the good times. Most technological development early in civilizations is driven by that and tends to occur in: flood plain regions, temperate climates, along animal migration routes. People who live somewhere where the food supplies are similar all year long are at a disadvantage because they don't have to develop complicated technologies to maximize productivity during the food availability season. It doesn't have anything to do with the people themselves, however.

 

While there are obviously other factors involved, you can't say 'it has nothing to do with the people themselves.

To change the subject a bit, what do you think about the possibility that the South American civilisations did not independently develop, but were in contact with the Mediterranean.

The similarities between the early Egyptian step pyramids and the South American ones is very close.

Africa and South America are only 1500 miles apart at their closest point, which is hardly an unbridgable gap even 4,000 years ago. Look at how the Pacific islands were found by people, and that's a vast area compared to the Atlantic.

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

- Emil Zola

 

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Intersting that it is seen as "racism" if somebody objects to being observed and scrutinized. Seems that the brainwashing works quite well.

 

Part of the problem was that everyone else was doing it without fuss, and he did also say with some shocked suprise: "You want me to take my shoes off !" It was as if he should have special treatment. It was probably nothing racist, but it was definately being dismissive.

ZylonBane's confession about himself:

"What can I say, I'm a jerk. A three times all American Jerk, from Jerksville, Kentucky. Yee Haw"

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While there are obviously other factors involved, you can't say 'it has nothing to do with the people themselves.

Well, actually... yes you can. :P

 

To change the subject a bit, what do you think about the possibility that the South American civilisations did not independently develop, but were in contact with the Mediterranean.

The similarities between the early Egyptian step pyramids and the South American ones is very close.

Probably because it's a pretty logical architectural style. If you want to get close to the sky (which human religions have always associated with divinity in some fashion), then you go up. But when your main building materials are stone and wood and you don't have the advantage of modern technology, you can't necessarily build stable towers that are that high, so you need to build it like a "mound" or otherwise it'll just fall over. Plus, it looks like a mountain so is possibly more imposing / solid-looking.

 

As for why the base is four-sided, that seems to be a pretty universal way of building things. Aside from tents (which are not difficult to construct in odd shapes), buildings everywhere have been four-sided as far as I know. There's probably some reason for that.

 

Africa and South America are only 1500 miles apart at their closest point, which is hardly an unbridgable gap even 4,000 years ago. Look at how the Pacific islands were found by people, and that's a vast area compared to the Atlantic.

The difference being that the Pacific islands are relatively close together. Still, I don't discount the possibility, but I don't think you can use that possibility to explain away all the advances made by South American people.

My games | Public Service Announcement: TDM is not set in the Thief universe. The city in which it takes place is not the City from Thief. The player character is not called Garrett. Any person who contradicts these facts will be subjected to disapproving stares.
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Part of the problem was that everyone else was doing it without fuss, and he did also say with some shocked suprise: "You want me to take my shoes off !" It was as if he should have special treatment. It was probably nothing racist, but it was definately being dismissive.

 

Yes. That's exactly the problem. Everybody else was doing it, without thinking and if somebody comes along and doesn't like it then HE is the freak instead of the the other way around. Such mechanisms are exactly what allowed the Nazi regime to do what it did. It was expected and everybody understood it wouth even thinking about it. And if you did NOT adhere it, you were the outcast.

Gerhard

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Possibly, however to many of the people who are coloured, I believe they thought he thought that the terror alerts etc are for non-whites and therefore he shouldn't be included in this.

ZylonBane's confession about himself:

"What can I say, I'm a jerk. A three times all American Jerk, from Jerksville, Kentucky. Yee Haw"

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Well, actually... yes you can. :P

Yes, you can say it, of course, I can say the moon is square, but it doesn't make it true.

The difference being that the Pacific islands are relatively close together.

They're still needles in a giant haystack though, compared to two vast continents 1500 miles apart. That's not much more than the distance between Australia and New Zealand.

Still, I don't discount the possibility, but I don't think you can use that possibility to explain away all the advances made by South American people.

What advances? When the Spanish arrived there in the 16th century, they were no more advanced than ancient Egypt, so if that's where they got the ideas from in the first place, through some sort of contact, they didn't advance them very much by themselves, that's my point.

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

- Emil Zola

 

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As I spent 20 minutes catching up in this discussion, I've evidenced a chinese girl across from me trying to stick a usb flash memory device into the back-side usb port for 10 minutes. the front ports work on that computer, they are clearly visible, and these computers have been in this room for over 2 years already. I don't know what that means, just an observation which seemed relevant.
"One Chinese girl is bad with computers, therefore all Chinese are bad with computers." That's a classic fallacy right there.

Or "one girl is bad with compters, therefore all girls are bad with computers."

 

You can't even really be sure that she, as an individual, is bad with computers.

 

She could just be having a random dumb moment. We all have them.

 

This is one isolated incident you've seen, it doesn't mean anything at all, and therefore isn't very relevant.

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What advances? When the Spanish arrived there in the 16th century, they were no more advanced than ancient Egypt, so if that's where they got the ideas from in the first place, through some sort of contact, they didn't advance them very much by themselves, that's my point.

 

How about a city of aproximatly 300K people with 6 major aqueducts coming in an advanced calender system better then that used by most of europe at the time and a number of farming techniques not yet seen. I would go on quite more but I have to goto work.

 

Maybe it's the region I am from as opposed to yours however I truely have no comprehension of why you couldnt believe that a non european civilization could create advanced technology and you have to create massive theories of explanations as opposed to just accepting that theres NO DIFFERENCE.

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Or "one girl is bad with compters, therefore all girls are bad with computers."

You can't even really be sure that she, as an individual, is bad with computers.

She could just be having a random dumb moment. We all have them.

This is one isolated incident you've seen, it doesn't mean anything at all, and therefore isn't very relevant.

 

An interesting example, given that only the other day I realised that the USB keyboard I use with my work laptop has two extra USB ports on it, so that you can plug in extra devices. Last time I wanted to use a USB stick with my laptop I unplugged the external USB mouse in order to get a free slot, which apparently was totally unnecessary.

 

Anyway, my personal anecdotal evidence from university is that the Chinese girls were vastly better at the subject than I was.

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Anyway, my personal anecdotal evidence from university is that the Chinese girls were vastly better at the subject than I was.

Precisely. The anecdotal difference is the success in academics, and the basis of discrimination against non-chinese (visible minority) is the alleged lack of work-ethic. If anything, the previous example shows the tendency to continue trying for a long time. They believe that trying and hard work can result in anything and don't believe in the possibility of natural abilities - like me having a knack for chemistry; everything came without any effort, whereas them having to work hard. In any case, I think it is an acquired trait, and will disappear in the next generation born here.

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Yes, you can say it, of course, I can say the moon is square, but it doesn't make it true.

Your example is apt - in order to say that the moon was square, you would need to produce adequate supporting evidence. You have not yet provided such evidence for your claims; any time you have tried to do so, it has been systematically refuted. At this point you're merely grasping at straws.

 

Given this situation in which you are not able to adequately defend your beliefs, and I am adequately able to defend mine, it is the action of a reasonable person to doubt the truth of your beliefs.

 

They're still needles in a giant haystack though, compared to two vast continents 1500 miles apart. That's not much more than the distance between Australia and New Zealand.

Indeed, it's quite possible that people from one continent "discovered" the other continent at some point during that time. The Egyptians, however, are a lot further away than 1500 miles. To my knowledge they never did much exploring even around Africa, which they could have done just by following the coastline, let alone having to strike out in another direction.

 

You have formulated your theory based merely on your belief that "inferior" South American people could never have come up with pyramids et al by themselves

 

What advances? When the Spanish arrived there in the 16th century, they were no more advanced than ancient Egypt, so if that's where they got the ideas from in the first place, through some sort of contact, they didn't advance them very much by themselves, that's my point.

The key word there is if. You have not yet provided any convincing arguments to support that theory; merely the fact that Africa and South America are relatively close together. Hey, here's a thought - the moon is pretty close to the Earth... there is life on Earth... therefore life on Earth came from the moon! You can't deny the possibility!

 

In any case, as mentioned, they did have technology more advanced than Egyptians. Their main disadvantage vs. the Spanish was that (1) they hadn't discovered gunpowder, and (2) they didn't have horses. The reason for (2) is obvious - there were no horses in the Americas at the time. (According to Wikipedia, they went extinct there at about 7000 BC, and weren't seen again until they were re-introduced by the Spaniards.)

 

As for (1), that can be attributed to the well-documented perils of living in a tropical environment, mentioned above. The area was under internal strife for a long time before the Spaniards arrived; that's not a good environment for scientific advances.

My games | Public Service Announcement: TDM is not set in the Thief universe. The city in which it takes place is not the City from Thief. The player character is not called Garrett. Any person who contradicts these facts will be subjected to disapproving stares.
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Precisely. The anecdotal difference is the success in academics, and the basis of discrimination against non-chinese (visible minority) is the alleged lack of work-ethic.

 

It was "natural ability" that I was referring to -- I was on the course with a Chinese girl who could understand some of the theoretical aspects (denotational semantics etc) that I simply couldn't, and probably wouldn't be able to even if I spent every spare minute studying.

 

I don't know what discrimination you are referring to, and have no experience either way myself. However if you are assuming that there is discrimination against non-Chinese merely because they constitute a minority, that conclusion is entirely fallacious.

 

If anything, the previous example shows the tendency to continue trying for a long time.

 

No it doesn't. A single example of somebody doing something does not demonstrate any "tendency" whatsoever, you would need a statistically valid sample size with proper controls in order to lead to such a conclusion.

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Your example is apt - in order to say that the moon was square, you would need to produce adequate supporting evidence. You have not yet provided such evidence for your claims; any time you have tried to do so, it has been systematically refuted. At this point you're merely grasping at straws.

 

Given this situation in which you are not able to adequately defend your beliefs, and I am adequately able to defend mine, it is the action of a reasonable person to doubt the truth of your beliefs.

Indeed, it's quite possible that people from one continent "discovered" the other continent at some point during that time. The Egyptians, however, are a lot further away than 1500 miles. To my knowledge they never did much exploring even around Africa, which they could have done just by following the coastline, let alone having to strike out in another direction.

 

You have formulated your theory based merely on your belief that "inferior" South American people could never have come up with pyramids et al by themselves

The key word there is if. You have not yet provided any convincing arguments to support that theory; merely the fact that Africa and South America are relatively close together. Hey, here's a thought - the moon is pretty close to the Earth... there is life on Earth... therefore life on Earth came from the moon! You can't deny the possibility!

 

You're being facetious obviously, but the idea of Mediterranean influence on south america is not founded on on the relatively close proximity, that's just a helpful bonus, or at least something that doesn't spoil the idea. The main reasons for my inductive reasoning here are the similarities, and the fact that the technology required for travelling between the two continents, the outrigger canoe, was around by the period I'm referring to

Since there is no barrier I can see as to why they couldn't have been in contact, it's actually more reasonable to assume that they were, than completely independent development, when you consider the apparent chain of events -

Pretty simple peoples, hunter-gatherers, move in to Alaska from Siberia about 15- 20,000 years ago, they gradually migrate down though America, and retain a simple tribal existence, they move into South America, and there suddenly start to independently devleop a civilisation remarkable and similar to one that was just coming to an end in north africa, which is only 1500 miles away, and the technology exists to travel between the two.

Now, I don't see why it's such a crazy theory, I don't even see why it has to be proven, while the idea of independence is just accepted as default.

Granted, I'm really not that bothered about it one way or another and haven't done any indepth research, but on a basic level, it seems as plausable to me that there was contact, as the idea of completely independent but somewhat parallel progression.

You say that stepped pyramids are totally logical constructions to build towards your god etc, when you only have stone and wood. Well, if that's the case, then you shouldn't be able to turn around without bumping into a step pyramid wherever you are in the world, considering how many religious cultures there have been who had easy access to as much stone and wood as they needed to build anything, and they had even easier access to the knowledge of the existence of Egyptian pyramids than South Americans.

 

 

How about a city of aproximatly 300K people with 6 major aqueducts coming in an advanced calender system better then that used by most of europe at the time and a number of farming techniques not yet seen. I would go on quite more but I have to goto work.

 

No, you couldn't go on, that's the only meagre few you can think of, and they're not very convincing, so the ones you couldn't think of (or more likely look up on wikipedia) of will be even less impressive.

For a start aqueducts were around in europe for 3000 years, so that's one of the ideas they could have imported. Secondly, building a bigger version of a city doesn't require more technology than building the small version, just more time and manpower, and their farming techniques and social structure were rubbish, which is why they kept collapsing every 5 minutes.

 

As for (1), that can be attributed to the well-documented perils of living in a tropical environment, mentioned above. The area was under internal strife for a long time before the Spaniards arrived; that's not a good environment for scientific advances.

The precise and complete opposite of that statement is true.

Nothing, but nothing like conflict between city states produces technological advances on a large and rapid scale, particularly such useful and applicable ones like gunpowder and weaponry.

 

I truely have no comprehension of why you couldnt believe that a non european civilization could create advanced technology and you have to create massive theories of explanations as opposed to just accepting that theres NO DIFFERENCE.

The Egyptians were a non-european nation, and it's them I'm bigging up here.

 

I'll tell you where I got the initial idea about this, it was a BBC documentary. Now, it's very long time ago, and I can barely remember the details of it, but there were people seriously postulating this theory, and they did have their reasons for it. What I do remember is being convinced by the program that this was a plausible idea.

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 don't know what discrimination you are referring to, and have no experience either way myself. However if you are assuming that there is discrimination against non-Chinese merely because they constitute a minority, that conclusion is entirely fallacious.
I am not assuming that. I am observing, and the minority thing is just a positive feedback.
No it doesn't. A single example of somebody doing something does not demonstrate any "tendency" whatsoever, you would need a statistically valid sample size with proper controls in order to lead to such a conclusion.
That's right, it doesn't; Those are just my conclusions based on observations, and that example demonstrates them. Conclusions and observations would be the same had I not brought up the example.
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What advances? When the Spanish arrived there in the 16th century, they were no more advanced than ancient Egypt, so if that's where they got the ideas from in the first place, through some sort of contact, they didn't advance them very much by themselves, that's my point.

No, you couldn't go on, that's the only meagre few you can think of, and they're not very convincing, so the ones you couldn't think of (or more likely look up on wikipedia) of will be even less impressive.

For a start aqueducts were around in europe for 3000 years, so that's one of the ideas they could have imported. Secondly, building a bigger version of a city doesn't require more technology than building the small version, just more time and manpower, and their farming techniques and social structure were rubbish, which is why they kept collapsing every 5 minutes.

 

When the Spaniards arrived they attributed the Indian technology to otherwordly ancient creatures (aliens) because there was no way that it could be created by the Indians. The technology of the Indians was better in almost all ways to that of the Europeans; Medically, economically, politically they were more advanced. The size of the nations e're talking about (Inca specifically but Aztec as well) was, from recorded evidecnce, larger then any other empire in Europe, or Africa, on the sal eof the Chinese empires of the time. The only major advantage held by europeans was steel, even gunpowder was fairly unimportant because at that time the indian archers were 100x more efficient killers then the terrible innaccurate guns. Do you know what the big cause of death was in the Indians? 90-95% die off from European diseases that they had no immunity to. The first expeditions by Europeans even in north America were pushed out, it was only after Indian civilization collapsed due to know people that the Europeans had a chance to push in, calling it a sign from god. Without "divine intervention" even the Europeans realized they had no chance to defeat the Indian culture. The Europeans were considered by every other culture that met them at the time backward, dirty, and stupid, from Asia to the Americas to the Middle East. Finally I don't know what you mean by collapsing every 5 minutes since the empires were fairly secure up untill they died. Also a larger city requires much greater technology since agriculturally you have to be able to create and store food supluses to keep the large populations alive, even in cities up into the 18th centuries this was often challenging, not a feat to scoff at.

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The Europeans were considered by every other culture that met them at the time backward, dirty, and stupid...

The "dirty" part ended up working in their favor though, since they developed immunity to those diseases that wiped out the native population. The author of Guns, Germs & Steel argues that the Europeans developed immunity to some diseases because they had more success domesticating animals, lived indoors with their animals, and developed immunities to animal diseases that could infect humans.

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The "dirty" part ended up working in their favor though, since they developed immunity to those diseases that wiped out the native population. The author of Guns, Germs & Steel argues that the Europeans developed immunity to some diseases because they had more success domesticating animals, lived indoors with their animals, and developed immunities to animal diseases that could infect humans.

 

 

Also add to that Ish that the Americas at that time did not have the vast variety of human targeting infectious microorganisms that Africa and eventually and to a lesser extent Europe had. Since the ancient INdians were the first people to "conquer" the Americas, I know some say there were Vikings and Chinese here first but they only had small colonies or emergency camps, there were very few bugs already there that found humans to be good hosts. The early Indians were remarkably disease free compared to Africans, Asians, Euros, and Mid Easterners. But when the new diseases arrived, well it was not good to say the least.

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The "dirty" part ended up working in their favor though, since they developed immunity to those diseases that wiped out the native population. The author of Guns, Germs & Steel argues that the Europeans developed immunity to some diseases because they had more success domesticating animals, lived indoors with their animals, and developed immunities to animal diseases that could infect humans.

 

 

It certainly did work in their favor, I just would go saying that they were great civilizers. More like great plague rats

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