politicartoons | Hate Free Zone!

Unless you're arguing that people of different ethnic backgrounds are analogous to dangerous tigers, there's no practical reason to embrace "ethnocentricity." As our world becomes more interconnected because of technology of communications and travel, a multicultural approach simply makes more practical sense.

Of course multicultural attitudes are conditioned. As I already said, our ability to think abstractly allows us to decide which "innate" behaviors are beneficial and which are not, and to condition ourselves appropriately so that the beneficial ones are integrated into our societies, and the harmful ones are not.

We can condition ourselves to embrace tribalism, and an ethnocentric view, but it brings with it an inevitable tendency towards greater conflicts. This is the view we've adopted for much of our history, which has been rife with such conflicts.

Alternately, we can condition ourselves to reject tribalism, and to adopt a more multi-cultural view (not necessarily "cultural relativism.") This does not eliminate all conflict, because there are always deep long-running tensions and pre-existing conflicts that don't just go away because we've said they should, but walling up the world into enclaves brings more tension and more conflict in the long-term. Balkanization has always led to greater hostility and often open conflict.

"Unless you're arguing that people of different ethnic backgrounds are analogous to dangerous tigers, there's no practical reason to embrace 'ethnocentricity'."

Yes there is. Eugenics.

That's the problem with assuming we're all the same. We're not. Natural selection is real. And as a result we are not equal.

We do not need to condition ourselves to embrace tribalism because we already are tribal. Hence why I keep saying it's innate. You have an automatic response to the environment in that regard.

You, for whatever reason, have deemed this to be an unfavorable response. I have no reason to accept that as the case.

You present multiculturalism as the superior ideology, yet there is no evidence supporting that it is. It is simply deemed so. And those that resist it are vilified in various ways. Those that try to force this outcome are going to discover this will not end well. And, those that push the issue, they will soon discover exactly what sort of tiger they've decided to corner.

All in all, you are actively pursuing the destruction of a racial group. I don't care how you try to compartmentalize it to rationalize it. The ultimate end of your actions is the eradication of a racial group. And, many of you preaching this nonsense are arrogant/oblivious enough to ironically do it in the name of achieving peace. And, it's a joke to rest of us that see it for the genocide that it is.

And, if you still can't see that, then you're blinded by ideology. And, if you're a white person preaching this crap, then you're a masochist that has been conditioned against one's own self interests.

I suggest you take a real hard look at what you're preaching because it sure as fuck ain't peace.

It is the "tolerant left" that are pursuing the destruction of a "racial group", and you say that's bad and wasteful ...

... But if "tribalism is innate", then you have to accept that what the "tolerant left" is doing is natural, isn't it? It's racial group vs. racial group, always and forever, according to you, right? So how can you condemn the "tolerant left" on that score?

... but at the same time, the "tolerant left" is opposed to the idea that "tribalism is innate", and that makes them foolish ...

No, that's incoherent. They can't be opposed to it and exemplify it, and be perfectly acceptable yet also evil, at the same time.

How about if you just accept that the instinct for tribalism is subject to massive amounts of social conditioning? For example, back in jolly old Ireland, people were obsessed with the difference between redheads and the so-called "black Irish" (people with jet black hair). A lot of people were made miserable - or just plain died - back in Ireland, because of poorly shaped tribalism. Here in America, that's been reduced to a handful of toothless stereotypes (e.g. "redheads are fiery"). On the other hand, too many of us are stuck in the tribalism of skin color.

I don't know about you, but I'm interested in working towards a world where people are aware of the potential problems their inbuilt tribalism can cause, and work against those problems. I think a key to this, is learning what is and isn't a choice, and judging people based on choices.

For example, calling someone dumb just because their eyes are close-set (people of German descent often have this, I've noticed) makes no sense. But calling someone dumb because they chose to get a drawing of some boobies tattooed on their forehead ... that makes sense.

Wait... When did recognizing that we are innately tribal automatically imply we ought to be at war with one another?

Two groups being in proximity of one another increases the chances for war, but why should I hold war as a good thing?

So, yeah, that certainly is incoherent. They're not my words. Or anything I implied.

Yes, each group should work respective of tribalism instead of ignoring it exists. Walking into a room and saying, "This room is too white. You all need to diversify!" Isn't the way to do that.

Forcing everyone to integrate until they're homogenized isn't diversity.

And if it's happening only in white countries. Well... then this shit is one sided. Why is this only happening in white countries?

I don't think you should hold war as a good thing. I don't think anyone should. I also don't think it should be considered unavoidable. (E.g. "there will always be tribalism, therefore there will always be war".) I'm glad we agree there.

But you just accused the left of "actively pursuing the destruction of a racial group", and even of "genocide", in practically the same breath as declaring them foolish for opposing tribalism. That just does not make sense.

If your beef is with people walking into a room and saying, "This room is too white. You all need to diversify!", then fine. I agree, that just sounds silly. But it's also what they call reductio ad absurdum, and not helpful.

America has always been known as a "melting pot". That does not necessarily mean that everything in it must be cooked down to an undifferentiated paste. What it means, is that distinctions between groups can melt. Entire groups can melt into others. Culture and ideas and habits can mix, and in that environment, people can make choices. And so, we idealize a government that facilitates those choices.

That doesn't mean cultural relativism. It means we idealize equal opportunity. And equal opportunity is not the same as equal outcome. That would be "forcing everyone to integrate until they're homogenized", and that is a strawman.

Seriously. Do you think it is the goal of the people who protested Milo, to make everyone the same? How does the one lead you to the other??

Various people on the left are white. And, they're traitors to their own people. Albeit, in their defense, they're a bit oblivious to it because we (i.e. white people) have been conditioned to ignore race. Everyone else, however, is actively promoting their racial group and are cheered on for doing so.

The non-whites trying to establish themselves as the majority is completely understandable.

When every group is striving to not be the minority in the lands, why the hell is it wrong for white people to do the same? And, that's why the whole "power dynamic" stuff is complete horseshit.

This isn't just happening in the US. This is happening in every white country. Any white person that argues in favor of becoming a minority in their own lands is at worse an idiot and at best naive. Same goes for anyone that tries to argue that we (white people) are racist for not accepting this outcome.

And this is all being done in the name of equality. Fuck that snake oil.

Many people on the left have drank this koolaid and are oblivious to the consequences of their actions. So, asking me what their intent is, is meaningless given the outcome. In other words, the consequences of one's actions aren't always inline with one's intent. Hence the adage, "The road to hell is paved with the best of intentions."

At face value, the sentiment of the lefties appears to be good, and that's why they assume they're righteous in their action, and they think they're fighting the good fight. But, good for whom?

Certainly not white people.

"Traitors to their own people" is not something you get to declare from outside a given group. And they would not place you in their group, I guarantee it. People on the left have A Thing about placing racists outside their in-group.

I see you vilify them for "being conditioned to ignore race". As I've said elsewhere, race is a malleable and subjective construct. Like language, we are not born knowing it, we are born with the capacity to construct it, as our current environment describes it to us.

What I really want to ask you though is, since you think there is some kind of race war going on, that all of the other races are eagerly fighting except for those gosh-darned leftists... What are the consequences of "losing" this war?

I mean, aside from what seems to be the obvious: The collective world population will have somewhat darker skin.

What else is at stake??

If they're white, yeah... I actually do get to declare that.

If you're born with the capacity to construct it, then you're born with the ability to identify your tribe. The distinction you're making doesn't really make much sense. Child development is all about calibrating various systems in order to function in the environment. Your born with the ability to make the 5 sounds that make up every language. Learning the particular dialect of your people is all about calibrating those innate functions.

Also, similar to the way you've stated things, you're not born with the knowledge of spacial awareness. You're born with the capacity to develop this function. By your logic, spacial awareness is a malleable and subjective construct. But, the reality is that it's just one of many systems at work that are being calibrated so that you can function properly in the environment.

I've presented you with enough information showing that race is empirically verifiable. DNA; facial features; skin color.

So, yes, race is a valid abstraction of reality because the tests are repeatable!

Clearly, there is no amount of information that will change your mind.

Hehe... "What else is at stake?"

Genocide of a group of people isn't enough for you, eh?

There you go using that word "genocide" again... I don't think it means what you think it means. Overwhelming one set of facial features with another through voluntary interbreeding is not "genocide". You're going to have a hard time finding enough people interested in redefining it that way. And ... the victims of actual genocide will probably be really upset at you as well!

No, if you eradicate a group of people by either killing them or breeding them out, they are both forms of genocide.

I'm sorry, but every dictionary ever printed, and everyone else I've ever met, humbly disagrees with you.
You don't get that kind of victim status. Though you clearly prize it.

I think we're almost on the same page here with race. The language analogy is helping. But there's a crucial point that's missing.

Have you ever tried to learn a very foreign language? Like, as a native English speaker, tried to learn some form of Chinese? It's very difficult for two reasons. First, there are sounds the Chinese make that do not have analogues in English, and we tend to map these sounds onto ones we already know when picking up the language, and they get stuck. That leaves us with an accent that is very hard to eradicate and can even mangle our speech completely.

And second, Chinese is a tonal language. That means by varying the pitch of your voice between high and low, you actually change the meaning and structure of your words. We use tone to convey emotion and intent behind words almost exclusively, and using it to change meaning or grammar is a totally foreign idea to us, and to learn it we have to push aside a huge amount of our emotional expression, and re-learn it around the new language.

The point is, because we are already native speakers of another language, it is actually a big uphill battle learning this new language, because we have to redefine many categorizations of sounds (to reduce our accent) and we have to use sound in a totally different way.

In other words, we've been "calibrated" to communicate with one peer group, and now that "calibration" is working against us when we want to communicate with a different one.

This is different from spatial awareness. You learn spatial awareness once, and only tweak it as you go. Gravity is the same for everyone. Balance works the same way for everyone with four limbs and a spine. The length of your reach and the weight of your body changes only very slowly and that training is never an impediment unless there's some kind of accident (like you lose a limb) or you go into space, or go deep-sea diving without training first.

Race is like language. Not like spatial awareness. The shorthand and the distinctions you have learned to make with race are:

1. not universal, even across what you call "your own" race,
2. not always an advantage - and can be a huge disadvantage at times,
3. not subject to an objective standard for quality - only a subjective one.

Did you even open up that Penn state link I gave you? They were connecting genes to facial features. That means race is not like language which is epistemically objective, but rather race is ontologically objective. Otherwise that computer would not be able to do what it was doing.

Noooo, they were correlating chunks of the genome to facial features, with a suspiciously large margin of error. They are still way waaaayy distant from being able to alter DNA to give you those facial features.

And as I pointed out elsewhere. There are many many facial features, and shades of distinction amongst those features, and where you draw the lines to declare a race is not objective, "ontologically" or otherwise. The races defined even vary across different disciplines - forensic anthropology versus sociology versus archaeology for example - and are even contested within those disciplines, and are also in a state of flux.

Edited 2017-02-12 02:09 (UTC)

No, they were well within a standard deviation. That's acceptable and expected because you're right about the variations.

Finally found the article I wanted to share with you: (bold emphasis added by me)

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So to suggest that humans have undergone an evolutionary makeover from Stone Age times to the present is nothing short of blasphemous. Yet a team of researchers has done just that. They find an abundance of recent adaptive mutations etched in the human genome; even more shocking, these mutations seem to be piling up faster and ever faster, like an avalanche. Over the past 10,000 years, their data show, human evolution has occurred a hundred times more quickly than in any other period in our species’ history.

The new genetic adaptations, some 2,000 in total, are not limited to the well-recognized differences among ethnic groups in superficial traits such as skin and eye color. The mutations relate to the brain, the digestive system, life span, immunity to pathogens, sperm production, and bones—in short, virtually every aspect of our functioning.

Many of these DNA variants are unique to their continent of origin, with provocative implications. “It is likely that human races are evolving away from each other,” says University of Utah anthropologist Henry Harpending, who coauthored a major paper on recent human evolution. “We are getting less alike, not merging into a single mixed humanity.”

Harpending theorizes that the attitudes and customs that distinguish today’s humans from those of the past may be more than just cultural, as historians have widely assumed. “We aren’t the same as people even a thousand or two thousand years ago,” he says. “Almost every trait you look at is under strong genetic influence.”

Not surprisingly, the new findings have raised hackles. Some scientists are alarmed by claims of ethnic differences in temperament and intelligence, fearing that they will inflame racial sensitivities. Other researchers point to limitations in the data. Yet even skeptics now admit that some human traits, at least, are evolving rapidly, challenging yesterday’s hallowed beliefs.
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Full article here:

http://discovermagazine.com/2009/mar/09-they-dont-make-homo-sapiens-like-they-used-to

And, even this article points out how info is being suppressed.

You like that word "suppressed". It's exciting. Makes you think there is something really valuable here eh?

Fun article. From page four, emphasis added:

- - -

Many scientists apparently worry that proof of divergent brain evolution could be so racially polarizing that we, as a society, would almost be better off in the dark. Hawks responds that the best safeguard against bigotry is educating the public. He thinks we understand enough about human genetics to know that the notion of racial superiority is absurd. Intelligence, he argues, is not a single trait but a vast suite of abilities, and each ancestral environment may have favored a different set of talents. What is sorely needed, he says, is “an ecological framework” to interpret the results. “Groups are best adapted to their own environment, which eliminates the question of superiority.” Even he concedes, though, that communicating the nuances will be no easy task.

“Whatever we find,” Wang says, “it would never be justification for abandoning the egalitarian value that all individuals, regardless of their ethnicity, are deserving of the same rights and opportunities.” Moyzis expands on that line of reasoning, putting a sunny spin on the group’s findings. “It would be boring if all the races were fundamentally the same,” he argues. “It’s exciting to think that they bring different strengths and talents to the table. That is part of what makes melting-pot cultures like our own so invigorating and creative.”

Of course, in melting-pot cultures all kinds of ethnic groups intermingle freely, and the children who result literally meld our DNA together. Even if those groups were diverging, international travel is now causing the diversity to get lost in the genetic reshuffling. “That’s the ultimate irony,” Moyzis says. “By the time we finally settle this debate, we’ll all be such a mixture of genes that we won’t care.”

- - -

Yeah, superiority vs inferiority is a false dichotomy.

No one is making those claims. That's the hyperbole of the left.

Then why are you intent on fighting a war drawn across arbitrary lines?

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