[QatzelOk]

Humans already operate outside of our instincts by virtue of our intelligence.

Not really.

Instincts are part of intelligence... part of what defines what is intelligent.

Humans operate outside of our natural instincts because of our texts, and because of our ideologies. And this text-based lifestyle may intinct us all, and has probably reduced many generations of humans quality of life.

Race/racism/colonialism/ethnocentric mythology.... all texts that harm the human experience.

[NoRapture]

Racism & bigotry are learned behaviors. Trying to excuse them as part of our biology is a cop-out.

Really. Who taught apes to be suspicious and hostile of other apes of their own genus and group? Wolves? Bear? Birds, bees, and paramecium? Mammals and other animals have no evolved social construct other than evolved instinct of the fittest. You are a racist. I am a racist. Biologically. What separates us from animals is our ability to recognize this fact and try to deal with it accordingly for the benefit of a larger, safer, and more sophisticated society. Those unable to recognize this fact are in denial. With a much higher likelihood of susceptibility to prejudice, negative stereotyping, and bigotry.

[Godstud]

animals have no evolved social construct other than evolved instinct of the fittest

You just shot down your own argument.
Humans do not operate on instinct alone and have social constructs so they don't follow a strict biological imperative to HATE other species.

You are a racist. I am are a racist.

Speak for yourself.

racâ‹…ism
 /ˈreɪsɪzəm/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [rey-siz-uhm] Show IPA
–noun
1. a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to rule others.
2. a policy, system of government, etc., based upon or fostering such a doctrine; discrimination.
3. hatred or intolerance of another race or other races.

The very definition of racism shows that these are not biological imperatives, but cultural ones and that man is not biologically a racist.
Suspicious of people who are different? I'll buy that, but it's still not racism.

Those unable to recognize this fact are in denial. With a much higher likelihood of susceptibility to prejudice, negative stereotyping, and bigotry.

Only in YOUR opinion. Most people recognize that differences are just a part of human diversity.

Now were you to say that everyone discriminates, to a degree, I might be more prone to agree with you, but for the most part humans are neither racists nor bigots.

[NoRapture]

You just shot down your own argument.

No. You aren't following. So I'll reiterate. It is a well known biological fact that animals of related but different groups and genus are violently hostile to one another for their differences in coloring, odor, and sound. Many times fighting to the death on the spot in groups of lower species. This racial instinct embodies itself in humans in what we call racism. If we are cognizant, enlightened and compassionate these instincts rarely, any longer, surface as bigotry and violence. If we insist on denying the very existence of these impulses we are more likely to behave in bigoted ways. Calling our actions science, justice, or patriotism. Anything but what it really is, oppression and murder on a large and small scale.

Cop out? I'll tell you what a cop out is. Someone announcing loudly that they haven't a racist bone in their body. And then supporting the deadly bombing of poor countries, killing hundreds of thousands of poor, innocent civilians. Civilians who are a different color and smell. So different that some people rationalize that a "few" thousand dead different people is a small price to pay for "freedom", "democracy", "justice", "peace" (one of my favorites), "energy", falafel. Or how about watching thousands of African American citizens dying or dehydrating on live TV, while FEMA watches along with them, and calling it the fault of the different people?

[Cheesecake_Marmalade]

O.O I agree with many of the thoughts in NoRapture's posts, though I'd personally replace the word "racism" with "prejudice".

I'd also go a different way with it too. While NoRapture would wish to suppress the biological inclination to be suspicious of other races, I'd simply allow the races to separate to promote social order. This would be regardless of whether or not race is socially constructed, because this social construct plays upon a biological instinct to place more trust in things that are similar to you, which given any critical thought is a mostly positive instinct.

[Zyx]

Albino deer. Thread over.

[Godstud]

Cop out? I'll tell you what a cop out is. Someone announcing loudly that they haven't a racist bone in their body. And then supporting the deadly bombing of poor countries, killing hundreds of thousands of poor, innocent civilians. Civilians who are a different color and smell. So different that some people rationalize that a "few" thousand dead different people is a small price to pay for "freedom", "democracy", "justice", "peace" (one of my favorites), "energy", falafel. Or how about watching thousands of African American citizens dying or dehydrating on live TV, while FEMA watches along with them, and calling it the fault of the different people?

So when US opposed USSR it was racism?
Who supported bombing of poor countries and innocent civilians? I think you are mistaking ethnocentrism for racism.

Civilians who are a different color and smell.

So YOU are identifying them in a racist manner.

People often only worry about how their lives are and the culture that they reside in. Do you honestly think race has anything to do with caring about starving people? If bombing ANY people 10,000 miles away ensures your safety, it doesn't matter what race they are. It's you, NoRapture, who seeks to make it racial when it's not.

I am not racist. Yes, I object to anyone calling me such because they obvious they are ignorant of what it actually means.
I don't hate anyone based on a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement. I don't uphold the idea that my own race is superior and has the right to rule others. I don't foster such discrimination. I don't have a hatred or intolerance of another race or other races.

You might be racist, and if so, then you are trying to encompass everyone else in your racism theory to console yourself that it's just natural, which it isn't. Is this post just to get people to agree to your line of reasoning?

replace the word "racism" with "prejudice".

That is what I'd agree on but racism is something difference. Looking back at my previous post I realize that when I said 'discrimination' I was thinking about prejudice.

Albino deer. Nice post Zyx.

[NoRapture]

Albino deer. Thread over.

Come on, Zyx. The deer is obviously the offspring of the pictured full grown pair in front. I'm talking about differing genus and groups. Like wolf versus a coyote. Or German Shepherd versus Doberman. And please don't example pets that have been paired together since pups. In fact, because of human domestication, dogs aren't the best example. Differing groups of deer and elk actually do fight.

[Zyx]

NoRapture, the deeper meaning of the image is this: biodiversity, as we know it, and racism, as you understand it, are incompatible ideas, for all biodiversity in humans and other animals is accounted to common ancestry. If the races were distinct and separate since the dawn of time, your contention would be reasonable; but, the 'races' sprung up amidst the other races and we allowed to cohabit prosperously.

To be more specific, the ancient ancestors of Europeans were Black Africans. One Black African had a genetic variation that allowed for more vitamin D from sun light--white skin--and that Black African, though very clearly different than the Black Africans among it, was allowed to cohabit and lived peacefully until the whole of Europe was the descendant of that one person. To say that 'different looks breeds violence by nature' is to suggest that biodiversity is impossible, for the same one mutation can carry off to the Asians or the Mediterannean look or to smaller teeth or to any other phenotype. The truth is that the only reason why we do look different is that 'racism' is not the natural order of things since hese different phenotypes arise and are accepted so much that they come to define a climate and we know that this is true because biodiversity according to climate is a fact!

You mention fighting dogs but fail to realize that the first wolves were the siblings of another canine group, just as the first Whites had Black parents.

Again I say, the display of the Albino deer, possibly the ancestor of all White deers to come, is the end of the thread. Mutations is how we look different from the Negroid of the Savanna, and the Negroid of the jungle's ancestors allowed us to look different because they were not racist.

[JFaulkner]

It is a well known biological fact that animals of related but different groups and genus are violently hostile to one another for their differences in coloring, odor, and sound. Many times fighting to the death on the spot in groups of lower species.

Normally, animals don't fight each other unless they have a reason, and that reason is not always (or even usually) just a result of differences in colouring, odor or sound - e.g. fish that feed on plants can go around in multi-species groups and you can have different types of grazers feeding together. You can have different bird species feeding simultaneously outside your back garden. If you're talking about within a species, then you also have swarm organisms such as ants and bees that operate together.

Other reasons for fighting include some sort of social ordering, a lack of resources, the right to breed, fighting for territory and fighting to protect the young. For non-human animals, wasting your energy fighting another member of your own group just because of physical differences alone doesn't sound like a very good strategy for survival or for passing on your genes. In fact, it sounds fucking stupid.

[Dave]

It can be a very, very good strategy if it ensures access to more resources for your group, which has greater genetic similarity to you and thus ensures that more copies of genes which you also possess are reproduced.

[JFaulkner]

It depends on what animal and what context you're talking about. There's a trade-off between fighting to acquire more resources versus conserving energy to do other things. If you waste energy fighting, then you will have less to find food and if you gain a bit of territory, then you need to factor in the time and energy needed to defend it. And if there are plenty of resources around, then there's little point in fighting for these resources.

At the end of the day, are animals fighting for resources or because of physical differences? I thought NoRapture was saying animals fight just because of physical differences per se.

[Zyx]

Indeed, this is so ridiculous a discussion that it is not even funny. Anyone who monitored animals, like hyenas, could tell you that there are genetically similar loners accepted into other societies despite genetic dissimilarities. I.e. "genetic" similarities are nothing that any animal can tell through phenotypes. As to phenotypical traits, animal society is more complicated than each group being the most phenotypically similar. Oftentimes, there is much movement and phenotypical differences are dispersed among tribes of animals: this idea that even animals segregate is nonsense.

[JFaulkner]

There're also shitloads of animals fighting each other even though they are physically very similar, especially over breeding rights - e.g. elephants, elephant seals, deer. In these cases, if there are big discrepancies in physical strength, a fight would be less likely because the weaker one would know that he'd get fucked up and run away.

Although you have to be careful about transferring findings from deer etc. onto humans as well, since we can act very differently because of the wildly different environments we live in, which interact with our genetics.

[Zyx]

Oh, I only mentioned deers because I came across the image of the albino deer in a textbook. The albino deer was evidence of a mutation altering the phenotype of an animal. The picture, however, represents the acceptance of the phenotype alteration within an animal community, much like what must have happened in human history, and that is the case closing for this thread since it is counter the theories of the thread.

As I mentioned, if the ancestors of humankind were Black humans, then how can one mutation be responsible for the whole of White society if Black society did not accept White society to begin with?

[JFaulkner]

There's also the famous case of the cuckoo, which lays its eggs into the nests of another bird species and this other bird species still raises the cuckoo young even though it looks nothing like it.

As for humans, I'm not sure whether the first white man suddenly became white from a black man like the albino deer; maybe more of a gradual progression in skin tone.

[Zyx]

There are multiple genes that account for white skin, supposedly, but only one of them is near-universal in White human beings. In that sense, it's that gene that appeared and spread.

While I can not tell for certain, it's most probable that the original Europeans were a "brown" complexion (which doesn't make any sense since all Blacks are brown) that suddenly became pale. There is not really any reason to suspect that a spectrum was achieved prior to paleness being achieved, and either way, it doesn't refute the claim that differences arose and people accepted it. After all, what are 'slight' differences but differences?

There are other differences, beside from pigmentation that evolved. There are different shaped foreheads, noses and teeth that represent the biodiversity of this earth wherein we can tell the difference between a French person, a Brit and a Hungarian by just the countenance alone: the same can be said of the Taiwan and Japanese, or the Ethiopian, Egyptian and Mali resident.

The fact is that these small differences appeared once and were embraced not destroyed. Without these differences being accepted, we would not look different to begin with. Is not that right?

[NoRapture]

The fact is that these small differences appeared once and were embraced not destroyed. Without these differences being accepted, we would not look different to begin with. Is not that right?

I don't know. I'm bored with this subject now. Say something more interesting.

[Godstud]

So you're bored now because someone proved you were wrong?

[Ash Faulkner]

In my experience the only people claiming racism to be natural are racists themselves. I am not racist. This faux biology is based on the flimsy idea that we 'prefer people like us'. What the hell does that even mean? Just the same skin colour? Or the same eye colour? The same head shape? The same hand size?