[Godstud]

@Unthinking Majority It's easy to be less white. Just identify as a black person.

[Rich]

I'm not Muslim but I respect Islam as a valid religion.

What does "valid" even mean here?

I also believe arabs are a valid race.

I think we can say, with a fair degree of comfort that Arabs are not a race. Arabness is a linguistic cultural inheritance not a biological one. There is very little cohesion to the biological grouping of Arabs as compared to their none Arab neighbours.

Hamas is clearly involved in a racial struggle between jews and arabs, but they are using Islam as a sort of proxy for it. An example of that phenomenon

Its most certainly not a racial struggle. It is a struggle around religious identity.

[Potemkin]

What does "valid" even mean here?


I think we can say, with a fair degree of comfort that Arabs are not a race. Arabness is a linguistic cultural inheritance not a biological one. There is very little cohesion to the biological grouping of Arabs as compared to their none Arab neighbours.


Its most certainly not a racial struggle. It is a struggle around religious identity.

@FiveofSwords seems to believe that every struggle must a priori be a race struggle, just as the more simple-minded Marxists believe that all struggle must a priori be a class struggle. The Jews and the Arabs, ‘racially’ speaking, are the same people - Semites. Just as the Sumerians and the Akkadians were. Their struggle is not a race struggle, and nor is it a class struggle. What distinguishes them, what makes them enemies, is their differing cultural and religious inheritance.

[ingliz]

How many races are there on the planet?

If we use the 'one drop' rule, genetics, and exome variability?

3.9 million at a minimum.

but

If people cannot decide what genetic variants - 'drops' - they want to include in their cluster. In combination, there are 3 x 10^614 possible variations on a theme.

[late]

Slavery existed long before racism did. It's true that it was used to justify it(in the past).

Race isn't real. Race is most definitely a social construct designed to separate peoples and create more tribalism(us vs them). Humans should not be racist. It serves no purpose and actually works against us(we need biological diversity), as evolution has pretty much ended for us(we take care of our weak and so we've pretty much stopped it in its tracks).

The values and philosophy that came out of the Renaissance conflicted with slavery. Describing slaves as inferior was an easy way to deal with that.

Saying race isn't real is implied when you say it's a social construct.

Evolution hasn't stopped. Health care does keep unhealthy people in the gene pool, but we will find ways to deal with that.

[FiveofSwords]

What does "valid" even mean here?


I think we can say, with a fair degree of comfort that Arabs are not a race. Arabness is a linguistic cultural inheritance not a biological one. There is very little cohesion to the biological grouping of Arabs as compared to their none Arab neighbours.


Its most certainly not a racial struggle. It is a struggle around religious identity.

It is racial, as evidenced by the large number on non religious arabs and jews who are deeply invested in it. Sadaam hussein and the baathist movement was a secular pan Arab political movement, explicitly based around a racial identity not a religious one. Meanwhile only about half of jews practice the religion. The Arab race is actually quite coherent.

[FiveofSwords]

@FiveofSwords seems to believe that every struggle must a priori be a race struggle, just as the more simple-minded Marxists believe that all struggle must a priori be a class struggle. The Jews and the Arabs, ‘racially’ speaking, are the same people - Semites. Just as the Sumerians and the Akkadians were. Their struggle is not a race struggle, and nor is it a class struggle. What distinguishes them, what makes them enemies, is their differing cultural and religious inheritance.

Jews aren't even 'semites' and they never were. They came from ancient Egypt. They maintin an ancient Egyptian character and general way of life even long after nobody remembers that it was their origin, which is remarkable...much like the American south unconsciously maintains the character of the Norman people. Arab and jewish dna is fundamentally different. Sumerians and akkadians were also not the same people genetically.

[FiveofSwords]

Slavery existed long before racism did. It's true that it was used to justify it(in the past).

Race isn't real. Race is most definitely a social construct designed to separate peoples and create more tribalism(us vs them). Humans should not be racist. It serves no purpose and actually works against us(we need biological diversity), as evolution has pretty much ended for us(we take care of our weak and so we've pretty much stopped it in its tracks).

Gene flow is provided by sexual reproduction and if you think evolution has stopped then biological diversity is totally unnecessary. You are showing you are biologically illiterate. But taking care of our 'weak' does not halt evolution. It just means 'strength' is no longer selected for. Just like an animal that moves to thr caves can lose its eyesight. Biological diversity is actually bad for the survival strategy of any life form that is finely tuned to its environment and way of life. Biologists call it outbreeding depression.

[FiveofSwords]

If we use the 'one drop' rule, genetics, and exome variability?

3.9 million at a minimum.

but

If people cannot decide what genetic variants - 'drops' - they want to include in their cluster. In combination, there are 3 x 10^614 possible variations on a theme.

It's hilarious how quickly you shift from race isn't real to race is totally real. Clearly nothing you say is ever in good faith.

[late]

Biological diversity is actually bad for the survival strategy of any life form that is finely tuned to its environment and way of life.

Species have diversity to help deal with change.

[FiveofSwords]

The values and philosophy that came out of the Renaissance conflicted with slavery. Describing slaves as inferior was an easy way to deal with that.

Saying race isn't real is implied when you say it's a social construct.

Evolution hasn't stopped. Health care does keep unhealthy people in the gene pool, but we will find ways to deal with that.

The values of the Renaissance absolutely did not conflict with slavery. Very much the opposite, actually. Opposition to slavery historically just seems like an anglo thing. The people who were forged on the British isles seem to have an innate love of the idea of liberty and they also have an innate sense of applying values universally. They dislike hypocrisy and double standards. Thr rennasisnce in contrast had a very Mediterranean character.

[late]

The values of the Renaissance absolutely did not conflict with slavery.

"Humanism. This is the most characteristic value of the Renaissance. It is a complex
notion pulling together three interlocking elements: a belief in man as a proper focus of
study (in literature, art, philosophy, politics, etc.); a revival of the classical learning of the
Greeks and Romans (for whom man was the only and logical focus of study); and the
concrete work on reviving and correcting classical texts and language and creating new
works in the style of the classics. This contrasts greatly with the Medieval era when G-d
was the only proper focus of study—thus the emphasis on theology and canon (church)
law in the universities and the ignoring of (and in some cases the actual destruction of)
works by Greco-Roman (pagan, non-Christian) writers. During the Renaissance, Plato
moved to the center of study.."
https://www.vanderbilt.edu/olli/class-m ... ssance.pdf

This happens when I get lazy. I should have said the evolution of thinking from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment. "All men are born equal"...

[ingliz]

@FiveofSwords

If you can't see I'm taking the piss, I pity you.

The numbers are real but the number of 'races' derived from those numbers makes your argument ridiculous.

[FiveofSwords]

Species have diversity to help deal with change.

Sometimes it isn't important to have a way to adapt faster. Plenty of life forms reproduce asexually which is basically cloning...and they survive just fine.

[FiveofSwords]

@FiveofSwords

If you can't see I'm taking the piss, I pity you.

The numbers are real but the number of 'races' derived from those numbers makes your argument ridiculous.

No, you just lack basic abstract reasoning skills. There is nothing intrinsic about the word 'race' which quantifies exactly how related people need to be in order to qualify as a race. There is a white race and there is also an English race which is just a subset of the white race. Somehow the fact that you can have a subset is an idea that is far above your ability to comprehend.

[Tainari88]

Species have diversity to help deal with change.

Variation is a survival mechanism. Without it entire species can and do get wiped out when faced with a plague or a disease.

Variation is in every life form. Do you remember late those pea experiments from Malthus?

It means that genes contain information that is not going to be expressed in every generation.

There are again scientific aspects to variation. It is there because it is a part of the gene code. It is linked with survival. For the entire homo sapiens s. species. Not just one part of it. But all of it.

@Potemkin is also correct that you can have various genera or species of an organism and if conditions change one genus of them could go extinct or be absorbed. The base of biological life is about adaptive abilities and all of our ultimate destinations in evolutionary theory is extinction. That is our destination as a species. How long does it take and how well do we do with adaptation to the changing environment? That is what our time to become the species that is our best expression about. But that we will be gone at some point in the far away hopefully future if we do not nuke ourselves first, is to be helped along with varied forms of humanity. The European-looking ones, the African-looking ones, etc. We need to have that variation to make sure like the pea plants, if we need to pull one of our many forms out of obscurity we can do it because the environment is calling for a specific change to help us. I have to stay with many answers to the external world. Variation is the best mechanism for it. Those calling for purity and ending diversity out of fear are saying that they do not want life on Planet Earth. They want death or fewer possibilities to keep living on into new generations with new combinations of being human.

Biological diversity exists in humans because it exists in nature. As such, trying to separate diversity or variation from humanity is like trying to separate it from the reason it exists. It is foolish to do so.

But if you are a racist you can't accept that part of it.

You need to think of diversity and variation as something unnatural or not very important.

It is again illogical to think that way.

But whoever said racists are logical people anyway?

[ingliz]

@FiveofSwords

How do you arrive at an English race genetically when the people of what we call 'England' have been fucking anything that moves since the year dot and still are?

[FiveofSwords]

@Unthinking Majority It's easy to be less white. Just identify as a black person.

Nobody believes trans race nonsense and with good reason

[Tainari88]

@FiveofSwords seems to believe that every struggle must a priori be a race struggle, just as the more simple-minded Marxists believe that all struggle must a priori be a class struggle. The Jews and the Arabs, ‘racially’ speaking, are the same people - Semites. Just as the Sumerians and the Akkadians were. Their struggle is not a race struggle, and nor is it a class struggle. What distinguishes them, what makes them enemies, is their differing cultural and religious inheritance.

For him it is a race struggle. The entire thing is about that.

And the British Isles are a culture with no hypocrisy and fairness and no double standards. That is what all those nobles from England are about. Didn't the Irish realize these stellar qualities in the English?

You are dealing with an invalid thinker.

But what is your opinion that the entire race is everything and everything is a race argument?

Imagine living in a society that is obsessed with race and purity of the race and my race is superior and the ones spouting that all day are convinced....

I have to go for Sunday breakfast. I wonder if you can tackle that one for me. How to cope with a society full of people obsessed with race and racism and you are part of the inferior brown hordes, and or inferior red hordes or do you have to cope with the anger, the disillusionment of the white racists who can't convince the rest of the 'white people' that their race is to supposed to be a rallying cry to stick together as one. When they are not doing it?

It is tough for them eh?

[Tainari88]

@FiveofSwords

How do you arrive at an English race, genetically, when the people of what we call 'England' have been fucking anything that moves since the year dot and still are?

Ingliz, were you present when they were fucking anything that moves since year dot? Or is that an inside slight against the Welsh and the sheep? Lol.

Going for breakfast in earnest now.