From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Wed Oct 02 2002 - 01:06:43 MDT
Ross wrote
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-extropians@extropy.org
[mailto:owner-extropians@extropy.org]On Behalf Of
Ross A. Finlayson Sent: Sunday, September 29, 2002 3:14 PM
> If you don't see color you're colorblind.
What do you make of the notion that race is an
invalid concept?
> The idea is to not let it cause xenophobia.
> Also, don't peg people for their ethnicity.
Totally agree.
> Bell curve, schmell curve. A bell curve is a regular probabilistic
> distribution. An assessment that is designed to get a bell curve with
> its results is probably a problem already if the measure doesn't follow
> that distribution. I don't like being told some ethnic group is smarter
> than mine. Them's fighting words.
Okay, so *you* may be an ethnic, and see the world
through ethnic-colored lenses. I have known Armenians,
and Jews, and Irish who identify with their ethnic
group to the same extent that proud old southerners
would sometimes identify with their families, or
the way a Hatfield would identify with the Hatfields,
and a McCoy with the McCoys.
But why on Earth would anyone *identify* with a
racial group? Maybe it's the same thing, but I
just can't quite get my mind around it. I can
no more identify with being white than I can with
being from Silicon Valley---both these things seem to
have just happened to me. Now if I had played any
role whatsoever in the electronics industry of
this area, then I might indeed be *proud* of what
I'd done, and *proud* of what this area has
accomplished.
But I *seriously* suggest that identification with
one's race is a very unfortunate tendency and one
should combat it.
> Are there differences in different ethnicities? Yeah. Are ethnic
> similarities and differences abused on a group and individual scale?
> Yes. In primitive cultures that's an advantage, in advanced cultures
> it's a disadvantage, it's an advantage and disadvantage. It's a learned
> as well as inherited trait, ethnic discrimination, yet almost completely
> learned. Are racial differences in ethnicities negligible compared to
> learned differences? Probably. Racists are trained, not bred. So are
> egalitarians.
I agree up to the last couple of sentences. I have some
reason to believe that my lack of religiosity is in part
genetic. It wouldn't surprise me if some people are born
egalitarians: the parts of their brains that get a warm
fuzzy by feeling that everyone is equal may have had a
genetic tendency to do so. On the other hand, perhaps
some people with inborn authoritarian personalities
would naturally be attracted to racism, as a way of
giving vent to their egotistic feelings of superiority.
> There may be and probably are some differences in capacity among
> races and ethnicities. Big, tall, strong guys can lift more weight
> individually than can pygmy females.
Yeah, and don't look anytime soon for an Eskimo to
win the 100 meter dash event.
> By the same token, there is a much wider range
> among most ethnic groups' individuals than among
> an "average", the strongest pygmy mother can
> outlift the weakest big fat guy.
Yes, as has been pointed out several times, our human
civilization has been lucky in that the dividing line
between human and non-human has been so clean (probably
only because we are such a young species).
Hmm. On the other hand, philosophy might be more
developed than it is if we had had to contend with
the vastly more difficult issues that would have
stemmed from there being a continuum!
Lee
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