Race and ethnicity is only problematical when it's linked to nationalism because nationalism is basically shit.

Unfortunately you can't ignore race completely. All the people on the health database I used to work on were British - but the ethnic make up of the people was vital data since it was key to making provision for treatments and supplies e.g. Blood groups, Vitamin D deficiency, Sickle cell anemia, etc. Incidentally, this data goes below simple BAME/White classification since things like my own partial celtic background can carry stuff like hereditary haemochromatosis.

There are undoubtedly differences in the genetic makeup of historical ethnicities. Vitamin d availability is the basis, historically, for varying skin color in different populations. But skin color alone doesn't denote a cohesive race/ethnicity. The native Australians might be as distant from Sub-Saharans as they are from the Sami in Scandinavia who have light skin. I wonder if the relationship with skin color and likelihood of medical conditions in Britain appear because of the likelihood of a person with dark skin has certain ancestry for instance. In other words, based merely on having dark skin, a group of dark skinned people in 2021 Britain is more likely to have Sub-Saharan ancestry than a person with light skin in 2021 Britain is. Does that make sense? Perhaps a British person with dark skin originating outside of Sub-Saharan Africa is no more likely to have that certain medical condition than a light-skinned person. Aren't there people with all shades of skin color who are lactose intolerant, for example?

Not my area of expertise.

My main point is that there are some very specific areas where ethnic background is relevant (at the genetic level), but anywhere else it's utterly irrelevant, or should be.

Tortured_Genius wrote:Not my area of expertise.

My main point is that there are some very specific areas where ethnic background is relevant (at the genetic level), but anywhere else it's utterly irrelevant, or should be.

I agree. Some are medically important. Some are visibly obvious. But the idea of there being a white race is baloney. Especially when you try and define the other races besides white. There's no such thing as the black race because there are even more genetic differences among people with dark skin than light skin. Then there are hair colors, textures, freckles, eye color. Back hair.
Maybe Mike_L believes the only race that exists is white?

Tortured_Genius wrote:Not my area of expertise.

My main point is that there are some very specific areas where ethnic background is relevant (at the genetic level), but anywhere else it's utterly irrelevant, or should be.

Exactly. The notion that the set of traits you inherited from your bloodline ancestors is omni-relevant in all fields of daily life and interaction is nonsense. When I get on the train here, I am a passenger, not a 白人 (hakujin, white person) passenger, just a passenger. Same In a shop, bar or restaurant, I'm just a customer, not a gaijin customer.

It strikes me that this omni-relevance of bloodline descent was how the National Socialists in Germany, the Jim Crow South in the USA and Apartheid in South Africa viewed the world.

I meet people now an again who just can't get over the fact that I am not Japanese. Oh well. Usually just ignorance and lack of contact with non-Japanese. (Yes, I can use chopsticks, yes we have four seasons in the UK, yes, I can eat raw fish.) It fades away with continued contact and a little bit of forbearance on my part usually yields results later.

I am not too fond of the Japanese coinage ハーフ (Hafu = Half) to describe my kids. Mixed race doesn't really do it either. They are mixed DNA, you know, like the rest of us.

Edit for typo

The_Piper wrote:

Tortured_Genius wrote:Maybe Mike_L believes the only race that exists is white?

That would be an example of believing in a logical impossibility unless, as Spearthrower repeatedly noted, only white humans belong to homo sapiens sapiens.

Which reminds me of his fear of being banned from the forum on the grounds of being a racist. His fear is grounded on a narrow definition of "racist", which he quoted. It included negative aspects, such as prejudice and antagonism in relation to other races.

Mike_L does believe that the human species can be divided into recognisably separable races. It is impossible to propose the existence of a white human race without the existence of at least one other human race that is not white. That makes him a racist, though the inclusion of him also being prejudiced, antagonistic and/or discriminatory does not automatically follow. Mike may just believe than that groups of humans possess different behavioural traits corresponding to physical appearance. For all we know, he might regard the proposed races as different but equally entitled to rights, respect and so on, that they need to live separately, not on grounds of any superiority or inferiority, but because multiculturalism causes friction between those races. Others have pointed out genetic differences between ethnicities already, especially as they relate to the medical field. I would not be surprised if there turned out to be a genetic component to the reason why Ashkenazi tend to be so much better at chess than other ethnicities, why some Asian groups are so much better at maths and members of the Kalenjin tribe regularly outrun everyone else in long distance foot races. None of that would indicate to me that any of these (genetic?) differences make some groups of humans inferior or superior in any other ways.

To be honest, I do think Mike_L is actually a racist in terms of the definition he provided. At least he is antagonistic towards other races because he fears his white race will be replaced by others. He already outed himself explicitly on that account. His refusal to tell us how he can tell what he calls the white race apart from others has no effect on that.

I missed where he gave a definition of racism, because I only skimmed the thread before joining. I usually don't do that, but obviously there is bigger news where I live lately.
I don't vilify people just for saying white/black are races. It's the majority view around here, probably globally too. It seems like it might even just be semantics in some cases, as we use the word ethnicity in it's place. But there are boatloads of different ethnicities, not just a handful, so it's a term that better recognizes reality imo.

I think you’re putting too much thought into it. Certainly more than Mike has, at any rate. It sorta says it all when Mike dismisses the difficulties minorities face while also being deathly afraid of white people becoming minorities. Expecting enough awareness to have constructed a consistent view is expecting too much, most of his “concerns” seem based on convenience.

On the subject of my definition of racism, I simply posted (here) the Google result for "definition of racism".
I'm sure there's any number of other 'definitions' out there that better serve the leftists' white-bashing agenda.

Hermit wrote:Mike_L does believe that the human species can be divided into recognisably separable races. It is impossible to propose the existence of a white human race without the existence of at least one other human race that is not white. That makes him a racist, though the inclusion of him also being prejudiced, antagonistic and/or discriminatory does not automatically follow.
[...]

I'm sure that if I were to identify a group of people on the basis of skin color, then celebrate the diminishing size of that group in a region, that I would certainly qualify as "prejudiced, antagonistic and/or discriminatory"... and be deemed doubly "racist"!

I'm also sure that no matter how intimate I get with the sidewalk... or the leather... I'll still be a racist at the end of the day... just like the majority of the people posting on this forum.

Poor whites, always getting bashed.

Yeah, they totally don’t deserve it. I mean, what has western white hegemony done that’s so bad? Especially in South Africa where they showed up and just tried to make things better?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

There's one ethnic group that stands out as absolutely the worst...

I was cycling home from the supermarket last night and several youths with their hair dyed unnatural colours bashed me. They pushed me off my bicycle, gave me a wedgie, and stole my groceries. Everyone watching just said "It's OK. She's white."

Rachel Bronwyn wrote:I was cycling home from the supermarket last night and several youths with their hair dyed unnatural colours bashed me. They pushed me off my bicycle, gave me a wedgie, and stole my groceries. Everyone watching just said "It's OK. She's white."

Next step in self-defense... green face-paint...

Mike_L wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:For race to be real, then it must have an objective quantity in the real world - and that must, due to its nature and our knowledge of biology and inheritance, be genetic. That's why the term 'race realist' redirects to scientific racism because what other options are there than for race to be a topic which is governed by science?

'Scientific racism' has a very definite meaning. It's not merely race as a topic governed by science.

It's no good equivocating away from what I said because I can't be distracted Mike_L.

Race realist is a term used by people who believe race is real. It's not a pejorative, it's a label they've chosen.

I've already explained this. For race to be "real", as in to actually exist as a quantity in this world, then there is only one way in which it could be real. That is, race MUST result from DNA, it must be a component found in genes.

You did not dispute this - you have agreed. The only way in which race could be considered a 'real' thing is if it's genetic.

Genetics is a scientific understanding of the world, therefore for race to be real the believer in race-realism must think there's a scientific basis for race, ergo the terms have a very large portion of overlap.

Now, I understand you don't like the term 'racism' as it has other connotations, and they're the connotations you're very clearly concerned about in terms of being applicable to your beliefs. Again, many people who share your beliefs prefer the term 'racialism' perhaps sharing your concern that the terms 'racist' or 'racism' have a value system attached. None of these words really matter - all you want to do is to say that you do not necessarily buy into any subjective, value-laden aspects of the term 'racist' or 'racism' or even 'racialism'. That's fine. We (meaning you and I) can acknowledge that.

What we can't 'acknowledge' though is how you can maintain two contrary positions. You cannot say you are not a race-realist while also saying that there is a white race. This runs afoul of one of the most elementary aspects of logic: non-contradiction. Believing that there is a white race is predicated on the belief that race is real.

Similarly, you can't say you acknowledge that genetics says there is no biological basis for race in humans, yet claim that race is real. That's why I pushed it back to you asking you in what possible way it can be real if it's not scientifically real.

Mike_L wrote:Wikipedia:

Scientific racism, sometimes termed biological racism, is the pseudoscientific belief that empirical evidence exists to support or justify racism (racial discrimination), racial inferiority, or racial superiority.

-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism

It's almost like they're trying to suggest that "you're racist for merely recognising that different races exist!"

But you ARE a racist if you 'merely recognize that different races exist': the suffix 'ist' indicates belief in or adherence to a doctrine or principle, and that is 'race' - a believer in race. But don't just shut down your brain here and start whining about being called a name. Process it instead:

Firstly, as we've already said, the label 'racist' doesn't necessarily mean you believe in any subsequent evaluation of races. You can be a racist and believe that all races are morally, physically, and intellectually equal - I haven't accused you of any form of supremacy, and the wiki you're pointing to actually takes pains to clarify the distinction. Again, I can understand if you personally conceive of the term 'racist' as meaning 'includes a bunch of value-laden judgements about other races' and therefore don't want to have that label assigned. That's why I used the term 'race-realist' because it doesn't suggest any such subjective evaluation. However, racism at its core regards the belief that races possess distinct characteristics that make them discernible from one another and those characteristics are discrete enough that it warrants perceiving them as separate races.

Secondly, you suggest that you 'merely recognize' that races exist. This is false. You don't 'recognize' anything - you believe it. That belief is not founded on any empirical evidence because the empirical evidence directly contradicts your beliefs. You believe that the observable differences you perceive amount to 'race' - this isn't borne out by genetic evidence; those differences are functionally equivalent to perceiving different eye colours as 'races' or different chin shapes. The differences you observe are variations in a single species, and there are no extant subspecies of H. sapiens. This isn't a matter of opinion.

Mike_L wrote:It's interesting that both leftist-dominated Wikipedia and leftist-dominated Google redirect 'race realism' to 'scientific racism'.

Ok, so what you're doing here is trying to make knowledge partisan. Just as we saw with the Trump administration, you are trying to imply that there are 'alternative facts' and that the supposed 'left-dominated' pool of information is excluding information on partisan motivation. However, you've not shown that there is any information that is missing. All you're really admitting is that your belief and your knowledge is politics. Mine isn't. I'm basing my contentions not on my political preference, but on empirical facts.

Further, it's interesting how rather than engage in any level of substance of the actual topic matter, what you try to do is to make it a political question. This is a very well established alt-right strategy. It's belief by tribe, rather than belief by justification. And how have you done so? By pointing to a single guy and to RT - a well-know disinformation site.

Mike_L wrote:

If you want to challenge whether or not race realism necessarily relies on genetics, then do so.

I don't. As I've already said...

Mike_L wrote:I get the meaning of the text (observable differences in phenotype arise from very small differences in genotype).

But recognising a genetic basis for race does not translate into (or automatically proceed to) 'scientific racism'.

On the contrary, absent any valuation or subjectivity, recognizing that there is no genetic basis for race means that any claim that race is a real quantity is not scientific - it's contrary to scientific knowledge - however, what you then need to do is fill in the logical gap. If race is real, but it's not scientifically real, then in what actual way is it real?

Please provide some form of answer to this rather than trying to distract with irrelevance. If science shows race isn't empirically real, then how can you believe that race IS real?

Mike_L wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:In reality, I am not a leftist - I'm a centrist, and there's ample record of me stating that over many years of this forum...

Centrist, left-of-center, far-left... depends on one's point-of-view, I suppose.

If you're far-right then indeed essentially everyone is left of you. That doesn't mean that they actually are left though because we don't assign these political labels relative to other positions: we assign these labels based on explicit political beliefs.

Mike_L wrote: But your basic position comes through in your own statements...

Yes, it comes through my own statements like "In reality, I am not a leftist - I'm a centrist".

Mike_L wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:...I think it's pretty safe to say I consider all forms of nationalism to be absurd.

Spearthrower wrote:...then ultimately admixture is desirable - as much admixture as possible because then we'd all be as homogeneous as attainable.

Considering nationalism absurd doesn't make me a leftist. My reasoning isn't political at all as you would know if you attempted to actually inquire into my position rather than emote at me.

As for the second quote, you've quote-mined me yet again. Once again, this makes mockery of your supposed fear of me attempting to lead you into a trap that falls afoul of the FUA because you've just willfully taken what I've written not just out of context, but actually reversed the meaning I clearly intended when I wrote it by eliding the context. This is the 2nd time you've tried to do this with this elided snippet of my text.

The original quote which you seem intent on dishonestly representing:

http://www.rationalskepticism.org/news- ... l#p2765958

Spearthrower wrote:Also, let's run along with the pseudoscientific racialist ideology here... if diversity is not desirable because 'it makes trouble' (or whatever lame duck argument that ignores the entirety of human history) then ultimately admixture is desirable - as much admixture as possible because then we'd all be as homogeneous as attainable.

As well you know and as everyone can clearly read... I've written an IF conditional statement, and that condition is IF your belief declares that diversity makes for problems, then admixture should be desirable for YOU because maximal admixture would result in homogeneity.

So why Mike_L do you keep trying to claim that I am trying to trap you into breaking the FUA when you're clearly not worried at all about breaking the FUA yourself?

http://www.rationalskepticism.org/old-a ... t-t76.html

Forum User Agreement

Members of rationalskepticism.org agree to:

1.2. not...

m. quote mine, plagiarise, or otherwise misrepresent information

You have quote-mined that paragraph twice. You have intentionally tried to make it seem like I am saying it is desirable for MY position whereas I am clearly saying that IF we to follow the 'logic' of YOUR claims, then it SHOULD be desirable for YOU and YOUR position. Rather than explain why that's not so, you've just attempted to distract by misrepresenting me.

I realize that logic is not being applied here in the slightest and you're running nearly purely on emotion, but regardless, it still follows that IF your stated concerns were true and that I am trying to manipulate you to say something bad so that I could have you banned... then why are you electing to provide me with repeated infractions against the Forum User Agreement that I could use to seek moderator intervention? In all honesty, the chance of me alerting the moderator over you answering my question is zero, whereas the chance of me alerting the moderators if you elect to continually misrepresent me increases the more frequently you do it.

Again, from a logical point of view, this demolishes your claim twice over: first, you are clearly not concerned at all about receiving moderator attention else you wouldn't keep quote-mining and misrepresenting me, and secondly, you are actually using this supposed concern over my nefarious and secretive agenda as a diversion each and every time to avoid addressing the questions I pose to you.

But it's not like I wasn't well aware of that and identified it each time, so it's perplexing what you think you're going to achieve by repeating it.

Mike_L wrote:
Go ahead, Spearthrower. Cite page and paragraph from your Little Red Book to let me know what the correct "thought processes" are.

I've already addressed this twice Mike_L - and you've not responded to any of that - plus I provided further explanation the last time you tried to trot out this distortion.

So let's just chalk this up as another example of your Morton's Demon working over time to not have to inspect your bad ideas, and of course, the manner in which you've tried to do so is yet more melodramatic trolling with your absurdly irrational analogy that likens me to a Communist autocrat responsible for murdering millions of people.

I've cut off the remainder of your post because I will approach it differently as that difference is more than justified.

The post you're replying to shows that there are 4 primary pillars of the alt-right movement, and I listed them. It is not coincidental that all 4 of these pillars are conspiracy theories.

As I've already pointed out before - you have clearly been radicalized on the internet. There is a path that is now well documented when it comes to alt-right radicalization, and there are beliefs you will necessarily come to believe in through that radicalization process. At first, you may laugh at some silly snowflakery, but slowly you get sucked further and further in until you're espousing hardline far-right dogma replete with pseudoscience and conspiracy theories. Again, it's not like I have been coy in asserting that this is clearly what's happened to you... and your response ironically materially supports that contention.

Mike_L wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt-right#White_nationalism

The alt-right is a white nationalist movement and is fundamentally concerned with white identity.

...with the subtext being that "white identity" is baaaaaaad!

And it is, of course, the only identity that qualifies as such.

No such subtext is present in the sentence - you need to work on stripping away the biases from your reading.

Secondly, there's no suggestion at all about 'the only identity' blather - it's just factual that the alt-right is a white nationalist movement. It doesn't say that there aren't other nationalist movements, nor does it say that other nationalist movements aren't predicated on racial grounds. All it says, correctly, is that the alt-right is a white nationalist movement concerned with white identity.

The point of my post was to show that the alt-right has 4 main principles and each of those principles is based on pseudoscience and conspiracy theories.

Mike_L wrote:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_ ... acy_theory

Cultural Marxism is a far-right antisemitic conspiracy theory which claims Western Marxism as the basis of continuing academic and intellectual efforts to subvert Western culture.[1][2][3] The conspiracists claim that an elite of Marxist theorists and Frankfurt School intellectuals are subverting Western society with a culture war that undermines the Christian values of traditionalist conservatism and promotes the cultural liberal values of the 1960s counterculture and multiculturalism, progressive politics and political correctness, misrepresented as identity politics created by critical theory.

Yes, ridiculous! It's not like white Europeans are being written out of their own history, or anything like that.
Oh, wait...!

Your response is not to acknowledge that it's a conspiracy theory that has a long history of being associated with antisemitism, but rather to do what...?

Ahh yes...

Mike_L wrote:(18 minutes)

Your response is to cite a video by Mark Collett.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Collett

Mark Adrian Collett (/ˈkɒlɪt/; born 3 October 1980) is a British neo-Nazi,[4] anti-semitic conspiracy theorist, and far-right[2][5] political activist. Collett was formerly chairman of the Young BNP, the youth division of the British National Party (BNP), and was director of publicity for the party before his BNP membership was suspended in early April 2010.

So I argue that alt-right radicalization has four main pillars and leads to darker, far-right ideas being introduced and consumed, and you respond by citing a literal Nazi.

I mean, do I need to say more? Were I interested only in proving to others how far down the well you've fallen, then you've made my point for me. However, I am actually interested in getting you to understand how badly you've been radicalized. Are you not capable of processing where you've been led and how these beliefs are not actually your beliefs or values?

If you're going to say that you believe race exists but that doesn't in any way justify treating other races unequally, then why on Earth are you sharing a video produced by a well-known Nazi whose public positions entail white supremacy (something you appeared very serious about wanting to distinguish from your own position), anti-semitism, conspiracy theories, a belief that the UK should be for white people only. How is it that you've ended up watching these videos on YT? Have you asked yourself that question? How, when there's a universe of videos of cats doing silly things, have you found yourself watching (and citing) a video by a white supremacist neo-Nazi?

Mike_L wrote:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_gen ... acy_theory

The white genocide, white extinction,[1] or white replacement conspiracy theory[2][3][4] is a white supremacist[5][6][7][8] belief that there is a deliberate plot, often blamed on Jews,[5][8] to promote reproduction by people considered to be of different races,[9] miscegenation, interracial marriage, mass non-white immigration, racial integration, low fertility rates, abortion, governmental land-confiscation from whites, organised violence,[10] and eliminationism in white-founded countries[5] in order to cause the extinction of whites through forced assimilation[10] and violent genocide.[11][12][13][14] Less frequently, black people,[15] Hispanics,[16] and Muslims[17] are blamed, but merely as more fertile immigrants,[18] invaders,[19] or violent aggressors,[20] rather than the masterminds of a secret plot.[21]

White genocide is a myth,[22][23][15] based on pseudoscience, pseudohistory, and hatred,[24] driven by a psychological panic often termed white extinction anxiety.[25][16] There is no evidence that white people are dying out or facing extermination.[26][27][28][21] The purpose of the conspiracy theory is to scare white people,[26] and justify a commitment to a white nationalist agenda[29] in support of increasingly successful calls to violence.[22][20][19]

There won't be a white genocide as such. Rather, whites will be 'disappeared' at local levels (precisely what the racist commie Ash Sarkar is cheering), and reduced to a minority with much diminished political and cultural influence in their own ancestral nations.

Let's unpack shall we?

How exactly do whites get 'disappeared'? Note you've used a passive form of the word (be + V3) meaning it is happening TO them, whereas you've cited a link which indicates choices by white people to leave areas through a dislike of having to mix with non-white people.

Again though, let us just take it at face value - if whites elect to leave at a local level, how does this mean that their political and cultural influence are diminished in their 'ancestral nation'? It's not like they're going to Mars, is it? They're still within the same 'ancestral nation' they were before, still possess the same numbers in their 'ancestral nation' as before, and consequently still have the same political and cultural influence in their 'ancestral nation' they had before... just not in the specific locale they've elected to abandon through dislike of being with non-whites.

The post of yours, specifically citing a neo-Nazi, does call into question just why it is you are afraid to unpack your borrowed beliefs here, and why you realize they'd be considered anti-social. The only question remaining is just how far down the well you've fallen and whether you'll ever manage to find your way back out again.

One question that might help you realize how lacking in justification this borrowed belief system actually is would be for you to list the races you believe exist. Obviously, you cannot believe that the white race exists but not that other races exist, but rather than it be me conspiring to entrap you, the reality is that your Morton's Demon has already entrapped you and is now working to make sure that no information can enter which would jeopardize its control over you. That's why I am going to keep asking you Mike_L - every time I ask you the question and you evade it, you're necessarily engaging in a form of cognitive dissonance that must have an impact on you and can potentially force you to inspect the beliefs that have come to inhabit your mind.

Also, and again completely transparently, I consider the alt-right to be very fucking dangerous given how they manage to gull otherwise decent people to believe in stupid conspiracy pseudoscientific shit and those beliefs have this uncanny result in the adherents radicalizing further and further until they're willing to do violence. The events on January 6th are a very real and present warning about the need to energetically ward against attempts by people like yourself who have been radicalized by dangerous ideas to normalize your belief systems. This forum has always been about exposing stupid beliefs and dismantling them. As long as you remain here, that's how your stupid beliefs will be treated.

Tortured_Genius wrote:Race and ethnicity is only problematical when it's linked to nationalism because nationalism is basically shit.

Well, it's also a problem when linked to the real world because race is not a quantity found in the real world, only in the minds of people.

Tortured_Genius wrote:Unfortunately you can't ignore race completely.

You can't only because proponents of race tend to insist that people take notice of them by employing various forms of race-based violence.

Tortured_Genius wrote: All the people on the health database I used to work on were British - but the ethnic make up of the people was vital data since it was key to making provision for treatments and supplies e.g. Blood groups, Vitamin D deficiency, Sickle cell anemia, etc. Incidentally, this data goes below simple BAME/White classification since things like my own partial celtic background can carry stuff like hereditary haemochromatosis.

I appreciate your final sentence there begins to point out what I go into further detail below, just in case you read the post as being a challenge to what you've written. Rather, it's meant to accompany it.

There's a world of difference between observing that people from a specific geographical region have particular differences in their medical needs and history, and the concept of race. What's actually relevant, from a genetics point of view, is the quantity of discrete genes sufficient to validate the concept of a group being a subspecies.

Sickle cell anemia, to take one example there, is a heritable trait typically found in people of central Africa. However, this doesn't map to 'race'. It's not 'African' people who have the trait, nor is it 'black' people who have the trait - the majority of black-skinned peoples in South and East Africa don't commonly have this mutation, whereas this trait is also found in much of Northern India (in fairly similar distributions), Turkey, Madagascar and northern Saudi Arabia. Thus it's clearly not an indication of 'race', but of location, and part of the reason why it maintains an endemic mutation rate there is because possession of the genetic trait confers a benefit against malaria (prevalent in these areas), so long as the trait remains recessive. Knowing where someone came from or where their parents came from can be useful medically, just as congenital medical conditions can correspond quite accurately with their ancestry in a predictive sense, but both of these have no bearing on or relation to 'race'.

To use another example, Scottish people have a very high prevalence of Morton's toe in which the first metatarsal is short in relative to the second. The condition is genetic and heritable, however, I doubt anyone would consider this to be sufficient to label Scots a separate race to their neighbours, but it actually involves so many more genes than skin pigmentation that we've yet to truly understand all the genes involved in it.

There's no doubt at all that humans are very capable of distinguishing themselves from one and other. Even slight variations are readily processed, so observable whole body differences like skin pigmentation seem to us to be weighty. Zebras, however, appear able to tell each other apart just as well, and I've no doubt that if they could talk they'd be able to point out different 'races' of zebras based solely on a normalized aggregation of stripes, the difference though not actually amounting to anything significant beyond the significance they lent it. That, to me, is 'race' - scientifically irrelevant psychological proclivity to distinguish intraspecific members.

I appreciate what you are saying Spearthrower and suspect that the whole mess can be summarised as "most people don't really understand the concept of a gene pool and it's full implications"

I can't fully claim to either since I was trained as a physicist and data monkey rather than in evolutionary biology - but the numbers make a mockery of any concept of "race" (or even lineage, since uncles, aunts and cousins can have an impact), especially in an interconnected world where the gene pools are being mixed like crazy (which is a good thing BTW).

Thanks, Spearthrower.
You've given me 'food for thought' in what is obviously a thorough and sincere series of posts.
I shall take a day or two to process it properly (not necessarily because I'm slow at processing, but because of multiple RL demands ATM).

For the time being, I'll just address this...

Spearthrower wrote:

Mike_L wrote: But your basic position comes through in your own statements...

Yes, it comes through my own statements like "In reality, I am not a leftist - I'm a centrist".

Mike_L wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:...I think it's pretty safe to say I consider all forms of nationalism to be absurd.

Spearthrower wrote:...then ultimately admixture is desirable - as much admixture as possible because then we'd all be as homogeneous as attainable.

Considering nationalism absurd doesn't make me a leftist. My reasoning isn't political at all as you would know if you attempted to actually inquire into my position rather than emote at me.

As for the second quote, you've quote-mined me yet again. Once again, this makes mockery of your supposed fear of me attempting to lead you into a trap that falls afoul of the FUA because you've just willfully taken what I've written not just out of context, but actually reversed the meaning I clearly intended when I wrote it by eliding the context. This is the 2nd time you've tried to do this with this elided snippet of my text.

The original quote which you seem intent on dishonestly representing:

http://www.rationalskepticism.org/news- ... l#p2765958

Spearthrower wrote:Also, let's run along with the pseudoscientific racialist ideology here... if diversity is not desirable because 'it makes trouble' (or whatever lame duck argument that ignores the entirety of human history) then ultimately admixture is desirable - as much admixture as possible because then we'd all be as homogeneous as attainable.

As well you know and as everyone can clearly read... I've written an IF conditional statement, and that condition is IF your belief declares that diversity makes for problems, then admixture should be desirable for YOU because maximal admixture would result in homogeneity.

So why Mike_L do you keep trying to claim that I am trying to trap you into breaking the FUA when you're clearly not worried at all about breaking the FUA yourself?
...

You're right. It was indeed quote-mining (more than once). I apologise, and I retract the unfounded assertions.

Mike_L wrote:Thanks, Spearthrower.
You've given me 'food for thought' in what is obviously a thorough and sincere series of posts.
I shall take a day or two to process it properly (not necessarily because I'm slow at processing, but because of multiple RL demands ATM).

For the time being, I'll just address this...

Mike_L wrote:You're right. It was indeed quote-mining (more than once). I apologise, and I retract the unfounded assertions.

Fair enough Mike - apology accepted!