h a l f b a k e r yGetting blown into traffic is never fun.
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Since an African guy can be more closely related to a
European guy
than other African... Race is rather inaccurate.
If you want to practise a more scientifically accurate
form of
tribalism
and discrimination, try DNA perceptual hashing!
So now you can classify your self to others more
accurately!
E.g. are you DNA group A? If not then other DNA group A
people
can
now safety lynch you. They need a drop of your DNA first
just to
confirm however. Will you please oblige?
----
..."All the S9LL30XXA's should go home."
— normzone
[link]
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Given a drop of blood. Can you with just the tools in your car trunk find markers for the things you wish to hate ? Can you do now ? Can you do it for under a dollar ? |
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So much easier to hate based on height or weight or color of skin. |
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"May I have a sample of your blood so I can decide whether to call you names, and maybe stab you for good measure ?" "no" "Why not ?" |
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// perceptial // isn't in the dictionary so my DNA stays
where it is. |
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It would be a really cool project to construct a family
tree for all of humanity. If everyone gave just a
quick cheek-swab (we don't need blood), you could
reconstruct every person's family tree. You wouldn't
need complete genome sequencing (though that'll
soon be cheap enough) - just a set of a few hundred
very variable regions (plus mitochondrial, because
you can get some cool information therefrom). |
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It would have to be done on a voluntary basis, but it
would be a really, really cool thing to do. |
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In theory, if you had a large enough sample of
humanity, you could then pick a manageable number
of people to sequence completely, and reconstruct
the genome of, say, the first humans. |
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The word "race" is not only not accurate, it is very close to
STUPID (main exception: uses such as in the phrase "human
race") |
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Try the word "breeds" the way various cats or dogs are
referenced using the word "breeds". |
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"Race" can have a perfectly reasonable and accurate meaning, even if it's
not often used reasonably or accurately. |
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For example, many coherent groups of people share a common ancestry
which goes back for tens of generations, with little immigration. Such
groups often have physical and cultural features that distinguish them
from other groups. There's nothing wrong or inaccurate about calling
such a group a "race". The problem comes when "race" is carelessly
assigned, or used as a basis for racist discrimination. |
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If you think the word "race" has been tainted by misuse (and to some
extent it has), you still need an alternative word to describe a true
grouped-by-decent collection of people. "Ethnicity" doesn't work (many
groups that define themselves as having the same ethnicity contain
individuals from many different descents). |
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To describe human groups as "breeds" is inaccurate, because they have
not "been bred" in the way that cats or dogs have; it is also, of course,
demeaning in the same way that it would be demeaning to refer to
people as "livestock". |
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Classification by "race" is pretty arbitrary. Why is it even needed? Seems to be some vestige of the time when colonialism and taxonomy were in vogue. Science types tend to use more accurate descriptors, don't they? |
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As for human "race", Eventually, what we are now is going to be more genetically similar to Australopithecus than what we will have become. We recognize corporations as legal persons. There are and will be movements to recognize some animals and machine AIs as persons. So the whole idea of a human race is also arbitrary and pointless. |
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[thepor], try reading the annotation by
[MaxwellBuchanan], above. |
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"Race" is an oft-misused term, but when used
correctly it is not an arbitary definition. It refers to
a population of people who share a common [genetic]
ancestry. It's a simple term of classification. If it has
been devalued by misuse, that's not the fault of the
word. |
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I think "race" is sometimes used to describe a taxon
beneath "species", presumably to describe a subset which
have become somewhat genetically isolated, but which are
perfectly capable of breeding with individuals across the
species. |
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If someone had just told me I was going to be in a race I would have paid more attention to the starters pistol instead of ducking for cover. |
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This would lead to hate groups making statements like " All the S9LL30XXA's should go home ". |
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[Max], what's arbitrary about racial definitions is the degree of commonality. At one end of the spectrum, all homo sapiens are of the same race. At the other end, the McCoy and Hatfield clans are different races. But yes, you can define a race by any criteria that you like and it may serve as a useful short-hand for discussion. |
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//what's arbitrary about racial definitions is the
degree of commonality// |
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Yes, certainly. The same is true of most cladistic
classifications. "Species" is fairly well defined
(though not perfectly). Most of the other levels are
not. What of it? |
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It makes sense to speak of the Andaman islanders as
a different race from the Australian aborigines -
members of one race are more closely related to
eachother than they are to any member of the other.
You can speak of races within each group - again,
members of one race are more closely related to
eachother than to any member of the other. |
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Humanity is a branched structure (or was until we
started to travel more). Defining group A as being of
one race, and group B as being of a different race,
simply means that there is some point in the tree at
which the descendants of all of group A are different
from the descendants of all of group B. Clearly at
some
higher level they are both part of the same race. It
makes no difference whether you're talking about
terminal twigs sprouting from two different
branchlets, or two major boughs of a big tree. It's
really quite simple. |
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