The Alt-Right and Race Ideology
Introduction
In my conversations with individuals who claim to agree with the ideas promoted by the alt-right, I usually get into a reoccurring argument. This reoccurring argument is the race-based IQ hierarchy. This hypothesis is promoted by the alt-right to promote a particular agenda which is to promote a collective identity which I'll label "whiteness". White and black "races" have not been proven to exist genetically and at best according to all evidence I've found are merely social constructs. What this means is that they are an ideology, and this ideology gains power as more people believe in it. In this brief essay I will confront the ideology of the alt-right not from a moral argument, but from a practical consequentialist perspective.
The function of alt-right ideology
From what I can see, the function of alt-right ideology is to promote "white racial identity". In other more simple terms, it's a means of promoting whiteness and the white way of life. Racial identities are collective identities and collective identities all have the same flaw in that in order to adopt this collective identity you must as an individual give up some of your individualism, some of your individual identity, to grow the collective identity. Race is unique in identity in that unlike almost all other identities, we do not get to choose it. Race is imposed on all of us through violence, and at this time people do not have the option to choose their race, which puts racial identity in the control of external others who look at you and tell you what you are, rather than giving you the ability of self definition.
In virtual space you have the power of self definition where you can define exactly who you are. Because of this power of self definition, it can be said that many people may feel they are their true self only in the virtual space. It is the one place in society where a person at least in theory can truly be who they really are by having complete morphological freedom and self defining capabilities. In addition to this, in many spaces within cyberspace there is true free speech. This true free speech is the result of pseudo-anonymity but again this ability to truly have free speech gives a sense of freedom, honesty, potential transparency, which does not exist anywhere else. It is true that in cyberspace we don't have to be politically correct to get our point across and this at least in my opinion has it's benefits.
Alt-right ideology is focused on promoting collectivism through collective racial identity. The white collective identity is the original racial identity from which all other racial identities spawned, as it was a situation where the concept of race itself was created by people who had a focus on promoting white collective identity. Not everybody on the alt-right is going to claim that white racial identity is the function of the alt-right and there may be those on the alt-right who really wish to promote European cultural identity and who believe European culture is superior to all others, or they may just believe multi-culturalism is a failure. The point here is that the function of the alt-right is to promote collective identity politics whether we want to call it racial or cultural.
The pseudo-science of race realism
I will make myself clear so it is known where I stand, I am not a race realist. I am a race anti-realist. This means I do not believe race itself is a scientific concept nor a biological concept. Race realists tend to believe race is biological, and to these individuals I challenge those who have this perspective to find peer reviewed literate to cite which proves that race is a biological fact. And if that can be proven then the functional differences I also ask for proof that these exists. In my discussions with race realists I often receive the "like breeds of dogs" analogy where the racist will say race is real, just as breeds of dogs are real.
To those who promote this argument, I say breeds of dogs are just different appearances of dogs, but that there are no inherent character differences or temperament differences between breeds. This means pitbulls are not more violent, as the data on dog attacks does not suggest that pitbulls are more likely to bite or attack humans than any other dogs. The reason pitbulls even exist is because human beings bred dogs together, and so the concept of "breeds" is really man made, as a way for humans to categorize different kinds of dogs by how they look. This doesn't stop human beings from banning pitbulls because they look scary, even though human beings created the scary look of the pitbull by selectively breeding for those properties:
Race has always been a concept based on pseudoscience to promote pseudo-science. For example, criminal anthropology is a pseudo-science which used the concept of race to promote the idea that certain skull shapes are more likely to be the skulls of criminals. To be specific, phrenology is based on the study of the skull to determine the propensity for criminality, basically judging the book (the brain) by it's cover (the skull). An example we can use of what I classify as pseudo-science is Satoshi Kanazawa's article which states that criminals look different from non-criminals and which cites some flawed statistics to prove that case.
So, contrary to popular belief, you can assess people's character and personality by simply looking at them. Nice people look nice, and nasty people look nasty, and it appears that humans have innate psychological mechanisms to tell them apart. Now, in a truly groundbreaking study, recently published in the Journal of Social, Evolutionary, and Cultural Psychology, Jeffrey M. Valla, Stephen J. Ceci, and Wendy M. Williams of Cornell University show that people can tell criminals and noncriminals apart simply by looking at their still photos. Criminals, it appears, look different from noncriminals.
This quote is based on a study which is being taken completely out of context. The study in question may be a legitimate result, but it does not necessarily mean that people should look at others and infer criminality. It simply means sometimes judging by appearances can produce an accurate result. This could very well be judging anything from fruit, to cars, to anything, but as we know if you can judge based on more information than just appearances then the accuracy will increase. So there is a difference between being able to get away with something and that method being good policy. The study also uses a small sample size of only 44 photos, and the study would have to be replicated multiple times, with a much larger sample.
Should you decide who to trust by the shape of someone's face?
Race realists believe that race is a biological fact. The typical argument by race realists is that certain races are inherently superior to others because certain races have a higher IQ. To make this point they cite the "bell curve". The first problem with this hypothesis is the idea that IQ is even measurable by a single test which can quantify intelligence as a single score. General intelligence is not so easily measured and the influence of nutrition, culture, and other aspects may also effect test scores even if we accept the idea that general intelligence can be measured. In the case where general intelligence can be measured and IQ is real, we still have people of all races with high IQ and with low IQ and the only thing in my opinion that an IQ test is measuring is the ability to think in a certain way and to do well on a certain kind of test.
Race and IQ if we take it seriously, and if we believe that for example Jews and Asians always have had high IQ scores rather than these scores becoming high more recently, we don't really have long records of IQ testing to go by. We had no such thing as an IQ test until relatively recently, and in many cases these tests are culturally biased. For my counter-argument I'm going to assume everything they say is true. I will assume race is real, I will assume some races have higher IQ, I will assume there is a genetic reason for this, and based on this assumption I propose the question if race and IQ are genetic then what set of genes control intelligence?
The obvious solution to IQ inequality between races is to isolate the genes responsible for high IQ. If apparently Jewish and Asian people have more of these genes or it's somehow more activated, then the answer would be to simply find the gene and switch it on in all fetuses. We could treat low IQ as a disease or mental illness, we can modify the genetics of the human species so that all humans have these genes, and there is no reason why we have to believe in a concept like race to do any of this. If one race of humans for instance were more immune to cancer than another race of humans and we could study that one race to find the gene which makes that one race more immune, then wouldn't we use what we learn from that to cure cancer? The idea that there should be a concept of "race" in a society where genetic engineering exists, where CRISPR, AI, synthetic biology, all exist? Why not simply use our advanced technologies, which the highest IQ humans can be paid to develop, to raise the IQ of the lowest IQ humans?
The problem with alt-right ideology and my conclusion
The problem with alt-right ideology is that it is regressive. Instead of seeking to use our technology to improve the base state of human existence, instead there is a promotion of a concept which in a context of genetic engineering, cyborgization, AI, actually hold back the ability of humans to adapt to technology. Human evolution is now in the hands of scientists and does not require waiting thousands of years for racial "survival of the fittest" to play out. At this point, the genetics of a human being born going into the future will be altered by vaccines, potentially by CRISPR, potentially by other means we haven't even discovered yet. It is a fact today in 2016 that darker skinned people have a slight advantage over lighter skinned people when it comes to protection from skin cancer but this does not mean in the future a vaccine cannot be invented to turn pale skin dark or to switch genes around to make everyone have this same protection. It might soon be possible to create a vaccine to cure the common cold, but the humans who do not get this vaccine will be at a disadvantage. In the future it may also be possible that some humans will change their genes to live an extra 50 or 60 years with slower rates of aging, but will these new "genetically modified" humans be considered a different "race" from the original unmodified humans?
Individual identity and morphological freedom are the solutions. Individuals may choose to change their genetics in any way they wish as long as it's not damaging anyone else. This means instead of just the races we have today, in the future we might have many more races, or we might have individualized gene enhancements, treatments, modifications, etc. Racial identity is a collective identity which we cannot choose while genetic destiny is something which we can choose. In the end, if intelligence is genetic then we will find the genes and raise the IQ of everyone, and if some people aren't as mentally sharp as others there will be AI which will do a lot of the thinking, so even in the case where people cannot afford genetic enhancement or do not want to modify themselves in that way, the technology itself will allow more people to make better decisions. In my opinion what is most important is the ability of humanity to adapt to it's technology, and in my opinion the alt-right ideology does not promote this adaptation because it's not an ideology which I see has staying power in a future where there could be thousands of races, or greater individualism, and worst of all it doesn't seek to promote individual liberty but instead asks for sacrifice of that to promote a traditional identity which may not give any legitimate advantage.
Because my argument is practical, pragmatic, and consequentialist, I would ask anyone who favors the alt-right to make a case for how racial identity will promote the long term survival of the individual and the species? If technology can allow for individualized identity, personalized medicine, morphological freedom, and a transcendent species which can move beyond human as we currently understand it, why keep an anachronistic concept which may in fact reduce the adaptability of the individual and or the species? My argument is in favor of the individual comes first, and any collective identity comes second if they shall choose it. This conclusion I have reached is based on my own preference for individual liberty, what would make me happy, and my own idea that keeping options open and being very adaptable is the key to survivability. I do not see how restricting my identity or the identity of others toward a racial identity is liberating or empowering to the individual. Nor do I see a track record of good consequences in humanity or in nature when compared to for example the track record of science or more importantly the method of iterative improvement, which I might add is the same method of producing good software, where the evolvability is what matters and not adherence to traditionalism.
References
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropological_criminology
2.https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/201103/criminals-look-different-noncriminals - Valla, J. M., Ceci, S. J., & Williams, W. M. (2011). The accuracy of inferences about criminality based on facial appearance. Journal of Social, Evolutionary, and Cultural Psychology, 5(1), 66.
- http://www.theamateurthinker.com/2011/05/judging-by-appearances-sometimes-it-works/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bell_Curve
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence
Are races real? Yes. Are they organized on some kind of natural ladder of superiority, where white people are on the top and black people are on the bottom, with others organized top to bottom by color of skin? ...No! Except in some people's imaginations! That's not only a silly idea, but also a psychotic one.
The IQ test is highly ethnocentric to what a white person living in a first world, western country would know. It would make no sense to try to create a hierarchy of races based on the IQ test.
"To those who promote this argument, I say breeds of dogs are just different appearances of dogs, but that there are no inherent character differences or temperament differences between breeds."
There are lots of behavioral and medical consequences of genetics. Border Collies are a little OCD; German Shepherds have hip problems at higher rates than other breeds.
http://www.instituteofcaninebiology.org/genetic-disorders-by-breed.html
In humans, northern Europeans get cystic fibrosis at higher rates, Ashkenazic Jews carry the Tay-Sachs disorder at higher rates, and people of African descent are more likely to have sickle-cell. Those are single-gene disorders, which are relatively easy to explain through mutation and historical accidents, like a particular population living with malaria, which selects against "normal" hemoglobin genes.
Intelligence is different. It involves tens of thousands of genes, expressed in complicated patterns all over the brain. The effects of any one are usually quite small. And unlike the sickle-cell gene, intelligence as a trait is useful in many many situations, so that pretty much any environment that we live in as humans (except maybe a super-isolated island) requires that we be as smart as the other humans we're competing against.
https://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2013/04/15/genetic-expression-in-the-human-brain-the-challenge-of-large-numbers/
No one said genetics aren't real or that there a aren't differences between ethnicities, families, individuals. None of that has anything to do with race or breed though. Dog breeds only exist because humans selected them. Certain mutations may be more common in certain breeds, but certain dogs are more likely to have genetic disorders so there is no real necessity to use the breed categories. A dog from a certain family of dogs is going to have a certain probability of inheriting some genetic disease but the breeds were made up by pet owners to identify the dogs visually. This doesn't provide you with a high enough degree of accuracy to predict the genetics of an individual dog, so while you might be able to say that a certain disease is more common in certain breeds, it doesn't really say very much. It's also true that in human beings, giant humans are more likely to have a genetic disorder which caused them to grow so much due to a tumor in the pituitary gland.
We don't say these giant humans are a breed of humans, but if we mated these giants together then eventually over time these humans would all be giants, and would inherit the same disease. But we don't currently consider giant humans to be a "race" or a "breed", so why is that? Robert Pershing Wadlow and Andre the Giant had the same exact disease, and both were not ordinary in size. What constitutes a breed or a race other than some arbitrary set of traits which some humans determined constitutes a breed or a race?
No doubt this is true but this speaks to ethnicity not race. African tribes share genes because of the fact that over thousands of years many families lived in the same location and share the same ancestors. European tribes share the same genes for a similar reason. Gene pools are geographically distributed but race has nothing to do with geography or genetics.
For example, an African immigrant who just arrived from Africa might not be genetically similar to a black American. Why is that? The black American has been in America for much longer, may have mixed with Native American, or European or many different races, and now has genetic vulnerabilities distinct to Americans. What I mean to say is that American is a gene pool of it's own, just as African is a gene pool of it's own, and European is a gene pool of it's own, and it goes down to geography where certain states, countries, etc, might have different mating patterns and gene pools.
For this reason, and because of constant migration, race based medicine is not going to ever be as accurate as individualized medicine. The only way to know if a black person has sickle cell is to check for it individually. Just looking at them and assuming based on some probability that they might have it is not 100% accurate while if you treat each patient individually it is 100% accurate. So for this reason race isn't scientifically useful and at best only provides a rough estimate. You can for example determine that certain diseases are more common to certain races based on the fact that most black people live in Africa, or most white people live in Europe, or most ancestors share certain genes, but as people migrate away from Europe or Africa into other places, this becomes harder to predict.
For example, Barack Obama is half African, so there is a probability that he is lactose intolerant and has sickle cell, but this isn't something we can just assume. To know with 100% accuracy we have to test his genetics individually. Why? Because while he is black, it doesn't mean his genes are all from Africa. Even in the case where his genes all were from Africa it wouldn't mean his genes were all from the tribes which have that disease or which lack the mutation to digest milk.
In summary I agree with most of what you say. Single gene mutations can be found and in certain ethnicities certain diseases are common. My point is race doesn't tell us anything scientifically useful because it's a limit on the accuracy which doesn't exist if you treat each patient individually.
References
Even personalized medicine will rely heavily on statistical relationships, just hopefully a little more nuanced than the crude racial generalizations you criticized above. How do these two genes usually interact in this context? How have other people with similar gene sequences (no two people are identical) responded to this drug or this vaccine in the past? Even the same body will respond differently at different times (as one of my relatives' ongoing struggle with her thyroid medicine shows).
There are some really cool advances. Aleksander Skarsgard's "body on a chip" models
https://steemit.com/science/@plotbot2015/tedx-guilford-college
are grown from the patient's own cells. Still, those are only predictive models in controlled lab conditions. They won't catch everything.
Science grows out of folklore, and is a refinement of folklore. The cutting edge is not magically sharp the way a lot of people imagine. It's fuzzy and fractal, as people struggle, one fact at a time, to determine what is true and what is not.
Most doctors do not get a lot of training in Bayesian statistics, and rely on simple heuristic rules based on their personal experience and some reading of the medical journals when they have time. Because there are statistical regularities in nature, these are often a good starting point. I agree that they are not a good stopping point, and that at least theoretically, the more information we have the better. The problem of which information is important is a hard one, though, and one that won't go away.
I am in full support of personalization and individualism. For this reason I support the concepts like personalized science, personalized education, personalized medicine. I also support individual rights.
In the past we had to use a concept like race because we didn't have super computers capable of studying each person's situation individually. Today we can do that and at some point in the future your life to some extent could be tailored to you, like education, medicine, news, entertainment. To me this is way better than doing things by race and using rough estimates.
And I agree with you, as in this post from a couple of months ago, where I disagree with Peter Turchin of Evonomics that hierarchy is inevitable, but at the same time point out that technology is not magic and that systems to support our decision-making will be difficult to build.
https://steemit.com/anarchism/@plotbot2015/heterarchy-for-seven-billion-people
If I add detail or nuance on individual points, that's just me playing wide receiver, trying to catch what you're throwing and move the ball downfield.
Science should research every pattern, every individual, every family, every breed, in order to combat biological threats and sicknesses, because each ethnicity and each family has DNA Patterns. This is the truth, we should not hide this, it should not be hidden that races have different Patterns, which influence Health, Skill, the way of living, it influences each life. If we hide this, science can't progress correctly, health and medicines improvements aren't taken seriously, neither sociology or any kind of science that studies behaviors and communities.
Sources to read:
https://www.ukessays.com/essays/sociology/ethnicity-affects-identity.php
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC348856/
https://health.clevelandclinic.org/how-your-ancestry-and-ethnicity-affect-your-health/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK24688/
https://www.ageuk.org.uk/information-advice/health-wellbeing/mind-body/staying-sharp/thinking-skills-change-with-age/genes-and-thinking-skills/
I agree that families and genes exist. I do not think race has anything to do with genetics or family. Race isn't imposed on people based on results from a genetic test. Personalized genetic testing I support and I recommend genome sequencing for anyone who can afford it. Family patterns as you call them have nothing to do with "race" because the black white binary categories are meaningless while family patterns have plenty of medical value.
For instance heart defects are known to have a genetic basis. So if it's in your family tree then you have to be very careful about heart conditions. Pistol Pete Maravich and WWE Star Jim Hellwig (Ultimate Warrior) had these sorts of conditions. But these sorts of conditions do not divide by race but by families, and are more popular in some tribes than others.
In a certain sense maybe you can say if you go to Africa and you find an ancient tribe like the San then in the case where they've mated within their tribe for a long enough period of time you may find certain genetic conditions which affect members of that tribe. This isn't so clear in the United States where people are very mixed and you cannot know who is what tribe anymore.
A Black American male in the United States cannot assume they have the same genes as the San tribe in Africa merely because they look similar. Race would classify them as the same (black) or "African American" when in reality they could have completely different gene pools. The Black American could be mixed with native American, European, and a bunch of other stuff, while only being 70 or 80% African, and even then maybe not the same kind of African as the San tribe.
Do you now see how worthless the racial categories are? They don't tell you anything about your genome except your skin and some superficial features. So if you have a life threatening condition you will not know it just by knowing your race.
In sum, ancestry and ethnicity ARE NOT race.
'We don't say these giant humans are a breed of humans, but if we mated these giants together then eventually over time these humans would all be giants, and would inherit the same disease. But we don't currently consider giant humans to be a "race" or a "breed", so why is that? '
You've hit on a really fundamental question in biology. Those two men were individual mutations within a population (most general term). When does a population become a species? By definition, when that population can no longer interbreed with other neighboring populations.
But it's a dynamic process. All human ethnicities (to use your word) can interbreed, as can all dog breeds. We call dogs, wolves, and coyotes separate species, and under normal ecological conditions they wouldn't interbreed, but they can and sometimes do (which is the exact problem of humans wanting to label transitional states in a process as separate stable things that you describe, just at a different level that most of us agree on and don't think about any more).
So yes, the pop culture use of the word race is a grossly simplified, socially constructed set of arbitrary categories, which are only loosely coupled to the seething, dynamic genetic reality. But even our species definition is kind of the same thing, only somewhat more reliable because of the condition we put on it that "they must not interbreed successfully." Nature doesn't respect our labels and boundaries.
So dog breeds are not different in kind from human ethnicities because humans directed the process. They're further along in the same dynamic process of natural selection (which often has equally arbitrary and weird outcomes) because humans sped it up. Artificial selection is just natural selection happening really fast.
Again, dam Wikipedia... Dudes, for one time, please, search on science and research websites. Preferable from the States/Public Labs, which are Mandatorely Politicaly Neutral.
i actually agree with most of what you say, but i still don't see a strong connection between the alt-right and the ideas on race? i've been listening to some alt-right channels recently and haven't personally been able to detect any promotion of this. do you have specific examples? or maybe i don't have an accurate sense of what's considered "alt-right".
The identitarian faction of the alt-right. Richard Spencer in particular, and the video in the OP where the guy basically claims he represents the alt-right. Of course not everyone in the alt-right will necessarily be of the same faction but the identitarian faciton does exist.
Reference
wow, ok, i spent a bunch of time typing a response, and the page crashed and wiped it out. WHY DOES IT SAY DRAFT SAVED IF IT'S NOT REALLY SAVED?? anyway, this is gonna be shorter and more to the point as a result, so sorry in advance if it comes off as being crass--that's not my intention. these are just a few thoughts in response to your post.
i also think that there is good evidence to support the idea that much of what people consider race is actually more of a social construct rather than a biological reality.
also agree, IQ definitely isn't the be all end all of intelligence. it seems more like a convenient way to quantify specific characteristics that the "ruling party"/TPTB/elite/whatever deemed desirable/valuable/useful at the time of its conception. this might not hold true into the future. but who knows, i could be totally wrong.
still, it seems like there IS SOME connection to biology/chemistry, which definitely should not be ignored for very serious reasons (e.g. pharmaceutical testing yielding different results based on race). and regardless of what it is and whether valid or not, it is a reality in that people choose to self-identify as such. so still worthy of study in my opinion, even if it is made-up and/or wrong (like religion--hah just kidding...)
mmk, yea, i totally was not thinking of that dude (richard spencer), i thought you were talking about people like alex jones, stephan molyneux, etc. so i gotta say, i really don't think you should consider him or guys like that to be at all representative of the alt-right, even if he has a following of people that also identify with that label. just because he proclaims himself to be, does not actually make it true. e.g. Hillary Clinton does not represent people who are to left on the political spectrum or liberal ideology; an Islamic suicide bomber does not represent muslims or Islamic ideology; etc.
otherwise, thank you for the very thought-provoking post :)
the function of alt-right ideology is to promote "white racial identity". In other more simple terms, it's a means of promoting whiteness and the white way of life.
Kind of like the NAACP for white people?
The NAACP wouldn't need to exist if someone didn't invent race. Once race was invented and then forced on everyone in the world, of course groups like the NAACP had to exist. The alt-right is promoting a world view which is regressive considering technology will obsolete race if we let it. There will still be different groups of people, but much more individualized between gene enhanced, cyborgs, natural humans, etc.
I suggest this might be interesting.
I am aware of the empathy deficit and that is why we have computers. I don't have to feel empathy for 1 billion people to have my algorithms tell me which decisions would be best for 1 billion people with empathy as a factor in the decision. Basically, outsource that thinking to our exocortex which can feel the empathy on our behalf, and inform us.
Just like am not expected to do math in my head anymore, and human computers don't sit in a room doing calculations anymore. In 2016 we can simply Google it. In 1990 we could use a spread sheet. In 1980 we would use a calculator. Empathy will have to be augmented.
does the NAACP tell the members that they are smarter than everyone else too?
now I am confused, kinda like with religion. They are all right, and the chosen ones and the ones who know the "truth."
Someone has to be wrong. So now Blacks are smarter than the rest of us? oh waits it is still Asians?
To me, "race" and "subspecies" have always been neutral terms. There are groups of people with a dark skin, and groups with an epicanthic fold, I can observe that, so I assume the differences are real. I also assume these differences are genetic. So what? The genetic (and IQ score) overlap between groups is huge and dwarves the differences, but there are differences, and differences can be used to classify, just like you can make a distinction between an Eastern Purple Finch and a Pacific Purple Finch. In that sense, "races" or "subspecies" are real.
The problems start when you not only attach an a-priori value judgment to "race" or "not-my-group", but also act upon that judgment.
Fight the bigots, not the terminology; some of use use it in a neutral way.
Differences between appearances are real. There are also tall and short people, fat and skinny people, and so on. So the racial categories are really arbitrary in that we selected certain specific physical features to represent the different races when if you look carefully you will see even among the same race people are very different.
Look at white people and you will see it's not like all white people look the same or have the same features between different ethnicities or families. Look at black people and you will see a huge range of different looking black people, different in terms of skin tone, height (pygmy), hair type, yet because of some ridiculous 1% rule or 1 drop rule, these people are all grouped together as black.
So my point is, white and black don't necessarily represent anything meaningful genetically. It does represent a common appearance in certain parts of the world. It is true that in Europe most people have pale skin and in Africa most people have dark skin. But it is also true that there are many other differences between people in Europe, in Africa, and other places, and for what reason were certain traits chosen as being the most distinctive features to be called the "race"?
The gene mutation which allowed for pale skin has been found. Just as the gene which allows for the digestion of milk has been found. And the warrior gene (associated with violence) has been found. But the gene or genes for intelligence has not been found, just as the gene or genes for being gay have not been found, so to say it's a genetic basis would require identifying the gene first before reaching that conclusion.
So my point is that if science hasn't found the gene for intelligence then on what basis are the people who believe in this theory arriving at the conclusion that 1) race is real and based on genetics and 2) intelligence is based on genetics? Find the gene maps which prove race and genetics are more correlated than not (so far the exact opposite has been found) and find the genes which correspond to high IQ. If there is no hard scientific evidence then it's a faith, a religion.
The terminology if it is faith based rather than science based is promoting the ignorance which empowers bigots to stay bigots. In order to fight bigotry which is a form of ignorance you have to first find the truth. Any truth must be based on scientific facts and evidence, not faith. Race isn't currently based on the state of the art conclusions of geneticists, nor are the groupings of race providing any significance to IQ because if it did then we would have a way to isolate the genes for intelligence by the racial groupings. Apparently no one has found the genes associated with high IQ which means race and IQ if you believe in the hierarchy being real, is more than likely a cultural phenomena rather than genetic. Maybe Jewish and Asian cultures promote the kind of abstract logical thinking and motivation necessary to do well on tests, due to some specific events which happened unique to the history of the Jewish or and Asian culture. IQ may in fact even be triggered by environmental factors after birth.
References
Bigots don't need incorrect (use of) specific terminology to promote ignorance, and they don't need empowerment to stay bigots. They are bigots first, the rest is formulated as needed. If it isn't "race", they will find something else to define "people unlike us we don't like much". We all do to some extent, but most of us don't act upon it. Bigots do, and there lies the crux, not in scientifically or politically correct use of terms.
I think bigotry is the symptom of the disease (ignorance). Some people are voluntarily ignorant, some are involuntarily ignorant. I am concerned about the people who are involuntarily ignorant. Access to truthful knowledge is the only cure for the disease.
Terminology matters a lot. This includes the Census which I've never liked or agreed with.
This column and the paper on which it is based goes into more detail about how epigenetics (testosterone exposure in the womb) might explain differences in sexuality between twins.
http://www.intergalacticmedicineshow.com/cgi-bin/mag.cgi?do=columns&vol=randall_hayes&article=010
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so, what you are saying is, you have completely misunderstood all aspects of all of these arguments.
super cool.
go back and do it again, this time without the preconceived
notions that everything is about racism.
What does your post have to do with the alt-right and what aspect do I misunderstand? Please inform me.
the only other advice that i can give you is to go back, research these subjects again, and try to prove yourself wrong. it is the preconceptions that we seek to fulfill that deceive us. science is about the data, not what we want to be true.
i cannot convince you, only you can do that. your desire to believe what you believe is evident. i once believed all of this. i was challenged to keep looking, by people i respect. when i finally did, the data led me to the facts.
It is about the data and I'm not a person who makes decisions based on what I want to be true. So where is the data you have to show me to make me update my knowledge on these subjects? Desire doesn't trump evidence.
That is cute, but wrong. Data is gained from measurement, not conclusion. Without data gathering, from experiment, the rest of the method is worthless. Observation is a beginning. Study is to gain background to create a hypothesis. experiment is the crucial bit, and without it there can be no conclusion as to the validity of the hypothesis. Please go back and study Descartes again.
Natural philosophy is what became physics. Forget Descartes, go look up what words mean, then learn philosophy, the Trivium, and the scientific method.
Is that a serious question? If so, see the previous comment.
I am exceedingly overjoyed that you exist in Steemit. Finally, some logic on this topic. Thanks for the information.
Hey, I could be wrong about the alt-right but this is just my first impression based on the video I presented in the OP and various communications I've had with people who promote certain memes and ideas. I cannot say based on current information that all of the alt-right has a coherent philosophy, as they may in fact be like the Occupy movement was where you have a bunch of incoherent ideologies working together against a "common enemy".
In theory, it would make strategic sense and perhaps I underestimate the alt-right. In essence, it is possible that the alt-right formed because "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" from Sun Tzu, as a reaction to extreme radical feminism. To a certain extent I can accept the reactionary argument, but it doesn't change the fact that their ideologies are bunk, bogus, and not something I can support.
So if they are trolling the SJWs then that would be logical and explain the formation, but it doesn't change the point of my post which was to attack a specific branch of the alt-right ideology, the racist part. The anti-feminist part is something which possibly was a reaction to Hillary Clinton but the racist part? Obama will not be President for much longer so what is that a reaction to? To SJW's calling innocent people racist?
So what does the alt-right accomplish in the end? It gets the Bernie Sanders supporters on the left riled up, it gets fear and anger from the left, fueling the anti-Trump protests. It causes Muslims to fear for their lives literally because they believe white naitonalists or anti-Islamic bigots are about to persecute them. It's not going to create a good environment.
The alt-right is full of egotists who like to think they are superior to others on account of being born. There's also the appeal of esotericism where people like to feel enlightened for having subversive/unique opinions. Abuse of knowledge and the intellectuals they value is rampant; always twisted to prove 'yesterday was better'
I think what we are seeing is the result of the decline in status with regards to white males. What they had before, which was white privilege, instant dominance over everyone else, is being eroded away, and they are fighting tooth and nail to go backwards. That's what it appears to be.
I can't see what is happening in the USA from here, but globally, it's not always about race, that's just a post-hoc way of grouping "the others that are not us and therefore no good"; it's about groups feeling threatened. In Europe, you can see the same thing happening, but it's more often about nationality or religion (of ancestors) than about race, eg. "the Poles are steeling jobs from Dutchmen by undercutting wages", "the Greeks cost us too much money", "Moroccan youths are all criminals", "Islam equals terrorism" etc., leading to "Poles suck", "Greeks are lazy bastards", "kick out all Moroccans, and all Muslims while we're at it". Real bigotry, no hypothesis of racial differences required. I think that even if you could convince everyone "race" does not exist, the bigotry would merrily continue. Meanwhile, I will continue using the term "race" to distinguish between groups of people, however ill-defined the term may be, mainly because I rather like the differences the term conveys.
There is a huge difference between religion being the basis of the community and race. When it's religion then people have the option to convert. When it's culture, people have the option to convert. When it's race there is no option for the excluded races to ever be accepted.
So basically, the faction of the alt-right which is racist is seeking to exclude all human beings who aren't born into the right race. There is no compromise, no surrender, you either are born into that identity or you're not. You get no choice to join, or integrate, or belong.
As far as religion goes, if the churches aren't segregated then maybe it's not racist. But I don't have enough information on that to determine. Of course racial bigotry isn't the only kind of bigotry that can exist but the racial kind of bigotry divides people of the same ethnicity, with in some cases the same ancestors, over a concept which doesn't really have any basis in science.
For example, Malcolm X was killed and he had white ancestors. But because America was obsessed with race, he was categorized as black, and took on a black identity. In other examples, you can have black and white Americans who share Native American ancestors. They might have more in common genetically with each other than African immigrants or European immigrants. Race divides them both against each other even if they are the same culture and ethnicity.
And then the concept of race also distorts medicine. Race based medicine vs personalized medicine, which is better? Personalized medicine is always going to be more accurate than race based medicine.
@stellabelle, I used to have lots of sympathy and respect for you in the early days when you joined Steem.
Now it's gone to zero.
You are very determined to create a rift between a group of people (in your case it's "white males") and the rest of society. People like you are ugly monsters hidden behind misconstrued (or fake) compassion.
@innuendo, in @stellabelle's defense I do not believe that was the intention. Well, I hope that wasn't the intention, considering the diction thus far. I hope that it was a meant as a statement to reintroduce how self-induced superiority has both perpetuated and created this so called racial divide.
I say "so called" because by admitting there is racial divide only proves the fact that you have implemented the same opinions that causes the rift in the first place. (And I use you in a general sense). Techincally speaking, the term "white male" is used to imply the sense of entitlement aroused by the mere idea that one is capable of manipulating a social construct into ones favor, and those affected are expected to adjust. In western history, this can seen through colonialism, slavery, genocide, and religious persecution. If you look at how society's were established in acient times, identity wasn't influenced by racial identity.....it's was by cultural identity. If you take away ones cultural identity, you take away their sense of self, and even though race and culture tend to be used synonymously today, it is cultural disregard and lack of empathy that are the roots to the social construct of race.
I guess my main point is that by arguing the social nuances of race, and we fail to contemplate the basis for why racial indenty plays a major part of perception , and the purpose for why racial ideologies were implemented in the first place.
I kinda like the Alt - right idea, because if Asians are the smartest, and Whites are the BEST then Mexicans and most if not all Latinos ARE THE BEST since most are part Asian mixed with European sprinkled with some Jewishessness (think of Spanish last names like Guzman or Aleman) and African genes, and surely LATINOS are the Best Race then. Or does mixing races remove the "Superior" genes? Then Latinos are the worst? ah man, now I don't like the alt-right.
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So true what is said in the video about dogs. In the UK Staffies are the most common dog but most bites are from Labs and Cocker spaniels! It's just because now people are more cautious with Staffs and more likely to mis-handle the breeds that have the reputation for being friendly, family dogs.
Dana, your title has a misspelling: Humaity s/b Humanity.
Why do people on the alt-right need to answer this? The left uses racial identity too. They disagree about why the different outcomes occur and about what the solution should be, but it's not as tho the left and people in general aren't using racial identity and the alt-right is.
If anything it seems the alt-right would be happy to give up on racial identity, since their political ideas are de facto accomplished when none of the rules factor in what race you are. It's their opponents (affirmative action etc) who rely on seeing race.
I share your post-racial, individual view of it, but it's essentially a non-sequitur from the alt-right IQ argument. If Bob and Fred are both trapped in a basement, yes it would be best to not be trapped in a basement, but if they argue about what makes the most sense inside that basement, you can't single out one of them and be like "I ask why you want to be trapped in a basement" .. they both are assuming that construct, so it's just a manipulative way to favor one side.
Wow! Great post and equally impressive post post posts! I shall not throw in my two bobs worth, though tempted, but prefer to say thank you for your clear intent at integrity of argument. The overlapping of arguments and some clarity over word usage has clouded some respondents. Your fullness of replies to these should be applauded by all. Thank you.
Utter horseshit
Sad
It's the DNA that defines almost everything including shape, race patterns, behaviours, hormone levels, skin colour in humans, hair colour tendency in dog breeds. Your statements seem really ignorant with a huge lack of Biology and Veterinary knowledge since every dog breeds have different skills, behaviours, shapes, and IQ's. For example, the "German Shepherd" is the most chosen by Police and Military for some reason:
http://www.akc.org/expert-advice/lifestyle/did-you-know/german-shepherd-canine-cop/
https://thedailyshep.com/why-are-german-shepherds-used-as-police-dogs/
Each dog "breed" has a different "pattern" on the brains and blood that influence their personalities. This doesn't mean they are all individually equal, but the patterns exist and they really define how are a race/breed tend to be:
https://www.outsideonline.com/1857061/20-best-active-dog-breeds
https://academic.oup.com/jhered/article/94/1/81/2187309
The statement you made:
That feeling when your "breed" arguments are destroyed (with no wikipedia bullsh*t):
https://www.dogsbite.org/dog-bite-statistics-fatalities-2017.php
https://dogbitelaw.com/dog-bite-statistics/all-dog-bite-statistics
http://www.animals24-7.org/2017/01/03/91-of-dog-attack-disfigurement-victims-in-2016-were-mauled-by-pit-bulls/
Also, Wikipedia references? You ain't skeptic on Wikipedia, don't you? A place where everyone can change it and publish their political agendas...
You can make a case that Wikipedia has a political agenda but so do you apparently. Science has already spoken and the consensus among researchers in genetics is that race is merely a social construct. You think they are all liberals? You think otherwise? Get your own genome sequenced and find out if you're pure "white" or whatever you estimate you are.
References
You base your arguments on socio-liberal fallacies, only defending dogmatic foundations that from empiricism or even rationalism have nothing. There is a lack of facts, you build your opinions only with emotional reasoning and censorship on the facts which are not convenient to fulfil your progressive political agenda.
You fear the possibility of experiencing a metanoia of ideas, then you shelter yourself in the liberal dogmas that hide the reality of human nature and the biology of our ecosystem. All this because it's easier, it's easier to be labelled as a protector of the universal interests, to be the illuminated emotional "good person", to be known as the one who thinks and respects "everyone", since you aren't doing what you preach in the first place, when ignoring facts that can, in fact, improve everyone's lives and every society on the globe.
Show me where anything I said in a statement was scientifically inaccurate? According to science race is a made up social construct with no medical value. According to the dictionary ethnicity and race are not the same meaning. Ethnicity requires a common culture and tradition and has nothing to do with "races" like black and white which do not have a common culture or and tradition.
Which emotions do you think I'm feeling and what role does emotion have in this? Either the statement that race is a social construct is true or false. I cite the consensus among scientists as evidence that the statement that race is a social construct is true. I cite the dictionary as evidence that race and ethnicity do not have the same meaning even if you cannot distinguish between these two concepts.
The fact that I'm responding to you means I do not fit into the cookie cutter "liberal pro censorship" category you try to put me in. I know you rely on categories because it seems how the mind of a racist tends to work. I do not require putting you into any category. I deal with you as a specific individual whom I disagree with.
Show me some evidence backing your statement. If race is truly medically important for me then show me some proof for why I need to care about it? I don't see any real proof for why it is valuable in a medical context. I also see no proof for why race is valuable socially. I simply do not care about what your race is because it tells me nothing about how you think, or what you believe, or what you might do.