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I appreciate the discussion around Trump lately, but I've had this idea in my head that I can't shake, so I guess I have to post about it now. It's about liberalism again.
When I get bored at work, I tend to surf Wikipedia for historical and cultural tidbits. One of the things that dizzies me is taking a look at the various ethnic groups of Asia. There are an insane amount of them in India, in China, in Russia, in Southeast Asia, and most of them have their own language. A shocking amount of diversity. Even more shocking is learning of the occasional huge impact of former ethnicities -- I had never heard of the Circassian genocide before bumping into it on Wikipedia, nor of the Moriori genocide in New Zealand, nor of most of the stateless peoples fighting for their own nation. It makes a nation like Japan seem somewhat boring, since it was mostly one ethnicity just interacting with itself instead of duking it out with dozens or hundreds of other ethnicities in a massive historical cultural bloodbath.
Where this ties into America, and liberalism: America, for the most part, has had all its ethnicities jumbled together. It was really, really great at integrating people in the melting pot. I am, by blood, Irish mixed with German, but I hold no allegiance with Ireland or Germany. I, and most white people I know, would describe themselves as American, if anything. But seeing this culture war flare up and the value differences becoming obvious makes me think: what if the rise of social justice politics has absolutely nothing to do with liberalism? Maybe we're seeing the rise of a new ethnic group, not based on shared genetic traits, but on certain cultural traits being emphasized more than others, as has happened thousands or millions of times in history?
If that's what's happening, then we might say that liberalism is not entirely at fault for the rise of progressivism (or whoever you blame for causing this rift). Liberalism is more of a new thing, but diversification of ethnic groups is far older. I would argue that this stratification has been intensified by the internet and television and other mass communications enabling people to self sort into their own groups, regardless of geographic distance. Perhaps you might also say that liberalism gave more of an equal playing field for cultures to fight it out amongst themselves, thus accelerating such diversification. But it may have been inevitable.
This has been the case for a long time — the thing is that genetic distance within, say, white people is much larger than the genetic distance to a black person. I mean, the only genes that differ are essentially about some obscure pigmentation. As far as the science of the human genome goes, "ethnicity" has always been a cultural thing, not a genetic one.
This isn't even remotely the case. Genes involving intelligence, impulse control, self-confidence, aggression, and so on differ quite a bit. Almost certainly also genes involving parental investment, promiscuity, industriousness, and many others.
Brain size, bone structure, proportion of fast vs slow twitch muscle fibers, etc. Hormonal timings, e.g. blacks generally hit puberty about a year before whites. We are very different.
Part of the problem here is that research into these things is borderline forbidden.
None of these phenotypes experience significant selection pressure on the genetic level, they are strongly influenced by the environment (take e.g. lead in gasoline), and variability in the white populate alone is so high that even population-level differences between blacks and whites would to amount to meaningless differences on average.
The onset of puberty is controller by many factors — most environmental, nourishment being the most important.
Does this mean that you won't cite source for any of your claims?
You know I had originally dismissed this post as trolling and moved on, but it's been on my mind for some reason, and I'd like to stop and ask just in case you're serious. From my perspective the amount of bad-faith canards you're throwing out doesn't look like an accident, but, you know, maybe I'd actually believe that stuff but for the grace of God. So who can say?
What do you mean? I'm not quite sure how to read your reply as a question; my best guess is that you're asking "Are you serious?" and my answer to that is "Yes".
(As for trolling: I don't troll and I abhor it. Unfortunately, I don't know how to prove otherwise to you — it is in the nature of trolling that the troll claims to not troll, and that it's hard to verify that. The next best thing I can give you is my word.
More generally, I think it's generally bad epistemology (= the philosophy of knowledge) to judge statements based on what I believe about the intentions or situation of the person making the statements. Example: I have studied mathematics. If a homeless person were to walk up to me, and claimed that they had solved one of the millenium problems, and that they are about to explain the solution to me, then I would stop and listen (for a couple of minutes at least), because the truth of their statements can be verified independently and does not depend on who delivers them — I can apply the rules of logical reasoning to check whether they are right or wrong. Likewise, just because a troll says it, it doesn't mean that it's false (or true).
Even more epistemology: For every statement I hear, say "X is bad for you", I have come into the habit of forming the opposite in my head, "X is good for you", play a few "mental chess moves" of what consequences this would have. If I don't find a contradiction quickly, then I have to seriously consider the idea "X is good for you", even if my original gut feeling was "X is bad for you". Doesn't feel pretty, but if I want to know what "X" really is, then I have no choice. )
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