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non_radical_centrist  1mo ago (astralcodexten.com)   2488 thread views

How Should We Think About Race And "Lived Experience"?

astralcodexten.com

I'm generally a fan of "blurry" definitions where something can qualify as X if it fulfills a few of many criteria. I think trying to create hard rules around blurry areas like race and culture is fool's errand, and Scott does a great job laying out how overly strict definitions can go wrong.

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There is a simple explanation as to why the White Nationalists are more tolerant than other groups: There is nothing to be gained by being White. You only give up any chance at getting Affirmative Action benefits as well as the amorphous social benefits that come with being part of a minority. In fact, the more Whites there are, the more the burdens of affirmative action are spread, whereas more minorities means that the benefits of AA are spread more thinly. The incentives to have strong or weak barriers to entry are obvious.

So there is a simple option to solve this whole issue: Stop discriminating against and debasing Whites. Stop giving tangible and intangible benefits to non-Whites. If there is nothing to be gained from being non-White, there is no point in having "hard-and-fast rules" and we can go back to "letting communities make decisions".

Also, a minor point:

"An 18.001 year old has a relationship with a 17.999 year old (who claimed to be 18) and is prosecuted for statutory rape."

There is a solution to that called Romeo and Juliet laws. They allow some age difference if both parties are close to the cutoff point.

There is nothing to be gained by being White.

Being seen as God himself in the eyes of Asian (or any non white) woman, is pretty neat even if it's not a codified perk.

That requires only white appearance not white identification.

You should visit the 2nd/3rd world, white passport makes you a god amongst men.

I mean I've never done that, but why would my identification matter?

My point is the optimal stats are a white appearance but PoC identification on your college application. The sarong bar girls aren't going to check what I wrote in my admissions essay before they let me buy them a drink.

There is a solution to that called Romeo and Juliet laws. They allow some age difference if both parties are close to the cutoff point.

It doesn't solve the problem, it just shifts the cutoff points:

"An 18.001 year old has a relationship with a 15.999 year old (who claimed to be 16) and is prosecuted for statutory rape."

It solves the problem insofar that an 18 year old having sex with a 17 year old is perfectly reasonable by anyone's standards but an 18 year old having sex with a mid teen is already pretty sus.

There is a simple explanation as to why the White Nationalists are more tolerant than other groups

Um... really? in the story, Indians accepted Elizabeth with supposed 1/8 ancestry. I do not think White Nationalists would accept a person who has only 1/8 of white ancestry...

Depends really. How many of the other Indians in the story were also 7/8 white? She might not have actually looked any different than the rest of them.

American Indians are very European by ancestry. It isn't unusual at all to have people who look white despite having two Indian parents, to say nothing of Indians with one white parent/grandparent. Lots of famous Indian Chiefs had white mothers.

It's a big reason why the Indian population has been falling in the USA. Some Indian from the reservation moves out, marries a white person; and, has white looking children, who just get absorbed into the white majority as another white person with some story about an Indian ancestor.

One of Greg Cochran's random theories that may pan out, is that they're slightly more related than that. The idea is that about 20k years ago, there were a bunch of people in north-central Siberia; IIRC his daughter, being a Dr. Who fan, dubbed them "Sibermen". One group migrated E to NE Asia, mixed with the locals, and eventually their descendants crossed the land bridge and became the first wave of Amerinds. A few thousand years later, another group migrated SW to the Pontic steppe, mixed with the locals, and their descendants were the Yamnaya, the ancestral Indo-Europeans.

Apparently big beaky noses were their thing?

That's not a theory. The Ancient North Eurasians were a population that existed in Siberia 20+ thousand years ago before being demographically replaced by North East Asians. The Native Americans got stuck in Beringa during this process so they are about 30-40% ANE. Some of the ANE migrated east into Eastern Europe where they contributed a lot of ancestry to the Yamnaya as well as Scandinavian Hunter-gathers the Germans assimilated. Europeans are only about 20% ANE at most and it was so long ago and so little of the ancestry of moderns I doubt it really matters for any traits today.

As a bonus here is one of the last people who was mostly ANE by ancestry, shortly after her death her people were assimilated by Indo-Europeans.

I don't think we disagree. I was just pointing out that there are different tolerance levels involved if the situation is a group of full blooded Indians accepting a white person with an Indian great grandparent vs a group of 90% white Indians accepting another 90% white Indian. If we're in the second scenario then that doesn't make them any more tolerant than the hypothetical white nationalists.

Why hasn't this happened to the ADoS? Were the miscegenation restrictions different depending on the race of the non-White partner?

It has and is happening in ADoS. It's just there are lots more black people in the USA then there are Indians, especially in the deep south where most live. I see lots of very white looking black people who still identify as black and are culturally very black. And many have been absorbed into white majority once they start looking white enough.

True, but I think we have to grade on a curve due to the "one-drop rule".

Scott is missing the point or has to miss it based on how far he can go.

We aren't dealing with a consistent standard about cultural appropriation but an honor culture than mandates special status and respect about certain special identity groups which is also hostile against other ones like especially white Christians, on the exact basis of sympathy for the first at expense of the later.

Reducing the pro jewish, pro black, or pro native american nationalism, and treating such groups as inherently less deserving of their current status of honor and respect, will reduce the problems of "cultural appropriation".

"Lived Experience" is used mainly to argue that as a black/jewish/brown/whatever I understand certain things about my own people's suffering and reality and shouldn't be challenged, and it would be racist to do that. This is usually an one sided narrative that blames others too much and deflects excessively blame for their group. This should be opposed. People self identifying in such a way, does infringe on the rights of others. They promote extreme identity politics at expense of other groups.

Are there areas where it doesn't and we could tolerate their way of identifying without suffering such consequences? There are, but we should be very careful with that.

Both on the trans issue, and in here, Scott's position leads to siding with the "lived experience" claimants even in the way that their behavior would be harmful towards others. Because the tolerance of their lived experience is weaponized to crush dissent and enforce self serving narratives in their favor, or force people to accept things they consider untrue.

I will also say that while I don't think we should have the cult of personality we got now towards groups like Jews, blacks, and others, I also don't think that Jews, native Americans, or blacks should have to accept peoples who don't fit into their group, in their group. And neither should I.

Even though I don't belong in their group, I really do like to say what I believe is true and not to be forced to say what is untrue. So I am not going to say that Rachel Dolezal is black, because she isn't. Same with the trans issue. The authoritarianism in favor of everyone else accepting their narrative of themselves is something that shouldn't be missed when someone promotes arguments about respecting people's lived experience.

Now, if she wants to live among the black community, I am not going to stop her.

I realize the more sensitive among my readers might be worrying that I, as a white person, have no right to criticize the Mi’kmaq Indians’ membership policies. This is a fair concern. But I worry that all of this is white people’s fault.

I don't know if he is trolling us deliberately, but he just pulled the Jewish meme of "as a fellow white, it is white people fault", in an article that includes in him a arguing about the importance of his Jewish identity and that there are hoops one must jump to belong to his particular group, or others. Then he argued that we should still be tolerant to edge cases that had a lived experience as part of such groups.

Well, there are various articles and even tweets by Jews saying that they aren't white. And it has been used in relation to this exact debate about how to treat different groups with the arguement that Jews should be treated differently as another oppressed minority.

We also have had various examples of Jews like Jon Steward argue that white people are acting badly and that WE whites have done bad. And then in other instances, Jon argues that Jews and blacks should ally to get whitey.

That is Jews is the US and whites is the OTHER.

it is also unfair to blame singularilly whites for this issue when if only whites voted and decided it would be the more right wing party that would win elections. And:

a) by just blaming whites it covers up for the disproportionate role of Jews, some of which don't identify as white, and others might be willing to still identify as Jews and see whites as hostile other. Whatever the case even if they were to count as white, Jewish whites had had a disproportionate role that ought not be hidden as part of just a general white problem. Especially in regards to NGOs, we see plenty of influential Jewish NGOs that are explicitly Jewish NGO's and I am not aware of influential currently white NGO's as explicitly white NGO's. Indeed some Jewish NGOs like ADL are especially influential and important in promoting this kind of morality of intersectional supremacy under the guise of anti racism, where they even adopted a definition that one can't be racist against whites.

b) Obviously American blacks have had a healthy influence in such debates directly and even more so indirectly.

c) White non Jewish liberals and plenty of supposed moderates and some conservatives to a lesser extend, respect and succumb to the prejudices of groups like blacks or Jews who as community do have their problems of ethnocentric racism in favor of themselves and against their outgroup. By blaming just whites for those issues, Scott who is engaging in identity politics in doing so and fails to be neutral, is repeating this problem of transferred nationalism and of deflecting any blame from non whites, to blame whites.

It is extremely important to understand that transferred nationalism is a key part of the problem we are dealing with when it comes to those who aren't part of those tribes. And actual tribalism for their own group in an intersectional alliance for others who belong there.

Like a white Christian who claims that as a Christian he follows the Torah and so is a Jew and so Jews should open their borders to mass Christian migration, Scott's relation with the broader white ethnic group is more complicated at best. It is in fact hostile in important ways. Plus some of the people he promotes and more strongly associates like Scott Aarronson who calls to replace the red tribe of Texas or Mathew Yglesias who has argued that Israel should have more restrictive jewish migration or that is fine, and the USA should have mass migration to have one billion people, there is a clear seperation between what tribes they prioritise. Yglesias even thought that the election of Trump would result in jews being beaten in the streets.

Like New York Times Goldberg writting "We will replace them", Scott Aarronson's call of replacement was ethnically charged, especially when one reads his response to negative comments, whining about antisemitism. What he wanted was to be able to dish both racism, and extremism against his political opposition without backlash.

The mask of neutral rationalists is hiding the reality underneath.

Ultimately, in relation to the Jews I kind of agree with parts of Scott's view, of showing some tolerance for cases that qualify. There is in fact a biological difference between Europeans and even Ashkenazi Jews. But in a certain more broader white category, Ashkenazi Jews and even some others could fit, there are many Jews in Israel from north africa who are too brown to fit, but most American jews look white enough to fit in a broader white category. And there are American Jews who see whites in general as part of their team and people, in a way that Scott doesn't, and most Jews don't. In their case their Jewish identity is more like another white American subgroup identity.

Historically, before late 19th century and 20th century mass migrations of more nationalistic and anti-european and anti-christian radical Jews, and the organization of a lobby and organizations of such nature, the Jews in the USA fitted more normally as part of the white category and behaved with less antagonism.

For decades, and today many Jews do see themselves us a seperate tribe and have an antagonistic relationship with non Jewish whites. Especially the Jews who matter the most in influence, of powerful organizations. They see whites and Christians as the threatening other. So it is inaccurate and having their cake and eating it too, to consider Jews like Scott as belonging in the same white ethnic category as non Jewish whites. The double standards among Jews about supporting the Jewish ethnostate and restrictive immigration of Jews there, while supporting anti native racism, antiwhite racism and mass migration is rather notable.

Also current mainstream Liberalism is not a neutral political agenda but ethnically charged against white Christians.

Scott has a strong Jewish identity. In Hungary he sides with Soros who sees Europeans as a threat to Jews and other minorities and he supports utterly destructive to survival of european nations mass migrations and calls one of the democratically elected leaders who oppose this, in Orban, with the label dictator. In an article that attacks Orban precisely for opposing mass migration. So please, especially if you are a Jewish liberal/neocon, with a strong Jewish identity, you should stop with the fellow white identification. Just like you wouldn't accept someone with a strong white and Christian identity who was as hostile to Jews as you are to white Christians, doing the same against Jews.

I do think some Jews like Amy Wax do identify with whites in a manner that is respectable and genuine and deeper. And a Jew can also not identify with them but also be more moderate and have a more balanced and just worldview than what is promoted by Scott, or those even worse than him.

TLDR in a general sense, if you belong in a category that is more fuzzy and more on the edge, it matters a great deal, in regards to whether you are part of X, if you are philo-X group and seeing them as your group, and not as antagonistic to your primary identity category. If you have at all another identity, it must be weaker and you ought to compromise and accept the X identity, to belong in X. Of course, if your category isn't even in the edge, then you can't be part of said groups. You still ought to be treated with more respect if you are outside category but friendly, than if you have some commonalities but hostile.

We aren't dealing with a consistent standard about cultural appropriation but an honor culture than mandates special status and respect about certain special identity groups which is also hostile against other ones like especially white Christians, on the exact basis of sympathy for the first at expense of the later.

The post, I think, is about creating a consistent standard. People were going off of intuition; better to create a more legible system.

Reducing the pro jewish, pro black, or pro native american nationalism, and treating such groups as inherently less deserving of their current status of honor and respect, will reduce the problems of "cultural appropriation".

What if a group does create remarkable achievements and stands to deserve honor and respect? Would you be in favour of condemning anyone who does "cultural appropriation" of that group?

I also don't think that Jews, native Americans, or blacks should have to accept peoples who don't fit into their group, in their group.

You're basically agreeing that cultural appropriation is bad here. Non-members trying to gain entry into the group is a large part of what cultural appropriation is. And the main point of the post is- who does qualify as a person who fits in the group? Someone with certain genetics matching the group, someone with lived experience matching the group, or a combination of both?

I don't know if he is trolling us deliberately, but he just pulled the Jewish meme of "as a fellow white, it is white people fault", in an article that includes in him a arguing about the importance of his Jewish identity and that there are hoops one must jump to belong to his particular group, or others. Then he argued that we should still be tolerant to edge cases that had a lived experience as part of such groups.

When he said it's "white people's fault", I thought he meant more in a way that a lot of white people would identify as natives if they could, because natives are cool. And that he'd probably include a lot of Jews in that group of people who'd want to pretend to be cool Natives. Not that whites are evil racists who try to oppress other races but Jews aren't evil racists. You went on a long tangent about Jews, and I think the point of it was that Jews shouldn't identify as white unless they're primarily white? That feels weird to me, like telling an Italian they shouldn't identify as white unless they place their white identity before their Italian identity.

The post, I think, is about creating a consistent standard. People were going off of intuition; better to create a more legible system.

I disagree. It is about maintaining one sided standards and fails to oppose a fundamental aspect of what created double standards. We are not going to get a consistent standard by not directly opposing the excessive ethnonationalism for progressive stack groups, especially for Jews and blacks. Which is also advocated in basis of lived experience.

To change the current issue you need to address it. By aligning the issue of lived experience, with respecting the people who have lived experience, he gets as further away from what we need to do, which is disrespecting the black, jewish, and other chauvinist perspective. Now, I am not saying to go to the opposite extreme, but having an understanding how we did reach the extremism in favor of blacks, Jews, and others and stopping this, and aknowledging the reality of what happened is fundamental.

Legitimizing "lived experience" gets us away from a consistent standard. We must consider the consequences towards those being asked to accept this.

Scott and the rationalists and EA types, are part of the liberal and Democrat establishment and network. How are they going to get us to consistent standards if their network includes biggest Democratic donors, key rationalists argue to replace the red tribe of texas, they support mass migration at least in part (being charitable that this is just a part of it) due to ethnic hostility and wanting to replace their white and right wing outgroups, willing to support George Soros over Orban, when the first is further away from a consistent standard than the later?

Scott is part of the problem of liberal excesses, and not part of those who are going to effectively reform it. At best he is going to make some limited hangout criticisms while still supporting the faction that has said prejudices. And his limited hangout it still going to be one sided in the same direction, which you could always make excuses for.

What if a group does create remarkable achievements and stands to deserve honor and respect? Would you be in favour of condemning anyone who does "cultural appropriation" of that group?

This is a misunderstanding. I am saying that people care too much about cultural appropriation because they value the status of these ethnic groups more.

I actually think some level of cultural appropriation is part and parcel of what everyone does, being influenced by everyone else. Especially of the most successful groups.

I do think it is fair to exclude people who don't belong in your group from pretending to belong there.

I do support some desire for some general cultural authenticity and exclusion, but my views are too nuanced to say I fall in the camp with hysteric reactions, and there are as always many grey lines I am unsure about, and certain issues I am more adamant about.

I think we should care less about people doing this at expense of blacks, jews, native americans, etc. The reason there is such a hysterical reaction is precisely because of the racist extremism in favor of them.

Again, try to listen to what I am saying instead of trying to fit it into a narrative about cultural appropriation. Directly denouncing the excess of putting said groups on the pedestal, is the only way we move to consistent standards. While denouncing the people stating this, and not accepting this point is how we allow the inconsistent standards to persist. Cultural appropriation isn't the main lens we should see this. The correct lens is that our issue is one of mainly excessive demanded status for progressive stack groups.

Of which, the supporters of this try to sideline by not acknowledge, or by calling what is happening to be a conspiracy theory.

This isn't to say we shouldn't simultaneously put correct standards on the cultural appropriation issue, in the ways I articulated which covered small aspects of it.

You're basically agreeing that cultural appropriation is bad here. Non-members trying to gain entry into the group is a large part of what cultural appropriation is. And the main point of the post is- who does qualify as a person who fits in the group? Someone with certain genetics matching the group, someone with lived experience matching the group, or a combination of both?

I read the post and articulated my different opinion which actually isn't the opposite from Scott's position, except I don't use lived experience as a term and being more exclusive on broader groups and I think ancestry does matter. And also, I think that focusing on the issues with biggest double standards directly over more irrelevant cases is how you promote good rules. For one can claim to oppose SJWs on say the trans issue, but adopt a SJW party line on Jews or blacks.

American Jews and non Jewish europeans have plenty similiar in their cultures in many ways but have a separate ethnic identity and ideology relating to that. There are important cultural differences too. Different tribes sharing in part cultural aspects, does not change the fact they have differences in culture, but also as ethnic tribes.

It is operating like a spy, or a fifth collumnist which is what "we are white, whites suck" and "we Jews and non whites should work against whites" mentality that I have a problem with.

Accepting different groups on the basis that they are like you, while they retain a different identity, and you suppress yours to accommodate and appease theirs will result in such group dominating yours. While your group loses its self determination and territory and culture.

But this goes further than most of the issues called cultural appropriation. It is about respecting legitimate rights of other groups. Which is not what we got today, but a culture of extremism hiding under pretensions of moderation that is about one sided double standards that are destructive towards non progressive ethnic groups.

When he said it's "white people's fault", I thought he meant more in a way that a lot of white people would identify as natives if they could, because natives are cool. And that he'd probably include a lot of Jews in that group of people who'd want to pretend to be cool Natives. Not that whites are evil racists who try to oppress other races but Jews aren't evil racists. You went on a long tangent about Jews, and I think the point of it was that Jews shouldn't identify as white unless they're primarily white? That feels weird to me, like telling an Italian they shouldn't identify as white unless they place their white identity before their Italian identity.

I believe you are sanewashing and Scott knows what he is doing and is willingly trying to follow a pretense of being a non radical centrist, while also having a position that is lopsided in a certain direction. Also, I genuinely think it is unfair for Jews like himself with his strong Jewish identity and hostile towards whites perspective to be considered normally belonging to the white ethnic group. And it is also unfair and represents reality inaccurately to blame whites singularilly while covering up for the Jewish role. He deserves to be criticized for promoting "I am white, whites to blame", when singularly blaming whites. He should simply not have said it, rather than trying to justify it.

As I articulated previously, blaming whites because excuses, is the ideology of anti white white liberals and anti white non whites. Which certainly influences people to put a knee in events like the BLM riots, or identify as non white groups to gain benefits.

This ideology can also lead to warped views on foreign conflicts like this ridiculous, entirely one sided racist propaganda by Michael Moore. https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2024/03/04/michael-moore-palestinians-arent-israels-persecutors-its-been-white-european-christians-slaughtering-jews/

So, I find it weird that you don't have a problem with Scott blaming whites, and are willing to excuse it.

Here is the point that is more nuanced than your paraphrase:

TLDR in a general sense, if you belong in a category that is more fuzzy and more on the edge, it matters a great deal, in regards to whether you are part of X, if you are philo-X group and seeing them as your group, and not as antagonistic to your primary identity category. If you have at all another identity, it must be weaker and you ought to compromise and accept the X identity, to belong in X. Of course, if your category isn't even in the edge, then you can't be part of said groups. You still ought to be treated with more respect if you are outside category but friendly, than if you have some commonalities but hostile.

That feels weird to me, like telling an Italian they shouldn't identify as white unless they place their white identity before their Italian identity.

Why doesn't it feel weird to you that I should accept Scott Aarronson who says replace the red tribe of Texas, or Bret Stephens who says to replace the white working class while being a Jewish chauvinist, or Michele Goldberg that says to replace them as a part of the white category? I find it concerning that you find such views, or Jews who claim they aren't white, are things that shouldn't be relevant to us.

Of course Italians are not in the edge of white category, if we are willing to adopt a broad enough category that would allow most American Jews to belong in it. Those Jews would be at the edge. And if the categorization is narrow enough to put Italians at the edge, then Jews would be outside.

Italians do not have an antagonistic relationship with whites in the same way Jews have. Although whiteness in the USA is partly anglo whiteness coded. But certainly, the value of broader identities does relate to how you treat people on your team. You also sidestepped the Jews who themselves don't identify as white which is really important. Also, unlike Italians, Jews are more on the edge of white identity due to their ancestry, and also their more hostile historical relationship, not being Christians, and having seen Rome historically as their enemy. Italians have been a core part of European and Western civilization. It is in fact the case that unlike Italians, including south Italians, some Jews that are more numerous in Israel than in the USA should be excluded on the basis of not fitting at all in a categorization of whiteness, because they don't look white even in a broader sense.

I would say even for people who more clearly belong there, some element of broader identity and compromise of primary identity must matter too. Historically some of the biggest atrocities have been done by empires against the group they touted as their broader category. Like against working classes and the people for universalist communists. We see the GAE now being incredibly destructive against Europeans, even though they are the backbone of the global american empire. I guess ideologicaly it doesn't claim to be pro european exactly but it has been based mainly on Europeans. It is claiming now to be fighting for Ukrainian self determination.

The imperialist Japanese were Japanese supremacists but also pan-asianists claiming to be fighting for all Asian people against European imperialism. This did not change their atrocities against Chinese. And of course the Nazis were German supremacists and didn't treat various european ethnic groups as part of the same team.

The reality is that there is a serious issue among the Jews of a Jewish supremacist and anti-white Christian ideology. And large double standards. Same for non Jews who have adopted the Jewish perspective.

In the USA, whites are an ethnic group. One that various white groups end up assimilating into. Of course if you are hostile to whites and put your primary identity first and see whites as a threat to your actual people, there is a problem with you being considered white.

It is important to be part of the white team, to not consider white non Jews a threat towards Jews you prioritize, but to see non Jewish whites as your team.

It is also important for your people to not write articles and tweets and say that you aren't white. Especially in respond to controversies like a black Goldberg saying that ww2 violence were inter-white struggles, and then as response many articles trying to promote the party line that Jews aren't white.

Also important to not try to get the Jews treated as part of the non white minorities in terms of diversity benefits and being treated as oppressed.

In addition to articles, it seems most Jews on reddit but majority of Jews are liberals and lean in that direction, subscribe to the Jewish supremacist idea and don't consider themselves as part of a broader white ethnic community. But see whites as those who create a racial caste that oppressed Jews and other minorities, but also want non Jews to not have a problem for Jews relating to Israel, or treated as privilidged. They want Jews to be treated as an oppressed minority and have privileges.

At least one upvoted also considers it a gentile, western supremacist idea. They have a wildly self centered ethnic supremacist ideology that is wildly uncharitable and racist towards non Jews and against white Christians. And just see themselves as victims of discrimination. Distorting history to create a wild one sided story of monstrous other ethnic groups and pure Jews who are just targets of supremacists. Much rhetoric there also in line with Noel Ignatiev's. The truth is that their enemy isn't white supremacists but white moderates and what they want is self hating whites who are Jewish supremacists.

Some also argue for the idea that Jews can't be white due to being middle eastern, which is upvoted there as is upvoted the idea that white supremacists are those unwilling to accept Jews as white when those ideas are in contradiction. Seems that they consider non Jews having standards to be white supremacy. Including a standard that has a problem with this type of racist anti white hostility, and that it matters in not considering them white. Others claim that some Jews look white, and other Jews don't.

https://old.reddit.com/r/Judaism/comments/16f2nh0/jews_arearent_white/

So of course they aren't like Italians who don't have the same view of whites and Christians, as the Jews do. I find it completely inexplicable to see this kind of behavior and accept putting said Jews in the white categorization.

Only a subset of Jews that are a minority of Jews who reject such narratives and see themselves genuinely in the same team as white Christians like Amy Wax, have a position that fits white ethnic categorization. Strong Jewish identity due to the commoniality in Jewish ethnocentric narrative of anti european and anti christian narrative, can be in fact an obstacle to this. As I mentioned with the Japanese imperialists and Nazis, supremacist views can be an obstacle for cooperation and peace even for ethnic groups that are more central categories of the broader category, like the Japanese for East Asians, and Germans for Europeans. Although in that case they saw themselves more as the leaders of said groups but also had supremacist ideas that saw other parts of said group as a threat to their ethnic group.

So for Jews, including American Jews to fit into the white categorisation need to get over their extreme dislike of pro whites, europeans, and Christians. And also to stop undermining white identity because Jews are more peripheral to it than other ethnic groups. Jews need to compromise their Jewish ethnonationalism. But even then, only some of them which are mainly American Jews are going to fit, both themselves and in how the see themselves and are seen, many Israeli especially Jews are never going to be seen as white because they don't look white. And that is fine. I am critical of their ethnic chauvinism, Israeli Jews who are brown can be brown, they just need to be more reasonable people and drop anti european and anti christian one sided narratives. Those Jews who try to apply to themselves the categorization white, which are probably the more white looking Jews, are obligated to do that even more so.

Another alternative, is among those of the relatively white looking Ashkenazi who don't want to see other whites as their people, to acknowledge they don't fit into the white ethnic team, but into the Jewish team, and it is fair to be seen as outsiders to the white group and not a white supremacist, or so called antisemitic notion. But making peace with the white team and the fact that non Jewish whites who identify as their own group is a fine thing to exist and also as a group have their rights. Having an honorable and not racist position, instead of the wildly one sided racist propaganda also certain non Jews promote both directly and indirectly by attacking those who have a problem with it.

Applying consistent standards would have us reach the conclusion that Jews like Scott do not pass the criteria to fit in belonging in a white team/ethnic categorization in the same way he belongs in the Jewish categorization. And can not speak for whites being to blame, based on the authenticity of criticizing his own group. While applying those same standards would have us reach that Amy Wax does pass said criteria.

It would also have us reach the conclusion that some individuals are friendly towards groups they don't belong to. Lets take Calvin Robinson who is black, he seems friendly to white English, even though he is not one of them and he opposes mass migration. Of course his views are the opposite from representative among blacks living in Britain.

If Scott identified as white but didn't say it is white people's fault, and had a history of being more balanced and therefore pro white than he has been and was willing to promote something balanced and more reflective of reality, his identification would be more acceptable.

To go back to the general case:

Putting the requirement of friendship towards their outgroups as something that progressive identity groups and their supporters must follow, to fit in various categories like white, or as "anti racist", or "non racist", is going to reduce culture war conflict. And in regards to what is fair towards the group that must accept others, it is important for those trying to fit, to pass criteria and actually fit. In addition to that, to identify with the people they claim the identity of. The most reasonable part of which is not trying to harm, dislike and undermine the group they are trying to join, and claim to belong in. And the only way to have a general rule, is to understand that such rules are today not applied generally but some groups (like Jews or blacks) are allowed excessive exclusivity with cancel culture towards others violating their honor, while for other groups to have standards is treated as the suspect, or supremacist position.

Having to follow such criteria and requirements to fit also has the benefit of being the truth.

You are typing a lot of words and I really don't understand what point you're trying to make. Can you, in one paragraph, describe what bad stuff happens as a result of our current racial and cultural appropriation policies? Then in one paragraph describe what you want the world to look like? Then in one paragraph describe why your model would be better and not have problems?

I just really need something succint and clear.

This reminds me of the assignments to write an essay that reddit mods would give people. I am not going to do that. If you have anything to reply to the points already made, which I spent time to articulate my perspective with various issues then I might reply to that. If you are unable to do so, for whatever reason, including you not understanding them, thinking that they are unclear, or because you do not want to address the argument, that would be fine. But you shouldn't have asked for more. It isn't fine if you are trying to promote "I don't understand you" as an attack, but I am not really going to spend more time over it.

Please respect the time and effort spent by the people you are discussing with here and stop asking me to write significantly more so I make points that you would supposedly find sufficiently understandable to address.

I missed your reply originally and was just going over my old comments.

Anyways, I very much hope you wouldn't spend much time writing 3 paragraphs to clarify the position you already thought over in great detail, enough to write 3234 words(including quotes) in just your previous response. My whole point is I want something short, about 250 words max, that I can actually understand.

I don't know why you comment on this site. I do it because I enjoy being able to think through my thoughts, have others point out any mistakes I make or facts I miss, to convince others of my positions, and to get upvotes. You writing out what's basically a 12 page essay that I can't understand the thesis or conclusion of doesn't accomplish much of that, and I don't know what it did accomplish

You don't have to address everything. You can either disengage in a less rude manner or you could have addressed specific points from a longer post.

Like the argument that cultural appropriation is not the driving force but that racist prejudices in favor of progressive tribes like jews, blacks, and such groups honor being put on a pedestal. And that Scott fails to get away from that.

Or the argument that legitimizing lived experiences is a mistake because the concept is used by such groups to promote narratives of their lived experience that are too demanding and disrespectful of other groups.

Or the argument that Jews as a tendency and Scott Siskind, but not all Jews, tend to not fit into the white American ethnic category due to having a hostility towards white non Jews and very strong nationalism and strong Jewish identity. You brought Italians, I countered with various arguements and points, including explaining how even groups that belong in a certain broader group like ww2 Germans and Japanese through their own excessive ethnic nationalism acted against other Europeans and Asians. The point being that a reduction in Jewish nationalism and more friendly view of white Christians, is a prerequisite to a greater share of (American Jews) them fitting in a broader white American ethnic category, in the way that a few Jews like Amy Wax do fit.

You chose to claim that my argument was entirely incomprehensible. Even though at least some people disagreed, even though one can also be downvoted when they make a valid point.

All of these are points one can engage with. In fact, if I develop them in more detail doesn't even stop you from engaging in a shorter manner. It isn't as if length is always bad, it can be necessary to back certain views down further.

Of course window of opportunity of discussing them is lost since the thread is old and you undermined it by refusing to engage and asking for work. And then additionally trying to imply that I shouldn't be posting because you can't understand what valid reason I might have to be commenting on this site...

Anyways, I very much hope you wouldn't spend much time writing 3 paragraphs to clarify the position you already thought over in great detail, enough to write 3234 words(including quotes) in just your previous response. My whole point is I want something short, about 250 words max, that I can actually understand.

I don't know why you comment on this site. I do it because I enjoy being able to think through my thoughts, have others point out any mistakes I make or facts I miss, to convince others of my positions, and to get upvotes. You writing out what's basically a 12 page essay that I can't understand the thesis or conclusion of doesn't accomplish much of that, and I don't know what it did accomplish

There are people who have a different preference to you and prefer to write fewer times and longer posts that raise various different points relating to the discussion subject together. If you genuinely seek to understand others and to learn from mistakes, you either engage with parts of that and ask clarifications where you don't understand. Or if your preference is only shorter posts, then that is part of your preference and you can in fact politely tell people you don't want to engage with something longer without asking them additional work. Maybe you can tolerate only some kind of longer posts. You should try to appreciate that there are people who can get something from posts that you don't understand, nor care for.

The attitude that the other person's writings are completely without merit and questioning why they comment is not an attitude that comes from someone whose motivation is to understand others and learn from their mistakes. But from someone who hates those with strongly different views on certain culture war issues and wants them to not post and tries to undermine them and seeks an excuse to do that and not engage intellectually with others. Maybe there is also something there about not respecting people whose writing style you don't like.

If you really want more understanding, you need to show more patience of other people, or not engage with them if you don't have that. For them not posting would promote less understanding, and me not articulating where you have been wrong would not allow you to learn from your mistakes. If you really want to do that, there is an opportunity there, and the barrier is you not wanting to engage. Indeed, I am also unable to see where my argument might have holes if the other person just asks for more work, instead of addressing at least a part of what is already there.

Whether they disagree with you, or their writing style preference isn't to your liking, or has its own flaws, your response is not the proper way to handle this. Nobody is perfect, so if you made or make in future times less onerous demands on specific points, while engaging with other arguments, I and people in my position would be more willing to accommodate you in part, and interpret that there is something worth engaging with here. That the other person isn't just trolling us, and there is an assurance that we aren't still going to get "you aren't making a point" as a response. Of course it is also fair to ask "what exactly you have a difficulty understanding with this point", and for some back and forth collaborative communication rather that it being an one sided effort.

"But I can understand why Native Americans don’t agree with this, and I don’t expect to be able to convince everyone of my position today." "Fine, far be it from me to challenge standpoint theory"

Stop being timid Scott. What are you doing?

I'm generally a fan of "blurry" definitions where something can qualify as X if it fulfills a few of many criteria.

I am generally a fan of strict and exact legal definitions of identity X, if X is supposed to give you considerable legal privileges and perks.

Without these priviliges, the story would be just tale of personal misfortune. Imagine you are emo (imagine there are still such things as emos) , you dress like emo, you listen to emo music, you go to emo concerts.. but you are one day expelled by your emo friends for not being a real emo.

Tragedy for you, if you based your whole personal self worth of being emo and being seen as one, but no one outside emo community would care.

Now, imagine that emos are seen as oppressed minority and there are designated hiring quotas, tax breaks for emo owned businessed and other benefits, while it is unclear what exactly "emo" means.

See this for introduction into the unholy mess what current American racial law classification is.

I am generally a fan of strict and exact legal definitions of identity X, if X is supposed to give you considerable legal privileges and perks.

I bet you that this 2018 story gets your goat:

With the new birth certificate in hand, he changed his driver's licence and insurance policy.

All to save about $91 a month.

"I'm a man, 100 per cent. Legally, I'm a woman," he said.

"I did it for cheaper car insurance."

When there are legal benefits, it probably is best for a strict definition. It's too open to corruption otherwise. But we can separate that from the social definition. Maybe someone doesn't qualify as a legal emo and get benefits if they don't attend a minimum of five concerts a year, but we can still let them in the social group if they fulfill all the other standards. Ideally, so would concepts like race.

"Comrades! It must be a mistake! I am lifelong revolutionary, old party member, decorated war veteran and distinguished worker, no way I can be a fascist spy!"

What could and should be outsider reaction to such situation, except good and hearty laughter?

All I can think is that every single person in this story was terrible.

The professor, who had some vague family story about her great-grandmother being an Indian, and turned that into the core of her identity. Zero attachment to any of her other 7 great-grandparents, who were all just "white." (no indication of country or culture or anything)

Her friends and coworkers, for instantly exiling her and cutting her off. No defense of her like "well actually she's still a really good professor."

The university, for creating this spoils system of prestigious tenured professorships, reserved exclusively for those with special blood.

Society at large, for meekly going along with all this and not doing anything.

...But sure, the real problem is "blurry definitions." In the future, the prestigious Indian Studies professorships should be reserved only for those who have passed an official blood test.

Yeah, absolutely. I feel pretty bad for the professor. She has basically lost her culture, her identity, her career and her raison d'etre all in one fell swoop. There aren't many crimes for which that would be an appropriate punishment. But at the same time, I'm definitely feeling a 'play idpol games, win idpol prizes' vibe. There's something delicious about being a grievance merchant, and then finding out that you were the grievance all along. I'm eating the popcorn, but I feel bad about it.

prestigious Indian Studies professorships should be reserved only for those who have passed an official blood test.

Unironically brilliant idea. Would have stopped this woman wasting a massive chunk of her life on something she was clearly genetically disqualified from. plus blood testing for jobs would be the ultimate mask off moment for the progressive left.

People use the claim “there’s no such thing as biological race” for a lot of purposes, mostly to confuse and deceive people, but here it’s worth focusing on the tiny sliver of justification for such a claim: the biological clustering of populations isn’t exactly 100% the same as socially-defined racial categories

Scott seems to not understand. Race is still a social construct. There are genetic variations among different populations, but this doesn't mean the categories of race are not socially constructed. Who decided we are going to define one race white and another black, based on skin color? He uses the example with Jews, but this makes no sense since their categorization of race is different from the Western categorization. These racial categories have a purpose and are useful for a variety of reasons, but he's not making a convincing point that racial categories are not socially defined. Certain racial categories are fuzzier and an American invention: whites and blacks.

Certain racial categories are fuzzier and an American invention: whites and blacks.

If you socially define two categories, and then people in each category intermarry, they become biological categories.

Can you explain further?

With lots of intermarrying inside groups, and rare between groups, each group becomes more similar genetically and culturally. Africans from various countries were indiscriminately mated and their children do not longer retain differences in language, culture and genetics that their ancestors had.

Race is both a social construct and a biological category with real consequences independent of how society chooses to treat it. Consider for a parallel example, tallness. Different cultures have different standards of tallness and might treat people they consider tall or short differently. 'Tallness' here is basically how society decides to treat or respond to the very real feature of height.

Race is both a social construct and a biological category with real consequences independent of how society chooses to treat it What do you mean by this? I am pointing out how race is defined is a social construct. Could you clarify what you mean by real consequence and relate that to racial categories? If anything, your example with height is not really about race but more about a specific trait.

Race is obviously not just a social construct but both a biological construct AND in part a social construct and also does not count as a social construct in the way many people using that term mean.

How can it be both a social construct and not a social construct? Since a lot of the people using the term seem to be using it to mean arbitrary, existing only in our imaginations, when it isn't. Or as something in the exclusion of a biological group. To the extend there is a social construct is based in large part to biology, or as a synonym for broader or narrower ethnic group, where there other robust things about it related to shared culture, ethnic identification by them and by others, and also relate to ancestry.

Most ethnic groups have been described as races in the past.

In general most things called social constructs by deconstructionists and overly dismissive people are not that. The connotations carried with the words social constructs in such cases are misleading. Same would apply to someone who is pro barter economy, or pro communism saying that money is a social construct. Or even ethnic groups.

Certain racial categories are fuzzier and an American invention: whites and blacks.

Yes there is an element in social categorization but white and black people clearly exist as biological races.

There are biological differences between different populations and sub-populations, but deciding a group of phenotypes (like skin color) was unmistakably influenced by Western biases. You are probably aware of the issue of defining whiteness and blackness (Mixed ethnicities in United States or exclusion of certain ethnic groups from White category) . There is no perfect system of categorization of course, but the issue with Scott is he tries to conflate asserting race as a social construct as somehow not existing. Social construct doesn't simply mean "it doesn't exist" or "useless". I am sure there are radicals who think this, but that is cherry picking for easy wins

was unmistakably influenced by Western biases.

True! But are we not all sinners? There are tiny dust specks in my eye, yet I still see. What hasn't been influenced by biases? Our conception of "color" is biased by our photoreceptors, in turn biased by the distribution of light in our ancestral environment, but we still find color useful. The question should be - how biased is it? I think you should "put a number on it". How much, precisely, were race/ancestry groups influenced by Western biases? If the number is say, 80%, then yes we should probably abandon current categories of race. If the number is 4% ... then maybe they're good enough.

Of course not! I am pointing out this is just one mode of thinking that has dominated the way we perceive and categorize race. Racial categorizations are more complicated in different cultures was my point. Regardless, I am not disputing usefulness of these categorizations. Acknowledging biases when approaching and building conceptual frameworks is essential in science. It's not even because of political correctedness, but more for understanding limitations and accuracy.

An analogy is that when studying other religions, there is a tendency to interpret different religions from a Christian perspective (most likely because it is the dominant religion in the western sphere and most researchers who approached different religions were mainly Western). It's why early cultural studies has been updated to reflect a more accurate understanding.

If pursuing the truth and accurate information is the goal of any research field, then there should be no issues in acknowledging some limitations and biases of racial categorizations. I am not really concerned about political correctedness even, but more so it's a pretty big discussion amongst professional geneticists that there are issues with this classification.

If pursuing the truth and accurate information is the goal of any research field, then there should be no issues in acknowledging some limitations and biases of racial categorizations.

Okay, so, obviously if you're, like, writing a paper on the impact of race and IQ, you should more complicated measures of ancestry than self-reported race if you can. I don't disagree with that. However, I think "race" is close enough to "ancestry" in casual conversation.

also e.g. biobanks don't allow people to use their data for race and iq research, which is both unfortunate and ... potentially indicative of the kind of bias that would systematically affect science on the topic!

Of course ethnic categorizations relating to race has been influenced by more than past centuries white culturally right leaning westerners being prejudiced. And relate to actual real cultural spheres, and differences among groups and biological differences. There is a relation between race and broader ethnic groups and civilizations.

Italians, Irish, etc qualified as white.

Obviously, other non white groups and progressives have been part of this and created categorisations like Hispanic. Blacks obviously support the black categorization. Progressives of course support various categorizations relating to race, including whites being treated as a different category to non whites. Plenty of non whites support non only non progressive categorisations of race, as a way that makes sense for them, but even to an extend the progressive categorization for self serving reasons.

The narrative of Noel Ignatiev of evil white racists conspiring to create the concept of race, while his faction is just trying to deconstruct racism and prejudices, by destroying whiteness is inaccurate. On basically every claim he is making.

I do think that certain categorizations that make sense in an American case, and as a non American I am adamant in promoting them even when arguing with Americans, make some less sense in other contexts.

For example in the case of USA, white is more of a primary ethnicity while in the case of Europe, being European is more of an aspect of your primary ethnic categorization. Same with blackness and black Americans, in relation to Africans.

Anyway, I don't see why social constructs are illegitimate things as a result of prejudice, rather than categorisations based often in valid and important things, including biology. Not always, I would like to undermine the progressive way of seeing race without going full in opposite direction. And there is some validity in opposing the most hardcore white supremacist way of categorising the world, with again not going to the opposite direction which is the antiwhite supremacist categorisations done by progressives. Where these progressives also associate being indigenous with being non white, or Europeans existing at all as a group with prejudice and white supremacy.

Anyway, I don't see why social constructs are illegitimate things as a result of prejudice, rather than categorisations based often in valid and important things, including biology.

I've never disputed the usefulness of it, merely pointing out that others seem to conflate this as an easy argument to win against. It doesn't change that it is a social construct. To add from my previous comment, I was also pointing out that this is just one mode of thinking that dominated racial categorizations because I am sure you know already that different cultures do not have the same conception of race as the western system does.

Scott agrees with you, except for the assertion that biological race is entirely useless. Biological race is what ancestry.com identifies you as when you do a DNA test. It's different but has substantial overlap with cultural race. Biological race is, usually, less useful than cultural race, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist like how, say, a biological Star Wars fan doesn't exist. There are lots of genes associated with certain geographic regions and cultures, there aren't genes particularly associated with liking Star Wars.

I think Scott is opening with a straw man (or is it motte and bailey? I don't know). There probably are people who will deny that there is some genetic variation in different populations if you cherry pick for radicals, but just because something is a social construct doesn't mean it has no utility. I am not sure where this claim of his is coming from. It's understood that money is a construct, but we don't deny it's utility. Saying something is a social construct was never meant (in a serious discussion) to mean it is useless.

There probably are people who will deny that there is some genetic variation in different populations if you cherry pick for radicals, but just because something is a social construct doesn't mean it has no utility.

There are lots of people who deny that race has any biological basis. If you grill them on what exactly they mean by it they might eventually realize that obviously race has some biological basis, but otherwise, they'll be pushing HR policies and going to the ballot box working under the assumption there is no such thing as biological race.

Saying something is a social construct was never meant (in a serious discussion) to mean it is useless.

He concludes with essentially saying that the social construct definition, where race is based off lived experience, is more meaningful anyways.

As I understand, what the professional geneticists mean by "human racial classifications have no basis in biology" is something like the claim

(1) "Inasmuch as there's a sensible biological phenomenon of "race" or "subspecies" that we can talk scientifically about all across biology (not just humans), we've broadly agreed to define this phenomenon in terms of ratios of genetic variation within and between populations. Morphology and behavior isn't enough. If you want to tell me that you've discovered a new subspecies of gray flycatcher, the distinctive markings on its tail feathers and the distinctive song that it sings aren't going to cut it -- you have to show something about the ratio of overall genetic variation within vs between candidate populations of gray flycatchers.

Many biological "subspecies" that were previously identified based on morphology and behavior don't hold up to modern genetic analysis. This is not to say that your candidate subspecies of gray flycatcher can't be reliably identified by genetic analysis -- maybe it has a handful of mutations that always appear in it but not in the rest of the species, and maybe those mutations underlie the distinctive behavior and morphology -- but those distinctive differences may be located in too few genes to make the cut overall. Maybe the genetically-mediated differences in morphology and behavior will drive true subspeciation in the future, but it's not there yet.

Applied to human races, the genetic differences between human racial groupings fail to stand out against the backdrop of human genetic diversity sufficiently, across the whole genome, to make the cut as biological subspecies, at any threshold of "sufficiently" to be useful across the rest of biology (not that biology has a lot of use for subspecies in general -- species are fuzzy enough already)."

What some people seem to want this to mean is more like

(2) "Observed average morphological and behavioral differences between members of different human races are not genetically mediated."

This is absurd on its face, and is not implied by (1).

There's plenty of room for different socially-defined and approximately ancestry-tracking racial groups of humans to exhibit genetically-mediated differences in morphology and behavior without qualifying as biological subspecies. There's plenty of room for greyhounds and pitbulls to do so as well, also without qualifying as biological subspecies.

we've broadly agreed to define this phenomenon in terms of ratios of genetic variation within and between populations

But then I have to press you: what exactly is this ratio, and how is it computed? How can I calculate it for various subspecies and for humans in order to verify independently that indeed, native Scandinavians and Aboriginal Australians are more closely related than any pair of subspecies of Chimpanzee?

And I have to point out that “subspecies” is a social construct too, in that the definition of subspecies is determined by biologists, who could very well define it as “subspecies are any subpopulations that have greater genetic differences than any two human subpopulations”. It doesn't tell you how to calculate genetic similarly, but it's clear that, by definition, there cannot be subspecies of Homo Sapiens, so problem solved. But of course that creates two problems:

  1. That's hardly carving reality at the joints: it's plausible that there are relevant distinctions that are more fine-grained than you allow. If there really is no significant difference between human subpopulations, you have to show that from first principle, not simply assert it by definition.

  2. Is this standard really being consistently applied? Again, think about the Chimpanzee subspecies. Are they really more differentiated than some human races? If biologists aren't using their own definition to determine subspecies in the first place, then appealing to the definition to assert there are no subspecies within the human race is meaningless.

(1) "Inasmuch as there's a sensible biological phenomenon of "race" or "subspecies" that we can talk scientifically about all across biology (not just humans), we've broadly agreed to define this phenomenon in terms of ratios of genetic variation within and between populations. Morphology and behavior isn't enough. If you want to tell me that you've discovered a new subspecies of gray flycatcher, the distinctive markings on its tail feathers and the distinctive song that it sings aren't going to cut it -- you have to show something about the ratio of overall genetic variation within vs between candidate populations of gray flycatchers.

I am pretty sure racial categories from professional scientific point of view has been criticised, not because of politcal pressure, but more or less along the lines of what you are saying, due to lack of precision.

Because of both. There are inherent problems in biological classifications and human races are nothing unusual about this. It is Lumpers and splitters when it comes to other organisms, but "progressives" and "evil racists" when it comes to humans. Species problem And even this: Ring species No anti-racist says that existence of ring species proves that biologists are doing something bad with classifications, that species don't exist, it's just isolated demand of rigor regarding humans.

I've never seen the claim that different human races should be considered sub-species, at least not by anyone who isn't absurdly racist.

I honestly don't entirely know what people who say "race is 100% socially constructed and not biological" are thinking. I usually give people the benefit of the doubt, but in this case I think it's really just double think.

Maybe the geneticists are just knocking down a straw man when they say humans don't have subspecies and therefore there aren't biological races of humans, but it is a thing they do. See Biological Races in Humans:

The word “race” is not commonly used in the non-human biological literature. [...] Of all the words used to describe subdivisions or subtypes within a species, the one that has been explicitly defined to indicate major geographical “races” or subdivisions is “subspecies” (Futuyma, 1986, pg. 107–109; Mayr, 1982, pg. 289). Because of this well-established usage in the evolutionary literature, “race” and “subspecies” will be regarded as synonyms from a biological perspective. In this manner, human “race” can be placed into a broader evolutionary context that is no longer species-specific or culturally dependent.

The question of the existence of human “races” now becomes the question of the existence of human subspecies. This question can be addressed in an objective manner using universal criteria.

This guy goes on to argue that by the broader race/subspecies criteria, there are biological races of chimps, but not of humans.

I also have no idea what people who think race is 100% socially constructed and not biological mean. Do they think a baby born to self-identified black parents is not likely to have noticeably darker skin than a baby born to self-identified white parents? There's something to be said for "racial classifications are not cross-culturally consistent", such that in Brazil people might be called "white" while having a large percentage of African ancestry than many people in America who are called "black", but that just reflects how the map is socially constructed, not the territory -- which is a truism.

Maybe the geneticists are just knocking down a straw man when they say humans don't have subspecies and therefore there aren't biological races of humans, but it is a thing they do.

There are admittedly an handful of absurd racists out there, so at some point I think scientists do have to knock those down. Like how scientists also have knocked down flat earthers; they're hardly a serious position, but they do exist, and occasionally you need to remind the mainstream population why they're absurd.

I also have no idea what people who think race is 100% socially constructed and not biological mean. Do they think a baby born to self-identified black parents is not likely to have noticeably darker skin than a baby born to self-identified white parents? There's something to be said for "racial classifications are not cross-culturally consistent", such that in Brazil people might be called "white" while having a large percentage of African ancestry than many people in America who are called "black", but that just reflects how the map is socially constructed, not the territory -- which is a truism.

Yeah, I really think this is just pure doublethink. I'm not sure if there's any other political issue where doublethink is as common; usually I think people just hold regular false beliefs instead believing two contradictory things at once.

There are lots of genes associated with certain geographic regions and cultures, there aren't genes particularly associated with liking Star Wars.

Only because they haven't been selected for. If anything- but I digress.

We should expect to see alleles associated with, among other things, industriousness, parental investment, general levels of aggression, punctuality, cognitive ability, sexual fidelity, impulse control, and many other things which have been selected for. I also contend that at some point we'll figure out the alleles for all sorts of various aesthetic preferences, and even preferences for narrative tropes. At which point it will indeed be possible to score someone's propensity to enjoy Star Wars. Although, the franchise is a mixed enough basket by now that it'd be fairly messy. After all, most people prefer some Star Wars to other Star Wars.

I also contend that at some point we'll figure out the alleles for all sorts of various aesthetic preferences, and even preferences for narrative tropes.

I might be wrong, but I expect that a lot of that has a very large influence by the environment. If you had a perfect understanding of the influences of human genes, you could probably make a slightly better than chance guess at whether someone would be a Star Wars fan if you knew their genes, but it really wouldn't be useful to create a genetic "Star Wars fan" category because it would be very divorced by the actual reality of which people enjoyed Star Wars.

If you had a perfect understanding of the influences of human genes, you could probably make a slightly better than chance guess at whether someone would be a Star Wars fan if you knew their genes

Maybe consider that we can do much better than that just based on whether the person has a Y chromosome!

There are genetic variations among different populations, but this doesn't mean the categories of race are not socially constructed.

What word would you like people to use to describe genetic variations among different populations?

That's not for me to decide. I am simply just pointing out that it is a socially defined categorization. If someone wants to come up with a better system, they can. It has utility, but Scott misunderstands and makes an error (not sure if this is motte and bailey or strawman) by conflating social construction as useless or non-existent. Not just him but many of the responses here seems to misunderstand what a social construct is imo.

Population sub-group?

Do you also dispute the wavelength basis of color? It fits in perfectly:

gardenofobjections seems to not understand. Color is still a social construct. There are wavelength variations among different colors, but this doesn't mean the categories of color are not socially constructed. Who decided we are going to define one color white and another black, based on photons? He (doesn't) uses the example with Hanunoo, but this makes no sense since their categorization of color is different from the Western categorization. These color categories have a purpose and are useful for a variety of reasons, but he's not making a convincing point that color categories are not socially defined. Certain color categories are fuzzier and an American invention: whites and blacks.

Put plainly, everything is a fuzzy socially-defined category, even the categories used in the hardest of hard physics. Bringing up this argument for genetics only is an isolated demand for rigor.

I am not sure what your counterargument is for. I am not disputing the existence of genetic variation in different populations. I am pointing out race (mostly Western system) is a social construct. I am not even disputing the utility of these categorizations. I am just saying Scott makes the conflation that social construct means it doesn't exist.

For your example... Color is a spectrum. It's not that one color definitely ends here and starts there. Language is a limiting factor. There are terms for different types of colors that aren't existent in Anglo Saxon. Useful categories, but doesn't mean they aren't socially defined. Socially defined doesn't necessarily mean there are no differences between a certain part of the spectrum compared to the other.

Though I understand you are just using an example, it's not a very good one since genetic differences between races aren't always clear. I am pretty sure ethnic differences are larger within one race than between different races. Way less clear than physical phenomena in hard sciences. Defining it by skin color or certain phenotypes is just one way of doing it.

/images/1709960115303152.webp

I mean everything is a social construct. Rape is a social construct. Property is a social construct. Google is a social construct. The Internet is a social construct. Love is a social construct. Anti-racism is a social construct. Yet we still have uses for all of these, they're in fact extremely important, and can debate the way we act on them in the exact same way Scott is doing. It's reasonable to say that I probably shouldn't consider the entirety of San Francisco to be "my property", even though it's a social construct, because it's not very useful and may have negative effects. It's similarly reasonable to say that maybe it's better to consider "race" to just mean "ancestry" than to jump between "group membership/identity social construct" and "ancestry" depending on the situation, leading to the plight of the professor in the OP.

I am just saying Scott makes the conflation that social construct means it doesn't exist.

I don't think he is?

I am pretty sure ethnic differences are larger within one race than between different races.

You mean genetic differences. There are a lot of technical arguments here but ... sure, why not. There are many white people with lower IQ than the average black person. This doesn't mean that the average black IQ isn't lower than the average white IQ, and it doesn't mean that doesn't have a genetic component to its cause.

I don't think he is?

https://open.substack.com/pub/astralcodexten/p/how-should-we-think-about-race-and-list-share-cta&comments=true&commentId=51163221

You mean genetic differences. There are a lot of technical arguments here but ... sure, why not. There are many white people with lower IQ than the average black person. This doesn't mean that the average black IQ isn't lower than the average white IQ, and it doesn't mean that doesn't have a genetic component to its cause.

Do you have any strong evidence that controls different factors (socioeconomic, historical, cultural and even diet) for the claims of IQ? When I looked, most of these differences between IQ are overblown or if the data does show differences, it often is more complex and can't be taken by face value. This isn't exclusive to just IQ of course but even other traits like skeletal structure and even height.

...the conflation that social construct means it doesn't exist.

That's a very common conflation in my experience, which makes it a valid target for counterarguments.

The socially constructed definition of race includes genetic information, which means that it is a physically-grounded system instead of an arbitrary one. This puts limits on how much society can change the definitions without going off the rails.

Though I understand you are just using an example, it's not a very good one since genetic differences between races aren't always clear.

First, differences between colors aren't clear either. Light with uniformly-random wavelengths is widely agreed to be "white". What about light with 1/3 each 450 nm, 550 nm, 650 nm? It might appear identical or different depending on the situation, so we've created the color rendering index to deal with that. What about fluorescent objects? They reflect visible light in a way that's easily-describable using standard terms, but they also create some extra by converting UV light. Category differences not being clear is completely normal, and there's nothing special about genetics in that sense.

Second, it doesn't look that bad? Look at the graphs Scott included just above your quote: they sure look like clusters to me, and the line-drawing isn't too egregious. Also remember that we're looking at a 2D projection of an N-dimensional analysis, so some more differences will show up in the later principal components.

I am pretty sure ethnic differences are larger within one race than between different races.

I've heard that statement before, but I still haven't got a good explanation of what the factual claim is supposed to be. My attempts all end up in nonsense.

My first thought was "a random pair of coethnics is more genetically different than a random pair of non-coethnics humans", which seems trivially false. My second was "a random pair of coethnics is more genetically different than a random pair of archetypal members of each race", which seems like a category error for the comparison and also plausibly false (see the graph again: races have size 0.2ish, while the distances between their centers are 0.35ish).

What do you mean in a hard statistical sense by that statement?

I am very confused because it seems there is confusion between map for territory. You talking about genetic material being different between different populations and sub-populations doesn't mean that race is not socially constructed. It seems we agree that social construction of race is not useless nor does it mean that there are differences between groups of people?

A black man and a white man has more similarities in genes, just different expressions of phenotypes, which often is what is used to classify race to begin with.

My understanding is also that differences within one race are higher than between. African populations have more genetic diversity within different sub-populations as an example.

https://ksj.mit.edu/tracker-archive/new-study-confirms-africans-are-most-gen/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12493913/

You talking about genetic material being different between different populations and sub-populations doesn't mean that race is not socially constructed.

Of course it is, just like everything else. The mere fact that a category is socially constructed is utterly unremarkable. If you want to build policies from that, then you need a stronger grounding. Is it arbitrarily socially constructed, and therefore easy to change? Are there unprincipled exceptions in the social construction, that should be rectified? Is it too complex (or variable across regions and cultures) so it can't be used to communicate clearly? If you could argue that something is a bad social construction, then I'd listen to your ideas about what a good one is.

It seems we agree that social construction of race is not useless nor does it mean that there are differences between groups of people?

It has uses (I'll leave whether it's net useful unanswered), and the causation flows the other way: genetic differences caused racial classification, the classification didn't affect the genes.

A black man and a white man has more similarities in genes, just different expressions of phenotypes, which often is what is used to classify race to begin with.

What is "more" referring to?

If it's a comparison of the average black+white vs. white+white, then I'd say it's plainly incorrect.

My understanding is also that differences within one race are higher than between.

Thanks for the link. It's an interesting find, but the comparison is nigh-meaningless and shouldn't drive your decisions.

Using that same within/between comparison can lead you wildly astray: The income differences within genders are higher than between, but the wage/earnings gap is still a live issue. The life expectancy differences within countries are higher than between, but it's still used as a key indicator of progress. The temperature changes within a year are higher than between, but climate change is still concerning.

Comparing the variance between different individual things to the variance between different large aggregates will practically always say that the individuals are more distinct.

African populations have more genetic diversity within different sub-populations as an example.

That's a neat bit of trivia, but not remarkable either. Sticking with the color example, there's more diversity in wavelengths in "Red" (130 nm) than in "Green", "Yellow", and "Orange" combined (125 nm). Groups aren't always the same size, so "African" being more diverse than "European" and "Asian" combined isn't (wouldn't be?) notable.

EDIT to add: Yes, the category is socially constructed, and yes, the tea has quantum mechanical effects inside your body.

African populations have more genetic diversity within different sub-populations as an example.

That's a neat bit of trivia, but not remarkable either. Sticking with the color example, there's more diversity in wavelengths in "Red" (130 nm) than in "Green", "Yellow", and "Orange" combined (125 nm). Groups aren't always the same size, so "African" being more diverse than "European" and "Asian" combined isn't (wouldn't be?) notable.

In addition, the elision between discussing West/Central black African genetics (from which black Americans draw the majority of their ancestry) and African genetics as a whole is another common and classic tactic to distract, when the Western discourse is centered around black Americans. Africa contains populations such as North Africans who are more closely related to other Mediterranean populations (albeit with some more recent black admixture related to reasons such as the slave trade and/or Arab expansion), Ethiopians (who have significant Arab ancestry), Khoisan (who were the first to branch off from the rest of humanity), African pygmies (the second to branch off from the rest of humanity), the Malagasy (who were originally Austronesian).

It'd be like trying to poo-poo the genetic differences between birds and non-Avian dinosaurs because the majority of Archosaurian genetic diversity is found within crocodilians, pterosaurs, and non-Avian dinosaurs.

On a side note, African pygmies have long been on the wrong side of systematic replacement, genocide, rape, and even cannibalism from their West/Central black African neighbors, persisting to this day. Somehow, this phenomenon remains largely undiscussed in mainstream Western discourse.

and even cannibalism from their West/Central black African neighbors, persisting to this day.

Joke: a black African caught a pygmy and cooks him on a spit. An European walks by, sees it and says "No, you cannot eat people!". The African in surprise responds he doesn't. The Europeran points to the pygmy and asks "What's this?". -- "AAh, but it itsn't a human"

I am pretty sure ethnic differences are larger within one race than between different races.

I've heard that statement before, but I still haven't got a good explanation of what the factual claim is supposed to be. My attempts all end up in nonsense.

It's an old feel-good rhetorical device to cope with and minimize the importance of differences across races, a device possibly older than most of us participating on this site.

Obviously, when it comes to genetic differences, this can't be true from a smell test alone, as about 15 years ago it was already possible to assign Europeans to their country of origin based on solely their genetic information, and it's much easier when it comes to races. Any of us can download publicly available genetic data, run a PCA on Europeans, East Asians, and Sub-Saharan Africans to get a clean triangle with each of the three populations on a node.

When it comes to phenotypes, this would clearly be trait dependent and false in many cases. The variation in height between Western-born whites and East Asians is almost certainly less than the variation within them, but clearly the variation in lactose tolerance would likely be greater between than within them (it's like 90% one way and 10% the other). By cursory inspection, the variation in skin color is greater between than within European whites and Sub-Saharan blacks. The variation in facial and skeletal morphology is greater between than within whites, East Asians, and blacks, as can be found in forensic anthropology and x-rays.

Of course, just because the variation within groups is larger than the variation between them doesn't mean the differences between them aren't meaningful or important. Men are around two standard deviations taller than women and their within-group variances are similar; it's a coin-toss as to whether if even the variation in height between men and women is greater than the variation within them. For randomly drawn pairs, if the variances are equal at a 2SD average difference and normally distributed, the man will be taller than the woman over 92% of the time.

This is only exacerbated by tail effects, as discussed many times here. If whites have an average IQ a standard deviation higher than blacks and their within-group variances are equal at 15, e.g., 100 vs. 85, then when comparing equal sized populations of whites and blacks, the white population would have over 16 times more individuals with IQs over 130. Blacks would have 7 times more those with IQs under 70 than whites. A randomly drawn white would be smarter than a randomly drawn black about 76% of the time.

Species are also a social construct, as are genus, family, order, etc. and everything in between. What's considered the same or different species (or any group) can be reclassified over time as new information is obtained or as fads change. Yet, hardly would anyone deny the biological underpinning behind classifying organisms. Conservationists generally lean left, but are heavily invested in Organism BioDiversity. Suggest that we should just let gorillas, cheetahs, the red wolf, or the loggerhead sea turtle get replaced and go extinct (what's the big deal, we already have hominids, felids, canids, and turtles? They're all in this together) and see a conversationist react as an ardent purist that would make the most extreme Stormfront member blush.

If you get bitten by a King Cobra, you want King Cobra antivenom ASAP—at least mamba or synthetic Elapidae antivenom as a temporary stopgap—not some antivenom from a random Naja or much less other snake species. While paralysis and tissue necrosis ensues, you definitely don't want a lecture on how species and genera are a social construct and how the King Cobra is not considered a True CobraTM but more closely related to mambas nowadays, although it was considered a cobra at one point. Thus, any random snake antivenom should do. Many different so-called snake "species" can interbreed and can have tremendous overlap in morphology and geography. Are you even sure if it was a King Cobra, or if "King Cobra" is a valid group in the first place? Maybe you're just indulging in and promulgating negative stereotypes involving "King Cobras." After all, you're not some sort of weird bigoted extremist when it comes to snakes, are you?

Obviously, when it comes to genetic differences, this can't be true from a smell test alone,

It's more that there are many ways you could interpret it as an incredibly broad claim, and that some of them are technically true but misleading. I think it usually refers to Lewontin's claim in this article.

Lewontin's Fallacy also works here and usually I mention it in such discussions, but I was thinking about "differences" in a more colloquial sense from the perspective of how a layperson might think of it, before switching to variation when it comes to phenotypes (most people have an easier time imagining phenotypical than genetic variation, especially at a locus-level). Hence the smell test using something more readily visualized, especially since most people are already at least cursorily familiar with commercial ancestry kits like 23andMe.

At a given locus there might be more variation within groups than across groups (not true in many cases, for example, the loci associated with lactose tolerance and skin color would likely have more between-group than within-group variation when it comes whites vs. East Asians, and whites vs. blacks, respectively), but once you consider more and more loci you start to get clean separations. Hence the aforementioned exercise Europeans and PCAs when it comes to Europeans, East Asians, and Western Africans. A randomly selected young athletic man might on average be only about 10% taller, 10% faster, 50% stronger, and have a slightly faster reaction time than a randomly selected young athletic women, with both groups having substantial intragroup variation for each of those traits. However, in terms of overall athleticism, almost always the man will be more athletic than the woman.

Any of us can download publicly available genetic data, run a PCA on Europeans, East Asians, and Sub-Saharan Africans to get a clean triangle with each of the three populations on a node.

I have not performed this exercise, but my understanding is that the first two PCs you'd use as the axes of this plot will usually explain a negligible percentage of the total variance in a genomic dataset. PCA will always rank axes by variance, but that doesn't mean the top few PCs are any good, in an absolute sense, at reducing the data dimension while preserving structure. Even if the PCs that let us reliably identify these clusters happen to be the relatively 'best' PCs we could use to collapse the multidimensional data onto a graph, they could still suck, in an absolute sense.

Depending on the publication, they can get up to 30% from the first two PCs, although it can be low like high single digits.

Regardless of the number, they're not sucky nor negligible when you can do a PCA using 5,000 random SNPs from 300 random individuals (100 individuals each of the three populations of Europeans, East Asians, and West Africans) and get a clean triangle. Pick another 5,000 random SNPs from another 300 random individuals and you'll get another clean triangle. Rinse and repeat. Quite robust.

If anything, it's a testament to how different genetically Europeans, East Asians, and West Africans are, that one can get consistent, clean separation in such low dimensionality (e.g., 2), robust to using different individual and different loci. One can always add more PCs to get more total variation captured, but it's just unnecessary for separating those three populations.

I have not performed this exercise, but my understanding is that the first two PCs you'd use as the axes of this plot will usually explain a negligible percentage of the total variance in a genomic dataset.

that is, assuming 1 gene corresponds to 1 trait and all traits are equally important. But suppose some trait (say, amount of melanin in skin) is determined by 10 genes and one population has 35% frequency of dark allele and other population has 65% frequency of dark allele. Most genetic variation is within populations but looking at their resulting color, they are visibly distinct. Height or intelligence are much more polygenic.

There are lots of genes related to immune system in which variants are no worse or no better, they just make it harder for germs to jump from one individual to another, and selection will favor diversity in this gene. Other genes would be selected in one direction and can reach fixation. Pick traits you are interested about, and then estimate how much PCs explain it.

The original argument was about - is there a genetics-related meaning of "race", or is it just a social construct?

I'd argue that race is, genetically, as real as the color of a fruit or vegetable. If you had huge matrix with tens of thousands of low-level properties of various fruits, the 'color' variable would explain very little of the total variance, but color is still a property worth discussing, a common kind of variation. The question of how much of traits we care about race 'explains' is a different one with a higher bar for evidence, but the PC does show that "race" does have some meaning, even if a weak one. It rebuts "race is a social construct" when itself used as a rebuttal to more substantial arguments about race.

Undoubtedly there is a genetics-related meaning of race, in the sense that there are identifiable genetic markers that discriminate (heh) between people of different racial categories.

I should have made clear in my reply above that I was specifically questioning the implication, in the post I was replying to, that a PCA plot showing distinct racial clusters can rebut 'the old feel-good rhetorical device" that there's more genetic variation within than between. It does not necessarily do this, in the situation where the PCs showing those distinct clusters themselves explain a negligible fraction of overall variation.

But that's fine! Rebutting "more variation within than between" does not seem not necessary for race to have a genetic basis.

genetic differences and variations exist, but race as a category is socially defined. Socially defined does not negate usefulness (as with many systems in our society). Money is a social construct, but we don't consider it useless. The genetic variation and differences are real, but you also need to keep in mind most of these broad claims about IQ or even physical characteristics fail to take it a step further and discuss the numerous factors that influence such differences (socioeconomic, environmental, cultural and geographical).

genetic differences and variations exist, but race as a category is socially defined. Socially defined does not negate usefulness (as with many systems in our society). Money is a social construct, but we don't consider it useless

This is technically true, but I think what you mean to do is imply that the social construct "race" doesn't map perfectly onto "ancestry / genetics" in a way that affects our interpretation of things like "race and IQ are related". I think "race" and "ancestry" are close enough that it's not important to clarify you mean "ancestry's effect on genetics" when you say "race".

mind most of these broad claims about IQ or even physical characteristics fail to take it a step further and discuss the numerous factors that influence such differences (socioeconomic, environmental, cultural and geographical).

The sophisticated ones don't! It is true that BasedHitler1488 on twitter has a very inaccurate view of the literature on the heritability of IQ or the association of that with race, but that's pure a weakman.

The science on the topic of the heritability of IQ and physical characteristics among individuals is extremely clear and mainstream, and directly deals with factors "socioeconomic, environmental, cultural, and geographical!"

The race-causes-iq-differences arguments are not scientific consensus. Imo this is mostly because saying 'black people are dumber because genes' is something that most existing Americans, including most smart ones, (for various reasons) have extremely strong negative reactions to. But they do directly deal with "socioeconomic, environmental, cultural, and geographical" too.

For some intro reading, check out JayMan: https://jaymans.wordpress.com/jaymans-race-inheritance-and-iq-f-a-q-f-r-b/ https://jaymans.wordpress.com/hbd-fundamentals/

Note that JayMan is black!

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