Hacker News Reader

Comment by seabee | Hacker News Reader

I believe your starting point is largely irrelevant, but first...

A good justification for (b) can be found by determining the genetic diversity of indigenous populations from thousands of years ago and comparing to the present day. As an example the UK has had many 'immigrants' in just the past two thousand years alone, with the Romans, Saxons, Vikings and Normans being notable topics on a good school's History lessons.

Nevertheless, I believe your arguments aren't particularly relevant to the issues held by these extremists, who fear Islamic culture more than they fear Muslims themselves. They view 'multiculturalism' as the replacement of indigenous culture. If you want to go anywhere with this, you have to debate this more nuanced (and less scientific) viewpoint.

View on HN

Playing devil's advocate.

You used the UK as an example, however, Romans, Saxons, Vikings and Normans were ethnic Europeans and these genetic groups didn't split from indigenous people in the British isles tens of thousands of years ago but more recently. The projection (not fact) above mentions that: "in a few decades the genetic makeup of most Europeans will be more similar to that of NON-European ethnic groups than to that of people who have lived in Europe for TENS OF THOUSANDS of years".

In any case if you were any of those groups, you would have opposed an invasion from a later group. Picts fought Roman "immigration". One might interpret this as Picts wanting their genetic makeup to be more representative in the overall population of the British isles.

I don't see how this justification might convince someone who is "an ethnic European and predominantly carries genes that split from the ethnic groups of immigrants tens of thousands of years ago" that the projection doesn't matter if they don't already believe so.

I wasn't aware that these extremists aren't concerned about genes. I haven't read the manifesto nor am I planning to. However, people can still have a go at debunking the genetic argument above if they wish.

The issue with the devil's advocate position is this. There's no such thing as an "ethnic" European. Race is a very recent sociopolitical construct, born in the 16th/17th centuries and initially used to justify English supremacy over the Irish and only later picking up connotations of skin color. The genetic differences between a Scotsman and a Spaniard are far larger than those separating a Greek and a Turk.

Pre-modern European tribes did not place an emphasis on race; it didn't exist yet. Nor did they care about protecting the nation or their national heritage, as the concept of nation itself took centuries to form millenia later and only started playing a major geopolitical role with the French revolution. This isn't to say the tribesmen were multiculturalists; they had their own cultures and were often wary of outsiders, but mostly for reasons of self defense. But the supposed desire for genetic homogeneity didn't prevent Scandinavians from raiding the French and British coasts, abducting women, and forcibly mating with them, despite their cultural and genetic differences.

By "ethnic Europeans" I mean a group of people who cluster genetically very closely and whose ancestors have lived in Europe for millennia.

There is not just one ethnic European group, there are many.[1]

I didn't mention the word "race" in any of the comments above. However, scientists show us that different groups of people on Earth cluster together genetically closer than they do to other groups of people. [2] This is what one expects if the ancestors of these groups parted ways millennia ago. What you mention about Turks and Greeks is not unexpected, Greece and Turkey being practically next to each other, I don't know why you bring this up.

You are entirely correct about pre-modern European tribes and nation states. If the comment above implies something different from this although I believe it doesn't, then I made a mistake.

We moved to the concept of "race" about which you are absolutely correct. It's a sociopolitical construct and the meaning of this word has not been consistent throughout history. Remember though that I didn't use this word.

Back to the genetic argument, why doesn't the projection matter? (argument b) which grand-parent was justifying)

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups_in_Europe

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_genetic_clustering

THIS.

A lot of people would be surprised to learn that America in 1500 was arguably less racist than America in 1850 or 1950 simply because the concept of "race" wasn't well established as being a particularly important way to categorize people.

There is a tendency to assume that people always thought in the categories that we use now.

> There's no such thing as an "ethnic" European. Race is a very recent sociopolitical construct

It's funny how a tiny fraction of college educated white people in the West are the only people in the whole world to believe this. Everybody else knows what race and what white people are.

It's pretty funny to be told you're white.

It is fair to point out that it's wrong to claim race doesn't exist. It does. But it's just as wrong to say that it's somehow immutable or a scientific concept (though, as pointed out above, human genetic clustering is a real phenomenon).

How would you know what you are? Race doesn't exist...

I read a lot of arguments about how 'multiculturalism' and 'too many muslims' will lead to loss of social cohesion and lead to inevitable social conflict.

My thought is how come Europe managed to have CENTURIES of warfare (100 years war, 30 years, LOTS of civil wars, World War I, World War I and LOTS more) and most of these conflict were purely intra-Europeans? The Englishman in 1700 saw the Spaniard as being just as foreign as a Swede sees a Muslim today - probably more so if the Muslim lives in Sweden and speaks Swedish.

My point is just that if immigrants didn't exist people would still find something to fight over so this whole "immigrants are the very cause of social conflict" logic seems very dubious to me.

> The Englishman in 1700 saw the Spaniard as being just as foreign as a Swede sees a Muslim today

Um, no. The reconquista and various crusades were pan-european wars against muslims way before 1700. Englishmen died driving the Moors from Spain. There has definitely long been a European identity.

(1) England and Spain were at war around that time (The Spanish Armada sailed in 1588 so maybe change the date to 1600).

(2) England was protestant, Spain was Catholic.

(3) Because of the language difference probably most English couldn't communicate with most Spanish.

I am also taking into account the average modern Swede is probably fairly well educated and relatively liberal.

Of course I may have pushed things a bit to make a rhetorical point ;-)

On3. Educated people would have communicated effectively in Latin.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com