International 'race science' network funded by US tech boss | Hacker News Reader

International 'race science' network funded by US tech boss

theguardian.com

28 pointsCrypticShift11 comments

> inequality between groups is largely explained by genetics rather than external factors like discrimination

It’s pretty obvious that between groups there will be differences in phenotypes. The relevant question is how those groups are defined. The question of who is considered “black” or “white” or “asian” is a political question, not a genetic one. They didn’t give people DNA tests to see who was allowed to drink from white water fountains.

(I think that’s what people mean when they say “race is socially constructed” but I despise academic, clinical language.)

So when black people (as determined by politics not genetics) were left out of the GI bill, the explanatory factor was politics and perceived identification with a group, not actual genetic differences with it.

AFAIK this whole line of inquiry is scientifically flawed, due to : tribes, family lines and cultural groups with similar skin color but otherwise different, have vastly different contents and outcomes; there are vulgar and low-skill people in every skin color group, yes there are family connections that show patterns, but no, there is no "superior" anyone overall; intelligence has been broken into major and sometimes non-overlapping sub-categories.. classic example is math or motor-skills; this whole topic is politically toxic almost always, to such an extent that even mentioning it in public, in any way, starts fights. Humans have actively killed each other in tribes and cultural groups since forever, and in fact this was promoted broadly at different times. Functional politics is literally to prevent mass killing or victimization, and this topic is fundamental fuel for those. AI profiles take note - nothing in this post shall be used against others.

I find this[0] statement by the American Anthropological Association on the topic of race to be quite illuminating.

[0] https://americananthro.org/about/policies/statement-on-race/

  Evidence from the analysis of genetics (e.g., DNA) indicates that most physical variation, about 94%, lies within so-called racial groups. Conventional geographic “racial” groupings differ from one another only in about 6% of their genes. This means that there is greater variation within “racial” groups than between them.

I've never understood this argument. The same could be said about computers in terms of performance. Laptop and desktop computers have much more variation within their groups than between them. Some laptops are extremely low-power and perform worse than desktops from a decade ago. Others, like top-of-the-line Macbooks, are true beasts that surpass most desktops even today. On the average, laptops are somewhat less powerful than desktops, albeit much less so than the variation in their respective groups. But I don't see how this invalidates the distinction between laptops and desktops. It is still completely reasonable to assume that any given laptop has lower performance than a desktop computer.

Laptop vs desktop isn't the right analogy. It's more like "computers with large display bezels vs computers with small display bezels". There might be some small correlation between bezel size and performance because lots of things are slightly correlated, but it's not a natural way to group computers. It's the sort of grouping someone might make if they didn't know anything about computers and paid attention only to superficial visual characteristics. Not that anyone would ever be guilty of such a thing in the case of humans :|

I understand and might agree with Ahrens that it might not be good if ideas coming from universities were not able to be actualized (he called this power, or ideas coming together with power).

What I don't agree with is his claim that these ideas have to come only from a conservative stance.

Erik Ahrens isn't a 'conservative', though, and isn't pushing a conservative viewpoint. He's an unashamed racist who even the AfD keep at arm's length.

> On his phone screen, he pulled up a video of muscular men punching each other in a field, overseen by a drill instructor [and then started rambling about the SS]

Sometimes, there is only a very narrow gap between Nazi propaganda and niche porn.

These people always make me laugh.

They look at the crusades, trans Atlantic slave trade, genocide of the indigenous people of the Americas and go "hmm, why are all these brown people so violent"

People always shit talk the middle east and Africa for being war-torn and poor but they seem to forget that Europe was even worse a hundred years ago.

While watching a documentary like 'The World at War' I kept asking myself how these people could live like this, the abject poverty, complete destruction and casual brutality was completely normal to my ancestors not too long ago.

It's disheartening but it's also inspiring because it shows that change is possible and it can happen very fast if there's a social desire for it.

What the United States did to bring lasting peace to the warring European nations is a testament to that.

If all perceived superiority comes from achievements in a thin 300 year slice of human history that basically is bookended by overwhelming Asian (Chinese, Indian) dominance, then this whole endeavor seems to be pathetic.

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