• FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca
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      4 months ago

      Where people draw racial lines is arbitrary. I guess it is largely defined by skin colour and culture

  • HikingVet@lemmy.ca
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    4 months ago

    There is only the human race. Any differences in appearance is less that a % of genetic difference.

    • shalafi@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      There’s no logical difference, but there’s all the emotional difference in the world. We evolved to be suspicious of that tribe over on the other mountain. And well we should have been! They might just come over and slaughter us for our women and land.

      Besides, we didn’t evolve to operate in groups larger than about 150. Past that, other people become objects in our minds. We can’t be truly close to more than that many people. What is the Monkeysphere? ( <- solid article on all this)

      It’s why I understand the immigrant hate. Earth’s population has more than doubled in my lifetime. “Who ARE all these people and why are they from another tribe?! It was already crowded!”

      Only way we get over the hate ironically consists of two seemingly opposed plans:

      • We need less people, or at least spread 'em out. Mammals get freaky when crowded.
      • Get different sorts of people mixed up. People hate the idea of immigrants, “Meh, the ones I know are great people. It’s those others who are bad guys.”

      We’ll get there. There have been massive strides in my lifetime alone.

  • roofuskit@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Race was invented by them to divide us. They’ll just invent something else.

    • breecher@sh.itjust.works
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      4 months ago

      They already use gender, sexuality, nationality, anything really. Race is just one of many strings on the harp of bigotry.

    • Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Absolutely. Religion, language, country of origin, gender, age, there’s no shortage of useless ways to divide people. Our differences aren’t the issue, the issue is the rich and powerful exploiting our differences to pit us against each other.

  • Jhex@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    nah… equally looking people, indistinguishble from each other, have managed levels of hate high enough to attemp genocide

  • Auli@lemmy.ca
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    4 months ago

    We are all the same race we are just different colours. Can you imagine any other animals fighting over their looks.

  • TimewornTraveler@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    4 months ago

    … that is not how race works.

    we already ARE the same race. we constructed differences to divide us, elevate ourselves and put down outsiders without having to accomplish anything.

    Imagine a world where everyone taller than 6 feet is considered a different social class. that’s race.

      • MTK@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        I was thinking less alien, more realistic.

        Maybe everyone is now a vaguely human looking Dusky Leaf Monkey.

        Imagine the skin color patterns, being extra hairy, and looking somewhere between cute and uncanny valley.

  • vane@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    People will argue about something else. You can change the parameters of the simulation but you can’t change the outcome.

  • mavu@discuss.tchncs.de
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    4 months ago

    Look. I live in a small town. The people one town over are dumb as fuck and ugly inbreeds.

    They say the same about us.

    See the problem? What we need is for the fucking psychologists to step up their game and develop bulletproof tests for sociopaths.

    Keep them out of positions of any power and we’re well on our way for a golden age of humanity.

  • zeca@lemmy.ml
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    4 months ago

    Any small difference in personality is gonna be used to justify what is wrong with the world.

  • squaresinger@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    No, you don’t need genetic differences for racism.

    In fact, in most European languages the words “race” and “racism” are talking more about nationalities than about genetically different population groups.

    For example, if you read German articles from the 1920s, they often talk about the “German race”, the “French race” or the “English race”. In most European languages the word “race” fell out of use after WW2 and the American meaning of the word “race” was re-imported later on. But the meaning lives on in the meaning of “racism”.

    For example, in German a white person from Germany who hates everyone from France irrespective of their skin color is still a racist, while in the USA that wouldn’t qualify as racism.

    That’s because neither the word “race” nor “racism” have a clear definition. “Race” is used entirely to discriminate “them” vs “us”. So “race” determines whatever group people in a country want to discriminate against.

    In the USA this was clearly a “we, the while ex-european people” vs “them, the black former slaves” and “them, the asians” and “them, the south americans”.

    So what would happen if suddenly everyone had the same skin color? People would just shift to the next best thing to discriminate.

    Instead of discriminating against black people, just do what has been done in Europe for millennia: Discriminate against slavic people. (The term “slave” comes from “slavic”, because it was so common to keep slavic people as slaves.)

    And if nations, religions, languages and regions of origin would also disappear as things to discriminate against, then it would shift to the next thing: people who went to a different school, have a different education or best of all: other types of poor people.

    The issue is that humans are heuristics-based beings. Prejudices the result of learning. I’ve had 5 crappy HP printers, so I conclude all HP printers suck. Some friends have had terrible experiences with Fiat cars, so I avoid Fiat cars. I read in the newspaper that Nestle is destroying the planet, so I eat something else.

    The problem is that if this is applied to humans, they get unfairly judged for things that are often completely out of their control. The core mechanism that we humans function on happens to be severely destructive in this context. But that’s also why it’s hard to impossible to get rid of racism and similar forms of discrimination because they are so centrally embedded in how we humans function.