Are Americans Racist?

Okay so we did breed Neanderthals, possibly. Or, at least, the people of Europeans descent did.

And no one just said Isaac Newton. It's all technology from steam engine to the present day...

And all modern science from the days of Newton to the present day.....

Look around you and take away what was invented by Europeans in the past 200 years. What is left? A table and chairs? You don't even have any plastic.

No computer, no phone, you get the picture....

But how would it make sense that the Neanderthal DNA is the cause of that. It's not like Neanderthals were brainiacs or anything.

The homo sapiens in Africa were more intelligent than Neanderthals, so if anything, wouldn't breeding with Neanderthals make us less intelligent?

 

Look at the Large Hadron Collider. There has to be a good explanation for this. Even the Chinese never did anything like this, or even close. And if it has to do with evolving in a cold climate, then why didn't the Eskimo's do the same thing?

 

Newton once said - “If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants"

Steps forward in technological, scientific and even social thinking do not take place in a vacuum, they are the result of previous steps. In western thinking the Greeks are often cited but a lot of modern scholarship has pointed out that the Greeks where building on earlier ideas from places like the Middle East and North Africa. And it should be remembered that a lot of those Greek ideas would have been lost if it were not for the Arab scholars that preserved and developed them, during the European ‘dark ages’.

Often advances are due to economics, richer people and countries had the resources to spend on advances [not just in capital but in education, infrastructure etc] and it gave some at least the free time to pursue their interests.

If Aristotle had not been the son of a high ranking court official at the Macedonian court its unlikely he would have been able to go to Athens to learn from Plato, who happened to be a member one of the wealthiest families in that city. If either had been born slaves it might have been different.

Isaac was the son of a wealthy farmer if he had been born the son of a common labourer on that farm it is unlikely his genius would have been noticed or developed.

The thing is that it’s unknown how many around the world may have had the potential to make advances in differing fields but do to circumstance never gain the opportunity to develop them.

 

Historically, always, not often.
Looking back the civilizations that advanced science/technology/art/etc were all slave based economies.
That gave free time to the wealthy or even common citizen to dabble and explore these areas.
Whenever 12-16 hours of your day are devoted to feeding yourself, not much time for technological advancement, is there.
The exact same holds true today with technology being our bitch and slave.

not only do we not know about unrealized potential, we also lost the vast majority of ancient knowledge and technology with the final destruction of the library at Alexandria around 391 AD.

For all we know, Richard, there could have been blueprints for the large hadron collider there written on papyrus, but sadly we will never know, nor will we ever know what was lost in the areas of science, mathematics and art when it was destroyed.


Richard, your entire take on all of this is very ethnocentric and basically racist, regardless of what you claim.

 

that it made Richard an expert on all things, at least according to Richard.

Why do feel it necessary to mention this in EVERY lame thread you start?
it lends NO credibility to anything you state, if anything it detracts from it.

news flash for ya....
NOBODY CARES and it certainly doesn't make you an expert on anything, except maybe dealing with a ravaged bum

 

It calls for the credible voices and in this is the perfect foil to inspire them. I tell you shear volume piques my interest. I don't come up with a lot of threads for the very reason people don't care as you suggest but I can be fully engaged with the things they do care about if I care about them, that is the things they put forward.

 

As NoxiousGas suggests, they are too busy hunting narwhal.

 

I hope you are being intentionally dense about the point I'm making in relation to something you said very clearly. Either that or I have to question your ability to hold a rational discussion. To be perfectly honest, I truly am questioning it.

 

yes, but repeatedly proclaiming your time in prison does not lend any credibility to any of these discussions, so why continuously mention it?

plus good ole' Richard really doesn't want to engage in real dialogue on these topics, he just wants to stir the ole' shit pot.

 

I have to agree that being in prison isn't a good credential for demonstrating understanding of how things work. I think if you understood how things work you wouldn't be in prison although some debate may be had on that point concerning political prisoners. That being said here we are and I tip my hat to you. We don't need to be shitty about it but you can if you choose however that choice seems to provide nothing in the end but frustration or ultimately ignorance. Anyway an intelligently crafted insult is not boring to read lest it be repeated.

 

Check it out dude. European and Asiatic people all have Neanderthal DNA. Africans have less or none at all.

The two species definitely did interbreed.

http://news.discovery.com/human/evolution/how-neanderthal-dna-changed-humans-140129.htm

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H02iwWCrXew

 

China does have plans to build a MLHC (Much Larger Hadron Collider), 52 kilometers in circumference capable of generating 70 TeV, as opposed to CERN's 27 kilometer 14 TeV LHC.

The OP poses the question "Are Americans Racist?" America is comprised of persons from every part of the world, and no more racist than persons in every other part of the world. Racism, as such provides a very effective tool for politicians to manipulate voters, and probably will for centuries to come even when people will have to look up the word in the dictionary to understand its' meaning. Of course the entertainment industry and MSM will probably long continue their part in maintaining a justification for people to hate one another for historic reasons over which they had no part in.

 

It seems to me that a certain degree of Social Darwinist thinking can colour how the situation is seen and the kind of responses given.

If you have a tendency to see peoples social and economic condition as being a ‘natural’ outcome of their abilities, intelligence and work ethics [even their morals] then it could colour how you see such people, and if that socio-economic group is predominantly made up of a certain ethnic group then it could result in something like racism it not actual racism.

I mean for historical reasons black households have traditionally had some of the lowest median incomes in America according to the US census, it could be very easy if you had a Social Darwinist bent to see this and conclude that this was due to black people being lazy, more criminally minded [street crime is more often done my lower economic classes and often involves violence] and can even come to see them as less intelligent than the honest, brighter and harder working people further up the economic tree, who happen to be more white.

As said such thinking could colour the response to the issue in many ways that could be seen by those on the receiving end as looking a lot like racism.

Seen as criminally minded and violent there could be an acceptance of them being more watched and searched and since they’re presumed to be more dangerous then why shouldn’t the police and armed citizens take appropriate precautions in any confrontation (a shoot first ask questions later mentality).

Seen as lazy, right wing and mainly white politician’s call for their benefits to be cut and such people might even think what’s the point in spending resources on educating ‘them’ when they could go to those better off and coincidentally whiter children that are more likely to benefit from it.

Now I’m sure right wingers will claim that they are not racist and not targeting any ethnic group, but many do seem to base their ideas on rather Social Darwinist thinking and when the group that does seem to be targeted always seems to include certain ethic groups then it’s not surprising that some might see it as behaviour based in racism.

 

This line of thought could explain current attitudes, but not during pre-Civil War times, when all of this got started. Poor whites were at the absolute bottom of the economic ladder, not guaranteed a meal or a roof over their heads. Slaves were never allowed to starve or freeze to death because they had economic value as business assets. The poorest of whites had no value to anyone.

 

That's an excellent point.

 

Excellent post. I've noticed that there are several persons who are identified as moderators, and I found Balbus to be more of an instigator so my email app automatically sends posts by him to the bit bucket.

Racism is a human issue, without borders, but as long as it serves useful as a manipulative political issue it will survive.

 

[SIZE=11pt]Indie[/SIZE]

[SIZE=11pt]I’m sure you do wish to ignore posts that bring up criticisms of your ideas – because you know you cannot defend those ideas from such criticism [/SIZE]

[SIZE=11pt]I agree - that is why I brought up the subject of Social Darwinism and how right wingers – like you – promoting ideas based on Social Darwinist thinking [you prefer ‘Spenceristic’] c[/SIZE]ould be attractive to racists.

 

[SIZE=11pt]Karen[/SIZE]

[SIZE=11pt]That line of thought didn’t begin with Social Darwinism. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=11pt]The idea of inferior people and races was common a long time before Social Darwinism ‘explained’ it ‘scientifically’ – when it appeared SD was just the latest manifestation in a long line of ‘reasoning’ as to why some have advantage and others not (or why some should have advantage and others not). Many were based on religion – the argument been, if you are born into peasantry or serfdom (or are a descendant of Ham**) rather than to nobility that was god’s plan and so you should not complain (something that was questioned in a number of peasant revolts).[/SIZE]

[SIZE=11pt]But this view of the ‘natural’ superiority of some and the ‘natural’ inferiority of others goes back further here is Aristotle on slavery “But is there any one thus intended by nature to be a slave, and for whom such a condition is expedient and right, or rather is not all slavery a violation of nature? There is no difficulty in answering this question, on grounds both of reason and of fact. For that some should rule and others be ruled is a thing not only necessary, but expedient; from the hour of their birth, some are marked out for subjection, others for rule.” (Something that was questioned in a number of slave revolts)[/SIZE]

[SIZE=11pt]It’s also always been common to view enemies and the subjugated as inferior or heathen, it makes killing or mistreating or removing their freedom all that easier. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=11pt]**[/SIZE]

[SIZE=11pt]On the Curse of Ham[/SIZE]

“This idea became more widespread in Europe during the Middle Ages, as an argument for the inferiority of the black race, whose dark skin was believed to be an outward sign of the curse, and to sanction some instances of slavery. The belief was at its most popular during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, to justify the Atlantic slave trade and plantation slavery in the British sugar islands and American South. Noah's decree that Canaan should be the slave of Shem was seen as God's command that Africans should be the slaves to white Christians”.[wiki]

[SIZE=11pt]**[/SIZE]

[SIZE=11pt]“[/SIZE]By the 19th century, many historians agree, the belief that African-Americans were descendants of Ham was a primary justification for slavery among Southern Christians.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/01/arts/from-noah-s-curse-to-slavery-s-rationale.html

[SIZE=11pt]But they were not slaves and it was that same class of poor whites that made up the armies of the confederacy, and I believe the battle flag of the confederacy is still a symbol for some. [/SIZE]

 

Absolutely. There was also widespread belief in the myth that black people were not intellectually capable of taking care of themselves, under ordinary circumstances. That made their "supervision" seem somewhat compassionate. It's a parallel thought to the British "white man's burden" concept.