site banner
non_radical_centrist  8mo ago (astralcodexten.com)   2897 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.

10
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

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!

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats