I have often come across the modern mind, in all its obtuse, innocent (ignorant), “well-meaning”, pseudo-altruistic glory. Its ability to compartmentalize concepts so as to use one rational standard in one area and a different, often contradictory one, in another, can be easily understood even if it can be frustrating. I have, on many occasions, come across the politically-correct culturally indoctrinated, institutionalized weak mind. It denies all categorizations based on outer appearances when dealing with human beings but has no problem in utilizing the very practices it denies as generalizations when trying to understand nature or the cosmos. It talks about concepts in ambiguous ways never delving, or wanting to for fear of what it might see there, any deeper than is necessary to find contentment or belonging. It can talk about ‘self’ or ‘love’ or ‘selflessness’ or ‘world’ or ‘object’ as if their reality was self-evident, but attack its basic, culturally determined, beliefs and it will rile against you as a bigoted over-generalizing fascist or an infidel destined for hell or a life of misery. For instance categorizing species using their outer appearances and behaviors is not immoral, for such a mind, whereas doing so with human beings is. Gender roles in animals are a matter concerning their nature and their procreative strategies, whereas with human beings it is a prejudiced exaggeration or a social construct or a biased generalization. You see human beings, even for the secular culturally indoctrinated mind, are special; they are free-willed and rational in their actions and behaviors. Reason is presupposed as a defining aspect of all human activity. All human beings are equally endowed with rational power. The mind is separate from the body. One cannot affect or reflect on the other. Mankind is mind whereas mankind’s physical appearance is accidental, or a product of nurturing or environmentally determined but with no deeper implications. The religious mind calls it a soul, the secular mind calls it free-will or, sometimes, reason. Whether religious or secular the institutionalization is no different. A religious mind accepts the beliefs of its parent and of its peers in no different a way than a secular mind accepts the science of its time and place or the current moral and social ‘truths’. In one area color is superficial and insignificant whereas shape, smell, taste, sound is not. The eyes only perceive the insignificant whereas taste might not. I mean if a person’s skin color says nothing about them then why does what he sound like, what he says, matter more? If these simpletons followed through with their reasoning then taste, smell, form should be just as superficial and meaningless as color is or as sex is. This is a compartmentalization or double-standard reasoning no different than the one exhibited in faith. The religious mind has no problem in remaining skeptical or in understanding reality using common sense and logic when it comes to the mundane and everyday or when its immediate self-interests are in question (when it suits it), but it then throws all of it out the door when constructing an opinion on the unknown or the divine or the transcending or essence, when its psychological well-being might be threatened. Here ‘truth’ or ‘reality” and preference, taste and happiness are equated. It is not surprising then that such minds would seek out the hidden motive the underlying self-interest in any expression of opinion concerning ‘truth’ and ‘reality’. They reason, mostly subconsciously, that since they believe in what most benefits them or sooths them personally that this is also true for everyone (even if it is so for the majority of mediocre minds). They then seek for the other’s advantage in believing in what he does. This is called by them: objectivity. Reality must come ready made and be automatically beneficial to them. It isn’t that reality must be perceived as it is and then dealt with or overcome or coped with, but that all hints of the negative must be eradicated to begin with. In both the culturally indoctrinated and the religiously indoctrinated the mind has submitted, for selfish and emotional reasons, to a common, self-evident dogma - a popular, communal belief. This acceptance of an absolute certainty forces such minds to display different reasoning methods in different situations. Their reason is not consistent, but it changes in accordance to what is in question. The hidden goal is to maintain personal well-being and psychological stability and social viability. These different reasoning methods often contradict one another and this is dealt with through a kind of denial or forgetfulness or a reliance on the blind belief of the absurd which is called faith.
I can see that the tone of the thread is keeping many away…no matter. Honesty isn’t as appealing as some pretend it is. It seems that the only honesty most find attractive and virtuous is the kind that is “positive” or flattering or unthreatening and reassuring. No matter. The amount of bullshit that goes on in supposed ‘civil’ discussions, like these, is astounding. Side note - {for all the mathematical types} What is the number 1? Is it not a generalization, a hypothetical concept attached to a unity to describe its presumed, but not proven, completeness? Is it not an ideal, referring to a hypothetical and still unproven absolute? Is it actual? Is the number one a specific? Is it not a human prejudice? What is a geometrical concept…a line, for example? Is there such a thing as a line or is it a hypothetical spatial concept connecting two hypothetical points in space/time via a hypothetical shortest route? Stupidity is much more than funny or innocent or excusable or pitiful…it is dangerous when left alone to propagate and when allowed to believe in its own value or in the equality of all. Stupidity is insidious and the ease with which one can convince it of what it wants to believe makes it dangerous. Stupidity infects its surrounding; it takes over using sheer quantity over quality and dominates any discussion with its simplicity. Stupidity is an example of how weakness combines to overcome strength – it explains nature’s upward evolution into larger and more complicated unities.
Apparently Sweden is going to pass a law or passed a law that men and women are equal. Apparently hanging on to the indoctrinated view that races exist makes you deep. Never mind the fact that scientific studies tell us the truth is much more complex and interesting. It's too late to nitpick any other lines. Good night.
Oh hi, Satyr. Our values inform and are informed by our beliefs and our actions, yes. Not only does it cement those vital social bonds and leave us feeling all terribly warm and fuzzy inside, but it comes in decidedly handy in distinguishing fellow members of our blighted species from... oh, I don't know... computers? Welcome back anyway, much missed. You're looking well - have you been ill?
spuriousmonkey Well then, if Sweden passed it into law, it must be so. Apparently including the words “science” or “scientific studies” in a paragraph automatically makes it reliable. Apparently faith in science is quickly replacing faith in the Church, in our modern times. Apparently where the separation of church and state is hypothetically ensured in the constitution of many modern democratic countries, the separation of state and science is not. Apparently science is growing more and more dependent on government grants and those few who dare speak a word against popular sentiment or social ideals are quickly silenced. Did anyone say that men are more capable than women in science? What happened to that guy? Apparently scientists are human, also. Apparently the letters Ph.D. before your name makes everything that comes out of your mouth a “fact”, just like in the past when wearing a priests uniform and being called ‘holy father’ added weight to your every utterance. Apparently modern science is discovering that its Newtonian laws were not as precise or correct as they were once believed to be and science now is resorting to artistic expressions of ‘SuperStrings’ an delving into philosophy to explain the universe. Apparently, in our age, you can pretty much find a study supporting anything and a scientist lending his “expert opinion” and authority on anything. Ufologists, for example. redarmy11 Let us call them what they are then. Not back for long, I’m afraid – unless some unsuspecting, imbecile chooses to challenge me and I am enthralled in cutting him to pieces for a while…. I’ve found greener pastures. This place has really fallen apart. Yes, a terrible fever, I’m afraid. My testicles are glowing like ambers.
But the challenge was pretty direct. All this avoidance and “Well my daddy said so” arguments or “I like it that way” is only meant to distract the observer away from the subject. Science is built on numbers. I then ask: I also ask: If some sensual information is irrelevant or insignificant and it doesn’t expose anything about the phenomenon at hand then why is othe rsenual information any more significant and telling? If appearance says nothing then why does language? If language is sound expressing an essence then why is not color or form?
In that case, I agree with everything that you've said ...including everything that you've ever said in the past, and everything that you might say in the future. Baron Max
You are getting smart in your old age. I’ll wait for a while for a nip at my bait, hoping to rip a new one in some unsuspecting arse-hole, and then I’ll go away again, leaving you with the morons still debating Christ and God – the ultimate absolutes – when we don’t even know what 1 is. Basic question: If color is used to determine the essence the inner workings of fruit, then why is it not relevant in doing so in other cases? If color is insignificant then why is form or taste or texture significant? Without saying what color might signify in the case of human race, I only ask.
Satyr, I feel compelled to rub myself like a cat on heat against your massive intellect once more. In the brief moments before I recoil in pain and surprise let me take a stab (in the dark, naturally!) at your usual uncompromisingly tough exam questions: And straight away I must apologise. Maths never were my strong point. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! I... er... is it because... judging by skin colour is irrational... aaaand... erm... judging by words is rational. Cringe. Nervous giggle. Actually, skin colour says a lot but you can't really have a rational debate with melanin, can you? Tone of voice; the words people say; the expression in their eyes as they say them - these things tell us much more, no? Have you met The Baron, by the way? You'll like him. I like to think of him as your demented, ultra-nihilistic hillbilly twin sister - locked beneath your stairs for 30 years and raised on a diet of low-quality dogfood and Nietzsche. Feast your greedy eyes on this caustic exchange: Beautiful, no? You've trained your hellhound well.
Remember when the great minds of the day thought they could identify potential criminals by feeling the bumps on people's heads? Dark times, Satyr - dark times..
redarmy11 Language, when spoken, is sound which the speakers have been trained in possessing a common understanding of the generalities they imply. When written they are visual symbols denoting imprecise concepts which the communicators can exchange because they’ve agreed on the general concepts they symbolize. So language, whether written or spoken, is a set of agreed upon symbols, sensual information, which expose a mind’s inner workings and its essence. Is not color a symbol that exposes essence? The only difference is it isn’t agreed upon. In the case of fruit color displays its kind, its ripeness, its quality. Nature has made us susceptible to her appearances. In the case of human beings it supposedly doesn’t display anything important. Yes. He needs more style. I cannot be held accountable for how others have interpreted the signs or how they’ve focused on one aspect of human anatomy and were unable to combine it with others aspects to create a reasonable assumption. Remember, race isn’t determined only by color. Pakistani’s may have the same skin tone as an African but we can all see that they belong to different genetic pasts. People that simplify the subject to that of color are attempting to trivialize it or to exclude some information while maintaining other information. A Cheetah is different than a cougar not only because is has a different color. But my question was simple. It said nothing about race or what color means or anything. It asks why color doesn’t matter in one context and it does in another or why color doesn’t matters when form or any other sensual information does. How do we determine which sensual information matters and which nature simply produced on a whim…for fun? Is anything nature produces trivial? Why does the mind remain sensitive to difference? If difference is a product of prejudice then why is sameness not?
Fruit is bred selectively. For example, apples are bred for appearance, and then taste. If you've tasted heirloom apples, you know that modern apples have bland taste and less diversity. The same thing is happening to humans. Humans breed self-selectively. Qualities like intelligence and health are universally attractive because of our hunter-gatherer survival strategy. Of course, depending on environment, one quality - like crunchiness - might be favoured over taste. Thats why you have racial abberations (I don't deny their existence.) But take for example the way we percieve colours. One race might have slanty eyes, but the difference between the way that individuals percieve colour is greater than that between races - there has been experimental evidence.. So we see colour in roughly the same way. That's just one thing. Intelligenge is harder to categorize. Few want to come out and say that unlike eye-colour, one group might have greater verbal or spatial intelligence on average, because they will forget the 'on average' part, and accuse you of supremacy. But it's alright to say that blacks are at greater risk on average for prostate cancer. You won't be offended if a black person tells you that he is at greater risk for prostate cancer, but a lot of people are when you tell them you have a bigger dick, because it makes them feel inferior. And so the asian kid says 'yeah, but I'm better at math, suck on that'. You'd laugh if it were Yao Ming and Urcle fighting. They are not average. Apples plucked from the same tree are rarely identical, but more similar on average compared to apples plucked from a totally different variety of the same species.
You are talking about the subconscious, and yes this is very real. It's by choice, but it's also due to hypnotic programming, we all are programmed by for example, television. Example, people assume some professions are more trustworthy than others, even when in reality, people in general are just trained to follow orders and laws and not usually loyal. Exactly, these type of people exist. In fact, these people are victims of their own thinking, and thats how it is in general for most people. Are you talking about materialists who aren't racist but who think in generalizations? Thinking and promoting generalizations is a tactic of propaganda, and yes it can twist minds. Like, all men are ___ or all women are __, or all whites are ___ or all blacks are ___. What is belonging? I don't think I've ever experienced such a thing, except maybe to family. Is it real or myth? That is very interesting. I think you have a point. The difference is, if you categorize by behavior, it's accurate. A Monkey behaves differently from a Tiger, so they are different species. However, if you take different monkeys of the same species, who have mated with each other in the past, and have different heights, weights, color hair, spots, etc, thats basically what humans do, same monkey general appearances, but vastly different behaviors. Two humans can look the same and behave the opposite, and so yes you can categorize by behavior and this can be right, because the majority of genes are behavioral controllers, it's the humans behavior that seperates humans from monkeys, otherwise if we behave monkey we are. That is true, most humans do believe in gender.All I know is, women are attractive as hell, I don't know why and I don't care why, all I know is, I was designed for women. I don't think women are to be abused or mistreated, thats not me or my kind. That's another and their kind. I would not say all human beings are equal mentally in any way or power. In fact, I'd say all human are unequal and specialized. For all we know, races and appearance may have formed through viruses. Perhaps having white skin or black skin is the result of a virus that infected a group of people, and that gene spread. Perhaps thats all it was, just different viruses influencing the species over time. The simple fact of the matter is, all humans evolved from Africa, and viruses tend to be localized. The eye is the window to the soul right? How a person sees and percieves the world, can influence their soul. It is superficial, but you are right some people arent able to be rational, they, as a result end up doing the opposite of what they think, because they feel a certain way. This simply means people are controlled by their subconscious sometimes and are not so rational when that happens. You are generalizing. I think it depends on the specific religious mind. Here ‘truth’ or ‘reality” and preference, taste and happiness are equated. You have to go into detail explaining what you mean. In both the culturally indoctrinated and the religiously indoctrinated the mind has submitted, for selfish and emotional reasons, to a common, self-evident dogma - a popular, communal belief. Some people have these probems you list in your post, but not all people. Some people just don't care and their reality is theirs regardless of what they perciieve. Others are manipulated by perception. And some others are the contollers of perception, but in general, reality is simply existance, and no existence is unreality.
Look, the shape of a womans breast will tell you whats in her heart, according to racist sexist astheticists.
They are everywhere, too... isn't that just a tad bit unsettling? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Here is an example of exaggerating another’s position to defend your own. Yes, that’s exactly what I was saying. But the connection between a female breast and her heart is your own. The breast size and shape does say something about the woman’s past and present, what that is and why is debatable. Belonging to a greater whole, the herd, holism, religious ecstasy… The sensation of losing one’s self in the multiplicity – feeling loved and at peace and at ease…at home. I mean that when a mind consistently interprets reality as positively inclined towards its self-interest, dealing with the universe’s indifference by inventing some benevolent, caring God that gives a damn about its pitiful small existence, and when this mind, subsequently calls ‘truth’ or ‘real’ whatever offers a ready-made advantage or comfort or relief, then it assumes, taking itself as a template, that all other minds rationalize the world similarly. It then seeks the hidden motives, the advantages offered by any perspective, believing that they come ready-made. In fact ‘reality’ and ‘truth’ is something to be dealt with and overcome. The only advantage to seeing the world as it is, is that you can then construct methods of dealing with it, whereas the imbecile sits inert, praying to the invisible, begging for compassion and believing that simply believing in the absurd places upon him a blessing, an automatic ‘get-out-of-hell’ card. SoLiDUS Every time I watch the news I am filled with anxiety. If a moron can be convinced that when he dies for the cause, for his God, he will go to heaven as a martyr, then another moron can climb up the highest symbolic ladder to the symbolic position of “leader of the free world” while maintaining a belief in the absurd and spewing inanities about “good” and “evil”. That is terrifying….but reason is always terrified of stupidity. It can not understand it and control it or predict it. The irrational mind is horrifying to the rational mind.
Depends on the context. Who says it and why. In this context the scientific studies specifically show racism is a farce. The truth is out there, but unknown to its exact content. For the racist it is rather easy: everybody can see that there are races. Just look. I'd rather bet my money on science in this case. Common sense leads to mob rule. Oh yeah...you can shove my or any PhD up your ass. A PhD only means you have been stupid despite being intelligent.
I'd say you need some degree of intelligence to get a PhD. But all too often, they're worthless. You should meet some of the teachers at my school. I identify a lot with what you're saying, Satyr. Compartmentalization plays a huge role in most people's thinking. And I hate it. Really, people should see themselves as incidental consequence of natural processes. The more we learn about science, the more we realize that there is nothing particularly special about us, or our place in the universe. Nearly every major meaningful advance in science tells us that there's nothing special about us. We're just incidental; we're an emergent property or behavior of space. Yet many think humans are inherently better and special and that our proclivities to make sense of phenomena in a certain way have special bearing on reality. There is no disconnect between us and nature. A person starts to live when he can live outside himself. -- Albert Einstein
Satyr, have you ever thought about writing a book? Anyway, I agree with the double standard stuff, but I think you can tell more about someone by the way they walk or how they say something than by their skin color or what they say.
Come then, try and cut me to pieces. I think what you have written is fundamentally flawed and that in living it, you dig yourself into a similar, if not the same hole as the people you consider weak, stupid and indoctrinated. You asked, in essence, why it is bad to judge people by their outer appearances and yet good to judge animals/nature just so. There are significant differences between humans and animals. Allow me to begin with a desmond morris quote.. "... [From 1820 to 1945] no less than 59 million human animals were killed in inter-group clashes of one sort or another... We describe these killings as men behaving 'like animals', but if we could find a wild animal that showed signs of acting in this way, it would be more precise to describe it as behaving like men." The point behind that which you seem to see as politically correct bullshit, is to advance humans as a civlization, away from the kind of debacle eloquently illustrated in the above. As a social whole, 'we' know that biologically speaking, its the brain and not any racial trait such as skin colour, that is the foundation behind the endless variety of human behaviour. In understanding this, the idea is then to cooperate with other humans more effectively by dealing with their brain, or how they think with it, rather than dealing with them through the stained-glass window of your typecasts that are associated with their appearance. That is difficult to do, because it IS natural to judge purely based on your associations, it requires discipline to exercise the faculty of reason and bring about a better outcome to the situation. It IS often useful and effective to judge people by their appearance - usually when you have a relevant context! If you walked alone and unarmed through a destitute predominantly-black neighbourhood known for extreme violence at 2am, for example, you would do well to avoid anyone whose appearance fit the stereotype. Notice just how great a role the situational context plays in your judgement. Likewise in any situation, whether the environmental context is overt or covert, it will influence your judgement. What a person says is more important than appearance? Body language, if the stats are accurate, makes up ~80% of in-person communication. Even online, look at all these 'emoticons' we can choose from here.. Most people I meet don't seem aware of this, however, so perhaps that is why it isn't as frequently discussed. Again, the idea behind attending to a persons words as opposed to your associations with their appearance (or how they sound, in this case) is because language allows us to deal more directly with the brain, with how they think. The reason behind the social drive for upholding the ideal of racial-equality in the face of overwhelming racial prejudice, is that the above situation isn't first a result of skin colour, its a result, above all, of human BEHAVIOUR. Desmond morris again, says it very well. "If the [racially stereotyped] are treated, through no fault of their own, as a hostile sub-group, they will all too soon begin to behave like one. Sociologists have called this a 'self-fulfilling prohecy'. Let me illustrate what happens, using an imaginary example. These are the stages: 1. Look at that green-haired man hitting a child. 2. That green-haired man is vicious. 3. All green-haired men are vicious. 4. Green-haired men will attack anyone. 5. There's another green-haired man - hit him before he hits you. (The green-haired man, who has done nothing to provoke aggression, hits back to defend himself.) 6. There you are - that proves it: Green-haired man ARE vicious. 7. Hit all green-haired men. ...It is of course, ridiculous, but nevertheless it represents a very real way of thinking. After the green-haired men have been hit for no reason for long enough, they do, rather naturally, become vicious... The original false prophecy has fulfilled itself and become a true prophecy." Such a miserable state of affairs exists in countless places around the world, throughout all sorts of social-group-based differences, racism is only one of them, perhaps the most common, hence the attention. Most of us in the first world are not forced to be a bunch of fucking savages anymore, we don't NEED to judge so superficially, so INEFFICIENTLY.. We have the neccessary knowledge available to learn this and avoid it, if we apply it in our everyday lives and actually THINK for ourselves, in any given circumstance. I will give you the credit of thinking for yourself, that you clearly do and are as such, able to rescue yourself from the brink of this stupidity. You come so close to hitting the nail on the head, then at the last, invoke the same shallow judgement as the 'others' you accuse of using and base your entire dissertion upon it. Here then, is the hammer breaking your fingers. This issue, for reasons of people perpetuating their groups' prejudices, gets confused.. There are those who are racist, there are those who are PC and yet only PC because its socially-acceptable, they don't understand the reasons.. both are guilty of the same negligence to think independantly, both end up applying the same inaccurate generalizations in lieu of their judgement - or are forced to contradict and delude themselves in order to deal with a reality less forgiving of such myopia.. And then there is the real deal, what every honest human being will, with sufficient adversity, eventually seek; the most effective, accurate ways of living, of judging, living and thinking for the self first and foremost. p.s. I don't see how you can use 'Stupidity' and 'Explains evolution' in the same sentence, without negatively relating the two. Perhaps you should reconsider what you think is stupid?
