Is racism wrong?

[The Atheist]

The PC answer is that race doesn't exist, which may true scientifically, but in reality it's not.

It's my belief that some races are superior to others. Some races also have larger brains. So what's wrong with racial superiority as long as you're nice about it?

[drunkenshoe]

It's my belief that your brain is too small to guess that this title has been posted here with the same OP for many times by others before you. And it has always been just trolling for attention but nothing else. But I promise I'll be nice about it.

[GSOgymrat]

The PC answer is that race doesn't exist, which may true scientifically, but in reality it's not.

It's my belief that some races are superior to others. Some races also have larger brains. So what's wrong with racial superiority as long as you're nice about it?

I don't know your race but would you be willing to accept your race as objectively inferior?

[The Atheist]

It's my belief that your brain is too small to guess that this title has been posted here with the same OP for many times by others before you. And it has always been just trolling for attention but nothing else. But I promise I'll be nice about it.

I'm not trolling.

[The Atheist]

I don't know your race but would you be willing to accept your race as objectively inferior?

No, because that would contradict reality.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence

As an American of Japanese descent, I consistently performed better than my white counterparts in school, and with only a fraction of the effort.

[Baruch]

No, because that would contradict reality.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence

As an American of Japanese descent, I consistently performed better than my white counterparts in school, and with only a fraction of the effort.

But you are misattributing.  I also consistently performed better as a youth, and I am not of Japanese descent.  Though my ex and I once were honorary Japanese-Americans (she managed a Japanese-American retirement community).  Would it help if I slept overnight at a Holiday Inn Express? (American advertisement):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQWUC7govNE

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The PC answer is that race doesn't exist, which may true scientifically, but in reality it's not.

It's my belief that some races are superior to others. Some races also have larger brains. So what's wrong with racial superiority as long as you're nice about it?

For that to be true the members of that "race" would have to be consistently "better" than the rest of humanity. Not some, ALL. As this is patently untrue you're premise is rejected.

[SGOS]

It's my belief that some races are superior to others.

Your opinion is not supported by actual research.  What a pisser!

[Baruch]

This needs some clarity .. not least because I really like you (The Atheist) and I accept that you aren't trolling this time ;-)

Racism = the systematic, society or state supported suppression of people or minorities based on irrelevant considerations such as skin color
Bigotry = the non-systematic, individual or non-state supported dislike of people or minorities based on irrelevant considerations such as skin color

So The Atheist ... unless you are a major player in your society who determines social trends (see Joseph Goebbels) or determines who to oppress or exterminate (see Adolph Hitler), as part of a political or corporate organization ... then you aren't a racist ... you are "le petit bigot".  You might be a bit chauvinist and egocentric also.

Individuals, on one one scale or another, objective testing or anecdotal, can do better than another individual, at any given point in time.  They can also be compared against themselves at different times, even multiple recent SAT trial-tests before taking the official SAT test.  IQ is one example of such testing, that attempts (in modern versions) to screen out cultural elements in a search for the universal.  The earlier tests like the one given to US draftees during WW I (the first big statistical test in America) had cultural content, that people 100 years later would flunk.  In fact if you look at a college entrance exam for Cornell University, circa 1890s ... most modern students would not be allowed to matriculate.  One can argue how fair or objective a particular test is ... but it remains real that a person taking the test at different times or two different people taking the same test, will score differently.

Now given this "data" ... one can do statistics on it.  One can determine the mean or the standard deviation for example.  When I took my elementary school entry testing almost 45 years ago, I scored at genius level.  But I had to wear glasses for the first couple years, and I stammered until I was much older.  Other than an interest in competently pronouncing the names of dinosaurs, I showed no particular super-powers.  But I did have a good memory that wasn't coached, it simply was there, and I was able to skate thru school with A's and B's for almost 12 years.  Then I went to a competitive technical college, and encountered other smart people, many of whom were smarter than I was, and my prior advantage turned into a handicap.  I barely graduated undergraduate college with a C average.  So was I smart in public school or dumb in college?  The competition was different.  A literate person, in a village of illiterates, might be the same skin color and ethnicity, but will appear to be a genius.  There may be factors that contribute to this, but attribution to skin color etc is not scientific.  It is still unclear where extreme ability comes from, or even average ability.

[drunkenshoe]

I'm another sort of Asian. I score higher than my peers in IQ tests, because I recieved classical Western education in English and all those tests are designed for people like me, not because of my race or my 'superior' intelligence. If I took the test in my mother language, if I had received a traditional turkish education I would hit a low score. Because it is an application of measuring Western culture; tradition and its education. And I grew up in an assimilated, westernised country, I can't imagine what that shit would mean to an African or an Eskimo. Or an Aborgine.

Yeah IQ testing. 'The science' of 'quantifying' 'intelligence' by using 'standardised' tests designed to the 'merit' of a specific culture and language. And the success in school definning 'superior' intelligence. *Insert sarcastic laughter here.

Anyone who has the basic intelligence to understand the nature of IQ tests, their cultural background and how intelligence is developed to be defined in political environment; the industry runs around it; or just the meaning of 'quantifiying intelligence' based on this information has the required intellect to accomplish anything they desire in life under 'normal' circumstances.

People who think they are 'superior' because of their 'race' or IQ score...not so much. You are presenting the oldest, most original definition of stupidity in the book. Entitlement. It's also a fundamentally 'religious' view for someone who calls himself 'The Atheist'. Your success is irrelevant.


Tell me 'The Atheist', how much of your self proclaimed 'superiority' is based on the fantasy of 'sociopath genius' characters of the hit TV shows of the last decade and how much of is it getting high scores in school math in a culture trying to self confirm with celebrating mediocrity?

[Baruch]

The Bell Curve is a good example of statistical abuse.  It is biased, to separate two groups of testees in a non-blind manner.  But lets assume that two sets of testees are formed in an unbiased manner.  Looking at their test scores, each group will have a mean and a standard deviation.  If the pool of testees is taken from a large enough and uniform enough population ... then the larger the two groups are, the more likely that their mean and standard deviation will be close to each other.  The less uniform or the smaller the sample size, the more likely that the mean and standard deviation will differ.  This is how industrial quality control works (and it works because we aren't comparing apples to oranges, but screws of the same part number with each other).  So even if the testee selection is unbiased (blind) ... then on chance, we could have one group have a lower mean or wider standard deviation, that violates our expectation ... say if we are doing tryouts for college football.  On chance, one group might have more shorter, lighter and weaker wannabes, and the other group might have more taller, heavier and stronger wannabes.  Obviously the second group will score higher as potential All-Americans.  If we biased the selection, so that the first group was mostly Asian guys and the second group was mostly African guys ... then we can conclude that since Asian guys are usually shorter, lighter and weaker ... that they are less likely to produce an All-American.  And vice-versa with the African guys.  Does that mean that there can never be an Asian All-American?  No, there are always three-sigma examples (like that really tall basketball player from China) that will exceed your expectations based on mean and standard deviation.  So are Asian guys racially inferior on average to African guys in American football?  Yes they are ... except the wrong question is being asked.  If you happen to see a really tall, heavy and strong Asian guy at tryouts ... you should give him a try.

For many reasons, not understood, the average Jewish-American scores higher than the (much more diverse) average Gentile-American.  Does this mean that all American leadership positions should go to Jewish-Americans?  Probably not, since the average person, of any ethnicity, is pretty stupid.  You really need anyone with three-sigma deviation to the up-side.  Of course, for various reasons, Plato's Republic never happens.

Supposedly several reasons why the average Asian-American over-achieves academically ... is because many of them are the children of immigrants ... who typically put extreme pressure on their children to succeed.  Also there is the long-tail influence of Confucian values, which are pro-education.  But neither of these have to do with genetics, they have to do with culture.

My mother regrets I couldn't be raised like a Hasidic child (she would be a Asian tiger mother if she could)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAMz8_MoqrM

So are Orthodox Jews racially superior in Klezmer music?  Enjoy culture, but don't get hung up on it.

[TomFoolery]

It's my belief that some races are superior to others. Some races also have larger brains. So what's wrong with racial superiority as long as you're nice about it?

Superiority is relative.

Are there subtle, biological differences between races? Of course. West Africans have more fast twitch muscle fibers in their legs and as a result, they make superior sprinters. Andeans and Tibetans have spent enough generations living at high altitudes to have significant, biological differences in oxygen economy, and as a result, they make superior mountaineers. Generations of high fat diets and perpetual cold made the Inuit shorter of stature and changed blow flow patterns which would make them certainly inferior in Death Valley but unmatched in superiority in extreme cold environments.

That's the beauty of evolution. To say that someone is superior is simply a matter of preference on the part of the speaker, because nature shakes that shit out in the end through survival of the fittest, and even then, "fittest" is still a relative term.

For example, modern society may think the Inuit inferior because they don't live up to Western ideals of beauty or society since they have dark skin, are short, and generally chubby, but if a cataclysmic event sent out planet into the next ice age, they'd no doubt be the ones having the last laugh.

[aitm]

As long as you continue to accept the idea of different races, then you will be easy to convince that there is significance in intelligence. There is but one race, with many ethnicities.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

Big shock that someone of Japanese descent would think themselves superior. That thinking worked out great for Japan on  August  6, 1945 and there happens to be a neighbor of Japan who would like to slap down that Japanese arrogance and send you all right back to the sun where the emperor came from .. metaphorically speaking of course.
I have nothing against Japan, but you're not superior to anyone as a race and it could be argued that the arrogance makes you inferior.

[Johan]

So what's wrong with racial superiority as long as you're nice about it?

Because being nice doesn't mean you're not still an asshole. It also doesn't mean you're not still wrong. Observe:

As an American of Japanese descent, I consistently performed better than my white counterparts in school, and with only a fraction of the effort.

1. YOU consistently performed better. That makes a dataset with only one data point. Why don't you put your giant brain to work there Hop Sing and tell us all how reliable a study becomes when it has only one data point. IOW, you're saying that because you performed better, therefore your entire race, every last of them, would also perform better. What is the margin of error when you have only data point? And what negative control does your study employ?

2. How the fuck do you know how much effort everyone else in your class put in? Were with each and every one of them 24 hours per day?

Your post does prove one thing that I've believed for quite some time now. Even incredibly smart people can still say incredibly stupid things now and then.