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Post by vela on May 30, 2005 9:42:45 GMT -5
If anything, it can't be distributed to the vast majority of the planet's population. If it'll ever be possible it will be limited to the super rich. That's more like it. And whoever has the power to master genetic engineering will also have the power to eradicate not only diseases but ................... You fill the blank!
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Post by MC anunnaki on May 31, 2005 1:31:29 GMT -5
... Irano-Afghans? Oh no! ;D
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Post by Minstrel on Jun 6, 2005 16:42:46 GMT -5
The promise of genetic engineering is highly overrated. Eradication of diseases with simple genetic etiology is likely; picking a child's phenotypic traits out of a catalog is not. Seriously, being an anothropology guy, I'd expect a little more from you dienekes than short-stacked predictions. Phenoype is not really a big deal, and the genes controlling for it are few. We've already discovered how to insert genes from animals into plants for crops, by identifying certain genes that create the neccessary attributes for more successful crops (such as anti-freeze) . But you are telling me that in the future we won't even be able to change phenotype? Is phenotype a holy cow or something? You racialists are funny to me, a belief in the impermenance of race is one of your central psychological tenets to justify your belief system, otherwise it is obsolete.
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Post by Melnorme on Jun 6, 2005 16:48:00 GMT -5
Lose the paranoia, will you?
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Post by Minstrel on Jun 7, 2005 2:05:51 GMT -5
Not paranoia, just calling it like I see it. Racialist is a different word from racist, and I would make that explicit. But I don't see the purpose of hanging on to an obsolete concept. Phenotype differences and geographical patterns yes, humans are a physically diverse species, but not "race".
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Post by mike2 on Jun 7, 2005 6:16:03 GMT -5
Race based on phenotype isn't an obsolete concept any more than calling blonds "blonds" or brunets "brunets" is an obsolete concept. It is categorization based on physical appearance. Arbitrary in some respects? you betcha. Sometimes we have trouble distinguishing dirty blond from light brown. Same with the major races. But that doesn't mean they don't exist or aren't relevant.
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Post by Drooperdoo on Jun 7, 2005 11:56:37 GMT -5
At this stage in my life--political correctness aside--I realize one thing: A consciousness of race is the result of nationalism; the taboo about racial consciousness, to the contrary, arises in empires who want to exploit all the races they can and don't want squabbling between groups to get in the way of efficiency. In other words, our leaders don't really believe in the Brotherhood of Man. They have far darker motives in erasing group-consciousness--it's called "divide and conquer". And it's what empires do when they want to exploit as many groups as possible. It's not about goodness and light--but about pragmatism and group-control.
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Post by nockwasright on Jun 7, 2005 14:07:48 GMT -5
bottom line, when genetic engineering becomes mastered "race" will become obsolete. There is already evidence to suggest it does'nt really matter even today, from genetics at the human genome project, in the future it will become even more useless. Why do you think that making more evident the fact that is not rational to judge someone on the base of his race, will help cease this kind of judgement? I bet that if blacks will be able to have white looking offspring, to many it will became an issue for judging you, how your parents looked like. Actually it's already like this. People boast about what their parents, ancestors are and did, even if this won't change what they are and do. More than the look of blacks you should change the head of racists. Or better should get used to them.
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mmmkay
Full Member
Internet Philosophiser, Leftist Hero
Posts: 127
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Post by mmmkay on Jun 13, 2005 21:43:17 GMT -5
An attitude stemming from the non-acceptance of varying physical types present in humans. There may be general patterns, but its more individual than anything. My family members look almost nothing like me lol.
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Post by ranmin on Jun 13, 2005 21:55:47 GMT -5
If the trend continues at the present rate, i think that the world will be mongrelised within a few centuries. In that sense, race won't matter.
So I think that people should start worrying about such issues now. The Biological disappearance of race would eventually result in cultural chaos. I believe we should consider this:
"Here it is merely fitting to say that the disappearance of nations would have impoverished us no less than if all men had become alike, with one personality and one face. Nations are the wealth of mankind, its collective personalities; the very least of them wears its own special colours and bears within itself a special facet of divine intention." --Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Nobel Lecture in Literature 1970
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mmmkay
Full Member
Internet Philosophiser, Leftist Hero
Posts: 127
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Post by mmmkay on Jun 13, 2005 22:07:58 GMT -5
he was speaking more of national identity than race.
Your "mongrelization" predictiction is without much base, most people comfortably marry within their own group, intermarriage is still relatively rare. People go with what their familiar with.
Unless we make a dramatic social turn somehow into brazils there will still be visible group differences in the distant future. Please don't tell me your a "race-mixing" fatalist or something. I personally have never understood that viewpoint, it makes no sense.
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Post by joton on Jun 14, 2005 0:32:07 GMT -5
i dont know about ''mongrelized'' most people tend to go with tradition. unless asian start pouring into many countrys i dont see a ''mongrelized'' world. it's just happening in a steady pace becuse you see different types of asians are more wide spread in the world.
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Post by Ponto Hardbottle on Jun 14, 2005 0:47:28 GMT -5
he was speaking more of national identity than race. Your "mongrelization" predictiction is without much base, most people comfortably marry within their own group, intermarriage is still relatively rare. People go with what their familiar with. Unless we make a dramatic social turn somehow into brazils there will still be visible group differences in the distant future. Please don't tell me your a "race-mixing" fatalist or something. I personally have never understood that viewpoint, it makes no sense. In Australia, people of born in the country of different race who go to the same schools, colleges, universities or work in the same places or participate in the same activities don't think of themselves as being a different group. They do frequently intermarry. The main division is not race but religious differences. Muslims are unlikely to marry non muslims, Sikhs and Hindus are the same. In Australia there have been a few cases of murder of young muslim women by their fathers for not toying the line, especially choosing non muslim men for intimate relations.
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Post by ranmin on Jun 14, 2005 10:16:07 GMT -5
he was speaking more of national identity than race. Your "mongrelization" predictiction is without much base, most people comfortably marry within their own group, intermarriage is still relatively rare. People go with what their familiar with. Regarding Solzhenitsyn, it can be said that a stable national identity (in the cultural sense of which he speaks) can't be formed from a chaotic racial environment. I will not dispute that many excellent and kind-hearted mulattos have existed. But often, due to the unfavourable moral conditions under which they are generally reared, they end up suffering from a sort of "cultural schizophrenia" in which they have to somehow reconcile otherwise irreconciliable cultures. I have never understood leftists. They make no sense.
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mmmkay
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Post by mmmkay on Jun 16, 2005 20:21:01 GMT -5
What is that supposed to mean? Why are they "irreconcilable" who sets this up as a fact? Why am I suppossed to believe you?
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