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You're being downvoted because you're being a racist buffoon. Yes, there is genetic variation across traits, this is a fact. That said, we are all heavily influ

You're being downvoted because you're being a racist buffoon. Yes, there is genetic variation across traits, this is a fact. That said, we are all heavily influenced by our environments and to discount this incredibly formative factor of all human life is ridiculous. Culture, poverty, exposure to crime, and endless cycle of poor parenting, whatever it may be - there are a million things that can and DO get in the way of someone succeeding far, far before their genetics.

homogeneous 11y ago
It's also telling that "genetically inherited IQ" always happens to appear in discussions about "race", as if our crude racial classifications represent semantically meaningful genetic variations as it relates to general intelligence. Whatever role genetics play in IQ are most certainly not manifested in the concentration of melanin in one's skin or the coarseness of one's hair or the color of one's eyes or the size of one's nose or any of the other crude heuristics we use to group people up as "races". Still, even with a racial component to genetic IQ, we know that "tech" is not some enlightened trade where only high IQ employees are considered, outside of the elite firms like Google, Apple etc you're going to find a glut of pretty average programmers and plenty of idiots to boot.
- is_it_worth_it_ 11y ago
  "Whatever role genetics play in IQ are most certainly not manifested in the concentration of melanin in one's skin or the coarseness of one's hair or the color of one's eyes or the size of one's nose or any of the other crude heuristics we use to group people up as "races"." You are making the case that intraracial facial structures all resemble each other, but internally how people are connected (brain structure) does not follow the same pattern. Some how over thousands of years of almost complete seperation, people managed to genetically grow different facial strucutres but stayed completely the same on the inside? The whole tenant of evolution is that great effective genes are passed on and reflected in offspring. By arguing that there is no genetic difference you are arguing that IQ cannot be passed on and that different environments did not select for and need different levels of IQ. If you are arguing that, then you are denying evolution as a theory.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - homogeneous 11y ago
    > You are making the case that intraracial facial structures all resemble each other No, my point is precisely the opposite. I'm making the case that facial structures are a crude approximation for genetic classification because it's not true that all "black" people have a dark skin complexion, not all "black" people have thick kinky hair, there is genetic diversity within the "black" community because the definition of "black" is fluid and based on an amalgamation of regional, political, cultural and apparent (as in apparent to the naked eye) genetic factors.
    - is_it_worth_it_ 11y ago
      With all due respect, for the purpose of what we are arguing here, this pisses me off. Why do I even waste my time trying to make an argument when you spew this.
      - deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
      - dang 11y ago
        We've banned this account for repeatedly violating the HN guidelines. This kind of trainwreck flamewar is the worst thing on this site.
is_it_worth_it_ 11y ago
Case in point right here. Somehow there is this big conspiracy where certain groups of people, unanimously across the world, across all of human time, do worse than other groups of people. The whole world is in on it, and we must fix it!
- zephharben 11y ago
  You know very, very little about the world and its inhabitants.
- beat 11y ago
  It doesn't require a conspiracy. Those in power accumulate more power and exploit those with less power. That's human nature. Much power comes from technical leverage, and that's largely a historical accident. Read Guns, Germs, and Steel (or watch the tv version). It gets to the root of how technology happened, and how it gave some cultures a leg up. Here's a precis: In the area of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers (Iraq/Syria today), several species of grains grow natively - oats, barley, rye, etc. And several species of domesticatable large animals - sheep, horses, cattle - are also native. Very few animals can actually be domesticated. Grains can be stored for a long time (years), but are hard to digest for humans. The accidental discovery of fermentation led to bread and beer. This gave the people living there a much more stable and high-quality food source than hunter-gathers. Improving the storage led to ceramics. Ceramics led to firing. Firing led to plaster, so they could also build much more durable structures. Experience with high heat fires led to smelting, alloying, and forging metal. The wealth these practices produced led to towns and then cities, and economic specialization - especially trained and well-equipped soldiers. Specialization led to writing, which created more wealth. Herding sheep and cattle, and riding horses, became practical and effective. The wealthy early kingdoms of the Middle East started conquering their neighbors and spreading their technologies. Fast forward to the example of the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro and the Incas. Pizarro had 160 or so men, with horses, swords, and guns. He completely destroyed a 5000 man Inca army. How? Technology. The Incas weren't stupid or weak, as you're suggesting. They were unprepared. The Incas didn't have horses or sophisticated metalworking - their environment didn't lead to those discoveries. The Spanish sword was the deadliest weapon in the world, the product of a couple thousand years of refinement. Their horses and mounted warfare techniques were the product of thousands of additional years of refinement. Europeans, of course, knew how to fight men on horseback. You build long spears and polearms, and train soldiers to stand their ground against the terrifying charge. The Incas didn't know that. They panicked, scattered, and were easily slaughtered. They weren't stupid. They weren't weak. They were outgunned. The Spaniards, of course, were smart as we are, by your concepts. Imagine what would happen if 160 fully armed armed modern soldiers, with the latest weapons, traveling in modern armored vehicles, encountered a 5000 man army of Spaniards with horses and swords? It's all luck. It's all an accident of history. You're not either intellectually or morally superior to any other race.
eip 11y ago
Blacks make up 13% of the population in the US but 75% of NBA players and 67% of NFL players. Do you think white peoples under representation in US pro sports is more due to genetics or environmental influence? Having worked in Sillycon Valley for a long time I think it's funny/sad how the whole scene pretends to be PC about race and diversity issues when pretty much all the tech employees there are white or Indian males. What's even funnier is that white people are only a small percentage of world population but have the audacity to refer to all other races as 'minorities'. I don't know any good solution to systemic race/diversity issues other than making mushrooms legal and mandatory.
- norea-armozel 11y ago
  In the 1930s the majority of basketball players were Jews. So, race has little to do with sports performance at least in basketball.
  - YeGoblynQueenne 11y ago
    Not to mention, African Americans play a lot of basketball because Americans in general play (or view) a lot of basketball. In Europe, say, Africans play a lot of football. But there's also just as many whites who do- so are African Americans only endowed with the kind of genetics that help them play good basketball? Or are Africans in general endowed with good _basketball_ genetics, but not good _football_ genetics? And what about European basketball? Why are basketball teams in Europe not predominantly African American? [Where "football" read "soccer" if you're on the other side of the pond, please]
    - whitegrape 11y ago
      Surprise, there are actually more diverse sets of black people than "African", each with their own biological diversity. African-Americans (that is, blacks in America who can trace their ancestors to the southern slaves) overwhelming come from a specific part of Africa, and those Africans are quite different from Africans elsewhere on the continent. You even have race wars among different ethnic groups of Africans! (See Rwanda for a particularly gruesome example.) So some African subgroups are actually better at different athletic traits -- not all can jump like African-Americans, but then again not all can sprint like another group, or run for very long distances like yet another group -- just as not all White people are actually as intelligent on average as the British. Human biological diversity is pretty rich and varied, it's just unfortunate that the thing that matters most in modern society (intelligence) correlates as well as it does with such general and otherwise not very telling traits like skin color.

homogeneous 11y ago

It's also telling that "genetically inherited IQ" always happens to appear in discussions about "race", as if our crude racial classifications represent semantically meaningful genetic variations as it relates to general intelligence. Whatever role genetics play in IQ are most certainly not manifested in the concentration of melanin in one's skin or the coarseness of one's hair or the color of one's eyes or the size of one's nose or any of the other crude heuristics we use to group people up as "races". Still, even with a racial component to genetic IQ, we know that "tech" is not some enlightened trade where only high IQ employees are considered, outside of the elite firms like Google, Apple etc you're going to find a glut of pretty average programmers and plenty of idiots to boot.

is_it_worth_it_ 11y ago
"Whatever role genetics play in IQ are most certainly not manifested in the concentration of melanin in one's skin or the coarseness of one's hair or the color of one's eyes or the size of one's nose or any of the other crude heuristics we use to group people up as "races"." You are making the case that intraracial facial structures all resemble each other, but internally how people are connected (brain structure) does not follow the same pattern. Some how over thousands of years of almost complete seperation, people managed to genetically grow different facial strucutres but stayed completely the same on the inside? The whole tenant of evolution is that great effective genes are passed on and reflected in offspring. By arguing that there is no genetic difference you are arguing that IQ cannot be passed on and that different environments did not select for and need different levels of IQ. If you are arguing that, then you are denying evolution as a theory.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- homogeneous 11y ago
  > You are making the case that intraracial facial structures all resemble each other No, my point is precisely the opposite. I'm making the case that facial structures are a crude approximation for genetic classification because it's not true that all "black" people have a dark skin complexion, not all "black" people have thick kinky hair, there is genetic diversity within the "black" community because the definition of "black" is fluid and based on an amalgamation of regional, political, cultural and apparent (as in apparent to the naked eye) genetic factors.
  - is_it_worth_it_ 11y ago
    With all due respect, for the purpose of what we are arguing here, this pisses me off. Why do I even waste my time trying to make an argument when you spew this.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - dang 11y ago
      We've banned this account for repeatedly violating the HN guidelines. This kind of trainwreck flamewar is the worst thing on this site.

is_it_worth_it_ 11y ago

Case in point right here. Somehow there is this big conspiracy where certain groups of people, unanimously across the world, across all of human time, do worse than other groups of people. The whole world is in on it, and we must fix it!

zephharben 11y ago
You know very, very little about the world and its inhabitants.
beat 11y ago
It doesn't require a conspiracy. Those in power accumulate more power and exploit those with less power. That's human nature. Much power comes from technical leverage, and that's largely a historical accident. Read Guns, Germs, and Steel (or watch the tv version). It gets to the root of how technology happened, and how it gave some cultures a leg up. Here's a precis: In the area of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers (Iraq/Syria today), several species of grains grow natively - oats, barley, rye, etc. And several species of domesticatable large animals - sheep, horses, cattle - are also native. Very few animals can actually be domesticated. Grains can be stored for a long time (years), but are hard to digest for humans. The accidental discovery of fermentation led to bread and beer. This gave the people living there a much more stable and high-quality food source than hunter-gathers. Improving the storage led to ceramics. Ceramics led to firing. Firing led to plaster, so they could also build much more durable structures. Experience with high heat fires led to smelting, alloying, and forging metal. The wealth these practices produced led to towns and then cities, and economic specialization - especially trained and well-equipped soldiers. Specialization led to writing, which created more wealth. Herding sheep and cattle, and riding horses, became practical and effective. The wealthy early kingdoms of the Middle East started conquering their neighbors and spreading their technologies. Fast forward to the example of the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro and the Incas. Pizarro had 160 or so men, with horses, swords, and guns. He completely destroyed a 5000 man Inca army. How? Technology. The Incas weren't stupid or weak, as you're suggesting. They were unprepared. The Incas didn't have horses or sophisticated metalworking - their environment didn't lead to those discoveries. The Spanish sword was the deadliest weapon in the world, the product of a couple thousand years of refinement. Their horses and mounted warfare techniques were the product of thousands of additional years of refinement. Europeans, of course, knew how to fight men on horseback. You build long spears and polearms, and train soldiers to stand their ground against the terrifying charge. The Incas didn't know that. They panicked, scattered, and were easily slaughtered. They weren't stupid. They weren't weak. They were outgunned. The Spaniards, of course, were smart as we are, by your concepts. Imagine what would happen if 160 fully armed armed modern soldiers, with the latest weapons, traveling in modern armored vehicles, encountered a 5000 man army of Spaniards with horses and swords? It's all luck. It's all an accident of history. You're not either intellectually or morally superior to any other race.

eip 11y ago

Blacks make up 13% of the population in the US but 75% of NBA players and 67% of NFL players. Do you think white peoples under representation in US pro sports is more due to genetics or environmental influence? Having worked in Sillycon Valley for a long time I think it's funny/sad how the whole scene pretends to be PC about race and diversity issues when pretty much all the tech employees there are white or Indian males. What's even funnier is that white people are only a small percentage of world population but have the audacity to refer to all other races as 'minorities'. I don't know any good solution to systemic race/diversity issues other than making mushrooms legal and mandatory.

norea-armozel 11y ago
In the 1930s the majority of basketball players were Jews. So, race has little to do with sports performance at least in basketball.
- YeGoblynQueenne 11y ago
  Not to mention, African Americans play a lot of basketball because Americans in general play (or view) a lot of basketball. In Europe, say, Africans play a lot of football. But there's also just as many whites who do- so are African Americans only endowed with the kind of genetics that help them play good basketball? Or are Africans in general endowed with good _basketball_ genetics, but not good _football_ genetics? And what about European basketball? Why are basketball teams in Europe not predominantly African American? [Where "football" read "soccer" if you're on the other side of the pond, please]
  - whitegrape 11y ago
    Surprise, there are actually more diverse sets of black people than "African", each with their own biological diversity. African-Americans (that is, blacks in America who can trace their ancestors to the southern slaves) overwhelming come from a specific part of Africa, and those Africans are quite different from Africans elsewhere on the continent. You even have race wars among different ethnic groups of Africans! (See Rwanda for a particularly gruesome example.) So some African subgroups are actually better at different athletic traits -- not all can jump like African-Americans, but then again not all can sprint like another group, or run for very long distances like yet another group -- just as not all White people are actually as intelligent on average as the British. Human biological diversity is pretty rich and varied, it's just unfortunate that the thing that matters most in modern society (intelligence) correlates as well as it does with such general and otherwise not very telling traits like skin color.