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Hasn't white supremacy been a leading cause of cultural extinctions at least since the age of imperialism? > If the farsis do not preserve their culture, we do

Hasn't white supremacy been a leading cause of cultural extinctions at least since the age of imperialism? > If the farsis do not preserve their culture, we do not owe it to them to do so. I don't feel I owe anything to this group, but we owe it to humanity to preserve a diversity of ways to be in and think about this world.

tathougies 7y ago
Yes and before that it was Mongolian supremacy and before that parsi supremacy. In other words, cultures die and new ones form. We do not owe it to the world to preserve existing diversity. Sure take down artificial barriers to societal continuity for those who want it. That's human rights not particular to any group of people. But diversity is not something to be preserved. That's a regressively conservative approach to diversity and stems from a lack of appreciation of the true source of diversity: having a shit ton of people
- iak8god 7y ago
  > We do not owe it to the world to preserve existing diversity. How about if we compromise and just stop actively destroying it? > But diversity is not something to be preserved. Well, I want it to be preserved. The world becomes a much sadder and less interesting place if we all think and behave the same.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - tathougies 7y ago
    > Well, I want it to be preserved. The world becomes a much sadder and less interesting place if we all think and behave the same. You misunderstand. You dont want diversity. You cannot advocate for diversity when you simultaneously advocate for differences to remain the same. The world is naturally diverse because there are 7 billion people with 7 billion unique personalities. Attempting to artificially keep a dying culture alive does not cultivate diversity but rather outdated customs.
    - dr_dshiv 7y ago
      On principle, monocultures are not desirable as compared to diverse cultures. Resilience. Thus, bias towards preservation of diversity.
      - tathougies 7y ago
        The idea that the United States (or substitute any other large country, such as China, India, Brazil, etc), for example, is a monoculture is laughable. The death of a no- longer-significant culture signals neither a lack of external diversity nor an inability for diversity to arise again. I've already said it... the way you get diversity is by having more people. In that regard, we're doing just fine. In the unlikely event that literally every person ends up following the same culture (which again, is not going to happen, despite the false dichotomy you are trying really hard to set up), I can guarantee you that in a few years, people's ideas will begin to diverge, and in a few decades, there will once again be factions, and in a few centuries, there will be mutually unintelligible cultures. That is how the world works. It worked when zoroastrianism was the predominant religion for a large portion of the world, when its monoculture arguably gave rise to things like Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and it will work in the future. In the meantime, we need not take any drastic action to ensure the survival of a culture that not even its inhabitants want to keep alive in any practical sense.
        dr_dshiv 7y ago
        We aren't discussing "drastic action to ensure the survival of a culture". We are discussing principles of value -- and I assert that functional diversity is intrinsically valuable (unless and until the diversity tears the broader system apart, resulting in less functional diversity). On the face of it, more people does not automatically equal more cultural diversity. What's your argument? To be clear: Walmart is a monoculture when it destroys diverse town centers in favour of standardized parking-malls. But the argument is subtle -- why isn't the diversity of product offerings at Walmart sufficient to offset the diversity of town centers? I don't have a ready answer, but I intuitively believe that a nation of Walmarts isnt as strong a nation of main streets.
- notacode 7y ago
  Yes, indeed And back to the good old days when Buffalo bill was the good one.

tathougies 7y ago

Yes and before that it was Mongolian supremacy and before that parsi supremacy. In other words, cultures die and new ones form. We do not owe it to the world to preserve existing diversity. Sure take down artificial barriers to societal continuity for those who want it. That's human rights not particular to any group of people. But diversity is not something to be preserved. That's a regressively conservative approach to diversity and stems from a lack of appreciation of the true source of diversity: having a shit ton of people

iak8god 7y ago
> We do not owe it to the world to preserve existing diversity. How about if we compromise and just stop actively destroying it? > But diversity is not something to be preserved. Well, I want it to be preserved. The world becomes a much sadder and less interesting place if we all think and behave the same.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- tathougies 7y ago
  > Well, I want it to be preserved. The world becomes a much sadder and less interesting place if we all think and behave the same. You misunderstand. You dont want diversity. You cannot advocate for diversity when you simultaneously advocate for differences to remain the same. The world is naturally diverse because there are 7 billion people with 7 billion unique personalities. Attempting to artificially keep a dying culture alive does not cultivate diversity but rather outdated customs.
  - dr_dshiv 7y ago
    On principle, monocultures are not desirable as compared to diverse cultures. Resilience. Thus, bias towards preservation of diversity.
    - tathougies 7y ago
      The idea that the United States (or substitute any other large country, such as China, India, Brazil, etc), for example, is a monoculture is laughable. The death of a no- longer-significant culture signals neither a lack of external diversity nor an inability for diversity to arise again. I've already said it... the way you get diversity is by having more people. In that regard, we're doing just fine. In the unlikely event that literally every person ends up following the same culture (which again, is not going to happen, despite the false dichotomy you are trying really hard to set up), I can guarantee you that in a few years, people's ideas will begin to diverge, and in a few decades, there will once again be factions, and in a few centuries, there will be mutually unintelligible cultures. That is how the world works. It worked when zoroastrianism was the predominant religion for a large portion of the world, when its monoculture arguably gave rise to things like Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and it will work in the future. In the meantime, we need not take any drastic action to ensure the survival of a culture that not even its inhabitants want to keep alive in any practical sense.
      - dr_dshiv 7y ago
        We aren't discussing "drastic action to ensure the survival of a culture". We are discussing principles of value -- and I assert that functional diversity is intrinsically valuable (unless and until the diversity tears the broader system apart, resulting in less functional diversity). On the face of it, more people does not automatically equal more cultural diversity. What's your argument? To be clear: Walmart is a monoculture when it destroys diverse town centers in favour of standardized parking-malls. But the argument is subtle -- why isn't the diversity of product offerings at Walmart sufficient to offset the diversity of town centers? I don't have a ready answer, but I intuitively believe that a nation of Walmarts isnt as strong a nation of main streets.
notacode 7y ago
Yes, indeed And back to the good old days when Buffalo bill was the good one.