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>without the racist connotations I wouldn't know whether black or white list was the 'good' one. Please. Humans are diurnal animals, and we depend on sight as
by j_4 6y ago
>without the racist connotations I wouldn't know whether black or white list was the 'good' one.
Please. Humans are diurnal animals, and we depend on sight as our main sense. The idea of light good, dark bad is present in infants. It's likely much older than consciousness.
I'm not denying that there's an unfortunate racist element correlated with it all, with the trend over the past few centuries being pale-skinned people exploiting dark-skinned people, but it's certainly not the root cause of these associations.
- metrokoi 6y agoIncredible that this is the only comment I see that correctly states the reason why black is associated with negativity. Darkness is danger and death because the primates we evolved from faced much greater danger in the dark from predators. We evolved to fear things that are black because we receive less information about things that are dark, and similarly are less afraid of things that are white because we have more information about things that are light. Things that we have less information about have a greater potential risk of danger, just as everyone fears a dark alley more than a lit one. Remember, black is not a color; it is a shade or absence of color just as white is a maximal amount of color. As you say, these associations developed perhaps tens of millions of years ago far before European people even evolved to be white. Any other associations developed in the relatively infinitesimal time of hundreds of years are peripheral.
- AndrewOMartin 6y ago> Humans are diurnal animals. Humans, maybe. But programmers?